Greetings and welcome to the Lifeway Foods Inc. Third Quarter 2015 Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Ms. Hunter Wells. Thank you, Ms. Wells. You may begin.

Good afternoon and welcome to Lifeway Foods earnings conference call to discuss the company's results for the third quarter of fiscal 21015. On the call with me today are Julie Smolyansky, President and Chief Executive Officer; Ed Smolyansky, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer; and John Waldron, Vice President of Finance. By now, everyone should have had access to the release which went up this afternoon at approximately 4:05 PM Eastern Time. If you have not received the release, it is available on the Investor Relations portion of Lifeway's web site at www.lifewaykefir.com. This call is being web cast and a replay will be available on the company's web site. Before we begin, we would like to remind everyone that the prepared remarks contain forward-looking statements and management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. These statements do not guarantee future performance and therefore undue reliance should not be placed on them. Similarly, descriptions of Lifeway's objectives, strategies, plans, goals or targets contained herein are also considered forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statements. Lifeway assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking projections that may be made in today's release or a call posted on their web site. And with that, I would like to turn the call over to Lifeway's CEO, Julie Smolyansky.

Thank you, Hunter. Good afternoon to everyone who has joined us on today's call. I will begin with an overview of our business for the quarter and the first nine months of 2015, and then provide an update to our strategic initiatives. At the conclusion of my remarks, Ed, John and I will be available to take your questions. I am pleased to report solid results for the third quarter; net sales were approximately $30 million. Our results demonstrate our team's ability to successfully execute on our strategic initiatives, as we continue to grow our business. We made good progress in expanding distribution of our kefir products across new and existing retail channels. The innovative products we debuted earlier this year has resonated well with consumers and our marketing strategies have helped grow our brand awareness. Although capacity constraints hindered our sales growth in the third quarter, we continue to make progress in increasing the production capacity at our Wisconsin facility, which has begin producing kefir at the end of the second quarter. Increased sale volume of our kefir products, coupled with the benefit of lower milk prices, enabled us to achieve gross margin expansion of approximately 470 basis points to 30.6% and diluted earnings per share of $0.05. We expect milk prices to stay at a relatively similar level for the balance of 2015 and 2016. I'd like to now provide you all with an update of our three key initiatives; increased brand awareness; although Lifeway is the number one brand in kefir in the U.S., there are still many who have not heard of the incredible health benefits associated with consuming our drinkable kefir. There continues to be high demand for natural and organic food products. According to SPINS, today the natural channel is an $11.5 billion market…

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from the line of Howard Halpern of Taglich Brothers. Please proceed with your question.

[Operator Instructions]. Our next question comes from the line of Ivan Zuick. A private investor. Please proceed with your question, Ivan.

At this time, there are no further questions in the audio portion of this conference. I will now turn the conference back to the management.

I am sorry, I think I missed. So yeah thank you for your participation today. We appreciate the hard work and dedication of our employees and the support of all of our loyal customers and shareholders. We look forward to sharing our fourth quarter and full year results with you in the coming months. Have a happy and safe holiday season, and be well.

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a wonderful rest of your day.