Maple Leaf Foods Inc Stock

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Maple Leaf Foods Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being webcast and recorded. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference call over to Omar Javed, Vice President of Investor Relations at Maple Leaf Foods.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that some statements made on today's call may constitute forward-looking information, and our future results may differ materially from what we discuss. Please refer to our second quarter 2026 MD&A and financial statements and other information on our website for a broader description of operations and risk factors that could affect the company's performance.

We've also uploaded our second quarter 2026 investor presentation to our website. As always, the Investor Relations team will be available after the call for any follow-up questions you may have.

With that, I'll turn the call over to our President and CEO, Curtis Frank.

Okay. Thank you, Omar, and good morning, everyone. Joining me today is our Chief Financial Officer, David Smales. I'll begin our call this morning with the key messages from the quarter, provide a strategic and operational update, and share some context for how we see the balance of the year playing out. Dave will then review the financial results and balance sheet in more detail, and I will return after his remarks to offer a few closing thoughts before we open the line for your questions. The headline today is straightforward. Disciplined execution continues to strengthen our business, and we delivered another solid quarter.

We grew revenue for the seventh consecutive quarter, expanded adjusted EBITDA margin by 40 basis points to 13.4%, and increased adjusted EBITDA by approximately 5%. Revenue growth moderated this past quarter to 1.6%, primarily reflecting a temporary volume response to pricing in Prepared Foods and the roll-off of certain lower-margin private label volumes. As we expected, pricing actions resulted in a near-term volume response, which is normal for CPG food categories, and we expect will normalize as the year progresses. Importantly, strong poultry growth, improved mix, and the full quarter benefit of pricing helped offset lower Prepared Foods volumes.

Within Prepared Foods, sales declined 2.0%, but profitability improved. The next phase of our Fuel for Growth program focused on operational excellence across our manufacturing network is continuing to deliver the benefits we expected, and our protein snacking innovation platform continues to gain traction, led by Mighty Protein and Greenfield Protein Kits with distribution gains in Canada, the U.S., and into new channels such as gas and convenience. As a result, pricing, operating efficiencies, and favorable mix more than offset lower volumes and input cost inflation, leading to improved profitability in Prepared Foods.

In Poultry, sales increased 7.1%, supported by volume growth, improved channel mix, and favorable pricing. Demand for value-added and sustainable poultry remained resilient. Maple Leaf Prime continued to gain market share, and London Poultry continues to be supportive of improved mix and future growth. We were pleased that both Prepared Foods and Poultry contributed to earnings growth in Q2, where adjusted EBITDA was approximately $137 million, up nearly 5% year-over-year, and our adjusted EBITDA margin expanded by 40 basis points to 13.4%, driven by stronger operating efficiency and better mix across our portfolio.

Now these results demonstrate the continued strengthening of our focused CPG business and the benefits of improved efficiency across our modern manufacturing and supply chain network. To summarize where we are at through the first half of 2026, revenue has now increased approximately 4% to nearly $2 billion. Adjusted EBITDA has increased more than 5% to approximately $260 million. Our adjusted EBITDA margin has expanded to more than 13%, and we have continued to execute against our disciplined capital allocation priorities, returning $78 million to shareholders through our quarterly dividend, which has increased by 10.5%, and share repurchases under our NCIB.

Our first half performance keeps us on track to deliver our full-year 2026 outlook, which we are reaffirming today as we continue to expect mid-single-digit revenue growth for the year, adjusted EBITDA in the range of $520 million to $540 million, maintaining an investment-grade balance sheet while sustaining a disciplined approach to capital allocation, and capital investment of approximately $160 million to $180 million for the full year with spending weighted towards the second half and focused on maintenance, productivity, technology, and automation.

Now turning to our second half. While we do not provide quarterly guidance, I would like to once again provide some context with respect to how we see the balance of the year playing out. First and foremost, our focus remains on executing our strategic blueprint. Our experienced team is focused on advancing our proven growth strategies and delivering on our productivity playbook, which is active across the business.

Food inflation naturally remains an area of active management focus. Geopolitical developments continue to affect energy markets and transportation costs, and we are also managing for elevated costs across pork bellies, beef inputs, chicken inputs, turkey inputs, along with packaging and ingredients.

We responded through pricing and/or trade program adjustments, promotional optimization, and continued discipline in managing our own costs. While these actions have created a temporary volume response, which is again quite normal in CPG, we do expect trends to normalize as the year progresses. I would also remind you of the seasonality patterns of the New Maple Leaf Foods business following the spin-off of Canada Packers. While revenue is typically lowest in the first quarter and then remains relatively consistent through the balance of the year, raw material input costs are often higher in the second half.

This can create some variability in margins from quarter-to-quarter as we've seen in recent years, particularly in the third quarter. We view this as normal phasing, and it does not change our full-year expectations. And finally, as we look ahead, our confidence in delivering our full-year outlook is supported by several clear and tangible drivers: continued strength in poultry, improving volume and revenue trends in Prepared Foods as pricing effects moderate, growing distribution and velocity across our innovation platform, accelerating sustainable meats growth in the U.S., relaunching the Yves brand in Canada, and delivering continued operating efficiency through our Fuel for Growth and operational excellence programs. The fundamentals of the business remain strong, and our priorities are clear.

With that, I will now turn it over to Dave to walk through the financial results in a bit more detail. David?

Thank you, Curtis, and good morning, everyone. I'll comment on results for the second quarter before turning to cash flow and balance sheet. Sales in the quarter were $1.02 billion, an increase of 1.6% compared to last year. Sales growth was driven by poultry, where sales increased by 7.1%, partially offset by a decrease of 2% in Prepared Foods. In Poultry, the sales increase was driven by higher foodservice and retail volumes, improved channel mix, and pricing, which were partially offset by increased trade promotion spending.

Prepared Foods sales declined due to lower volume and increased trade promotion spending, partially offset by pricing, related party revenue, and improved product mix. Adjusted EBITDA of $137.1 million increased by 4.8% versus the second quarter of last year, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 13.4%, improving 40 basis points over the same quarter last year. Profitability improved as pricing, better operating efficiency, and favorable mix more than offset input cost inflation, increased trade promotion spending, and lower volume.

SG&A expenses were $104.5 million in the quarter compared to $99.6 million last year. The increase was driven by the timing of advertising and promotional expenses and higher consulting fees. Earnings from continuing operations were $40.8 million for the quarter or $0.33 per basic share compared to $39 million or $0.31 per basic share in Q2 last year. Adjusted earnings were $53.9 million or $0.44 per basic share compared to $41.4 million or $0.33 per basic share last year. The increase in adjusted earnings was driven by higher gross profit and reduced interest expense due to lower debt levels, partially offset by higher SG&A and income tax expense.

Capital expenditures were $23.3 million in the quarter compared to $24.7 million in the same period last year. Year-to-date capital expenditures were $44.6 million compared to $49.8 million last year. The decrease reflects 2025 spending related to Canada Packers prior to the spin-off, largely offset by an increase in maintenance capital projects this year in continuing operations.

Looking ahead and consistent with our 2026 guidance, we expect capital investments for the full year to be in the range of $160 million to $180 million, with spend focused on maintenance and productivity enhancement initiatives. Free cash flow in the quarter was an outflow of $18.9 million compared to an inflow of $216.0 million last year.

Removing the impact of discontinued operations, which contributed $57.7 million of cash inflow in the second quarter of last year, the decrease was largely a result of timing of investment in working capital, which in the reverse of last year's profile was weighted to the first half of the year in 2026, as well as higher income tax payments, partially offset by lower interest payments. Consistent with our stated capital allocation priorities, our leverage ratio remains well within an investment-grade range.

Net debt to trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA ratio was 2.2x at the end of the quarter compared with 2.1x a year ago. While free cash flow in the quarter reflected timing-related investment in working capital and tax payments, our underlying annual cash generation and investment-grade balance sheet provide flexibility to execute a balanced approach to capital allocation. Year-to-date, we returned $78 million in capital to shareholders through a combination of our quarterly dividend, which increased by 10.5% from the prior year, and the repurchase of approximately 0.8 million shares under the NCIB. We intend to remain active with the NCIB to minimum, offset the impact of dilution from our stock-based compensation plan.

As Curtis mentioned in his remarks, we are reaffirming our 2026 guidance and, as such, expect to deliver mid-single-digit revenue growth and adjusted EBITDA in the range of approximately $520 million to $540 million while maintaining balance sheet discipline and executing a balanced approach to capital allocation.

I will now turn the call back to Curtis.

Okay. Thank you, Dave. Let me close with a few key messages. First, the transformation of Maple Leaf Foods is clearly complete. The work and capital required to create the focused business that we had envisioned are now largely behind us, and the benefits of operating as a purpose-driven, protein-focused, brand-led consumer packaged goods company are increasingly evident in our performance.

Second, despite a challenging operating environment, we delivered a solid second quarter and a strong first half. Through the first half of 2026, sales have increased approximately 4%, adjusted EBITDA has grown more than 5%, and our adjusted EBITDA margin reached 13.4% this past quarter. This is clear evidence that the transformation we've undertaken is translating into stronger financial performance.

Third, the drivers of our second half performance are tangible and already underway. We expect volume performance to improve as recent pricing effects moderate. We have momentum across the Poultry business. Our sustainable meats portfolio continues to differentiate us. The protein snacking innovation platform is unlocking new avenues for growth, and our Fuel for Growth and operational excellence programs are set to continue to deliver.

Finally, we are reaffirming our 2026 outlook as our strategy, our assets, and our team remain aligned to deliver long-term value for our shareholders as we continue building toward our 2030 financial ambitions. Before concluding, I'd like to recognize the release of our 2025 integrated report on June 18. The report reinforces the connection between financial performance, sustainability leadership, and shared value creation. It highlights progress against several areas, including our sixth consecutive year as a carbon-neutral company.

Sustainability remains integral to our identity and our purpose, and we continue to believe that long-term financial performance and long-term sustainability go hand in hand. I want to thank the entire Maple Leaf Foods team for your continued execution, commitment to our values, and dedication to serving our customers and consumers each and every day. Thank you.

Operator, we can now open the line for questions, please.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from John Zamparo with Scotiabank.

I wanted to ask about the Prepared Foods results. And I wonder if you got a sense of a change in the state of the consumer in the quarter. And the reason for the question is historically, I think MFI considers itself to be playing in the value channel. So if there's trade down, Maple Leaf would be a beneficiary of that. So was the volume response more sensitive to pricing this time around? And if so, I wonder what you think the reasons for that are?

Thanks for the question. I'll start with the positive news, I think, in the quarter, which was we had 1.6% growth overall, and it was our seventh consecutive quarter of top-line sales growth. So we continue to see the resiliency of kind of the playbook that we're operating in the market as positive and constructive. The declines in revenue within the Prepared Meats component of the business at around 2% weren't a surprise to us within the quarter. There were 2 factors that contributed to that.

The first is essentially the roll-off of certain kind of lower-margin private label businesses, which kind of ebb and flow through the portfolio in small ways throughout the year. That wasn't necessarily a surprise to us. And probably more importantly, with the implications of the pricing actions that we've taken in Q1 in 2 forms, a regular price increase and then following up, obviously, later on with the fuel components of pricing. It's very normal in consumer packaged goods for that to have a volume impact, not just for Maple Leaf for our industry, but very normal in consumer packaged goods.

That was the case in our first full quarter after the pricing in Q2, and we fully expect that will normalize as the year kind of progresses. What's been, again, positive is the resiliency of the margin in particular and the fact that we delivered 13.4% inside the quarter, which is reflective of the fact that, that pricing has taken hold in the market in a constructive way.

So we think the rest of the year will normalize as it plays out. It's not a material change in the consumer environment. We're still seeing a consumer under stress, and they're certainly feeling the effects of inflation, but that's no different than what we've experienced over the past number of quarters.

Okay. That's helpful. And then I wanted to ask about pork costs, and these keep declining in Q2 and into Q3. And I wonder if we should be encouraged by the potential for margin expansion in the second half beyond even what you've seen in the first half? And to what extent should we see that in Q3 as opposed to Q4?

Yes. Well, we've been -- it's an excellent question. I'm glad you asked it. We've been obviously reluctant to provide quarterly guidance, so we won't do that today. But in my comments, I did give some context with respect to how we see the year playing out. And inside of that, we continue to provide some context that Q3 from a seasonality perspective is likely to be the lower watermark from a margin perspective in our year. And I think it's important to be transparent with those things. I would really caution you and others not to use the pork cutout as a proxy for the margins in the Maple Leaf CPG business.

And there are a number of reasons for that, John. The first is we don't buy the pork cutout. We buy select cuts of the pork cutout. So that's important. A bacon, as an example, is on a formula. So as we've communicated in the past, so kind of ebbs and flows with markets. But more importantly, pork raw materials are a little bit less than 25% of our overall input costs; things like beef, turkey, chicken, packaging and ingredients, freight and storage, labor and plant overheads, all play a material role in our overall cost structure as well.

So yes, in the near term, we've seen some favorability in the pork cutout, and that's a positive thing, I think. But in almost all of those other areas, beef, turkey, chicken, packaging and ingredients, freight and storage, labor, we're expecting costs to be increased in the second part of the year relative to a year ago. The other important thing is pork markets have already started to shift. And despite the fact that there's some year-over-year favorability in the cutout as an example, Q3 is still forecasted to be higher sequentially from Q2. So hopefully, that's important and added context for you.

The most important part for us from an operating point of view is that despite the inflation that exists in the market with the pricing we've now put forward between what we've executed in the early part of the year and what we have planned for our promotional investments in the back part of the year, we feel really well positioned with the pricing we have in the market for the balance of the year. And that's the very reason that we were reiterating our guidance here today.

Our next question is from George Doumet with BMO Capital Markets.

Curtis, can you double-click a little bit on that 2% decline at Prepared Meats? Just wondering which categories perhaps you saw the most pressure in some of the brighter spots in the quarter? And maybe just how those trends are running kind of Q3 to date?

Yes. It was fairly -- I think, George, it was fairly broad-based, which again is very common and normal following pricing changes like that. There were bright spots, things like the progress that we're making in our protein snacking portfolio, in particular, the innovation we brought forward, the distribution that's expanding. Those tend to be, if you're familiar with the packages, maybe a little bit lighter from a volume perspective, but contribute in an outsized way from a revenue and margin perspective. So that was certainly a bright spot within the quarter.

And we certainly don't view the changes necessarily negative, more normal, kind of what we experienced in Q2. And the focus is really on making sure that we have the right plans in place for the second half of the year to be well positioned. So from a category perspective, I don't think there's anything necessarily insightful category to category, maybe outside of the positive momentum behind the innovation platform in protein snacking. But that's kind of really the story from my perspective.

And the other thing that I would mention maybe since you brought it up, the positive aspects -- interestingly, our sustainable meat sales overall in a very difficult consumer environment in the second quarter, sales were up on our brands. So think about the branded sustainable meats portfolio up in and around mid-single digits and volumes were positive as well. So not everything has been negatively affected in the consumer environment. And I think the fact that we have a differentiated portfolio of products is also shining through in a lot of areas. So that gives us optimism, obviously, for the second part of the year.

Okay. And Q3 to date, it seems like it's trending pretty similar, right?

Say it again, George, sorry, Q3?

Yes, the Prepared Meats -- like I know you guys don't give guidance, but quarter-to-date, like Q3 month end, are we kind of running similar levels?

Very similar. I would -- the color I would give maybe is a very modest improvement from Q2, which is positive. But I think we have to be careful not to react to 3 or 4 weeks. We should be thinking about this as how the balance of the year is going to play out over a longer period of time as the consumer environment continues to hopefully improve, but more importantly, the effects of the pricing moderate.

Okay. And my next one is for Dave. A big working capital drag in the quarter. I believe you called out some seasonality and maybe not being the case last year versus kind of this year. So maybe a little bit more color there. And after factoring in working capital, should we expect around $200 million plus of free cash flow this year? And do we expect to fully return that to shareholders?

Yes. Thanks, George. So you're right, some seasonality in the working capital, which is kind of the reverse of what we saw last year in terms of timing. So we should see the impact of that as we go through the year. We don't give annual free cash flow guidance, but I'd point you to our comments over the 5-year period from Investor Day where we talked about $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion of free cash flow over that 5 years. And obviously, within that, that would imply pretty healthy annual cash flows, and we -- no reason why 2026 wouldn't be in line with that from an overall generation perspective. It's just a question of seasonality in terms of first half versus second half.

We have our next question from Derek Lessard with TD Cowen.

It's Evan in for Derek. Most of my questions have been answered, but I just wanted to touch on the Poultry revenues. They were strong once again, even though you're now lapping some tough comps. So I was just wondering if you could talk a bit about the sustainability of that growth in light of the fact that you're going to be lapping even tougher comps in Q3?

Yes. Thanks, Evan, for the question. To your point, the results in Poultry were positive. That's a continuation of the momentum that we've experienced over the last number of quarters and we expect to continue into the future. I would describe it really as the benefit of consumer demand colliding with the positive impacts that we're getting from London Poultry. So we have really strong consumer demand for Poultry. It's on the right side of all consumer trends today, protein, GLP-1s, and a very positive, a healthy protein for consumers. So very strong consumer demand.

And the fact that we have London Poultry in place, and I would argue the best operating asset in the Canadian market, augmented by our operation in Edmonton, where the team is doing a fantastic job, we're able to support growth relative to the market in an outsized way, which has benefited us not just from volume as poultry allocations grow from consumer demand, but also in positive mix in the business. And I think we noted even in our materials, it was another positive quarter of market share gain with our Maple Leaf Prime brand. So it was a really positive quarter overall, but that's, I think, to your point, not the headline story. We've got really strong momentum in poultry, and we expect that to continue.

Derek, did you have anything further?

No, that's it from me.

And our next question is from Vishal Shreedhar with National Bank.

I want to get your perspective on the guidance and the maintaining of the guidance of the mid-single-digit growth and the EBITDA guidance. There seems to be implied acceleration in EBITDA growth and revenue growth in H2. But at the same time, you're indicating the seasonality in Q3 and the inflationary pressures. So maybe you could give me broad building blocks for the H2 story and help me understand why management remains so confident in the outlook for 2026?

Yes. Thanks, Vishal. There's a number of reasons we continue to be confident from an annual perspective. You start with the fact that on a year-to-date basis, we're growing at 4%. So very close to within the mid-single-digit kind of range. And secondly, at $260 million of EBITDA, that's tracking on a run rate basis within our guidance range. There are some things that give us further confidence though that I think are important for the second half of the year that I can maybe walk you through, as you said, in broad strokes.

The first is the continued strength in poultry, and I just commented on that. So I won't repeat my comments, but it continues to be a very positive environment in the Poultry business. The second is the easing of the volume impacts from pricing in Prepared Foods. And that's an important part of our back half story. And as I said earlier, we will play out as the year progresses, and we remain confident in that.

The third from a revenue growth perspective is the distribution and velocity gains that we're picking up on the protein snacking innovation platform in particular, where we're expanding distribution in both Canada and the U.S. Think of everything from multipacks in the traditional retail channel beyond the single-serve stick, which are growing in distribution today, penetrating over 1,500 gas and convenience locations that we haven't historically had a presence in, expanding our reach in the club channel in a pretty significant way and also in the dollar channel in a pretty significant way and also growing in the United States, where we've expanded in 3 customers to have national distribution in the United States, one club moving -- club operator moving from 3 regions to 8.

So those -- protein snacking alone is a very attractive part of the business. We do expect to continue to accelerate growth in the United States, and that's positive. And we're relaunching within our materials, but I think it's important to call out, we're relaunching the Yves brand, which had a very loyal Canadian consumer following and was by far the branded market share leader in the Canadian market. So from a revenue growth perspective, those are very important parts of our back half of the year.

From a margin point of view, there's a few things that I think are equally important. The first is we'll have the full impact of the pricing in the second half of the year. Keep in mind, that was really only implemented in the full quarter of Q2, so part of the way through Q1. So we really only had the full quarter benefit in Q2, and that will obviously play out as well as the platform that we have operating under our Fuel for Growth portfolio of cost reduction initiatives, which I think you saw really shine through this quarter despite the fact that even though we had positive growth almost 2%, revenue was a little lighter than we would have liked, but the Fuel for Growth platform really contributed in a way that allowed us to not only sustain but widen our margins by 40 basis points. So we take all those things together, we put them into the context of the back half of the year, and we continue to have confidence in our outlook for 2026.

Okay. And last quarter, Curtis, and I know you've implemented pricing in the past, and you've seen the consumer response in the past, so this isn't new to you. But last quarter, you suggested that pricing responses typically take 1 quarter or 2 to be digested by the consumer and the associated elasticity effect. Is that still what you anticipate in 2026? And we should anticipate return to growth in Prepared Foods around Q4, if not latter part of Q3?

Yes. I think broadly, I would stand on those comments. That's historically been our experience, Vishal. And I don't see anything today that would lead me to a different perspective. So that's been our historical experience, and I think that would be a reasonable way to think about the back part of this year.

We have our next question from Irene Nattel with RBC Capital Markets.

Just a couple of follow-up questions, please. Sticking with the question of price. You had planned on implementing price prior to the surge in fuel and the other input costs that you called out. Is there a possibility that you're going to need to take more price later in the year? Or have you got it covered here?

We believe we have it covered here through the combination of pricing we took earlier in the year, the changes we made to either increasing prices or adjusting our trade promotion programs with the fuel surcharge and some tactical pricing that we've already moved to implement and mobilized to implement in the back part of this year that have already been communicated and moved into market.

So I guess things can change. But based on everything we know today, Irene, we feel like we're very well positioned for the inflation we're going to face for the back part of this year. And if something changes, we'll obviously adapt accordingly, including into next year. But for the balance of this year, we feel like we're well positioned.

That's great. And clearly, snacking is a big sort of big push this year on the innovation side. But should we be anticipating any new product introductions as we head into the back-to-school season in some of your more traditional categories or channels?

Yes. We kind of typically try to talk about those after they come just even from a competitor perspective, but I'm happy to give you a little bit of color. I mean, number one is really expanding the snacking platform. So that's, I talked about that this morning. But there are a couple of exciting things that we're augmenting that with in the back part of this year. That includes expanding our charcuterie lineup under our Fantino & Mondello brand, which is an important part of our portfolio.

We're extending the Maple Leaf Natural Selections brand into protein kits as well in a little bit different way against the Natural Selections brand, which we're excited about. We're launching additions to our Schneiders Breakfast portfolio. I think of things like breakfast egg white bites and breakfast egg white sandwiches. So we're excited about that from a consumer relevance and protein consumption perspective.

We're relaunching, as I said earlier, the Yves brand in the Canadian market. So that's something that's creating some excitement inside of the organization. I had an opportunity to eat them last week. They were fantastic. So we're pretty excited about the launch that we're bringing to Canada. And we have some new products coming out in the fall with our partners in the United States market.

So the combination of what we're doing with the innovation that's already been in market, which I remind everyone, it's important to continue to support. It takes time to scale up both distribution and velocity and exciting new product launches like that. It's not necessarily a 1 quarter thing. It's going to give us benefits for a longer period of time. But that focus on kits, combined with the exciting launches that we have coming up in the fall, I think, are going to be constructive to our back half as well.

That's great. And then just one final. One of the things that you didn't mention in sort of some of the puts and takes in the quarter is weather, but we have been hearing from other companies in the food space that the late start to summer had a negative impact on barbecue categories where, of course, you're strong. And so just wondering whether there was any of that in Q2? And if so, how has that evolved in Q3?

I try not to take credit when it's sunny and I try not to complain when it rains. I'm sure, in some ways, had an impact on our quarter, Irene, but I wouldn't view it as a material driver.

We have our next question from Tamy Chen with BMO Capital Markets.

I wanted to ask on the Poultry side. Curtis, would you say right now the quota allocations, I believe they've been not keeping up with the strong consumer demand for poultry. Can you confirm that, that's still the case? And has it been getting closer allocation-wise to catching up with demand? And can you confirm that the way the system works is that you have to accept whatever amount of allocation that you get? And what would happen then if we get to a point where the allocation starts to exceed demand?

So I'll answer your second part of your question first, if that's okay, Tamy. Poultry allocations are a use it or lose it thing. So yes, we have to use the poultry that's allocated to us or run the risk of losing the availability of those volumes. So we -- obviously, our focus is on using it, and we do, to be clear, and we do. That was why the London Poultry asset was so important for us. The ability to take higher levels of poultry allocations and translate them into value-added sales was one of the very reasons that the asset was so important to be constructed. So clearly, we're seeing the benefits of that.

I think markets never really want a gas-pedal brake effect oversupplied or undersupplied. Our goal, and I think the industry's goal is to always be in balance. And I think we're in a reasonable place from that perspective today. There continues to be strong demand. So you're always catching up to consumer demand, but I would encourage all of us, including the industry not to over-rotate to that. But the goal is always to be in a reasonable place from a supply and demand perspective. And I think on balance, that's where we are today.

Okay. I see. And then my follow-up is in terms of your promotional spend, trade investments, how should we think about that going forward? Do you anticipate it to be fairly similar to the first half? Or do you expect it to accelerate?

I think for the most part, pretty stable from the first half, pretty stable. And to be clear, that's still challenging from a consumer perspective. We're still investing more than what we would consider optimized even in the first part of this year to get the volume and share response that we're satisfied with. If you look at it maybe on a historical view over the last number of years, promotional allowances are elevated and promotional intensity is elevated given the inflationary environment we're in.

I guess I would answer it by coming back to the annual guidance and saying, look, we don't expect that it will be a material change H1 to H2 as an example, but it remains elevated as compared to historical levels. And it's something, obviously, with the pricing we've taken, I guess, maybe the added color I should offer is with the pricing we've taken, we're monitoring it very closely, and we stay close to the consumer response, consumer insight, volume, revenue trends, and we're also trying to optimize our offer to the consumer. So we'll be paying particular careful attention to that through our revenue management practice in the back half of the year, but that's kind of normal business practice for us.

We have our next question from Chris Li with Desjardins.

I wanted to -- sorry, if you kind of mentioned this already, but wondering if you can share what was the impact on the revenue from the roll-off of the lower-margin private label during the quarter?

We don't and probably wouldn't break it out separately. Like I said, the private label business, try to keep it as stable as we can. It's part of our portfolio. Through the year, customers ultimately make merchandising decisions that can impact the portfolio. These were in the big picture, a small amount of changes.

And one of the things I didn't comment on earlier, but I'll add now is a good portion of that we've already secured back in another area for the back part of this year that will kind of onboard later this year. So it's unfortunate that we have to talk about 2 things rather than inside of a quarter that happens from time to time. But for the most part, I don't view it as a structural issue and won't be material.

Okay. That's very helpful. And then just a quick one on the U.S. We noticed, I think your revenue in the U.S. was down around 4%. Can you give us some context sort of what the sort of the fundamentals in that business during the quarter?

Yes. A good portion of that private label business was inside of the U.S. market. So that's contributing as well. And the plant protein category continues to face headwinds. The positive, I think, operating environment in the United States would be our Greenfield Natural Meat Company brand just to be balanced. And that brand is growing in the last 12 months in the United States at a greater rate than 10% and has been kind of operating in the mid-single-digit range more recently.

So we continue to see positive in the Greenfield Natural Meat Company brand, our flagship, Raised Without Antibiotics and sustainable meats brand in the U.S. Unfortunately, in the last quarter, that was more than offset by some changes in our private label portfolio and some sustained headwinds in the plant protein category.

Okay. That's helpful. And then my last question maybe on -- just on capital allocation. Obviously, your balance sheet remains very strong with leverage well below your 3x target. Can you just give us -- maybe provide your latest thinking about a special dividend? And also on the M&A side, how is the pipeline right now? And then how is valuation overall?

Yes. Dave would maybe take that one.

Yes. So obviously, from a capital allocation perspective, we remain very focused on the playbook we rolled out as part of the Investor Day where we have a balanced approach that includes increasing our annual dividend, which we did earlier this year. We've bought back around 800,000 shares under the NCIB program in the first half versus 700,000 in the whole of last year. So that continues to be part of the program. Obviously, we haven't announced anything in terms of other discretionary return of capital.

But you can be sure that, that's part of our playbook. And at the right time, we will execute on return of capital based on the strength of our balance sheet, as you noted, plus the cash flow generation that we anticipate. So nothing to announce today other than it continues to be a key focus area for us, and you should expect to see us be active. In terms of M&A, obviously, we're tracking the market closely. I think valuations today are reasonable.

I think certainly for the size of acquisitions that we're looking at. Remember, we're not looking at anything transformational. We're looking at tuck-in type acquisitions. And I would say valuations in that space are fairly reasonable today. The proof will be in the pudding as and when we have specific targets and look to execute. But as we track the market, it looks fairly reasonable today.

We have our next question from Martin Landry with Stifel.

Most of my questions have been answered, but I was wondering if you could give us an update on your Fuel for Growth initiative, what you have in plan for the coming quarters and where your capacity utilization is at now?

Yes. So we've done some very important work in our Fuel for Growth platform, much of which is paying dividends in our results today. So let's start with that. I mean the work that's been done to date is really focused on reorganizing our SG&A, which we did last year, has been focused on a procurement project that positioned us well from a strategic procurement point of view. And we've rightsized the organizational and leadership structures in our manufacturing plant. So that -- those have all been positive.

And we're now in the phase where we're engaging in an operational excellence initiative within the manufacturing facilities. That's going particularly well. And we continue to get really strong operating results and really strong operating efficiencies on a year-to-date basis, and we expect that to continue into the second half.

