Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Church and Dwight's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Before we begin, I have been asked to remind you that on this call, the company's management may make forward-looking statements regarding, among other things, the company's financial objectives and forecasts. These statements are subject to risk and uncertainties, and other factors that are described in detail in the company's SEC filings. I would now like to introduce your host for today's call, Mr. Rick Durker, President and Chief Executive Officer of Church & Dwight. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining the call. We had a fantastic quarter. I want to start off by thanking all of our Church & Dwight employees around the world on executing so well in a volatile environment. I'll begin with some thoughts on the macro environment and then a review of our Q1 results. Then I'll turn the call over to Lee McChesney, our CFO. And when Lee is done, we'll open it up for questions. Starting with the broader environment, conditions remain dynamic, and the consumer backdrop continues to be mixed. Consumer sentiment remains pressured by inflation, borrowing costs, and geopolitical uncertainty related to the Middle East, which, as you know, is also contributing significant inflation in commodities and transportation costs. That said, the consumer remains resilient. Employment remains stable, and our largest categories grew 3% in the quarter. Our portfolio, with its balance of value and premium offerings, continue to perform well in this type of environment, supported by strong brands and innovation. Turning to the Q1 results, we delivered a strong start to the year and exceeded our outlook across key metrics. Net sales increased 0.2% ahead of our expectation for a decline. And organic sales grew 5%, well above our 3% outlook. This growth was driven by volume. Adjusted gross margin expanded 130 basis points to 46.4%. And adjusted EPS was 95 cents, up 4.4% year over year and above our 92 cent outlook. Overall, this was a high quality beat driven by strong execution across the business now I'm going to turn my comments to each of the three divisions first up is the u.s. consumer business organic sales increased 5.4 percent which was primarily all volume across the portfolio our brands continue to perform exceptionally well growth in the quarter was led by TheraBreath Arm & Hammer hero and oxyclean supported by strong innovation and distribution gains across all classes of trade global ecom also remained a key contributor with online sales now representing approximately 24% of total consumer sales. Innovation and distribution gains continue to be key drivers of our performance, and the first quarter of this year is no different. We're confident that our relentless focus on innovation will continue to drive industry-leading growth, distribution gains at shelf, and market share expansion. In fact, we are just finishing tabulating all the distribution gains looking forward, and I'm proud to say Church & Dwight was number one across all of CPG on total distribution points gained year over year. New product launches this year are expected to account for half of our organic growth as we innovate in key categories across our portfolio of industry-leading everyday products. The Arm & Hammer brand had another quarter of growth with laundry hitting record shares across total laundry detergent. Arm & Hammer laundry detergent consumption grew 4.1% in the quarter compared to category growth of 2.7%. The value segment of laundry continues to grow. Arm & Hammer laundry grew despite a lower level of promotion in the quarter. Our newest innovation in laundry is Arm & Hammer baking soda fresh with 10 times the amount of baking soda and is off to a great start with a 4.9 consumer rating where most laundry items are around 4.5. Our Arm & Hammer laundry sheets also continue to do well, growing consumption by 30%. We like the category building potential of Evo and we are well positioned to win in value. Next up is litter. Fantastic results as Arm & Hammer cat litter consumption grew a robust 6.8% and share increased 0.4 points to reached 24.6%. While category promotional levels remained elevated, they did decline sequentially from Q4. OxiClean share declined in the quarter as we continue to be impacted by distribution loss and lapping that from a large club retailer a year ago. The good news is that the trends on OxiClean improved throughout the quarter, and sales growth surpassed our expectations. Hero and TheraBreath continue to contribute considerably to overall performance. TheraBreath achieved another quarter of record share gains, 3.5 points to 24.1, and further solidifying our number two position in total mouthwash. Household penetration remains low relative to the category. In fact, even with these great distribution gains recently, we still have less than 20% of the shelf, so more room to run, even in mouthwash. Early days, but the TheraBreath toothpaste launch is off to a great start. Hero consumption growth also outpaced the category, leading to share gains and remains the share leader, two times larger than the next competitor. Euro's growth was driven by distribution expansion, strong Q1 activations led by Brandon Baster and Jordan Childs on Mighty Patch Original and Mighty Shield Innovation. Mighty Shield is already achieving retailer hurdle rates. Finally, Touchland. In Q1 consumption, continued to grow low double digits, but sales were impacted by a strong Q4 holiday multi-pack sell-through. Recent consumption has slowed as we lapped year-ago launches. Internally, we are hard at work on integration and innovation. Turning to international, our international business delivered organic sales growth of 3.7%, driven by our GMG and our subs. Growth was led by TheraBreath, Hero, and Batiste brands and partially offset by lower Middle East regional sales. Of note, in April, we went live with our upgraded ERP system. Our project leader, Nicole, said it best. Our customers did not notice the transition. Thank you to the entire team. I'll close by saying that we are very pleased with our start to the year. Our brands remain strong, our portfolio is well-positioned, and our strategic actions continue to support long-term growth. I'm proud of our Church and Dwight team as we perform well in a volatile environment. As we look forward, our TSA agreement with the VMS business is winding down, and that organizational time that has been freed up is being spent on our forward-looking growth initiatives. We're laying the groundwork for Arm & Hammer expansion, oral care growth behind TheraBreath, and international M&A. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Lee for more detail on the quarter.

