B&G Foods, Inc. (NYSE:BGS) Q1 2022 Earnings Conference Call May 5, 2022 4:30 PM ET

Company Participants

Sarah Jarolem - Senior Director, Corporate Strategy and Business Development

Casey Keller - Chief Executive Officer

Bruce Wacha - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

William Reuter - Bank of America

Michael Lavery - Piper Sandler

Carla Casella - JPMorgan

Karru Martinson - Jefferies

Robert Moskow - Credit Suisse

Eric Larson - Seaport Research Partners

Ken Zaslow - Bank of Montreal

Operator

Good day. And welcome to B&G Foods First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. Today’s call which is being recorded is scheduled to last about 1 hour, including remarks by B&G Foods management and a question-and-answer session.

I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Sarah Jarolem, Senior Director of Corporate Strategy and Business Development for B&G Foods. Sarah?

Sarah Jarolem

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. With me today are Casey Keller, our Chief Executive Officer; and Bruce Wacha, our Chief Financial Officer. You can access detailed financial information on the quarter in the earnings release we issued today, which is available at the Investor Relations section of bgfoods.com.

Before we begin our formal remarks, I need to remind everyone that part of the discussion today includes forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and therefore undue reliance should not be placed upon them.

We refer you to the B&G Foods annual report on Form 10-K and SEC filings for a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact our company’s future operating results and financial conditions. B&G Foods undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

We will also be making references on today’s call to the non-GAAP financial measures, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income, adjusted diluted earnings per share and base business net sales. Reconciliations of these financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are provided in today’s earnings release.

Casey will begin the call with opening remarks and discuss various factors that affected our results, selected business highlights and his thoughts concerning the outlook for fiscal 2022 and beyond. Bruce will then discuss our financial results for the first quarter 2022 and our guidance for fiscal 2022.

I would now like to turn the call over to Casey.

Casey Keller

Good afternoon. Thank you, Sarah. And thank you all for joining us today for our first quarter earnings call. The first quarter of 2022 continued to be challenged by inflation and supply recovery. Net sales increased by 5.4% versus the first quarter of 2021, ahead of our expectations. Sales were driven by continued elevated demand compared to pre-COVID levels and higher pricing with relatively low elasticities.