John B. Sanfilippo & Son, Inc. (NASDAQ:JBSS) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call August 24, 2023 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Jeffrey Sanfilippo - Chief Executive Officer

Frank Pellegrino - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Daniel Ambrefe - UBS

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the John B. Sanfilippo & Son, Inc. Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Operating Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Jeffrey Sanfilippo, CEO. Please go ahead.

Jeffrey Sanfilippo

Thank you, Abigail. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our 2023 fourth quarter earnings conference call. Thank you for joining us. On the call with me today is Frank Pellegrino, our CFO. We may make some forward-looking statements today. These statements are based on our current expectations and they involve certain risks and uncertainties. The factors that could negatively impact results are explained in the various SEC filings that we have made, including Forms 10-K and 10-Q. We encourage you to refer to the filings to learn more about these risks and uncertainties that are inherent in our business.

I'm pleased to report our strong financial performance in fiscal 2023 as we navigated through a challenging operating environment and elevated levels of inflation and delivered a record diluted earnings per share for the fiscal year. This is the fifth consecutive year JBSS has delivered record year-end earnings. These results validate the actions taken during the last 12 months to respond to the numerous headwinds we faced and is a testament to the hard work across the organization to execute our strategies.

We raised our annual dividend by 6.7% to $0.80 per share and supplemented our annual dividend with a special dividend of $1.20 per share, both of which will be paid on September 13, 2023. This strong performance would not be possible without our talented team members whose conviction, agility and determination are unrivaled. JBSS also achieved an important milestone towards our goal of diversifying our product offerings during the second half of the fiscal year.

We launched a new product line of private brand nutrition bars and sold over $4.2 million of this bar product to a number of our key retail partners. Our nutrition bars have been well received by our retail partners and their customers who enjoy a great product at an attractive price point. We have a great momentum as we expect to continue to grow distribution and gain additional private brand nutrition by our customers in subsequent quarters.