Geoff Tanner: Thank you, Mark. Good morning. Thank you for joining us. Today, I'll recap Simply Good Foods financial results and the performance of our brand. Then Shaun will discuss our financial results in more detail before we wrap it up with a discussion of our fiscal 2024 outlook and we take your questions. We're pleased with our fiscal first quarter results that were in line with estimates. Retail takeaway and the combined measured and unmeasured channels was slightly more than 8% and, as expected, outpaced net sales growth primarily due to the timing of shipments versus the year-ago period. We anticipate that shipments and consumption should be largely in line by the end of Q2. Net sales increased 2.6% to $308.7 million, driven by continued Quest momentum.

First quarter gross margin was 37.3% and in line with our forecast. The 40 basis point increase versus a year ago period was primarily due to lower ingredient and packaging costs. Adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter was $62 million, an increase of 2% versus last year. Higher growth profit was partially offset by higher SG&A versus a year ago period, reflecting investments in marketing growth initiatives and G&A capabilities. Cash flow generation continues to be strong and provides us with financial flexibility to invest in organic growth, to see value enhancing acquisition, pay down debt, or opportunistically buy back our shares. Our Q1 results are a positive start to the year, and while early, Q2 is off to a good start. Additionally, we have strong marketing and promotional plans in place for the new year, New Year season, which started this week and which will run through the second quarter of fiscal 2024.

We're pleased with the progress we've made on the acceleration plan for Quest and the revitalization plan for Atkins. As such, we reaffirm our full year fiscal 2024 outlook. The next slide provides you with a perspective of our retail takeaway performance within the IRI MULO + C-store universe and in the combined measured and unmeasured channels. The nutritional snacking category growth in the measured channel universe was 12%, driven primarily by volume or unit growth. The category continues to be a standout performer within brick and mortar and e-commerce and as a result is increasingly a focus of our retail partners as they look for growth opportunities. We have category advisors at most major retailers and we're working closely with them on how to further capitalize on the growth potential of this category.

Simply Good Foods retail takeaway in the measured channel increased 7.1% driven by Quest volume growth of 20%. Atkins performance was similar to last quarter. And our e-commerce business continues to do well and resulted in total company combined measured and unmeasured channel POS growth slightly better than 8%. Now let me turn to Quest Q1 retail takeaway, where combined measured channel growth was 20%. Growth was driven by solid performance across all major forms and retail channels, driven by an increase in both household penetration and buy rates. Our retail customers view Quest as the pioneer of the category, and they're excited about our near and long-term innovation pipeline and growth initiatives that we have in place. A major focus for us is working with those retail partners to find additional space and merchandising opportunities for the brands.

In Q1, we estimate total unmeasured channel retail takeaway increased about 14% as e-commerce strength was partially offset by softness in specialty channels. There is no denying Quest momentum. With nearly $700 million in net sales in fiscal 2023, we have essentially doubled the business since we acquired it in November 2019. Quest retail sales in US measured and unmeasured channel this past year was $945 million. So we clearly expect it will be a $1 billion retail sales brand in fiscal 2024, with a footprint across multiple forms. It's no small feat for a brand that's barely a dozen years old. In Q1, Quest bar business retail takeaway increased 16%. The snackier portion of Quest products continued to do well, with Q1 measured channel retail takeaway up 24%.

But particularly pleased with our salty snacks performance that we believe has a long runway of growth. Quest Snacks segment now represents nearly 45% of total Quest measured channel retail sales and is roughly equal to Quest bars and household penetration. We expect that Quest will have a strong year behind innovation, distribution gains, and a new marketing campaign. I'm particularly excited to announce that we will debut a new advertising campaign in February that will be supported by a reach-based media model. Despite the size of the business, the brand awareness of Quest is significantly below several competitors, and this campaign has the potential to further accelerate growth. Turning to Atkins. Q1 retail takeaway in the IRI MULO + C-store universe and the combined measured and unmeasured channel as expected was similar to last quarter, up about 6% and 4%, respectively.

As has been the case for a while, Atkins heavy users migrate to e-commerce, where we continue to see good growth. Specifically, Atkins Amazon POS increased 12%. As a result, e-commerce was additive to Atkins' measured channel POS. For perspective, in Q1, e-commerce was about 15% of total Atkins retail sales. In Q1, Atkins' retail takeaway trend stabilized from when we entered the quarter. October marketplace performance was somewhat better than September and November. Note, that given the consumption seasonality in November and December, we were not on air with advertising and we had minimal in-store merchandising. Now that the calendar has turned to January, we will heavy up on advertising and merchandising for the new year, New Year season.

We continue to have tremendous faith in the long-term potential of the brand, and in support, we're making good progress against the five-point Atkins revitalization plan we talked about on our last conference call. However, as you may recall, it's going to take some time before all of the elements of the plan are collectively in the marketplace. As a reminder, the Atkins five-point revitalization plan includes enhanced merchandising and assortment of select customers, new advertising supported with a reach-based media model, greater focus on a near and longer term robust innovation funnel, product upgrades on our bar portfolio and new packaging, and multiple work streams targeting GLP-1 weight loss drug users. Getting Atkins back to green is our focus and we believe we have the plans in place to improve marketplace performance over the remainder of the year.

