Welcome to the annual meeting for McCormick & Company, Incorporated. Our host for today's call is Brendan Foley, Chairman, President, and CEO. I will now turn the call over to your host. Mr. Foley, you may begin.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to McCormick's Annual Shareholders' Meeting. I'm Brendan Foley, Chairman, President, and CEO of McCormick, and 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. Then you 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 McCormick is a global leader in flavor. Our long-standing tradition of excellence and innovation continues to set us apart. Today, I'm excited to share how we're advancing this differentiation and driving meaningful value creation. The last two years have been defining for McCormick. They demonstrated the strength, resilience, and differentiation of our business.
We delivered volume-led organic growth, expanded our operating margins, and continued to invest in our brands, capabilities, and people. Our performance reflects the power of our balanced portfolio, our leadership in flavor, and the agility of our teams around the world. We are executing with focus and discipline on what we can control, and we remain well-positioned to deliver sustainable, profitable growth. Today, we hope you'll take away that we are driving our global flavor leadership, accelerating innovation and digital transformation, strengthening sustainable profitability, and reaffirming our vision of being a global flavor leader. I'd like to take a moment to discuss our announcement from yesterday, bringing together two leading organizations, McCormick and Unilever Foods, to create a strong, scaled, and growth-oriented company that will be flavor-focused and exceptionally well-positioned to succeed in today's dynamic environment. McCormick and Unilever Foods are strategically and culturally aligned organizations.
We each bring iconic brands in attractive categories spanning herbs, spices, seasonings, bouillon, condiments, and sauces. Bringing these portfolios together creates an opportunity to execute multiple growth levers, such as expanded distribution, accelerated innovation, brand premiumization, and a scaled dual-engine food service platform. At the same time, we see significant, clearly actionable cost synergies layered onto an already strong structural margin profile, creating capacity for continued reinvestment and attractive shareholder returns. Beyond strategy, our organizations share a common mindset, a passion for flavor, a belief in the power of people, a relentless focus on quality and innovation, and strong investment behind our brands. The pillars of the combined organization reflect distinct complementary strengths across geographies, channels, and categories. Together, we create a focused global flavor powerhouse, scaled, resilient, and uniquely concentrated on flavor. Our balanced geographic and channel footprint enhances durability across economic cycles and market conditions.
The breadth of the combined company diversifies our growth across emerging and developed markets and retail and commercial channels. In addition, this combination meaningfully expands McCormick's presence in structurally advantaged categories aligned with enduring consumer trends, more flavorful, convenient, and focused on health and wellness. We will continue to flavor calories while others compete for them, giving us a strong tailwind and aligning us to favorable consumption and growth trends. All of this results in a best-in-class margin profile that supports sustained industry-leading reinvestment behind brands from global leaders like McCormick, Knorr, Hellmann's, and French's to high-growth potential brands like Frank's RedHot, Cholula, and Maille, along with strong regional favorites where we see exciting potential. This combination will take some time and will be executed thoughtfully.
It is expected to close by mid-2027, subject to shareholders' approval, receipt of required regulatory approvals, and the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions. We will share more information as appropriate. Before we move to the formal business of the meeting, I'd like to highlight recent changes to our board of directors. Maritza Montiel, who served as a director since 2015, will be retiring from the board of directors as of today. I would like to thank Maritza for her dedication and contributions to the company. Her guidance and experience have been highly impactful, and she will be greatly missed. It has been an honor to serve with her, and we wish her well in the future. In addition, Tony Vernon will also be retiring from our board of directors as of today.
Tony has served as a director since 2017, and we sincerely appreciate his service, dedication, and many contributions. His leadership and expertise have been deeply valuable to McCormick throughout his tenure. It has been a privilege to work alongside him, and we also wish him the best in the future. At the same time, we are pleased to welcome Rick Dierker, President and CEO of Church & Dwight, to our board. Rick joined in February of 2026 as a new independent director and adds significant global consumer products expertise that enhances our already impressive board. We are also pleased to welcome Gavin Hattersley, former President and CEO of Molson Coors, to our board.
