Neogen Corp. (NASDAQ:NEOG) Q1 2021 Earnings Conference Call - Final Transcript

Good day, and welcome to the NEOGEN First Quarter Fiscal Year 2021 Earnings Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions]. I would like now to turn the conference over to John Adent, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Matt. Good morning and welcome to our regular quarterly conference call for investors and analysts. Today, we will be reporting on the first quarter of our 2021 fiscal year, which ended on August 31st. As usual, some of the statements made here today could be termed as forward-looking statements.

These statements, of course, are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. The actual results may differ from those that we discuss today. The risks associated with our business are covered in part in the Company's Form 10-K as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In addition to those of you who are joining us by live telephone conference, I also welcome those of you joining us via the Internet. Following our prepared comments this morning, we will entertain questions from participants who have joined this live conference. I'm joined this morning in an appropriate social distance by Steve Quinlan, our Chief Financial Officer, who will provide financial details on the results for our quarter.

We're pleased to report increased revenues and net income compared to our prior year's fiscal, our prior year's first quarter in a very difficult operating environment. While we are developing and marketing products and services to help protect and enhance the global food supply, we continue to take extraordinary measures to protect our business and employees.

We remain vigilant with our COVID-19 safety measures, but we continue to see cases around the world affect our business. Through it all, our employees have done an outstanding job of adapting to these constant challenges to deliver these excellent results for the quarter. They worked extremely hard and I'm very proud of them.

But this is far from over, and it's not time to let up. We will continue to implement safety measures we've had in place since the beginning of the pandemic and revive -- refine and develop new best practices. We are constantly adding to our list of alternate suppliers of essential raw materials as well as seeking even more efficiencies with our production facilities. Everyone is feeling the effects of COVID-19. We've had numerous customers go out of business, while others have dramatically cut staff and output. Adaptability is vital now as customer demands and raw material supplies are impacted daily. The Food and Livestock Industries continue to be adversely affected by the supply chain disruption that started months ago.

Let me give you an example. The National Restaurant Association recently did a survey of its members after six months of the pandemic and found one in six restaurants in the US were either closed for an extended period or closed permanently. That means more than 100,000 restaurants in the US alone, that were closed at