Thank you, Rick, and good day, everyone. Back in January at our 2026 Investor Day, we shared an industry-leading outlook for 2026. The highlights of that outlook included organic sales growth of 3% to 4%, an EPS growth of 5% to 8% in line with our Evergreen model. As we now share results from the first quarter, we're delighted with the execution across the globe. The first quarter highlights once again the many strengths of our portfolio and the team's execution capabilities. Let's jump into the details and provide you an update on our views for the year. We'll start with EPS. First quarter adjusted EPS is $0.95, up 4.4% from the prior year. The $0.95 was better than our $0.92 outlook and was driven by higher volume and gross margin results. Organic sales in 1Q were up 5% above our outlook of 3%, and organic sales were broad-based across the globe with volume growth of 5.3%, partially offsetting a negative price and mix of 0.3%. Our organic growth was fueled by a steady stream of market-leading innovation and strong distribution wins. The organic results also drove our reported revenue up to 0.2% versus our original outlook of negative 1% back in January. I want to put our reported results in perspective. Due to our portfolio actions, our reported sales results would naturally be down 8%. However, our organic growth of 5% fueled by volume growth was certainly a strong start to the year. The quarter adjusted margin was 46.4%, a 130 basis point increase from a year ago. Our results versus last year were driven by 150 basis points from higher margin acquisitions, combined with the impact of the strategic portfolio actions. 50 basis points from the combination of volume, price, and mix, and 10 basis points from FX. These factors offset 190 basis points of inflation and tariff costs. Jump to our investments in marketing. Our market expense as a percentage of sales was 9.5%, or 20 basis points higher than the first quarter of last year. Looking forward, we're continuing to target investments at approximately 11 percent of net sales in line with our evergreen model q1 adjusted sgna increased 110 basis points year over year as we noted our january investor day sgna in the first half of the year is primarily growing versus last year due to the inclusion of touchlands sga and amortization expense adjusted other expense increased by 5.2 million due to a lower interest income compared to the last. In Q1, our adjusted tax rate was 20.3% compared to 21.8% in Q1 of 2025, 150 basis point year-over-year decrease. And our expected adjusted effective tax rate for the year remains at 21.5%. Let's now turn to cash flow. Operations was $174.8 million. Our higher year-over-year cash earnings were partially offset by an increase. Continued to expect... Let's now turn to our 26 outlook while the macro and our strategic portfolio actions in 2025 and our growth initiatives continue to provide us confidence and as we noted in our press release the situation in the middle east is fluid and is creating some incremental meeting 25 to 30 million dollars of incremental and are taking actions across the pnl of our mitigating actions we are reiterating our full year 2026 outlook we remain on track to deliver full year organic growth of approximately three or four percent and we continue to expect reported sales growth to the client approximately 1.5 to 0.5 percent as a result of the strategic portfolio actions taken in 2025. we continue to expect 400 basis points versus 2025 and this outlook reflects the breadth of actions we discussed in january in the balance of incremental headwinds and actions that we've identified since the middle east conflict began marketing as a percentage of sales remains at approximately 11 percent SG&A as a percentage of sales will be higher than last year reflecting the impact of the touch and acquisition in the first half of the year our adjusted EPS expectation for 26 remains at five to eight percent growth and if we turn to the second quarter approximately one percent with organic sales growth of approximately three percent and we anticipate grossing 50 basis points reflecting transportation cost pressures ahead of the mitigation efforts that will take effect later in the year. And in the quarter, we continue to expect higher marking in SG&A. And in 2Q, the investment in marketing and higher SG&A will more than offset the gross margin expansion, resulting in an adjusted EPS of $0.88 per share for the quarter. Recall, we continue to expect flattest EPS growth in the first half of 2026. To conclude, remain confident in our 2026 outlook. We began the year with strong execution and are taking the steps to ensure continued success this year. And my final preparative work is for the church, and congratulations on the robust execution. Well done. Carly, we are now ready for questions.