So that's positive from my perspective. We're also investing very strategically and thoughtfully in technology and automation, mostly in the manufacturing plant in this particular case that are driving reasonable capital investments that allow us to operate well within our annual guidance from a capital perspective, but contributing financial results as we expected.

So those are the focus areas for this year. And I think, as I said, contributing to our results now will contribute to the results in the second half. As we look to next year and beyond, we're continuing the work to evaluate the manufacturing network on a more broad-based basis and capacity utilization and optimizing the assets within the network, and that continues to be an important part of the work that's in progress, but there's nothing specific that I would offer or comment on today.

Our next question is from Luke Hannan with Canaccord Genuity.

Just one question for me. I wanted to ask about the snacking innovation platform. Curtis, you talked about some of the distribution gains that you received within the U.S. Can you just frame up for us specifically with snacking innovation, what white space opportunity there still exists for you there? And then maybe secondly, on the performance of the Mighty Protein sticks, has there been any tailwind that you guys can discern as a result of there being poultry or chicken being a relatively more affordable alternative compared to beef where it seems like inflation still remains pretty high?

Yes, for sure. So from a white space perspective, I mean, there's still lots. The reality is our execution, I think, has been good in our stronghold, which is Canadian retail, but we're still building distribution off a base that's not yet optimized from a white space perspective. So we're closing week after week, month after month, distribution gaps in the Canadian retail market. That's just execution, and the team is doing a good job, and we're going to continue to accelerate that. So that's kind of the mainstay of our business.

Within club, within the club channel, tends to be a high volume, high velocity and a great place to build a brand awareness and brand recognition just given the traffic and the consumer experience in club. And as I said earlier, in the Canadian market, we're expanding our single-serve offering in the club channel. So that's positive. We've landed some pretty significant business. It's still white space because it's contributing a small amount, but it will continue to have an impact in the dollar channel. And that's really white space for us because it's not a channel that we participate in, in a material way.

So having a shelf-stable offering in protein snacking in the dollar channel is white space for us. I talked about gas and convenience and adding 1,500 locations. That's 1,500 incremental net new locations for us that didn't exist in the past. And we still have tons of white space in kind of the gas and convenience distribution channel. That hasn't typically been a stronghold for us and building capabilities, not just with expanding the distribution of this product is important, but it also gives us a platform to launch further products into that channel and expand our reach, which I see as very material white space for us, again, very positive.

And then the U.S. has what I would describe as a mountain of white space. I mean I talked about 3 examples where we've gained national distribution. That's very significant for us operating in the United States to gain national distribution with 3 retailers, plus the ramping up of the club channel from 3 regions to 8 in the U.S. But -- so lots of white space, not just from a distribution perspective, but continuing to turn the velocity dial.

Now you asked about species and whether poultry was more attractive because it was more affordable. And I think perhaps that plays a role. But I think what's most important is we have a really important consumer insight here, which is healthy protein snacking is here to stay. The fact that we have 10 or 12 grams of protein, 100 calories and a meat stick that's portable on the go. I think it's what's winning the day, less so than the protein species inside of it, although chicken is -- poultry is clearly attractive to consumers these days.

We are looking at expanding the portfolio beyond one species being chicken in this particular case, which I think is important to continue to create new and exciting news for the consumer. So lots of white space, lots of excitement from the team, extends beyond meat sticks into protein kits. We still view that as protein snacking and protein snacking on the go. And there too, there's significant white space.

We have our last question from Ty Collin with CIBC.

Just one question from me. I'm wondering if you could speak to demand in the foodservice channel and whether you've seen any incremental pressure there?

We haven't seen any incremental pressure. I think demand in the foodservice channel for us continues to be stable. We have very positive working relationships with our foodservice partners and continuing to stay -- relatively stable demand from our perspective. We're always looking to build our business within the foodservice channel. It's an important channel for us in terms of strategic customer relationships. And, but I think relatively stable for the most part would be the way to describe it.

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Frank for closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you, everyone, for joining. I just would close with gratitude for joining our call today. And this is a quarter where we managed to grow the top line again for the seventh consecutive quarter. We've expanded our adjusted EBITDA margin by 40 basis points to 13.4%, which in the difficulty of the operating environment, we're pleased with and proud of.

And our year-to-date performance continues to be quite strong relative to our expectations of the year. And as such, we're obviously reiterating our 2026 guidance, and we look forward to giving you an update following our third quarter results. So thank you again for joining us today.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Maple Leaf Foods First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being webcast and recorded. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Omar Javed, Vice President of Investor Relations at Maple Leaf Foods. Please go ahead, Mr. Javed.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that some statements made on today's call may constitute forward-looking information, and our future results may differ materially from what we discuss.

Please refer to our first quarter 2026 MD&A and financial statements and other information on our website for a broader description of operations and risk factors that could affect the company's performance. We've also uploaded our first quarter 2026 investor presentation to our website. As always, the Investor Relations team will be available after the call for any follow-up questions you may have.

With that, I'll turn the call over to our President and CEO, Curtis Frank.

Okay. Thank you, Omar, and good morning, everyone. Joining me on our call today is our Chief Financial Officer, David Smales. I will begin with a strategic and operational update. Dave will walk you through the financial results in more detail and then I will return with a few closing thoughts before we open the line to questions.

The headline for today is that we delivered a solid first quarter and we are firmly on track to deliver our 2026 outlook. Sales in Q1 were $963 million, up just over 6% year-over-year, driven by our proven and resilient growth platforms.

Poultry delivered double digit growth, supported by improved channel mix and strong consumer demand across both the retail and foodservice channels and Prepared Foods also delivered sales growth, supported by pricing and mix.

Adjusted EBITDA was approximately $122 million, up nearly 6% year-over-year and our adjusted EBITDA margin was 12.7%. Margin improved sequentially by 90 basis points as we expected, supported by the inflation-based pass-through pricing we implemented in the quarter.

Productivity initiatives and efficiency improvements, including our Fuel for Growth program and better sales mix are contributing to EBITDA growth and supporting continued margin resilience. This disciplined execution reflects the benefits of the separation of our pork operations, which has sharpened our focus as a purpose-driven, protein-focused and brand-led CPG company and has strengthened our ability to accelerate profitable growth and generate free cash flow.

Earlier this year at our Investor Day, we introduced our 2030 financial ambitions and the strategic blueprint that will guide us to achieving them. That ambition is supported by a clear value creation framework.

First, scaling the core business through our proven growth platforms, meeting and sustainable needs, building a portfolio of loved brands, accelerating impactful innovation, expanding our reach into the U.S., new channels and new categories and aligning more deeply with our customer strategies.

Second, expanding structural margins through improved commercial mix, disciplined revenue management and a productivity-driven operating model supported by the continued benefits of our Fuel for Growth program. And third, allocating capital with discipline, maintaining a strong balance sheet, investing to support growth and efficiency and returning capital to shareholders in a balanced and consistent way.

By executing against this framework, we are targeting approximately $5 billion in revenue, approximately $750 million in adjusted EBITDA and cumulative free cash flow of approximately $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion by 2030, while maintaining an investment-grade leverage below 3x net debt to adjusted EBITDA.

Our 2026 outlook demonstrates progress towards these ambitions. In January, we introduced 2026 guidance, calling for mid-single digit revenue growth, adjusted EBITDA in the range of approximately $520 million to $540 million and continued discipline in capital allocation, including dividend growth, capital investments of approximately $160 million to $180 million and maintaining leverage below 3x.

Today, we are reaffirming that outlook. I do, however, want to offer some context with respect to how we see the balance of the year playing out.

First, despite the noise of the external market, our focus remains on executing our strategic blueprint. We have an experienced and highly capable team, proven growth strategies and a productivity playbook that is active across the business.

We are also maintaining a disciplined shareholder-friendly approach to capital allocation. Second, food inflation remains an active area of management focus. Geopolitical developments, including the conflict involving Iran are affecting energy markets and increasing transportation costs in the near term. We are monitoring these pressures closely and we are responding with speed and with discipline.

In addition to the inflation-based pricing actions implemented in February, we have introduced a temporary fuel surcharge as a direct pass-through tied to higher transportation costs. This provides transparency around the underlying drivers of those increases and will be removed if or as fuel markets normalize.

With the pricing actions we have taken to date, along with the optimization of our ongoing promotional programs and the discipline we are showing in managing our costs, we are confident we are well positioned today to mitigate these inflationary impacts.

Of course, should additional inflation justify pricing become necessary, we will act as quickly as possible, respecting the normal lag time required for our CPG industry.

And finally, we've been examining the seasonality patterns of the new Maple Leaf Foods and our business profile following the spin-off of Canada Packers. As we noted in our MD&A, revenue is typically the lowest in the first quarter and then remains relatively consistent throughout the balance of the year, while raw material input costs are often higher in the second half.

This can create some variability in margins from quarter-to-quarter as we've seen in recent years, particularly in the third quarter, reflecting our typical business mix and input cost profile at that time of year.

You can see this clearly in our supporting slides, which illustrates this pattern in 2024 and 2025. Importantly, this is a matter of phasing and does not impact our full year expectations.

As we look ahead, we remain confident in the trajectory of the business and confident in delivering our full year outlook. Protein continues to be one of the most attractive and resilient segments in food with demand supported by strong consumer fundamentals and long-term structural growth.

We have a clear strategic blueprint, a portfolio of leading brands, a focused operating model and a team that is executing with precision and with discipline. Our focus is set squarely on staying close to the consumer, responding to changing needs, demonstrating excellence in revenue management, protecting service and quality and continuing to drive cost efficiency across our business.

The fundamentals of the business are strong, and our priorities are clear.

With that, I will now turn it over to Dave to walk through the financial results in more detail. Dave?

Thank you, Curtis, and good morning, everyone. Today, I'll comment on results for the first quarter before turning to the balance sheet and outlook for 2026.

Sales in the quarter were $963 million, an increase of 6.2% compared to last year. This robust growth was driven by both poultry and Prepared Foods, which grew by 11.7% and 2.3%, respectively. In poultry, sales increased compared to the same quarter a year ago due to improved channel mix with growth in both retail and foodservice volume as well as pricing impacts.

Prepared Foods sales growth was driven by improved mix, related party revenue and pricing impacts, which were partially offset by lower volume tied to timing of promotional activity and lower industrial sales as well as unfavorable foreign exchange translation on U.S. sales.

Adjusted EBITDA of $122.4 million increased by 5.7% versus the first quarter of last year with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 12.7% compared to 12.8% last year. Improved profitability was mainly driven by advances in operating efficiency, inclusive of the benefits from our productivity playbook and Fuel for Growth program and favorable poultry channel mix tied to retail and foodservice volume growth.

These factors were partially offset by the impact of nonrecurring items, which were a benefit in the first quarter of last year as well as increased trade promotion spending this year.

Adjusted EBITDA margin of 12.7% was comparable to last year despite the impact of nonrecurring items that were a benefit in the first quarter a year ago. Importantly, the implementation of pass-through price increases in mid-February following the inflation we saw in the second half of 2025 contributed to a sequential margin improvement of 90 basis points from the fourth quarter.

SG&A expenses were $101.9 million in the quarter, broadly consistent with $103.1 million last year, while SG&A as a percentage of sales improved by 80 basis points.

Earnings from continuing operations were $46.1 million for the quarter or $0.37 per basic share compared to $16 million or $0.13 per share last year. The increase in earnings was driven by strong operating performance, reduced interest expense due to lower debt levels and changes in unrealized net gains on commodity futures contracts, which were partially offset by the impact of nonrecurring items that benefited the first quarter of last year.

Capital expenditures were $21.3 million in the quarter compared to $25.1 million in the same period last year. The decrease was driven by approximately $8 million of prior year capital expenditures related to discontinued operations, partially offset by increased spending in the first quarter of this year on maintenance projects.

Looking ahead and consistent with our 2026 guidance, we still expect capital investments for the full year to be in the range of $160 million to $180 million, with spend focused on maintenance and productivity enhancement initiatives.

We generated $36.6 million in free cash flow in the quarter, an increase of $50.2 million compared to the same period last year. The improvement was driven by a lower level of investment in working capital, improved cash earnings from continuing operations and lower interest payments, which were partially offset by prior year cash earnings generated by discontinued operations.

Consistent with our stated capital allocation priorities, our leverage ratio remains well within an investment-grade range with a net debt to trailing 12 months adjusted EBITDA ratio of 2.1x at the end of the quarter, in line with leverage at the end of the fourth quarter and down from 2.6x a year ago.

Strong free cash flow generation and an investment-grade balance sheet provides flexibility to execute a more balanced approach to capital allocation. In the first quarter, we returned $36 million in capital to shareholders through a combination of our first quarter dividend, which increased by 10.5% from the prior year and the repurchase of approximately 0.3 million shares under the NCIB.

We intend to remain active with the NCIB to, at a minimum, offset the impact of dilution. As Curtis mentioned in his remarks, we are reaffirming our 2026 guidance and as such, expect to deliver mid-single digit revenue growth and adjusted EBITDA in the range of approximately $520 million to $540 million, while executing a balanced approach to capital allocation.

I will now turn the call back to Curtis.

Okay. Thank you, Dave. Let me close with a few key messages, which closely mirror those of our recent Investor Day. First, the transformation of Maple Leaf Foods is complete. Over the past decade, we have reshaped the business through major capital investment, portfolio simplification and strategic focus. That work and the capital associated with it is now firmly behind us.

Second, we now operate with stronger structural advantage as a purpose-driven, protein-focused and brand-led CPG company. These advantages are showing through in our performance relative to our peers and the broader CPG market.

Third, we are firmly in our delivery and return phase. Our focus is on growth, margin expansion, cash generation and improving returns on invested capital. Our 2025 results and our first quarter of 2026 performance reflect the benefits of that focus.

Fourth, our strategic blueprint is future-ready. Our strategy, our assets and our team are aligned to deliver long-term value with a clear line of sight to our 2030 financial ambitions. And finally, we are reaffirming our 2026 outlook today.

As I close here this morning, I want to recognize the Maple Leaf team. We continue to live our values and deliver outstanding results in a demanding operating environment, while at the same time, advancing our bold vision to be the most sustainable protein company on earth. Thank you.

Operator, we can now open the line to questions, please.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Michael Van Aelst from TD Cowan.

I want to start off with some questions around the consumer because there was some commentary on a conference call yesterday that talked about trade down, particularly and actually mentioned poultry trading down from, I guess, a private label RWA product down to entry-level price points at a double digit pace.

I'm wondering if you're seeing the same things given that you've had some pretty strong momentum in your branded items at retail in recent quarters and whether that's changed.

Before I answer your question, which I will, I understand that today is most likely your last call with us given your retirement. So I wanted to first congratulate you and second, thank you for your coverage and support of Maple Leaf Foods over the past many number of years, and you've been with us on a lengthy journey and I and we all at Maple Leaf certainly appreciate that. So thank you, and congratulations.

On the topic of poultry and trade down, which I think was predominantly your question and a little bit around the consumer environment. The consumer environment, we've been saying consistently and for a relatively lengthy period of time here that things are stable, but that still means the consumer is under stress.

We continue, as David mentioned in his comments, to be investing in promotional allowances that are rightsized to the consumer environment today. So that intensity hasn't changed, I don't think, in any material way quarter-to-quarter.

But on the poultry side, I think there's some important clarification for our own portfolio. We had a very successful first quarter in the poultry business, which you saw in our top line results.

Sales grew at a little over 11% in the poultry business for us in Q1, which was, again, a very strong quarter. But underneath that, the Prime brand, in particular, which is our premium brand positioned in the RWA segment grew at around the same pace in a double digit range.

Our sustainable meats fresh poultry business grew at double digits. And we actually picked up a little more than 1.7 points of market share gains in the first quarter. So overall, it was a pretty successful first quarter in the poultry business for us. So we're optimistic that will continue over the balance of the year, but I think all things positive on the poultry front.

Did you see any change recently, at least in the last month or so as fuel prices have spiked?

Not materially. I think more -- not materially in terms of change. I would point to the fact, Mike, that our Prepared Foods business revenue growth in the quarter was around 2.3%, predominantly driven by mix and pricing.

And we had a small volume decline in the Prepared Foods business, small, between 1% and 2%. That's not atypical in the period following price adjustments. As you know, we took our prices up in February.

And that would be in line with kind of the normal consumer behavior following a price change like that. So I would say nothing abnormal or atypical from the environment that's existed pretty consistently here.

Your next question comes from the line of Irene Nattel from RBC Capital Markets.

Wanted to just unpack a little bit the cost side of the equation. Very much appreciated your commentary around the introduction of fuel charges. But I'm wondering about what you're hearing from your suppliers, say, packaging as an example, with respect to price increases, what your outlook is for your operating costs as we move through 2026?

We, as you know, implemented in February kind of our broader-based inflationary view of the year and the costs associated with the increases we took early in the year. Those are in the market and have been implemented.

And you see the sequential benefits of that pricing taking place from Q4 to Q1 and the cost recovery we've had. On fuel specifically, we are working today alongside our customers to implement a very targeted and hopefully, what's temporary, although certainly lots to play out, but hopefully, what's temporary, a fuel surcharge in the market to reflect what was essentially in the range of a 50% cost increase in fuel throughout the month of April as an example.

So we see that as a justified increase and we took the learning of moving a little slower than we would have liked to have in the last part of last year and moved with certainly more pace this year. So we feel like we're well positioned from a fuel recovery perspective.

The longer-term implications of the conflict in Iran are kind of yet to play out. They come in areas that you're referencing in packaging and plastics, in particular, as a secondary impact. To date, those impacts are certainly manageable and we're monitoring them closely, just like we did fuel.

But we feel like we're really well positioned today. And should anything change, I think we're monitoring things closely and are prepared to act quickly should we need to. We're hopeful that won't be the case, but we're well prepared in the event we need to.

That's very helpful. And then just a follow-up question, if I may. In the release, you talked about the timing of promotional activity in the Prepared Meats segment and sort of that having a negative impact on volumes as well.

Can you talk us through how we should think about that? Does that -- does the promotion happen more in Q2? Can you just walk us through that and your thinking around volumes as we move through the year?

Yes. It's just a commentary that was more reflective of the change in a couple of key promotional activities with customers that we had in Q1 last year and we expect they are going to take place into Q2 and Q3 next year.

So just the phasing of our annual plans and some seasonality attached to that, the timing of seasonal events and things like that. So I don't think there's anything material to our year. And we continue to reaffirm our outlook for the year, which I think is a good indication of the fact that we don't expect the timing of those events to significantly impact the results we deliver in the year, just the timing quarter-to-quarter.

Your next question comes from the line of George Doumet from Ventum Financial.

I just wanted to follow up on the seasonal information you guys provided for the quarter. I think you mentioned Q3 is the more seasonal quarter weakness, I guess, based on the commodity pricing and all that kind of stuff.

But can you talk a little bit about any of the factors that we should be cognizant that we might -- might get in the way of us attaining kind of those low 30% EBITDA margins next quarter -- as early as next quarter, I guess, those levels attained earlier last year?

Well, I'm not going to give precise quarterly guidance. I think what we offered in our commentary is entirely appropriate, but I'll recap that a little bit with some color around it. The first and I think most important news is we had a very strong Q1.

And the key message today is that positions us to deliver our outlook for the year and we're entirely confident in that. So that's the headline overall. We did put a little bit of color around that. I mean, Q2 logically is all about the pricing impact on volume, keeping in mind that we took pricing in February.

The response has been relatively normal so far, but we're paying careful attention to that. And the inflation from an energy perspective, which, as I just said, I feel like we're positioned really well for.

Q3, we wanted to give a little bit more commentary more because of the composition of the new Maple Leaf Foods. We've been studying the seasonality of the new business after the separation of pork, obviously, quite closely. We did put in our supplementary materials, if you look at the continuing operations section, you see kind of the quarterly progression of margins over the last couple of years.

And Q3 tends to be because of higher meat costs in the second half and an escalation in things like bellies as an example, in Q3, Q3 tends to be a little lower margin than the balance of the year. And we thought it was important to be transparent about that and call that to your attention.

And then I would say no new news for Q4. So it all leads to very confident in delivering our year with some extra context and color around how we see it playing out. And of course, if things change, we'll continue to update you along the way.

And last one for me, Curtis. Given where the balance sheet is today, can you talk a little bit about M&A? How should we think about kind of the nice to have versus the really sought out targets out there?

Yes. Dave could maybe add some color from an M&A perspective. What I would say is it's not our immediate priority, although our focus from a management perspective is certainly shifting there strategically.

There's nothing imminent happening in the moment. Our focus has been on returning capital to shareholders, which, as David mentioned in his comments, Q1 was around $36 million of capital returned to shareholders and over a 10% increase in our annual dividend.

Given the health of the balance sheet, obviously, we'll turn our attention to strategic alternatives in M&A, but it's not urgent for us. We're focused on proving out the earnings. I think Q1 was a good reflection of that and we'll continue down that path. There's nothing urgent in the moment. But Dave, maybe any other color you'd like to add?

Yes. I mean just in terms of M&A, I'd point you to the materials from Investor Day where we kind of laid out the strategic priorities as well as the financial framework we would look at in terms of assessing opportunities, which from a high level, branded protein in core categories with a focus on North America and in particular, the opportunity to build out our platform in the U.S. So nothing's changed in terms of how we're thinking about that. And as Curtis mentioned, timing is not urgent.

Your next question comes from the line of Vishal Shreedhar from National Bank.

With respect to Prepared Foods and the slowdown in growth that you noted sequentially, which you said was in part a response to pricing, how long does it take for that pricing response to normalize such that the consumer would go back to the volume growth that you expect in that segment?

In consumer packaged goods, our typical experience, and I think for us, not just for us, but for all CPGs is as kind of the category leader, we tend to move first and quickly, I think, as we should from a leadership position in times of inflation.

The consequence of that is typically a little bit of volume trade-off in the near term. That typically plays out for a quarter or 2, maybe at the most before normalizing. I was really encouraged last quarter actually by the market share performance.

I mean, the volume was down very slightly, which again is typical, but the market share performance in both Prepared Meats and in the poultry business was relatively strong. We picked up a small amount of share in Prepared Meats, which is good on the back of a price increase. And the poultry, as I noted earlier, was really strong. So typically a quarter or 2 of consumer adjustment from a volumetric point of view and then kind of right back to normal.

Okay. And with respect to how trends are playing out intra-quarter, are you seeing any acceleration in Prepared Foods? And are you seeing any change to the poultry trends?

Is your question between Q1 and Q2, Vishal?

Yes. Like if there's any material changes intra-quarter associated with either the pricing actions and consumers' ability to respond and/or the -- I know you said the impact of fuel wasn't that large, but are you seeing any incremental changes on the margin with respect to trend quarter-over-quarter intra-quarter?

No, not materially. I mean 12% was a pretty strong quarter in poultry this past quarter. I mean, I think I just -- I would point you to our annual guidance of mid-single digits. And I think that through the combination of Prepared Foods and poultry, again, we expect to deliver that this year, remain entirely confident in it.

However, I don't know that we'll have double digit growth every quarter in poultry. I think that was a relatively strong quarter. But no, I don't think anything has changed materially.

Next question comes from the line of Mark Petrie from CIBC Capital Markets.

I actually wanted to follow up on a couple of the topics you just touched on. So first, with regards to the poultry growth, putting aside any shifts in consumer taste or preferences, it seems fair to assume that once you start lapping the double digit growth in second half of -- or from second half of last year, you're going to see some deceleration.

I think that's what you just sort of called out. But I'm wondering if you could just specifically talk about the potential tailwinds still to come from London. I understand that a big part of the growth has been driven by the tray pack capacity and leveraging that. Where are you with regards to actually utilizing that capacity? And is it still a growth driver?

Yes. Great question. We continue to be encouraged by the poultry business, starting with consumer demand. I mean, we're seeing very, very strong consumer demand. That's translating into strength in both the retail and the foodservice channel and -- which is great news for us.

But most importantly, it's leading to allocation growth from a supply management point of view. So we're getting volumetric support on the backs of strong and growing consumer demand in the Canadian market for poultry.

We continue to see relative affordability as compared to competing proteins like beef and consumer preferences for chicken and poultry continue to increase. So that's positive structurally for the category and we're seeing the benefits of that.

The best thing we could have done in this situation is have a plant -- have built a plant like London Poultry with the capacity and capability to support that level of growth. We feel like we're uniquely positioned in the Canadian market to capitalize on that growing consumer demand that you're seeing the benefits of that, obviously, in the quarter from London, but there's still runway.

To be clear, there's still runway for growth in the poultry business supported by the benefits of London. The team is just doing a fantastic job there. They continue to operate the plant in a world-class way, both from a cost efficiency point of view, but also a throughput point of view to continue to support growth. So I think we're -- we've got lots more to squeeze out of that asset and it's going exceptionally well at the same time.

Yes. Okay. And then just on the pricing dynamic, what's your sense of sort of how the competitive set followed your price increase? Is it fair to say that, that was sort of universally adopted or some of the gaps still adjusting after you took your price increase? How did that play out versus your competitors?

I don't know yet. I mean, we watch shelf prices. Our measure for that is kind of auditing shelf prices and watching that carefully. I think it's too soon to know what the follow-on effect is.

I mean, the order of magnitude is really important here, too, Mark, right? Like on -- the February increase was important and the fact that we were able to recover sequentially in the way that we did was critical.

I mean, the order of magnitude in the fuel increase, I think, has to be kept in perspective as well. It's around $0.11 a kilo. I think this became public information, which is about $0.04 a package for an average 375-gram pack of hot dogs or bacon.

And that between the fuel surcharge actions we've taken, the cost reduction playbook we have in place and the work we're doing from a revenue management perspective to optimize our promotions to the consumer, again, I feel like we're really well positioned.

Yes. Okay. And then just last one. I'm curious in terms of the cadence with regards to the volume pullback in prepared meats, I understand it was a modest volume deceleration. But do you think any of that was sort of lapping maybe the buy Canadian surge that happened in the latter part of Q1 last year? And is that what you're referring to with regards to the promotional activity? Or is that something else?

No, that's -- what I was referring to on the promotional side is more customer-specific activations. That's possible, Mark, although I would say that, that buy Canadian movement had a bit of an impact on the momentum.

Although I would point out that we also had the positive benefits in this year of the Olympic partnership that we had with Team Canada. And I think the amazing promotional support that our marketing team put behind that.

And I'd like to think the 2 -- there's no perfect data science behind that, but I'd like to think the 2 balanced each other out on a reasonable basis. But yes, it's possible we saw a small impact of the deceleration of the buy Canadian momentum in the market.

I've always said it's hard to tease the data out precisely around that. And I think it would be fair to point out, but we also had the positive benefits of the Olympic partnership as well.

Your next question comes from the line of Martin Landry from Stifel Financial.

In your prepared remarks, you called out productivity initiatives as a margin growth driver. And I was wondering if you could give a little bit more color around that, maybe share a few examples that have led to margin expansion?

Yes. The combination of the work we're doing in our Fuel for Growth initiative, which is driving structural cost advantage and in our continuous productivity playbook have both been supportive of the profitability of the business.

That ranges from everything we do in our SG&A management, which I think if you look at Q1 specifically, was managed quite well from a cost control perspective in Q1 to the work we continuously do in our procurement function and so on from a continuous productivity point of view.

From a fuel for growth perspective, we saw the benefits in the quarter of standardized organizational structures in the plants, which we implemented late last year and that benefited us in the quarter. And we're also lapping the benefits of the -- or continuing to see the benefits of the Branford plant retirement, which happened in Q2 last year.

So the combination of the structural ongoing components that I think are just good hygiene in the business, good cost management by good cost managers, combined with the strategic work in the Fuel for Growth platform is really what's supportive overall from a productivity perspective.

Okay. And then on your Fuel for Growth initiatives, is there like a timing or like a completion of that project? Or is that ongoing?

It's ongoing. It will span multiple years. It started with the SG&A work that I mentioned earlier, the retirement of the Branford facility. We've pivoted to making targeted investments with high returns in technology and automation in the manufacturing facilities, which are yielding great results and will continue to over the next number of years as technology obviously continues to evolve.

Our operations team is in the process right now of implementing a standardized operational excellence system across the business that we know is going to generate benefits on the shop floor. And then outside of this year, I think, would be the way I would describe it in 2027-plus, we still believe we have some network optimization work to do that will continue to benefit us as we kind of march towards our 2030 financial objectives that we laid out at Investor Day.

Your next question comes from the line of John Zamparo from Scotiabank.

I wanted to follow up on the topic of higher inflation or the prospects for higher inflation later this year throughout the supply chain. And specific to feed costs, I wonder at this point -- I know there's a lot of moving parts, but I wonder at this point when that might be felt by MFI and what magnitude do you think that could be at the moment?

I don't know. It would be delayed for certain on the feed component side. I mean the new crop is just really being planted in North America now. And a lot of that, John, is dependent on multiple factors beyond just the inflationary impacts of, say, fuel and fertilizer and some of the things we're familiar with, even weather to a certain extent and crop yields and how the fall crop conditions materialize, I think will probably play the most material role.

And obviously, the duration of the conflict in Iran I think matters a lot here, too. And I wish I had a crystal ball on that one. And by the news this morning, I'm hopeful there'll be perhaps an abrupt end, but I'm not so certain in that area.

So I think there's lots to play out. We watch this weekly, if not daily, the impacts. And as I said earlier, we're prepared to respond quickly should we need to. But at this stage, we feel like we're really well positioned.

Okay. Understood. And then my second question is on beef prices. And given where they are and the fact that they're continuing to show inflation, it would be helpful to get your expectation on how that impacts MFI.

And I know you're not going to guide on volume growth for poultry or Prepared Meats. But I wonder just generally would you agree that this is positive for volume growth for MFI?

