Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q4 2021 Investor Teleconference for Oil-Dri Corporation of America. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one on your telephone. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Daniel Jaffee, President and CEO. Thank you. Please go ahead. Thank you, Kevin. Welcome, everyone, to our fourth quarter and fiscal year ending teleconference as we completed our 81st fiscal year in business. Very exciting. Joining me on the call today is Susan Kreh, CFO, Molly VandenHeuvel, COO, Jessica Moskowitz, VP and General Manager of our Consumer Products Division, Fred Kao, Vice President of Global Sales for Amlan International, Laura Scheland, Vice President and General Counsel, and Leslie Garber, Manager of Investor Relations. Leslie, will you walk us through our safe harbor? Yes. Thank you. Welcome, everyone. On today's call, comments may contain forward-looking statements regarding the company's performance in future periods. Actual results in those periods may materially differ. In our press release and in our SEC filings, we highlight a number of important risk factors, trends, and uncertainties that may affect our future performance. We ask that you review and consider those factors in evaluating the company's comments and in evaluating any investment in Oil-Dri stock. Thank you for joining us. Dan? Great. Thank you. Before I turn it over to Susan for what I call a play-by-play, I'll give a little color on the year, and I'll try not to steal too much of her thunder. Obviously, very happy with the top-line growth. Overall 8% growth, all organic, no acquisitions during the year, and then 20% in the four quarters. You can imagine what that did, especially what everyone knows about global supply chains, what a great job our team did of getting all that out. However, our costs, we're in a whole new cost environment. Whatever we thought we were seeing is way worse, and so we were in a constant game of catch-up, and we just put out a news release this week about it, so we're still playing catch-up. The good news is the strategies are working. The supply chains, my father used to always joke when people would ask him, "How's your wife?" And he'd say, "Compared to who?" How's our supply chain? Compared to who? When you go to the shelves, certainly in the consumer area, you see out of stocks everywhere, and generally, you see the competition more out of stock than we are, which is why I think we were up so much in the fourth quarter. It is tough. A challenging time. Heads are down trying to execute on price increases and cost control as we are also in the midst of really some very exciting growth opportunities in many of our businesses. It's very challenging times, but very proud of the team. They've done a phenomenal job. We've certainly stressed one of our core values, which is the W, which is work-life balance. We've definitely been leaning too much towards work and not enough towards life these last 90-120 days. The team has stepped up, and I'm very appreciative of what they've done. Susan, I'm going to turn it over to you for some details, and then you can kick it back to me for Q&A. Sounds good. Thanks, Dan. 2021 was a year of momentum, of challenges, and of opportunities. We experienced momentum, as Dan was just describing, in our sales growth. Our full year consolidated net sales reached an all-time record high of $305 million, 8% growth over the prior year. This was primarily due to higher demand of our cat litter and agricultural products, which increased by 9% and 19% respectively over the prior year. Revenues from our fluids purification products were 3% higher than last year, while sales of animal health and nutrition products were essentially flat. Industrial and sports products revenues grew 9% year-over-year. We experienced steady sales growth of 2% from our co-packaging coarse cat litter business. Annual consolidated gross profit was a different story, as Dan mentioned, and it decreased by three and a half million year-over-year as we experienced the significant challenges of market inflation. Commodity-based cost increases caused our cost of goods sold per manufactured ton, a key financial metric for Oil-Dri, to increase approximately 8% compared to the prior year, with a very significant portion of those cost increases occurring in the back half of the year. Packaging costs, which include resin-based jugs and pails as well as pallets, experienced the most dramatic increase at 19% year-over-year, followed by natural gas, which increased 15% year-over-year. Domestic freight, which has been under pressure due both to rates and availability, increased 15%. These increases were only partially offset by operating cost reductions and efficiencies that Molly VandenHeuvel and the entire supply chain team worked hard to achieve during fiscal 2021. Selling, General & Administrative expenses for the year decreased 8% from the prior year, primarily due to lower advertising spending, lower annual incentive bonus accrual, and lower pension expense. As for opportunities, we increased our investment in SG&A and our Animal Health and Nutrition Products business by $1 million year-over-year, and we are excited about new customers and the activity with those customers this enhanced team has been able to generate. While we were disappointed with our ability to maintain our margins during the rising cost environment that we experienced since fiscal 2021, I would like to point out that our prior year fiscal 2020 results included a one-time pre-tax gain of $13 million related to a confidential licensing agreement. Excluding that prior year one-time gain, our operating income of $13 million in fiscal 2021 equates to 10% growth over the prior year. Full year net income for fiscal 2021 attributed to Oil-Dri was $11.1 million. Net income per diluted common share