Gavin joined in February 2026 as a new independent director and brings deep experience in the global consumer products industry, which also builds on the strength of our distinguished board. 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 form of proxy and the annual report to shareholders was sent by U.S. mail or electronically to each shareholder of record of the company beginning February 18, 2026. An affidavit to that effect will be filed with the records of the meeting. We have received proxies representing an 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 26, 2025, 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. Raitt, President of American Election Services, LLC, 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. If you still need to vote, you can do so now for the next few minutes with the voting mechanism on your screen. You do not have to vote during this meeting if you have already voted by proxy. The first item is the election of directors. I ask our 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, Richard A. Dierker, who is President and Chief Executive Officer of Church & Dwight, Inc., Brendan M. Foley, who is Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of McCormick & Company, Gavin D. Hattersley, who is the former President and Chief Executive Officer of Molson Coors Beverage Company, Michael D. Mangan, who is the former President of Worldwide Power Tools and Accessories of The Black & Decker Corporation, Margaret M. V. Preston, who is the Managing Director at Cohen Klingenstein, LLC, Gary M. Rodkin, who is the former Chief Executive Officer of Conagra Foods Inc.
Valarie Sheppard, who is former Executive Vice President, Controller, and Treasurer of The Procter & Gamble Company and recently served as interim Chief Financial Officer of Ibotta, Inc. Jacques Tapiero, who is the former Senior Vice President and President, Emerging Markets for Eli Lilly and Company. Terry S. Thomas, who is the Chief Growth Officer of Flowers Foods, 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 2026. 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 2026 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 view 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 our 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 the votes cast in order to be elected. Each of the 11 director nominees has been elected, with each director nominee having received at least 6,738,588 votes in favor or 92% 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 11,534,545 votes cast in favor or 99% 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 6,948,168 votes cast in favor, or 96% 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. Today, I'll focus on our performance and how we are executing with discipline on what we can control while staying agile as we navigate external challenges. Our strategy continues to position McCormick for sustainable long-term value creation. Let's begin with our proven track record. Our confidence in business fundamentals 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 this slide. Since 2015, we have grown total sales at 6% compounded annual growth rate.
Our results reflect industry-leading organic growth, complemented by compelling acquisitions and an expanding portfolio in attractive categories that are further reinforcing and strengthening our flavor leadership. Historically, we have driven our organic growth through volume. In 2025, we continued the momentum with sequential improvement from 2024 and volume-led growth for the year. This performance was driven by our proven growth levers, including brand marketing, innovation and packaging renovation, category management, and our proprietary technologies. Turning to our operating income, 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. This is foundational to McCormick and has enabled us to deliver long-term profitable growth. Turning to capital allocations, our priorities remain consistent. We expect to drive shareholder value through strong cash flow generation and a balanced use of cash.
This means funding investments to drive growth, returning a significant portion to our shareholders, and maintaining strong and flexible balance sheet. Returning cash to shareholders includes our dividend as well as share repurchases. They remain a key component of our toolkit. Our balance sheet puts us in a position of strength and give us the flexibility to continue to invest in the business organically and inorganically to support our growth. We continue to generate strong operating cash flow and expect robust cash generation to continue in 2026. Growth will be driven by higher net income, fueled by revenue gains, margin expansion, and sustained working capital improvements. We expect capital investments to represent 3%-4% of net sales. Roughly three quarters of this spend will support capacity, capabilities, and efficiencies, with the remaining quarter focused on IT and digital transformation.
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. We have made excellent progress in paying down debt, enabling us to maintain a strong balance sheet that gives us the flexibility to make future investments. We remain focused on long-term value creation. Looking at our historical performance, we created significant value and deliver on our objectives. Since fiscal 2015, our shareholder return exceeded our food peers as well as our flavor house peers, investment class growth companies, highlighting our differentiated long-term value creation. With that, let's turn to our outlook for 2026.
