Welcome to the annual meeting for McCormick & Company. Our host for today's call is Brendan Foley, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer. I will now turn the call over to your host. Mr. Foley, please begin. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to McCormick's annual shareholders meeting. I'm Brendan Foley, Chairman, President, and CEO of McCormick. I'd like to thank you for joining us. Following my opening remarks this morning, we will proceed to the formal business of the meeting. Y ou will hear from Marcos Gabriel, EVP and CFO on our financial performance. After that, I will review our growth plans in greater detail. We hope you find this meeting informative and engaging. We value your feedback and participation and look forward to answering your questions. Let me start by saying it has truly been an honor to serve you in the first year in my new role, and it was quite an exciting year for McCormick. I am proud of what we achieved together and am very excited about the future as we have a strong leadership team, a clear vision, and a proven strategy to deliver value to our shareholders, customers, and employees. McCormick is flavor. We have a long-standing tradition of excellence and innovation, and I am excited to share how we are advancing our leadership and differentiation to drive success and build value. As I reflect on 2024, I am inspired by our accomplishments and the renewed sense of urgency across the organization to drive high-quality growth. We achieved a meaningful milestone by delivering total positive volume growth for the year in an environment where many of our peers had difficulty growing volume. We enter 2025 in a position of strength, and I believe it will be a year of continued momentum as we further invest to drive profitable growth and deliver on our best-in-class long-term objectives. Overall, we hope you'll take away from today's meeting that we are building on a strong foundation. The demand for flavor remains strong. We're prioritizing investments in areas that drive the greatest value, and importantly, we remain committed to our long-term objectives. With our strategies and best-in-class leadership, we are well-positioned to continue on our trajectory. We remain a growth company. Before we move to the formal business of the meeting, I'd like to highlight recent changes to both our management team and our board of directors. First, we successfully transitioned financial leadership of the company this year. In December, Marcos Gabriel was appointed as EVP and CFO, and Mike Smith stepped down and retired at the end of February 2025. Mike was a key leader for McCormick for more than three decades. He started in 1991 as the Hunt Valley plant controller and rose to CFO in 2016. Under Mike's leadership, sales grew at an industry-leading pace of over 50%, and McCormick delivered significant shareholder value. Mike is the embodiment of McCormick's values and teamwork and will be missed by employees throughout the organization. Marcos is a proven global leader with over 25 years of experience in the consumer products industry and has served in key leadership roles at McCormick since 2017. I look forward to continuing to partner with Marcos to deliver long-term profitable growth and drive value for shareholders. Lawrence Kurzius, who served as CEO for over seven years before transitioning to the role of executive chairman in 2023, will be retiring from the board of directors as of today. I would like to thank Lawrence for his mentorship, dedication, and contributions to the company. He will be greatly missed. I am honored to have been named McCormick's new chairman of the board on December 1, 2024. In addition, Patricia Little will be retiring from our board of directors as of the meeting today as well. Patricia has served as a director since 2010, and we sincerely appreciate her service, and I would like to thank her for her dedication and contributions. Her financial leadership and knowledge have significantly benefited McCormick over the years. It has been an honor to serve with her, and we wish her well. At the same time, we are pleased to welcome Valarie Sheppard, former executive vice president, controller, and treasurer of the Procter & Gamble Company, and currently interim CFO of Ibotta Incorporated. To our board, Valarie joined in May of 2024 as a new independent director and brings extensive global finance and accounting experience, further strengthening our already impressive board. We look forward to continuing to work with Valarie and to the contributions she will make to McCormick. Now, I'd like to turn to the formal business of the day. Will the annual meeting of shareholders please come to order? I will now ask the corporate secretary, Jeff Schwartz, to advise if the meeting is properly convened. Brendan, a notice regarding the availability of the proxy statement and former proxy and the annual report to stockholders was sent by U.S. mail or electronically to each shareholder of record of the company beginning February 13, 2025. An affidavit to that effect will be filed with the records of the meeting. As of this morning, we have received proxies representing in excess of 78% of the voting shares. The meeting is duly convened, and a quorum is present. The minutes of last year's annual meeting, which was held on March 27, 2024, are available for examination by any shareholder. Please contact our Corporate Secretary, Jeff Schwartz, after the meeting if you would like to see a copy. Now let's turn to the formal items of business. The company has