At this time, if you would like to ask a question, press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question is from the line of Chris Carey with Wells Fargo Securities.

Hi, good morning, everybody.

Hi, Chris.

Rick, you mentioned that distribution gains were number one in CPG. I'm not exactly sure of the timing of those gains, but nevertheless, a very strong number. When you think about Q1 delivery, how important are those gains to what we're seeing today? I'm really speaking to the durability of some of the volume growth that we are seeing relative to perhaps some of the tailwinds that may have been caused by some inventory reductions in the base. So I just wonder if you could contextualize the quarter as you see it and what the Q1 means for kind of, you know, go forward, top line, volume-driven results, and then I'm a follow-up.

Yeah, sure, Chris. You know, Q1 was phenomenal organic growth. And more than anything, it was great to see our categories were growing around 3%, and we grew faster than that. a little bit um and we talked a year ago about uh inventory and retail inventory dynamics and so we had a tailwind have a couple points from that as well so that's how we get to kind of five for q1 now all this distribution gains that's really just hitting now and so uh it depends how you look at the metric if you look at it on a kind of average basis over over 13 weeks i think it's like a seven percent tdp lift if you look at it as in more recent time as these resets are happening in a more recent time it's closer to 10 or 11 percent which is about double what most of the CPG peers are getting and that's not just their breath and hero that's across laundry and litter and in personal care so it's across the whole portfolio so we just believe that's a great tailwind to our business and it's really a payoff of all the innovation that we're doing so so anyway it's a it's a tailwind as we look forward and gives us confidence.

Follow up on Touchland, you did note that consumption flowed on year ago, activity that was strong in the base period. Can you just give us an update on how you're thinking about growth of the business, the sustainability of growth, and whether you think that it has the kind of runway to sustain perhaps double-digit growth into the back half year and into next year. Thanks.

Yeah, sure thing. And when we look at consumption that kind of shows up for you folks, we understand it shows consumption for the quarters down 20%. When we look at consumption that is all in, including untracked channels, we were up about 12 or 13%. So there is a difference in what you see versus what the entire picture is. But it has slowed, and it slowed partly because of all these holiday gift sets that go out and also because the club class channel overall we we believe that we still are going to have double-digit growth for touching for the full year the good news is we have great ratings we have low household penetration and we're just starting now to advertise a lot of our activations with either collaborations or just partnerships are happening in the back cap. So we feel good about Touchland.

Thanks, guys.

Your next question is from Anna Lizzle with Bank of America.