was $1.57. That compares to $2.65 per diluted common share in the prior year. That amount included the $13 million pre-tax one-time gain I mentioned earlier. Excluding the impact of that one-time gain, which equated to $1.26 per share, last year's net income per diluted common share would have been $1.39, meaning that this year's result is 13% higher than fiscal 2020, excluding the one-time gain. For some of the year's fourth quarter highlights. Dan mentioned our fourth quarter consolidated net sales grew 20% and reached an all-time quarterly high of $78 million. Sales from our cat litter, industrial and sports, and agricultural businesses drove the majority of this growth. Demand for fluids purification products and co-packaged coarse cat litter also increased in the fourth quarter compared to the prior year, while revenues from our animal health and nutrition products were essentially flat. As a result of commodity prices that continued to rise rapidly during the fourth quarter, our consolidated gross profit decreased by approximately $1.5 million, even after the price increases that we implemented during the quarter. Due to extreme inflation on resin and lumber prices, our packaging costs per manufactured ton increased 40% in the quarter compared to the same quarter in the prior year. Further contributing to the reduction in margin was higher natural gas per manufactured ton, which increased 57% in the fourth quarter over the same quarter in the prior year. The macroeconomic environment remains challenging, and we are working with our customers to implement additional price increases to help cover these rapidly increasing input costs. Let me talk a little bit about our product groups. The B2B products group's fourth quarter revenues reached a record $30 million, a 13% increase over the same quarter in the prior year. That was primarily driven by strong revenue growth from agricultural and fluids purification businesses. Sales of agricultural products increased by 37% over the prior year as demand from one of our largest customers rose in the quarter. The B2B products group also benefited from a 7% increase in revenues from the fluids purification business as sales of bleaching clay products were strong in North America and Latin America. Our co-packaging cat litter products experienced increased sales of 15% in the fourth quarter compared to the prior year, primarily due to increased pricing. While fourth quarter revenues of Animal Health and Nutrition products remained flat compared to the same period last year, we were encouraged by strong year-over-year sales growth of 66% in the quarter from China. Operating income from the B2B products group was $3.2 million in the fourth quarter, compared to $6.3 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020, as the favorable impact of strong revenue growth was more than offset by the rapidly rising input costs we've been discussing. The retail and wholesale product group's fourth quarter revenues were $48 million, a 26% increase over the same quarter in the prior year, driven by our branded and private label cat litter products. We continued to benefit from our strategic focus on lightweight litter. Sales were up 43% in the fourth quarter over the prior year, and our e-commerce business also experienced double-digit revenue gains in the fourth quarter. Our financial position remains strong and is reflected in our balance sheet. At the end of the year, with cash and cash equivalents of $25 million, we carry very little debt, equating to a debt to total capital ratio of about 5%. One of the primary uses of our cash is to fund working capital. During fiscal 2021, accounts receivable increased to $6 million, reflecting our strong sales growth. The decrease in our current liabilities of $4 million for the fiscal year was primarily driven by a reduction in the annual incentive bonus. We also use that cash to fund capital investments in our business, including those required for growth and those required to drive cost reductions in addition to normal repair and replacement capital. At times, we use cash to opportunistically repurchase stock to help offset dilution to shares of our restricted stock grants. For fiscal 2021, we repurchased approximately 88,000 shares of our common stock for $3.1 million. I opened by saying that 2021 was a year of momentum, of challenges, and of opportunities. We have momentum in sales growth across many of our product groups. We're experiencing significant inflationary challenges that require us to increase our pricing to our customers, and we are capitalizing on our strategic opportunities in our lightweight cat litter products and positioning ourselves for future growth in our Animal Health and Nutrition products. Oil-Dri remains in a strong financial position with low leverage, and we are well-positioned to fund our future strategic growth opportunities. With that, Dan, I'll turn it back over to you. All right. Thank you, Susan. Kevin, at this time, we'd like to open up the lines, and as you mentioned, and as always, ask your most important question first, and then go back into the queue so that everybody has a chance to ask at least one question. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone. If you want to withdraw your question, you may press the pound key. Once again, that's star one to ask a question, and to cancel it, you may press the pound key. Please limit yourself to one question. To ask another question, you may press star one. