TriNet Group H1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
November 14, 2024

There are 9 speakers on the call.

Operator

So good morning, everyone, and welcome to Premier Foods Half Year Results, and that's for the 6 weeks that ended on the 28th September this year. I'm joined as always by Duncan Leggate, our CFO. And with the same format as always, I'll start with some highlights, then Duncan will take us through the numbers, and I'll come back and talk you through the progress that we're making against our 5 pillar growth strategy. So kinkerg off with the high level numbers then, and I'm really pleased to say we've had another good quarter in quarter 2, a very similar shape actually to quarter 1 and that it was really led by some very strong volume growth from our brands. So revenue overall, almost £500,000,000 up 4.6% versus year ago with branded revenue up 6.8%.

Operator

And that, as I say, was driven by some very strong, in fact, double digit volume growth behind our U. K. Brands. And as a consequence, we've outperformed the market again, increasing both volume and value market share, particularly strong on volume, market share gain there of 110 basis points. And if you remember, I did say for us that this year, particularly the first half of the year, would all be about increasing our volumes and increasing volume market share.

Operator

And that's exactly the way this has played out, if not actually a little better than we expected because it's also pulling through some value share gain as well. And trading profit is up 5.5%, so that's a little ahead of our revenue growth. And adjusted PBT is up 8.9%. And that difference between the trading profit growth and the adjusted PBT growth is largely driven by the fact that we've got lower net interest costs this year compared to a year ago because, of course, we've got lower net debt. Adjusted EPS then 5.3p is up 8.1%.

Operator

And that net debt now is down to £221,000,000 That's a £52,000,000 reduction versus where we were at the half year last year and helped, of course, by the fact that we are currently not paying pension deficit contributions. And that leaves net debt to EBITDA down 1.1x. So overall, a really nice set of numbers that we're actually very pleased with. But not only that, we've made really good progress against all five pillars of our growth strategy. And I will come back and talk through this in more detail.

Operator

But just in terms of some of the headlines, in terms of growing our U. K. Core, our U. K. Brands grew by 5.6 percent, so very healthy growth indeed.

Operator

Our infrastructure investment increased to £23,000,000 so that's a 63% increase versus prior year as we chase down that list of really great projects we've got to improve efficiency, improve automation and also to install the equipment that we need in order to manufacture a number of the new products that we make. In terms of category expansion, so those new categories that we've entered, growth there was 67% and that was on top of, you may remember, 72% growth over last year. And then our international businesses grew by a really very impressive 31%. We're really, really pleased with that as we continue to expand distribution across all our geographies and in fact, actually all our regions performed really well. And then finally, in terms of inorganic opportunities, so the brands we've bought recently and we continue to make good progress as we start to apply our branded growth model.

Operator

And we're really pleased that actually the Fuel 10 ks chocolate granola in quarter 2 became the best selling granola SKU in the U. K. Market. So good progress across all of those strategic pillars as well. And then just finally from me, before I hand over to Duncan, in terms of our ESG commitments, making progress against all three of those pillars, product, planet and people and really nicely on track for our 2,030 targets.

Operator

So from a product point of view, we've now got 66 percent of our grocery products that we sell are classified as not being HFSS, so not high in fat, salt or sugar. And you're going to see a further increase in that, probably quite significant actually in the second half of this year with the changes that we're currently making. We've also now got 45% of all the products that we sell have got an additional regulated health or nutrition claim. So that might be that it's one of your 5 a day or it might be that it's high in fiber or something like that. On the Planet pillar, we've made significant improvements in our Scope 1 emissions.

Operator

That's a 17% reduction in the first half of the year compared to first half of last year. So well on track again for our net zero goals. And those solar panels are fully up and running in Stoke and are actually giving us some learnings for rollout to other manufacturing sites. On the people pillar, our long term partnership with FareShare, we've now reached a point where we've donated the equivalent of 3,200,000 meals through FareShare. And then in terms of STEM vacancies, we're really pleased that we've now reached a point where almost half of our STEM vacancies are filled by internal candidates that have benefited from our internal development program.

Operator

So making good progress towards those 2,030 goals. And with that, I'll hand over to Duncan, who can walk us through the numbers.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Alex, and good morning, everyone. So in terms of the financial highlights for the first half, we've got total revenue just shy of €500,000,000 That's 4.6 percent higher than this time last year. And really, what we're seeing is some really strong branded volume driven growth. So that's given the branded growth of 6.8% higher half year on half year. Non branded revenue, that's down 10% to GBP 54,000,000 There's really 2 things going on here.

Speaker 1

1 is by virtue of driving our branded growth model, we're seeing consumers switching from non branded products into our brands. And also, we continue to be selective from a non branded contract basis, both commercially and from a financial point of view, and we've exited some contracts during the half. Original contribution, I'll talk in a bit more detail when I go through the Grocery and Sweet Treats results. But you can see at a total level, we've got margin progression in line with revenue. So that's the original contribution growing at 4.3%, up to £105,000,000 Group and Corporate costs are 2% higher, so that's up at £35,000,000 I mentioned at year end, we've got a supply chain planning efficiency project ongoing.

Speaker 1

There's some costs relating to that in the first half this year. And this is just one of those projects where we've got costs within group and corporate, but we get the benefits further up the P and L when it goes live. And as you'd expect, we've also got some further up the P and L when it goes live. And as you'd expect, we've also got some inflation. So that will leave trading profit at £17,000,000 That's growing ahead of turnover at 5.5%, so margins nudging up.