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Yes. I would. Beef is a small part of our portfolio, like if you kind of start there. So I think that's to our benefit, just kind of the pricing and inflation seem to be because it's part of our portfolio, but a smaller part of our portfolio.

The benefits to the poultry business, I think, are more structural than they are beef-induced, to be honest, the changing face of demographics in Canada, the strength of demand for poultry, the composition of the bird that's consumed by Canadian consumers today, very, very favorable.

So I wouldn't -- said differently, if beef prices came down a little bit, I wouldn't necessarily say that's negative for chicken. So I'm reluctant to take credit for the positive impact higher beef prices are having today. But undoubtedly, the affordability of poultry relative to beef as a competing protein is positive for us, yes.

Your next question comes from the line of Etienne Ricard from BMO Capital Markets.

Given the continued outperformance of poultry, where do you think the mix between poultry and Prepared Foods ultimately settles a few years from now? And if you could help quantify the margin impact, that would be helpful.

Well, I'm assuming you mean as a percentage of our total portfolio. I think the best answer I could give you is to point you to our Investor Day materials and the targets we've established for 2030.

I mean, both poultry and Prepared Foods play a meaningful role in our growth story for the future. The 5 core growth platforms we have are certainly focused on both businesses, poultry and Prepared Foods. And truthfully, we've seen over the last number of quarters, strength in both areas.

We're getting outperformance in poultry today, again, based on the consumer fundamentals that I talked about, but also the quality of the London Poultry asset.

But our -- I should also note that our leadership in sustainable meats, the work we've done from a brand development perspective, the innovation platform that we put out into the market last year and our growth in the U.S. have all been -- if you look at a little bit longer term, last number of quarters, have all been positive and constructive and we think that will be the same in the future.

So I expect over the next 5 years, balanced growth between Prepared Foods and poultry. There was an M&A question earlier. I think some of that will be dependent on how the portfolio is shaped over the long term.

But again, we really love both businesses today and the growth strategies that are attached to both the poultry business and the Prepared Foods business and remain entirely confident not just in our outlook for the year, but for our 2030 aspirations as well.

And on the U.S. market, what initiatives from a distribution standpoint are you focused on for this year?

Well, we're -- distribution is exactly the right word. We continue to be focused on scaling up the number of items that we have distributed or listed at every U.S. retailer.

I mean, I've commented in the past that in the Canadian market, we're fortunate to have distribution in an average Canadian grocery store of well over 100 items on the shelf. And in the U.S. market, we have in the vicinity of about 14 in the meat protein and plant protein business combined.

And the lucrative financial opportunity for us, if you will, is really to take that 14 items to a broader distribution of items at every retailer now that we've established a supply chain, we have a sales and marketing team on the ground in Chicago and are deepening our customer relationships in the U.S.

So it's really about growing distribution. The Greenfield Natural Meat Company brand has been a beachhead for that. We continue to grow our distribution. That brand had double digit growth or our brands in the U.S. had double digit growth last quarter in the meat business and we continue to see a lot of runway for growth, obviously, in the U.S.

So you're right to point to distribution. There's an innovation component of that. There's a customer alignment component of that and the consumer demand continues to be strong as well. So I think that's the U.S. priority for the moment.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Irene Nattel from RBC Capital Markets.

Yes. Just a quick follow-up question. A point of clarification. Earlier on, when you were talking about poultry, did you say that you've actually had an increase in your quota allocation?

Our quota, our amount of quota hasn't changed in any material way, Irene, but the annual -- sorry, the allocation process under supply management, which allocates the amount of poultry to be grown every 8 weeks is increasing along with consumer demand. So we and all other processors who own quota are getting more volume to sell in market.

Understood. Can you quantify for us the magnitude of that increase?

Yes. That typically grows -- I'll give you an average kind of on an annual basis. That typically grows in and around 2% to 3% a year, I think, on a historical basis.

And we're seeing in the moment, increases in the 4% to 5% range, which would be a little more outsized than we would have seen historically, which just speaks to the continued strength in consumer demand and the allocation process matching that consumer demand.

And what we always want to see is balance in supply and demand, obviously. And I think we're seeing that in a pretty fruitful way right now or a productive way right now for the industry.

Absolutely. And sorry, final question on this topic. Can you please remind us how much more volume you can put through the London Poultry facility?

We had -- when we completed the start-up and the business case for poultry, we had protected for about a 10-year growth spend, Irene, for those average kind of growth in the 2% to 3% range. We're running a little bit ahead of that right now.

That's positive and good news. But we also see the potential for operational improvements to unlock more capacity beyond what we had originally contemplated. So I think to summarize, 2 important takeaways, maybe 3.

We have space protected for growth for a decade. We are running ahead of that today, which on the surface is positive, but might be a concern. And we've already identified operational opportunities to improve beyond the current performance we have in the plant that we're confident will give us many years of growth out of London. So all to say, I think we're really well positioned.

Last question comes from the line of Mark Petrie from CIBC Capital Markets.

Sorry about that. I was just on mute. So I just wanted to follow up on the whole opportunity for broadening the SKU base in the U.S. because obviously, there is a massive gap, but there's also a gap in the portfolio of brands that you have a presence in each market.

So what would be the equivalent distribution of the 14 SKUs that you have in the U.S. for the same brands in Canada?

It's a -- that's our primary focus in the U.S. is the Greenfield Natural Meat Company brand. And that is an important question and distinction, Mark, because really, that's what gives us a strategic point of difference and a beachhead into the U.S.

We're not focused on kind of participating in the mainstream components of the category in the United States. Crossing the border as a Canadian supplier without a meaningful point of difference is a very difficult venture and that's not our area of focus. We're focused on the sustainable meats business, I think, in 2 areas actually.

On the sustainable meats business, the premium end of the category, where there's a large market to access and we only need to access a small component of the category. So think about sustainable meats, raised without antibiotics, gestation crate-free made by a carbon-neutral company. So the suite of those claims has been fundamental to our entry into the United States, giving us a competitive point of difference.

And then -- so at the top end of the category. And then we also have a strategy to participate in the U.S. market for capacity utilization purposes, wherever we have excess capacity in our manufacturing facilities in Canada and in the United States as a way to drive efficiency in the manufacturing plant. So those would be the 2 predominant areas and that's purposeful and strategic in nature.

Yes. Understood. Okay. So -- but just to clarify, so the 14 SKUs today versus the 100 that are distributed in Canada, those would be in the same brands that are -- existed in the U.S. today?

No. That would just be the number of branded items we have in an average grocery store in Canada across all our brands and the number of average items we have in the United States across all of our brands.

There are no further questions. I'll turn the call back over to Mr. Frank.

Okay. Great. Thank you. I appreciate your engagement and your questions today. I think I would close with just a couple of brief comments, which is we're obviously coming off a strong first quarter, over 6% growth, a sequential improvement in our margins as we had expected and the return of $36 million of capital in the quarter.

We are reaffirming our outlook for the year, I think, is the key message for today despite all the noise in the market and that's something we're entirely confident in. And we look forward to speaking with you at the end of Q2 to give you an update on our progress on the journey. So thank you again for your time today and look forward to talking to you again.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us here in Toronto, and welcome to Maple Leaf Foods 2026 Investor Day. For those of you I have not met yet, I'm Omar Javed, I'm the Head of Investor Relations. And the person that you see on the slide here was me before I started working on Investor Day. So we truly appreciate you taking the time to be with us today, whether you're here in the room or virtually. We have an important day planned and look forward to walking you through our strategy, performance and long-term ambition. I hope you've had the opportunity to enjoy breakfast this morning, which featured a selection of our products. It's always important for us that you experience the quality of our brands firsthand.

Before we begin, we have to do this mandatory thing. A brief reminder that today's presentation will include forward-looking information and non-IFRS measures. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. You can find the full details in our public filings and in the materials posted on our Investor Relations website.

Let me briefly walk you through the agenda and the people that you'll see on stage today. Curtis will begin with our company overview and strategic blueprint, outlining how Maple Leaf Foods is positioned as a purpose-driven, protein-focused brand-led CPG company. Randy will speak to lead the way and how sustainability is embedded in our competitive advantage. Adam will take you through how we build loved brands and how our repeatable brand growth engine drives profitable growth. Casey will outline how we broaden our impact, particularly in the United States, where we see meaningful opportunity to scale.

Mike will then speak to operating excellence and how our modernized network and Fuel for Growth program support structural margin expansion. David will present our financial overview, capital allocation priorities and long-term outlook. Curtis will then wrap up the day before we move to Q&A, a dedicated Q&A session, and we ask that everyone hold their questions until that session so we can have a fulsome and robust discussion. We will take 1 break mid-morning, around 10:30, where you'll have again an opportunity to sample our products from our portfolio. We'll conclude the day with a product showcase and a lunch prepared by our fantastic culinary team, highlighting our brands and innovation in a more immersive setting.

Before I hand things over, I want to recognize the team who made today possible. Events like this require coordination across Investor Relations, finance, communications, operations, marketing, the culinary team and many other teams and volunteers across the organization. It truly is a company-wide effort. To everyone who's helped organize today's event, thank you. And more broadly, thank you to our teams across Maple Leaf Foods who continue to execute against our blueprint every day.

With that, it's my distinct pleasure to introduce our President and CEO, Curtis Frank. Curtis, over to you.

Okay. Good morning, everyone. I would like to welcome you here today to the 2026 Investor Day for Maple Leaf Foods. A long overdue, and we've got a great story to tell, and we're looking forward to engaging with you throughout the day today. You're going to get an awesome opportunity to engage with our strategy, with our people and with our food, which I'm really excited about and looking forward to throughout the course of the day today.

There are 4 primary objectives for us today that we think is really important that you leave with. The first is confidence in our leadership and execution capabilities. Our entire management is here today in the first 2 rows seated here today and looks forward to engaging with you, interacting with you, and you'll have plenty of time to do that on stage in our breaks and over lunch today. The second is to build clarity on our strategic blueprint for the future and the structural competitive advantages that Maple Leaf enjoys in the market today. The third is we want to communicate very clearly our financial ambitions for 2030. And finally, we will build confidence in a disciplined path to growth, to margin expansion and to shareholder value creation looking forward.

There are 4 key messages that is important to me personally that we focus your time on today. The first is that the $2 billion transformation of Maple Leaf Foods is complete. we have fundamentally transformed Maple Leaf Foods as it stands today. The second most important message is that we now operate, as I said earlier, with structural competitive advantage in the market. You heard Omar referenced us as a purpose-driven protein-focused and brand-led CPG powerhouse. The third is that we are now firmly in our return and delivery phase, and we're focused on growth, on margin expansion, on return on invested capital. And finally, that our strategic blueprint as it stands today is future-ready, and we have the right strategy, the right team and the right assets in place to deliver well into the future.

When I say the transformation is complete and we're set to deliver, I always think it's important to provide some level of strategic context with respect to the journey that got us to where we are today. Maple Leaf Foods is a company that was acquired back in 1995 by the McCain family and Ontario Teachers Pension Fund. And it was a company that had, at the time, kind of low single-digit adjusted EBITDA margins and was operating as a broad meat and bakery portfolio. The first 10 years were really focused in on about 30 acquisitions, and that required the company to really focus on building out culture, structure and operating disciplines.

The next 10 years following 30-plus acquisitions, we're really focused on the first $1 billion of investment. That investment was predominantly made in our Prepared Foods network, modernizing the packaged goods network of assets. And we also divested noncore assets in the company becoming singularly focused on one thing. And that one thing I can happily say for today is protein.

We've successfully built leadership in prepared meats over that time horizon. And that really set us up for kind of Chapter 3, which many of you would be more familiar with, which was the next $1 billion that we invested in the company, set to strengthen the overall network with investments in London Poultry in our Bacon Center of Excellence and the investments we made in Walker for the Process poultry.

We also, in the last 7 or 8 years, successfully renovated our core brands, which you'll hear a little bit more from Adam about today and reshaped the portfolio through the spin-off of Canada Packers, as you all know. It was a period, those first 3 chapters in our history, spanning maybe 30 years, $2 billion invested, moving from low single-digit adjusted EBITDA margins to 12.2% closing out 2025, positioning us for where we are today, which is set to deliver and converting those investments into sustainable long-term returns for the company.

The new Maple Leaf Foods, as I call it, I say new because it now includes the separation of Canada Packers, which was complete on October 1 last year, is a $3.9 billion enterprise, 75% of our sales come from our Prepared Foods business unit, 25% of our sales from fresh poultry. We have 35 prepared meats and poultry brands within our portfolio, so a large and scaled portfolio of brands. We have 19 manufacturing facilities, 16 in the Canadian market, 3 in the United States. we're driven by what you're going to see today is extraordinary people. You see a small sample of the amazing people that power Maple Leaf Foods, over 9,500 of them, and we're authentic leaders in sustainability, standing as the first large-scale carbon-neutral food company in the world.

We operate in protein, a very attractive, resilient and a growing segment in food. And I say it's attractive, resilient and growing because we know that protein consumption is growing at roughly 2x the rate of population growth. We know that global demand for protein is set to nearly double by 2050. We know that consumers want more protein in their diets with almost 70% of consumers seeking more protein from their dietary needs and protein is universal in consumer need and is nondiscretionary. I often say that when we're talking with our people that if you were designing or building a food company in consumer packaged goods from scratch, we're exactly where you would want to be as a company.

Maple Leaf Foods is exactly where we want to be. purpose-driven, protein-focused and brand-led. We're the protein leader in the Canadian market. About 90% of our revenue comes from Canada. We have the #1 or #2 brands in over 13 prepared foods categories. We have the #1 and the #2 brand in fresh poultry in the Canadian market. And we've got over 92% of households consuming Maple Leaf products in the Canadian market. We also enjoy the benefits of a very scalable U.S. growth platform, which you'll hear from Casey today. It's 10% of our revenue in the United States. We've had a 19% meat protein growth CAGR over the last decade in the United States. It's $173 billion total addressable market. So it's a large-scale market that we can access. And we've got a plant protein business that's in the stages of returning to profitable growth, which is an opportunity for our future.

We also are fortunate to have built a very high-value sustainable meats business. It's a business that started from 0 and is now over $700 million in revenue. It carries a suite of claims that make for a competitive moat in raislthade antibiotics, in gestation crate-free and in products that are made by a carbon-neutral company. We've got deeply embedded customer relationships, over 99% distribution in the Canadian market and strategic North American relationships in private label and in the foodservice channel.

As I said earlier, we have a secure and very much a modern supply chain, over $2 billion of investments been made in our manufacturing assets and in our supply chain. The 16% ownership position that we have in Canada Packers, along with an evergreen supply agreement gives us security of incoming raw material supply from a pork raw materials perspective. And of course, poultry is supply managed in the Canadian market, also providing some level of security of supply. We're very proudly, which you'll hear from Randy and Mike today, very proudly, global leaders in food safety, in people safety and in animal care. And I hope that you'll see through the presentation today that we very much have a performance-based culture and values within the Maple Leaf organization. So here today, we're in a position where we have all this structural competitive advantage, and it's really important that you take away that we're now capitalizing on these competitive advantage.

There are 4 of them that I think are the most important that we highlight today in terms of structural competitive advantage. And that is, first and foremost, our portfolio of leading brands, 100 years of history, 35 brands, category-leading brands in the marketplace. The second is what we've built in a network and a portfolio of world-class assets, which Mike is going to walk you through today and share with you the fact that we have existing capacity now to support our growth ambitions without the need for any material capital beyond what's been invested today. The third is the leadership that we've built in sustainability and sustainable meats, which really differentiates us in the market, makes us distinct, very different in the North American market.

And the last, which you'll hear from David, is the financial strength that we now have and the cash generation capacity that exists within the Maple Leaf business. Those structural competitive advantages, you would have seen last week, we proudly announced our Q4 and full year 2025 earnings. You would have seen what we think are pretty successful results over the course of the full year of 2025, a revenue growth of 7.7% in the year, adjusted EBITDA of $476 million, a 21% improvement year-over-year and adjusted EBITDA margin that improved 140 basis points to 12.2%. Free cash flow generation of over $318 million, discipline, as we've said, in capital expenditures with $126 million of capital deployed last year, an investment-grade balance sheet, 2.1x, the commitment that we've made to the capital markets to operate at less than 3x from an investment-grade perspective and over $207 million of capital returned to shareholders, a 90% increase from 2024.

So the return and delivery phase within our business has clearly begun. And I think it's pretty clear that's been reflected in our 2025 results. That is starting to show its face in improving shareholder returns. Last year, ending December 31, 2025, last 12 months, we had a 52% total shareholder return at Maple Leaf Foods, and that compares to the SMP and TSX composite of 33% and the S&P 500 at 18%. With our performance outpacing our peers, we do continue to believe that there's the potential for rerating of the Maple Leaf stock, contributing to the value creation opportunity for Maple Leaf.

Maple Leaf is a company that in the last 12 months has had 7.7% revenue growth, and that's against our competitive peer set at 4.2% and against North American CPG at 2.8%. I said earlier, fortunate to be participating in protein. You got protein peers growing at 4%, outpacing North American CPG and Maple Leaf outpacing the protein peer set at 7.7% revenue growth. Our adjusted EBITDA margin today stands at 12.2% against the competitive peer set in the protein space at 9.2%, so outpacing on the top and on the bottom line. And to the right of the page, you'll see the trading multiple for Maple Leaf in the market under the competitive peers and the index. So a material rerating opportunity for the future within Maple Leaf Foods.

Begs the question, where do we go next? We continue to be of the view that our strategic blueprint for the future is future-ready, headlined by our purpose to raise the good in food and our vision to be the most sustainable protein company on earth. And what you're going to see over the next few hours, I guess, between now and lunchtime is our team really take time to unpack the Maple Leaf strategic blueprint, each one of our core operating strategies and have you leave with confidence that Maple Leaf is a company that's positioned to deliver on the next phase of protein growth. And we've got a very focused value creation algorithm for the future. And David and the team are going to walk you through the details behind this.

It starts with continuing to scale the core business. and that's delivering sustainable revenue growth through our proven growth platforms, driving basically mid-single-digit levels of growth on a 5-year CAGR basis between now and the end of 2030, expanding our structural margins, which we expect to grow at roughly 2x, approximately 2x the rate of our revenue growth and being smart and disciplined in capital allocation, maintaining our balance sheet leverage below 3x. Ultimately, that ladders up to a very clear financial ambition for 2030, $5 billion approximately in revenue by the end of 2030, approximately $750 million of adjusted EBITDA, $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion of cumulative free cash flow. And as I said earlier, a balance sheet that continues to be maintained at below 3x.

We've got 5 core proven growth platforms that are driving us to $5 billion in revenue by 2030. Those 5 core growth platforms should be familiar to you. They're proven, they're well established, and they're materializing in the market today, and we expect them to in the future. Number one is leading in sustainable meats. The second is continuing to build out our portfolio of loved brands in the marketplace. The third is accelerating impactful innovation. The fourth is expanding our reach, both geographically into the United States, but also into new channels and new markets and new products like our Maple Leaf egg bites that you experienced this morning and aligning to our customer strategies in an effective and efficient way, supporting our customer success in the overall marketplace.

From a margin expansion perspective, what you're going to hear from the team today is there are 4 key building blocks that will drive us forward in the future. The first is continuing to improve the overall mix in the company through marketing effectiveness and scaling our growth platforms. The second is demonstrating discipline and revenue management to offset inflation and protect the structural margins that exist in the business today. The third is executing and implementing our productivity playbook, long-established discipline in the Maple Leaf organization to continue to drive operating leverage. And the fourth is to drive structural cost reduction through our Fuel for Growth transformational program.

What we will have, ultimately, and again, you'll see some of the more detail from David when he describes this later today, is very strong free cash flow generation that's going to fuel very clear and very disciplined capital allocation priorities. That's investing in the business, maintaining a competitive dividend and investment-grade balance sheet, being very selective and disciplined in bolt-insized M&A and returning excess capital to shareholders where appropriate. I'm very, very excited for you to see the balance of the team today. Many of you see me, probably a little bit maybe tired of that. You're going to get exposure to the balance of the team today. So I think that's going to be fantastic.

I'm very excited having 25 years inside the company, like some of our other management team members do like Josh and Adam, who have been on the Maple Leaf journey for a long period of time, all the way through to people like Gillian or Jim McKay or Mike, who you'll see today, who have joined the Maple Leaf organization more recently. We have a great depth of talent, not only in the leadership team, but in the company overall. You'll get to see some of those people and experience some of that talent today. But to give you a little bit better glimpse into the deeper parts of the organization, I wanted to share one brief 2-minute video as I depart the stage here from my introductory comments.

Last week, the Maple Leaf team came together. We have an annual award ceremony where we celebrate the people inside of Maple Leaf who live our values each and every year. And it's an awesome day for us to come together from a recognition perspective. And at that event only a week ago, we introduced our new employee value proposition. And we played a short video to our people 2 minutes long as an introduction. And it dawned on me that it would be a great way to introduce you to our people and our culture and really what happens inside the organization if we play that very same video for you here today.

So I'm going to step back for 2 minutes and I'd ask you to enjoy.

[Presentation]

Okay. So 5, I think, really important messages that I'd like to close with before I turn it over to my colleagues. The first is the $2 billion transformation of Maple Leaf Foods is complete, meaning the large-scale investment in assets is now fully behind us. We now operate in the business from a position of structural competitive advantage, and that's starting to show through in our earnings power. We've got a very clear blueprint for growth, for margin expansion and for generating free cash flow in the future, supported by a very disciplined approach to capital allocation that's going to be focused and continue to be focused on long-term value creation. And we continue to see a very compelling re-rating opportunity for Maple Leaf, driven by outperformance relative to the market.

So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Randy Huffman, who's going to take you through our first core strategy, which is to lead the way. Randy?

Thank you, Curtis. Good morning, everyone. I'm really pleased to be here. As Curtis said, my name is Randy Huffman. I'm the Chief Food Safety and Sustainability Officer for Maple Leaf Foods. I've been in the meat industry now for over 35 years. This is all I've ever done in my professional life. I grew up around the meat industry as well. And I'm super proud to be approaching my 18th year here at Maple Leaf Foods.

I'd like to tell a little story because I think it relates to the values of the company that Curtis talked about. I joined Maple Leaf during the food safety crisis in 2008. I joined at a time that was very difficult for the company, a turning point in our history. I was currently with the American Meat Institute Research Foundation in Washington, D.C., and I've led technical services for the industry trade association for many years. When I arrived in Toronto to assist the company during that crisis, what I observed was a leadership team and a culture that was committed to doing the right thing, committed to integrity and taking accountability that shined true in every interaction that I had.

The company was acting with urgency to write a situation that was quite tragic back in 2008. And those traits that I observed then are still evident today. I get to work with a fantastic group of colleagues across the business. You'll hear from some today and get to talk to our leadership team, as Curtis said. These traits are what has compelled me to make this my home. So I'm really excited to represent my colleagues here today to talk about lead the way.

Lead the way is a core component of our blueprint. So as Curtis mentioned, the blueprint is our anchor. It's how we think about running the business. It connects directly to our vision to be the most sustainable protein company on earth. And I want to -- I'll emphasize this point later in the conversation. But Lead the way is really our sustainability blueprint in the company. But Lead the way does not represent ESG or mere compliance at Maple Leaf. It's foundational to our business strategy, and I can speak for all of my colleagues here. They each play a role in helping us execute this part of our strategy.

Our Lead the Way pillar builds -- strengthens brands. It allows us to build new brands, as Curtis mentioned. It also reduces risk. It reduces operational risk and addresses some of the costs in our operations. In addition, it creates margin durability. So today, I'll show you how sustainability is built into the strategy, how it translates into a structural advantage. Now you may be asking why would we such a bold vision. And I really -- I see 3 key reasons that were evident in this decision to make that bold statement.

First of all, the protein market is structurally changing. Curtis alluded to that earlier. The demand for protein is growing and expectations are changing with it. Over 5 years ago, we began on a path of leading the change rather than just reacting to it. Secondly, we created this vision because it creates durable competitive advantage. It differentiates us in the market. It allows us to strengthen the trust in our brands and gives us an opportunity for premium pricing and customer alignment. And third, I believe that it drives long-term shareholder and stakeholder value. It creates margin durability in our business. And when we can reduce risk in the business, we can see greater durability, also allows us to price at a premium, which you'll hear about from some of my colleagues later today. So those are some of the reasons.

Our vision is bold. It's not just because it sounds good. It's because in the protein market, leadership and sustainability is a structural advantage. One of the things that is evident as we think about the structural change in the protein market is our global food system is under a ton of pressure. It's under a lot of pressure. We've got more people, got greater protein demand, and we have to produce food for that growing population where we're headed to 10 billion people on the planet. We've got to produce that with a finite set of natural resources. Let's unpack that a little bit further.

So the current food model is under pressure, and we need a sustainable food system that works for both people and the planet. These are facts that probably aren't a surprise to anyone in the audience, but agriculture and the food production system has a significant impact on the planet. About 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from food and agriculture. And about 1/3 of the arable land on the planet is used in agriculture production. So agriculture and food has an impact on the environment we operate in.

Secondly, demand for protein is dramatically improving, increasing 2x the growth of the population in general. So we're seeing a growing demand for protein. And then finally, our current model is under pressure. Regulatory challenges continue to escalate. And the food safety challenges never go away. I'll talk about that more in just a minute. But 12% of Canadians succumb to foodborne illness every year, and one is one too many for us. In addition, the challenge of food insecurity is real in Canada. 25% of Canadians experience some form of food insecurity every year and 1 in 3 children are affected by food insecurity. So we feel very passionate about trying to be part of the solution for that challenge.

About 8 or 9 years ago, the last time we had an Investor Day, I shared a Venn diagram similar to this one, as we talked about the concept of creating shared value. We believe strongly in this concept that what is good for society can also be good for business. Porter and Kramer published their paper back in 2011, talking about the concept of creating shared value and business. And we feel strongly that this is something that we can create a durable business model from. So doing things that are good for society can lead to a profitable business over time. And these 6 key stakeholder groups are very important to us.

We believe we can deliver benefits to all 6 of those groups, our people, consumers, customers, communities, of course, our shareholders and as well the planet. So our Lead the Way pillar in our blueprint is critically important to myself and my colleagues across the business. I wake up every day thinking about what we can do to move this forward. To be the most sustainable protein company on earth, it's inspiring. It's inspiring to our people, and it's connected to our purpose. In addition, most importantly, it creates a differentiation in the market for us. It opens doors. It gives us access to shelf space that we may not have had otherwise, and it allows us to unlock price premiums. You'll hear more about that from my colleagues later.

And one of the most important things is this vision and our commitment to lead the way allows us to attract great people. I've talked to so many people over the last 5 years that have joined Maple Leaf Foods, specifically because of our commitment. You can talk to a few of our newer management team members, and I think they'll share that same story. So this vision has multiple benefits in our business. In addition, consumer signals are telling us that over time, consumers are also interested in sustainably produced products. 80% of consumers globally are willing to pay a price premium for sustainably produced goods. And in Canada, about 70% indicate they're seeking out products that have been produced in a sustainable fashion. So there's a consumer signal as well that's really important. And we feel in the future, future generations will continue and maybe increase their interest in this area. So we feel like, as Curtis said, we're future-proofing the business, and we're really excited about what the future holds.

Let me unpack our Lead the Way strategy just a little bit further. There's 3 core elements or principles within Lead the Way that drive everything we do in the business: make better food, take better care and nurture a better planet. I'd like to unpack these a little bit more for you. I will say that each of these 3 pillars have key KPIs that our business drives every day, every week, and we try to keep this as simple as possible for our people to understand and to execute. But making better food, taking better care and nurturing a better planet are core to our plan. So under making better food, I have to start by talking about food safety. It's core to what I do. It's so important to our people and to what we accomplish every day in our manufacturing sites.

I'm proud to say that we are a global leader in food safety, not just in Canada, but we're looked at globally as a company that is leading the way in food safety. 100% of our facilities have met or exceeded the global food safety initiative standards. We're quite proud of that. In addition, we operate an accredited laboratory in Guelph that runs over 400,000 microbiological and chemical tests every year. That lab operates 365, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. It's a very impressive facility supporting our manufacturing sites. We are committed to food safety in everything we do.

Secondly, product quality, which relates to what consumers expect when they buy our products, what consumers expect -- customers expect when they receive our products. Since our baseline year in 2016, we've reduced our quality complaints by 85%. You'll hear more about that from Mike a little later, but we're super proud of our approach to quality and continue to make improvements there. Secondly, we're producing foods that consumers want, that they're looking for with simple natural ingredients. I've got a picture of the Maple Leaf Natural Selections Black Forest smoked TA on the screen. And in the green leaf there, you see 5 ingredients.

When I started in this industry in the late '80s, to make a black forest smoked TAM, there would have been at least 15 or 20 ingredients on the ingredient list. But our teams have come up with ways to produce great products with simpler ingredients that are meeting consumers where they are and meeting consumer needs. Finally, we'll talk about this in more detail, but our approach to sustainable meats has created a leading position in North America. Our Maple Leaf Prime raised without antibiotics. Poultry is the #1 brand in Canada, and we're quite proud of that. And I'll talk more about the Greenfield brand and its position as well in a few minutes. So better care.

Better Care is all about how we care for the people that work in our facilities and in our business and the animals that are under our care. We're proud of being a global leader in people safety. Our TRIR or total recordable incident rate statistic would put us in the top quartile of all North American manufacturing. And we strive to make sure that all of our employees go home every day to their loved ones and their families safe and not injured.