Our 2026 outlook, which we reaffirmed on the earnings call yesterday, reflects our continued investments in key categories to sustain volumes and drive long-term profitable growth while appreciating the uncertainty of the consumer and macro environment. In addition, this outlook reflects the contributions of our recent M&A transaction, the acquisition of a controlling interest in McCormick de México. We remain on track to deliver on our 2026 outlook. Moving to our first quarter results, which we announced yesterday. In the first quarter, we grew constant currency sales 14%, with 13% driven by the contribution from McCormick de México acquisition. Organic sales grew 1%, with both segments contributing. In our consumer segment, constant currency sales grew 22%. McCormick de México delivered 20%, while organic sales increased by 2%, primarily driven by price.
In our Flavor Solutions segment, sales increased 3% in constant currency with a 2% contribution from McCormick de México and organic sales grew 1% driven by price. Adjusted operating income grew 16% in constant currency, and it was driven by a strong top-line performance and gross margin expansion, partially offset by higher SG&A. On the bottom line, adjusted earnings per share was $0.66, a 10% increase versus the year ago period and included an estimated 5% favorable 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. We remain confident in the underlying fundamentals of our business. Thanks for your attention this morning. Now I will turn the meeting over to Brendan.
Thanks, Marcos. Starting with our growth plans. At McCormick, we create and deliver flavors that enhance the taste of food and beverages. For more than 137 years, we've been focused on our purpose to make life more flavorful, guided by our vision to be the most trusted source of flavor across food and beverage. 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, globally, McCormick flavors are enjoyed by nearly 500 million people every single day. This speaks to the power of our brands, the flavor they deliver, our capabilities, reach, and growth potential. We serve a broad range of customers and operate across every channel, from traditional brick-and-mortar to e-commerce and from food service to CPG customers.
Given this position, we are differentiated among food and beverage peers, and let me explain how. Others compete for calories every day, and we flavor them. While many peer companies compete across multiple categories every day, we are intentionally focused on flavor, enabling us to be present in every consumption opportunity. Our differentiation lies in where and how we compete. As preferences evolve and calories shift, the demand for flavor continues to grow, and McCormick is uniquely positioned to capture that growth. We see the world of food and beverage through the lens of flavor, and we deliver it more broadly and more deeply than anyone else. Flavor remains the top purchase driver across every dish, trend, and occasion. It transcends age, culture, diets, and income.
Consumers, especially in lower- to middle-income households, are shopping more often, buying fewer items per trip, and choosing more flavor each time. They're stretching meals further and finding affordable ways to cook at home, particularly as health and wellness trends continue to gain momentum. These habits reinforce the central role of flavor in everyday cooking, with herbs and spices leading center store unit growth. Also, convenience and flavor exploration remain areas where consumers are willing to spend, while e-commerce and social commerce are reshaping how they discover and buy new products. The convergence of these trends underscores our advantaged position. Our consumer portfolio meets growing demand for home cooking and healthier meals, while our flavor solutions business partners with customers to deliver innovation and reformulation aligned with these same needs.
We are winning across the industry, from small emerging brands to large established players, and our success is not defined by any single segment or product category. Moving to our strategic priorities. When I stepped into the CEO role, I introduced a set of priorities to guide our path. Since then, I've reflected on our goals, progress, and the rapid pace of change across the industry. With that perspective, I've refined them to position us to deliver on our ambitions. First, we continue to strengthen our leadership in global reach and core categories. With added focus on geographic expansion, our recent acquisition is a great example. Second, it's advancing our position as the go-to flavor expert. The flavor solutions segment is central to our growth, and our expertise sets us apart. We are emphasizing this and building on our flavor leadership to make it even stronger globally.
Third, we are even more focused on strengthening our competitive edge in innovation. It drives everything we do, from new products to better ways of working. We are continuously pursuing breakthrough ideas that keep us ahead. We remain focused on accelerating our digital transformation and driving sustainable profitability. Finally, we are focused on developing a future-ready workforce, which I will address shortly. Starting with digital transformation, we're unlocking the power of data and AI to transform how we innovate, operate, and grow. By combining trusted data, responsible AI practices, and a future-ready workforce and ERP foundation, we are building a stronger, smarter, and more resilient business. Over the past two years, we've taken a proactive approach through AI, establishing governance oversight, scaling pilots across the business, and developing our own internal AI chat platform, leveraging best-of-breed capabilities from the industry.