Speaker 1

Below trading profit then, we've got net regular interest. So as we start to delever and also sit on a bit more cash that earns a return, we're getting net regular interest, which is down 13% to £9,000,000 And therefore, as you get to adjusted PBT, that's up 8.9% and adjusted earnings per share is up 8.1% at 5.3p. So looking at it in a bit more detail at the grocery and sweet treats level. So taking grocery to start with, so total revenue again is up 5.4 percent, so a similar trend that we've seen overall. That's now at GBP 374,000,000 And again, the double digit volume growth we've seen is putting through 7% branded revenue growth, and that takes it up to €339,000,000 We've got good growth across our brands.

Speaker 1

We've also got international reported in here, which is up over 30% for the half. Non branded, again, we've got the 2 trends we've seen around consumer switching and us exiting contracts. So that means that it's down 7.6 percent to €35,000,000 And original contribution, margins are flat. So effectively, what we're seeing here is that we managed to hold on to our profit margins whilst investing into price, which is exactly as we expected it to play out. So looking at Sweet Treats.

Speaker 1

So total revenue for the half is up 2 point 2% and what we've seen is an improving trend through the half. So during the second quarter, Sweet Treats grew at 4%. And again, that's all been driven by the branded business. So again, really strong double digit branded volume growth, putting together, putting through the 6.1% branded growth. Good progress from our MPD program within that.

Speaker 1

And then looking at non branded progress, again, so we've got consumers switching to brands. We've got contract exits this time in French fancies. So that's down at 15% to €19,000,000 As you look further down the P and L, we're getting the benefits of the branded mix that you'd expect. We're also seeing better and improved factory recoveries from the volume growth, again, as we'd expect. The only reason that isn't flowing down to the original contribution is purely around the price of cocoa and what's happened during the half.

Speaker 1

We've heard a lot, haven't we, about how volatile the price has been and how much it's increased. Just for a bit of context, it used to be about £2,000 per tonne. It then peaked about £11,000 per tonne. And now it's somewhere in the middle, around £5,000 or £6,000 per tonne. You can see it's been really volatile.

Speaker 1

And whilst when we look at the our overall basket of input costs, it nets out at the group level, we've always got some ups and downs at any one time. When you look at the narrow distribution from a Street's perspective, it's down 3% to £12,000,000 And of course, that's something that we'll monitor and keep under review during the second half. So from a leverage perspective, we're delighted at year end to announce our lowest ever leverage of 1.2x. I am delighted to announce our new lower level of leverage of 1.1x at the half year. And what we're really seeing here is continuation of good operating cash flow conversions, so turning those profits into cash.

Speaker 1

With a slightly more normal external environment, things like working capital, which have been relatively volatile over the last couple of years, that's now flatter, in line with our expectation. A big step up in CapEx during the first half. This is very much in line with plans. So it's up 63% to about £23,000,000 and very consistent with the full year guidance of £40,000,000 to 45,000,000 Pensions, so that £6,000,000 in the half. For reference, that was about £20,000,000 this time last year.

Speaker 1

And this is really seeing the benefits of the pension contribution suspension that we announced earlier this year. There's just one deficit payment that falls into this half, being the final one relating to last year. Then a small bit of restructuring costs that covers some of the cash costs of our exit from the Chalmers site. So from this position of strength, what we're all about is putting the capital to good work and making sure that it goes behind the highest returning opportunities. We've talked about a lot of these areas before, but CapEx, our list gets longer rather than shorter, even as we tick things off.

Speaker 1

And Alex will give some examples of what we're spending the money on during this year in a little while. M and A, I mean, we're delighted with the way that the 2 acquisitions we've made are performing so far. Very excited about what's to come. We continue to be fussy, both commercially and financially. We need to wait for the right opportunity to come along, but with a bit of extra firepower, it may be that they do become a bit bigger over time and maybe they're not just focused in the U.

Speaker 1

K. Dividends, we've talked about a progressive dividend policy. So we declared and paid our 3rd successive 20% increase in dividend during the first half. And again, just to confirm, our medium term leverage target of about 1.5x still remains true. Clearly, we're below that now and will continue to be below that until we find something to buy, but that's how we're thinking about things moving forward.

Speaker 1

So that's it for me and I'll now hand back to Alex.

Operator

Thank you very much, Duncan. So what I'd like to do now is walk us through all five pillars of the growth strategy and the progress that we've made against each of those. So this is the 5 pillars as a reminder. And if you remember, the purpose of this is to say, well, if Premier Foods' core capability is about building brands and growing brands in a sustainable and profitable way, then how could we do more of that across a broader base in order to build a much bigger business and deliver more value? So working across from left to right, the first pillar really first pillar really recognizes the fact that at the moment, the majority of our sales and profit are generated from our brands in the U.

Operator

K. In their core categories. So it's obviously really important that we continue to do a good job at that. The second pillar is investing back into our supply chain because if we invest back into our supply chain, we make ourselves more efficient and it allows us to free up investment to put behind the brands to make them grow. And in addition, of course, we can also install equipment that allows us to manufacture the new products that we bring to market.

Operator

The 3rd pillar is expanding our U. K. Brands into new categories. And by that, I mean categories where historically we've not been present and we've not generated revenues. The picture in the chart there of Ambrosia Polish Pots is a really good example because this is taking a brand, Ambrosia, that we all know as a dessert brand and known for its creaminess from Devon, which is a benefit that actually extends really nicely into porridge.

Operator

And as a consequence, we've been really successful with this extension. And this is was our first entry into breakfast where historically we haven't generated any revenues at all. So it's all incremental. And the 4th pillar is our building of our business overseas. So if we're good at building brands and generating profitable growth from them in the U.

Operator

K, why would we not be able to do that overseas? And so that 4th pillar is looking at how we then go and do that. And then the 5th pillar, inorganic opportunities, really means brands that we can go and buy, bring into Premier Foods, apply our growth model to and therefore consequently generate further value. So that's a summary of the 5 pillar growth strategy. And the ultimate aim here, of course, is that the overall growth that we generate from running the business in this way is greater than that which we would historically just got from our core brands in the core market.