appointed Mr. James J. Raite, President, American Election Services, to serve as inspector of election for this meeting. The polls are now open and will remain open until all items of business have been presented and discussed. A substantial majority of the outstanding shares of voting stock have been voted by proxy, but if you still need to vote, you can do so through a voting mechanism on your screen. You do not have to vote during this meeting if you have already voted by proxy. You can do so now for the next few minutes with the voting mechanism on your screen. The first item is the election of directors. I ask Corporate Secretary, Jeff Schwartz, to place the nominees before the meeting. The director nominees for the next year and until their successors are duly elected and qualified are Anne L. Bramman, who is the former chief financial and growth officer of Circana Inc., Michael A. Conway, who is the former chief executive officer of Starbucks North America, Brendan M. Foley, who is Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of McCormick & Company, Michael D. Mangan, who is the former president of Worldwide Power Tools and Accessories of the Black & Decker Corporation, Maritza G. Montiel, who is the former deputy chief executive officer and vice chairman, Deloitte LLP, Margaret M. V. Preston, who is managing director, Cohen & Klingenstein LLC. Gary M. Rodkin, who is the former chief executive officer, Conagra Foods Inc., Valerie Shepherd, who is the former executive vice president, controller, and treasurer of the Procter & Gamble Company, and currently interim chief financial officer of Ibotta Inc., Jacques Tapiero, who is the former senior vice president and president, emerging markets for Eli Lilly & Company, Terry S. Thomas, who is the chief growth officer of Flowers Foods Inc., and W. Anthony Vernon, who is the former chief executive officer of Kraft Foods Group Inc. Biographical data on each nominee is included in the proxy statement. The election of these nominees is now placed before the meeting for shareholder approval. I declare the nominations closed. The next item of business is the ratification of the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP to serve as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for fiscal 2025. I call on Jeff Schwartz to place this item before the meeting. The audit committee of the board of directors has appointed Ernst & Young as the independent registered public accounting firm for the company for the 2025 fiscal year. The ratification of this appointment is now placed before the meeting for shareholder approval. The next item of business is the advisory vote on executive compensation. I call on Jeff Schwartz to place this item before the meeting. In accordance with the rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company has presented a proposal to stockholders known as the say-on-pay proposal that asks for the approval on a non-binding basis of the compensation arrangements for the company's named executive officers, as disclosed in the proxy statement. This advisory vote is now placed before the meeting for shareholder approval. Please note that the polls are now closed. The preliminary vote tabulation has been completed. The inspector of election has prepared a preliminary report on the results of the voting for this meeting. A substantial majority of shares has been voted by proxy on the items of business. Those results, plus any shares voted through this meeting, will be tallied, and the results will be available for shareholders to review in our Form 8-K that will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within four business days of this meeting. I will now ask Corporate Secretary to announce the preliminary voting results. The preliminary voting results based on proxies received prior to this meeting and tabulated this morning are as follows. First, as provided by the majority vote standard in our bylaws, a director nominee must receive a majority of votes cast in order to be elected. Each of the 11 director nominees has been elected, with each director nominee having received at least 7,834,897 votes in favor or at least 95.2% of the votes cast. Second, the board's request for ratification of the appointment of Ernst & Young as the company's independent registered public accounting firm requires the approval of a majority of the votes cast. Ernst & Young's appointment has been ratified with 12,201,681 votes cast in favor or 99.6% of the votes cast. Finally, the board's recommendation that stockholders approve on an advisory basis the compensation arrangements for the company's named executive officers requires the approval of a majority of the votes cast. This say-on-pay proposal has been approved with 7,833,302 votes cast in favor or 98.2% of the votes cast. Thank you, Jeff. We have now completed the corporate business portion of the stockholder meeting. I will turn the program over to our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Marcos Gabriel. Thank you, Brendan, and good morning, everyone. Please note that our remarks will include forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures. You can find the GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations for this presentation on the McCormick Investor Relations website. Now let's begin with our financial objectives and performance. We remain committed to our long-term growth objectives: net sales of 4%-6%, operating income of 7%-9%, and earnings per share of 9%-11%. When these objectives are compared to our fourth years, McCormick