You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: These statements are not guarantees of future performance and therefore, undue reliance should not be placed upon them.
We refer you to B&G Foods most recent annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent SEC filings for a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact our Company's future operating results and financial condition.
Bruce will then discuss our financial results for the first quarter as well as expectations for 2021.
Assessing our results for the quarter my overall comment is that the quarter played out much as we expected.
In total, we achieved record first quarter net sales of $505.1 million, a 12.4% increase from Q1 2020.
Net sales in our base business, which excludes the Crisco acquisition completed in December, were approximately $447 million, virtually flat versus first quarter 2020 at a modest 0.6% decline.
Within that number, US base business net sales were up 2.1% while international base business net sales were down 31.8%.
Virtually all of that Green Giant sales in Canada due to severe allocation of the brands there.
Compared to fiscal 2019 our base business net sales, which for purposes of the two-year comparison also exclude Clabber Girl and Farmwise net sales increased $16.6 million or 4% for the quarter.
Our $447 million of base business net sales were supplemented by the $58 million of Crisco net sales, bringing our total net sales up to the $505 million figure.
Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter also set a first quarter record at $92.9 million a 15.2% increase, a result of solid base business volume and earnings and a fulsome Crisco benefit in our first few months of ownership.
Those are the highlights.
As Dave just discussed, we had very strong financial performance during our first quarter, delivering Company record first quarter net sales and adjusted EBITDA.
We reported net sales of $505.1 million in the first quarter, an increase of $55.7 million or 12.4% compared to the prior year first quarter and an increase of nearly $95 million or 22.4% compared to the first quarter of 2019.
As you know, the Crisco acquisition closed on December 1, 2020 providing us with a full quarter of net sales in the first quarter.
Crisco generated approximately $58.1 million in net sales for the quarter, which is slightly ahead of our internal model.
Base business net sales, which excludes the benefit of Crisco, were essentially flat to last year's first quarter, were down 0.6%.
Excluding the benefit of Crisco, net sales were up approximately $34.4 million or 8.3% from Q1 2019, approximately $17.7 million of which was due to the May 2019 acquisition of Clabber Girl and the February 2020 Farmwise acquisition and approximately $16.7 million of which was due to base business net sales growth.
We generated adjusted EBITDA before COVID-19 expenses of $95.8 million in the first quarter of 2021, an increase of $15 million or 18.5%.
During the first quarter of 2021, we incurred approximately $2.9 million in incremental COVID-19 costs at our manufacturing facilities, which primarily included temporary enhanced competition for our manufacturing employees, compensation we continue to pay the manufacturing employees while in quarantine, and expenses related to the precautionary health and safety measures.
As discussed in our fourth quarter and full year 2020 call, we expect to see a continued reduction in these costs, which averaged $1.5 million per month during the height of the pandemic.
Inclusive of these costs, we reported adjusted EBITDA of $92.9 million which is an increase of $12.2 million or 15.2% compared to last year's first quarter.
Adjusted EBITDA before COVID-19 expenses as a percentage of net sales was 19% in the first quarter of 2021.
Adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of net sales was 18.4%.
Adjusted EBITDA before COVID-19 expenses as a percentage of net sales and adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of net sales were 18% in the first quarter of 2020 as COVID-19 expenses did not fully kick in until the second quarter of 2020.
We reported $0.52 in adjusted diluted earnings per share in the first quarter of 2021 an increase of $0.06 per share or 13% compared to the prior year first quarter.
Leading our brand performance were Spices & Seasonings.
Net sales of our spices and seasonings including our legacy brand such as Ac'cent and Dash and the brands we acquired in 2016 such as Tone's and Weber were up by $30 million or 41.2% for the quarter.
Net sales of spices and seasonings were up by $17.1 or 20% compared to the first quarter of 2019.
Net sales of spices and seasonings reached $397.7 million for the 12 months ended March 2021.
The retail side of this business continues to show a momentum that began last summer as more and more Americans began to fully embrace cooking and seasoning their meals at home, a trend which continues in 2021.
The foodservice side of this business has also begun to show some momentum with a budding recovery in the away from home channel as many Americans have begun to emerge from a year or more of lockdowns and shelter at home safety precautions.
Despite the recovery, foodservice net sales of spices and seasonings remain below pre-pandemic levels for the quarter, but did have an increase for the month of March.