Operator

And what underpins that branded growth is, of course, our branded growth model. And there's 4 key elements to this. In the U. K, we're very fortunate because we start with this fantastic portfolio of brands that are really well known, really well loved by consumers and have got high household penetration. So they're in pretty much everybody's home.

Operator

In fact, most homes will have several of our brands in them. And then in order to make the brands grow, we focus really quite hard on understanding our consumers, understanding how they're cooking, how they're eating and how we can then use that to understand those trends and bring new products to market that fit with those consumer habits in order to generate revenue growth. And then the 3rd part of this approach is about sustaining marketing investment behind the brand. So marketing and advertising, which builds the brands, maintains awareness, keeps them contemporary and relevant for our consumers. And we focus really hard on creating an emotional connection through our a mutual category growth for both ourselves and our retailers because being the biggest brand in most of our categories, it means that we'll tend to disproportionately benefit from that and get really fantastic in store execution.

Operator

And if we look at how the application of that model has played out on our first pillar, so the U. K. Brands in the first half of this year, you can see that we've driven some really strong branded volume growth, so 12% for our U. K. Grocery brands and 19% for our Sweet Treats brands.

Operator

And that Sweet Treats number is a little stronger than the grocery number. And the reason for that is because if you remember when we increased prices during the period of high inflation, Sweet Treats proved at that level to be a bit more price sensitive than the grocery brands. And so obviously now as we've sharpened our promotional prices in the opposite direction, you're seeing Sweet Treats actually benefit from that more than grocery does. But nevertheless, really strong double digit volume growth on both parts of the business. And that's feeding through into some really nice market share gains, so 110 basis points of volume share gain and 29 basis points of value share gain.

Operator

And as I say, this year, the first part has really all been about driving volume for the brands and we're really pleased with the way that's played out. It's actually slightly better than we expected because it's pulling through some value share gain, which we didn't necessarily anticipate. And also, of course, you can see there that the benefit is more pronounced again in sweet treats than in grocery. And of course, during the first half of the year, we also brought a whole series of new products to market. I'll not go through all of them.

Operator

In fact, actually this is only a snapshot anyway. But again, across those 5 key consumer trends that we've been working against for the last few years. We've also continued to invest in brand marketing through the first half of the year. In fact, actually this year, all our major brands will benefit from some sort of media advertising this year. And we've just launched a new campaign behind OXXO, which is called the Made With Love campaign.

Operator

And then I just wanted to share one example of this product innovation program in action. And this is the launch of our Mr. Kipling Brownie Bites. So these are rich, moist brownies covered in thick chocolate with either some chocolate sauce in there or some salted caramel sauce depending on which one you buy. And this is interesting because it aligns with 2 really important consumer trends.

Operator

And one which I've talked about before, which is although people are trying to eat more healthily, what we're also seeing is that when then people do want to treat themselves, it's got to be really worth it. And so they want it to be quite indulgent. And these are really indulgent, but they're actually quite small. So they're sort of bite sized and so you don't have to eat a whole cake. And the second trend it taps into is one we're seeing for sharing, so people wanting to sit down and share a sweet treat with friends or family.

Operator

So this taps into both of those. And as you can see, we've actually more than doubled sales of this particular format over the last 12 months. And the other thing this does is it continues to build the presence of Mr. Kipling in chocolate because what we're seeing is Mr. Kipling developing more credibility in chocolate, particularly on premium chocolate products and therefore complementing what we're doing with the Cadbury brand.

Operator

And we continue to see really fantastic growth from the Nissin brand. We've put on the left hand side there another bar on the bar chart of first half revenues going back over 6 years. And you can see that actually the 5 year CAGR growth is 43%, which is really strong. I never don't think I've ever seen anything as strong as that before. During the first half of the year, we picked up Nissan's demo ramen range, which is a block ramen noodle.

Operator

And we've also introduced a new flavor into the Soba big pot range. And so continued really strong growth. But over on the right there, I thought it might be interesting to just give you some dimensionalization of that because there's some really nice double digit growth rates there, but it's actually reached a point now where there's some meaningful scale. So we now have annualized retail sales value of £60,000,000 from the Nissin brand and a 67 percent market share of the authentic noodles category. And in terms of how that therefore sits, how the Nissin brand sits with the rest of our range, it's now bigger than the Lloyd Grossman brand and catching up very quickly on the OXXO brand.

Operator

So a significant bit of business in terms of scale with still some very strong growth rates. And I also said a really important part of the growth strategy is our retailer partnerships and delivering great in store execution. And you can see on the left hand side, and delivering great in store execution. And you can see on the left hand side there that once again, we've continued to increase the amount of distribution we've got in store. So this is share of distribution, which in grocery was up 78 basis points and in cake was up 56 basis points.

Operator

And what this is really saying in simple terms is we've got more products in more stores than we had at this time last year. And that's coming from our core ranges, which are performing really well and therefore justifying more shelf space and range, but also come from the new products that we've launched as well. And you can see from the 2 big pictures there that we're also getting more of these fantastic, big, impactful displays in store, which we know are really important in terms of driving incremental purchase and brand growth. Purchase and brand growth. If I move on now to the 2nd pillar of the strategy, so this, of course, is investing back into our manufacturing infrastructure.

Operator

And the beautiful thing there I've got over on the left hand side is, we've got this fantastic pipeline that Duncan mentioned of great projects for efficiency improvement with really good payback periods in the 3 to 4 year range. And there's this wonderful virtuous cycle whereby we take some of that cash we generate, we invest it back into improved efficiency in our manufacturing sites. And what does that do? Of course, it improves our gross margin and we can use some of that gross margin to invest back in our brands in order to drive more branded growth and generate more cash. And you can see how in the middle there, those three bars are showing how our capital investment has increased over the last 3 years to the point where we expect to be in that 40,000,000 to 45,000,000 pounds range this year, which is essentially double versus where it was 2 years ago.