remains best in class. Our confidence in our long-term objectives stems from our historical growth. Our top priority remains to drive differentiated volume-led sales growth consistent with our historical net sales performance, as seen on the slide. Since 2015, we have grown total sales at 6% compounded annual growth rate, which is at the high end of our long-term objectives. Our results reflect industry-leading organic growth, complemented by compelling acquisitions and an expanded portfolio in attractive categories that are further reinforcing and strengthening our flavor leadership. Historically, we have driven our organic growth through volume. In 2024, we made significant progress in sequentially improving our volumes and delivered positive volume growth for the year. This performance was driven by proven growth levers, including brand marketing, new products and packaging innovation, category management, and our proprietary technologies. Turning to operating income, we continue to drive growth, and after a challenging 2022, we met our cost recovery plans and delivered margin expansion in both 2023 and 2024. We focus on investing back in our business to drive volume while also continuing to grow our operating income and expand our margins. Our investments are yielding results, and we expect our volume and operating income improvements to continue. We have a track record of investing for long-term growth, leveraging our growth flywheel of margin expansion to fund investments and continue to drive strong top-line results. Our plans are supported by continued portfolio optimization and delivering on our comprehensive continuous improvement savings. In addition, we continue to prioritize investments in the areas that drive the greatest value, leading to differentiated sales growth and improved gross margins. This is foundational to McCormick and has enabled us to deliver long-term profitable growth. Now, let's move to capital allocation. Our priorities remain consistent. We expect to continue to drive shareholder value through strong cash flow generation and a balanced use of cash, funding investments to drive growth, returning a significant portion to our shareholders, and maintaining a strong and flexible balance sheet. In 2024, we executed on each of these priorities. Our balance sheet puts us in a position of strength and gives us the flexibility to continue to invest in the business organically and inorganically to support our growth. Our operating cash flow generation remains strong. We expect to continue to drive robust cash flow through 2028. Our growth will be driven by higher net income from revenue growth and margin improvement, as well as our focus on working capital improvements. We have a structured program in place covering all levers of working capital. We've made great progress, especially in optimizing our inventory levels through improved integrated business planning processes and the use of technology. As we discussed, we are focused on investing to drive growth. We're investing in brand marketing, category management, innovation, and research and development, as well as in our digital transformation. The investments we've made are yielding results, and we have driven volume growth. Over the last few years, we have advanced in our digital transformation journey and are pleased with our progress. Our enterprise digital foundation is advancing as planned, with our ERP implementation in the Americas well underway. Additionally, we're leveraging AI, machine learning, and data analytics to enhance insights, customer engagement, product innovation, and operational efficiencies. Lastly, our global business solutions organization plays a critical role in standardizing and automating our processes globally. We remain committed to returning cash to our shareholders in the form of dividend payments or share repurchases. We have paid dividends since 1925 and are proud to be a dividend aristocrat. At the end of 2024, our board of directors approved a 7% increase in the quarterly dividend, making our 39th consecutive year of dividend increases. With our balanced use of cash, we're committed to maintaining a strong balance sheet to give us the flexibility to make future investments. We remain committed to a strong investment-grade rating and have made excellent progress in paying down our debt. Looking forward, we expect our leverage ratio to continue to improve, providing flexibility to either pursue acquisitions or return capital to shareholders. We remain focused on long-term value creation. Looking at our historical performance, we created significant value and delivered on our long-term growth objectives. Since fiscal 2015, our shareholder return exceeded our food peers, as well as our flavor house peers and best-in-class growth companies, highlighting our differentiated long-term value creation. With that, let's turn to our outlook for 2025. On our first quarter earnings call yesterday, we reaffirmed all components of our 2025 outlook, which we first discussed on our January 23rd earnings call. Our 2025 outlook reflects our prioritized investments in key categories to strengthen volume trends and drive long-term sustainable growth while appreciating the uncertainty of the consumer environment. We are well-positioned with our cost savings programs to fuel investments for volume growth, as well as generate operating margin expansion. The balancing of margin expansion and investments to drive growth is critical to our success not only in 2025, but also into 2026 and beyond. We remain confident in