Digital transformation is a driver of both growth and performance across our business and strengthens our system of competitive advantages. Our business is supported by a unique system of advantages that drive industry-leading growth. Our broad portfolio, powerful leading brands, and heat platform set us apart in the marketplace. The complementary nature of our segments strengthens our insights, combining learnings from flavor solutions with consumer insights to fuel innovation and stay on trend. Our global sourcing and quality expertise stems from decades of experience sourcing over 17,000 ingredients across 90 countries. We maintain a disciplined approach to acquisitions with a proven record of successful integration. Our Power of People culture is at our foundation. Turning to culture, we remain focused on strengthening this foundation and the strong culture and values that have always defined McCormick. Our employees drive our success.
That's why one of my top priorities and a key area of investment is training our workforce to be future-ready, equipped to thrive in a rapidly evolving environment. Digital tools and AI are reshaping how we plan, collaborate, and deliver results. We are investing in the skills and capabilities our people need to accelerate innovation, improve productivity, and enhance decision-making. We are reinventing some of our key work processes, AI-driven forecasting, including end-to-end planning, streamlining processes, and reducing manual touch points. Ultimately, we're investing in digital enablement for our employees to support top-line growth and advancing profitability, positioning us for future success. 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 needs.
Our brands have been part of kitchens and families for generations, and we continue to innovate. We are winning over younger consumers who are shaping new cooking and eating behaviors, and many aligned with health and wellness trends. In Flavor Solutions, we flavor some of the world's iconic brands, as well as fast-growing emerging brands and private label, making us a key part of the innovation that guides the food industry. Our two segments complement each other, and this reinforces what differentiates McCormick. The scale, insights, and technology that are leveraged from both are meaningful and unique, uniquely position us to cater to the entire flavor market and shapes its future direction. Starting with Consumer.
Our growth levers remain consistent, and through these levers, we stay at the forefront of flavor growth, effectively responding to shifting preferences, including increased demand for health and wellness, elevated culinary experiences, and value-driven choices. We are strengthening our connection with younger consumers, the generation shaping the future of food by engaging them through bold flavor innovation, digital-first brand experiences, and a commitment to authenticity and quality. It all starts with great brands loved by consumers. We hold the number one brand position and lead in household penetration globally across spices and seasonings, hot sauce, and mustard. We have a strong portfolio of leading regional brands, enhancing our competitive differentiation. This brand strength is an important benefit to retailers as they prioritize our brands and implement our category management recommendations.
To put this in perspective, two-thirds of households across our core markets in nearly every U.S. home have a McCormick-branded product in their pantry. Let's turn to our plans in our core categories. Starting with spices and seasonings, where we have the leading global position. We are building on this strength through world-class brand marketing, ongoing brand renovation, advancing category management, and insight-driven innovation. Together, these strategic levers are accelerating our growth and reinforcing our leadership. We continue to elevate the category with continuous renovation, starting with our McCormick red cap packaging to our grilling portfolio, and most recently, our gourmet line. Our renovated McCormick Gourmet Collection, highlighted by its countertop-worthy packaging, is now on shelf. As we transition the vast majority of the portfolio, velocities so far have exceeded our expectations, and we anticipate to benefit from this renovation in 2026.
In addition, this year, we are renovating all of our seasoning blends with modernized and cohesive packaging, including optimized price pack architecture to enhance value and drive impact at the point of purchase. We are leading the category everywhere the consumer shops and accelerating distribution, particularly in spices and seasonings, which are leading the distribution growth in the U.S. For the past decade, revenue management has been a key capability and where we have invested in a dedicated team and technology. We were one of the first to invest in price in late 2023, leading to volume improvement. We have done this through a targeted approach, SKU by SKU, and by leveraging advanced analytical tools and talent. Looking ahead, we are strategically building on our capabilities to execute precise data-driven pricing in partnership with our customers.
Moving to condiments and sauces, we're positioned to win here with our leading brands, strong loyalty, and sustained relevance with younger consumers. 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. In fact, Gen Z spending on hot sauce in 2025 has risen significantly compared to the prior year. Our brands have strong loyalty and repeat rates, and Frank's RedHot has the highest household penetration in the category. In hot sauce, we have returned to unit growth and share gains, and we continue to execute on our growth drivers. We launched new brand marketing campaigns for Frank's and Cholula, further driving brand love with passionate consumers. We continue to innovate with items like Frank's Spicy Maple Wing Sauce and Cholula Chipotle Cremosa Sauce.