Secondly, our commitment to animal care is second to none. We've got an approach to animal care that's recognized by our customers and expected of our partners in the business. 100% of our poultry facilities have now adopted controlled atmosphere stunning, which is the best practice in poultry and pork. And in addition, we've invested significantly in our bird housing and environmental enrichments across our poultry supply chain. All of these animal husbandry practices support our approach to producing foods raised without antibiotics. And you can see the success of our raised without antibiotics program in both our chicken and pork products.

And finally, we're committed to supporting our communities. I mentioned earlier the food and security challenge in Canada. Over the last 9 years, we've invested in 45 initiatives across Canada, supporting local communities to try to address this challenge of food and security in Canada. And finally, better planet. The better planet pillar or principle is one that we're very passionate about.

As Curtis said, we're proud to be the first major food company that's carbon neutral. We take a pragmatic approach to addressing our impact on the environment. We were one of the first companies to set science-based targets back in 2019 and we have a pathway to reduce our absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 30% by 2030. And we're on track to reach that goal. It's a very -- as the video said earlier, if you want to work here, if you want easy, don't come here. And this is one of those challenges that our team faces, but we're committed to doing all we can to reduce the impact of our manufacturing sites on the environment that we operate in.

Secondly, there's a benefit to reducing waste. You'll hear from Mike later about our approach to reducing waste in our operations. There's a financial benefit to reducing waste. In addition, conserving utilities and energy, the rising cost of utilities, such as natural gas, electricity and water continue to impact our operations, and we're doing everything we can to minimize our impact. And then finally, we work with our supply chain, our partners that raise the crops that are fed to our livestock. We've been proud partners with a couple of other entities in agriculture, working with farmers to adopt regenerative agriculture practices. We now have over 250,000 acres under regenerative ag practices, and we continue to be a leader in this space. So our commitments to lead the way in better care, better food and better planet are good for society, but also good for business.

And I want to share with you just one example. This is a picture of our greenfield protein snack kits newly launched. It's one of those brands that really establishes some of the key points of our commitment to sustainability. It's proof that this concept of creating shared value can work and create business value. So things that are good for society, such as producing livestock raised without antibiotics, gestation create-free pork, humanely raised poultry and sustainable packaging built in. These all are elements that are good for society, but also have created a durable business.

A $700 million -- approximately $700 million sustainable meats platform has been created, as Curtis mentioned earlier. And our Maple Leaf Prime raised without antibiotics poultry program is the #1 poultry brand in Canada. We've seen an 11% growth over the last year, 24% to 25% in the category, and we can price at a premium rate. So this is just an example of how our sustainable meats platform is creating durable advantage.

So in closing, I've summarized for you some of the key elements of our Lead the Way strategy. It allows us to drive premium pricing and mix in our business. It secures customer alignment. It opens doors for us to potentially take on new business. It also reduces operational risk and operational costs and enhances long-term margin durability. And finally, the point I made earlier, it helps us attract great, great talent. So if you take one thing away from my brief remarks today, it's this.

Sustainability at Maple Leaf is in our approach to lead the way. It's not a poster on the wall. It's not a slogan. It's not just an initiative. And it's definitely not ESG compliance. It's really how we think about the business, how we operate the business, how we compete in the market and how we win and how we will win in the future. We've chosen to lead to prepare us for a changing food system. We feel confident that this positions us really well to be a purpose-driven protein-focused and brand-led CPG company.

So with that, I'd like to close my remarks and turn it over to Adam Grogan, our Chief Operating Officer and President, to talk about Build Loved Brands. Thank you.

Good morning, everyone. I get the wonderful opportunity to talk to you about love, okay? So don't get weird it out. Tonight, you're going to go home and you're going to -- your family is going to say to you, where are you today? And you're going to say, I was at the Maple Leaf Foods Investor Day. And then they're going to say to you, did you learn about hotdogs? And you're going to say, no. I learned about love. How cool is that? Well, we are at Investor Day, and I do want to talk about how we build love brands and embed it into our blueprint. And it's really important for us because we do view this as a distinct competitive advantage and a value driver for our business.

And I'm talking about the love, not the one that your family is trying to think about. I'm talking about the love that's built on those brands that drives purchasing power, repeat purchase and long-term margin expansion. And our brands, our growth and structural margin -- are our structural margin engine. It's an engine that's disciplined, repeatable and measurable. And it's focused squarely on financial outcomes. Loved brands, according to my friend, David here, is probably a soft word, a soft word, but it isn't. It's one of the hardest economic advantages to replicate, and we think we do it as well as anyone in the business.

We are super fortunate to have in our portfolio 35 trusted brands across 19 different categories. They're a mix of heritage brands that are 100-plus year old. It's very rare that you get the opportunity to have crown jewels like this in your portfolio. We also have modern growth brands such as Musafir or Mina. And also importantly, they're both national and regional and iconic. This translates into very strong category leadership. We are proud to share that we have #1 and #2 positions across 13 different categories in the store.

And this really provides us with 2 distinct advantages: distribution power, which is faster to scale our innovation, allows us to move really at pace and ensure that we get speed of that distribution and defensibility of our premium price and mix within the category. We view it as a real structural advantage. But why does that matter in the grand scheme of things? And it matters because it lowers the cost to grow. And with our growth ambitions, that's super important. And it increases the odds that our innovation becomes successful and lands in Canadian refrigerators.

Now some of you were in the room when I shared in 2017 at our last Investor Day, something that we were doing to renovate and completely renovate our 2 iconic brands, Maple Leaf and Schneider's. It was completely foundational to our organization. We reset and modernized the Maple Leaf and Schneider's brand. Everything from the logo to the packaging to redoing formulation across the entirety of our SKU base. It drove Mike Yang's predecessor absolutely crazy because in an operation, when you make that much change, it can be completely disruptive. But thank God, we did because it is very rare to have 2 100-year-old iconic brands, and it is even more rare to have those 2 brands thrive for the next 100. And this has created really strong momentum in our business and more importantly, has delivered strong performance.

What sets us apart as an organization isn't that we're just brand stewards, but we're brand creators. And this is a really important point. We identify white space all the time. And when we do, in some cases, we will create brands and scale them incredibly fast, taking advantage of some of the distribution strength that we have. And we've launched these targeted growth platforms over the course of time. I'll give you a couple of examples.

On the left side of the slide, you'll see 3 brands that were invented from within. As Randy mentioned, Natural Selections was invented in a time when there was a lot of disruption in some of our packaged meats categories. And the fact that we've continuously been focused on clean, nourishing health with very simple, easy-to-read ingredients has really turned this into a cornerstone brand of our company. And 10 years ago, when we launched our Mina Halal brand, which is the #1 fresh poultry Halal brand in the country, that would have been odd for a company that has pork within its portfolio. But Halal, but Mina has now established itself across the country and in Canadian -- new Canadian homes.

Greenfield Natural Meat Co. was also a really interesting launch that we had as an organization. We actually created a company within the company. It was a group of people that could break all the rules, could move with pace and could be our purpose-led brand that really pushed the envelope of our claims. It pushed our organization to new territory that we never thought was possible. And now it's our only North American brand in our portfolio and accelerating at a rapid clip.

On the right side are some emerging brands that we've just launched here in September. Musafir, which is Hindi for Traveler, is our South Asian brand that's really about bringing delicious South Asian flavors to Canadian consumers. And this is growing also at a really rapid clip. Mighty Protein is a new brand that we launched. It's our zillenial brand, I call it. It's our millennial brand targeted a lot of more youth that are really focused on the macros, which is 12 grams of protein in 110 calorie stick. And this definitely is taking off like wildfire. I'm going to show you a little bit of an update on that here soon.

And Fantino & Mondello, you see it over here on the sheet, you can see it started in Montreal, actually as a food service brand. a small little regional foodservice brand. And in the last 2 years, we've exploded that across the country. You'll find it across now nationally, and it is an Italian-inspired charcuterie brand. And you're going to see and try some of that product today at lunch.

So we view what we do as a clear competitive advantage. There is very few CPG companies, and I know we like to call ourselves a CPG company, but there is very few CPG companies that do what we do. It's a clear competitive edge. Some cases, it requires us to break some rules, speed to market as fast as we can, and it's a capability that we can turn those ideas into growth time and time again. It's a muscle that we have built. We are also super fortunate in that we are in 92% of households in Canada.

I was looking at a stat the other day. I think literally, it's ground beef and toilet paper that beat us. But pretty much in every consumer house across this country at any point in the year in 92% of them, one of our brands or products is in the refrigerator. And that growth that it allows you to have is a lot less expensive when you're not acquiring new households and you have -- all you have to do is increase frequency through new occasions. And that is a super powerful point. When you've already built the trust of those Canadian consumers, it allows you to ask them to try something new. And as Curtis mentioned, we are seeing benefits that are unprecedented, a structural tailwind in our business.

Protein is on fire. Some of you may have seen the campaign, this but first protein, which was our Olympic campaign, and it is something that it took hold throughout the village in Milano. Research is saying, in our research, we have an incredible group of individuals that spend a lot of time on this, and it's really clear. This is not a fad. This is a need-driven and sustaining change to how we eat and the things and the macros that we're focused on to consume. Protein is here to stay for a very long time. And the facts are many of us in this room are not getting enough of it.

Now there's a lot of data here, but I think there's a through line through all of it that I'll just share. Consumers are seeking protein-rich diets to fuel health, performance and longevity, particularly muscle mass, retention of muscle mass throughout the life stages, whether you're young, like my son, who's in the gym constantly or someone who's older, who's trying to make sure that they have a health spend that matches their lifespan. And those protein preferences, particularly in this country, are changing every day. The diversification of flavor and the way that protein is delivered is changing with the demographics that are existing.

Consumers are also expecting protein that aligns with their values, particularly the younger set of the population. They care way more deeply about the health, the planet and where their food comes from. And snacking, just recently, we just got a piece of research back that where snacking has now exceeded meal consumption. Everyone is consuming small meals throughout the day for lots of reasons. And at the center of that shift is protein. But while this opportunity is super clear, and I'm sure many of you coming today would have expected us to talk about that, it is true that not all protein is created equal. That's a very important point. Not all protein is created equal. And as consumers get more educated, they're understanding that in a very big way.

Consumers are seeking nutrient dense and smaller portions. And we're really set up for success with this, whether it be meat sticks or snacking capability. We have a facility in golf that only does kitting, that does snack kitting. And you saw some of those examples today. But taste is always king. Bioavailability and quality do matter. And what you're going to hear from many, many others, and I'm seeing this -- there's been this many, many different trade shows, read many, many different presentation decks is that many companies are unfortunately fortifying their food to get to that protein claim. And consumers are seeing right through it, whether that be soda or heck, I saw protein candy the other day. It's like protein candy really, and now protein chips, protein potato chips.

What is clear and consumers are not dumb. They might try something, but they're not dumb, very smart. Nothing replaces clean animal protein, nothing. So how do we convert that seismic shift that's in front of us? Well, I'm going to share a little bit about our algorithm for building love brands. It's a closed-loop system. It's something that is embedded into our marketers within our organization, and we repeat it over and over and over again. It links brand strength to revenue growth, margin expansion and cash. And I'm going to share a little bit more about this.

I'm not going to drain this a little bit -- I'm going to share a little bit more about each of these in the coming slides. But it's a really big important takeaway for us as an organization. It's something that we continuously -- that's the muscle that we continuously execute day in and day out. It's the engine of our business. And for us, that algorithm starts with something -- it starts with great deep consumer insight. lots of data. We are experts in this area. And at the center of everything we do is something that we call demand spaces.

Now that's a piece of proprietary research that we do on a fairly regular basis with 7,000 households. When we do that research, what is clear is we ask consumers not what they intend to do is what did you do at your last meal? Who are you with? And what was the context for that meal? It's fact-based. And while many marketers are focused on traditional things such as who you are. Sally, 18 to 49, lives in the suburbs, drives of SUV, university educated, all of that is fine, but it's completely irrelevant today, completely irrelevant. What's more important is what motivates somebody at any point in time throughout the day. I'm going to share a little bit more about this, so I'm going to geek out a little bit on the marketing side here for a second.

There are 6 demand spaces that make up 100% of meal occasions. As marketers, it is critical that we meet consumers where they are, not bang them over the head and tell them all the things we want them to know. For example, this morning, if you -- anyone went to the buffet, I can tell you, I had 2 egg bites. They're freaking delicious. If you haven't tried them, you should try them. We make them in our Port Perry plant. They're delicious. And I had a cup of coffee. And the reason for that is because I knew I was presenting to all of you, and I didn't want to have any carbs. The bacon look delicious, by the way, so I hope you tried it. But I was really concerned, I wanted to make sure I was by myself.

I wanted to make sure I was energized and healthy. And for heaven's sakes, it's Tuesday, and the weekend was really fun. But to be honest with you, if I'm really honest, on Friday this week, after this week in this Investor Day, I'm going to order the largest pepperoni pizza that is possible from one of our partners. And I'm going to have a big glass of wine, although I understood the portion of wines are only 5 ounces. Mine will be much larger. I may even have 2, and I'm going to have that with my family and enjoy the fact that the week is over. And the key takeaway in all of that is I'm the same person and you need to talk to me differently on a Tuesday morning than you did on a Friday.

If someone is going to try to sell me vegetables on Friday night, they are not going to sell a single one. This discipline drives everything we do, everything we do. We talk about demand spaces from Curtis to Michael all the way up, which is every -- in our boardroom, we talk about demand spaces. And the reason why we do is because -- and I want to show you how it works in practice, okay? Because it's something that is a muscle that's been built over time. We identify a demand space that either we want to accelerate our market share in or actually build new market share.

We assign a brand, and that brand doesn't always have to be a new one. They're very expensive. So I'd rather much prefer to use an existing one. But in the case of where it's required, we do assign a brand. And we innovate. And we innovate whether it be in the product or in the communication. And we activate like crazy with social media, online, with influencers and linear TV, whatever it takes to be able to reach the individual in the demand space that they're in, and we measure it constantly over and over and over again.

Just as an example of this, one of our unidentified demand spaces in last year was this idea of PowerUp. PowerUp is the time when you're seeking something like an energy boost where you got brain fog and you need mental clarity and you want to reach for that snap. For me, it hits me around 2:00. Some people, it's right after the gym. Some people it's before the gym, but it's solo sport. It's a solo sport. And in that particular instance, you need to grab something. And we didn't really have necessarily something in our portfolio that met that need. we built Mighty Protein last September. We've launched into this poultry snack sticks that you'll see in the side, there's lots of them. We have a regular, we have a barbecue.

We also have a Buffalo flavor. There are 110 calories, 110 calories and 12 grams of protein. Anyone who tries to substitute this for one of those choky-tasting protein bars at 250 calories and 20 grams of protein that your body may or may not absorb completely, this one takes the cake. We also activated it this year with a whole bunch of influencers. The lady here on the picture just posted this on -- I changed my picture. It used to be another picture, changed the picture last night because she's a competitive Olympian skier and she actually posted this on the lift in Milano. So I think it really provides us an opportunity to connect with consumers in a very different way. And now we've already sold up to this date, 18 million sticks. We haven't even scratched the surface.

I'm sure even if you went into stores today, you'd have a hard time finding them, but we've already sold 18 million of them. On top of this, we overlay with our demand spaces, 3 innovation platforms, that are a big focus of our effort, and it's really connected to our unique capability. What are we really good at, as Randy says, and what does the world need? And this is really down to 3: protein with purpose, which is about functional protein, strength, aging, health span, satiety or just a great protein meal at the center of your plate through the day.

Global flavors are all about restaurant quality at home, authentic ingredients and recipes that are clearly influenced by the changing face of the country. And sustainable meats, there's definitely -- the growth in this area is actually quite surprising because given all the talk you hear about the economy, there's definitely a desire right now for products that are clean, nourishing and healthy, raised than antibiotics. They want to know where the -- how the animals are treated. They don't want to know much about the animal. They just want to know it's been treated very, very well because healthy, happy animals taste better, and it's carbon neutral. And we bring all this together, and it's something super powerful.

Curtis mentioned this the other day, we have certainly hit the gas when it comes to innovation in this organization. Now that all of the capital projects are behind us, this is an engine that we are revved up quite substantially. We've launched 50 new items in the last year. Its role is to increase the brand relevance to increase more and more frequency of our products and in some cases, attract new consumers. But as I say to our marketers all the time who get really hung up in their items. They get excited. It's a new launch. I say it's not just what you launch, but how you engage consumers every day, whether it be a new item or an existing one.

And what's important when you do that is how you activate, how you increase velocity, how you build relations over time. And so what I thought I would do is just share with you 3 or 4 or 5 kind of different examples of ways that we do that every day, and some may surprise you because the level of sophistication in that effort is quite high.

Our marketers are always on. I feel like they never sleep because the world is changing like crazy. and how creative converts during moments of cultural relevance can have huge positive impacts on your sales growth. A year ago today, I'll never forget, I was watching that on SNL when Mike Myers opens up the shirt and does the tap of the elbow and the country was on fire about trying to buy Canadian. And the biggest conversation was what is Canadian anyway? And how do I find it? And everyone's checking tags. And no one really took that moment to really lead. And we saw it as a huge opportunity. And we launched a look for the Leaf campaign, which sounds smart now, but I have to tell you, I was super nervous when we were about to drop a bunch of money, invest it against our brand and our consumer, actually promoting other Canadian brands. We were actually promoting other Canadian brands.

The impact that, that had because of the leadership void that it created, it created a groundswell of pride, 0.25 billion impressions, and it reached over 2/3 of all Canadian households. It's probably the most e-mail I've ever received from friends and family is about that campaign. And it drove the Maple Leaf brand share in 2025. And we developed also deep and meaningful partnerships to move cases, not a vanity project. We borrow equity to drive trial and awareness in unignorable moments. It's harder and harder to reach consumers when they're not distracted by everything that's going on. And we do try to find as many live moments as we can to do that. And it translates into a really strong opportunity for us as an organization because we translate fan passion into brand passion. And the returns have been amazing. The returns have been amazing.

Now we all -- I'm still getting over the whole world series thing with the Blue Jays. But probably the second thing I get e-mailed the most about is after the first Tuesday of every month about the Loonie Dogs, the Loonie Dogs. The Loonie Dogs, I think we hit 92,000 in 1 day. We did 862,000, and I had a discussion this past weekend with some of the members of the partnership team at the Blue Jays, and they're really freaking out because they have one less Tuesday in the schedule this week. You got to look it up. They're trying to figure out what to do about it because it drives such consumption. But it's things like this that expand our reach and reinforce the brand relevance for ourselves.

We're also building relevance where Canada is growing. It's all well and good to have 100-year-old brands. They could be easily kind of in the rearview mirror and always looking at the past as the glory days. But the reality is that we're trying to keep up and build from within. By 2040, 50% of Canada's population will be made up of Canadians, new Canadians and their children. So first, second and in some cases, third generation by that point. And that's why we have launched Musafir here recently. We're actually going to -- you're going to be able to try some of that at lunch. We've actually extended. We talk about protein. as a word, we've got now Pioneer into a whole line of products, which is a source of protein for the South Asian community. It's got poultry offerings within it. It's got chickpea protein in it as well.

So we've got a whole new line of offerings for this particular consumer. And what's incredible, if you look at the U.K. right now and the influence that's happened with the South Asian community there, I mean, heck, you can go in a pub and have a Curry. That is coming to Canada. That is coming to Canada. And you can tell just by the number of shawarma shops that are in every corner. My 17-year-old, you ask him where to go for lunch. There's a good chance he'll go for a falafel as he will for a burger. And that's why we also have a brand like Mina. Mina is actually -- I didn't describe this, but Mina is actually the port city on the way to Mecca. And the reason why that was super important for us was because the Muslim population cut across many, many different cultures. And so we now have a portfolio that has landed in the #1 share position for fresh chicken, and now we're expanding that into different product offerings that meet the needs of the Halal consumer.

We're also building loyalty with the next generation. 28% of Gen Zs are snacking. I think it's because they don't know how to cook, to be honest, but they're snacking like over 3 times a day. And it's really, really important that you meet them where they are. So again, Mighty protein, you saw the protein kits that Randy had in his set. We're also seeing with this particular launch a definite leaning towards a more female population who are also looking for protein and don't want to eat things like jerky and things like that, that this seems to be really resonating with that group. So our goal is really through this is to make our brands feel like their own. Our goal is to make our brands feel like their own because when consumer feels like a brand represents the values that they personally have, they put it in their cart.

Now I did talk a little bit about our brand renovation. And the other thing I always say in our organization, it's always easier to start from a position of strength. And it's easy to get hung up and excited about things that you invent. But the Natural Selections brand is something that has that clean label leadership that has resonated so deeply in the Canadian marketplace is really translating into growth, and we're doubling down. Consumers really care about fewer recognizable ingredients. And I don't know about you, but when Randy listed off the 6 ingredients on that package, that's something that I could find in my kitchen. And this beloved -- we've been able to take like beloved categories like deli meat and actually make them guilt-free, make them guilt-free, and that's really stimulated demand.

Our Schneider's -- or sorry, our deli, our Natural Selections brand has grown 6% in 2025, and it's outpaced the category growth. And that's something that's been in the marketplace now coming up almost on 20 years, 18, 20 years. And we have an established market advantage in the poultry business. We -- between the Prime brand and the Prime RWA brand, we have really created a moat, a moat that is very hard to pass over with the brand -- it's got -- the credibility of the brand is so high that it's now 19x higher in market share than our nearest branded competitor, 19x. And it really pushes the envelope on claims, whether that be from the way animals are raised, RWA or even some of the food innovation that we brought to that category.

And what's amazing about this, which you're going to hear about in Mike's section, is all of the investments that we've made in our operations have allowed us to translate that in combination with the supply availability that we have to really create this moat that I described. And there is a growing demand for poultry in this country, a growing demand. You see it on QSR menus. You see it in retail, and we are doubling down in this particular space. Now I know a lot of people, I guess, some of the self-talk may be, well, talking about Canada a lot here.

We are going to talk a little bit about some of the things that we're doing in the U.S., but there's still endless opportunities to grow. There is way more. But it doesn't mean that we're starting from scratch. We're tapping into existing strength. In foodservice, we're one of the largest protein suppliers in the country. And I share some of the brands of the QSRs and the outlets that we sell to. Why? Because they're deep partnerships that we have, number one. And number two, in many cases, they're a North American scale where the established relationship that we have here can play itself out moving forward into the United States. And one of the areas that I'm really excited about, actually where we are relatively new is in gas and convenience.

Many of you here probably spend a lot of time in airports. I know I do. And if you go to Relay right now, you can find our protein kits and very shortly, you're going to see Mighty Protein as there as well. And Circle K -- in the Circle K, you're now going to see Mighty Protein in a bunch of kits and you can find kits in 7-Eleven. So we've got a concerted effort right now in gas and convenience because snacking has become such a really big deal. And we have a portfolio that people would be surprised at thinking about hotdogs and bacon in snacking that is unprecedented and has a competitive advantage given the fact that we produce our own product line here in Canada.

E-commerce is another one. A number of years ago, and we still to this day, and I might surprise you, have a dedicated team on e-commerce. In fact, our market share in e-commerce sales is actually over-indexed to our brick-and-mortar market share. That may surprise some of you. And the reason is, is because we got our digital assets in line. We had a team that was dedicated to making sure that we were ahead on the algorithms, and we can see this translating for many, many years to go as more and more consumers use online and more consumers are using MLM to actually produce recipe -- have recipes and turn that and convert that into shopper occasions. And in the club channel, which is growing exponentially, we have -- although we've got a strong business there, we are continuing to double our efforts in this area, and we have a team that's dedicated to actually building out new product lines that actually can satisfy that channel. And you tried a new product that we just launched last year in our breakfast occasion.

One of the things we uncovered was this idea that many people are having flex work and working from home, but still have this propensity. I still can't get over the ritual of going through a drive-thru and having a breakfast sandwich or an egg bite from Starbucks. And so we've now brought that into your home. And it's excellent, excellent products. And hopefully you tried egites today. They're absolutely -- I think they're the best eg bitites in the marketplace. But trying to find these new places where protein exists in demand spaces that we have identified provides us way more -- so many more opportunities to grow.

And then lastly is our geographic expansion into the U.S. I'm going to save a little bit of that thunder for Casey. Otherwise, he'll be upset with me. But we have -- we're coming from a very strong position of strength in the U.S. market and a platform, and he's going to share a little bit about our plans in that area. So in the end, better insights, better product, better activation leads to better outcomes. And our market shares are up across every single category, such as packaged meats in 2025, our fresh poultry business, our U.S. sustainable meats business and plant protein in 2025 against a year ago, all of our market shares are up.

Now I could not leave without sharing some tools that make us more efficient. AI in our space is something that we're using every day, and that may surprise you. We're using it today largely in the area of content creation. The ability to have creative at scale, the ability to serve up on someone's phone, a personalized message at scale is extremely difficult, and we're doing that today. We're also using it for testing, for consumer testing of our new -- some of our new innovations to speed up the cycles.

And in measurement, we have a very sophisticated marketing mix management tool that we use to really dial up the effectiveness of our advertising to make sure that we're really effective in meeting consumers where they are. And as good Canadians, we don't tend to brag, but the reality is that in our space, there is no competitor with more data than we have. There is no competitor in our space with more data than we have. And we're working with leading partners to learn and try new things every day. We're frankly obsessed by it. And these tools and partners help us. They are helping us with media effectiveness at scale, where we're rapidly changing every day our advertising and our dynamic deployment online and in social media.

Our in-store activation, so we're getting -- we use our POS data from last Wednesday to inform what we do in the stores this week. We're using data that we have from last Wednesday in stores this week on handhelds with our field sales team, and it's allowing us to mine the shopper data to help make sure that our offer is right in store and convert that at scale. In the end, we're not just using the tool because we think it's fun, although I do know -- I do that sometimes. We're using it to be maniacally focused on ROI. That's what we're trying to use it for. Just make sure we're obviously trying to make sure that our spend is the most effective it can possibly be to drive the performance that we need.

So I have 4 takeaways that I wanted to share. Number one, we operate a portfolio of iconic, iconic -- 2 100-year-old iconic brands actually, iconic brands that are category leading. Our brand converts strength into market share gains and also drives premium mix within our categories. We win by capturing demand spaces. If you've learned one thing today, you probably learned a demand space thing because you're going to recognize yourself in that in everything that you do. And that discipline leads to renovation, innovation and activation. And that loop continues over and over and over again. That's what we do every day.

Our brand engine is that repeatable model. It drives durable demand, margin expansion and long-term value creation. Now we have a saying a Maple Leaf where we say we want to get real or be real. So rather than listen to me talk about it anymore, what I wanted to do is I'm going to share a little video with you that sort of brings everything that I talked about today to life, so you'll be able to get a chance to sort of make this a real example of how we build Loved Brands.

[Presentation]

Okay. So thanks for hearing me out. I think we have a break until 10:45. Yes. So please do enjoy some of the products. Some of the management will be around, so we can take some questions, but we'll be back here at 10:45.

[Break]

Okay. Welcome back. I hope everyone enjoyed the break and some delicious snacks out there, certainly some of my favorites for sure. My name is Casey Richards, and I have the privilege today to share with you a little bit about one element of our strategy to broaden our impact, and that is to expand our geographic reach into the U.S. I am -- I lead our U.S. business based out of Chicago.

And I did want to start just briefly by sharing that Stephen, where are you, Stephen, this morning, he said that my vibe today was decidedly Midwestern which I think is appropriate. I don't know exactly what that means. I'm going to take it as a compliment, but it is appropriate because I am based in Chicago. And I actually like to share just a brief story about how I sort of came to be where I'm at today because I think it's relevant.

I am American. I was born and raised in the U.S. in the great state of Idaho and then eventually spent most of my career in big CPG in the U.S. in food in a couple of different companies. And eventually, I joined Maple Leaf Foods almost 9 years ago. And after a couple of years with Maple Leaf Foods, I actually had the opportunity to move to Canada as part of one of my assignments. So I know this part of the world really well. I really loved my time in Canada. We actually lived in Burlington, moved out to lovely Burlington with my wife and a couple of my kids, and we were just living our best life.

And then a couple of years later, Curtis called me into his office and he said, how would you feel about returning to the U.S. to help lead our growth ambition down there? After talking over with my wife, we both agreed it was too good of an opportunity to pass up as much as we love living in Burlington. And the reason is, and this is what I want to share with you today is because I have an amazing amount of conviction about the potential that we have in our U.S. platform, and I frankly wanted to be part of that. The pizza is good, too, but that's not the main reason that I moved.

So one of the things that has me very excited, and again, 2 years now into this role, I have more conviction than ever that we have a material opportunity in front of us in the U.S., and I'm excited to share it with you today. One of the things you may not be fully aware of is we've already established a large business down in the U.S., and it's very scalable. I'm going to talk about some of that opportunity today. It's about 10% of our business today. And it is led primarily by our meat protein business. And Curtis -- I think Curtis already hinted at the fact that we've had really good success in this area and lots and lots of runway that I'll share a little bit more about. But you can see almost 20% growth CAGR over the last decade.

We are leaders in the sustainable meat space, and we have a great brand in greenfield that I'm going to talk a little bit more about when we get here. And we also have a leading platform in plant protein. We acquired our initial brands, Lightlife and Field Roast back in 2018 -- in 2017, and we are now the North American leader in refrigerated plant protein. And I am going to take you through a little bit at the end kind of our journey on plant protein and how we see that business forward. I will just say I'm very proud of our U.S. business and the team down there.