Operator

And that now feels about the right ongoing level for us. Now one of the things we've been doing is digitizing our operations. So this is about putting lots of sensors across the manufacturing lines that are reading exactly what's happening all the time and then feeding that into some real powerful big data analytics, which gives the line operators fantastic visibility of what's happening with the line and what they can do to optimize performance. And that therefore manifests itself in greater line performance and efficiency and obviously more consistent product quality as well. Now just to share a few of the big capital projects which are just happening at the moment, they're either just finished or just finishing.

Operator

Moving from left to right, we've got Ambrosia where we've in the Lifton site, we've installed a new pot filling line. This is much faster and much more efficient than the old one that we had. It can handle recyclable pots, which our old one couldn't do. And what it's doing as well is it's freeing up more capacity for porridge pot expansion because we're able to bring some products that currently run down the porridge line onto this line and allows us to dedicate the other line for porridge manufacture, which we're going to need because I'm going to talk about we're going to be getting some significant increase in distribution in porridge pots this year. And if I look at cooking sauces up in Worksop, we've replaced the back end of the line with a new tray packing and palletization bit of kit and that is allowing us to make much faster changeovers between different products, which is an obvious consequence on increased capacity and increased efficiency.

Operator

And I've talked about before our new way of making icing in our Stoke factory as a low energy, low temperature ice, icing manufacturing process. And we're very proud of this because not only is this delivering us lots of benefits, but it's actually a process that we invented. So this is Premier Foods not just innovating in terms of products, but it's Premier Foods innovating in terms of process as well. So this gives us benefits in terms of material consumption, in terms of labor and quite significantly in terms of energy and that, of course, feeds through to lower CO2 emissions as well. And then finally, on the right hand side there, we've got an upgrade to the Bristow Foodservice packing line.

Operator

That improves our ability and the precision with which we can weigh and fill the bags, which has got an obvious knock on efficiency benefit. If I move on to the 3rd pillar, this is our new category extensions. So remember, this is taking our brands into new categories where historically we've not been present. And if you remember, when I first started talking about this a few years ago, I said, look, we've got a number of experiments here, we called them. And if we can be successful in about half of them, we'd be really happy.

Operator

Well, I think we're running at about 65%, 70% success rate on these. So we're really pleased with the progress. So the 4 we've got here are ambrosia porridge, which continues to go from success to success. We've got 62% revenue growth in the first half and that's on top of over 100% that we had last year. We're investing behind the brand by including it in the Ambrosia advertising program.

Operator

And also, if you look at that picture that you've got there of the in store display, we're now able to combine Ambrosia and Fuel 10 ks in displays to get sort of big breakfast visibility in store, which is obviously having a big knock on benefit in terms of people trying the product. In terms of ice cream, we've got further good growth from ice cream, 139% up versus year ago. So a year ago, we just had the tubs, so across Mr. Kipling, Angel Delight and Ambrosia. And then in one customer, as a bit of an experiment for the summer, we brought to market Angel Delight handheld ice cream, so essentially Angel Delight ice cream coated in chocolate on a stick, so absolutely delicious by the way.

Operator

And that they've worked really well. So you can see there the growth that that's brought. Cox's own marinades down at the bottom left. So this one, you might remember, was originally an experiment in ASDA, which worked really well. We had 2 or 3 flavors.

Operator

And then gradually, 1 by 1, it's now in all of the major retailers. We've extended the range out to 5 different flavor variants. And as you can see, 80% growth in the first half, which, of course, included this year's barbecue season. And Cape Herbs and Spice is a similar story actually. So again, that started in 1 retailer as an experiment.

Operator

It's done really well. It's now extended out to all the major retailers. We're continually expanding the flavor range and we delivered 54% growth on that in the first half of the year. And by the way, I should add that there will be more of those experiments to come. I can't really talk about them at the moment because they're still, I would say, commercially sensitive, but we will be adding to that as time goes forward.

Operator

And if we look at the 4th pillar, so that's expanding our business in international markets, some really strong growth there of 31%. Australia and New Zealand grew by 39%. There's a couple of important things going on there. The first thing is that we've now got sufficient scale in both our cake business and also in Indian cooking sources that we're able to fully apply the U. K.

Operator

Branded growth model. So in practical terms, that means we've been able to extend our advertising of Mr. Kipling out to an additional region. So that's now in the 3rd region, which is Brisbane. And we've introduced a number of new products into Shawwoods and the Spice Taylor brands, including there the Shawwoods family sized jars, which have done particularly well.

Operator

And the other factor in there, of course, in that growth number is the normalization of retailer stock levels in cake, which we talked about at the Q1 results because that was largely in quarter 1. Really strong growth in North America as well, plus 28%. You can see from a cake perspective, we're continuing to drive the rate of sale on our U. S. Distribution that we've gained.

Operator

And in Canada, remember, we've been in Canada a little bit longer than we've been in the U. S. And we launched there a year or so earlier. And we're really starting to see some strong momentum and we've recently picked up some quite significant distribution gains in new customers. Moving to the Spice Taylor.

Operator

We've now got the Spice Tailor listed in over 2,700 stores in North America with further distribution already agreed, which will come on stream in the second half. And good growth also from Europe, Middle East and Africa, where this is really all about driving more distribution of the Spice Taylor and more distribution of Shawwoods. And then finally, that 5th pillar, inorganic opportunities, where we've obviously bought in the last few years the Spice Taylor and Fuel 10 ks brands. And both of those brands really now benefiting from the application of our branded growth model. Now the Spice Taylor saw some significant increases in distribution over the last couple of years since we bought it, But we've now reached a point where the new products that we've been working on in the background over the last couple of years are now starting to come to market.

