Good morning. This is Joyce Brooks, McCormick's Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you for joining today's call to review our company's first quarter financial results and 2012 outlook. We have posted a set of slides to accompany today's call at our website, ir.mccormick.com. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, the conference is being recorded. Joining us for today's call are Alan Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO; Gordon Stetz, Executive Vice President and CFO; and Mike Smith, Vice President, Treasury and Investor Relations. Alan is going to share some highlights from the first quarter of 2012 and how we are effectively adapting to the current business environment. Gordon will provide a review of our first quarter financial performance and discuss our 2012 financial guidance. After that, we look forward to discussing your questions and some closing remarks from Alan. We're planning a more in-depth review of McCormick's strategy and global growth initiatives at our April 17 Investor Conference in New York. I hope that you're planning to attend. As a reminder, today's presentation contains projections and other forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those projected. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or other factors. As seen on Slide 2, our forward-looking statement also provides information on risk factors that could affect our financial results. It's now my pleasure to turn the discussion over to Alan.

Thanks, Joyce. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. McCormick's financial results for the first quarter demonstrated the effectiveness of our strategy and growth initiatives. We grew net sales 16% with double-digit increases in both our consumer and industrial businesses. Over half of the increase was driven by very strong underlying sales growth, augmented by sales from acquisitions completed in 2011. We are particularly pleased with this performance given the current environment where consumers are confronted with a tough economy and higher prices. Our portfolio of businesses, united by our Passion for Flavor, is a real advantage in this environment. Across our consumer and industrial business, we're delivering flavor, regardless of whether consumers are cooking at home or eating out. For consumers eating at home, we're meeting demand for great flavor, convenience and healthy eating with product innovation, meal ideas and brand marketing support. In our industrial business, our growth with quick service restaurants was a key driver of first quarter results. These customers are expanding globally and, in this economy, are seeing increased demand based on their competitively priced menu. A further balance exists across our 3 regions and with our leading shares in a number of developed markets, along with an increased percentage of sales in emerging markets. We have illustrated on Slide 4 the distribution of our first quarter sales across a number of emerging markets, where we are participating in strong sales growth. Including acquisitions, our sales in emerging markets were up 73% in the first quarter versus the year ago period. As a reminder, we also participate in emerging markets through our unconsolidated operations around the world. The rate of sales growth in the first quarter was ahead of our expectations, which led to an earnings per share result at $0.55 that was just…

Thanks, Alan, and good morning, everyone. McCormick's first quarter results at the top and bottom line compared favorably to our initial outlook. The sales performance of our base business and acquisitions exceeded our expectations. And due to the leverage of higher sales and operating expenses, operating income was also ahead of our outlook for the quarter. Let's take a closer look at each of our 2 segments starting with our consumer business. As seen on Slide 11, we grew consumer business sales 18%. In a period of increased pricing, our volumes held up well, and we had a strong contribution from acquisition activity in the first quarter of 2012. In the Americas region, we grew consumer business sales 7%. As seen on Slide 12, sales from Kitchen Basics added 2% to growth, and the effect of currency was minimal. Pricing was up 7% this period with some incremental impact from a December 2010 price increase, as well as the pricing actions that went into effect in the fourth quarter of 2011. As a reminder, we estimated the December 2010 pricing increase shifted about $10 million of sales from the first quarter of 2011 into the fourth quarter of 2010. In addition, we had the benefit of new product introductions, distribution gains and incremental brand marketing support. While we grew sales in Zatarain’s, Hispanic items, economy products and our clubhouse brand in Canada, as Alan discussed, we believe higher pricing impacted sales of our core items in the U.S. In total, volume and product mix was down 1% compared to the year ago period. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa, EMEA, we grew consumer sales 25% with a 26% increase in local currency. Our Kamis acquisition added 22% to sales this quarter. Against a weak year ago result, the sales…

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from the line of Akshay Jagdale with KeyBanc.

I have 2 questions. First one is regarding sales growth and your expectations for the remainder of the year. You're really the first company to actually come out and say -- at least in the food space, to come out and say that there's a shift in consumer spending towards away from home, which is interesting. And I just wanted to isolate, as part of your better performance that you admitted in terms of sales growth, how much of it was related to that shift and weather? And the reason I'm asking is if sales growth was better than you expected, which you said, I'm just wondering why you don't have the confidence I guess to raise your sales growth guidance. So if you can give me a little bit of perspective on that, that'd be helpful. And my second question is regarding branding. And you increased brand marketing by, I believe, $9 million this quarter, which was well ahead of your guidance. But for the full year, you still kept the guidance the same. So I'm wondering if there's flexibility on that or if you're committed to not spending much more for the remainder of the year.