Hi, good morning. Thank you so much for the question. Hi, Anna. Your portfolio actions, I think, from last year helped drive the outperformance here in Q1. Just wondering how you're looking at the portfolio now, given the changes on the VMS business and others that you have exited. And then just to follow up on Touchland, if you can comment on where it's performing best in terms of the channels. And further on M&A, where are you now more focused in this more challenging consumer environment? Thanks so much.

Yeah. So there's three questions. Let me see if I can remember all of them. The first one is how we're, you know, on M&A, I'm not really going to comment. I would just say that the team is always hard at work the leadership team spends an inordinate amount of time I'm looking for great businesses and brands to buy and we've gone through our criteria again and again and again and I would say the the team is is is hard at work and it's just not in the US it's also internationally it's not an or it's an and and that's some of the highest and best use of our time so I continue to be optimistic there on touchlin I think you're asking hey what channels are doing well. I would say the channels that are doing better than most are ones that aren't necessarily tracked. The club class trade did extremely well. Amazon does well. I think some of the beauty classes of trade because of the timing of promotions and also some of the innovation doesn't look as good. But again, some of the other channels that you don't necessarily see are doing better. And your third question, Anna, just remind me what it was.

Yeah, I was just wondering, I guess, in terms of portfolio, you've exited certain, you know, categories and wondering how you're viewing the entire portfolio here based on those changes.

Yeah, I love our portfolio is the short answer. I mean, to be in a world, you know, remember, a lot of growth, a lot of categories out there are not growing or they're going backwards. And we've got to choose and select our categories over many, many years as we've bought businesses. And the fact that our categories grew 3% this quarter, we grew typically like we typically do faster than that, it bodes well. And I think when we did the portfolio decisions last year, it provides nothing but tailwinds for us as we look forward.

Okay, great. Very helpful. Thank you so much.

Your next question comes from Rupesh Parikh with Oppenheimer.

Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. I guess just going back to organic sales growth expectations, I know you typically give it by segment, so just curious, updated thoughts for the year by segment, including for international.

Go ahead, Lee. Yeah, so to your point, we're maintaining the outlook of 3% to 4%. Similar to what we talked about back in January, we still have the U.S. in kind of approximately a 3% zone. You know, international is probably approximately seven. It's a little bit softer because of the Middle East situation. And then SPD is still sitting at about 5%. Again, you know, it's a range. The U.S. hits their number. There's others that end up in the higher end, but we'll see how it goes. It's only one quarter so far gone.

And then my follow-up question, just as you look at the consumer out there, just curious if you're seeing any changes in consumer behavior. And as you look at your portfolio historically, when you see these, you know, with spikes in gas prices, do you see any parts that typically benefit?

Yeah, no, it's a good question, Rupesh. I think in my prepared remarks, and this is the second quarter in a row I've said it, but I'll just emphasize it. You know, promotional levels are up in laundry, as an example, for the category. We're hitting all-time share highs, and our promotional levels are down. All three competitors besides us are up. The value segment of laundry is growing. So that is a – and not only do we deliver great cleaning and efficacy, but we do it at a great value, right? And so that is hitting the mark right now in this economy. I think the same concept for litter. Some of our competitors are promoting very heavily, but we are – we're promoting a little bit more, but we're gaining share again and again. So for those two areas of household products, which are more respondent to, you know, promotions and stuff, that is a good sign.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Javier Escalante with Evercore ISI.

Hey, good morning, everyone. My questions have to do with the commodity backdrop, right? I personally was expecting a more muted kind of like outlook for gross margin given all derivatives going into detergents. So if you can go back and explain us, you know, how much, you know, oil derivatives goes into your COGS. And I believe that you mentioned that the impact is like $25, $30 million. Is that a full-year number? So anything that can help us explain the gross margin expansion going into calendar 2026, and I have a follow-up.

