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: After careful consideration, including engagement with many of our shareholders, the TreeHouse Board has approved a plan to explore strategic alternatives.
As we undertake this exploration of alternatives, which may include the sale of the company of the transaction to allow us to focus on our higher growth snacking and beverage businesses by divesting a significant portion of the meal prep business, we will remain focused on supporting our customers and on the actions that we are taking to gain share, optimize our portfolio and grow our top line.
Our Board and management team are steadfast in our belief that the secular headwinds we are facing are episodic and they will pass.
The long-term consumer demand trends and fundamentals of the underlying business remains strong.
We are not speculating on potential outcomes or timing of the review and we do not intend to comment further unless and until the Board has approved a specific course of action or has determined that further disclosure is appropriate.
So, let me put all of this in the context.
At Treehouse, we are essentially the supply chain for our customers private label products, placing us squarely in the middle of the macro disruptions across our industry today.
As you have heard me say many times, private label plays a vital role for our customers.
And given our size and scale, we have an obligation to do all we can to provide food and beverages, both for our customers and for their consumers.
We are making a conscious decision to support the customer during this difficult time.
The changes we have made to our business over the last several years have enhanced our ability to deliver on our customers' critical needs by providing better service.
As a result, we have strengthened our customer relationships, which have been a critical factor in implementing multiple price increases this year to recover inflation.
We've made important progress.
In fact, this has been one of the most collaborative pricing environments that I've ever seen.
Our teams are rising to the challenge in a historically difficult operating environment and I'm confident that our pricing will catch up over the cycle.
Bill will talk about pricing more in a few minutes, but I'm proud of how our teams are working closely in partnership with our customers to navigate these unprecedented headwinds.
Our strong relationship and improved ability to serve the customers is reflected in our third quarter performance, in seven of our 10 largest categories we outperformed private label, a trend that we've seen over the last year.
We are also seeing demand strengthened in the second half of the year.
As we navigate the pandemic, we have invested significantly to support our customers, bearing the rising costs to secure ingredients and transportation and to maintain labor in our plants.
While that has enabled us to maintain strong customer relationships and to expand our topline as you saw in the revised outlook for the fourth quarter, it comes a significant near-term impact on our profitability.
We believe these costs are temporary and will impact our performance in the near term, but are the right thing to do for the long-term success of our customers and TreeHouse.
As the Board embarks on a strategic review, we as a management team are committed to maintaining our focus on the things that we can control, including the pricing actions we have underway and supporting our customers.
With that as our framework, let's turn to the specifics of the quarter on Slide 4.
Third quarter revenue of $1.1 billion grew 5.3% versus last year.
On an organic basis, revenue grew 1.7% and was driven by pricing of 3%.
Demand for private label products has strengthened in recent months, to the point that today we have more demand than the supply chain challenges allow us to fulfill.
Third quarter adjusted EBITDA was $109 million.
Adjusted EBITDA margin of 9.9% declined 320 basis points, driven by inflation, labor and supply chain disruption.
We delivered adjusted diluted earnings per share in the third quarter of $0.46, within the range of our guidance that we communicated in August.
Slide 5 outlines the impact of inflation, labor and supply chain disruptions we've seen across the manufacturing landscape.
I want to talk for a moment about how these factors are impacting our business.
Inflation across the entire complex continues.
Our commercial organization is working diligently on pricing recovery efforts.
While the escalation and duration continue to be unprecedented, I'll say it again, I'm very encouraged by the level of collaboration that we are experiencing with our customers.
Labor across all manufacturing has not only become more costly, but today's shrinking labor participation and the numerous opportunities for all types of manufacturing labor require a more progressive strategy to staff our plants effectively.
To address this, our HR organization is working with our teams to pivot our labor strategy, being creative and looking holistically at the issues.
Although very early in, we are deploying new strategies and are just beginning to see some of the positive effect as a result.
This was compounded by the supply chain disruption, materials either not showing up on time or not enough of the necessary inputs arriving at our facilities.
Our service levels overall are still in the '90s, but certain categories have been under more pressure and the inherent complexity of private label will continue to pressure our service levels.