the underlying fundamentals of our business and delivering on our 2025 financial outlook. We are committed for 2028 objectives that we set at our October 2024 Investor Day, as well as our long-term objectives. Now to our 2025 first quarter results. In the first quarter, we grew constant currency sales 2%, demonstrating the strength of our brands and the success of our prioritized investments in the areas that are driving the most value. This increase was driven by more than 2% increase in volume, partially offset by pricing. In our consumer segment, sales rose 1%, driven by a volume increase of 3%, with strong volume performance in all regions, partially offset by 2% impact from pricing investments. In our flavor solutions segment, sales grew 3%, driven by a 2% increase in volume, reflecting the continued execution of our strategic priorities in flavors amid a challenging customer environment, as well as improving quick service restaurant customer performance in the Americas and Asia-Pacific. Adjusted operating income of $225 million was in line with our expectations and reflects a decline of 3%, primarily due to higher selling, general, and administrative costs, including increased brand marketing and technology investments. At the bottom line, as expected, adjusted earnings per share was $0.60 and includes an unfavorable impact from currency. We're pleased to start the year with solid first quarter results that are in line with our expectations as we're managing a dynamic environment and believe we have the right plans in place to continue our momentum. To summarize, we're focused on achieving top-tier performance. We're pleased with the progress we made in 2024 and expect the momentum to continue in 2025. We are prioritizing our investments to drive impactful results. Our continuation of volume-led growth, coupled with margin expansion, underscores that we are moving in the right direction. Thanks for your attention this morning, and now I will turn the meeting over to Brendan. Thanks, Marcos. Now let's turn to our growth plans. At McCormick, we create and deliver flavors that enhance the taste of food and beverages. We have been a trusted name and flavor for 135 years. Our portfolio includes leading brands in the flavor industry, household names that consumers trust for their quality and taste, and they are trusted by our customers. In fact, over half of U.S. consumers will consume a meal or beverage flavored by McCormick on any given day. This speaks to the power of our brands, the flavor they deliver, our capabilities and reach, and our growth potential. All over the world, people desire great-tasting foods and drinks with rich, authentic flavors. We deliver flavor across markets. We serve a wide breadth of customers and operate across every channel, from traditional brick-and-mortar to e-commerce, and from food service to CPG customers. Simply put, at McCormick, we truly flavor every sip and bite. Global demand for flavor remains strong. It is the foundation of our sales growth, and it is projected to grow 5%-7%. The breadth and reach of our global flavor portfolio ideally positions us to fully meet the growing demand for flavor around the world. Whether through our products or our customers' products, we are end-to-end flavor. With our geographical footprint, McCormick's market growth is projected at 3%-5%, positioning us for sustained best-in-class organic top-line growth. The expected growth in flavor highlights the runway for growth in our existing and in new markets. Consumers, and I think we can all relate to this, do not compromise on flavor. Flavor continues to be vital, regardless of age, where one comes from, dietary preferences, or income level. We see growth whether consumers are eating away from home or at home because we operate across every channel. Consumers continue to cook more at home. They are increasingly shopping the perimeter for protein and produce and eating healthier. Our research shows that 82% cook to eat healthier, a significant increase from 75% just three years ago, which is consistent with what you would see in published research. These are secular trends and are accelerating in the context of today's environment. This increases the demand for flavor and McCormick's categories. In addition, consumers are increasingly open to flavor exploration, and we are matching that with the right innovation. We often say that we are differentiated among our peers, and let me explain what makes McCormick different. Others compete for calories, w e flavor them. While many of our peers compete across several different food categories, we are intentionally focused on flavor, effectively allowing us to be present in every consumption opportunity. Food and beverage companies compete for these calories every day. We are different in where and how we compete. Our opportunity continues to grow no matter where calories are shifting, and the demand for flavor continues to have a long runway. We are differentiated in our view of the world in food and beverage and that we deliver flavor as broadly as we do. Now let me touch on heat. The demand for hot and spicy is strong, which is a significant tailwind to our growth. Our global heat platform is about 20% of our sales and has been growing faster than non-heat products, and we expect this to continue. Gen Z and millennials continue to kick up the demand for heat. They are more experimental and prefer authentic, bold, and spicy flavors, outpacing all other generations. Spicy, sweet, and savory. These are the three most popular flavor profiles, and