Saputo Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Saputo Incorporated second quarter fiscal 2024 results conference call. During the presentation, all participants will be in the listen only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press the one followed by the four on your telephone. If at any time during the conference you need to reach an operator, please press star zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded on Friday, November 10, 2023. I would now like to turn the conference over to Nick.

Please go ahead. Thank you, Frank. Good morning, and welcome to our second quarter fiscal 2024 earnings call. Our speakers today will be Lino Saputo, Chair of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Maxime Therrien, Chief Financial Officer and Secretary. For the question and answer session, Lino and Maxime will be supported by Carl Kolitsa, President and Chief Operating Officer, North America, and Leanne Cutts, President and Chief Operating Officer, International and Europe. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that this webcast and conference call are being recorded, and the webcast will be posted on our website along with the second quarter investor presentation. Please also note that some of the statements provided during this call are forward-looking. Such statements are based on assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. We refer to our cautionary statements regarding forward-looking information in our annual report, press releases, and filings. please treat any forward-looking information with caution as our actual results could differ materially. We do not accept any obligation to update this information except as required under securities legislation. I'll now hand it over to Lino.

Thank you, Nick. And good morning, everyone. As it has been publicly reported, the global operating environment remains dynamic and our industry is not immune from it. Despite this, we delivered 8% adjusted EBITDA growth this quarter driven mostly by favourable commodity markets in the US and higher domestic sales volume, while we also continue to benefit from our ongoing cost containment initiatives and benefits from our global strategic plan. We enjoyed a better performance in our US and Canadian sectors, which partially offset a decline in Europe and international sectors. As consumer sentiment continues to vary around the world, overall spending has held up quite well. However, In some markets and categories, consumers are feeling cost pressure and have shifted towards discount channels and private label. Notwithstanding the consumer inflationary environment and the broader market experiencing some levels of trade down, our brands performed well and we grew volume in key private label channels. With our broad portfolio offering an array of products from value to premium, we're able to meet consumers wherever they shop or consume. Our team is successfully managing price and cost dynamics as margin recovery continues to be a top priority. This said, much of our inflationary-driven pricing across our channels has either already been announced or is part of pricing protocols within existing contracts. Additionally, we're leaning harder into operational efficiencies and taking action on cost containment. From a strategic perspective, we executed well during the first half of the fiscal year and implementation of our global strategic plan is on track. We are focusing on the factors we can control, such as our streamlining and optimization projects, which are going as planned, both in terms of spend and timing of the various project ramp-ups. We expect most of our capital projects to be completed by the end of this fiscal year and benefits to begin to flow through our results early next year. Amid a volatile environment and with various puts and takes across our business, our second quarter results were broadly in line with our expectations. Simply, we are making good progress, supported by volume improvements, operational efficiencies, and our capital projects. I will now turn the call over to Max for the financial review before providing concluding remarks. Max?