Nearly all of our meal prep categories are currently on allocation, a clear sign that orders are outpacing our disrupted capacity.
Demand has strengthened since we last spoke and that's very encouraging.
As certain federal stimulus programs expire, we are seeing signs of private label recovery.
While at the same time, we are winning new business with existing customers.
Turning to Slide 6, you may have seen similar data from us before.
The top green line represents the change in private label dollar sales as compared to two years ago among those states that opted out of enhanced unemployment benefits early in June and July.
The orange line represents the same data, but among those states where these benefits expired in the fall.
As you can see, dollar sales increased meaningfully among those states where the benefits recently expired, approaching the growth rate levels of the states that expired in the summer.
This aligns with our expectations that as things normalize, consumers will return to purchasing private label and share will continue to recover.
Bill will get into this more, but we estimate that in the third quarter we had roughly $40 million in unmet demand due to constraints across the network, either not being able to run lines to the lack of labor or because we didn't have the appropriate supplies.
Looking forward, our near-term priorities are very clear.
First, labor, we are addressing how to best improve staffing and attendance across our plants.
More broadly, we are creating an environment that not only empowers our employees to be efficient and productive, but also was fulfilling for them individually and professionally.
Second, we must continue pricing to offset inflation.
Our pricing is in the market.
And while there is a lag, we will need to continue pricing to cover higher commodity costs.
We'll also focus on cost control and lean across the organization and we'll work with our customers to identify inefficiencies and opportunities for value engineering across the product mix.
And third, we will continue to focus on the customer.
Our teams will continue to work diligently to mitigate disruptions and manage through this uncertainty to fill every order that we can, supplying our customers with food and beverage for their consumers.
As we continue to take actions to support our customers in the current environment, our results will be affected in the near term.
Slide 7 shows our guidance revisions and updates for our outlook for the balance of the year, including the impact of the investments we are making to support our customers.
While we expect demand for our products to continue to strengthen, there will certainly be some limits on how much of that demand we will be able to service given that we now expect our top line to finish the year in the lower half of our current guidance range.
We are looking across the supply chain to address today's disruptions.
It will be costly in the near-term as we invest to serve the customer.
However, as I noted earlier, we will continue to price proactively to offset inflation.
We are a complex supply chain business with 29 categories and 40 plants as we are organized today.
We've done a lot over the last several years to focus on continuous improvement and lean to make ourselves more efficient.
In this environment of supply chain disruption, however, we are making a conscious decision to invest in the customer, bearing significant cost to ensure that our products reach our retailer shelves for their consumers.
It is our belief that investing to serve the customer is the right decision and will serve to strengthen our relationship and the business for the long term.
This also provides the best backdrop for the strategic alternatives that we will consider.
On Slide 8, you see that third quarter revenue was $1.1 billion, up 5.3% versus last year, of which 3 points was pricing related and we've been able to service a $40 million of revenue as Steve mentioned earlier, we would have delivered the top end of our revenue guidance in the quarter.
We are taking creative and dramatic steps to address our service challenges in these very difficult times.
On Slides 9 and 10, we have provided revenue by division and by channel.
Meal prep net sales grew 7.4%, elevated by 5.2 points from the past the pasta acquisition.
Organic sales were nearly 2%, of which 4.6 points was pricing.
As noted on our prior calls, the rapid escalation of soybean oil, a meaningful input for our dressings business was one of the first commodities for which we price earlier this year.
Volume and mix declined 2.8 points, driven by supply chain constraints and partially offset by the continued improvement in the food-away-from-home channel.
Food-away-from-home is expected to return to 2019 levels in early '22.
Snacking & beverage revenue grew 2%, of which 1.1% was driven by volume and mix and in particular, new product introductions.
The balance of the growth was split between pricing and FX.
Sild 10 details our topline by channel.
The unmeasured retail channel, which includes key retailers in the value club and online space continue to drive growth of 6% this quarter.
This compares to a decline of 2% in the measured channels, a sequential improvement over the second quarter.
Looking forward, we expect unmeasured channel growth continue to outpace measured channels.
Slide 11 provides our earnings drivers.