Other major brands contributing to the net sales growth include Maple Grove Farms, Las Palmas and Ortega.
Maple Grove Farms generated approximately $20.7 million in net sales during the first quarter of 2021 an increase of $2.3 million or 12.1% compared to Q1 2020, and an increase of $2.8 million or 15.5% compared to Q1 2019.
Las Palmas generated $10.7 million in net sales during the first quarter of 2021, an increase of $0.2 million or 1.8% compared to Q1 2020 and an increase of $1.3 million or 14.4% compared to Q1 2019.
Ortega generated $39 million in net sales during the first quarter of 2021, an increase of $0.2 million or 0.4% compared to Q1 2020 and an increase of $1.7 million or 4.6% compared to Q1 2019.
Green Giant, which was one of the largest beneficiaries of COVID-19 pandemic buying of the past year in our portfolio had approximately $639 million in net sales during fiscal 2020, an increase of $112.2 million or 21.3% compared to the prior year.
As we discussed during our last earnings call, Green Giant, as well its competitor brands will have supply constraints until we reach the new pack season later this year.
As a result, we were forced to make tough decisions and place the brand on allocation with our customers, which will limit sales of Green Giant products until this year's third quarter, so that we don't sell out before the pack season.
Primarily as a result of those decisions, Green Giant net sales were just $132.5 million in the quarter, a decrease of $25.9 million or 16.4% compared to the prior year quarter.
However demand for Green Giant remained strong and we expect a strong second half of the year and we expect full year net sales of Green Giant products to exceed the brand's fiscal 2019 net sales of approximately $525 million.
While demand has remained strong, and that sales have generally remained elevated when compared to fiscal 2019, many of our other brands were unable to surpass Q1 2020 net sales.
Cream of Wheat for example generated $18.2 million in net sales during the first quarter of 2021, a decrease of $0.7 million or 4% compared to Q1 2020, but an increase of $0.8 million or 4.3% compared to Q1 2019.
Clabber Girl generated $17.4 million in net sales during the first quarter of 2021 a decrease of $1.3 million or 6.8% compared to Q1 2020, but significantly greater than the estimated $15 million or so of net sales generated during the Q1 2019 period under prior ownership.
Our gross profit was $117.8 million for the first quarter of 2021 or 23.3% of net sales.
Excluding the negative impact of approximately $5.5 million of acquisition divestiture related expenses, the amortization of acquisition related inventory, fair value step up, and non-recurring expenses included in the cost of goods sold, our gross profit would have been $123.3 million or 24.4% of net sales.
Gross profit was $104.9 million for the first quarter of 2020 or 23.3% of net sales.
Excluding the negative impact of approximately $2.3 million of acquisition divestiture related expenses and non-recurring expenses included in cost of goods sold, our gross profit would have been $107.2 million or 23.9% of sales.
As discussed on our fourth quarter and full year call, we are certainly seeing inflationary pressures in 2021.
So far this year, the first quarter has largely played out as expected with low to mid single-digit inflation on a blended basis across our basket of goods with significant increases in agricultural products and commodity relate input costs, as well as corrugated steel and aluminum.
We are also seeing meaningful increases in freight costs and COVID-19 related customer fines.
Our procurement policy has led us to be somewhat aggressive when covering costs in a rising environment and we have locked in costs for many of our inputs through the first three quarters of the year.
We have also continued to be aggressive with our cost-cutting initiatives and we are taking revenue enhancing actions across many of the brands that have been impacted by cost inflation when appropriate in attempt to maintain margins.
Selling, general and administrative expenses for the year were $50.4 million or 10% of net sales.
This compares to $40 million or 8.9% for the prior year.
The dollar increase in SG&A is primarily composed of an incremental $4 million investment in consumer marketing, $1.9 million in incremental acquisition related costs, and non-recurring expense, which primarily relate to the acquisition and integration of the Crisco brand and $4.1 million in increased warehousing costs.
The increase in warehousing costs was primarily driven by the Crisco acquisition and COVID-19 related customer funds.
General and administrative expenses increased by $1.3 million.
These costs were partially offset by decreased selling expenses of $0.9 million.
As I mentioned earlier, we generated $95.8 million dollars in adjusted EBITDA before COVID-19 expenses and after the inclusion of $2.9 million of COVID-19 expenses adjusted EBITDA of $92.9 million.