A lot of folks coming in to work every day with as much passion and conviction as you can imagine to grow this business. And when I say platform, I mean much more than just the fact that we have some sales in the U.S. We have established brands that are leaders in the spaces in which they play in Greenfield, Lightlife and Field Roast. We have important strategic private label partnerships, and I'll talk about that here in a second.

We have a U.S. headquarters here in Chicago. You can see a nice picture of it there. It's actually -- it's quite lovely, and we also have an attached innovation center where we can do -- we have an R&D kitchen, and we can do development in both meat protein and plant protein, which we use as a tool both for ourselves and obviously, with our customer partners -- we have dedicated U.S.-based leadership and sales and marketing teams that are down there in the U.S. Many of them are in our U.S. headquarters and some are distributed regionally particularly in our sales force. And maybe most important about -- of all of these elements of our platform is that we have deep, long-standing customer relationships built through years of direct selling.

We're not just using brokers. We know these buyers, we know these customers, and they know us. And that gives us, I think, a distinct advantage. And this all results in national presence. okay? We have distribution in all top 10 of the largest retailers in the U.S. and many others beyond that. We're in approximately 28,000 U.S. retail stores with our products. We have multichannel presence. We're in retail, we're in club, we're in foodservice, and we're also in the natural channel, and we also have an e-commerce business as well. And one of the things that gives me a ton of confidence in the future is we have an established national supply chain network, including 3 manufacturing facilities. That gives us a meaningful backbone to grow this business into the future national presence.

And what this all means and one of the reasons I am so excited about this opportunity is we have an amazing platform from which to grow, and we have been growing, but there's so much more upside. And we put this together just to show you a bit of a compare and contrast about where we're at in our development in the U.S., which is obviously a much larger market versus where Maple Leaf is at in Canada. And while I don't think it's likely that we ever achieve the same development that we have in Canada, you can see here, we're still less than 10% in terms of household penetration. And we average about 15 items on shelf at every store versus 110 items in Canada at 92% penetration. And so what that means is that every time we add an item, we're adding revenue, right?

And there's so much upside to go from where we're at today in 15 to something more than that, right? And every SKU that we add, every item that we add, what's exciting about this is everything that we add is 100% incremental to Maple Leaf, and it represents an important revenue opportunity for the company, and it's something that my team is deeply committed to capitalizing on. We have done the hardest part. We have done the hardest part in establishing this platform and getting those 15 items on shelves in building the brands that we have today that we leverage. That was the hardest part. And not that it's easy to go from 15 to something more than that, but it's comparatively easier than the hard work that we've done over the last decade to get to where we're at today, and there's so much white space.

So how are we mobilizing to capitalize? Really 3 key priorities for us. The first and most important is that we accelerate our growth in sustainable meats, led by our greenfield brand that Randy talked about, and I'm going to talk a little bit more about that. This is an important revenue driver for us. It's an incredible point of difference and also very important for our mix. This is a good category for us to be in a very good category for us to be in where we've driven much of our success. And I fundamentally believe that our ability to win here will define the success of our U.S. aspiration going forward, okay? Our second priority is to leverage existing capacity. This helps drive margin expansion for the company without incremental capital investment. And here is where the U.S. scale can really make a difference. where we can really help our partners, our whole company by filling up that existing capacity.

And lastly, we need to restore plant protein to profitable growth. There's been a long history of where we've come from on plant protein. And again, I'll talk about that more in a little bit.

But what I can tell you today is that we have a very clear path to achieving portfolio average margins, and we are committed to doing so, okay? So first, sustainable meats. Leadership here is an incredible point of difference for us. It is our competitive advantage, and it drives our U.S. growth, okay? That point of difference, together with a secure supply of ABF pork, antibiotic-free pork, allows us to avoid chasing commodity protein growth and to avoid competing primarily on price. And that's huge for us. There's a lot of really big players down in the U.S. who can compete and will compete on price much more willingly than we will, and that's not the game that we want to be in, okay?

We are not in the business of trading off margin for volume. That's not what we want to do. And this is where sustainable meats can be huge for us here. And what's great about it is rather than chasing this commodity volume, we get to play in a premium differentiated segment that's growing faster than conventional meats and still command a really strong price premium, okay? And you can see that on here, about a 35% price premium for our Greenfield brand. And Greenfield brand really is our secret weapon here. It's a brand, as Adam talked about, that we built up essentially from nothing and is now the #1 brand in the categories in which we compete. We compete in 3 categories: bacon, ham and lunch kits, and we're #1 in all 3 of those categories. We have great products, and we have a suite of claims that are really hard for competitors to replicate, which gives us a significant competitive moat, and it leads to very strong brand perceptions, including consumers noting or believing that we are #1, ranking us #1 in terms of being made with antibiotics -- made without antibiotics and #1 in made with natural ingredients. Very, very strong consumer and brand perceptions.

And it's resulted, as you can see here, in a very strong track record of double-digit growth, including a 25% 5-year revenue CAGR between '20 and 2025. And you can see just some of the claims here, but it's something that we're very proud of. We're deeply passionate about the Greenfield brand, and it really is our secret weapon, as I said. And maybe most exciting for us and the team down there is we just see similar to the overall story around white space and growth potential in the U.S. business, we see significant growth opportunity for the Greenfield brand.

You can see here antibiotic-free meats, as I think Randy showed this as well, has a nice tailwind behind it, outperforming conventional meats, growing 11% just in the last year. And what we have in greenfield is a significant opportunity to expand along a number of different dimensions, okay? And I've highlighted some of those here, distribution expansion, velocity growth, product innovation, expanding into new categories. Remember, we're really only in 3 today. So lots of upside there in categories that are relevant in the world of sustainable meats where we don't even play yet today.

We have a secure source of supply, and we have capacity to make products that consumers care about. And we are actively in progress on building plans and pulling on these levers to make sure that we deliver the potential that we have in the Greenfield brand. And I'll just share one story kind of as a side example here. I had the opportunity last week to attend a very large food expo in California. And we were actually showcasing our Greenfield brand. And in particular, we were showcasing this item, which I think was also on one of Randy's slides, which is a new innovation in greenfield that we're calling protein kits. It's a very differentiated offering. It's gluten-free. It's high in protein. It's high in fiber, it's delicious and of course, carries with it all of the greenfield claims that are so important to us.

So we're showcasing this. And actually, the VP of Purchasing, the Head of Purchasing for a midsized national retailer, about 300 stores stopped by and saw the proposition and tasted it and immediately said, this is exactly what consumers are looking for, and this needs to be in every single one of our stores tomorrow, okay? It's a true story. And the moral of the story is when you have a great differentiated and compelling brand like we do and you pair that with products that are meaningful to consumers, and as Adam said, meet them where they are today, it practically sells itself. And in that case, actually, it did. So much more to come in the world of greenfield, but we have so much passion for this brand and so much belief in its growth potential going forward.

We also, as I mentioned at the start, we have some important strategic private label partnerships. For us in the U.S., we don't view private label as tactical. We view it as strategic. And the reason is because it doesn't just allow us to leverage our assets to fill capacity and do some of those things you might imagine, but it's also for us about building partnerships with the largest U.S. retailer. And we always lead, and this is important to note as well, with sustainable meats. We've built long-standing partnerships with really important retailers like Aldi and Kroger and Costco, but we always lead with sustainable meats. That's our priority. That's where our expertise and our source of supply can come together to help create not only a competitive advantage for us and a point of difference, but also help us with our strategic partners grow interest in the totality of the ABF category. It's still relatively underdeveloped. There's so much upside for the category itself to grow and for us to benefit along with that. And private label plays a role in helping us do that.

We do also selectively sell some conventional or non-ABF meats to large major customers like Costco and Aldi and Albertsons. But we only do that where we can deliver scale at margins that work for us. And the last thing I'd note here, and I think this is an important one, it's part of this idea of having a strategic partnership is we actually believe that they help enable branded growth for us. And the reason is, is because it gives us a seat at the table. We're trusted partners. We're not just some company from Canada coming down, trying to get our products on the shelf in the U.S. We're their partners. They know who we are. They know we're in it for the long haul and that we believe deeply in the sustainable meat space and that we can be the ones that help them grow just as they can be the ones that help us grow for the benefit of everyone, including the consumer and all of the shared value that Randy talked about. Okay.

Specific to plant protein, it's been a long journey for us. And I do think it's important for us to acknowledge where we're at in the journey. And I thought it would help just to kind of remind everyone where this -- where we've come from. Again, we acquired these brands back in 2017 and 2018. And at the time, they were both delivering strong growth, very attractive margins. That's where this business came from. We acquired a profitable asset. Then as I'm sure everyone remembers, there was a period of hyper growth from 2019 to about 2022, there was a large spike in consumer interest.

There was all kinds of activity going on in QSR, and we ramped up our investment accordingly because we wanted a share of that pie. And everyone knows, I think, sort of how that turned out, where the interest didn't really materialize the way that folks thought or it was there, but then it didn't persist. And so I think we took the prudent decision to say we're going to recalibrate our expectations for this category. We rightsized our investment, and we have now reached a level of, I think Curtis said in the earnings last week, we're at the point of a stable financial profile in this business, okay? It's not yet where we want it to be. And the message I would like you to take away today is that we have a clear path to achieving portfolio average margins in this business.

We still believe that plant protein is an important and highly incremental category, and it matters to consumers who are seeking sustainable proteins. okay? That's why we're still in this space. We believe it's an important part of our portfolio. We also have a leading platform. Like I said, we are now -- and this has happened over the -- I think we achieved this last year, actually became the #1 manufacturer in North American refrigerated plant protein. We're #1 in a number of categories. We've got strong brands that consumers care about, but it is important for us to maintain this journey that we've been on to restore this business to the margins that it deserves. And we do have, again, I'll say it again, a very clear path to get there, okay? There's some work to be done for sure. And that included a couple of things on the slide here.

We have to be disciplined in our revenue management. We have to secure the pricing that's required when it's required. We do have to return to volumetric growth, and we're starting to see good signs of that. It has to be driven by the consumer meeting them where they're at, what they're looking for. It's not the same thing that they might have been looking for in 2019 or 2018 when plant protein started to take off. And we do have to optimize our network and make sure that we have the right cost profile for this business and where it's at today to ensure that we're delivering those margins. Part of that is SKU complexity and so on and so forth. But it's a playbook that I think you can imagine what it might look like. And we have this well defined, and we're very committed to figuring it out. Okay?

So for us, and I don't have a whole lot more to cover, but we -- it's really clear we have 2 important goals when it comes to broadening our impact, specifically when we think about expanding into the U.S. We have to drive double-digit growth in our meat protein business, led by sustainable meats and in particular, led by the significant growth opportunity we have on our Greenfield brand. And number two, we have to achieve portfolio average margins in our Plant Protein business. Those are our 2 goals. And when we do that, we will have -- the U.S. will have been a significant part of achieving our 2030 targets of $5 billion in revenue and about $750 million in adjusted EBITDA.

So just in summary, hopefully, I've done a good job today of bringing to life why I'm so optimistic about the U.S. potential and the U.S. growth opportunity. If you were -- I was thinking about this as I was preparing for Investor Day, if you were starting a new CPG company, you would -- from scratch, you would aspire to achieve all of the things that we have already achieved, okay, in the U.S. You would want strong brands that matter to consumers and to customers. You would want a U.S. headquarters and a team that is focused on winning every day, day in and day out in the U.S. You'd want distribution in the largest retailers in the U.S. and strong strategic -- you'd want A&P investment to build your brand and make sure that consumers love it as much as you do. And you'd want a national distribution network that allows you to be present anywhere where customers and consumers are looking for you.

We have done the hard work. And our focus now turns to accelerating growth based primarily not on new capital investments or new acquisitions or anything like that, but primarily based on winning with the customers we already have with brands we have already established. That is the opportunity that's in front of us, okay? We've done the hard work. We have a strong point of difference in sustainable meats. We have a leading brand that resonates with consumers and customers. We can use this platform to scale profitably because of the scale that the U.S. provides without capital. And we have rightsized our investment in plant protein. We're clear-eyed about what that category means for us going forward, and we have a clear path to achieve portfolio average margins in that business.

Our plans and goals are clear. We have an awesome, awesome team in the U.S. that comes in every day fired up, committed to delivering on these 2 goals, double-digit growth in meat protein, led by sustainable meats and returning to portfolio average margins in plant protein. And our commitment to you and to everyone is to ensure that we deliver on those goals. So thank you for your time. The pizza is good down there, by the way, if you ever come visit me in Chicago. And I'd like to thank you again for your time for joining us today.

And with that, I'd like to welcome to our stage, everyone's favorite Chief Supply Chain Officer, Mike Yang.

Good morning. My name is Mike Yang. And over the past year, I've had the privilege to lead the supply chain organization at Maple Leaf Foods. I came with about 30 years of operations in consumer packaged goods. So for an old ops guy, there's really nothing less comfortable for me to be on stage today and speaking at an Investor Day. But I am very happy to share with you what I've seen over this past year, the great assets and the people that I've inherited. And it's really running well with opportunities to be even better. And now with the plans that we have progressed to enable profitable growth and further structural cost improvements.

At this point, the transformation is complete. I think you've heard that in our presentations so far today. And over the last 20 years, we've invested over $2 billion to modernize, consolidate and scale our manufacturing and distribution network. That capital has fundamentally reshaped our cost structure and expanded our margin profile. Today, that phase of transformation is behind us, and we're realizing the benefits. Just to dive into that a little deeper, over the last 2 decades, we've consolidated 14 manufacturing sites into 4 large-scale centers of excellence. We've streamlined our distribution network from 19 locations to 2 scaled national hubs in Canada.

We built modern automated facilities in Hamilton and London and expanded Walker into our further process poultry center of excellence. These are not incremental upgrades. They were structured decisions that fundamentally reshaped the business, improving agility, enhancing reliability and increasing profitability. As a result, we've expanded structural adjusted EBITDA margins from the low single digits to over 12% in this past year. The investments are working. You can see where we are today.

Our network spans coast to coast. It's designed for purpose with scaled centers of excellence, supported by specialized satellite sites. This network has the capacity and capability to support our 2030 growth plans. This infrastructure is now built. The opportunity is now to optimize productivity and utilization. Very proud of the operation I've inherited.

OE over the last couple of years has improved by 10 points. Fill rates are at world-class levels now. Safety incidents are down 95%. Quality complaints have declined 85% and all of our facilities are GFSI certified. These metrics represent a mature and stable operating system. Just to dive in a little deeper, these images are of our Heritage facility in Hamilton. This is a great example of how we're embedding technology and automation into our business to drive productivity.

Robotics and automation systems improve precision and labor productivity. Data analytics and AI enhance agility and decision-making. These are targeted investments that we have made with clear productivity returns. What I'll share with you in the next couple of pages is how we're going to be rapidly scaling this across all of our network. Another cool example is London Poultry. This is how we're delivering the investments made here.

660,000 square foot next-generation facility consolidated 4 legacy plants into 1, high-efficiency site. That has already contributed over $100 million in incremental annual adjusted EBITDA. Throughput has increased 1.8x. Higher-margin air-hieed supply has increased or 26%. London is just a great example of what a COE is designed to be. Today, our network delivers scale where it matters, capacity for growth to support our plans. built-in reliability. It makes us a stable, reliable supplier with a foundation of operational excellence. We have meaningful scale and structural cost advantage. It's a great place to start, but there are so many opportunities to go further. Even with the great assets and teams that I've inherited, I see significant room to be even better.

As I've spent the past year getting to know this great operation, I prioritized 5 areas where we could be even better. OE improvements. We're -- this is an area where we're just shifting our expectations of what great could be, right, and being even tougher on ourselves. Capacity utilization, a good example of this, as Casey just talked about, is our plant protein network. We're relentlessly pursuing waste elimination. It's good for business. And as I talked about earlier, it's great for the environment. All of this yielding in labor productivity and overhead optimization.

To do this, we're mobilized in 2 ways: our continuous productivity mindset, which is an embedded discipline that offsets inflation and drives operational leverage every year. And then our new Fuel for Growth program. It's a structured program designed to deliver step change structural cost transformation. One program sustains performance, the other one accelerates it. Together, they underpin our plans to achieve some of the $150 million in earnings. In the Maple Leaf DNA is a discipline to improve, and we are leaning in on this. A couple of examples I want to dive into.

Supplier Advantage is a program where we unlock structural savings through procurement excellence. Zero-based budgeting, we do this every year. The discipline to rigorously reallocate funding to the highest priority returns. continuous improvement, we drive sustained operational productivity across the network. The imperative of this program is to protect margin against inflation and be better every single year. And this is showing up in our results. In 2025, this disciplined approach translated into measurable financial impact. The supplier advantage program in procurement in the procurement group delivered on 82 projects. We executed 97 continuous improvement projects in our manufacturing network.

Zero-based budgeting prioritized the highest funding allocations in our annual plan. These actions supported more than $80 million of adjusted EBITDA improvements in 2025. More importantly, they demonstrate the durability of our model. Offsetting inflation, expanding margins, improving SG&A efficiency and our returns. It's our discipline to improve.

Now going forward, our Fuel for Growth program that complements that is to accelerate our structural cost transformation. This initiative focuses on a couple of things. Operational excellence, the Maple Leaf Way is to drive this continuous improvement mindset deeper and deeper into our operations, standardizing the way we operate and eliminate waste on a daily basis on the shop floor. Now this one, I have a real passion about. This is about leveraging the 9,600 people that Curtis talked about to be thinking this way every day, but also to empower them with the tools and the expectation for them to affect change in their workplace.

Technology automation and AI, we're going bigger and faster with this. I'm going to talk about that in a little bit and share an example, but this is where we're scaling up known technologies across our fleet of facilities. Network optimization, it's building on our COE model to further drive scale and cost efficiency and the standardized plant structures supports operational excellence in Maple Leaf way with standard ways of working, taking the best of our high-performing sites and scaling that across all locations. This is a disciplined road map to reduce structural cost and unlock further productivity.

Our road map spans over the next couple of years. In this past year, we already began. We standardized plant structures. We rationalized our SG&A and we closed one of our older facilities. These financial contributions are already in our '25 results. This year, we're rapidly advancing automation, operational excellence and network optimization. By ' 27 and beyond, we expect network-wide operational excellence benefits and scaled returns from automation investments and network optimization. This road map, again, supports our company goal of $750 million in adjusted EBITDA by 2030 on $5 billion of sales. There's a clear line of sight here with our road map to our financial results. Just diving into our work in automation a little bit.

We currently have prioritized or 29 high-return technology automation and AI projects in the pipeline. We have built dedicated cross-functional teams to mobilize and execute this road map. This transformation built the platform we have today, execution now is delivering the returns. That's a picture of a collaboration robot. Unlike the traditional robots that have to be separated from operator interactions, this is designed to work side-by-side safely with our people. This first one was built in Walker.

I was just in our technology center last week. So for a guy that started his career in engineering, this is like my dream right? So there last week, I got to see our first off-the-line robot that's fully commissioned, integrated into our process and operators trained. So this one is being unpacked this week, shipped to heritage to be installed over a weekend started up. That's how rapidly we're turning this. In boxes ready to be built are 7 more robots at the shop. And we have ambitions to do even more faster and at a larger scale.

So this year has -- for me has been just phenomenal. I've gotten to know this amazing operation that I've inherited. The best part is that there are so many opportunities yet ahead of us to take our performance to another level. The plan is now in place and it's being executed. I couldn't be more excited about the future of Maple Leaf supply chain, and I have an incredible team to lead it. Thank you.

And now I want to invite David Smales, our CFO, to the stage.

Thanks, Mike, and good morning, everybody. I'd like to say best for last, but the reality is nobody else wanted to be between you guys and food. So you stuck with me. So for those that don't know me, I'm David Smales, Maple Leaf CFO for just over 2 years now. And I have 19 years of experience as a public company CFO for my sins. And when I joined Maple Leaf just over 2 years ago, I was very much of the belief that I was joining a really important inflection point for the business. And the progress we've seen over the last few years really validates that view in my opinion. So I'm really pleased we're here today to lay that out for you. So the leadership team this morning have talked to each of the elements of the Maple Leaf blueprint.

My goal today is to translate this strategy into the financial expression of what this means for our business and for our stakeholders and why we're so confident in the 5-year financial targets that we've set out this morning. So let me begin with the 5 overriding messages that frame our financial outlook. As you've heard already this morning from Curtis, and I'll reinforce through my presentation, our strategy and trajectory is building on a track record of strong financial performance. We have the platform in place to drive ongoing success as a protein-focused branded CPG business.

We have a proven operating plan that enables us to execute a clear and disciplined strategy to drive growth, margin expansion and strong free cash flow. And it's all underpinned by a strong and flexible balance sheet that provides the ability to allocate capital to drive value creation. Everything we've covered so far today gives us full confidence in delivering our 5-year targets. And everything I'll cover will look to connect performance, strategy and capital allocation into a cohesive long-term value creation framework.

So let me start with performance. From 2021, revenue has grown at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 5%, capped by an impressive almost 8% growth rate in 2025. Margins over the same period have more than doubled. In combination with revenue growth, this has delivered adjusted EBITDA compound growth of 25% over that period. So I don't think anybody should be left thinking that our targets over the next 5 years as some kind of unrealistic hockey stick view of the world. They're building on a demonstrated track record of execution. This growth at the same time as our CapEx has normalized has returned our balance sheet to being a significant source of strength for the business going forward. And while we've been returning capital throughout this period, 2025 marked an important inflection point with a 90% year-over-year increase from 2024.

All of this reflects structural improvements to our business model, better revenue mix and more efficient operations, higher quality earnings and strong cash conversion, all combined with a disciplined approach to capital investment for the long term. So today's portfolio reflects a stable and high-quality model with market-leading positions in the most attractive space in food, protein. The Canada Packers spin-off in 2025 was transformational. It sharpened our identity as a CPG business, reducing commodity exposure and significantly improving annual earnings stability.

I want to take a second here just to point out that the use of the word annual there is quite deliberate. Can we see quarter-to-quarter impacts from changes in input costs? Absolutely. Any CPG business would see the same, and we're not immune from that. But versus what underlying commodity businesses would experience, there are 2 important distinctions. First, that level of impact is relatively muted. And in that context, what we saw in Q3 '25, in our view, would be at the more extreme end of the scale when it comes to those impacts. And secondly, because of our brand strength and revenue management discipline, those impacts are relatively short-lived. We get to recover that in a quarter or 2.

So today, we operate with market-leading brands, world-class assets, and we're a leader in sustainability, which is an important differentiator and competitive advantage, all underpinned by the ability to use our balance sheet to further invest in growth and efficiency to accelerate sustainable profitable growth from a structurally strong base. So building on this base, we have a clear view of our value creation framework. As Curtis covered this morning, the first element is scaling the core through proven growth platforms, targeting continued mid-single-digit revenue growth on average over time.

Secondly, expanding structural margins, leading to profit growth at roughly twice the rate of revenue growth through the benefits of mix, productivity and structural cost reduction. And third, we'll be deliberate and disciplined in our approach to capital allocation, prioritizing long-term shareholder value. This balanced framework is underpinned by both our track record of performance and how we'll continue to bring the strategic blueprint to life, as you've heard already today from my colleagues.

So let me reiterate how that algorithm ladders up to our 2030 targets. By 2030, we expect to be operating at approximately $5 billion in revenue, $750 million of adjusted EBITDA and through the 5-year period, generating $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion of cumulative free cash flow, all while continuing to maintain an investment-grade balance sheet. And I'll talk to each of these areas in turn. First is a reminder of what underpins our confidence in continuing to deliver strong revenue growth through the 5 proven platforms, as you've heard about earlier this morning. This aligns with our track record of mid-single-digit growth in recent years and positions us to deliver approximately $5 billion in revenue in 2030.

Turning to growth in profitability and free cash flow. We expect adjusted EBITDA growth to be approximately double the rate of revenue growth through a combination of top line expansion and margin expansion. Through profitable growth and disciplined maintenance capital and working capital management, we expect to generate $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion of free cash flow. Important to note, this will scale in line with profit growth over the period, but provides tremendous flexibility to maximize returns through capital allocation.

So there are 4 key levers to drive this, supported by focused strategies in each area. First, mid-single-digit revenue growth, obviously, an important driver of overall profit growth, underpinned by the 5 platforms we've already noted. Secondly, improved commercial mix, building on our track record of scaling accretive growth, driving mix through marketing effectiveness and leveraging the strength of our brands and maximizing returns on our promotional investments through disciplined revenue management. And then as Mike has just described, execution of our productivity playbook, zero-based budgeting, supplier advantage in procurement programs and a continuous improvement mindset, all designed to offset inflation, drive operating efficiencies and create operating leverage.

And finally, our Fuel for Growth program, which is designed to deliver step change improvements in structural cost, as Mike talked to, as well as restoring plant proteins to an appropriate level. These areas all play to our strengths and are embedded in the disciplines of how we run the business today. The takeaway is that our growth expectations are built on clear proven capabilities and strength supplemented by a Fuel for Growth program already benefiting the business today and only expected to accelerate going forward. This is a diversified earnings build supported by multiple complementary levers.

So turning to capital allocation. Given the flexibility our performance and balance sheet affords us in deploying capital, here's how we think about that framework going forward. First, investing in growth and margin expansion initiatives, Fuel for Growth obviously being an important element within that. But to be clear, the days of large-scale multi-hundred million dollar investments in new facilities are behind us. Second, we're committed to consistency of approach to our annual dividend, which provides discipline around a regular and growing base level of return of capital to shareholders.

Third, we're committed to maintaining a strong balance sheet. With a target of less than 3x leverage, it means we have some ability to flex up from where we are today, but preserving flexibility and investment-grade leverage level gives us is absolutely paramount. We'll look to add to the strong platform we've built through strategic bolt-on M&A. This will be additive to our 2030 targets, and I'll come on to the framework for assessing the right opportunities. And we very much believe that 2025 marks an important inflection point in our ability to return excess capital at a minimum through anti-dilutive share repurchases and opportunistically through additional share buybacks and/or special dividends as appropriate.

A lot of hard work has gone into putting Maple Leaf in a position to meet all of these objectives, and we intend to be very deliberate and disciplined in our approach, always with the goal of maximizing long-term shareholder value. So when it comes to the annual dividend, this slide is probably familiar to many of you. And I think it reinforces just how committed we've been to growing the annual dividend through various cycles. Based on this track record, we're a proud member of the Dividend Aristocrat Index, and we intend to remain so. I think it's fair to say the annual dividend is absolutely core to Maple Leaf's approach to total shareholder return. And these capital allocation priorities are aligned to maintaining our leverage below 3x.

We're now operating from a position of strength and maintaining investment-grade metrics is foundational to our strategy. And while we see M&A as an important strategic accelerant over the coming years, we intend to be very selective. We'll only pursue targets that meet our strategic and financial framework. And size-wise, it's important to know we're not hunting elephants. Transformational once-in-a-generation opportunities can arise, and we should rightly look at them, but that's not where we're spending our time and energy today. We're squarely focused on bolt-on sized opportunities that fit with our strategic blueprint and meet our financial objectives.

I think best summarized as opportunities to strengthen the core and enhance near-term returns. And as we look towards 2030, I think it's important not to forget that the 2026 outlook puts us firmly on track towards our longer-term targets. Our 2026 expectations deliver mid-single-digit revenue growth, adjusted EBITDA of $520 million to $540 million, representing growth of 9% to 13% versus 2025 and an approximately 10% increase in the annual dividend that we've already announced for the year ahead. And obviously, all underpinned by maintaining the same longer-term balance sheet objective. 2026 represents another strong step forward on the trajectory we've been on and that we intend to maintain.

So let me close where I began. We're building on a strong track record of performance. We're positioned with a platform for continued success, and we're executing on a clear and disciplined strategy. We have a strong and flexible balance sheet supporting value-accretive capital allocation, and we're confident in and fully committed to our 2030 targets. We've completed the heavy capital cycle and the benefits are already showing up in our results. And we're now positioned to grow earnings, cash flow and shareholder returns over the long term.

And with that, I'll turn it back to Curtis to wrap this up before we go into Q&A.

Okay. Just one simple slide for me. I know we're between you and lunch. I said at the onset that today would offer a great opportunity for you to engage with our strategy, with our people and with our food. I know some of you got to do that at the break because I was able to talk to you about some of our products, which I'm quite proud of. And of course, you get to do that over the lunch break as well, which I'm really excited about. There are 5 items that I started with. I know there's been a lot of material today that I would like to close with. And that is, number one, the $2 billion transformation of Maple Leaf Foods into a purpose-driven protein-focused and brand-led CPG is complete.

We now operate from a position of structural competitive advantage with a clear blueprint for growth for margin expansion and for generating free cash flow in the future. We've got a very disciplined capital allocation framework, which David just walked you through. And we continue to see a value-creating opportunity within the company in terms of how we're positioned from a performance perspective.

So with that, I think the time has come to move to Q&A, and then we look forward to having more time to engage with our management team and our food over a nice lunch break before you depart for the day. So Omar, I think over to you to facilitate the Q&A discussion.

Thanks, Curtis and the broader team for the presentations this morning. We'll now move into Q&A portion of the program. We have about 30 minutes for questions today. To ensure that we have enough time to hear from as many participants as possible, we'll begin with questions from folks in the room, and then we'll move to those joining us virtually. [Operator Instructions]

With that, I'll request the presenters to come back on stage, and we can get started in that with questions. So just give us a minute. So if you raise your hands, let's go with Mike from TD. I just said your name and your firm, but you can do that again.