Operator

So you might remember that Spice Tail is predominantly an Indian brand with a couple of Thai Curry SKUs. Well, we've now got a range of Chinese kits as well and also some East Asian kits, including the Japanese teriyaki that you can see on the picture there. And we've started to invest behind the brand as well initially in the first half with some digital activity that talks about the restaurant quality of the brand and how it works across the three components of the kit. And this is important because we know that we've got a really high repeat rate on the brand. So once people try the Spice Staler, they're really quite likely to come back and buy it again and again.

Operator

So if we can make more people aware of the brand and get more people to try it, we're going to build a bigger user base for the brand going forward. And then the other thing you can see there in the middle at the bottom is overseas expansion. And as a reminder, when we bought the brand, it was only really present in the U. K, in Australia and a little bit in Canada where we've now got at least some presence in 11 countries and we continue to look at rolling that out in further European markets. Fuel 10 ks has benefited from some significant increases in distribution.

Operator

As I said, when we bought it, the rate of sale of the product deserved more distribution than it had. And as I mentioned earlier, the best selling granola SKU in the U. K. Is now Fuel 10 ks chocolate granola. We've already started some brand investment behind Fuel to increase awareness, and you can see an example of a poster site there.

Operator

And we've also already got some new products coming into market. So we've launched our nutritionally complete meals and shakes, which is a direct to consumer proposition. We've got a higher level of protein breakfast shakes as well. And then we've got some really nice products planned for the second half as well. So the two images you can see there are a Fuel 10 ks extension into big box cereal with multigrain flakes and Fuel 10 ks protein enriched noodle pots.

Operator

So that's an addition, of course, to our bachelor's noodles and our Nissin noodles. And really what that's doing is it's sort of stepping the Fuel 10 ks brand out of breakfast, taking that protein fuel benefit into different dayparts. And of course, we're continuing to look for further opportunities. So we're continually out there looking for other brands, which we believe when we apply our branded growth model will perform really strongly for us. But as a reminder, we are very fussy.

Operator

We were very fussy when we found fuel. We were very fussy when we found the spice dealer. And consequently, we've been really pleased with those acquisitions and how they're performing and what we think we can do with them in the future. And so we will continue to be as fussy as we've been so far. Now if I change gear and talk about the second half of the year, we've got really strong plans in place for the second half across all our strategic pillars.

Operator

So unsurprisingly, a number of new products coming to market of which we've only put a few of them on this chart. We've got strong media investment, particularly across the quarter 3, which is our key quarter, of course. And we'll continue to invest on those key infrastructure projects that I mentioned earlier. In terms of the new categories, we've got some significant increases in distribution coming on Ambrosia porridge pots in the second half and also including the launch of a 5th flavor to build on the success that we've had so far. And then in terms of ice cream, and I mentioned the handheld Angel Delight ice creams earlier, they're currently available in 1 supermarket chain in a box of 3 in the freezer.

Operator

What this does is it will bring mean that we then will start selling singles in the convenience channel in time for the summer. And then finally, from an international point of view, we're bringing more new products to market in Australia and New Zealand and the picture there is of a strawberry Bakewell. And I'm also really pleased to say that we've now landed distribution for Shawwood's cooking sauces in New Zealand's biggest retailer foodstuffs and that will come on stream in the second half of the year. And from a North America point of view, we'll be continuing to build Mr. Kipling.

Operator

And then in Canada, we've just landed some big distribution increases on the Spice Tailor in Metro and in Sobeys. So plenty of activity coming across the second half of the year. So look, where does that leave us? I think it leaves us in a really strong position. We've had a good start to the year of that double digit volume growth from our brands in the first half.

Operator

And we've continued to outperform categories with both volume and value market share gains. We've increased our capital investment to drive manufacturing efficiencies and so generate fuel for future brand growth. And we've seen strong growth in all our international markets. The acquisitions are progressing really well. And we've obviously got balance sheet capacity for further transactions as we find them.

Operator

And then you've seen a snapshot of the exciting plans that we've got in place for the second half. And so with that, we're on track to deliver full year expectations. Now I'm obviously conscious of the fact that I'm standing here halfway through quarter 3, which is, of course, our key quarter. And so I've got some insight as to how that's playing out. And I think with that, I'd reiterate that we're on track to deliver full year expectations.

Operator

So look, thank you very much for your time and for listening. And with that, Duncan and I would be very happy to take your questions.

Speaker 2

A couple from me, if I can. The branded growth continues to be really strong. And just wanted to know what your expectations are for the profile of that growth through Q3 and Q4. And also further out, you mentioned, obviously core branded being at 5.6% and spine to 6.8% of the whole branded group business, meaning obviously, NPD and international, etcetera, ahead of that. Sort of longer term, what are you thinking about in terms of sustainable level of branded growth?

Speaker 2

Does that sort of change, obviously, as the mix improves from those areas? Just wanted to get your thoughts around that. And then lastly, on M and A, and I know you're not going to be drawn too much here, but you mentioned, obviously, you're not thinking exclusively U. K. Just sort of wondered what if there was a difference between what you'd look at internationally versus what you'd look in the UK?

Speaker 2

And sort of does it change at all? Or is it very much the same? Thanks.

Operator

Thanks, Andrew. So I'll take 2 key terms in turn then, I think. So what we've seen in the first half of the year, of course, is 2 things. We've been deploying the branded growth model really aggressively, and that's obviously continued to deliver value generation for us just like it has, frankly, over the last 5 years or so. But then on top of that, of course, they shop at promotional prices leading to some really big volume growth.