Yes, a couple of things. It's pretty hard to actually quantify the impact of weather, but we did see some impact in our consumer business, at least in the U.S., where a lot of the real cold weather items were dramatically lower than they were a year ago, things like chili and beef stew seasoning and things like that. The reason that we're a bit cautious is as we've seen fuel prices start to rise, that tends to have a fairly significant impact on people as they spend their dollars going out or staying home. So we're a bit cautious on that, and so it's pretty hard to quantify. On the second question on advertising spend, we're committed to continue to invest in our brands. You’ll recall, we spent up pretty heavily in the fourth quarter of last year. And our pattern is if we see the opportunity to do that because we have pretty good returns on our advertising investment, we'll do that. But at this point, early in the year, with a small quarter, it's not the appropriate time to change our guidance.

And just one follow-up. So you are spending more, it seems like, on your consumer business, which makes sense. Can you just talk about sort of -- in terms of the outperformance this quarter relative to your own expectation, would the business have outperformed even if there wasn't a shift to QSRs, for example? Like what -- was your consumer business sales growth in line or below your expectations? And how much of that do you think is because of a shift towards QSRs?

I would say that the consumer business was probably slightly ahead of our expectations, given some of the volume trends we saw early in the quarter when we were providing some guidance. So as we progressed, we saw stabilization and some strengthening. And it was pretty broad based. You saw the strong numbers in EMEA, as well as China and Canada and the U.S. stabilization. So I'd say, really, in terms of the outperformance, the consumer business was probably slightly ahead. I will say the Industrial business was very robust as well. Just to also highlight some of the things we're cautious about, if you recall in the prior year, we did have some weak comparisons in markets like China on the industrial side. So the strong performance in the first quarter, while we're very pleased with, it was against a weak year ago period.

Our next question is from the line of Thilo Wrede with Jefferies & Company. Thilo Wrede - Jefferies & Company, Inc., Research Division: You've now had 4 quarters of 5% to 6% price increases across the business, yet the gross margin decline you've had this quarter was the biggest since this inflation really started in second quarter last year. Shouldn't 4 quarters of good pricing give you a little bit more power to have less of a margin decline on the gross margin level?

No. If you recall, and going back to the chart that where we've tried to illustrate this, is in the first quarter of last year, we were not yet experiencing the material cost inflation pressures. It was largely building up in inventory and also yet to be realized on the P&L. So as you recall, as we progressed through last year, the third quarter was down over 100 basis points and -- I mean, the second quarter, then the third quarter and fourth quarter were similar. So it really is a function of the timing of when these material cost increases started to hit us, and it started to accelerate as we progressed through the year. So we're looking at almost an opposite phenomena this year, where the majority of the increase really we start to experience in the first part of the year and then it starts to moderate as we progress through the year. And that's really what's causing the gross margin issue. Thilo Wrede - Jefferies & Company, Inc., Research Division: Okay. And was there any margin impact from that shift from food at home to more of the industrial business?

Well, there certainly will be because, obviously, it's a lower margin structure business relative to the consumer business. But as you saw, the industrial margins themselves were up over the prior year so that was helpful to the overall company margin structure as well. Thilo Wrede - Jefferies & Company, Inc., Research Division: Okay. And then a few weeks ago, you put out a press release that you hired Dr. Cardellina as a scientist. I think the press release called out that he had experience with supplements and areas of the, I would say, food business that's not necessarily your core business. Is that signaling anything that maybe McCormick will move more into a supplement role, or is it just part of his resume but that's not the reason why you hired him?

No. That's part of his background. He's a very talented scientist, and he's going to help us tremendously in our flavor business. But there's no -- nothing to read in from his background.

Our next question is from Chris Growe with Stifel, Nicolaus. Christopher Growe - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc., Research Division: I wanted to ask just to kind of come back to that cost inflation comments that you've made today, I guess, Gordon. Obviously, the peak being here in Q1, has it stepped down pretty meaningfully going forward or is it a gradual decline? I'm just trying to get a little bit of sense of the gross margin as we trend through the year.

I'd say it's a gradual stabilization based on the way I just described how it played out last year. Christopher Growe - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc., Research Division: Okay. And then I was just curious, the QSR performance in the quarter. Is there any way to look at -- if you look at sort of the category trend, if you want to call it that, kind of how the QSRs broadly performed in the quarter, it was meaningfully better in Q1 than, say, Q4. Was that the majority of the growth that occurred for you? But I know you've also cited new product wins and distribution gains, that kind of thing. So I'm just trying to understand what was really driving the main piece of the growth in the QSR performance this quarter.

