“For both we expect good volume momentum as we move forward in the year now that negotiations in Europe are behind us.”

In context

“f markets. While developed markets grew 11% with balanced strength from both North America and Europe and despite customer disruption. Turning to portfolio performance on slide 12. Chocolates, Biscuits, Gum and Candy businesses all posted another quarter of double-digit increases in Q2. Biscuits increased plus 13.9%. Oreo, Ritz, Chips Ahoy!, Give & Go, TUC and Club Social all deliver double-digit growth. Clif though not inorganic also posted strong growth. Chocolate grew plus 13.7% with strength in both developed and emerging markets. Cadbury Dairy Milk, Milka, Lacta, Toblerone all delivered double-digit increases. We are very pleased with the performance of our core categories of chocolate and biscuits which albeit impacted in the quarter by customer disruption are on a solid trajectory. For both we expect good volume momentum as we move forward in the year now that negotiations in Europe are behind us. Gum and Candy grew more than 30% with trends across our business units especially in emerging markets. Now let's review market and share performance on slide 13. We held or gained share in 70% of our revenue base. The US continues to make service-level improvements and ended Q2 with good on-shelf availability and inventory levels. Moving to page 14. We deliver more than $540 million in gross profit growth or 20% in Q2 driven by top-line productivity and cost discipline. This also resulted in year-over-year gross margin expansion in all regions except Europe, which was impacted by expected customer disruption. Now that pricing is implemented, we expect improvements in Europe too. This growth provides significant fuel to invest behind our brands as well as significant earnings flow through.”