Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the B&G Foods, Inc. Fourth Quarter 2013 Financial Results Conference Call. Please note today's call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. David Wenner, Chief Executive Officer of B&G Foods. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the B&G Foods' fourth quarter 2013 conference call. You can access detailed financial information on the quarter and the full year in our earnings release issued today, which is available on our website at bgfoods.com. Before we begin our formal remarks, I need to remind everyone that part of the discussion today includes forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and, therefore, undue reliance should not be placed upon them. We refer all of you to our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent SEC filings for a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact our future operating results and financial condition. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. We will also be making reference on today's call to the non-GAAP financial measures, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income and adjusted diluted earnings per share. Reconciliations of these financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are provided in today's press release. We will start the call with our CFO, Bob Cantwell, discussing our financial results for the quarter and the full year. After Bob's remarks, I'll discuss the various factors that affected our results, selected business highlights and our thoughts concerning 2014. Bob?

Thank you, Dave. Net sales for the fourth quarter of 2013 increased 21.8% to $211.5 million compared to $173.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2012. Net sales of Pirate's Brands, which we acquired in July of 2013, contributed $16 million to the overall increase. Net sales of Rickland Orchards, acquired in October 2013, contributed $12.9 million to the increase. Net sales of TrueNorth, acquired in May 2013, contributed $4.5 million to the overall increase. In October 2013, net sales of the New York Style and Old London brands, acquired at the end of October 2012, contributed $2.9 million to the overall increase. Net sales for our base business increased $1.5 million or 0.9%, of which $4.3 million was attributable to unit volume increase, offset by net price decrease of $2.8 million. Net sales increased by $2.8 million for Ortega, $1.7 million for Maple Grove Farms of Vermont, offset by a decrease in net sales of $1.2 million for Emeril's and $1.1 million for Underwood. All other brands decreased $0.7 million in the aggregate. Gross profit for the fourth quarter of 2013 increased $7.6 million or 12.9% to $67.1 million from $59.5 million in 2012. Gross profit, expressed as a percentage of net sales, decreased 250 basis points to 31.7% for the fourth quarter of 2013 from 34.2% in the fourth quarter of 2012, primarily attributable to a net price decrease of $2.8 million, a sales mix shift to lower-margin products and an increase in our distribution costs. Selling, general and administrative expenses increased $3.9 million or 19.7% to $23.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2013 compared to $20 million for the fourth quarter of 2012. This increase is primarily due to increases in consumer marketing of $1.5 million, selling expenses of $1.2 million, acquisition-related transaction costs of $1.8…

Thanks, Bob. Good afternoon, again, everyone. The growth numbers Bob just stated for our business, net sales up 21.8% for the quarter and 14.4% for the full year, are an excellent illustration of how dynamic 2013 was for our business. 4 acquisitions in the 12-month period beginning in late October 2012, adding approximately 30% in net sales on an annualized basis, were a large step forward for us. The acquisitions did not come without growing pains, however. Some of which impacted adjusted EBITDA performance for the quarter. But despite those effects, our quarterly performance was solid, considering the sales gains just cited; an adjusted EBITDA increase of 13.7% to an even $50 million, a new quarterly record for the company, by the way; and adjusted diluted earnings per share increase of 21.9% to $0.39 per share. Although most of the volume growth seen in the quarter was due to acquisitions, it was encouraging to see volume growth in our base business as well. Base business volume was up 2.5% for the quarter, but was netted down to an overall gain of 0.9% due to lower pricing on a number of brands. As noted in earlier calls, we continue to see price erosion in food service, primarily due to distributors' focus on private label. This caused us to enhance end-user programs to maintain volume on our branded food service items. We also continued promotional activity on certain retail brands. We executed deeper promotions on our Ortega brand, for instance, particularly on taco shells and dinner kits, in response to aggressive pricing by the category leader. In this case, the promotions were deemed successful. Ortega volume was up over 11%, and the net sales increase after pricing was a positive 8.8%. Not every event is that successful, however. The B&M brand, for…

[Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question from Sean Naughton with Piper Jaffray.

When you guys think about the contribution from acquisitions in Q4, you kind of outlined some of the sales trends. But when you think about the EBITDA contribution from Ricklands and Pirates, TrueNorth, et cetera, what was the contribution from these deals versus the base business? And did the base business actually fall on an EBITDA basis in Q4?

I mean, base business, relatively flat -- actually, up a little bit, and the rest was really the contribution on the new businesses. I think, as Dave mentioned, what we saw [ph] on the new businesses and just absorbing them into our structure, we spent more than we expected in the fourth quarter getting that done. And we still have some things to do here in the first and second quarter of the year, as we move some warehouses and make those snack acquisitions more efficient in our system. But base business, very relatively flat on a contribution basis overall.

And that's pretty much true year after year. Our base business results and margins don't really move much, except depending on mix shifts within the brands, and those typically are not very dramatic. So that's where the consistency has come from over many years.

Okay. And then, I guess, your expectation for Pirate's is probably a little bit higher than what you delivered in the fourth quarter. Any comments there on the business, just kind of being flat in the fourth quarter compared to opportunities, I guess, looking forward?