Well, the bigger turnaround in the first quarter was our food service business, and it was a combination of our distributor business and our QSR business. But that was a lot of what was happening in the U.S. industrial business. Around the world, it's a heavier QSR blend of customers. Christopher Growe - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc., Research Division: Okay. Again, that category trend picked up a lot in the quarter. Was that an important -- the most important part of the growth in the quarter then?

For the industrial business, it certainly was. Obviously, we talk about acquisitions and pricing as part of our growth algorithm in the quarter as well on the consumer side. Christopher Growe - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc., Research Division: Sure, I was looking at the organic -- got you. okay. And then I have just one more follow-up if I could. And that was just in relation to price realization in the EMEA consumer division, I'm just trying to understand there, I'm sure you've taken pricing there in relation to cost inflation. Was there incremental promotional spending that may have reduced what the actual price realization that came through in the quarter?

We took minor pricing, and we took it in 2010 and early ’11. So there was very little pricing in the EMEA business, and we did have a fairly heavy marketing and advertising spend.

Our next question is from Robert Dickerson of Consumer Edge Research.

I just want to step back a little bit and kind of talk big picture. Because I know last year at CAGNY, you had a fairly extensive slide presentation. And it seemed like the larger strategy for McCormick on average was just by 2013, you could reach the 16% to 17% operating margin, and you had 20% margin in 2010. In consumer, you had 8%. In industrial, the goal was to get industrial to 9% to 10%. And then inherent within the plan, excuse me, was a continued shift to the consumer business on the top line. But I guess if I'm looking in the quarter and I realize that there is a little bit of a shift year-over-year because of the compare volume pulling into -- I mean, pulling to Q4 for last fiscal year. But in general, I guess -- so the question is, are we still on path to do that? Or could we see a scenario play out such that on an operating profit basis, there actually could be a little bit of not negative margin mix going forward but maybe not as positive as you thought considering commodities are still high? You're carrying kind of high inventories. And even though you have this outsized growth in the top line driven by acquisitions, frankly, consumer profits are still down 6%, which -- that's the second year in a row that your consumer division is down. So if I think about what's happening in consumer now and what's happening in the segment business mix now relative to longer-term plan I heard over a year ago, it just -- it seems a little off. So I'm wondering if you could just kind of provide some color on that.

I wouldn't read too much into an anomaly on one quarter. But what I would say is our strategies are exactly as we laid out last year. Now we've seen an awful lot of volatility in costs as we went through last year. Our costs were certainly a lot higher that we -- than we had anticipated in February last year. I'd say we're still experiencing that. You'll also recall in that discussion that the pricing is a very, very small part of our algorithm. But what happened in the quarter and in the time since then is that pricing has been much more a factor as we try to recover the margin. Our strategies are still the same. The acquisitions that we made last year were, by and large, consumer acquisitions. Doesn't mean we won't make industrial acquisitions going forward. But our strategy is still to grow our consumer business faster and drive the margin of our industrial business.

Okay. So then if I think about the rest of this year even into next year, if we do actually see the input cost pressures ease a bit as we go through the year, I mean, is it fair to assume that you could see a little bit more of a margin benefit on the consumer side relative to what you get on the industrial side?

Well. Certainly, as we progress through this year because of the volatility of cost, it may be tough within the consumer business. But on a go-forward basis, to Alan's point, the basic fundamental algorithm around faster consumer growth, improved industrial margin leads to an enhanced overall margin structure for the company. That has not changed. But again, back to Alan's point, these long-term goals can get interrupted for periods of cost volatility, which is what we're experiencing right now.

Our next question is from Anna Gurkin (sic) [Ann Gurkin] of Davenport & Company. Ann H. Gurkin - Davenport & Company, LLC, Research Division: I want to return to the step-up in marketing spend. Are you getting the return? And I guess I was looking for $5 million, and it looks like it was $10 million this quarter. So can you walk me through that a little bit?

Yes, we believe that we are. We had -- we were supporting new product activity in the U.S., as well as in the U.K. We spent a tremendous amount in the first quarter launching Recipe Inspirations in the U.K. and in France, and we've seen the sales results from that and we feel pretty good about it. But as you're well aware, we continue. We have a pretty disciplined process to monitor what's working and adapt our model to spend behind the initiatives that are working. This year, we're beefing up our spending in digital and mobile marketing. We think there's a great return there. We also have started to invest in China behind brand building to deepen our business there as opposed to just look for new distribution. So it's an overall mix that we think is going to pay out. But as you're well aware, we'll go back and adapt it to what's working from a return standpoint and put the emphasis where we think it's going to generate the best returns. Ann H. Gurkin - Davenport & Company, LLC, Research Division: Okay, perfect. And then how does the acquisition pipeline look right now?