We are focused on growing share in hot sauce as we expand around the world. Lastly, our hot sauce brands are leading the way in social commerce. We launched Cholula on TikTok Shop and have seen a great response. 72% of TikTok purchasers are Gen Z and millennials, and our targeted marketing is strengthening engagement and driving incremental growth in retail. We have robust plans to build on this in 2026 with other brands. Moving to mustard. For the U.S., our largest French's market, we focused on volume and distribution and brand marketing, which resulted in strong unit and share gains. This year, we are launching modernized packaging, enhancing our revenue growth management efforts, and dialing up innovation with new flavors and formats, including hot honey and maple.
Outside of the U.S., we continue to see strong performance in Poland with our Kamis brand, where we are growing share in dollars and units. Turning to mayonnaise, a high growth attractive category, we recently strengthened our position in this category by expanding our ownership of McCormick de México, our long-standing joint venture and one of Mexico's most prominent food brands, anchored by its leadership in mayonnaise. Let's move to innovation across our portfolio. In the last two years, we have doubled our innovation, delivering new products faster, meeting evolving needs. These launches from second half of 2025 continue to build traction and will contribute to our performance in 2026. We're further building on this momentum by expanding on the success of our Finishing Sugars platform with high impact partnerships like Bridgerton and Harry Potter.
Our 2026 Flavor of the Year, Black Currant, is launching in both retail and food service. In addition, our 2025 Flavor of the Year, Aji Amarillo, is launching in a hot sauce format this year. We are also launching on-trend Frank's wing sauce flavors like pineapple Hawaiian and spicy maple, as well as new seasoning blends, including chili garlic and Peruvian style. Let me wrap this section with a focus on brand marketing. We are driving higher returns through precision, using advanced data and algorithms to identify the right consumer at the right time with the right message and product. AI is enabling us to personalize content at scale, creating relevant, engaging experiences that convert more effectively. We are leveraging AI agents to mine data, refine personalization, and enhance targeting to reach the highest propensity consumers at the lowest cost.
Generative AI is accelerating our ability to develop, test, and optimize new creative concepts faster. We're expanding into emerging growth channels like social commerce and preparing for agentic commerce by ensuring our agent and our data and tech stack is ready to interact with and influence commerce agents. Importantly, we remain at the forefront of evolving trends, delivering flavor, value, and convenience. Our campaigns bring this to life every day. Our brands, Frank's in particular, are resonating with consumers and creating opportunities across segments in consumer and in branded food service. We had a highly successful promotion with Taco Bell behind Frank's RedHot Diablo Crispy. This was on menu at over 7,600 locations, and we had significant media coverage with 11.5 billion impressions. This is a great example of the complementary nature of our segments. Moving to Flavor Solutions. We are different from other flavor houses.
We are the only major flavor house with a 100% focus on flavor. We have deep culinary and natural food foundation with an expertise in natural ingredients. We focus on our four taste competencies, savory, heat, naturally sweet, and citrus and fruit. We are a global brand leader. We know what it takes to drive brand equity. We have more consumer touch points spanning all channels leading to deep insights. This distinct positioning sets us apart from the industry. We partner with customers across food and beverage and consumer health. We develop flavors for a wide range of applications, ranging from non-alcoholic beverages to better for you snacks to supplements. We are present across channels, both in and out of home, and we have a broad customer base.
In terms of our customers, we have a strong exposure to global consumer packaged goods companies and regional leaders, where we are partnering with them to reformulate by eliminating artificial ingredients, reducing sodium, and improving affordability across high growth categories such as protein, supplements, and beverages. We have a growing exposure with high growth innovators, helping them to scale and move into adjacent categories. Recently, we partnered with a nutritional bars brand to enter the high protein chip category, leveraging our expertise in seasonings. Lastly, we are increasing our engagement with private label customers to help them meet needs for wellness and affordability, from beverages to pet food. We recently partnered with a major national retailer to launch a new line of affordable premium beverages.