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Ethan Starr, a private investor. Ethan, you may ask your question. Good morning. What progress are you making in marketing and selling Varium and NeoPrime? What feedback are you getting from the trials? When do you think we might see increased sales of these products? Well, I think I mentioned, was it in the fourth or the third quarter, the third quarter, that we're hoping for some activity in the second quarter, which is coming up. I'll stick with that for now. As you know, I'm not going to get into too many details. It's still very positive. I will tell you that we're in such a dynamic cost environment that, yes, we are still doing a lot of things for the future, but our heads are down just trying to execute, trying to get product out the door, trying to get trucks to show up, trying to get pallets to put our products on top of, trying to get all the additives that we need. Everything is under unbelievable pressure, and I'm sure you're seeing it in all the articles you read. I will say still long-term, very bullish on animal health. We did hire a couple more people to help fill out the team during the quarter, so it continues to validate that they're seeing what those who joined us before them saw. That we really do have one of the best solutions. I don't know if you saw in the most recent month or two, but the EU now has mandated that all imported meat be antibiotic-free, and therefore, that causes repercussions throughout their supply chain. They're a major importer from Brazil, and so then that ripples into Brazil. Anyway, all good news. Fred's on the call, but I don't want to get into too many details because it's just not productive. It's all happening, and it's all good. Thank you. Thank you, Ethan. The next question comes from the line of Robert Smith of the Center. Robert, you may ask your question. Yes. With Center for Performance Investing. Yes. Good morning, everyone. Hi, Bob. Dan, you know that I've been an investing member of the Oil-Dri family for a long time, now more than 25 years. I just want to share with you that in the greater part of the last decade, we've been missing in action, so to speak, from one of the greatest bull markets in history. In part, I feel that that's because we're missing in action from investor relations and sharing the story with the investment community. You're a small-cap stock. There are numerous ways and means of getting your story out. You have a transformative story to tell about animal health and the future of the company. A great story that you've got to tell. I hope that you'll give much greater consideration to doing that. Rob, you and I can debate this all you want, it's just going to make me look worse. The facts are the facts. We're trading at 16.5x earnings. What do you think our multiple should be? If I had been out in the street hawking the stock, you think we should trade at 20? We're not a growth stock. We hope to be, we're a value stock. We pay a good dividend, high yield. What do you think our multiple should be? The multiple is not that important. It's the future earning power of the company and the transformative business. The multiple's reflective of that, Robert. I'm suggesting to you that if the Street knew about your animal health potential, the stock would be closer to $60 than $35. All right. Given what they can see, I hear you, but we're going to keep agreeing to disagree. For better or for worse, Edgar Jannotta, who took us public back in 1971 and served on our board for years and is revered in the investment world, the managing partner of William Blair absolutely hammered me. He said, "Between hawking your stock and getting expectations out in front of your performance, all you're going to end up doing is disappointing somebody. Put your head down and run the business, and they will find you." I think our multiple is very relevant. I think we are well-priced. When we start to deliver on Animal Health, it will move. To get it going in front of that performance, to me, I don't see the value of that. Dan, the stock market is a discounting mechanism. No one's buying a stock on present value. They want to see the future. You've got a story to tell about your future, tell it. Well, I'm going to ask you again, what do you think our multiple should be? I thought. If it was at six or eight, I'd be agreeing with you. It's at 16 and a half. The average multiple in the market is in the mid-20s, Daniel Jaffee. For small caps? If you told the story, the stock would be closer to $60 than $35. That's my theory. All right. Hey, did you have a question? Did you have a question or something else? Well, I do have a question, sir. Okay. Thank you for asking me. My question is, can you tell us anything further about the trials? Where are the several trials being held and the timeline to when they might come to greater fruition? Well, unfortunately, we're out of time. I would've gotten into that. I'm just kidding, Robert Smith. I will not be telling you where the trials are being held. We go through this every single quarter. You guys push me to have longer teleconferences. The questions seem to be the same. I have to keep giving you the same answer. In football, is my analogy, it doesn't seem to help to yell to the competition what plays you're going to run. I will not be telling you where our trials are. Thank you for your question. Okay, thank you. The next question comes from the line of John Bair of Ascend Wealth. John, you may ask your question. Thank you. Interesting answer there. I guess if Bob's disappointed, there is an option as to what he can do with his holdings. In any case, congratulations on actually having a profitable quarter. Not as well as you would like or any of us would like, but given the backdrop of commodities, I was frankly concerned that perhaps that wouldn't be the case. Kudos in that regard. My first question is, read recently that the swine and pork prices and consumption in China has decreased due to the African swine fever impact and a shift by consumers to consume more poultry. My question is, have you seen an increase in demand for your poultry-related product versus swine products in China, or has the swine product sales remained consistent