It's still active. I wouldn't say that there's nothing we can announce this morning, but it's still active. Ann H. Gurkin - Davenport & Company, LLC, Research Division: Okay. And then third, if you could just comment on Zatarain’s frozen entrées. How are those performing, that's been a tough category, and how is that doing?

Well, for us, it's been a very good category. It's pretty well all incremental growth. We just introduced meals for 2 and they're starting to roll out now. And so we're seeing pretty good traction from things like Jambalaya and Blackened Chicken Alfredo. So it's -- that's kind of an area that we're excited. Remember, we're niche on -- in frozen. We don't think the world needs another frozen lasagna, and we're not trying to compete there. But the products that we have for Zatarain’s and even for Thai Kitchen are pretty exciting to us.

Our next question is from Mitch Pinheiro with Janney Montgomery Scott.

In the industrial segment, obviously the QSR was strong. What part of this is sort of sustainable on your -- and driven by sort of internal efforts, like the innovation you've talked about and that sort of -- the process of getting these new products into the QSR segment, and how much is just maybe economic-related? And then also, how did your broad line distributor business do in the quarter?

Sure. We've executed better, I'll say that. Now recall, this is one quarter after a number of quarters of a fairly weak performance in the food service channel. But that -- so we're feeling good about the result. We're cautious going forward again because of the impact to gas prices, but it's been driven by our new product wins, as well as some good performance by a number of our customers. Our broad line branded business in food service also did very well in the quarter, and it's kind of nice to see positive volume trends in that area as well.

Okay. One last question is how are you progressing on gaining share within your largest strategic customers?

In the industrial business, we've continued to gain share. It's always a kind of a tactical battle because we do that by winning new product innovation, and that's where we've tended to win more than our share of briefs. There's some offsets to that as people are looking to reduce cost in our ingredient business, and that's less of an innovation trend. But we've continued to gain share with most of our strategic customers.

Our next question is from Robert Moskow of Crédit Suisse Group. Robert Moskow - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: I was just looking at the -- how the quarters are supposed to progress for the rest of the year. And are you forecasting, like what my model shows, that you can continue to get 100 basis points of leverage on the SGA line for the rest of the year?

That'll vary, obviously, by the timing of A&P spend. Obviously, it would have been even more this quarter without the A&P spend. So -- but certainly, we're looking for leverage on the SG&A line because of, obviously, the price execution on the top line and the leveraging of the acquisitions against the SG&A base. Robert Moskow - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: Okay. And then one follow-up. I can see, Gordon, how the gross margin comparisons are going to get easier for the rest of the year. But you're not really forecasting, from what I can tell, any gross margin expansion. Is it really just a catch-up as the year progresses? Is that correct?

I'd characterize it as more of a catch-up as the year progresses. Things can impact that obviously in terms of the product portfolio and the segment portfolio so that's what can vary and cause it to go up or down in any given quarter. But I would suggest it's more of a catch-up. Our price increases take a full year outlook and look to try and recover after even we look at CCI, the cost increases. Robert Moskow - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: And your volume comparisons for second and third quarter, your currency comparisons for second and third quarter are going to get, actually, a lot tougher as well. Does that flow through at all to a tougher comparison in terms of operating profit growth? Or it seems like what you're saying is it really isn't a concern.

Well, FX, as we've indicated, will be a negative to the top line, 2% on the year, and you're correct in that Q2 will start to be a tougher comparison. It's not the same impact on the operating income line as it is on the sales line. We have hedging activities. We also have cross-border flow of goods that we try to make natural hedges out of. But then obviously, we'll ultimately have a negative impact on the operating income line as well, just not as much as it is on the top line. Robert Moskow - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: Okay. So third quarter will be a much easier comparison than second quarter?

Yes. Second quarter -- well, again, it's -- at current rates -- and rates, as you know, are volatile as well these days, but at current rates, second quarter is a tougher one.

Our next question is from Eric Katzman of Deutsche Bank.

Couple of questions. I guess, I think, Alan, you alluded to the U.S. food manufacturers that you supply as still kind of being weak as the quarter progressed. Could you just detail that aspect? Because obviously the other food manufacturers have been pretty negative and have not indicated any kind of recovery whatsoever.