Yeah, I'll start, and then, Lee, if you want to add a couple comments. It is a full-year number, Javier, for that $25 or $30 million, and it's primarily, as you would expect, oil-based derivatives like diesel and resin and surfactant, and that's not atypical. Remember, in any given year, we always enter a year about 60% hedged as well. And so all these are kind of net impacts for us, so hopefully this is transitory and it's not permanent, but we have good coverage for an extended period of time, especially in the foreseeable, you know, 2026. The team is laser-focused on productivity, really, to offset many of these things. And yet there will be some RGM and promotional adjustments, but it's largely productivity, and that's really been the hallmark of the company. we've you've transformed this place on being able to get gross productivity year after year after year and and in a perfect world if that doesn't happen great then we continue to spend on marketing even higher and spend that money back that we would have saved and then it drives the top line even faster behind our innovation so Lee any other comments you know yeah I just put it in perspective and then keep in mind we had to have about 160 basis points of inflation in the outlook when we back in January you know we got this 25 to 30 so And that now brings you up to, you know, 200 basis points.

But to Rick's point, you know, we have these additional offsets we're going after. And this is what you see from us. You know, you saw it last year when we did our work on tariffs. You know, we got that number down to a similar number, and we worked it down. And, you know, that's what we're doing here. So, you know, I think we're in a good spot. And, you know, that's why we reiterate our outlook for the year.

And a follow-up. This is very, very helpful. It's very positive. I feel that it's idiosyncratic to you. But in terms of if this externality continues and commodities remain very high, would you expect then, you know, value players, say the guys in Germany, to lead first calibrating the promotional environment and then potentially leading price increases? Is that a good assumption? Thank you.

Yeah, I think it's probably a better question for those competitors, Javier. Like in my kind of comments back to Rupesh for laundry, despite all these other competitors promoting a bit more in laundry, which is still kind of within the range of historical numbers, it's not crazy, but they're up, we're down, we're getting share, the value segment's growing. so that's a great position to be in because there's there's huge macro when consumers are pressed the gas tank they want to make sure their dollar goes further and one way they can do that is they can buy arm and hammer laundry detergent it's half the price of the leading detergent so and it's a great efficacy great value and that's true not just among laundry it's but many of our brands and so that's a that's a great question I think it's a more pertinent question for kind of the competitors.

Congrats.

Thank you.

Great, thanks. Good morning. First question, just relative to your expectations, obviously a very nice beat on the top line. Where did you see the biggest positive surprises in your view? Was it more volume? Was it more price mix? So it seems pretty broad based.

I'm just kind of curious how you're thinking about that and then i'd follow up yeah so i mean as you talked about it's uh it's a broad-based improvement um across the globe i mean really the the only pressure point we saw was international was middle east um and so you know i got the question earlier just what do we think about for the year we're generally the same type of view we shared back in january in terms of how we thought growth is going to play out yeah and i said the volume there was a volume driven B is what I would do.

Got it. And then as more and more business consolidates into club and online, it feels like the move online should be good for you or at least not a hindrance for you, whereas club typically keeps brand count pretty tight. So given those dynamics, how do you think about your ability to grow in these channels, whether disproportionately relative to your a peer set, and then ability to sort of stand out in both club and online.

Yeah, I would say there's no grand new strategy. We're performing really, really well online and in the club class of trade. Remember, we started in 2016 as 2% of sales. We're at 24%. We went from a laggard to a leader. We moved really quickly. But you've got to start even further back than that. we have great brands, especially after the portfolio realignment we did. We have number one, number two brands. Consumers love them. I gave you the quote in our prepared remarks, even our new launch for Arm & Hammer Liquid Laundry with a Baking Soda, 10X. It has a 4.9 review. We're in the average portfolios of 4.5. That story is playing out across all categories and many of our brands. And so that's the starting point. And when we do that, then we have to make sure we can win with the right pack sizes in the dollar class of trade, the right pack and offerings in the club channel, the right pack and offerings online. And we've proven time and time again that we can move faster. That's one of our competitive advantages, move quickly in order to give the customer what they want, where they want. And so we plan on trying to win not just in one class of trade, but all classes of trade.

