Good day, and welcome to the B&G Foods Fourth Quarter 2016 Earnings Call. Today's call is being recorded. You can access detailed financial information on the quarter and the full-year in the company's earnings release issued today, which is available at ir.bgfoods.com. Before the company begins its 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 the company's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent SEC filings for a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact the company's future operating results and financial condition. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. The company will also be making references on today's call to the non-GAAP financial measures, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income, adjusted diluted earnings per share and base business net sales. Reconciliations of these financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are provided in today's earnings release. Tom Crimmins, the company's CFO, will start the call by discussing the company's financial results for the quarter. Next, Bob Cantwell, the company's CEO, will discuss various factors that affected the company's results, selected business highlights and his thoughts concerning 2017. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Tom Crimmins. Tom? Thomas P. Crimmins - B&G Foods, Inc.: Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Net sales for the fourth quarter of 2016 increased 20.8% to $413.7 million, compared to $342.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2015. And additional month of net sales of Green Giant, acquired on…

Thank you. And we'll take our first question from Farha Aslam with Stephens Incorporated. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Hi, Good morning. Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: Good afternoon. Thomas P. Crimmins - B&G Foods, Inc.: Good afternoon

Or actually, good afternoon. Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: Right.

The day has just passed by. Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: Okay.

Green Giant, total sales for the year and kind of the – what the key aspect should we expect to deliver that 5% to 6% growth? Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: Well, part of it is we finished 2016 at $506.7 million and part of that was we were short product to ship product in kind of October into early November for Thanksgiving and that equated to about $13 million. So, part of the growth in 2017 is, certainly, not having that issue in October and November in 2017. The other pieces, we are seeing just a very high demand on the innovation we launched here kind of September, October of 2016. Specifically in Riced Veggies and Veggie Tots, but Mashed Cauliflower has been very strong too. And the roasted line is a little bit more of a distant to the other three. Those businesses are growing very rapidly. This was also the first year where we've launched kind of a real marketing campaign against Green Giant and we're starting to see those results. We're seeing results from innovation, we're seeing the results from that and we're going to spend just as much if not more on marketing in 2017. And also as we head through the – we're going to see very strong sales results on those new innovation that we talked about. And we got more innovation coming in the later part of 2017 and we're going to figure out whether we're going to launch that at the end of 2017 or at the beginning 2018, but some of the plans are now to launch in late 2017.

And as a follow-up, you launched your innovation for Green Giant very late in the year...? Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: Yeah.

...of 2016? Do you anticipate getting broader distribution in the core reset that occurs in the freezer category kind of early like in the February, March timeframe? Any early read with discussions with retailers and kind of going into that new launch. If you launch it at the end of 2017 how do you anticipate getting incremental shelf space again with that late in the year launch? Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: I'll kind of take the first part of your question. Certainly, we're in a little over – on Veggie Tots and Riced Veggies and kind of Cauliflower Mashed those three, we're in a little right around 65% of the ACV in the country today. So we have more distribution to gain from some customers who didn't take it in, in the fourth quarter. And then we have some very big outlets, that we're going after. That we didn't do in the initial launch like clubs and places like Target and those kind of customers. We're also launching all of these products as we speak in Canada, from the Tots to the Riced Veggies to the Cauliflower Mash. So we expect some really positive – and the Canadian customers have seen what we've done in the U.S. and really wanted. So we're going to get some positives there. So part of your second question is, we have some very really interesting innovation kind of subcategories, again just like we launch and we're going to decide as we go through the year, whether it truly makes sense to launch it late 2017 or just launch it January 1 of 2018. So we haven't really decided, we see a lot of growth in the innovation that we launch and we're going to expand that – we are definitely expanding that innovation with more flavor put ups and some packaging sizes et cetera. So we're going to decide on the second part of innovation, what the right timing is and really just not get caught up in potentially craziness of the holiday periods where frozen categories are very difficult to get space in.