or actually increasing? In other words, have they been cannibalized by an increase in interest in poultry consumption? Sure. Hey, John, great question. I'll Fred you take it, but start with the swine, because you and I have had a lot of conversations about that. What's going on with swine in Asia in general and China in particular, and then talk about the other areas that we may be able to see some benefit of our products going into. Okay, sure. John, that's a very, very good question. As I'm in China right now, I'd like to answer that as well. There's always swine. Yeah, I think swine fever has really taken its toll on the Chinese swine market. The reason I'm saying that is not because there is not enough pork meat in the market. It's actually the reverse. There's too much pork meat floating around because they're able to get the population back from where it was back in 2018, before ASF. Now they actually have the same population of their pig population back three years ago. Now the reason the price is so bad is exactly what you mentioned, John, is when poultry meat or other meat came in as a substitute for the last three years, people got used to a better taste of healthier products. Because of that, the swine market is not going to rebound back to where it was. Kind of like one of the things I've heard in the past is, when you get used to the taste, you're not going to get back to the pork meat. That's exactly what I'm seeing in China. I'll give you a little bit more example on that is the cost of production for a kilo of pork meat is roughly $3- $4, let's say close to $4. That's selling at $1.30 right now per kilo, at farm gate. All the pig producers are losing a lot of money because of that. Answering the second part of your question, poultry market has definitely been very stable. The prices remain on a practical level. Maybe about two weeks ago, it kind of dropped lower. The reason after two or four days, it's kind of back up again to where the regular price needs to be. That shows how important the poultry sector is going to be in case of swine market not doing so well, and also give us a great confidence that strategy we put forward quarters ago, that we're going to focus on the poultry market fronts. The last thing I want to add to it is the dairy market in China is the only animal product that's produced in China that's had a very, very stable price ever since the pandemic. People eating less meat because of lesser meals eating outside. Dairy consumption and table egg consumption are remaining pretty steady throughout the last few weeks. I said that at least the past eight months. That's the answer to your question. I guess you are seeing an increase in demand for your poultry-related animal health products. Is that what I'm hearing? That's correct. Yes. We do see an increase because the poultry market's been pretty stabilized and stabilizing prices remain stabilized. Actually the population of poultry has increased tremendously in the last three years. That's really a good sign. Is that a trend that translates into other geographical areas as well? Well, we're seeing some of that in Asia. Yeah, definitely we're seeing some of that trend in Asia, it's quite difficult to project that because if you look at Asia, the predominantly pork consumption countries are China, Vietnam, Philippines, Japan, and Thailand. In these countries, definitely we're seeing some of that, the difficult thing to see is we don't really have the same effect as ASF has tore through China in the last three years. We've not quite seen that just yet. If that makes sense. The next question comes from the line of Ethan Starr, a private investor. Ethan, you may ask your question. Yes. I prefer to avoid open-ended discussions on investor relations on these calls. My question is, could you give more detail on the increase in sales of what you predicted in private label cat litter? Also I'm wondering, do the company's revenue growth in the last year due to price increases versus increase in tons sold? Jessica, you take the first one, and then I'm not sure I have the data for the second one, but if Susan does, that's great. Jessica? I do. Okay, good. Jessica, you go first. I think you're on mute. I'm not on mute. Jessica's on mute. Oh, Jessica, you might be on mute. Thank you. Thanks, Ethan, for the question. Additionally, the growth in cat litter has been driven duly by both organic growth driven by overall growth in people having cats and pets overall. Reflecting new customer acquisition, so bringing on new private label lightweight customers and new customers, and then also by overall building the branded business and the launch of new items under our 15 pound, which is our best performing line. Great. Thank you. Susan, do you have? The second part of the question. Yeah. How much was pricing and how much was volume? Right. Hey, Jessica, I think you need to mute. Yeah. Volume accounted for half of the growth, the rest was pricing and improved mix. Volume was half of the revenue growth. That's all the time we have for the Q&A session. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Daniel Jaffee. Thank you. Well, thank you, everybody. We're very happy with the demand. Validating not only our successful strategies, but also our ability to get stuff out the door. I am sure as you do retail checks, you see a lot of empty shelves out there. Very dynamic times. We are going to continue to get prices up, control our costs, and get as much out the door as we can in the next 90 days. No one has a crystal ball. No one that I'm talking to thinks this is going to end any time in the next 90 days. This is going to be the new reality for at least a year, maybe even into two years. Appreciate your support and patience. We'll be back with you in 90 days-ish for the next teleconference. Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.