What we see is a little bit of a lag behind their volume trends on core items. So I wouldn't necessarily read into our results what's going to happen with all the other food manufacturers. If we're supplying core items and the core items are weak, our sales are going to be weak. To the extent that we have new product innovation wins, even when their trends may be a little weaker, our trends may be a little bit better. I will say I do think everybody is concerned with the consumer reaction to pricing and trying to put programs in place to make sure that we can protect volume. You've seen a lot of announcements on increased advertising spending, and we're seeing some amount of new product activity that we think will help us, as well as help our customers.

Okay. And then maybe you're going to go into this in more detail at the Analyst Day in a couple of weeks. But it seems to me on the consumer side that China is -- there's like some quarters where it's really great and then other quarters where it stumbles a bit. On the industrial side, it's been strong for a long time. But would you say now that China is -- maybe emerging markets are more of a focus, but China is better positioned to be more of a consistent growth area for you on the consumer side?

Yes. We certainly expect that it would. Now remember, China has a similar dynamic that the American market has except it's a quarter different. Our Thanksgiving-Christmas holiday is a heavy boost to sales for the U.S. In China, it's the first quarter because of Chinese New Year. So we do see some seasonality in that pattern as well. But we do think we're building a sustainable business in China and are really favorable on our brand building as we build consumer loyalty.

Okay. And then last question, maybe more on the industrial side of things. I was just -- I was on a flight the other day and I randomly sat next to this guy who works for another food ingredient supplier, and he indicated that the manufacturers, the branded companies that he serves were really pressuring everything in terms of cost. And I guess that's not surprising given all the inflation. But to the point where the food manufacturers were really like wanted, to the extent feasible, to keep the taste profile the same. They were actually looking for lower quality ingredients to the extent again that the cost versus taste balance would -- could sustain it. So are you seeing that, and kind of how does that work into the improvement on the industrial side?

I would say every customer that we have has a fairly aggressive productivity initiative. And the way we try to deal with that is by offering alternatives that protect the flavor, and also because in a lot of cases, we can help them both reduce costs and improve their product. And so that's a lot of the effort that we have going. But I'd say every manufacturer and we're -- we, us included, have productivity efforts to try to offset these increased costs, because we recognize it's a combination of high cost and high prices and lower volumes are not a sustainable mix. And so we're all working on try to do that. But for the most part, and I'd say across the board, we’ve benefited from that but it does present some challenges for us.

Our next question is from the line of Chuck Cerankosky of Northcoast Research.

If we're looking at this process of higher raws sort of decelerating and the -- still the flow of price increases going through, how do you see it as affecting private label as both part of your sales mix and private label produced by competitors?

Well, what we've seen is private label pricing has gone up higher than brand pricing over the last 6 months or so, on a percentage basis. On the other hand, what we're seeing is consumers are very conscious of the prices they're paying, as we always do when prices go up and are making some trade-offs. So at least in the U.S., and I'll speak to the U.S., in our spice and seasonings business, we've seen private label gain some share, both in terms of dollars and in terms of units. In dry seasoning mixes, we've actually gained share. And then in our other major markets, Canada, the U.K. and France, we've gained share. So what we are seeing is private label manufacturers and us among them, passing through higher prices. And those higher prices are getting reflected on the shelf, but the consumers looking at an absolute price point on the shelf that they're making a decision on. And so I think we're in a bit of a questionable period from an elasticity standpoint. So we're very conscious of that and are implementing programs to help offset that.

How about just looking internally, how has -- what's the shift like between your branded product and private label products in the consumer segment?

We've seen some shift, not necessarily to private label but some shift in volume to some of our economy brands. Our private label business has grown, but it's also because we won some new customers with that. So I wouldn't say it's been a dramatic shift in our mix of products from brand to private label. There's a little bit more from within our brands to our more economy brands.

Our final question this morning is for a follow-up from Robert Moskow of Crédit Suisse Group. Robert Moskow - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: I think Eric sat next to the same guy on the plane that I sat next to because I had the same question. So I cancel my question.

I'd like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Wilson for closing comments.

Great, thanks. Thank you all for your time and attention. At McCormick, we're continuing to operate effectively and grow even in the challenging environment that we have today. We're adapting our product innovation and marketing to meet consumer demand for flavor, convenience and value. We're managing through this period of cost volatility with our pricing actions and our CCI programs, and we're expanding our presence in fast-growing emerging markets. Through our global operations, we have leadership and employees in place to deliver a year of strong financial performance for McCormick shareholders. Thank you.

Thanks, Alan. I'd like to add my thanks to those participating on the call today. We hope to see you at our Investor Conference 3 weeks from today. Through April 3, you may access a replay of this call at (877) 660-6853. The account number is 309 and the ID is 389082. You can also listen to a replay on our website later today. If you have any follow-up questions, I can be reached at (410) 771-7244.