That's helpful. Thank you.

And we'll take our next question from Bryan Hunt with Wells Fargo. Sir, your line is open.

Hi, it's actually Dave Cook on for Bryan, two from us. I saw you listed your priorities for 2017 in your press release. One of those priorities did not specifically address M&A. I know it's a core part of your strategy but could we expect you to take a break from M&A in 2017? Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: I think the easy answer to that is, we're ready enable to do the next one and if something comes along that makes sense to be part of B&G's portfolio. We're going to be aggressive to go after. So I don't think we look at ourselves and think about taking a break at all. But it has to be the right acquisition and we're ready. From a balance sheet to an organization, we're ready to do the next one when and if it comes.

Okay. Thanks. And did you want to say what your total CapEx was in 2016? And could you please provide an indication for 2017? Thomas P. Crimmins - B&G Foods, Inc.: Approximately $40 million in 2016. Next year, we will see – it will pick-up somewhere closer to $60 million.

Thank you very much. Thomas P. Crimmins - B&G Foods, Inc.: Sure.

Moving along, we'll take our next question from Cornell Burnette with Citi Research. Please go ahead.

Good evening, everyone. Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: Good evening. Thomas P. Crimmins - B&G Foods, Inc.: How are you?

Okay. Just wanted to get in a little bit about the quarter and relative to maybe the way things came out relative to what you guys are looking for initially, the EPS below the implied fourth quarter range. But I think sales was somewhat to the middle of the range. It looks like the big delta here was 125 basis points year-over-year decline in gross margins. I just wanted to get into kind of what was the driver of that and what implications does that possibly have going forward? Thomas P. Crimmins - B&G Foods, Inc.: Well, that's a true look of what B&G will look like as you look at 2017 or so. Part of it is just having another full month of Green Giant in those numbers. And it's the time of year where not just frozen, Green Giant has a very large can business, almost $200 million a year in sales, can vegetables and that tends to be lower margin. And you sell a lot of can vegetables in October and November, as you ahead into Thanksgiving. So part of that is just the math of having Green Giant in the mix for another month, more than anything else. So that is a look. As you look at the quarters as we achieved them in 2016, those are the kind of margins we'd be looking at in 2017 also by quarter.

Okay. And when I think about 2017, just kind of in the way earnings are skewed, is it fair to say that maybe the way the marketing spending is getting phased-in for Green Giant next year that you probably have a stronger second half than first half, just given the way the marketing dollars will be spread throughout the year? Thomas P. Crimmins - B&G Foods, Inc.: Well, that is correct because in the first quarter alone, we're going to be spending kind of on a year-over-year basis on Green Giant, $11 million, $12 million more on marketing because we didn't really spend much in marketing in the first quarter of last year. So we're going to hit our results for $11 million, $12 million of marketing spend in the first quarter versus last year and then kind of it all, it evens out because we get it back as the year goes on, because we're going to spend about the same amount in total. So we definitely are skewing the – especially the first quarter lower, and better in the second half of 2017.

Great. And then just one last question here if I may is on the seasonings category, just looking at the high level data from Nielsen, looks like you're down about 15% in sales in terms of the latest 12 weeks of data, and I just was wondering, is there any kind of disruptions possibly that you have in the early stages of the ACH acquisition, or if not perhaps, kind of what's driving that data and then what plans do you have for the business in 2017? Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: I'd actually have to look further, we are not seeing that at all. So, across the board on the brands we bought, actually the business is up year-over-year from where it was last year, kind of pure sales. So we're not seeing, it's not lost distribution, it's not – the customers are the same. I don't know what you're looking at is picking up all the club stores, which probably is, but the business is right on relatively flat. Some of the business that was identified as Tone's is now a private label brand...

Okay. Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: ...at clubs. That maybe skewing it, but the pure dollars sold and what Tom showed you what was sold really in kind of a six-week period is tracking actually a little bit above our projected $220 million on annual sales basis for the spice business.

