Richard K. Smucker
Analyst
Thank you, Sonal. I really appreciate everybody joining us this morning. Let me begin by saying that we had a very, very good first quarter following the momentum that we gained from last year's results and that resulted in record earnings for our first quarter. I want to share with you some of the highlights that began the quarter. Volume was up, driven by performance of our U.S. Retail business. Net sales decreased slightly due to price declines taken over the past 12 months. In Coffee, volume was up 4% behind solid gains for the Folgers, Dunkin' Donuts and Cafe Pilon brands. Volume gains were also realized across the majority of the brands within Consumer Foods, resulting in an overall 4% increase in that segment. And within the International, Foodservice and Natural Foods segment, volume was down for the quarter, but as expected, due to the planned rationalization that Vince will expand on in a moment. Excluding these, volume was flat for the prior year -- for this year compared to the prior year. Non-GAAP earnings per share increased 6% to $1.24 despite prior year results that included a significant positive impact from mark-to-market adjustments and also higher SD&A expenses in the current year. And finally, we continued the responsible use of our strong cash flow. During the quarter, we announced a 12% increase in the quarterly dividend rate and repurchased 1.5 million shares. Solid execution of the plans and initiatives that we outlined during our year end call, including brand building and supply chain investments, contributed to these first quarter results. Our teams continue to perform with excellence, and we thank them for their efforts. Looking ahead to the upcoming holiday period and the balance of the fiscal year, we remain confident in our ability to achieve another year of earnings growth and deliver on the updated earnings guidance that Mark will share with you in a couple of minutes. This belief is supported by several factors, including a solid lineup of quality marketing and merchandising programs across our various brands and categories to support the Fall Bake and Holiday periods, the additional growth from innovation and new products, lower commodity costs compared with last year and the continued execution of our pricing and promotion strategies, and finally, the anticipated contribution from acquisitions and new businesses. To this last point, let me briefly comment on the announcement that we released earlier this morning regarding our latest transaction, the acquisition of Enray Inc. This enabling acquisition provides added scale for our Natural Foods business, adding an on-trend line of organic gluten-free ancient grain products to our portfolio. We're very excited to welcome the Enray employees to the Smucker Company and add the truRoots brand to our family of brands. And we look forward to sharing more about this acquisition in the coming months ahead. With that, I'll turn the call over to Vince for an update on our business segments.