Well, I think, the general comment on Pirate's was it was being positioned for sale. So there was a lot of very aggressive programs being done, some of which we have chosen not to repeat. So we're running the business perhaps a little more -- I hate -- the right word isn't rationally, but certainly with more judgment towards an ongoing business rather than positioning a business for sale.

Got it. And then, just lastly, I think you talked about an organic pita chip and then some non-GMO Polaner lines that you're working on. How aggressive are you going down this path with some of the brands that you have in the portfolio today? And maybe just give us an idea of what that looks like in terms of the overall structure of the company today. How many lines do you kind of have in those 2 spaces?

Well, to the extent consumers care, we're going to pursue those opportunities. I mean, as far as organic goes, we have found, over the years -- and this may change going forward, but we have found over the years that, in general, on dry grocery products, consumers do not care about organic. It's not that important to them. Snacks, it's a hot-button issue[ph], especially in places like Whole Foods and warehouse clubs. The fact that we got the distribution in Costco was primarily due to the fact that we were able to execute quickly on something Costco wanted in terms of an organic pita chip. So where we see it's important, and we think it's important in some aspects of snacks, we're going to go down that road. The same thing with GMO, where we think it's an important aspect of the product and it differentiates us meaningfully from our competition, we will go down that road. If -- obviously, it may imply an added expense if the added expense is also warranted. Not a lot going on right now in either area, but I -- certainly, as we expand in snacks, I would think both would be a lot more relevant.

Our next question will come from Farha Aslam with Stephens Inc.

A question on your snacks brands again. You had said that for your New York Style, where you did get the new packaging and the shelf, that it performed well. Is there any kind of, sort of, structural issues in getting the new packaging and the new shelf sets into increased locations?

Well, there are several considerations. The first is you have to get the retailer to agree to it. And I think, right now, the opportunities are there to do that. The second is a pure cost issue of how much it costs for all of these display pieces and in what context we can afford to expand it. Right now, our plans are to place it into about 10% of the ACV in the United States, and we'll make judgments based on how -- whether or not that continues to be successful and what the payback is on how fast we'll expand that activity.

But then, looking at your snacks portfolio overall, going into next year, what would you say, aside from just lapping, you would anticipate those snack businesses to grow at?

Well, I -- anticipate or aspire to would be the distinction. We really want -- we want the snack businesses to grow at a double-digit rate that pulls the whole portfolio up to a low-single digits growth rate. Can we achieve that? I don't know. A lot of it's going depend on success at warehouse clubs and creating new products and getting some fulsome distribution in warehouse clubs on those products, because that kind of growth at retail would be very expensive in terms of slotting and things like that. So that's what we're looking for. Things like Pirate's was growing at double digits, and we'd like to continue that story. You have things like New York Style and TrueNorth that are really rework projects. First, we had to get the patient stabilized before we could get them growing. And then, Rickland, obviously, is growing very fast. So you have a mixed bag in terms of where the products are. And hopefully, we can get them all growing and obviously at different rates, depending on where they've come from.

And my final question is really in your club channel. Is there a goal you have in that channel in terms of a percentage of sales or how much that will contribute to growth?

Well, it's not really a goal. I mean, to the extent you can sell things in the clubs and make money, you want to do it. So we're trying to get to where clubs are a meaningful number simply because clubs are a meaningful number in the food business, and it's a hole in our portfolio, if you will, in terms of taking advantage of selling things where consumers are. And it's also a higher growth part of the food business than most outlets selling foods. So there's a variety of reasons to aspire to do more business there. I think you're going to have to -- we're going to have to learn how well we can do that and what works in grocery, for instance, before we can define here's where we think we can get to with clubs. But certainly, we see it as a big opportunity and a big facet of the overall food business that we really haven't been a player in up till now.

[Operator Instructions] We'll hear next from Robert Moskow with Crédit Suisse.

This is Clay Crumbliss on for Rob. Just a quick question on your EBITDA guidance. You've guided to 10% -- 7.5% to 10% growth. Can you talk about how much of that is coming from the base business and what's acquisitions?

Well, the base businesses is just going to be a couple of percent, and it really is -- as we said earlier, it really is a matter of how much the base business top line grows, how much the bottom line grows. It's pretty much lockstep. There's not a whole lot of margin expansion opportunities there, except, as I said before, to the extent the mix shifts. So most of the growth would come from lapping the acquisitions and any growth we can drive out of the snack acquisitions. But our base business aspirations are not very high, given the environment these days in dry grocery. I watch company after company report a lot of difficulty in growing their business, which made us pretty happy we had the volume growth we had in the fourth quarter. And I think it would be unrealistic to plan for a significant volume growth in that base business. So to repeat what I've said, most of it will be coming from the acquisitions. And a very modest low-single digits, if we can grow the top line, would come from the base.

[Operator Instructions] And at this time, we have no further questions in the queue.

All right. Well, thank you, all, very much for your interest in the company and attending this call. 2013 was a challenging year in a variety of ways, but it was also a very rewarding year in terms of the acquisitions we did and where we think we have the company positioned to perform in 2014. We're looking forward to doing just that. Thank you.

Thank you. And again, ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude our conference for today. We thank you for your participation.