Okay. Thanks a lot. I'll pass it on. Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: Okay.

Our next question comes from Sean Naughton with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead. Sean P. Naughton - Piper Jaffray & Co.: Hi. Good afternoon. Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: Hi. How are you? Sean P. Naughton - Piper Jaffray & Co.: Hey. Could you guys maybe give us, you've kind of been doing the marketing now here for a little bit, Green Giant has been on TV now for a while, and I know you've been doing stuff in social media, but may be can you give us anything either anecdotally, or some key kind of performance indicators that you're looking for on the campaign to kind of see if you're getting the ROI on that spend? Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: So, we're still learning through the process. Part of – we spend some money here in the fourth quarter, actually a decent amount of money. We weren't fully – we didn't fully have all the products we needed to cover stores. So, we have a number of out of stocks at store levels, that kind of really affected consumer data. So it's hard to totally see that. I can tell you from what we are learning on from the advertisements and driving the advertisements against Riced Veggies and Tots, is we are seeing that 50% of the Tot purchases are coming from users that did not buy Green Giant products before. So, we are getting new users into the Green Giant franchise, which is really important. And also the advertisement just from a kind of a store level because we are out there, pushing this brand, we are getting a lot more, I guess, meetings and play from the major customers, who are willing to support us going forward, and hope to drive this…

Our next question comes from Eric Gottlieb with D.A. Davidson. Sir, go ahead. Eric Mitchell Gottlieb - D.A. Davidson & Co.: Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking the question. So the period that you're short, in October-November, did you lose any customers in the process or? And was that for new products or just the general product line? Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: No. It was mostly for the general product line. So, we didn't lose customers. Certainly, customers weren't thrilled with us, but they've actually worked with us through this process. Certainly, they don't want to be short, and have an open space during a busy time when consumers are actually in that freezer case buying everything up. So, we've gotten through that. The innovation is strictly that demand keeps growing. So, we look at this innovation from the beginning. Riced Veggies is selling kind of four times what we thought it was going to sell, when we first kind of launched it. And Tots are selling kind of double, what we thought it was going to sell. So, all that's good news. So, we are able to service customers on those products, but as we want to look at going into additional customers such as club stores and really launched this fully in Canada or in places like Target and things like that, we need more production capacity. And we will have that in place here over the next couple of months and every day it gets better. But, we see this as a much bigger opportunity for us and we just – and we are all excited about how high the demand is and how the repeat purchases are. One of things we are seeing, on these products is the repeat purchases are very high from…

Eric Larson with Buckingham Research Group. Please go ahead.

Hi, yeah. Thanks for taking my question. A couple of things, your base business, Bob and Tom, can you – obviously you've got specific issues with certain brands, but is it a spending issue, are the products, do the products need reformulation. Is it natural ingredients and colors and flavorings issues that you, what are the steps that you have to take to actually stabilize kind of the base for 2017? Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: Well, part of it is, a lot of the categories that some of those product lines are in have been declining. So the whole category has been declining. Our goal for 2017 is to gain more share in the categories and most of that's going to come through launching – we have a lot of new products in a lot of our brands, where we didn't really have that in 2016 and most of 2015. We are – we re-emphasized innovation here and the innovation is oriented more to better-for-you, cleaner labels et cetera. But again, we are not going to be the ones who absolutely change the whole category dynamics. So the way we can kind of stabilize the flats to hopefully up, is between the innovation and paying attention is through just kind of garnish some more share in that category. So even if the category declines here for another year or two whatever goes on, our share gains could actually outpace that category decline. So that's our goal and that's the direction internally. We're in a lot of categories and a lot of our food peers are all reporting a lot of results in similar categories that are just challenged. We're being much more aggressive with new products, it's really not about the spending on our part, we're doing our fair share of trade spending et cetera. It's making noise, and making new news in the category. We really didn't do that in 2016 and for most of 2015. But we're launching a bunch of new items and a bunch of subsets in a number of categories that we hope will move the needle.