This is Mike from TD. So thanks for the presentation. I wanted to, I guess, dig into the margins a little bit because your 2030 target implies 15% EBITDA margin, not consistent with what you've said in the past about where you think your potential is. But can you give us an idea of where you think your structural margins are now because we've seen them over 13% in the first half of the year, they've fallen a bit because of the input costs. Where do you think your structural margins are now? And when you look at the main, I guess, buckets of contributors towards that path to 15% that you mentioned during your presentation, can you just rank those in terms of the order of importance?

I'll let Dave follow up, Mike. But I think a good way to look at the margin profile in the business today, we were, to your point, in the kind of the front half of 2025, running in around 12.8%, 13% in the couple of quarters of the year. We faced a lot of inflation in the back part of the year that came on pretty quickly, impacted Q3 in particular, where our margin profile was maybe around 11.1%, started to see some level of recovery, which we announced last week in Q4. And I think pivoted as quickly as we could to put the pricing in place that we needed to, to get to a full recovery for the first part of 2026. We expect to see that in partial recovery in the first quarter, just given the timing of the pricing.

Our 2026 outlook is probably the best proxy for where we see the structural margins today. That's an outlook that provides for mid-single-digit revenue growth, not unlike what you've seen today for our 2030 ambition and also $520 million to $540 million of adjusted EBITDA. So if you take those 2 things in context, I think that's probably the best proxy we could give you that's forward-looking for 2026 in terms of an outlook for where we see the margin today. 2030 does imply roughly in that range.

But I think it's important to note that we're migrating to a position more of $750 million approximately, $5 billion in revenue, less of a kind of a quarter-to-quarter margin target and more of a progressive build given the momentum that we have in the business today. And I think that's reflective of the plans that you saw from the balance of the speakers today. Dave, anything you'd add or?

No, I think that covers it other than, I mean, obviously, there's -- we've laid out a number of building blocks to get from where we are today to where we see 2030. And so whether that's coming from mix, operational efficiency, structural cost improvement through Fuel for Growth, we're confident there's multiple levers there that will move that margin forward. We haven't broken it down into specific basis points against each one, but there's more than enough building blocks to drive us to where we think we'll be in 2030.

Martin Landry from Stifel. Maybe the question would be for Casey. The expansion in the U.S. is very compelling when you look at it. I'd love to have a little bit of perspective on the historical growth versus where you're heading. You're quoting, I think, 15 SKUs right now on average at retailers. Where was that 5 years ago? How did it evolve? And what's your goal for the next 5 years?

Take that one, Casey, maybe talk about the revenue growth CAGR that we've experienced over the last decade or so in the U.S. and kind of how you're thinking about it looking forward?

Yes. So as I showed on the slide, we're at about 20% or so from a revenue CAGR perspective. One of the things that's important to note is we're seeing an increasing mix of branded growth relative to private label. We started sort of early on in the day with some private label beachheads and have since then really started to accelerate growth on our greenfield to the point where last year, in 2025, I think we had the best year we've ever had on our Greenfield brand.

So that's where the real opportunity to start increasing item on shelves come from is brand strength. And we already saw -- we actually increased our items on shelf in 2025 on the Greenfield brand, and we expect to continue to do so with great innovations like the protein kit that I shared today. And all of that is factored into our piece of the puzzle as we work towards the 2030 targets.

Yes. I think what's -- I totally agree. I think what's also important in the context of what we shared today is we've got a multiyear trajectory in the United States of growing at double digits, and we just intend to do the same in the future. And given where we're at, Casey said today, the hardest work is behind us, really hard to go from 0 to 14 items as a Canadian manufacturing and consumer packaged goods company entering the United States.

Once you've done that, taking those 14 items, I think that was the point Casey was trying to illustrate today and building them into more, it's never easy, but it's easier than getting to the first 14. And I think that gives us a lot of energy and excitement about the future that the U.S. holds for us.

Vishal, National Bank. Thank you for your targets. Obviously, very strong in the context of what your peers are aiming for or have -- but the world is more volatile. And I was wondering, as you look at your plan and you've articulated some of the items there, and I'm looking at -- I'm seeing some of the things probably more in your control, such as network optimization, you'll probably have a good sense of what that can deliver. And some of the things a little bit more difficult to narrow down in terms of the contribution, like mix or new product introductions.

So as you look at your plan and you try to evaluate where could I possibly be wrong? And if we aren't able to achieve this, why will we not be able to achieve it? And I ask that in the context of an investor group who would probably have to ask themselves the same question as they look at Maple Leaf for an investment. So I want to see when you reflected on that question, where do you think the biggest sources of potential missteps?

Yes. We -- that was a hotly debated topic when we set our targets, as you can imagine, it would be, and I think appropriately, given the context you provided. I mean, if you look back 5 years ago, we don't have a crystal ball. We probably wouldn't have predicted a global pandemic and some of the war situations that we're experiencing that have impacted global commodities. So it's hard to know exactly what the next 5 years will hold. The one thing that I would point out is our targets are not just reflective of what we hope to deliver relative to our competitive peers, but what we're delivering I mean we're delivering outsized performance.

We try to demonstrate that. And we have a high level of confidence and conviction that we'll do so in the future. We don't know exactly what we might face the last 5 years is context for the next 5, but we're very happy with how the business is performing today in the context of all of that change that we've seen. And I think we've got the quality of the people here on the stage seated here today that are agile, resilient and adaptable enough to be able to deal with the things that come at us, whatever they might be.

Dave, anything that's top of mind for you in terms of the most relevant risk that we might face?

No. I mean I think you just nailed it at the end there where we've already been dealing with a ton of volatility, a weaker consumer environment over the last 5 years. And I think the features that the team talked to today we work with that. We work in that environment. We adapt our plans. We adapt our marketing strategies. We adapt our operating plans to meet the environment that we're operating in at any point in time. And that's why it's important to have the range of brands we have today that can play in different segments of the market and appeal to consumers at different points in the value chain.

So we're confident we can adapt as the market adapts. The key is to be out ahead of it and to be leading and to build on the strengths we have. So we're fairly comfortable that we can create value regardless of the environment we're operating in, in the last 5 years is what underpins our confidence.

Irene Nattel, RBC Capital Markets. Looking ahead over the next 5 years in terms of capital allocation and balance sheet, you mentioned no big chunky plant building in M&A, you referred to it as bolt-on. And you said -- but yet leverage is at 2x -- just over 2x. Now you're saying below 3, which means you're giving yourself some wiggle room there to do -- to spend more capital. So can you walk us through what is reasonable to expect in terms of capital allocation, whether it's network optimization or whatever it is, but also in thinking about and AI, where you might have some chunkier expenditures required that are going to go through the P&L?

Yes. Dave, I'll turn that one over to you. Great question, Irene. I mean, at the end of the day, our capital is a little higher this year in terms of what we guided to for 2026 than it was in 2025. Some of that's a little bit of a catch-up in and I think we're $160 million to $180 million for 2026. Some of that's a little bit of a catch-up from a deferred maintenance perspective, but there are also investments in there that Mike started to talk about earlier today in his presentation materials with respect to technology and automation and the cobot examples that were shared.

So we are going to see some of those investments materialize over the next few years. They're not as chunky as what we've seen in the past, to your point. But Dave, maybe give a little bit of context for how the outlook for 2026 in terms of capital compares to the out years.

Yes. I think it's -- the way we think about it over the period is the 2026 guidance is probably pretty indicative of what we expect to see over that period. Maybe a little less on the maintenance CapEx side, a little more in terms of investments. And there'll be certain years where it's a little higher and other years where it's a little lower. But in the round, it's 2026 is probably a reasonable proxy to think about that going forward. I talked about using the NCIB to at a minimum offset dilution. We saw dilution, as an example, in 2025 of just over 1 million shares. And that's from a combination of the DRIP that we have on the dividend as well as exercising a share option.

So that's a good way to think about how much dilution we would expect to see in any given year that will form the minimum basis for the NCIB. And over and above that, we'll look at the balance based on timing of M&A opportunities and how that fits with maintaining less than 3x leverage. So the balance between opportunistically returning capital and M&A will depend on the timing of when those opportunities arise. But if you're thinking about capital investments and use of the NCIB to offset dilution, that would be the right parameters to think about it.

Luke Hannan, Canaccord Genuity. I wanted to follow up on the topic of M&A. David, you mentioned that's one of the criteria that you're looking at is potentially being able to extend into adjacencies within protein. So I'm just curious to know what exactly that could entail? And then secondarily, you talked about meeting certain return thresholds. Are we just thinking coming in above the cost of capital? Or is there some higher hurdle rate that you're looking to target with that?

Yes. So I think in terms of protein adjacencies, obviously, today, as we look at the landscape and how it's evolving, I think there are opportunities within protein, dips, Hummer spread, for example, we don't -- but I wouldn't expect that to be kind of an immediate focus and priority. We're looking to be very much true to the core categories we're in today where we see white space, whether that's geographically, the U.S. will be a big focus, for example. But over time, building out and rounding out the overall protein portfolio will be something we look at.

In terms of the second part of your question, just remind me Yes, the return threshold. So I think as we look at M&A, I laid out the financial criteria today, certainly accretive with a clear path to synergy realization through revenue and cost structuring. So I would think we would expect it to be higher than normal kind of return on capital returns. I'm not going to give specific numbers, but we certainly have expectations that we'll be able to deliver over and above our weighted average cost of capital and a normal level of return.

[Operator Instructions] Let's go to John.

John Zamparo, Scotiabank. I wanted to come back to the margin target. It seems this partly depends on an improved commercial mix. And I wonder what strategies or abilities you have to influence the broader picture of food consumption at home versus food away from home. Is this primarily marketing or advertising, I'm assuming that innovation is part of the plan. If you could talk a bit more about that, please.

Yes, Adam, maybe you could talk a little bit about the kind of the consumer environment and some of our plans in that area. I mean we like the way the combination of the -- we didn't give a specific margin target to be clear. We gave an outlook for 2030 at about $750 million of adjusted EBITDA. What we really like is how the 5 core growth strategies that we have are acting in concert with in any given quarter or any given year, leadership in sustainable meats, what we're doing, we saw from Adam in building love brands, the innovation profile that we've put in the market, expanding our reach, as you saw from Casey today in the U.S. and the work we're doing to support and align to our customer strategy.

So those things in concert have been very effective at growing the revenue, and they're growing the revenue in a profitable way, which you see in our margins how they're shining through in the last year. Adam, maybe give some further context on just kind of the consumer environment and some of our plans in that area.

Yes. I think it's important -- you hit on -- I would have said yes, yes and yes, would have been the answer to the question because it's a series of a number of things. I mean I think it's important to just remember, we do operate in the premium end of value categories. Right now, with protein and the drive for protein, super expensive for the consumer. And we're obviously offering a breadth of items and offerings that are hit across all the price spectrums. So innovation is certainly important. Certain categories within our portfolio, we were definitely doubling down on to sort of trade consumers up where we can, particularly in sustainable meats.

And then the one thing I didn't -- I was reflecting a little bit, I didn't really get at this in our -- in my edge of the presentation is we're really using a lot of data and analytics around revenue management and really optimizing our promotional mix to -- consumer is obviously very focused right now on value and getting offers right and managing your margins through while you do that, super, super important. And we've really developed that capability as a bit of a strength for our organization. So it is a combination of everything that you just mentioned, and I feel pretty confident that even if one is not as successful as another, our -- we've got it covered.

Okay. And then I wanted to come back to the leverage topic. You're well below the number now. That's encouraging to hear you don't have large-scale CapEx projects in place. So can we interpret that as you intend to return most, if not all, free cash flow to shareholders?

Yes. So I think the first point is we're in the awesome position of having the flexibility to return capital. We've worked hard to get into that position. So we have capital to deploy, and that will be a combination of M&A and returning capital to shareholders. We believe we have the flexibility to do both. And over the 5-year period, expect to be returning significant amounts of capital to shareholders. That's -- if we deliver on this plan with the balance sheet we have today and the targets we've set in terms of leverage, then that will be an important and growing feature of cash deployment over the next 5 years.

Mark Petrie with CIBC. I have 2 questions. Maybe first for Casey. Just in terms of the growth drivers, I would imagine this is also a yes, yes and yes answer. But maybe just rank order sort of the SKU expansion, distribution expansion and then velocity in terms of your important -- the importance of delivering the U.S. growth.

So I -- just to rank them, I talked about velocity last, not because velocity is not important, but because we actually feel really pretty good about where we're at with our velocities. We're by far in bacon, for example, we have the #1 and #2 items in the entire ABF category and not only that, but we have a better velocities than our competition. So Greenfield performs really generally well where it's at. So I would probably rank that last.

Second -- I'll jump to First now, and I would say for that, it is really gaining distribution where we're already at. We have presence in all of these national retailers. In some cases, we have national distribution like on our bacon at Kroger, we have national distribution. On Walmart, we don't. So just going from the number of stores that we have today at Walmart, for example, to national distribution at Walmart would represent tremendous upside for us. So that's one of our strong pushes, and that's where these direct selling relationships as well as strong velocities and A&P investment and things like that can really help and some line extensions and innovations like the that we saw today.

We play -- we're #1 in kids. How can we strengthen that? Then in between those 2 is category expansion. There's a number of categories, as I mentioned, we really only play in 3 today. There's a number that are material, sausages being one, deli being another, for example, where we have capabilities and know-how to make really great products. And that just hasn't been so far a priority for us as we've worked to build that up. But now we're turning our attention to making sure that we're present in all of these categories eventually where it matters. So that's, I think, how I'd rank them.

First, just growing where we're already at, expanding into categories where we can compete effectively in sustainable meats. And third, driving velocities, but more than anything, ensuring that we maintain strong velocities just like we have today.

Okay. And then a second question, just sort of a bigger picture question. I think it's fair to say that in retail, scale is increasingly important. And I'm curious just how you think about that in the CPG business because sometimes you're seeing consolidation, sometimes you're seeing sort of spinouts. And I'm wondering, obviously, you're striking a balance of innovation, but also leveraging the core. I'm just curious sort of how you think about the sort of counterbalance of leveraging scale but also being innovative and if you're striking the right today?

Yes. We -- it's an excellent question. We talk often about the role of agility in the company, particularly now that these big structural investments have been made. We obviously like the -- as you heard from Mike earlier, the way the network is comprised today, world-class assets, scale benefits that come with 6 centers of excellence within the portfolio. So there's clearly scale benefits within the company. I think that's a strength. But for us to maximize the benefit that comes from those centers of excellence, we have to be agile.

The places that we're really focused in on are things like Adam talked about, where we've scaled up. We've incubated and scaled up brands just like a start-up company would Mark in things like Musafir or Mighty Protein or even going back sometime Maple Natural Selection. So I think some combination of agility while leveraging our scale and core assets for cost competitiveness and driving margin over time is important to us. And then you also heard from Mike that we've got opportunities beyond where we are today to drive more scale advantage in our manufacturing network. We still have a network of satellite sites as some of them don't have the capacity utilization levels that we're satisfied with.

So growing into those assets or finding different ways to optimize the value of that footprint is top of mind for us. Those type of benefits probably you should be thinking about in our Fuel for Growth platform more as '27, '28, '29 type items. But the point is we see a long-term framework for leveraging those assets and probably getting more effectiveness and efficiency out of them in the future, which will be obviously to the company's benefit.

We probably only have time for probably one more question. So if anybody has any more questions in the room? There are no questions online. Okay.

It's George Doumet from Bantam. A quick question on the protein segment -- sorry, the plant-based segment. How should we think about the margin ramp there? And maybe talk a little bit about that over time? Is it linear? Is there a step change expected? Is it back half weighted and some of the milestones there?

Well, if I've learned anything in life, nothing is ever linear. So I don't think it's going to be perfectly linear. I mean we -- Casey told the story, I think, of plant protein quite well and effectively today. We acquired 2 assets. They're great brands. They're market-leading brands. They were growing handsomely when we acquired them. They were profitable when we acquired them, category went through a lot of churn and change, and I think we've reached some level of stability. And we had committed at one point of time after some pretty significant investments in the plant protein business that we would get to breakeven profitability.

Truthfully, the business is operating just shy of that level today, just shy of that. I see that today, George, is more of an opportunity than a problem. I see that very clear eyed as an opportunity. Embedded in our 2030 targets that you saw today is that opportunity coming to fruition. There is no reason why that business, plant protein can't earn the same type of margins we earn in the rest of the company and very confident it will. Casey outlined a very clear playbook to making that happen over the next few years. I don't think that will be linear.

The most important work has been done structurally around rightsizing the SG&A and the advertising and promotion and making the pivot to where we are today to get structural stability, if you will, in the plant protein business. The next thing that comes is some pricing. We've advanced some pricing earlier this year. So that will be additive and helpful. And I think we have some great marketing plans to get some level of growth of the normative CPG levels of growth of the plant protein business is kind of what we're aiming for and looking for in the future. And then a big part of our capacity utilization and optimization plans in the future includes obviously putting those assets today that are underworked in plant protein to work harder for us in the future.

So there's a clear path one, I think we -- be fair to say we're very confident in, but it will play out in that from today to the 2030 window.

Great. I think this concludes the formal portion of our Investor Day. I invite everybody to please join us for lunch outside where you'll find some pretty delicious food prepared by a fantastic culinary team. And if there are any further follow-up questions, please feel free to reach out to the Investor Relations team we'll get them answered for you. Thank you, everyone, for your continued support and interest in Maple Leaf Foods, and thank you for coming today.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Maple Leaf Foods Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Omar Javed, Vice President of Investor Relations at Maple Leaf Foods. Please go ahead, Mr. Javed

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that statements made on today's call may constitute forward-looking information, and our future results may differ materially from what we discuss. Please refer to our fourth quarter and full year 2025 MD&A and financial statements and other information on our website for a broader description of operations and risk factors that could affect the company's performance. We've also uploaded our fourth quarter and full year 2025 investor presentation to our website. As always, the Investor Relations team will be available after the call for any follow-up questions you may have. With that, I'll turn the call over to our President and CEO, Curtis Frank.

Okay. Thank you, Omar, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for being with us here on our call today. Joining me this morning is our Chief Financial Officer, David Smales. After my opening remarks, Dave will walk through our financial results in a bit more detail. And then I'll come back to close the call. And of course, we will open the line to your questions. Before we begin, I want to take a moment to express my gratitude to all of our stakeholders for their continued support throughout our transformational journey. I also want to thank and acknowledge the Maple Leaf team for their dedication to delivering on our strategic blueprint with nothing short of excellence.

The headline for today is that we have reached a clear inflection point. The heavy investment phase is behind us. We are now firmly in a delivery and return phase where our team is executing with focus, with discipline and with care. We delivered a strong fourth quarter that capped off a year of significant financial progress in 2025. We delivered on our commitments, and we have strengthened the business in meaningful and durable ways. Most importantly, we are now seeing the tangible benefits of our transformation into a purpose-driven, protein-centric and brand-led CPG company following the Canada Packer spin-off. -- strong execution, brand leadership and the returns from our strategic investments are driving sustained growth, margin expansion, improving consistency and are positioning us for long-term value creation.

We entered 2026 with operational momentum, a strong and healthy balance sheet and a sharper strategic focus. Our identity and our priorities are clearer than ever. Now let's begin today with unpacking our fourth quarter performance, a quarter of continued momentum in top line growth and growing adjusted EBITDA. We are executing against our 5 core growth platforms, which have proven resilient through difficult market conditions, leveraging our leadership in sustainable needs, investing in our portfolio of leading brands to grow consumer demand and loyalty, accelerating the pace of impactful innovation, expanding our geographic reach into the U.S. markets and embedding Maple Leaf's unique and differentiated capabilities into our customer strategies.

As a result, sales were $991 million in Q4, up 8.1% year-over-year. outpacing North American CPG and our competitive peer set. Performance in Q4 showed strength across both of our operating units. Prepared Foods grew 6.1%, driven by pricing and improved mix. We increased our Canadian branded market share in the quarter and branded volumes grew a clear sign of competitive strength. Poultry sales grew 13.1% in the quarter, driven by improved channel mix and volume growth across both retail and foodservice. Value-added poultry remains a structural growth engine with London poultry, enabling sustainable mix improvements, and our sustainable meats business performed strongly including double-digit growth in our prime raised without antibiotics brand, helping us to expand our branded market share in the fresh poultry category this past quarter.

Turning to profitability. Adjusted EBITDA was $117.3 million, up 8.3% with a margin of 11.8%, in line with last year, and an improvement sequentially from 11.1% in Q3. Input cost inflation in Prepared Foods remained elevated as we had anticipated. And while pricing actions have not yet fully recovered the inflation experienced by year-end, the path forward is clear, and our team is focused on executing the actions within our control. We implemented an inflation-based pass-through price increase in mid- to late February, which we expect will support the delivery of our outlook for this year. Apart from our financial performance, we also successfully navigated a major transformation. The spin-off of our pork operations into Canada Packers at the start of Q4 was 1 of the most significant portfolio transformation in our company's history.

With this separation now complete, Maple Leaf Foods now operates as a protein-focused CPG with a clear vision to be the most sustainable protein company on earth. Our ongoing relationship with Canada Packers including a 16% ownership stake and an evergreen supply agreement securing high-quality, sustainably raised pork is functioning as designed. The focus gained through this separation allows us to concentrate resources on what we do best, build love and trust, innovate with discipline and operate an efficient, resilient supply chain at scale. Turning to the full year. While 2025 was certainly not without its challenges, we are pleased with the meaningful progress we delivered against our commitments.

First, we committed to and delivered strong revenue growth. Sales were $3.9 billion for the full year, up 7.7%, reflecting industry-leading performance driven by our proven growth platforms, leading in sustainable meats, brand investment, innovation, U.S. expansion, deeper customer integration and continued support from structural demand for protein. We launched more than 50 impactful innovations, including 2 new brands: MUSAFIR and Mighty protein, both of which are tracking to plan. Our brand presence extended beyond the shelf, including the Look For the Leaf campaign, our partnership with Schneider's and the Toronto Blue Jays and our latest Team Canada Olympic program, which I will return to shortly.

Second, we had committed to and delivered adjusted EBITDA growth and expanded our structural margin. Here too, we showed significant progress in 2025. Adjusted EBITDA was $476 million, up 21% and adjusted EBITDA margins expanded 140 basis points to 12.2%. We delivered $83 million of EBITDA growth through improved mix, operating efficiency, capital project benefits and our Fuel for Growth initiatives. Third, we are committed to strengthening the balance sheet. We reduced leverage to 2.1x at year-end, firmly within our investment-grade range while maintaining discipline in capital expenditures. This balance sheet strength enabled enhanced shareholder returns. We increased the annual dividend by 9%, repurchased approximately 700,000 shares under the NCIB, and paid a $0.60 per share dividend, totaling approximately $75 million. That special dividend marked a clear transition from deleveraging to a balanced investor-friendly focused capital allocation strategy, supporting both growth investment and shareholder returns.

To put a fine point on it, disciplined execution defined 2025 and that same discipline will guide us through 2026. Our priorities for 2026 are clear. First, to continue to scale the core business driving sustainable volume and revenue growth through our proven growth platforms; second, to expand our structural margins, growing profit faster than sales through mix improvement, productivity and structural cost reduction as well as pricing to recover the inflationary impacts we felt in the back half of 2025. And third, to continue to demonstrate smart and disciplined capital allocation, acting as prudent stewards of capital and prioritizing long-term value creation.

In January, we provided our 2026 outlook, reflecting confidence in sustaining our operational momentum and strategic focus. To recap, our 2026 outlook is as follows: We expect mid-single-digit revenue growth from 2025. We expect adjusted EBITDA of approximately $520 million to $540 million, driven by revenue growth and margin improvement. We expect to maintain leverage below 3x, supported by strong free cash flow and prudent capital allocation. We expect capital investments of approximately $160 million to $180 million, focused on maintenance and productivity. We expect annual dividend growth of approximately 10% based on an increase in the quarterly dividend from $0.19 to $0.21 per share marking the 11th consecutive year of an annual dividend increase, and we intend to file a notice of intention with the TSX to renew the NCIB in Q1 of 2026. All to say, we remain highly optimistic about our future and at our Investor Day next week on March 10, we will provide deeper insight into our strategic blueprint, our execution playbook and showcase the strength of our leadership team that will drive long-term value creation across our business.

Before I conclude, I want to come back to the Team Canada Olympic partnership, which embodied our spirit of competition. As Team Canada's official protein partner, which started last month at Milano Cortino, for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games, and we'll continue through the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Summer games. We are aligning our protein brands with the foundation of everyday performance, whether the day starts at work, at school or in training. The program is showcasing Maple Leaf, Maple Leaf Prime, Maple Leaf Natural Selections and Maple Leaf mighty protein in partnerships with Team Canada athletes serving as yet another example of strengthening our consumer connection at scale, while connecting the Maple Leaf brand to moments where Canadians come together. With that, I will now turn the call over to Dave to walk you through some additional financial context. Dave?

Thank you, Curtis, and good morning, everyone. Today, I'll comment on results for the fourth quarter and the full year. before turning to the balance sheet and outlook for 2026. Overall, the key financial takeaway from 2025 is achieving another year of profitable growth and strong free cash flow led to a further reduction in balance sheet leverage to well within our targeted range and in turn, gives us the flexibility to increase the return of capital to shareholders. Turning to our results. Sales in the fourth quarter were $991 million, an increase of 8.1% compared to last year. This exceptional level of growth was driven by both Poultry and Prepared Foods, which grew by 13.1% and 6.1%, respectively. In poultry, sales increased compared to the same quarter a year ago due to improved channel mix with growth in both retail and foodservice volume as well as pricing impacts.

Prepared Foods sales growth was driven by a combination of inflationary pricing taken earlier in the year along with improved product mix in the quarter. For the full year, sales were $3.91 billion, an increase of 7.7% over 2024. Prepared Foods and poultry, both contributed to this increase driven by similar factors to those that drove our fourth quarter sales performance. Adjusted EBITDA of $117 million in the quarter increased by 8% versus the fourth quarter of last year with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 11.8%, which was in line with last year. Increased profitability was primarily driven by favorable poultry mix tied to retail and foodservice volume growth as well as improved operating efficiencies.

These improvements were partially offset by input cost inflation in Prepared Foods which was a headwind to further margin expansion, although sequentially, adjusted EBITDA margin improved 70 basis points from the third quarter. We have implemented pass-through price increases in the first quarter of 2026 to recover the impacts of inflation. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA increased by 21% to $476 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 12.2% and an increase of 140 basis points over 2024. Full year profitability improved in both Poultry and Prepared Foods, driven by similar factors to the fourth quarter, but also included a full year of benefits from the investments in Linden Poultry and the [indiscernible] Center of Excellence.

SG&A increased by $3 million in the fourth quarter over the prior year. mainly driven by the impact of variable compensation. For the full year, SG&A was up by $6 million with the impact of higher variable compensation and advertising and promotional expenses partially offset by a high level of consulting fees that were incurred in 2024. Earnings were $391.2 million for the quarter or $3.14 per basic share compared to earnings of $53.5 million or $0.43 per basic share last year. The increase in earnings for the quarter was driven by strong operating performance and also includes the impact of 3 significant onetime items, again, from the spin-off of the company's pork operations, a noncash impairment charge related to plant protein intangible assets and a noncash settlement gain on a pension annuity purchase.

After removing the impact of the noncash fair value changes in derivative contracts, start-up and restructuring costs, items included in other expense that are not representative of ongoing operations and the impact of the 3 onetime items just noted, adjusted earnings represented $0.32 per share for the quarter compared to $0.18 per share in the fourth quarter of 2024. Earnings for the full year were $541.6 million or $4.36 per basic share compared to earnings of $96.6 million or $0.79 per basic share in 2024. Full year adjusted earnings were $1.09 per share compared to $0.15 per share in 2024. Capital expenditures totaled $126 million for the year compared to $94 million in 2024. The increase was mainly due to increased spend on maintenance projects.

Looking ahead to 2026, we expect capital investments in the range of $160 million to $180 million with spend focused on maintenance and productivity enhancement initiatives. Free cash flow generation remained strong with $70 million of free cash flow generated in the quarter and $318 million generated in fiscal 2025. This strong free cash flow generation was reflected on the balance sheet, which, along with repayment of $389 million of debt upon closing of the Canada Packet spin-off on October 1, resulted in net debt ending the year down by $521 million versus a year ago to $995 million. This is down nearly 50% from a peak level of $1.8 billion during our large capital project investment phase.

In line with our stated capital allocation priorities, our leverage ratio remains well within an investment-grade range. with a net debt to trailing 12 months adjusted EBITDA ratio of 2.1x at the end of the quarter, in line with 2x at the end of the third quarter and down from 2.7x a year ago. With strong free cash flow generation and an investment-grade balance sheet, we now have the flexibility to take a more balanced approach to capital allocation with 2025 seeing an increasing return of capital to shareholders through payment of a fourth quarter special cash dividend of $75 million or $0.60 per share, executing on our NCIB to repurchase approximately 0.7 million shares and increasing our annual dividend at the start of 2025 by approximately 9% and a further 10% for 2026.

Our 2026 guidance reflects confidence in the growth potential of the business, and we expect to deliver mid-single-digit revenue growth and adjusted EBITDA in the range of $520 million to $540 million. I'll now turn the call back to Curtis.

Okay. Thanks, Dave. Let me step back for a moment. Over the past several years, we have made significant investments to transform Maple Leaf Foods, investing more than $2 billion in world-class assets strengthening our brands, simplifying the portfolio and building a more resilient operating model. That heavy investment phase is complete, and today, we are harvesting the benefits. We are a more focused protein CPG company with structurally stronger margins, materially lower leverage and consistent free cash flow generation. In 2025, we expanded margins by 140 basis points, reduced net debt by over $500 million and transitioned from a period of balance sheet deleveraging to balanced capital return. That's not a cyclical improvement. That's a structural one. And as we look to 2026, the strategic blueprint is clear: scale the core, expand our margins and allocate capital with discipline. .