we are positioned to deliver spicy alone or pairing with sweet or savory to meet consumers' preference in nuanced ways. Consumers are interested in complex, layered flavor profiles. Heat enhances and lifts flavor. It takes you on a journey from flat to high. It's not just a trend. It is a sustainable flavor profile. Importantly, we are uniquely positioned to win in heat with our global iconic brands and our connected capabilities. The power of our platform is not just about one of these areas. It is how they all connect and create a powerful differentiation and advantages us. We have in-depth sourcing expertise in chilies and peppers and a resilient and extensive supplier base. Our scientists have a deep understanding of sensory science and how the origin, aging, processing, cooking, and fermentation of raw materials brings out nuances in heat and flavor. We have an insulated technology toolbox to customize the delivery of heat for an optimal consumer experience, and we manufacture at scale. Our strategic roadmap remains built on the pillars of growth, performance, and people. Our strategies have proven to be effective, growing both sales and profit and compounding that growth over the years. We believe sustainable top-line growth is the most powerful contributor to long-term value creation. We operate in great categories across both of our segments, and they continue to project strong growth. In our consumer segment, we offer products at every price point, from premium to value, to meet all consumer needs. Our brands have been part of kitchens and families for generations and remain in demand as we continue to innovate. In flavor solutions, we know the importance of brands and develop flavors that deliver on our customers' brand promise. This segment flavors some of the world's iconic brands and also fast-growing emerging brands, making us part of daily flavor moments for millions of people all over the world. I am passionate about how our two segments complement each other, and this reinforces what differentiates McCormick. The scale, consumer insights, and technology that are leveraged from both are meaningful and drive differentiated growth. This uniquely positions us to cater to the entire flavor market. We are intentionally focused on the high-growth categories of spices and seasonings, condiments and sauces, branded food service, and flavors, as they are critical to driving our profitable sales growth and strengthening our flavor leadership. Let me now review our plans in each category. Beginning with spices and seasonings, where we have made significant progress, and our plans are expected to continue to drive momentum. It all starts with great brands, which are loved by consumers. We have number one positions in leading household penetration in our key markets. This brand strength is a key benefit to retailers as they prioritize our brands and implement our category management recommendations. In addition, we have a portfolio that meets all consumer needs, price points, and occasions. Our growth strategy remains consistent. This is to drive volume and distribution gains with leading brand marketing support, innovation and renovation, and category management and revenue management. As we continue to see success, we plan to continue investing in these areas, focusing on innovation as it drives 1/3 of our long-term growth objectives. Globally, we doubled net sales contribution from innovation since 2022. We are successfully winning new households in spices and seasonings. As we move forward, we are going to continue to launch the highest share of category innovation, and here is how: launching items in half the time that it has historically taken, getting on-trend flavors to shelf faster, using technology to create flavor differentiation, and testing more new ideas through e-commerce, giving us real-time data as consumers vote with their wallets. Renovation is also a foundational element to continue to win. It started with our core red cap packaging renovation in 2023, highlighting freshness and flavor, which resulted in a 14% increase in velocity in 2024. We plan to continue to drive renovation across our portfolio, including a similar Grill Mates packaging renovation, which will be ready for this year's grilling season. We are also rolling out our new Gourmet renovation, which will begin to ship later this year. We have the strongest equity in the Gourmet category, and it's important to stay ahead of consumer expectations. The younger generation wants a bottle that is countertop-worthy, and we're bringing this to life through a new vibrant gold cap that seals in freshness, provides a more modern look, and highlights that we will only use the best raw materials. This renovation is expected to drive an increase in purchase intent and velocity. To wrap up spices and seasonings, I am proud to say our plans are working. We are growing consumption, and we are making improvements in volume share. I will also add we are outpacing private label on volume for the last three quarters. Our opportunity continues to expand. Let's move to condiments and sauces. In this category, our brands have leading positions and are globally recognized across many segments, and we have a deep understanding of our consumers' needs. They love our brands. To fuel growth, we are focused on household penetration across three pillars: building hot sauce to be the condiment of the next generation, strengthening our mustard leadership, and growing our regional powerhouses. Let me start with hot sauce. It's pretty incredible that in