This compares to adjusted EBITDA before COVID-19 expenses of $80.8 million in Q1 2020 and $75.8 million in Q1 2019.
We generated $0.52 in adjusted diluted earnings per share in the first quarter of 2021 compared to $0.46 per share in Q1 2020 and $0.44 per share in Q1 2019.
We remain very encouraged by these trends.
We had another strong quarter of cash from operations, although it was impacted by the timing of one of our semiannual interest payments and the payout of increased incentive compensation related to the Company's 2020 performance.
Net cash provided by operating activities was $26 million during the first quarter of 2021 compared to $57.6 million during Q1 2020.
The majority of the decrease was driven by the timing of an approximately $24 million interest payment for 2025 notes on April 1, which happened to fall into our first quarter for this year and our second quarter last year.
The remainder of the decrease was driven by a $12.6 million increase in incentive compensation paid in cash as a result of the Company's very strong performance in fiscal 2020 relative to the prior year.
Our consolidated leverage ratio, as defined by our credit agreement, and which is calculated on a pro forma and net debt basis, was 5.23 times and remains within our long-term leverage target of 4.5 to 5.5 times and well below our credit agreement covenant threshold of 7 times.
We are reaffirming our 2021 sales guidance that we provided in March as we continue to expect Company record net sales of $2.05 billion and $2.1 billion in fiscal 2021 inclusive of the benefit of a full year of the Crisco acquisition.
From a pacing perspective, we knew that we had a head start in the first quarter of this year with exceptional performance in the months of January and February that would be coupled with a final month of March that would come in well short of last year when we were at the beginning of the COVID-19 shutdown and related pantry loading.
And that is exactly how the quarter played out.
Crisco is purely incremental for us at this stage and is performing in line with our expectations.
For the second quarter we expect something similar with our base business net sales to trend much closer to our 2019 net sales than our 2020 net sales, may be low to mid single-digit percentage points higher than what we experienced in 2019.
Crisco will again be purely incremental for us in the second quarter.
Historically, Crisco generated about 20% of its full year net sales in the April to June period.
And as we discussed earlier, we expect 2021% to present us with a different set of challenges and opportunities than we had last year.
Demand for our products remain elevated, but not quite as high as during the pandemic.
With the exception of Green Giant and certain of our other brands, we are also in a much better position from a supply standpoint across most of our portfolio than we were late last year, which should enable us to meet much of this demand.
We highlighted our concerns about inflation during our last earnings call and these concerns are certainly proving out as we are seeing inflation across a number of key input costs, including certain agricultural products, other commodity products such as oils as well as packaging and freight.
As in prior years, our experience and expectation is that we will manage these costs through a combination of revenue enhancing initiatives including pricing and trade spend optimization where appropriate, as well as certain cost saving activities to preserve our margin profile and our cash flows.
As a result, we expect to generate adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of net sales of approximately 18% to 18.5%, which is generally consistent with our performance in the recent fiscal years.
As I said at the beginning of the call, the quarter played out much as we expected with substantial sales gains in the first 10 weeks and then tough comparisons in the last few.
The last two weeks of Q1 2020 essentially saw four weeks of normal sales volume compressed into two as COVID-19 driven panic buying commenced.
Nearly all of our brands benefited from this phenomenon as consumers loaded their pantries with anything and everything and our case especially canned goods and frozen vegetables.
So it is no surprise that the most challenging comparison we have for the quarter is in the canned goods brands.
As Bruce described, the largest dollar decline we saw in quarter-to-quarter sales was in Green Giant, down 16.4%.
Virtually all of that happened in the final two weeks of the quarter, making total brand sales for the full quarter similar to the first quarter of 2019.
An additional handicap is that we have supply constraints on the canned side of the Green Giant brand due to unprecedented demand late last year, but even with those constraints we expect brand sales to continue to track to 2019 levels until the new crop arrives.
Excluding the Green Giant brand and the remarkable swing in that brand, net sales for the remainder of our base business increased by 8.1% over first quarter 2020.
Sales remained broadly strong, especially in areas such as baking and spicing and seasonings.
Foodservice sales strengthened as well helping the overall performance.
First quarter was our first full quarter of ownership of the Crisco brand and we were very pleased with its performance.
At $58.1 million in net sales it is tracking to our expectations and margins were accretive to our overall results.
We do face temporary cost challenges with the brands as the cost of oils used in the products has more than doubled since this time last year.