Operator

As we look into the second half, what will happen is, obviously, we will continue with the branded growth model, unsurprisingly. So we'll get the benefits from that. But you'll see a change in shape because we will start to lap when we started to fine tune those promotional prices downwards in the back end of last year. And it happened on different brands at different times, but say progressively, I think, as we go through in quarter 3 and into quarter 4, what we'll start to see is that it's a more modest volume growth, but actually no longer at a lower price per unit, if that makes sense, yes? Yes.

Operator

And then in terms of the sort of growth how the growth changes with mix over time, I mean, obviously, we'll continue with the model in the UK. But what I think you're quite right in is if you look at the 5 pillars of the strategy, the intent is very much there that overall group growth will outstrip what we would otherwise have been able to achieve with just our core brands and their core categories in the UK. So you'll get whatever we deliver in the from the core categories in the UK, put that on top, what we deliver from new categories, what we deliver from growth overseas, and then obviously, whatever we acquire that comes in on top of that. So that's the pattern. And I think it's quite interesting that if you look at the last couple of years when we've had quite high inflation, this was already working behind the scenes.

Operator

It's just it was actually quite difficult to see because of the impacts of inflation exaggerating everything. But if you now look at this year, you really start to see the power of that 5 pillar strategy because you've then ending up with group growth that then starts to be much bigger than we would have got just from our UK core. So I just expect that, that will continue to play out. And obviously, as the international business, in particular, gets bigger, it will obviously its growth will have a bigger leverage on total group. And so I hope that answers that one, Andrew.

Operator

And then M and A, yes. So we have said not just the UK, you're absolutely right. So if we found the right assets overseas, we'd be very interested, and it's something we're looking at and looking quite hard actually. Would it be different? Maybe a little bit actually because I think what we've done with Fuel 10 ks and the Spice Tailor is we bought relatively modest sized brands that we believe that we can apply our model and apply our structure to and take to a different level altogether.

Operator

I think if you're looking overseas, what you're really looking for is something that's got more physical structure behind it. So you're looking for an organization, you're looking for a sales team because the advantage there is we would use it as a bridgehead into more critical mass in any given market that we could then use to reverse through some of our existing brand portfolio from the U. K. So what we'd be looking for does differ slightly when we look overseas, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2

It does. Thank you. And just a quick one to follow-up on that. I assume that when you're talking about building sort of an infrastructure over you've seen something with a bit more infrastructure, it would be an existing likely be an existing geography rather than something totally or is that also on the table?

Operator

I would say likely to be in one of our target geographies, yes.

Speaker 2

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of James Edwardes Jones from RBC. The line is open now. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thank you very much. Good morning all. 2 very quick ones. Are you able to tell us what happened to marketing spend in the first half, whether it's percentage of sales or in absolute terms? And secondly, what are the implications of the employer's national insurance increase announced in the budget?

Operator

Yes, sure. So marketing spend in the first one, well, we don't disclose our marketing investment in absolute terms. But what I can say is that if you look at the overall medium term game plan here is to continue to increase our marketing investment ahead of our overall turnover growth. And we've been working on that for a number of years, actually made rather good progress. It feels as though we're probably about 2 thirds of the way through that journey.

Operator

Now it might go up or down in individual years, but if you take the long term trajectory, the game plan is very much to increase our marketing investment across the brands. And then the NII point, I think, look, I'd say it's not particularly significant for us in the grand scheme of things. It's we're not a retailer or in the hospitality industry. So we will just deal with this as part of our overall basket of commodity changes, some of which are up and some of which are down for next year and figure out how we deal with that. But it's not something we're getting particularly concerned about.

Speaker 2

Brilliant. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Patrick Frohnlein from Barclays. The line is open now. Please go

Speaker 4

Just on the new categories, you talked to a 65%, 70% success rate touching on the porridge pots and ice cream. Just wondering what has not worked in that experimentation phase and maybe why? And then just 2 more quickly. When I think of the strong plans for the second half, you mentioned new Ambrosio distribution. When does that kick in?

Speaker 4

And will that distribution plus the international plans in the second half outweigh the volume delivery that we should see in UK branded core? And then just lastly, so far in Q3, how should we think about the UK consumer versus first half of the year? Does it look like we have a good exit rate from Q2 into Q3?

Operator

Thanks. Right. Okay. So new categories, things that didn't work, actually, we had two things that we have had a bit of a rethink on. We tried the OXO marinades that have done really well.

Operator

We launched those alongside OXO rubs. So we had sort of spice rubs that you'd rub onto meat and things before you cook it. So we had OXXO rubs and marinades. And in the end, we decided that the marinades were working really, really well, the rubs less so, but we'd got rubs under the Cape Verde and Spice brand. So we decided to focus on Cape Verde and Spice for rubs and OXO for marinade.

Operator

So that would be one example of that. In terms of Ambrosia new distribution on the porridge, yes, that comes on stream, I think, back end of quarter 3. I might not have that date exactly right, though. And so we expect that to be quite important for porridge, although porridge on its own is not going to offset the big change that we're going to see in volumes as we start to lap the pricing changes over the whole business, no. So we'd expect to see some fantastic growth in Polish.

Operator

We'd expect to see some fantastic growth overseas, but not enough to do what you suggest because I think that big volume shift, as I say, will lap itself as we go through the second half. What do we think about the U. K. Consumer at the moment? Well, I mean, certainly, what we've seen so far this year is consumers are more willing to spend a little bit more to treat themselves or to buy higher quality products.

Operator

And I think it's quite possible some of that is because we've now got a pay inflation ahead of overall headline inflation levels. That probably helps. Some of it, of course, though, is due to things we've done. So new products we brought to market and the way in which we've invested behind our brands is also probably pushing people in that direction as well. But whatever it is out of those things, the net impact for us this year has been we've seen consumers moving from non branded into our brands, and we've seen people trading up within our brands to more premium tiers, which is both of which, of course, are very healthy.

