Good morning, and welcome to Lifeway Foods First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. On the call with me today is Julie Smolyansky, President and Chief Executive Officer. By now, everyone should have access to the press release that went out this morning.

If you have not received the release, it is available on the Investor Relations portion of Lifeway's website at www.lifewayfoods.com. A recording of this call will be available on the Company's website.

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. The words believe, expect, anticipate and other similar expressions generally identify forward-looking statements.

These statements do not see future performance, and therefore, undue reliance should not be placed on them. 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 call.

All of the forward-looking statements contained herein speak only as of the date of this call. And with that, I would like to turn the call over to Lifeway's Chief Executive Officer, Julie Smolyansky..

guava, organic strawberry banana, organic black cherry as well as the seasonal flavors rainbow cake and campfire smores. The initial reaction has been positive, and we will continue to develop flavors that taste great and bring new attention to the brand.

These new products represent an opportunity to increase SKUs and distribution with our retailers and attract new customers with varied assortments. This is a path we will continue to explore as we look to satisfy our customers with differentiated offerings. I will now touch on some of our marketing and advertising strategies.

We continue to partner with influencers, chefs and nutrition experts with notable social media presences to suggest healthy ingredient swaps, recipes and snack ideas that incorporate Lifeway products.

They are distributed across Lifeway's social media platform, and we continue to realize a positive impact through increased web traffic and steadily increasing followers to our Lifeway social accounts.

In an effort to strengthen relationships with retailers, we also partner these digital campaigns with in-store programs to incentivize retention rates and attract new eyes to the product. On our last call, we announced that we were running a targeted ad campaign in focused markets to help us build awareness and drive trial.

This targeted advertising effort combined linear broadcast, CTV, digital and integrations in both English and Spanish and concluded at the end of the first quarter. We will continue to post similar campaigns throughout the year when needed to boost our visibility.

Additionally, I'd like to provide an update on the Lifeway Kefir pop-up experience in Miami Beach. For background, we have been hosting a Lifeway-branded cafe, which gives Miami visitors the opportunity to try a diverse assortment of smoothies created with Lifeway kefir and Lifeway oats as the base.

And what has been a rather chile season so far across the country, we were pleased to share the Lifeway story with locals and vacationers in the sunshine state during its busy season.

We will now shift some of the focus to places like New York City as we embark upon yoga and kefir sampling at Bryant Park and a pop-up with snowfield sampling, drinkable kefir and William Bert. Now I will touch on our operational strategy. Sprouts and Fresh Time shoppers should be on the lookout for new Lifeway Organic home milk products.

Both chains have agreed to bring in our organic whole milk black cherry and strawberry banana flavors, which should be hitting shelves now. Fresh Time has also agreed to stock our new lowfat guava flavor, a personal favorite of mine.

I encourage everyone to try these amazing new offerings from Lifeway and connect with us on social to share your feedback. I know you'll love them. Our metrics from Wawa remain encouraging, and we are seeing very solid unit velocities per store per week so far.

This penetration accomplishes one of our primary goals of placing Lifeway in front of new eyes, creating an opportunity to convert them into bulkier buyers.

We maintain very strong relationships and active dialogues with our key retail partners in traditional grocery and continue to seek out avenues for further distribution opportunities and expansion while also evaluating further opportunities within convenience and small format to increase our presence in high visibility away from home locations.

Overall, the first quarter was a wonderful start to 2023. Today, I believe we are in a great position to continue delivering strong growth and awareness of the Lifeway brand throughout this year, and I have the utmost confidence in our team to make it happen.

And as a business, I believe we are on the right track to achieving our primary target, delivering profitable and strategic growth to our investors, while furthering our mission to provide best-in-class probiotic and nutritious food to improve the health and well-being of our customers.

Thank you all very much for listening to the call today and, of course, for your interest in Lifeway Foods. We look forward to updating you on our progress and business momentum on our second quarter earnings call. I hope you all enjoy your day..

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