Okay. I mean that make sense. And then in syrup, obviously you've got the U.S., the U.S.-Canadian dollar relationship that's hurt you. Would a shorter or smaller maple syrup crop be a benefit to you at this point, I would think that would be one of the things that could help you a lot, obviously we don't know what that is going to be yet, but would a smaller crop or a smaller output be a value to you at this point? Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: Actually a smaller crop would be a value. You never know what weather does, but I think if I was a betting person, I wouldn't expect that. Since we've owned maple growth in, we bought in 1998, there was only one real short crop that was meaningful. That made a reference. So chances of that happening in last year and the year before were pretty much record crops because what happened is the sophistication in Canada has gotten better and better and the production capacity has got larger and larger. So even though the demand for maple syrup worldwide is growing, and certainly growing in the United States too. This plenty of syrup to go around. So you can never bet on weather – warm weather really messes up the crop, so if it's too warm too soon that's what hurts the crop. But again it's almost 20 years now and is only really happened once in those 20 years in any magnitude. So you never know Mother Nature could strike.

Yeah, now exactly. And then the final question and then I'll pass it on here. Your original guidance for accretion – EPS accretion for ACH, I believe was – correct me if I'm wrong, I think it was a range of $0.24 to $0.26 within that? Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: Yeah. That's correct.

Is that low to kind of mid $0.20 range and I'm not sure if you gave any specific number for Victoria, I do believe you said, you expected to be accretive, is that still – are those still part of your guidance that still achievable? Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: While the EBITDA – and Victoria was in that $0.08 to $0.10 range. So on the seasoning business from ACH, the EBITDA is there, everything else is there. One of the challenges we have a little bit here is there – the way the valuation of ACH was done is there's more amortizable assets, it's not a cash thing, but it is affecting our EPS there and our effective tax rate is also up. So when we were looking at this, our tax rate was 37.2%.

Correct. Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: We're now looking at kind of 38.2%, right. So it's up 1 percentage point which is affecting our EPS across the board. And that's why it was very important for Tom to put out kind of our full year look at all of those non-cash numbers from amortization to deprecation et cetera. So everybody can kind of adjust their numbers in their models. But from EBITDA, we don't see any issues, ACH is tracking great, but there is just some more accounting, what I call counting amortization that is affecting our EPS.

Got it. Okay. Thanks guys. Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: Sure.

And we'll take our final question from Robert Moskow with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Robert Moskow - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC: Hi, Bob, and hi, Tom. Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: Hi. Robert Moskow - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC: I wanted to make sure that I bridge the EBITDA correctly, so I guess I have a bunch of questions here. When you finish the year at $322 million, did you say that ACH was in that number, that there was maybe a couple of million there from ACH? Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: So with ACH and Victoria... Robert Moskow - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC: Yeah. Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: in total, the two of them not quite $2 million. So this is just a lot of initial cost. We actually had the – we terminated the G&A structure and selling structure of Victoria all that really happened here in February. ACH has some cost that will go away. So we didn't make a whole bunch of money, it's actually a little less that $2 million on that EBITDA for those two business combined. Robert Moskow - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC: And Green Giant, would the EBITDA maybe you said on the call, what it was for 2016? Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: Well for 2016, Green Giant came in right around $110 million in EBITDA. Well above our initial expectations, when we bought the business of about $95 million Robert Moskow - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC: Right. Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: But yeah, a $110 million. Robert Moskow - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC: Okay. So just getting from your $322 million base to $370 million, what I think you're saying…

There are no further questions at this time. I'd turn the conference back over to Mr. Bob Cantwell, sir? Robert C. Cantwell - B&G Foods, Inc.: Okay. Thank you, everyone for joining the call tonight, and certainly, thank you for the continued following of B&G, and look forward to 2017 and a very strong 2017 year. Thank you.

That does conclude today's presentation. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.