Volume and mix, including absorption were a negative $0.26 of impact.
Moving to the right, I want to spend some time on PNOC, pricing net of commodities and give you a sense for both our pricing progress as well as the cost impact of rising inputs.
I want to be sure to recognize our commercial teams and a very fine job they've done coordinating and communicating with our customers and implementing multiple price increases this year.
As Steve noted and I'll reiterate, we would describe the pricing environment as very constructive.
Our intense focus on service and strong communication with the customer is enabling us to have a very good dialog around pricing.
This gives me confident that we will be able to continue to price and recover the continued input cost escalation over the cycle.
The pricing actions we took early in the year and now being reflected in our P&L as expected.
In the third quarter, pricing contributed $0.43, partially offsetting inflation we incurred in the first half of the year.
The continued cost escalation in commodities, packaging, freight and labor is outpacing our pricing recovery.
In the third quarter, the higher input cost was a negative $0.88.
Total PNOC or the net of these two is negative $0.45.
Also in the third quarter operations contributed $0.22 in total versus last year.
While the comparison to the prior year is positive, the COVID related disruption impacting labor and the supply chain cost the company by about $0.07 in the quarter.
Across our 29 categories and 40 plants, we have been working hard to mitigate the impact.
The balance of the operations largely represents the higher cost inventory produced in the third quarter that will impact us negatively in the fourth quarter as we sell that product.
SG&A was a benefit of $0.16.
This was due to the reversal of variable compensation plan accruals and continued cost management of discretionary spending.
Finally, interest expense favorability contributed $0.08 in the quarter versus last year.
Turning to Slide 12, I'd like to make a few points on our balance sheet.
In the last 12 months, we paid down more than $300 million in debt, reducing total debt from $2.2 billion dollars to $1.9 billion.
This is our lowest debt level since 2015.
We've also reduced our weighted average cost of debt by 100 basis points with the refinancing completed earlier this year.
This action lowered our annual interest cost by approximately $20 million.
Our revolver is largely undrawn.
So between cash on hand and the revolver, we have strong liquidity of nearly $800 million.
As anticipated, we generated cash in the third quarter and will do so again in the fourth quarter.
Financial leverage in the third quarter was 3.9 times as we build inventory to prepare and anticipate continued supply chain interruption.
Turning now to slide 13.
Our revised guidance for the remainder of the year takes into account the following.
Similar to Q3, we anticipate we'll have some limitations on our ability to meet all demand indicated by our customer orders and we think revenue in 2021 will be in the $4.20 [Phonetic] to $4.325 billion.
We do not see signs of inflation subsiding, although we are on track to affect our next sort of pricing actions, we will now fully recover all of this year's inflation in the calendar year due to the timing lag.
While we are exploring many avenues to mitigate the lack of labor availability and supply chain dynamics, in the near-term our cost of service to customer will be significantly higher as a result of these factors, we are reducing our EBIT guidance $155 million to $175 million, which compares to $230 million to $260 million previously.
We anticipate that most of our investments to serve the customer will impact us on the COGS line, resulting in a sequential and year-over-year erosion in gross margin in the fourth quarter.
This translates into full year adjusted earnings per share of $1.08 to $1.28, down from our revised August guidance of $2 and $2.50 per share.
We are disappointed to be sharing a second guidance revision, but I'll echo Steve's earlier comment.
We believe these near-term investments to support our customers will serve to strengthen our relationships and the business for the long-term.
We are reducing our 2021 free cash flow guidance to at least $100 million.
I'll point out here that as we manage our working capital and focus on serving our customers, we are making conscious decisions to build inventory, which due to inflation is more costly.
As a result, the working capital contribution from inventory this year will be lower.
Our debt repayment and liquidity is largely unaffected.
Slide 14 covers our fourth quarter guidance and our expectation for adjusted earnings per share between $0.00 and $0.20.
Before turning it back over, I think it's important to give you a way to think about normalized profitability and the large moving parts of disruption this year, specifically in three areas.
First, private label demand and changing consumption patterns.
Second, inflation and pricing.
And third, labor at supply chain disruption.