Great. Thank you. Your next question is from Lauren Lieberman with Barclays.

Great. Thanks so much. So I just have to talk a little bit maybe about your perspective on the consumer's ability to absorb pricing, not necessarily in terms of how you'll deal with mitigating cost inflation. You've been pretty clear on that front. But in general, I feel like a lot of companies are, there's a mixed bag, let's say, in how companies are factoring in the current state of the world in terms of inflation expectations for the second half um you know and everyone seems to be treading very lightly on whether they will or whether they won't price and so just curious on your perspective broadly um on the consumer's ability to absorb pricing should that be where the industry ends up going thanks yeah i think it's i think that's a great question, Lauren.

And our personal view is the consumer is pressed. And if they were pressed three months ago or six months ago or 12 months ago, they're pressed even more today because, you know, gas costs show up immediately. And when that happens, they're going to retrench and the worst thing to do in an environment like this so we're we have no plans to try to price through this 25 30 million dollar offer we're going to go offset it with productivity there's just no appetite out there for the consumer to bear something like this so that's our plan I think companies who do that will be more successful than companies that don't thanks so much your next question comes from steve powers with deutsche bank hey thanks am i am i live yep okay great um

i guess i guess building on that um to extend i mean i guess two questions you know is there is there any kind of heuristic you could offer as to you know you know if we see um volatility in the middle east we see we see further rises in the price of oil or more extended duration and higher cost of oil, what would make that $25 to $30 million grow and at what pace? How we can gauge external dynamics and apply it to Church and Dwight is kind of one question. And the second question that follows from that is that if that $25 to $30 million grows over time, Rick, and you kind of run dry on the ability to kind of press incremental productivity. Do you approach pricing across different parts of your portfolio with a different mindset? When I think about value versus premium, is there more ability to push price to the premium and less on the value?

How do you think about pricing in a scenario where you're you're forced to kind of at least contemplate something beyond productivity yeah no it's a fair question um we're not going to go through the details what does a every five or ten dollars of oil translate into an impact on church and dwight i think that's a little bit uh too nuanced but i will say you know my answer to lauren was based on the question of kind of the current scenario 25 to 30 million dollars we think that's you know just like many things in life we can we can handle something like that if it if it becomes a lot more meaningful call it 50 million or 100 million or 150 million you know who knows where it stops then you have to solve a different problem with different solutions and so the first stop on the train is productivity the second stop on the train is RGM on promotions and that's usually through household that's where a lot of our promotions are the third step on the train would be would be pricing And you're right. Many of our premium products are extremely premium and high-priced, and the consumer loves it, but you've got to do that behind innovation. So as we're launching our innovations, to really look with a fine-tooth comb on what the price point really should be is also something that we would look at. But for today, my answer would be if it's in this range, and we all hope that it is, and we hope that it's transitory, then that's how we would solve it, through productivity. If it becomes something else and bigger, then we have other tools in the toolkit if we need Yeah.

Very, very fair. And I guess the only follow-up I have is that, you know, if it is transitory, and as you say, hopefully it is, is the productivity you're putting in place, is it structural or is it more belt tightening such that if it rolls over, maybe some of it gets reinvested, but some of it, you know, some of it just kind of backfill and you loosen the belt back up?

Yeah, I wouldn't call it belt tidying. I would call it we kind of accelerate project. You know, we have a three-year pipeline of productivity projects, just like we have a three-year pipeline of innovation. And so at any given time, we can choose to fast forward certain projects or slow down other projects, whatever we want to do. And, you know, we can influence timing if the productivity happens, but costs also continue to drop, perhaps we slow some of it back down, or we take that money and go reinvest it in marketing and build the virtuous cycle all over again.

Fair enough. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Andrea Dixaria with JP Morgan.