But we view these very high levels as an anomaly that the market will work through over time.
Meanwhile we own what we see as an iconic brand that fits well with our portfolio of products related to baking at home and revitalize consumer behavior.
With the addition of Crisco, we estimate that our baking at home brands will be approximately 20% of our net sales.
While much of our businesses started shifting back to more normal performance, one area where we see continuation of new consumer behavior is in e-commerce.
While there are no complete or precise measures of net sales through this means, we are able to estimate that retail sales of our brands these various e-commerce venues grew by over 60% to $50 million in the first quarter.
At this point we estimate that e-commerce retail sales for the full year will continue to grow at that rate and reach $275 million this year.
I should emphasize that this is not necessarily growth in our factory sales, but instead a noteworthy shift in how consumers are buying our products.
We are investing significantly in this area to ensure that we are well represented in the phenomenon which shows no signs of leveling off in the near future.
If anything, retailers are upping the ante with one recent article citing plans for two-hour delivery of orders to consumer's homes.
Our household penetration has grown substantially in the past year and is up almost 10 percentage points versus 12 months ago.
At the same time, consumer purchase frequency and size has also grown.
Our job is to retain these new and revitalized consumers as the pandemic eases.
We believe the potential to do that exists, primarily because work from home is here to stay in one form or another.
Our own experience as we return to normalcy is that employees want flexibility in their schedules and work days.
Given that, we are orienting our marketing to reinforcing behavior adopted during the pandemic.
An example is, the new website integrated for our baking demands, bakingathome.com where consumers can find a wealth of recipes and baking tips, many of course featuring B&G Foods brands.
Similar efforts will be taking place across the business as we use the efficiency and cost effectiveness of social media to reach consumers.
Although encouraging as first quarter results are, there are certainly risks and unknowns to deal with for the remainder of 2021.
Rising costs are a significant issue and one that will not be resolved anytime soon.
As Bruce noted, freight costs have increased steadily.
Capacity issues in the trucking industry in both labor and equipment will continue for the foreseeable future.
Packaging and raw materials have seen widespread cost increases as well.
We have insulated ourselves in many cases with forward buying positions, but even with these in place, we have also had to announce pricing and manage our trade spending to compensate for these cost pressures.
Some of these increases are already in effect and others will take effect of shortly.
On the positive side, we are seeing reduced expenses related to COVID-19 as vaccination of our workforce expands.
While this was a $2.9 million negative in the first quarter, we should save much of the $13.3 million we spent on COVID-19 related measures in the last three quarters of 2020.
As we continue to grow larger, we are investing more resources toward meeting our responsibilities as a corporate citizen.
The Corporate Social Responsibility Committee of the Board of Directors is charged with the overall direction of these efforts and has initiated a broad array of efforts in diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as environmental and sustainability.
During the first quarter we worked with the Culinary Institute of America to establish a scholarship program for diverse students.
The program will fully support tuition for five students as they pursue careers in the food industry.
This effort joins the extensive work B&G Foods is already doing with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
We are also developing further programs around environmental and sustainability goals at our manufacturing facilities and distribution centers and are working toward increasing our public disclosures regarding our environmental and sustainability programs and goals.
With the pandemic easing, we are working hard to return to the B&G Foods of old, a company that delivered steady reliable results on a regular basis with exceptional margins and strong free cash flow.
That is the model that has served our shareholders well over the years and delivered superior returns.
I stated started my remarks by stating that the first quarter played out much as we expected and that's very encouraging, but we do expect second quarter to be the most challenging quarter of the year and the largest unknown.
Our net sales increased by 38% in the second quarter of 2020 over 2019, reflecting the height of the pandemic pantry loading.
We obviously won't match that increase, but we believe that our business will perform favorably versus fiscal 2019 and continue to produce solid results.
We are all looking forward to welcoming Casey here and I hope to return over a company that is raring to go when he arrives.
With that, we will conclude our remarks and we would like to begin the Q&A portion of the call.

user
compname reports q1 adjusted earnings per share $0.52.
q1 adjusted earnings per share $0.52.
q1 sales $505.1 million versus refinitiv ibes estimate of $526.4 million.
net sales guidance reaffirmed at a range of $2.05 billion to $2.10 billion.
expect our base business net sales for q2 to trend much closer to our 2019 net sales than our 2020 net sales.

assistant