We entered this year with momentum, financial flexibility and a sharper strategic focus more so than any point in recent memory. The team is executing and we are confident in our ability to deliver sustained profitable growth and long-term shareholder value creation. Operator, with that, we can now open the line to questions, please.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Luke Hannan with Canaccord Genuity.

Thanks, and good morning, everyone. I wanted to unpack if we could, the poultry performance during the quarter. So you put up very strong results there, top line growth there in Q3. That seems to have extended now into Q4 as well. So I'm just curious to to find out what the key drivers were if those have changed at all? And maybe a little bit more specifically, if the volume growth was felt a little bit more in retail versus food service?

Okay. Great. And thanks for your question. Yes, we had a very solid quarter again in the poultry business. Revenues were up just over 13%. And really, that's quite in line with a very solid full year. I think we're up a little over 10% from a revenue perspective in the poultry business over the course of the full year. I would describe that as the real value of London shining through. And practically, that allows us to take increased allocations from supply management and get them into more and more value-added sales -- convert them into more and more value-added sales. within Q4, our retail volume, to your point, was up significantly on the volume side, a little over 10%, actually.

So that was positive. It was led by our prime raise without antibiotics brand. and our Mina Halal brand. So we had a very positive quarter from a retail perspective. And Foodservice also grew volume in the double-digit range as well. So the ability to get more value-added poultry into more value-added channels. was certainly a positive for a quarter on the poultry side. We also grew our branded market share, I think, around 1.7 share points in the quarter, which was positive as well. So it was a good strong quarter, but also a great year in the poultry business, and we expect to be able to sustain that and carry that forward into next year as well.

Great. And then for my follow-up here, you did touch on the pricing actions that you took in mid-February. Have you seen any volumetric response to those price increases that's outside of what you would have expected from the consumer? And then also at this point, are the price increases that you intended to pass through, have those fully been implemented at this point?

Yes. We've passed through the pricing in around mid-February. So we'll get a partial impact of that within the quarter here, a little early Luke to determine the volume response or only 3, 4 weeks into the into the execution mode here. So I think it would be a little bit early to draw any conclusions on the volume side. I haven't seen anything abnormal to be clear, but I just think it's a little bit soon from a consumer perspective in terms of getting a view of the response to the pricing that's in the market today. .

Next question comes from Irene Nattel with RBC Capital Markets.

Curtis, I was wondering if you could expand a little bit on what you're seeing more broadly speaking, in terms of consumer behavior, seeing sort of the premium end of your product mix as seeing volume gains. But what are you seeing across the portfolio? And where are you seeing sort of the most pressure points in the greatest upside.

Thanks, Irene. I continue to describe -- I use this word frequently, the consumer environment is quite stable. That doesn't mean it's certainly not optimized and the consumer continues to be under pretty significant stress. I mean there's even events unfolding in real time in the world that I think have the potential to add even more stress or different stress from the consumer side. So I'm cautiously optimistic, but I think stability can also be a good thing. We are seeing more of a flight to value from a consumer perspective than we had seen in previous years.

Again, that environment is stable. They're buying more certainly on promotion. So we have to be really sharp from a revenue management point of view in terms of optimizing our offer to the consumer. I think protein has proven to be pretty resilient inside of that, Irene. And I really like the combination of how our growth strategies, whether it be U.S., sustainable meats, the work we're doing in our brands, bringing new brands to market aligning to our customer strategies. We don't necessarily -- and we're not perfect in any 1 of those -- in every 1 of those in any given quarter. But the way that our growth strategies are working in combination, I think, has proven to be pretty effective for us over the last over the course of the last year. And if you look at our outlook for 2026, we do expect that to continue as well. So I think the headline consumer wise would be stable, still under material stress looking for value and a lot of shopping on promotion, and we're finding ways within protein to meet their needs today.

That's great. And then you just mentioned the new brands. What has been the consumer response to the brands that you recently launched?

Yes, it's been positive. I mean, it's -- one of the things we're proud of inside of the company is the ability to incubate and build brands over the course of time. If you think about Greenfield Natural Meat companies is a great example. What we did in our Halal business with our Mina brand is a great example. And now these 2 new brand launches in Mussafer and Might Protein. Mighty protein, in particular, is going really well, maybe a little bit -- maybe a little bit running ahead of what we would have a planned. So that's been really positive in terms of the response. Mussafer probably on track to what we would have expected early on. But in brand building, arena, as you know, this is very early innings. The products haven't been in market, all that long, certainly not a full year yet, and they're helpful to our results, but we should be cautious on the materiality of that help, but they are 1 of the reasons, 1 of the many reasons that we believe we can deliver the outlook we have for next year, which is somewhere in the mid-single-digit revenue growth arena. .

Your next question comes from John Zamparo.

I wanted to ask about promo spending, and it sounds like Maple Leaf is generating a healthy return on these investments. So I wonder how you expect that to evolve in '26? And are there any products or categories where this has seen outsized investments and anything worth noting in terms of seasonality for this year?

I don't think anything abnormal in terms of seasonality outside of what you would have seen in historical years. So I think a more normalized environment there. From a -- if your question, John, is around more promotional intensity -- from that perspective, I mean, we have seen early on as we pass through inflation last year at poultry and sustainable meats in particular, was affected quite significantly. And we've seen a pretty -- a good recovery there, modest. Again, I don't think we're optimized, but the fact that we're growing our prime [indiscernible] antibiotics market share, which is the premium branded player in the poultry category, I think is a good sign of, again, stability in the category. So I like that that's materializing.

I always say that we operate at the premium end of our category for sure. And we've built that premium miss into our business over the course of time. but we don't operate in premium categories necessarily. We offer good value to the consumer. And when you think about categories like poultry, which is a great example, a consumer staple, I think that's given us a lot of resiliency. So similar comments to what I shared earlier. We're seeing lots of resiliency in our portfolio. and were not yet optimized in terms of the consumer environment, and we're hopeful or optimistic that over the course of time that will provide some level of help, but unclear exactly how and when that will unfold.

Okay. That's helpful. And then on the plant side of the business, has there been any evolution on the thinking behind this, particularly in light of the recent write-down, does management feel it needs to be in this category still? And is there anything you could say about EBITDA generation or margins in that category?

Yes. We're going to -- I'll let Dave offer a couple of comments if he's got anything extra to share, but we're going to unpack that a little bit more next week at our Investor Day. So I think I'll tie on that answer to that question because I do think there's a longer-term story to be shared around plant protein. But we continue to -- the punchline is we continue to be of the view that there's a pathway to profitable growth. we should always keep in mind that it's less than 5% of the revenue in the enterprise today. And I, at this stage, view it more as an upside opportunity than anything else because we have stability in the earnings profile of the business today, and we have upside potential in terms of reaching, call it, portfolio average margins in the plant protein business, which I'm very confident that we have a pathway to deliver, and we'll share some more details around that next week. Dave, anything you would add or anything I missed in that? .

No, I don't think so other than we see it as a very relevant long-term category within the broader demand for healthy protein. And so nothing's changed in terms of view of the relevance of the plant protein business to our overall portfolio.

Your next question comes from Mark Petrie.

Just a couple of follow-ups, I guess, on topics you've covered already. But -- but clearly, mix is helping you guys. I know it's moved around and you've been able to leverage London poultry specifically. But where would you say you are in the evolution of of mix and the specific levers you have at your disposal to try and move that in your favor? And how should we think about mix as an impact in 2026.

Well, the outcome in mix -- firstly, the outcome in mix was a positive 1 inside of the quarter, it was kind of the core driver of our revenue growth. So it's been very positive. We still think we have room in 2026. And again, you see that in our outlook in terms of what we've provided, in terms of the revenue growth and the EBITDA margin expansion for next year and mix will play certainly a role in that as well. I talked earlier about the poultry benefits, which we're quite pleased with. But I would also note, in Q4, I think an important part of our story is the fact that our branded volumes in Prepared Foods, branded volumes in Prepared Foods grew in the 4% to 5% range.

So when you get a volume growth of 4% to 5% inside of a quarter in our core brands. That's very positive to our mix. And again, proof that our brands have proven to be resilient in the most difficult market conditions here. So I view mix as a positive driver in the near term, and I think there's more to play out looking forward as well, Mark. Particularly as the consumer environment continues to normalize here to a certain extent.

Yes. Fair enough. Okay. And then on the last call, you sort of went through some of the tools that you have available to you as you try to sort of manage volatility in pricing and costs following the spinoff. I'm not sure if you're able to, but is there an update on those? And I guess, specifically, your price mechanisms and your approach to hedging were 2 that were sort of in the works, I guess, so to speak. I'm curious if there's an update on those.

Yes. Nothing material. Again, Dave can add any color to this that might be helpful. Nothing material. I mean those instruments of physical hedges, financial hedges, pricing mechanisms, the utilization of inventory, meaning physical hedge are things we constantly review for optimization, I think would probably be the right way to describe it. There's no -- in our business, there's no silver bullet for managing risk, but the combination of those tools can be helpful in stabilizing earnings to the best of our ability. I mean, we don't give quarterly guidance for a very specific reason, which is we expect some level of normal CPG food change quarter-to-quarter in our margin structure.

And we try our best with those instruments to smooth the outcomes the best we can. But again, there's no silver bullet. We've been reviewing them from day 1 or before day 1 of the separation, and we'll continue to do that moving forward. But Dave, is there anything you would add?

No, I think the key comment was there's no silver bullet or step change. It's just a question of ongoing optimization of our approach and things we can do to offset in the short term. But we'll still be operating in an environment where there's time lags in terms of passing on pricing. But everything we can do in and around that is what we focused on. And it's something that won't change going forward in terms of our focus, but don't expect to an ability for us to come and say we've taken all volatility out of the business, and you'll never see any change in margin from quarter-to-quarter that isn't ultimately realistic, but we'll continue to work away managing any variance in input costs, et cetera, as much as we can in the short term.

Your next question comes from Vishal Shreedhar with National Bank. .

Related to the margins, my understanding was that there could have been some sequential pressure on margins quarter-over-quarter quite resilient. One, your perspective on that, is there some fuel from growth initiatives helping? Or is that just that quarter-to-quarter volatility that you referred to?

Vishal, sorry, you cut out a little bit there in your question. Were you asking about from Q3 to Q4, the kind of change in margin and whether it was in line with what we would have expected?

Correct. It appeared to be a bit more resilient than I would have anticipated given the commodity pressure, which I anticipated.

Yes. Well, we saw -- I think the big thing is you saw a seasonal decline in input costs, seasonal Q3 to Q4. That's quite normal in our business. I wouldn't say perfect, but quite normal to see a seasonal decline, but still elevated year-over-year. So really important to put that in context, seasonal decline in raw material input costs, meat costs predominantly, but still elevated year-over-year, which is -- which drives the need for the pricing change we've made. The big story though was the mix improvement year-over-year, and we -- that's where the positive resiliency came from. What I commented on in the poultry business earlier, more retail and food service sales and the 4% to 5% branded volume growth in the prepared meats side. Those were really positive and mitigated some of those challenges. That, along with the work we put in place in our fuel for growth. kind of cost playbook initiatives. Those 2 things were positive. The inflationary environment was a headwind. And all in all, we made a decent sequential improvement quarter-over-quarter.

Okay. And looking at your 2026 outlook, you talked about some of your branded volumes growing in kind of mid-single digits, and you're expecting that kind of revenue growth, but you've also taken pricing. So is the takeaway that you expect the volume growth to slow through 2026 and pricing to be the majority driver of revenue?

Well, pricing will play a role. I want to break out -- I don't think I can break it out perfectly. But I do -- I expect a positive contribution next year from price for certain because we'll be advancing our pricing early in the year from volume, maybe to a lesser -- 4% or 5% volume metric growth in the quarter is positive, but I don't know that, that's the sustainable long-term view that you should take. And I think that's running maybe a little bit hot from that -- from an overall portfolio perspective. And I also expect mix to be positive again next year.

So I think we can think about it as a relatively balanced combination of mix of volume and price led growth for 2026.

Okay. And just wanted to get your take on industry growth currently, not necessarily MFI growth, but industry growth in the categories that you participate in, versus the longer term, this increased demand for protein from consumers. Are you seeing that play out in the industry? And is that -- is that a factor that you'd anticipate as well to benefit your 2026. Can you give us some context around how strong that demand is?

Yes. I can. Yes. Thanks, Vishal. On the revenue side, the consumer packaged goods revenues in North America are growing depending whether it's Canada or the U.S. but they're in the 2% to 3% range in North American consumer packaged goods broadly as an industry. If you narrow that down to poultry, and we track the best way I could describe that to you is in pure comps. There are 4 we track really closely. And that's probably running a little bit -- maybe around double that rate; 4%, 5%. So 2% to 3% CPG, 4% to 5% in our protein peers. And then our revenue in the last 12 months running at 7.7%, so ahead of that. So protein outgrowing CPG, Maple Leaf outgrowing protein, I think, would be the headline.

Your next question comes from Etienne Ricard.

You've talked multiple times about expanding your reach in the U.S. market with, I believe, about a dozen products on the shelves currently. How have you been able to gain traction in this market? And would you say it will be easier to move from a dozen products to, let's say, 20.

That's what I was telling my commercial team. I always describe it as getting the first 12 in a new market. is an incredible feat, very, very difficult. You need to have a meaningful point of difference to enter a new market. We have that in our sustainable meats business. I need to establish a trust and credibility with customers. That's everything from relationships to supply chain, and so on. So that's -- those are foundational. But once you have the first 12 at least in theory, it's easier to scale from 12 to 20 than it is from 0 to 12.

So we have those relationships in place. We have the platform in the U.S. We've got a great team of people on the ground in Chicago an office and innovation center, a portfolio of great products in both meat and plant protein. So I'm confident in our ability over the next few years. And again, we'll be talking about this next week at our Investor Day, in our ability to continue to scale up our U.S. platform at a reasonable pace that will contribute to long-term growth in the company.

Okay. Looking forward to it. And just to circle back on the new products that you've introduced recently, how long does it typically take for these to reach profitability levels that are similar to company average?

It depends. There isn't a golden rule in that area. And it depends on things like some are accretive from day one. some take a little longer. The marketing investment plays a role in that. The manufacturing footprint plays a role in that internal, external scalability of volumes all those factors. So I don't think there's a golden rule, but certainly, we would expect within the first 12 months or so for the innovations to be running at portfolio average for accretive margins to the balance of the portfolio.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Michael Van Aelst.

I might have missed it earlier, but I was impressed by the double-digit growth in RWA Prime on the Poultry side. And -- but it kind of conflicts with your comments on the stressed consumer. So can you kind of explain what you think is happening with the consumer when it comes to RWA Prime because we know that they trade -- consumers traded down and away from that, when they really -- when the stress started to increase, what are you doing to get it to come back?

Yes, we're seeing a real bifurcation in the market. I mean it started to show up first in the U.S. data, now is finding its way in the Canadian market as well to a certain extent. But when we say the consumers under stress, and I believe that's true, and we definitely see that in our business, Mike, there are places where we've shown more resiliency than others. Poultry is a great example of that. I mean it's the most consumed protein. It's the fastest-growing meat protein. It's a staple in the consumer diet. And I think largely consumers care about the offering that they're putting into their bodies. And what we offer in our prime rate without antibiotics portfolio is a strong proposition. It's -- our market share in branded poultry is nearly -- it's 15 to 20x, [indiscernible] our next branded competitor, 15 to 20 times, so we have a market positioning that I think is admirable, and we've been able to capitalize on that.

So it's not something we take for granted. We work hard to earn that to earn that right in the poultry business, but at the same time, it is one pocket of really great news and a tough consumer environment.

Yes, that's interesting. And then on your price increases, I know you said you implemented them mid-February roughly. I don't know if that was a little delayed from original expectations by a few weeks or not. But can you just talk about whether you're able to get the full price increase you were expecting? And how much the retailers have been pushing back on suppliers in general.

Yes. I mean I'm not going to comment on any specific customer relationship. I don't think that's appropriate. But at the end of the day, yes, we implemented our pricing in the quarter. And how much of that sticks, I think, will be more consumer. The stickiness of that pricing will be more about optimizing the offer to the consumer than anything else in balancing price mix and volume here looking forward. And again, as I said it earlier, 2 or 3 weeks later isn't the time to evaluate the consumer response. It's too soon, 2, 3, 4 weeks. But we'll see how that unfolds here in the coming months. It's normal. As you know, in our business, Mike, have been around our story for a long time to see some consumer response in the near term following pricing to volume. That's a normative a bit of a drop-off in volume following pricing, a little period of time as you get the volume and the market share back.

I think we've had a pretty -- you just continue to use the word resilient response in the last 24 months. but we're being mindful of watching closely with the volumetric response is. And I do expect some period of adjustment like there normally is, but we'll see how that plays out here in the next little well.

Does the volume growth that you talked about for branded brand volumes up 4.5% -- 4% to 5% poultry volumes strong. Does that give you any maybe confidence that you might be a little bit more resilient to a volume reaction this time or at least a negative volume reaction to the price increase?

Could be -- it could be. I hope that's the case. But we'll watch it very closely. I think we'll watch it very closely. And I hope that's the case.

Your next question comes from Mark Petrie.

I wanted to follow up, and I understand there are constraints on your ability to buy back stock as a result of the spin-off and the shareholder agreement. But just in terms of setting expectations, how should investors think about the targeted pace of buybacks for 2026. .

Yes. So our intention is to renew the NCIB looking forward over the next 12 months and to be active with NCIB. We'll talk a bit more next week about capital allocation priorities and where the NCIB fits into that, but we expect to be active in buying back shares over the next 12 months.

Can we look at -- can we look at -- the activity in Q4 as an appropriate sort of run rate level?

Yes. I don't want to accept expectations that this is going to be a consistent run rate based on any 1 particular quarter. As I said, we'll talk a little bit more about it next week. But we have been active. We still think the share price is fundamentally not reflecting the underlying value of the business. And that's why we'll continue to be active. Within the constraints you noted in your question, we'll continue to be active in buying back shares.

Your next question comes from Irene Nattel.

I just wanted to follow up on the comment you made earlier on in the call, Curtis. On the poultry side, you said that the investments in London poultry have allowed you to take increased allocations from supply management and convert them for more value-added sales. And I'm wondering how easy or not it is to do that and what we should be expecting on that front as we move through '26 and beyond.

Well, the big benefit or one of the big benefits Irene that London Poultry gave us. As you know, we consolidated 4 plants into one. And the previous network I didn't have the capacity or the capabilities. In some case, it was maybe wet shill chicken versus air shill chicken different format, didn't have the capacity or the capabilities to convert all of our raw material into premium air-chilled chicken, and London increased the capacity to process chickens into more tray pack, so retail tray pack out of industrial, out of the industrial, out of the low-margin industrial channel. And into the higher-margin tray pack retail channel, more value-added sales.

So we see stronger consumer demand for poultry. Poultry demand is growing. Allocations for poultry that are set through supply management are growing in response to that higher demand. And our ability to take those higher allocations and get them into a value-added trade is secured by London Poultry. And that makes us, I think, distinct good and unique in the marketplace. From a competitive position, I think it's a structural competitive advantage to be able to do that. And it's 1 of the reasons again why we had such a strong year, and we think we'll have a solid year in 2026 as well.

I appreciate that. But to clarify, and I apologize because I don't -- if I don't know this already. But if there's an increase in the allocation from the supply management, can you take larger than your pro rata share of that increase in allocation? .

No. No. Okay. So then it's just a question of every whether or not every participant can take that higher allocation and process it into the highest value areas that they would prefer to and we can.

Okay. So you can do what you want with the increased allocation, but you can't take more than your pro rata share.

Roughly correct. Yes. .

No further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Frank for closing remarks.

Okay. Great. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We had certainly what we view as a strong Q4 that capped off a year of material progress in 2025. Our sales grew at 7.7%. And our adjusted EBITDA at 21% and our margin by 140 basis points to 12.2%. So it was a year that I think our people and our stakeholders can be pleased with and proud of. That said, our work is not yet done. And our 2026 outlook certainly reflects that another material step forward in executing our strategic blueprint. And of course, we have our Investor Day next week, so I put in a plug that I hope all of you will be joining us and where we aim to unpack our strategic blueprint of the future.

So looking forward to the discussion next week, and thank you very much for joining us here today.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.

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" BMO Capital Markets Equity Research

" RBC Capital Markets, Research Division

" Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets, Research Division

" CIBC Capital Markets, Research Division

" Stifel Nicolaus Canada Inc., Research Division

" TD Cowen, Research Division

" National Bank Financial, Inc., Research Division

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Maple Leaf Foods Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being webcast and recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference call over to Omar Javed, Vice President of Investor Relations at Maple Leaf Foods. Please go ahead, Mr. Javed.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that some statements made on today's call may constitute forward-looking information, and our future results may differ materially from what we discuss. Please refer to our third quarter 2025 MD&A and financial statements and other information on our website for a broader description of operations and risk factors that could affect the company's performance. We've also updated our third quarter investor presentation to our website. As always, the Investor Relations team will be available after the call for any follow-up questions you may have. With that, I'll turn the call over to our President and CEO, Curtis Frank.

Thank you, Omar, and good morning, everyone. It's great to be with you today to share our third quarter 2025 results. Joining me on today's call is David Smales, our Chief Financial Officer. I'll first speak about the business developments from a strategic and operational standpoint, then Dave will provide a more detailed summary of our financial results, and I'll return with a short summary to close out our call here this morning. This quarter marks a historic moment for Maple Leaf Foods.

On October 1, we completed the spin-off of our pork operations into Canada Packers, one of the most significant portfolio transformations in our company's history. Canada Packers is now an independent public company focused on delivering premium, responsibly produced pork to the world. Maple Leaf Foods now operates as a purpose-driven, protein-focused and brand-led consumer packaged goods company with a bold vision to be the most sustainable protein company on earth. We will maintain a strategic relationship with Canada Packers through a 16% ownership stake and an evergreen supply agreement will ensure long-term security of high-quality, sustainably raised pork supply.

Before diving into our business commentary, I want to take a moment to acknowledge and to thank the entire Maple Leaf and Canada Packers teams who have executed with focus and resilience during this period of intense business transformation. I'm incredibly proud and grateful for their dedication, passion and living expression of our Maple Leaf values. We also wish the Canada Packers team continued success as they prepare to host their first earnings call as an independent public company a little later this morning at 9:30 a.m.

A transaction such as this naturally introduces some additional complexity to our financial reporting for this particular quarter. The third quarter represents the final period in which Maple Leaf Foods will report total company results for our pre-spin-off combined business that are inclusive of the pork operations. Accordingly, David and I will speak to the total company results, which include Canada Packers as well as to the continuing operations of the CPG business, which exclude Canada Packers. Additionally, we have provided pro forma financials for Maple Leaf Foods going back 8 quarters to support comparability and transparency as we transition to our new reporting structure.

Now given the increase in financial reporting materials, our goal is to keep the key messages clear, simple and focused on what matters the most. To that effect, 4 headlines serve as our key takeaways from our quarter. First, we delivered another very strong quarter of results for the total company, highlighted by exceptional top line growth and significantly improved profitability year-over-year. Second, our year-to-date total company performance through the end of Q3 was firmly on a run rate to deliver in line with our previously announced full year 2025 adjusted EBITDA guidance of $680 million to $700 million. Third, the composition of these results inside the quarter played out a little differently than we had anticipated given a rapid and sustained increase in raw material markets. This dynamic benefited profitability in our pork operations while driving input cost inflation and short-term margin pressure in our CPG business. And finally, we remain on strategy, and we are tracking well against our priorities for the year.

Underscoring the strength of the quarter was total company sales growth of 8% and adjusted EBITDA increasing 22% to $171 million. Our adjusted EBITDA margin improved by 140 basis points to 12.6% as compared to 11.2% last year. Our continuing operations also delivered solid results with 8% sales growth and 110 basis points of adjusted EBITDA margin expansion to 11.1%. We continue to view our 8% revenue growth, more than 2x the CPG market growth rate in Canada and 3x the CPG market growth rate in the U.S. as an exceptional outcome that underscores the resiliency and the durability of our proven growth strategies. This momentum also drove market share gains in prepared meats, plant protein and poultry, led by double-digit growth in our prime poultry sustainable meats brand. That said, while we delivered year-over-year margin expansion from an EBITDA perspective in our continuing operations, we also experienced short-term margin pressure on a sequential basis driven by the rapid and sustained increase in raw material markets that I noted earlier.

During the quarter, when compared to Q2, key inputs such as pork trims increased by over 70% in a very short period of time. It is quite normal in these periods of rapid inflation to experience temporary margin compression due to the lag time in flowing through price increases to recover costs. These situations are common in CPG, and we know how to respond effectively. In response, we are taking decisive actions to mitigate these effects and to improve profitability looking forward.

But firstly, to address the input cost inflation, we have initiated pass-through price increases in the CPG business. Given the timing of these inflationary impacts and the extended lead times required by retailer policies for all CPG companies during the holiday season, these price increases will fully materialize in the first quarter of 2026.

Second, with the spin-off now complete, we are advancing the next phase of our Fuel for Growth initiative. Last week, we announced a second wave of SG&A reductions designed to streamline operations, enhance cost discipline and align resources with our strategic blueprint. These changes are now being implemented across several areas of the business, including manufacturing and will result in a leaner organizational structure and further cost efficiencies in 2026. And third, with the separation of Canada Packers, our previous natural hedge against rapid fluctuations in pork markets is no longer available. As you know, all CPG food companies experienced some degree of quarter-to-quarter margin movement, the driver of which is simply normal lag times in executing pricing action, which can vary at certain times of the year and in certain market segments. Going forward, we believe we will have to modify the tools we use in an effort to reduce that quarter-to-quarter movement as much as possible.

Our continued success as a purpose-driven protein-focused and brand-led CPG company will depend on the disciplined execution of our proven growth strategies. These include investing in our portfolio of leading brands such as Maple Leaf, Schneider's, Greenfield and Maple Leaf Prime to grow the core business; leveraging our leadership in sustainable meats, expanding our geographic reach into the U.S. market, plugging what makes Maple Leaf unique into our customer strategies and accelerating the pace of impactful innovation.

On the innovation front, this was an especially exciting quarter as we once again demonstrated our capability to shape the next generation of Maple Leaf brands and products. We were very pleased to announce the launch of 2 meaningful new brands, Mighty Protein and Musafir. Mighty Protein positions Maple Leaf to leverage the growing protein moment that is upon us, offering healthy, high-protein fuel on the go. Consumers are seeking lean, nutrient-dense complete protein in convenient formats, and that is exactly what Mighty Protein delivers. It is a poultry-based high-protein meat stick, providing 12 grams of complete protein per serving with only 110 calories. It is gluten-free, sugar-free and made with poultry that is raised without antibiotics or added warmines.

Mighty Protein will be available in 3 distinct flavors across major mass retail, online and convenience channels. Musafir, which means Traveler, expands our presence in the frozen food section of the grocery store with South Asian-inspired protein-forward dishes designed for today's busy households. South Asians represent Canada's largest and fastest-growing demographic and millennials and Gen Z are driving escalating demand for global flavors and convenient meal options. Musafir offers a variety of globally inspired flavors in familiar formats and ready-to-eat meals, including vegetarian and poultry-based options such as burgers, nuggets and savory bites, all prepared with traditional ingredients.

Together, Mighty Protein and Musafir demonstrate the strength of our innovation engine and the momentum behind our CPG growth strategy. As we said last quarter, we are not only brand builders, we are brand creators. Greenfield and MENA have proven this approach and Mighty Protein and Musafir represent the next step in that journey. These new brands alongside over 50 products that we have launched this year, exemplify our commitment to translating consumer insights, disciplined execution and our unique capabilities into compelling growth platforms for the future. With the historic transaction complete and a strong financial and strategic foundation in place, our focus now turns fully to the future.

While our previous consolidated 2025 guidance no longer applies following the completion of the spin-off, our 2025 priorities are clear and remain unchanged. We are focused on delivering strong revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth, generating healthy free cash flow and using it to strengthen the balance sheet. We are not providing updated guidance for the remainder of the year as that would imply quarterly guidance. However, we do plan to update our long-term guidance framework in the months ahead.

As a diversified protein CPG company, armed with a bold vision to be the most sustainable protein company on earth and supported by thousands of passionate Maple Leaf people, we have never been better positioned to take on the future. Leading in protein, one of the most attractive segments of the global food market, which continues to grow at approximately 2x the rate of population growth provides us with tremendous strategic opportunity.

As we look ahead, we are ready to capitalize on this growing consumer demand for protein. We operate in a large and expanding total addressable market, and our strong portfolio of leading protein brands is our advantage. We've established proven revenue growth platforms. Our margin expansion program is well underway, and we remain differentiated by our bold vision and our clear focus on shareholder value creation. It's an exciting time at Maple Leaf Foods. With that, I will now pass the call over to Dave to walk you through the financials.

Thank you, Curtis, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin with a brief overview of our total company results before turning to a discussion of continuing operations, cash flow and balance sheet.

On a total company basis, sales were $1.36 billion, an increase of 8% compared to last year, while adjusted EBITDA increased by 22% to $171 million and adjusted EBITDA margin improved by 140 basis points to 12.6% compared to 11.2% in the third quarter last year. Our strong top and bottom line performance for the total company was driven by robust profitable growth in both our CPG business and pork operations compared to a year ago. As Curtis noted, the overriding factor in the quarter for total company results sequentially was the benefit to pork operations from strong market conditions, while the CPG business experienced the opposite side of this through higher raw material input costs in Prepared Foods.