the U.S., Gen Z and millennials spend more on hot sauce than on ketchup, and they use more hot sauce than any other generation. Our brands, Frank's RedHot and Cholula, resonate with younger consumers and are advantaged to win. Both brands have strong loyalty and repeat rates, and Frank's RedHot has the highest household penetration in the category. We continue to dial up our efforts on recruiting, innovating, and expanding faster internationally. With Cholula, it's all about authentic Mexican flavor, and it's the number one Mexican hot sauce globally, but it is only in a fraction of households, so there is significant upside for growth given its appeal. Gen Z and millennials are the first three generations to prefer Mexican cuisine over Italian and Chinese. While Cholula was born a hot sauce, it has proven potential to stretch beyond. The launch into salsas and taco recipe mixes has gone very well and has been highly incremental to the category. Also, around 75% of the buyers are new to the Cholula brand, and we expect to launch even more innovation with this brand. Moving to mustard, we continue to strengthen our leadership. For the U.S., our largest French's market, we are focused on volume, distribution, and brand marketing. As we go into 2025, we will launch a new creative campaign that celebrates French's as the original flavor of summer, and we will dial up innovation behind new flavors and formats globally, leading ahead of trends like we did on creamy dill pickle mustard. We have significant innovation in condiments and sauces, just like in spices and seasonings, driving our growth in line with our long-term plans. To wrap up our core categories within the consumer segment, I'd like to speak to our brand marketing investments, our most efficient and effective investment to drive brand growth. At McCormick, we have the highest share of voice in the categories we operate in, and we continue to increase working media to drive incremental brand growth. Importantly, digital is 77% of our marketing spend. That's why our continued focus on digital transformation that Marcos mentioned is paramount. Moving now to branded food service within the flavor solution segment. Our brands are paving the way for success across this industry. We have a broad approach and presence in every segment, and we seamlessly connect our branded food service and consumer businesses, each fueling the other. Consumers want to find the brands and flavors they love when they are eating away from home, and for operators, it elevates their offerings when they feature our brands in their restaurant or menu. We are also leveraging the iconic power of our brands to reach consumers away from home. In 2024, we drove a 34% increase of branded menu placements in new locations, building leading brands such as Frank's RedHot and Cholula. For example, in Qdoba, we have two bottles of Cholula on every tabletop and rotating Cholula branded items on the menu. Now let's move to the final category: flavors. I'll cover the industry, our positioning, and our growth plans. We operate in an attractive industry. Flavor is everywhere. Think about it: people all over the world, three meals a day, snacking and drinking in between, and it all needs flavor. That is our opportunity. It is technically insulated, and our margin profile is attractive. Flavor is the number one thing that will determine our customers' success, but it is one of the smallest costs. With consumer trends, industry regulations, and sustainability goals, a healthy tailwind of innovation continues to fuel the industry. Now, how do I explain our business without telling you who our customers are or what products we flavor? We are the secret flavor behind many global iconic brands today and many iconic brands of tomorrow. Whether it's the chocolate flavor for a new protein shake, the lemon flavor for a popular seltzer, or the strawberry flavor for a fiber gummy, we flavor them all. We are the ones customers call when they want to achieve iconic status. Flavors is one of the fastest-growing product categories in our portfolio. We've outpaced the rest of the industry when it comes to organic growth. We provide flavor to nine out of the top 10 CPGs, and we have many regional and fast-growing customers as we continue to grow and diversify our customer base. We do this across a diverse set of end-market applications, including savory snacks, performance nutrition, beverages, dairy, bakery, and health applications. From a sales perspective, we are the number one flavor house in North America with runway for continued growth. As we expand into other McCormick markets, we'll leverage this North American expertise. We're also different than other flavor houses. It starts with a 100% focus on flavor. We have a deep culinary foundation and a natural food heritage, and we're the only ones who are also a global customer brand leader. We know what it takes to drive brand equity and interact with consumers. Because of this, we have more touchpoints across all channels, leading to deeper consumer insights. This distinct positioning sets us apart. In terms of our growth plans, we are focused to win across our taste competencies: savory, heat, naturally sweet, and citrus and fruit. Let me explain what we mean. To win in taste competency, we must have the talent, expertise, integrated supply chain, and capabilities across the organization for us to be the partner of choice. We have the clear right to win in savory and heat and already are well-established as market leaders. We have sourcing advantages due to