Operator

And I'd expect that to carry on through the second half.

Speaker 4

Okay. And just kind of going back to the volume question. You guys did mention that you expect volume still be positive in the second half, just a bit more modest compared to first half, correct?

Operator

Yes, that's right. So I think where we'll get to is we'll get to something which is a more modest volume growth, but it will no longer be a lower price per unit. So of course, we've had this fantastic volume growth in the first half, but it's been on average a lower price per unit because we've had sharper promotional pricing. As we lap that, we'll get a more modest volume growth, but it will not be a lower price per unit. So it's just a different shape, really.

Speaker 4

Super. Thanks, Alex.

Speaker 3

Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Matthew Webb from Investec. The line is open now. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Hi, good morning, everyone. Three questions for me, please. First on fuel 10 ks, where you've disclosed that you're now the category leader. I just wonder what sort of growth was required to achieve that either in absolute terms or share gain points? Was it a significant move?

Speaker 5

And you've said that on that point that distribution was the key driver. I just wonder whether there's more distribution gain to come there or whether that's already run its course? That's the first question. And second is on Mr. Kipling in the U.

Speaker 5

S, which obviously saw really spectacular distribution growth. But if I've understood it correctly, you're now saying that that's pausing for now and it's going to be more about rate of sale. I just wondered sort of how long you expect that phase to last and if the rate of sale builds as you hope whether that will then be a whether you then hope for a resumption of distribution gains at some point down the line? And then the 3rd point just on leverage. I think Duncan you said that you expect that to remain below your sort of target level until you find something to buy.

Speaker 5

I mean if you don't find something buy for a while, which given that you've said you are quite choosy, I suppose it's possible. I mean, are there ways of returning cash to shareholders in an efficient way at the moment? Or does that is that you're a bit boxed in really until you can sort of fully resolve the pension

Operator

Fuel 10 ks, yes. So, the chocolate granola became the biggest selling granola in the UK in Q2, which we're obviously very, very pleased with. I don't have the exact number to hand, but we have seen some pretty significant double digit growth there over the since we bought it really to get to that point. Yes, distribution has been a key part of that, but also actually just more consumers discovering the brand and buying the brand and just expanding the consumer base as well. So it's distribution on that as well.

Operator

Has distribution on its course? No, it hasn't. There's still more distribution building, particularly around the additional flavors in the range because obviously, there's not just the chocolate granola, there's a range of flavors. And what we're finding is obviously, as the brand gets more critical mass, as sales grow, it increases the appetite of retailers to take more of the flavor range into distribution. So it's obviously something we will continue to drive.

Operator

And then we've also just launched, which I mentioned in the presentation, a move into big box cereals, so out of granola and porridge and into flakes as well. So we'll see how that goes, but it's a first step. So it's still plenty to go for in that sense. Mr. Kipling in North America.

Operator

So I think there's 2 things happening here. In Canada, we've been there a little bit longer. You might remember, we went into Canada a year or 2 before we did in the U. S. And we're really starting to build some momentum there now.

Operator

And we've seen some really big chunks of incremental distribution come on stream over the last sort of 6, 9 months. So really pleased with the trajectory we've got there. In the U. S, as I've said, we've got ourselves to almost 3,000 stores of distribution, which is not insignificant. And what I really want the team to do is work on, I guess, the detail of execution to make sure that we get great performance.

Operator

So one of the things we're really good at in the UK is being absolutely on top of have I got exactly the right range of products on exactly the right shelf in the right stores? Am I pricing correctly, am I promoting correctly, both in terms of price point, frequency, all those sorts of things and the different tools we use. And I would argue we're pretty good at that in the UK. What we need to do is make sure we're applying the same discipline in our overseas markets. And I think that if we're not careful, what you could accidentally do in somewhere as big and as complicated as the U.

Operator

S. Is that you run out and get another 3,000 stores and actually are not taking care of the performance in the stores you've got. So I just want to keep it balanced and make sure that we're building further from strong foundations. But do I expect we're going to get further distribution? Yes, absolutely, I do.

Operator

And leverage is definitely

Speaker 6

Yes, I'll deleverage. Thanks, Matthew. Yes, I think clearly leverage 1.2% at year end, 1.1.5%, really pleased with the way things are moving. And you'd have seen the suspension of pension deficit contributions flowing through quite nicely with net debt being sort of higher €50,000,000 ish down versus last year. We are it will continue to go until we find something to buy.

Speaker 6

I think in terms of the capital allocation principles we've set out earlier and we've talked about before, they very much remain the game plan. We are stepping up in CapEx. I think really pleased with the progress we've made in terms of what we've been able to spend in H1. And that just helps get momentum behind the projects and ultimately building the pipeline and getting things moving. We're sort of benefit from getting the cost savings through.

Speaker 6

And then M and A, as Alex and I both said, we can't say anything until we say something, but there's a lot of activity. We're always looking at stuff and that remains the expectation that at some point something will come along that ticks our criteria. I mean, I suppose in terms of broader cash returns, we're increasing dividends by more than earnings, we've said that, and another 20% increase this half year. We always keep things under review. I think the only probably piece worth calling out is that returns to shareholders, whether it's dividends or buybacks, as it stands today, will be sort of caught up in the pensions dividend match mechanism that we've got.

Speaker 6

So therefore, to the efficiency point at the moment, it doesn't feel particularly efficient.

Speaker 5

Understood. Thank you both very much.

Speaker 3

Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Andrew Wade from Jefferies. The line is open now. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Good morning, team. A couple of quick ones from me. First one on operating leverage. We saw a smidge in the first half and that was sort of despite the cocoa price impacts on sweet treats and despite reinvestment in promotional pricing. I know obviously the plan is for you normally to reinvest in driving growth, but you obviously got quite a bit going into capital projects and some of those headwinds that you've had in the first half may fade.