We do not believe these factors represent structural changes to the business, so I want to try and quantify their impact on '21, and our underlying profitability in broad strokes.
On Slide 15, we started with our February EBIT guidance of approximately $300 million because we believe that this is a much closer and normalized annual level of profitability for the company.
As you move from left to right, we have layered on our estimates for the full year impact of the macro disruptions.
First, on demand and private label consumption.
Recall that in the first half of the year, we signed a software private label consumption trend due to the macro environment, such as branded promotional activity in certain categories and government stimulus supporting consumers trading up to brands.
We've talked in August about this impacting revenue in both the quarter and the year and we estimate this to be a $40 million impact to EBIT this year.
Our original guidance contemplated input cost headwinds of approximately $100 million to $110 million.
The additional inflationary headwind is another $125 million, more than double our original estimate.
Our pricing actions to recover this inflation are in the market and confirmed by customers.
I showed you earlier how pricing is starting to be reflected in our third quarter results.
Our realized Q3 price increase of 3% is expected to accelerate to 4% to 5% in Q4, building to low-double digits in 2022.
We estimate that the timing lag in calendar '21 is approximately $75 million.
It is important to understand that over the course of the cycle, we are confident we have the initiatives in place we cover the entirety of the inflation headwinds.
Finally, because trends related to labor and supply chain disruption is affecting our ability to meet strengthening demand.
these challenges are especially acute across our 40 plant network.
Despite the near-term costs, we believe the right thing to do for our business over the long-term is to continue to serve the customer to the best of our ability.
We estimate that the incremental cost this year is approximately $60 million.
We've also captured the benefit of the reversal of the variable compensation accrual of $35 million.
The net of these factors represent the near-term impact that has driven our 2020 EBIT guidance to $165 million at the midpoint.
While the magnitude and the velocity of change across the landscape continues to be unprecedented, we strongly believe that these disruptions will at some point normalize.
It will take some time, it could be a few quarters or more.
What I do know where I do have confidence is around our teams and the initiatives we have put in place to mitigate the disruption.
Private label demand is strengthening.
Our pricing is confirmed and we are mobilized to effectively address further inflation with additional pricing.
We're getting creative around how we staff and schedule our plants, thinking holistically about how we extend [Phonetic] our people, so that we can improve attendance.
We're getting opportunities across the entire supply chain spectrum.
On the production side, this includes ensuring we have backup suppliers to prioritizing our customers most important SKUs.
On the transportation side, we completed additional freight RFPs and in some cases we'll utilize the spot market to ensure that we can get inputs and finish product to the right place at the right time, and we will further leverage lean and continuous improvement learnings throughout the network.
When we come back to you in February on our year end earnings call, we will give you more specific direction on 2022.
I'll keep my closing remarks short today and leave you with three thoughts.
First, we're encouraged by the strengthening demand.
Today, we have more orders than we can fill.
As our customers focus on surety of supply, we are winning business and outperforming an environment where we've been taking a great deal of pricing.
We have pricing that's in effect in the month of December, which is unprecedented for as long as I've been in the food business.
This is a difficult environment for everyone, but customers have been appreciative of the level of detail, transparency, and communication we are providing.
This cements my belief that we're making the right decision to invest in the customer.
We are making a clear choice to bear in the near-term cost of servicing our customers to help keep their shelf stock.
As a result, we are outperforming in our largest categories.
When things normalize and they will, we will be a stronger business and benefit from having served the customer during this time of unprecedented disruption.
The alternative would have been to spend less and choose not to service as much demand.
While that might have been a near-term solution for our earnings, I don't believe it's the right long-term decision for the business.
And finally, we'll stay focused on running the business as the Board conducts its review.
As I mentioned earlier, we won't be speculating on potential outcomes or timing of the review.
When we have something definitive to report, we will do so in a timely manner.

user
q3 adjusted earnings per share $0.46 from continuing operations.
q3 sales rose 5.3 percent to $1.101 billion.
q3 adjusted earnings per share $0.46.
sees fy sales $4.2 billion to $4.325 billion.
sees 2021 adjusted earnings per diluted share of $1.08 to $1.28.

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