Central Garden & Pet Company (NASDAQ:CENT) Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call May 8, 2024 4:30 PM ET

Company Participants

Friederike Edelmann - Vice President of Investor Relations
Mary Beth Springer - Interim Chief Executive Officer
Nicholas Lahanas - Chief Financial Officer
J.D. Walker - President of Garden Consumer Products
John Hanson - President of Pet Consumer Products

Conference Call Participants

Bill Chappell - Truist Securities
Bradley Thomas - KeyBanc Capital Markets
Jim Chartier - Monness, Crespi & Hardt
Peter Lukas - CJS Securities
Brian McNamara - Canaccord Genuity
Shovana Chowdhury - JPMorgan

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Central Garden & Pet's Fiscal 2024 Second Quarter Earnings Call. My name is John, and I will be your conference operator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will be given at that time. [Operator Instructions]. And as a reminder, this conference call is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the call over to Friederike Edelmann, Vice President, Investor Relations. Thank you, Frederic. Please go ahead.

Friederike Edelmann

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining Central's second quarter fiscal 2024 earnings call. With me on the call today are Beth Springer, Interim Chief Executive Officer; Nico Lahanas, Chief Financial Officer; J.D. Walker, President, Garden Consumer Products; and John Hanson, President, Pet Consumer Products.

In a moment, Beth will highlight our key messages, and Nico will provide more details about our results. J.D. and John will join us after the prepared remarks for Q&A. Comments made during this call include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Our actual results may differ materially from what we shared today. We've described a range of risk factors in our SEC filings, including in our annual report on Form 10-K. We undertake no obligation to publicly update these forward-looking statements. Our press release and related materials, including the GAAP reconciliation for the non-GAAP measures discussed on this call are available at ir.central.com. All growth comparisons made today are against the same period in the prior year, unless indicated otherwise. If you have further questions after the call, please don't hesitate to reach out to me.

And with that, I will now turn it over to Beth Springer. Beth?

Mary Beth Springer

Thank you, Frederic, and good afternoon, everyone. Let me begin with the 3 key themes we'd like you to take away from this call. First, we delivered a solid quarter. GAAP earnings per share were $0.93 and non-GAAP earnings per share were $0.99, well ahead of prior year, and net sales were just shy of prior year. Our focus on cost management helped rebuild our margins. We grew e-commerce sales and we expanded market share across most of our pet and garden categories. Second, we're particularly pleased with our progress on the cost and simplicity program, which enables us to invest in our business and offset sustained cost increases.