In summary, we're pleased with our start to the year, particularly our first quarter marketplace results. The Simply Good Foods Company competes in an attractive category and is uniquely positioned as the US leader in the nutritional snacking category with two scaled lifestyle nutritional snacking brands that are well developed across multiple forms of snacking occasions. Nutritional snacking category continues to be resilient with top tier volume growth propelled by the consumer mega trends of healthy snacking with a nutritional profile that is protein rich, low in carbs and sugar. This profile has broad appeal to consumers across all generations, but particularly with Gen X, Gen Z and millennial consumers that look to our brands as a means of helping them achieve their goals.

Given the future growth runway of the nutritional snacking category, we continue to work closely with our retail partners on how to optimize the category today and where to source additional space from in the store to support new and emerging formats. We're executing against our priorities and we remain committed to delivering against our commitments, while making the necessary investments in our business that should result in sustained long-term growth. Now, I'll turn the call over to Shaun who will provide you with some great financial details.

Shaun Mara: Thank you, Geoff. Good morning, everyone. I will begin with an overview of our net sales. Total Simply Good Foods first quarter net sales of $308.7 million increased $7.8 million or 2.6% versus the year ago period. With our July 2022 price increase behind us, the Q1 net sales increase is driven by volume growth. North America and international net sales increased 2.6% and 0.7%, respectively versus last year. As Goeff stated earlier, as expected, retail takeaway of 8% outpaced North America sales growth, primarily due to the timing of shipments. As such, we would expect Q2 net sales growth to be slightly greater than consumption, with shipments and consumption relatively aligned at the end of the first half of fiscal 2024.

Moving on to other P&L items for the quarter, gross profit was $115.1 million, an increase of $4.1 million from the year ago period, resulting in gross margin of 37.3%. The 40 basis point increase versus the year ago period was primarily due to lower ingredient and packaging costs. Adjusted EBITDA was $62 million, an increase of $1.2 million from the year ago period. Selling and marketing expenses were $32 million versus $28.5 million, an increase of 12.1% largely due to higher advertising costs and investments in growth initiatives. GAAP G&A expenses were $27 million, an increase of $1.3 million versus last year, primarily due to higher employee stock-based compensation. Excluding this, as well as executive transition costs, G&A increased to $0.3 million to $22.7 million.

Finally, net interest income and interest expense was $4.9 million, a decline of $2.1 million versus Q1 last year. The decline was due to lower debt balances versus the year ago period. As expected, our Q1 tax rate was about 25% versus 21.3% last year. We continue to anticipate the full year of 2024 tax rate to be about 25%. As a result, net income was $35.6 million versus $35.9 million last year. The next slide provides you with a reconciliation of reported and adjusted diluted EPS. First quarter reported EPS was $0.35 per share diluted compared to $0.36 per share diluted for the comparable period of 2023. Adjusted diluted EPS was $0.43 compared to $0.42 in the year ago period. Note, that we calculate adjusted diluted EPS as adjusted EBITDA, less interest income, interest expense, and income taxes.

Please refer to today's press release for an explanation and reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures. Moving to the balance sheet and cash flow, as of November 25, 2023, the company had cash of $121.4 million. Cash flow from operations in Q1 was about $47.5 million compared to $8.7 million last year, principally due to improvement in working capital. During the quarter, the company repaid $10 million of its term loan debt. At the end of the first quarter, the outstanding principal balance was $275 million. However, subsequent to the close of the quarter, the company repaid an additional $25 million of its term loan debt, bringing the outstanding principal balance to $250 million. Capital expenditures in Q1 was $0.7 million. In fiscal 2024, we continue to expect CapEx to be in the $8 million to $10 million range.

In fiscal 2024, we anticipate net interest expense to be about $17 million to $19 million, including non-cash amortization expense related to deferred financing fees. Now to wrap up, as Goeff stated earlier, we are on plan across all key metrics in Q1 and therefore we reaffirmed the full year outlook we discussed last quarter. We continue to expect that ingredient and packaging costs will be lower in fiscal 2024 compared to last year and drive solid gross margin expansion. This provides us with the flexibility to invest in marketing initiatives that will drive near and long-term growth and organizational capabilities. Therefore, for full year of fiscal 2024, we anticipate net sales growth driven by volume to be at the high end of the company's long-term algorithm of 4% to 6%, including the benefit of the 53rd week.

Adjusted EBITDA is anticipated to increase slightly greater than net sales growth rate, and adjusted diluted EPS will increase greater than the adjusted EBITDA growth rate. We appreciate everybody's interest in our company, and we're now available to take your questions.

See also Wall Street Analysts Just Trimmed Price Targets for These 10 Stocks and 10 Best January Dividend Stocks To Buy.

To continue reading the Q&A session, please click here.