Mission Produce, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVO) Q3 2023 Earnings Call September 11, 2023 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Jeff Sonnek - Investor Relations at ICR

Stephen J. Barnard - Chief Executive Officer

Bryan Giles - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Ben Bienvenu - Stephens

Tom Palmer - JP Morgan

Gerry Sweeney - Roth Capital Partners

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Mission Produce Fiscal Third Quarter 2023 Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please also note today's event is being recorded.

At this time, I'd like to turn the conference call over to Jeff Sonnek, Investor Relations at ICR. Please go ahead.

Jeff Sonnek

Thank you, and good afternoon. Today's presentation will be hosted by Steve Barnard, Chief Executive Officer; and Bryan Giles, Chief Financial Officer.

The comments during today’s call and the accompanying presentation contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, are considered forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management’s current expectations and beliefs as well as a number of assumptions concerning future events. Such forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. Some of these risks and uncertainties are identified and discussed in the Company’s filings with the SEC.

We’ll also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures today. Please refer to the tables included in the earnings release, which can be found on our Investor Relations website, investors.missionproduce.com, for reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP measures.

With that, I’d now like to turn the call over to Steve Barnard, CEO. Steve?

Stephen J. Barnard

Thank you for joining us for our fiscal 2023 third quarter earnings call. Our topline performance of $261.4 million was generally consistent with expectations, and reflects a continuation of the conditions that returned to the industry earlier this fiscal year, where higher industry volumes were offset by lower average selling prices following last year's elevated market conditions.

However, adjusted EBITDA of $21.2 million came in below expectations, while we drove a significant increase in sales volumes during the quarter, and achieved continued sequential improvement in per unit margins relative to the fiscal second quarter, despite the lower pricing environment, our sites were set higher based on initial estimates that suggested a strong and substantial Peruvian harvest.