Utz Brands, Inc (NYSE:UTZ) Q1 2024 Results Conference Call May 2, 2024 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Kevin Powers - Senior Vice President of Investor Relations
Howard Friedman - CEO & Director
Ajay Kataria - Executive VP, CFO & Principal Accounting Officer
Cary Devore - Executive VP and Chief Operating & Transformation Officer

Conference Call Participants

Andrew Lazar - Barclays
Nik Modi - RBC Capital
Peter Galbo - Bank of America
Rob Dickerson - Jefferies
Rupesh Parikh - Oppenheimer
Matt McGinley - Needham
John Baumgartner - Mizuho Securities
Robert Moskow - TD Cowen
Jim Salera - Stephens

Operator

Thank you for standing by. My name is Pam, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Utz Brands First Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions].

I would now like to turn the conference over to Kevin Powers, Head of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Kevin Powers

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. On the call today are Howard Friedman, CEO, Ajay Kataria, CFO; and Cary Devore, COO and Chief Transformation Officer. Howard and Ajay will make prepared comments this morning and all 3 will be available to answer questions during our live Q&A session. Please note that some of our comments today will contain forward-looking statements based on our current view of our business, and actual future results may differ materially. Please see our recent SEC filings, which identify their principal risks and uncertainties that could affect future performance. Before I turn the call over to Howard, I just have a few housekeeping items to review. Today, we will discuss certain adjusted or non-GAAP financial measures, which are described in more detail in this morning's earnings materials. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures and other associated disclosures are contained in our earnings materials posted on our website. Finally, the company has also prepared presentation slides and additional supplemental financial information, which are posted on our Investor Relations website. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Howard.

Howard Friedman

Thank you, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. Starting off with a few key takeaways. I'm pleased with our good start to the year. And for the second straight quarter, we gained dollar, pound, and unit share in the salty snacks category led by several of our consumer-loved Power Four brands to include us on the border and Boulder Canyon. In addition, productivity programs across our organization continued to build momentum, and we delivered our fifth consecutive quarter of adjusted EBITDA margin expansion as well as 27% adjusted earnings per share growth. To continue building our momentum in April, we opportunistically accelerated our network optimization strategy by disposing of 2 additional manufacturing plants to our home. These follow the 3 dispositions to our home announced back in February. Importantly, our former associates at those plans are being offered full employment, and we thank them for their hard work and dedication over the years, and wish them the best moving ahead. Bringing it all together, given our first quarter results and confidence in the remainder of the year, this morning, we reaffirmed our organic net sales and adjusted EBITDA outlook and raised our adjusted EPS outlook. We are on track to deliver a strong 2024 as well as the 2026 targets introduced at our Investor Day back in December.