Turning to continuing operations. Sales were $1 billion, an increase of 8% compared to last year. Prepared Foods sales increased by 5.3%, driven by the impact of inflationary pricing taken earlier in the year, along with improved product mix in the quarter. In poultry, sales were up 15.7% due to improved channel mix with growth in both retail and foodservice volume as well as pricing impacts. Adjusted EBITDA for continuing operations increased by 19% to $112 million in the quarter versus the third quarter of last year, with adjusted EBITDA margin improving 110 basis points to 11.1% compared to 10%.

Profitability improved in both Prepared Foods and Poultry, supported by favorable mix, efficiency gains and the benefits from the investments in our London poultry and Bacon Center of Excellence facilities. These gains were partially offset by input cost inflation in Prepared Foods, including a 40% increase in pork belly prices and a 50% increase in average poult trim prices versus the same quarter last year. This resulted in a timing impact on margins in the quarter due to the standard lag required to execute appropriate pricing actions. To address this, we have initiated price increases with benefits expected during the first quarter of 2026.

SG&A for continuing operations increased by $4.7 million in the third quarter compared to last year, driven by higher variable compensation costs, partially offset by a higher level of consulting fees incurred in the third quarter last year. Earnings from continuing operations for the quarter were $23.3 million or $0.19 per basic share compared to a loss of $1.8 million or $0.01 per basic share last year. After removing the impact of the noncash fair value changes in derivative contracts, start-up and restructuring costs and items included in other expense that are not representative of ongoing operations, adjusted earnings for continuing operations represented $0.21 per share for the quarter compared to a loss of $0.01 per share in the third quarter of 2024.

On a total company basis, capital expenditures totaled $27.8 million for the quarter compared to $25.8 million in the third quarter of last year and $77.7 million year-to-date compared to $65.6 million last year. Total company free cash flow was $46 million in the quarter and $378 million over the last 12 months, reflecting the robust performance of the business and disciplined capital spending and following on from the $385 million generated in full year 2024. This strong free cash flow momentum was reflected on the balance sheet with total company net debt ending the quarter down by $242 million versus a year ago to approximately $1.35 billion and down from a peak level of $1.8 billion during our large capital project investment phase.

In line with our stated priorities, our leverage ratio remains well within an investment-grade range with a total company net debt to trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA ratio of 2x at the end of the quarter compared to 2.1x at the end of the second quarter of 2025 and 3.1x a year ago. Upon closing the spin-off on October 1, Maple Leaf repaid $389 million of debt. We also remain focused on disciplined capital allocation, executing on our NCIB in August to repurchase approximately 250,000 shares. And yesterday, Maple Leaf declared its fourth quarter dividend. When combined with the dividend announced by Canada Packers yesterday, the total exceeds the pre-spin quarterly dividend paid by Maple Leaf Foods and reflects our prior commitment that the first post-spin dividends for Maple Leaf and Canada Packers combined would be at least equal to the dividend level immediately prior to the spin-off. I'll now turn the call back to Curtis.

Okay. Thank you, Dave. Before we move to questions, I want to take a moment to bring it all together. This was truly a historic quarter for Maple Leaf Foods. We successfully launched Canada Packers as an independent public company and at the same time, delivered another very strong quarter of results. Our combined third quarter performance for the total company, 8% revenue growth and over 20% increase in adjusted EBITDA reflects the continued strength and the resilience of our business.

In our continuing operations, we have achieved 8% year-to-date sales growth, a 26% increase in adjusted EBITDA to $358 million year-to-date and a 180 basis point improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin to 12.3% year-to-date. That's an outcome we are all proud of, especially given that our sales growth is materially outpacing the North American CPG market, and our margins continue to show strength relative to our protein industry peers. We're also fully aware that we have work to do to recover the sequential margin pressure we experienced this quarter, and we are taking decisive and proactive actions to restore that momentum. Now stepping back, the big picture is clear. We are on strategy. We are executing against our priorities, and we are building momentum for the future.

Lastly, I want to thank the entire Maple Leaf team for their dedication, resilience and hard work, delivering a major spin-off, strong financial results and 2 new brand launches all in 1 quarter is an extraordinary accomplishment, and I couldn't be more proud of what we've accomplished together. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Mark Petrie of CIBC.

Maybe first, just on the top line strength. We saw some sequential deceleration in prepared meats, but acceleration in poultry. Could you just give some color on that? How much of that is pricing? And then maybe just some detail on sort of the volume and mix components?

Yes, for sure. Mark, thanks for the question. We were -- as I noted in my comments, especially pleased this quarter with the sustained top line growth that we experienced relative to our CPG peers in North America, relative to our pure protein peers continue to see a very, very solid outcome. At an aggregate level, it was a function predominantly of positive mix benefits and price that recall that we took some level of pricing in Q2, turned out that wasn't adequate. We have to take some steps forward, obviously. And also the volumes were relatively flat, but important to note inside of that, that our branded volumes were quite positive.

You noted in Prepared Foods that the prepared meats component has slowed. And there's a couple of important nuances inside of that. Prepared Foods includes our Prepared meats and our Plant Protein business combined now that we've consolidated plant protein. And we actually saw what I would -- what we view as pretty strong growth in the Prepared Meats business on the top line. I grew at almost 6%, which implies double-digit declines in plant protein in line with the category, and that's kind of exactly what happened. So very strong growth on the prepared meat side as well at nearly 6%. In poultry, -- you would have noted in our supporting materials that the revenue growth was in and around 16-ish percent. And that's really a function of the positive benefits of the London poultry investment really starting to shine through in a material way.

Operationally, everything is obviously on track. It's been an incredible startup. We're through that phase. And the ability now to get more product into a value-added tray with a brand on it is really showing through in better mix. We did have increasing allocations as poultry demand continues to be strong in the Canadian market and allocations are growing alongside of that. So that drove some positive volume impact. And then we also saw the benefits of our sustainable meats business, our Prime RWA brand, in particular, was quite strong in the quarter. We saw double-digit growth in the sustainable meats component of poultry, which was also positive. And you could view 16% maybe structurally as a little on the high side, but there's no question that poultry continues to be a growth category for us and one that's very positive. So all in all, it was a really great outcome on the top line.

Yes. Okay. I appreciate that color. And then just to follow up, you obviously highlighted the pressure from the higher input costs. Could you just give some more detail on the price actions you've taken, some context on how you expect Q4 to be impacted versus what you felt in Q3? And then will those be fully implemented for Q1? Or will there also be some spillover effect to Q1? And obviously, this is pending how the cutout trends from here.

Yes. I mean there's some moving parts inside of that, as you're well aware. But I think the headlines would be, first and foremost, we don't offer quarterly guidance. So we didn't provide an outlook for Q4 specifically. But I do feel as though adding some color is important. In Q3, the headline would be pleased with the progress year-over-year from a margin point of view, added more than 100 basis points of margin. So that was, again, very positive, very constructive and shouldn't get lost in the overall narrative. We did see sequentially, as we noted, I think, with full transparency that there was a sequential headwind mostly due to raw material input costs, and that impacted us on a sequential basis.

As we look to Q4, I think the headline would be expecting kind of more of the same would be similar market conditions overall would probably be the best headline I could give you for Q4, a similar market conditions overall. We have taken steps to proactively restore the margin on a sequential basis. That includes but isn't limited to, includes taking price increases effective Q1. Those take effect, Mark, in and around the very first week of February. So think about that as impacting Q1 in most of Q1, I think, would be the headline, and we fully expect to get back right on track after that.

Your next question comes from Martin Landry of Stifel.

I just want to go back to the comments on Q4. You take a lot of effort to highlight the fact that raw materials are rising have risen fast. But I'm not too sure what will be the impact on your margins for Q4. You -- the previous answer was not too clear for me anyways. Just do you expect margins to be under pressure on a year-over-year basis in Q4?

Martin, as I noted, -- we expect similar conditions in Q4 than Q3, which would imply similar types of margin pressure in the fourth quarter as we experienced in Q3. The remedy for that is advancing our pricing forward. And we're doing that now. We've communicated that to our retail customers and our retail partners now, and that will be in place for February. There's a normal period of time that all CPG companies face over the holiday season that's upcoming where the retailers implement what's essentially a blackout policy to protect and preserve the holiday season. So you won't see price changes for all consumer packaged goods companies, all consumer packaged goods, food companies through that time period. That window reopens on February 1, and we're taking steps to improve our pricing in February.

Okay. It's not easy to read between the lines, but you're saying that you expect similar market conditions. Your gross -- your profit margins expanded on a year-over-year basis in Q3. So is -- when you say similar market conditions, is that what you imply?

When I say similar market conditions, I'm implying we'll have sustained margin pressures in the fourth quarter like we did in the third quarter.

Okay. Okay. And then just to talk about your new brands that you've launched. I understand these are available right now in Canada. Can you talk a little bit about the distribution you have currently and then how that may expand on a go-forward basis?

On the 2 new brand launches?

Yes.

Yes, I can. Actually, Martin, the one thing I would add on the margin side that you might want to consider as a follow-up and our team can help as well is to explore the relative margins that we have in the business even under sustained raw material pressures as compared to our protein peers. And our team would be happy to follow up with you and kind of walk you through our view of that because I think it might be helpful and informative.

On the 2 new brand launches, we're really excited about Mighty Protein and Musafir for very different reasons. I kind of dug into that in my opening comments. Both are being incredibly well received in terms of -- they're both being launched into the market in real time right now to start this fourth quarter. So they'll start to show up on grocery stores in the short next couple of weeks. And the distribution support has been very, very strong. They'll be broadly distributed -- we tend to have really great coverage across all of our brands in the Canadian retail market. These are Canadian brand launches, and they will be incredibly well distributed throughout the Canadian market.

Mighty Protein actually being a shelf-stable product also gets us access to some alternative channels where we traditionally haven't had as much penetration, things like convenience, could be gyms, convenience locations, areas where shelf-stable products are more prevalent. So it actually expands our distribution reach. And that's another reason why we're so excited about that product, both incredibly on trend, taking full advantage of the protein moment, which we don't view as a fad, we view as foundational to the human diet and 2 brand launches that we're really, really excited about. And we have a history of being able to scale up brands in the Canadian market. Last quarter, we highlighted 2 very important ones, I think, in Mina and in our Greenfield Natural Meat Company offering. And these are just the next 2 brands that we're launching in our large portfolio, and we're probably equally, if not more excited about.

Your next question comes from Michael Van Aelst of TD Cowen.

So I just wanted to follow up one more time on the Q4 pressures, margin pressures. I mean I fully understand the timing delay in passing on higher costs. The one thing I wanted to ask you about, though, is we obviously came into the quarter with much higher pork costs. But we've seen a big drop off -- a big seasonal drop-off in the hog price over the course of November. So can you explain like how early you lock in prices for the quarter, your cost for the quarter, sorry? And if the hog prices and therefore, the pork cutout were to stay at the current levels for the rest of the quarter, would that create a reasonable amount of relief to the pressures that you saw to start the quarter?

There's a few things that matter inside that question, Mike, first. There is a lag effect in terms of when those cost benefits flow through. So the effects of early -- of late Q3 spill into Q4, the benefits that we'll see in Q4, hopefully, as markets come off, hopefully, we'll experience in the first quarter and so on. There's a combination of risk management programs, the pricing lags that naturally take effect and the time it takes for those meat costs to flow through into the P&L. So that's one component that I think is important.

The other thing is the composition of the cutout in technical terms matters. But really what that means is the cuts of meat that carry the increases are really important. And the cuts that go into the prepared meats business, things like trims and bellies have been particularly impacted. So you have to look beyond the cutout to the individual cuts that are affected from an inflationary point of view. and that's important. And then the last thing I would note is it's not just pork inflation that's impacting the business. And I know we've talked about that a lot, particularly given the communication importance of this quarter with the separation of Canada Packers and the moving parts between the two companies. But beyond pork inflation, we're seeing a situation, I think, as you're well aware, where beef inputs are at all-time highs. Turkey in real time is being impacted by the avian influenza implications in the North American markets. Poultry demand is strong and markets continue to be strong.

So all competing proteins have relative strength all at the same time. And it's really the combination of those inflationary effects that impacted the third quarter, and I think will continue to impact Q4. And as I said, is normal in CPG, you feel inflation there's a normal amount of lead time to flow increase pricing through against that inflation, and we'll do that in the first quarter. Other than that, I'll resist the temptation, as I always say, to give you quarterly guidance because I think that would be inappropriate at this time. But that just gives you some further context for why we're saying we expect similar market conditions to persist into the fourth quarter.

Okay. Great. That's helpful, Curtis. And then you also touched on or teased us with some comments about how that you plan to modify some tools and use them to minimize the volatility quarter-to-quarter. Can you provide some examples of how you may do that going forward and I guess, why you weren't doing it previously?

Yes. Well, we have -- great question. Thank you, Mike, an important reminder for me to talk about. We have been doing them previously. So the -- there are 3 things we're doing in response to the inflationary impacts we're feeling. We've talked about the pricing changes, and that's one that's important. Always important in these inflationary environments to manage our costs to the best of our ability. And you would have heard me comment in my remarks earlier that we've taken the next step in our Fuel for Growth playbook around cost reduction, and we're completing another SG&A reorganization actually in real time here in the last week or 2, and it's continuing on. So that's -- number two is managing our costs in an effective way.

The third question, which is the one you asked is what steps can we take that we're not taking today. to improve the stability of our margins kind of quarter-to-quarter. I would start by noting, and this is a very important context that all consumer packaged goods companies in food, virtually all of them in food have some level of quarter-to-quarter margin movements embedded in their business. All food CPGs have that. We do too. This just happens to be a quarter where that was clearly evident.

There are 3 things, Mike, that we're exploring given the separation. And we did have a bit of a natural hedge between the pork business and the Prepared Foods business. I think it's important to be transparent about that. We knew that was obviously going to be disrupted. That's not necessarily new news, but this quarter just happened to illuminate the significance of that.

The 3 things that were studying only to see if there's something we can do different beyond what we're doing today are, number one, our pricing mechanisms. How much is on formula relative to list price, how we manage our deal and future pricing inside of any particular quarter. And I think it's just good hygiene to explore those pricing rhythms and pricing mechanisms. So we're just stepping back in that area. The second is the role of physical hedges, meaning using physical inventory as a natural hedge in the procurement function. And there are implications to storage and things like that, that we're evaluating and studying. And then the third is the efficiency and the efficacy of our derivative hedges, our financial hedges. And of course, in pork, you hedge hogs, not individual cuts of meat.

So there isn't always a straight line to perfect efficiency, and we're stepping back to study our effectiveness in that area. It doesn't mean we don't deploy all 3 of these mechanisms today. It does mean that we're taking prudent steps to evaluate whether there are further opportunities to kind of manage the quarter-to-quarter movements in margin. There will always be some. There is in all CPGs. These steps won't be perfect, but we do believe there's potential that they could be helpful.

Your next question comes from Vishal Shreedhar of National Bank.

With respect to the pricing, it seems like Q3 got -- had margin impact related to commodity inflation. You anticipate Q4 will as well and then part of Q1 will. So it just seems like a very long lag. And I'm wondering if there's something about Christmas that's causing you to not be able to take pricing quicker than you otherwise would have? Or should we anticipate in an inflationary environment, it could be upwards of a 6-month lag?

That's an excellent question. I appreciate that, and I appreciate you asking and giving me the opportunity to clarify. Normal lead times in consumer packaged goods are about 12 weeks, about, depending on the channel, maybe even 8 to 12 weeks. Christmas, the holiday season is a unique time. And it's a unique time because it has abnormally longer lead times. And all CPGs face those abnormally longer lead times over the holiday season, all CPGs, and we are one of them. And that's because retailers have policies where they don't accept price changes over the holiday season. And the first date they allow after the holidays is February 1, and that's when we're moving forward. So it's an abnormally long period of time. We acknowledge that. And we're simply operating within the normative rules that apply equally to the industry.

Okay. With respect to the product launches and the 50 new product products that you referenced earlier in the call. Given that this is a new spinout, I'm having difficulty understanding the magnitude of this. Is this a regular year? Is this something strong? And what should we expect from that growth initiative in terms of numerical quantification to help us quantify how meaningful this is?

On the 2 brand launches, Vishal?

On the 2 brand launches... Yeah... Just in total of your innovation pipeline and how significant I anticipate that to be as I look forward?

It's -- we included a couple of slides in our deck, and that might be the materials that you're referencing. The first slide was just demonstrating the fact that we put out more than 50 items into the market this year. And then the next 2, obviously, highlighting the 2 new brand launches. And those are there for a reason. And I would start by saying if you took a little bit longer lead time, and we were backed up to a certain extent given the implications of the pandemic and the fact that not a lot of innovation went out the door in the pandemic in the early parts of the post-pandemic economy, and we're now getting back into, I would say, above-average rhythm of launching products into the market.

I mean, keep in mind, Maple Leaf is a company that has 8% revenue growth. And when you compare that to the broader consumer packaged goods market to our peers, it's very, very strong. And our desire and goal and commitment is to keep that level of growth sustainable well into the future. So when you're looking to quantify the impact of these -- this is what great CPG companies do. They launch items, they launch items that have the potential to be impactful. Some of them simply are aid in the sustainment of the current trajectory of growth. Some of them tend to be more incremental where you move outside of core categories and into new adjacent categories. That's why we're excited about the meat snacks opportunity, in particular, because it's an adjacency.

But I would think about these more as this is a business that's growing above mid-single-digit levels at or above mid-single-digit levels of growth. We want to sustain that. These are the types of activities that we're taking to sustain that level of growth. This, combined with our leadership position in sustainable meats our U.S. growth platform that we continue to be excited about. The brands we launched last quarter that we highlighted like Mena and Greenfield, the core brands that we have in our portfolio that are #1 and 2 brands in the category, Maple Leaf, Schneider's, Maple Leaf Prime. When you pull all that together, that's the very reason that we're experiencing the outsized growth rates that we are in the market today. And these brand launches are intended for us to continue that level of success.

Okay. With respect to SG&A, the SG&A initiatives that you have coming in Fuel for Growth, is there an ability for you to give us some sort of magnitude of the benefits I should anticipate in 2026? Is it...

Yes, we will at some stage. I think that would tie into our 2026 outlook, which is which we understand there's a desire to understand and will come after this particular call. What's important to note is even in the last quarter, Vishal, we did pick up 50 basis points of leverage in our SG&A rate as a percentage of sales. So you're starting to see the benefits of some of the reorganization work that we've done shine through, and there's more work coming, obviously. But that will all be embedded in terms of the 2026 benefits of things like our SG&A work, the procurement work that we've already completed, the work we're doing from a manufacturing point of view, that will have a multiyear benefit. You can expect to see that when we provide more clarity on our 2026 outlook.

Okay. And sorry, just to jump back to the pricing comment and the pricing coming in, in Q1. So is that pricing that's coming in for Q1 reflects the situation today? If the commodities continue to escalate, at what point is there a cutoff such that Q1, you won't be able to pass on the entirety of the price subsequent to that date, that February date that you mentioned. And this commodity impact may linger into Q2 or Q3. Obviously, we don't have the history to gauge MFI's RemainCo vulnerability to these commodity swings. So I want to be able to triangulate that in future quarters should commodity prices continue to run.

We're pricing for all the known inflation we have today. That's essentially what the market kind of allows for. It's very difficult to move forward and price for what we don't know. So we'll continue to adjust our pricing as required moving forward if it's required. But at this stage, we're very confident that we've included all the known inflation that we have in the business. Very uncommon that, that would linger Vishal for several quarters, very uncommon. What we don't know is the consumer response to new pricing in the market and the volume impacts that come with that, and that will certainly play itself out over time. Very important to have the #1 and #2 brands in the category and the type of marketing and innovation support that we do have in inflationary environments like this.

If -- so to ask my question another way, if the inflationary environment continues to the end of the year, your pricing -- your pricing in December reflect -- in February, sorry, will reflect the commodity price today. Is that -- do I characterize that correctly? -- with that?

Yes.

Your next question comes from Irene Nattel of RBC Capital Markets.

I want to come back to consumer behavior. And obviously, we're hearing a lot of discussion about yesterday, Pet Value used the term uneven. We're hearing a lot about value-seeking behavior. And in the release, you noted promotional spending was up. It was a factor in both poultry and prepared foods in Q3. So I was just wondering what you're seeing out there and also what the retailers are kind of demanding or asking for in terms of promotional support.

I would view the headline for the consumer environment as stable but cautious. And the caution is a result of all the things we know about today, ongoing inflation, some of the geopolitical tension that exists in today's world. And as a result, value seeking continues to be a key theme. And that hasn't changed quarter-over-quarter from our perspective and it is certainly a key theme. Where we're excited is where we're positioned in the market to offer value to value-seeking consumers, I think, is really, really positive.

Number one, we're a protein-focused company at a time when protein demand is very strong and growing. Our leading brands allow us to have capabilities across all value segments in the grocery store, whether that's our leading premium brands, our RWA brands or some of our regional value brands, which give us an opportunity to compete in different areas of our categories and across different parts of the grocery store. We have a scalable growth platform in the U.S. that we're obviously excited about that gives us some level of growth support and our leadership in sustainability and sustainable meats continues to kind of differentiate us in a really positive way.

You combine those things with the innovation that we're putting out and feel really good about our ability to compete and grow inside of what's clearly a difficult and continues to be challenging consumer environment. That will be tested in the first quarter when we take additional inflationary pricing and continue to be really confident that the volume response will be positive. I mean we did already take pricing in the second quarter from an inflationary point of view. So it's not like we didn't see this inflation coming, just the magnitude and the duration exceeded our original forecast, and now we're coming forward with another wave. And the volume response in the last quarter has actually been pretty positive, like the branded volume growth was up this past quarter, and I view that as a success story.

That's great. And just on the trade promotion piece of it, would you say that it's sort of normal levels, above normal levels right now?

No, still more promotional, still above kind of "normal levels" Irene, still above. There's still more promotional support required to get the volume and the market share outcomes that we're seeing. And that's, to a certain degree, one of the reasons why you're seeing strong growth, 8% and margins that are pressured somewhat in the short term. You take the combination of the inflation and the consumer environment, those 2 things combined are really what's putting pressure sequentially on the margin. But again, on a relative basis, really happy. On a year-over-year basis, really happy from the top line perspective, really happy, need to own the fact that we've taken a step back sequentially, and we need to get that back on track.

Next question comes from Etienne Ricard of BMO Capital Markets.

As it relates to the U.S. business, what sales performance are you seeing in this geography? And how would the pricing power differ between Canada and the U.S. given I believe the U.S. tends to be more sustainable meats.

Yes. That's a very important point. I'll answer the second part first. We're obviously a much smaller player, both in terms of our brand presence and our absolute size in the United States market. But what gives us pricing power in the U.S. is our meaningful point of difference in sustainable meats. We've got a leadership position in the sustainable meats segment, while small portion of the United States market growing rapidly. We're growing inside of that. So that gives us pricing confidence. And I don't think given the inflationary support, that's very clear that exists today that we'll have any problem in a material way of passing that through in the U.S. market. So that brand leadership gives us that level of support in sustainable meats, which is a competitive difference and continues to be positive. We did see positive growth in our prepared meats business in the U.S. this past quarter, and we expect that to continue.

Your next call comes from John Zamparo of Scotiabank.

I wanted to follow up on trade promotions and specifically the seasonality. But I think in the past, you've said that Q3 is typically the peak. Is that still the case? And I don't suspect you'll quantify a year-over-year change in Q3, but whatever that number was, do you expect it to remain similar in Q4 on a year-over-year basis?

Yes. I don't think you'll see a material departure Q4 versus Q3 from the promotional intensity and frequency that exists in the business. It tends to shift. Summer tends to be hot dogs and sausages, winter tends to be ham and bacon so -- and the peak season throughout the holiday season. So the category dynamics change, but the -- from a materiality perspective, it's not significantly different between Q4 and Q3, I think, in the new business.

Okay. And I wanted to ask broadly about price elasticity from consumers at the current time. I know there's a lot of uncertainty here. You don't have a crystal ball, but it doesn't seem like you're seeing trade down based on your comments about branded sales and RWA, but I wonder if just the general context of the consumer environment makes you think differently than you otherwise would. And it's early in Q4, but any signs that you've seen any change there?

Well, we've seen a margin impacted by higher levels of promotional intensity for certain. That's happened for certain. Otherwise, we think we'd be operating at higher levels of margin than we are today, even higher than we are today. So that's played out. And I don't expect that will change materially in the quarter ahead.

Okay. And lastly, on the Buy Canada theme, it's always tough to measure this, but I wonder what you can say about what you thought the impact was in Q3? And is it fair to say we're seeing a more moderate impact in Q4?

I think so. I mean it's -- like you said, it's very difficult to quantify the impact. We'd like to think there's positive tailwinds in that area. There's lots of pride in all things Canada these days as I think there should be. Very difficult to quantify, and I would suspect it's moderating. I've been in the camp squarely that from day 1, we should expect that, that will be momentum that's maybe a little shorter lived than we would all like. And at some point in time, it would moderate. And I think we're -- what you're seeing here in terms of our growth is less by Canada and more really solid execution of what our proven growth strategies in the market are proving to be resilient, durable, effective and growth strategies that we think will take us well into the future.

Okay. And sorry, just one more. On the long-term guidance framework that's coming near term, I assume you don't want to steal its thunder, but any sense of what investors can expect? Is it likely to focus on a specific margin target? Or are you leaning more towards an overall growth algo? Anything you're willing to share at this point?

Not much I'm willing to share. I think it's premature. We're in the process right now, and this is normal in our business that we'd normal at this stage. Our 2026 budget gets presented to our Board in the month of December, along with our forward-looking strategic plan for the future. And the outcome of that dialogue discussion and approval and alignment process will ultimately guide our communications around guidance. So I think it's premature today. And -- but you should expect us to be coming forward with that in the short coming months ahead.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Michael Van Aelst of TD Cowen.

I just want to follow up actually on the top line growth, which has been impressive this year, even if it is slowing a little bit as we kind of cycle tougher comps as well. But the 2 new brands that you're launching, can you talk about the addressable market for these? And if you don't have a specific number, maybe something what you think relative to the MENA and the RWA, for example?

Well, the Musafir brand, MENA is probably a good proxy, Mike, in terms of the total addressable market, a very fast demographic opportunity in the Canadian market. But what's interesting, and we commented on Gen Z and millennials having a really interest -- having a real and sustained interest in global food flavors and maybe less of a propensity to cook from scratch. And those 2 things combined, the desire for more diversity in flavor offerings, a more diversity in food offerings but in a prepared meal occasion makes the total addressable market for Musafir maybe even larger than the Halal opportunity. So I would say equal to or greater than what we've seen and experienced in MENA Hal without putting a number around it. have to spend some time doing that. I haven't, but I could.

On the meat snacks opportunity, this isn't your normal kind of meat stick. Number one, it's not refrigerated, it's shelf stable. Number two, 12 grams of protein at 110 calories is a really awesome nutritional benefit for people who are looking for healthy protein on the go. And that's a large and very rapidly growing total addressable market. What's exciting about meat sticks is the ability to, number one, have success in our core business, which would be the retail environment, but also extend distribution into alternative channels, health food stores, convenience locations, gas and convenience locations, drugstore offerings, which obviously, as you know, are large and growing gyms, workout facilities, the shelf stable reach makes the distribution opportunities much more material, and we're already having success in gaining distribution in those areas.

So I'm excited to -- looking forward to report out a little bit more news around the success. Right now, we're just getting the product into the market. And our supply is selling out quickly, which is always a very positive outcome in a product launch. And I'm sure we'll give some positive updates along the way.

Great. That's helpful. And last question. With leverage down at 2x now, what is your -- what's the plan for free cash flow next 12 months? And should we -- and given the weakness in the share price, is it your intention to be active on your NCIB?

David, maybe you'd cover this one.

Mike. Similar to Curtis comments around outlook for 2026, obviously, this view of capital allocation and how that aligns with our view of the next 12 months all kind of wrapped up together. What I can say is -- and consistent with what we say in the outlook, we intend to continue to build on the track record of growth in the annual dividend that is a key focus for us. We are evaluating those future capital allocation opportunities with a desire to return capital to shareholders. And we're just working through the strategy for that, timing for that, the quantum of that, but that will all be wrapped up in the guidance we give going forward as well as our view that the share price is undervalued today. I talked about this last quarter. Nothing has changed in our view today post the spin. And so all those factors will be things that we're considering as we lay that out going forward. But I'm not going to talk to specifics today, but it is a very active conversation.

Is there anything preventing you from buying back stock this quarter?

Obviously, been in a blackout period up until now this quarter. There's nothing in and of itself presenting any obstacles to implementing share buybacks when we're outside of blackout period. We are mindful of the Butterfly structure, and that has some restrictions around it. But as we demonstrated in August, we have some flexibility to operate within that. And that's all part of the algorithm we're working through right now as we decide on the right strategy going forward.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Frank. Please continue.

Great. Thank you for joining us today. It was obviously a historic quarter with the completion of the spin-off of Canada Packers. There was lots of complexity required in our reporting this quarter, but we tried our best to simplify the key themes for you that are of most importance and appreciate your patience in taking the time to walk through with us today. On the surface, it was a very successful quarter, 8% growth on the top line, a significant improvement in our adjusted EBITDA. And our focus moving forward is obviously on sustaining the growth momentum we have in the business and continuing to create value in a way that's inspiring and enduring, and we're looking forward to speaking with you next quarter. So thank you, and have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference call. Please thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.