Speaker 7

So to the extent that branded growth continues to outstrip non branded growth or unbranded growth, could we continue to see a bit more operating leverage in the trading profit line?

Speaker 6

Yes, happy to answer. Sorry, I thought you said you're too early. Let me answer that one first, then move on.

Speaker 7

There was another one, but I thought you could go for that one first.

Speaker 6

Perfect. Why don't I do that? I mean, yes, look, I think clearly, the volume growth we're really, really pleased with. And as you'll know and as we said before, that then provides volume to the factories and increased factory recovery and efficiency. So that's absolutely has been going on the first half and that's absolutely the game plan going forward.

Speaker 6

To your point in sweet treats, we are getting those benefits absolutely. It's just masked by the spike up in cocoa that we've had that in the 6 month period, it's had an impact on the sweet treat results, although not at the group overall, as I said earlier. So yes, very much we're all about driving the volumes, which then creates efficiencies of the factory. And as you correctly point out, that gives us the firepower to invest behind the brands and invest behind the organization.

Speaker 7

Okay. Thanks. And then on fuel 10 ks, obviously, you've had that in your grip for a while now. Is there even any surprises in there that you've had since you've owned it now?

Operator

Not surprises, Andrew. I think what we've seen is the branded growth model playing out as we expected. So as we mentioned a few moments ago, we've been able to get more distribution for the brand because frankly, its performance deserved it. And that was one of the things we'd identified before we bought it. The NPD pipeline is coming along really nicely, some of which is already coming to market.

Operator

I think probably the one thing I would say, if you were to speak to our commercial team, there is more excitement about what they think they can do with this than when we bought it actually. So with the more we've got into it and the more we've started working on what we can do with the brand in terms of new products in the U. K, there's a realization that actually this is probably going to end up being quite a bit bigger than we thought. And secondly, we didn't in our acquisition model, we never factored in any overseas sales of Fuel 10 ks because we just didn't have the data to support that assumption. And I think it's becoming very clear now that there is going to be potential for this overseas and some of those overseas launches are being worked on as we speak.

Operator

So it's probably the big thing on Field 10 ks is I think we've ended up buying something that's going to be rather larger than we thought.

Speaker 7

Very interesting. Thanks very much. Keep up the good work. Thanks.

Speaker 6

Thanks. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thank you. We will take the next question from the line, Damian Maglina from Deutsche Bank. The line is open now. Please go ahead.

Speaker 8

Few for me, please. So the first one is just if you could give us any thoughts on the consumer into calendar year 'twenty five, because obviously I appreciate that sort of NIC isn't a big deal for you, but pretty much everybody seems to be suggesting that this is going to pass it on to the consumer. So I was wondering whether you were thinking about the consumer differently in the second half of twenty twenty five and looking to change your sort of positioning in the sort of the NPD that you're doing to address a potential change in the consumer environment is the first question. My second question is on you sort of talking about doing potentially doing larger M and A in sort of outside of the U. K.

Speaker 8

I'm just wondering, can you sort of provide us with some comfort around what your organizational capabilities are to effectively execute a larger overseas transaction? And then just a final one on the Spice Tailor. Just be interested to know whether the repeat rate that you sort of you said is very strong repeat rate, whether that repeat rate is as strong in international markets as it is in the UK? Thank you.

Operator

Yes, sure. I'll take those. So thoughts on consumer going forward, I think, to be honest, it's rather difficult to know. What I would say is that if I look over the last 5 years, despite some pretty significant changes in the external environment, whether it's been we've had Brexit, we've had significant inflation, we had a pandemic, no matter what that external environment's been, our brands have demonstrated their ability to grow as long as we continue to make the right inputs. So whatever we are wherever we do end up with the consumer looking forward into next year, I'm pretty confident that if we continue to apply our model and do what we do well, we'll still be able to generate kind of good growth from the brands.

Operator

Long term consumer trends, we'll innovate for, but we tend not to innovate for short term trends because by the time you've done it, it's the trend may well have gone. So we're not making any immediate changes to the MPD plan other than planning around those big consumer trends like healthier eating. Ironically, indulgence is another one, convenience. So we'll tend to innovate on those big macro trends because that's where you get the largest long term leverage. So hopefully, that answers that one.

Operator

Large M and A outside the UK. So we have put in some organization structure to help us manage these things, including integration, etcetera, and we will continue to do so as it should prove necessary. So I think the team have got used to doing acquisitions now. We've obviously managed to successfully integrate 2, and we'll scale up the team in order to make sure we're capable of doing more over time. But yes, it's something we continue to develop that skill set, if you like.

Operator

And then TST repeat rates. Yes, I think as far as we can see in the more established markets like the UK and Australia, it's very, very similar. I think as far as the other overseas markets are concerned, it's just far too early to know yet because we've been there relatively recently. So most of your purchases that you're seeing from people are trial purchases that people buying it for the first time. And it'll be a little while until we've got a handle on that in other markets.

Operator

But I wouldn't anticipate it being massively different because the product quality is the product quality, but I don't have the data to validate that at this stage.

Speaker 8

Yes, that's very clear. Thank you very much,

Operator

Alex. Thanks.

Speaker 3

Thank you. It appears no further question at this time. I'll hand it back over to your host, Alex White house, to do the closing remarks.

Operator

Thanks very much. Well, thanks everybody for dialing in this morning. Hope you found that useful and interesting. As you can see, we're in pretty good shape, a really good start to the year and actually looking okay on our key quarter as well. So we will keep continuing to drive the model and look forward to seeing you all at the full year results.

Operator

But thanks very much.

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TriNet Group H1 2025
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