We see growth and share gain opportunities across all customers, and we are focused on diversifying across segments to remain resilient against market fluctuations and support balanced growth. While food growth remains soft, our capabilities and reach enable us to grow with our customers in attractive, high growth end market applications. Within food, various categories, particularly better for you ones, which include snacking, continue to have strong growth, and we are focused on flavoring them. Health and wellness is a key focus for consumers, and we have a long history with our 137 year heritage in natural flavors and extracts, complemented by the McCormick Science Institute, which is celebrating this year two decades of supporting scientific research on the health benefits of culinary herbs and spices. We inspire healthy lifestyles by flavoring healthy categories such as supplements, protein shakes, and non-alcoholic beverages.
We enable better nutrition by removing ingredients such as sugar and MSG or adding high demand nutrients like protein and fiber, all without sacrificing taste. We partner with customers to design products leveraging our insights and technologies. Moving to branded food service, we are continuing to drive growth despite a challenging environment by increasing innovation, expanding distribution, and diversifying our channel presence. Starting with innovation, we are partnering with operators with limited time offers to attract consumers and increase traffic. We relaunched our McCormick for Chefs product line to expand our reach and performance has been strong. Our new Frank's RedHot partnership with McDonald's Canada features the brand in seven menu items across 1,500 restaurants. Engagement has been strong. In terms of channels, we see strong growth in non-commercial sectors as well as in e-commerce as we expand our reach to smaller operators.
In summary, our branded food service business has been successful as consumers want to find the brands and flavors they love when they are eating away from home. 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 that we do. We've always believed in doing the right thing while always 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, and each member brings unique perspective, 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. Finally, I'd like to recognize McCormick employees around the world for their contributions in 2025 and reiterate my confidence that together we will drive the profitable growth reflected in our 2026 outlook. In closing, 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. We will continue advancing our leadership and our differentiation.
On behalf of the McCormick Board of Directors and the executive team, I would like to thank you for your support and confidence before going to questions. Now we can take your questions. You can submit questions through the virtual meeting website. We are getting those through the website right now, and I will, as we get organized here, do my best to answer as many questions as we can. I think the first question is. I'm gonna read the question and then provide my answer, or my reply and additional perspective. Over the past few years, McCormick has been exporting jobs from global headquarters, decreasing the opportunities for local Maryland positions.
What will the local job opportunities be going forward, and what impact will the new merger have on those local opportunities? You know, our global footprint is about growing the business. It's not shifting roles from one place to another. As we expand and grow globally, we are creating roles where growth is happening. This, of course, includes the U.S., which remains and will continue to be a very key market. Following the combination with Unilever Foods business, our headquarters will remain here in Hunt Valley, global headquarters will remain here in Hunt Valley, Maryland, and we will continue to invest in our talent to help support our continued growth and larger footprint. The next question is, when will the quarterly dividend be announced? It's normally announced by now. Thank you very much for that question.
The answer is actually pretty straightforward. Our board meeting hasn't been held yet. It actually happens next week, and that's where the board will consider the dividend, and then you'll hear the announcement on that. With the way the calendar fell this year, between Passover and Easter, it caused us to have to shift our timing a little bit later in respect for those obviously very important religious holidays. That is the reason for the timing being a little bit later than the end of March as per typical. Thank you for that question. COVID-19 precautions are long over. When will McCormick return to live annual shareholder meetings? I think I've now received this question a number of times over the last two years, and maybe my predecessor received it.
You know, we certainly will consider this every year. There's a lot going on at this period of time, and we think about the scale of bringing together these annual shareholder meetings. This format enables us to reach more people that way. The virtual format, you know, and using digital platforms, is really important to reach everybody. I think that is one of the reasons why we continue to move forward with this format. As I said before, we always want to continue and leave open the opportunity for change, and so we will continue to do that again for next year too. That is all the questions that we have at this point in time. One second as I look for one more thing. Got it. There are no more questions there. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for attending the meeting, and thank you for your continued support of our great company. I hereby declare the meeting adjourned.
This now concludes the meeting. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day.