Mission Produce, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVO) Q1 2024 Results Conference Call March 11, 2024 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Jeff Sonnek - Investor Relations at ICR

Steve Barnard - Chief Executive Officer

Bryan Giles - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Ben Bienvenu - Stephens

Gerry Sweeney - ROTH MKM

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Mission Produce Fiscal First Quarter 2024 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 that 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. Sir, 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, please go ahead.

Steve Barnard

Thank you for joining us today. We're off to a strong start in fiscal 2024 with the delivery of a first quarter that demonstrated solid execution across all facets of our business. Total revenue for the first quarter of 2024 increased $45.2 million or 21% year-over-year to $258.7 million and adjusted EBITDA increased by $16.9 million to $19.2 million. These results were a direct result of our team's focus, underpinning our strong adjusted EBITDA performance with significantly improved per unit margins across the Marketing and Distribution and Blueberries segments, which translated to nearly 700 basis points of gross margin expansion and a 69% increase in gross profit dollars versus the prior year period. This improvement was spurred by strength in avocado margins in our Marketing and Distribution segment, as well as the achievement of record quarterly revenues in our blueberry segment.