our scale and heritage in natural ingredients and culinary expertise, particularly in seasonings development and heat application. Our customers are McCormick brand consumers too, and they see us as experts in these taste competencies. In naturally sweet and citrus and fruit, we have regional expertise primarily in the Americas and EMEA, and we are building this globally. For naturally sweet, we have unique flavoring expertise across vanilla and warm spices like cinnamon and nutmeg. For citrus and fruit, we have strong technical capabilities through our Giotti and FONA acquisitions, which can be used in a wide range of applications. We see additional growth ahead and plan to increase our global presence through organic investments and potential partnerships. Overall, our taste competencies define our strengths within the flavor industry and represent large addressable segments with strong growth rates. We are all witnessing shifts in consumer preferences. They are becoming more health conscious, and this trend is gaining momentum, and we remain confident in our flavor and seasonings expertise to successfully meet consumers where they are. We are partnering with customers to launch new products or reformulate existing ones to fit healthier lifestyles. For example, in EMEA, we help a confectionery customer reduce the sugar content of their cereal bar using our technologies. Our exposure to high-growth innovator customers allows us to win in several high-growth categories, many of which are benefiting from the trend towards healthier eating. For example, we collaborate with many customers in creating great tasting high-protein powers and shakes that are low in sugar. Hydration is a growing trend, and we are helping our customers introduce a variety of exciting natural flavors in their electrolyte offerings with a clean label. The connection of compliance and consumer choice is revealing a dynamic regulatory landscape around the globe. Our history with spices, herbs, seasonings, natural extracts, and flavors positions us to work with customers in redesigning products aimed at using natural and clean ingredients. I wanted to wrap up the growth section by concluding that no one knows flavor like McCormick, and our flavor forecast is a great example of this. It pinpoints emerging flavors and culinary trends, and many of our predictions have stood the test of time, from pumpkin spice to Chipotle and many others. Our 2025 flavor of the year, Aji Amarillo, has recently launched in consumer and branded food service. This year, to help bring our flavor forecast to life, our teams hosted the Flavor Night Market in partnership with Smorgasburg, Miami. This event featured over 35 vendors serving delicious food and beverages inspired by the 2025 flavor of the year. Attendees could also explore an exciting McCormick pop-up store where the new Aji Amarillo seasoning and other McCormick merchandise was available for purchase. Now let's turn to people. At McCormick, we are proud of our unique culture. In 1949, C. P. McCormick published the book The Power of People. It reinforces our commitment to employees, our high performance, and people-first culture, which is rooted in our shared values and built on the idea that people are at the heart of everything we do. We've always believed in doing the right thing while also delivering top-tier results and creating an inclusive environment where everyone feels valued and respected. It's what makes us who we are. These beliefs continue to be a cornerstone of our management approach. Our global workforce is strongly committed to growth and doing what's right to create value for our business. Our leadership team has deep experience. Each member brings unique perspectives, skills, and expertise. Together, we are harnessing the collective expertise of our talented team across the world with a renewed sense of urgency and speed to execute on our strategies. This drives continued long-term sustainable profitable growth, ensuring we remain competitive and continue to deliver shareholder value. In summary, I am optimistic for the year ahead. McCormick is a growth company, a global leader in flavor with a long-term orientation and a strong culture, and we will continue advancing our leadership and differentiation. On behalf of the McCormick Board of Directors and the executive team, I would like to thank you for your support and confidence. Finally, I'd like to recognize McCormick employees around the world for their contributions in 2024 and the momentum they are carrying into 2025, and reiterate my confidence that together we will drive the profitable growth reflected in our 2025 outlook and long-term objectives. Now, we can take your questions, and you can submit questions through the virtual meeting website. For the first question, and this is a question I'll read out the question, and then I'll provide a reply. This is a question that is asked often. Now that McCormick and many other companies have returned to the office, when will the annual stockholders' meeting return in person? Thank you for the question from that shareholder. We welcome the opportunity to host in-person meetings with shareholders, employees, and retirees who own stock in the company. However, a virtual format allows us to more effectively include a global audience, which is important because we are truly a global company. We've also found that these meetings are quite expensive. They're in the high six digits, and we're being smart with spending when we think about expense overall. They also add a great amount of