Thank you for taking my question. Good morning, everyone. I was just hoping to see if you can comment a little bit, Rick, on what you said. You had some, I wouldn't say pull forward, you had an adjustment you called out for the fact that you outperformed on the organic sales growth. The comparison, I think, from a inventory dynamic from, I guess, last year. So, hoping to see and we saw what you guided for the second quarter more aligned with the consumption you called out. So, is that something to think like those that 2% extra that you got in the first quarter was more an adjustment not a pull forward from the second quarter that's my first question and then just a follow-up so if I understood correctly you're going to take some potentially some price actions to mitigate the 20 to 30 million dollar I believe you called out to be the impact of the of the costs or the Middle east war or you are just saying potentially you're going to take some pricing yeah so let's take that that second one first now i think i was super clear uh the 25 to 30 million dollar headwind

that um the middle east conflict has created in terms of higher commodity costs and inflation we believe we can offset that with productivity okay when we do that that's that enables us to keep our outlook where it's at the question that Steve just asked was well what happens if that doubles or triples can you still just do that with productivity and the answer was no with that amount we can do with productivity if it goes a lot higher than we would look at RGM type actions on promotions if it goes a lot higher from there then we would look at potential pricing so that's kind of the normal sequence of events and I just said

before at those types of levels the consumer is pressed and so we don't plan on raising prices at this point okay so that's and just to and just to fine point that like the the midpoint and I'm sorry if I missed that the midpoint of that scenario is oil at which price because you know uh what is the um what is that 100 per barrel or is 110 different companies are using different assumptions on their own yeah we're using a you know a reasonable average of what we've seen in the last couple weeks obviously it changes daily but it's a good safe bet so it's you know 95 to 100 dollars is a good base point okay thank you okay and your your what was your first question Andre yeah sorry to second part but the the first question was the the fact that you came out as five percent and you did comment the two percentage benefit from potentially like inventory dynamics just wondering if that's going to come out of the third quarter the second quarter or it doesn't look like because you're guiding in line with category growth, but I guess with market share gains and distribution gains, all of that.

Yeah, so just rewind the clock to 12 months, and remember Q1 of 2025, every CPG manufacturer said, what's going on? And there was a retail inventory pullback, right, because of all the agita around tariffs and the consumer and whatnot. and everyone called out a number back then this earnings cycle most folks aren't talking about it as much which is fine we're just trying to be transparent we call that a year ago and we said hey that means a year later then that's worth a two percent help and so we grew our business around three percent and we had that two percent help that's five percent organic and categories are growing well we continue to take share we're getting distribution gains and

that's why we gave an outlook we think that's really strong for the full year and really solid for Q3 I mean Q2 okay that's fair thank you our last question comes from Peter Grom with UBS great thank you and good morning everyone so I was hoping to get some perspective on category growth I think you mentioned three percent but some of your peers have touched on growth showing signs of improvement as you move through the quarter so can you maybe comment on what you've seen from a category standpoint exit in the quarter quarter to date and and rick related you've always had a pretty good pulse on what to kind of expect from a category standpoint so just you know given the many things the consumer is dealing with right now curious how you see that evolving from here Yeah, good question, Peter.

You know, for us in the quarter, and I just talk about our major categories. I think it's just easier to talk about our seven. So for the quarter, three in January, three in February, closer to three and a half in March. So that bodes well. It came down a little bit in April, but we're doing extremely well in April. So I would tell you it was better than we expected you know when we were when we were starting the year we were expecting closer to maybe two two percent category growth now this is only 90 days but I am and and I am more enthusiastic than I was 90 days ago despite everything else to the tap in the world because again not every company you can't paint every company with the same brush the categories really matter and many of our categories it's not just one category driving a three percent weighted average it's almost all the categories are growing uh two and a half at least two and a half to three

percent so that's just a great thing great thank you so much i'll leave it there there are no further questions at this time i'll now turn the call back over to rick turker for any closing remarks.

All right, well thank you very much and we'll talk to everybody in July.