additional work to the organization during a very busy window of the year with earnings and board meetings and the like. We will continue to host other events with opportunities to connect in person, like the luncheons and the retiree events that we hold, but we certainly want to be clear and transparent about the fact that our near-term plans have us continuing to hold these meetings virtually right now. We'll keep you posted if anything changes, but I did want to be clear that that's our intent in the near- term. The next question is, are you committed to Old Bay, promotion and innovation of this Maryland staple? I have not seen much Old Bay this year. I was hoping for an Old Bay Filet-O-Fish. Thank you for the question on Old Bay. Right now, I would say that we have a lot of activity happening in Old Bay. I can't speak specifically to why Filet-O-Fish isn't happening again, and I guess we apologize for that. Right now, Old Bay is a very prominent advertiser, especially at the NFL at the Ravens games, as well as the Orioles Stadium. We are very big sort of sponsors, if you will, of many of those events. It's also promoted a lot in regions around the best restaurants, and so we include a lot of Old Bay, not only merchandising, but also promotions and advertising activity. Old Bay is also now found on Goldfish, and so we have collaborations with the Goldfish, the Pepperidge Farm Goldfish product, where you can find Old Bay there. We do also a lot of co-advertising or co-promotion, if you will, with brands on shelf. I'd lastly share with you how excited I am to see Old Bay expand globally. We're finding out that it really appeals in markets like the U.K. and in Australia, and we hope that they're going to become as fanatical about Old Bay there as we are here in Maryland. Okay. The next question is, has the administration created any issues for McCormick? What are they, and how are you adjusting to the new challenges? Is the strong dollar creating bigger issues than inflation? There are a number of things right now that we're paying attention to, as you might expect, given the new administration that has come into office. I would say of the many things that we're paying attention to, probably most importantly right now that we're paying attention to is just watching tariffs closely. We do not yet have a full understanding of where those might land, but I would add that we've been a company around for 135 years, and we've worked through many administration changes and different policies. That is exactly how we'll handle this too. We'll handle it in a way that allows our company to continue to move ahead when we think about the types of changes that might come forward to us right now. That would be my reply on that particular question in terms of what's going on in the news this morning. The next question. This one's a little long, so let me read through it, and then I'll provide an answer. This shareholder said, "I attended a show on space travel at the Towson University Planetarium last month. They mentioned the effects on astronauts' taste while in space. Spicing up their foods is one of the techniques that we use to make meals more flavorful. Is McCormick working or has ever worked with NASA on improving the flavor of foods for space travelers? Could this be an opportunity to extend the ends to end-to-end flavor? To start, could we provide them some pumpkin pie spice for their coffee? Wow. That truly is end-to-end flavor and creates a whole new market for us, I guess. Candidly, I'm not sure if we have been speaking with NASA, but we'll certainly take it as an idea and share it with our R&D leadership, and I'm sure we'll follow up on the concept. Thank you for that. Next question. Is your strategy for growth by acquisition because you are mature? When we think about acquisition strategy for McCormick, it's all anchored to the idea of expanding our growth and global presence and flavor. It has less to do with guarding our maturity because we still see a lot of exciting growth in the categories in which we operate in. We see opportunity to really continue expanding at a global level because the categories remain very attractive. They're not mature, the categories that we choose to operate in. I think that would be the framing that I would provide regarding the role that M&A plays in delivering and continuing our growth. When we think about acquisition opportunities, we think of them as they must be accretive to our sales growth as well as to margin so that they're completely complementary and additive to the strong growth that we have available to us today in the markets in which we play in. Thank you for the question. Next question. Does McCormick plan on continuing its commitment to DE&I? We've been monitoring the situation closely, and our path forward will ensure that we remain true to our values. Our belief in the Power of People means we respect and value each and every employee, and our goal is to maintain a culture where everyone feels included. This has been our approach for 85 years since C. P. McCormick introduced The Power of People philosophy to the company. As we think about the possibility of any adjustments in how we address this, our top priority really is really staying focused and remaining true to the values that we have as a company, and that remains where we're centered right now. I want to thank everyone. Those were all the questions that we received on today's call. Thank you very much for attending and for your continued support of our great company. I hereby declare the meeting adjourned.