“But as we said a few times, we believe cocoa in 2026 is going to normalize and we would have a meaningful rebound of our chocolate profit to allow for us to get back on track with our algorithm.”

In context

“ll, with the exception of interest expenses, which is now estimated at $250 million for the year. Although it is premature to get into specifics around our ‘25 outlook, I would note a couple of items. The majority of our business, which is not chocolate, will be on algorithm. We expect peak cocoa pricing to be reflected in the first half of 2025 while chocolate margins should improve sequentially versus Q4 2024. Our plans around pricing, RGM and cost management are expected to be significant and help provide room for reinvestment. However, where we sit today, it is tough to see a path to earning growth in 2025 unless cocoa is just down from the current future curve and/or elasticities are much more benign than our current planning assumptions, [ergo] (ph) there will be additional pricing. But as we said a few times, we believe cocoa in 2026 is going to normalize and we would have a meaningful rebound of our chocolate profit to allow for us to get back on track with our algorithm. Clearly, we do not control cocoa prices. But in the unlikely event that they would not normalize by 2026, our gradual approach to pricing seems still to be the best approach to take. Overall, we feel good about the fundamentals of the business, our growth opportunities, the investments we are continuing to make in the business and our plans to navigate this short term cocoa dynamic. We expect to emerge from this period of elevated cocoa prices even stronger and better positioned for attractive sustainable earnings growth. We will provide more details related to 2025 at our year-end call. Finally, a word on our sales of the JDE Peet's shares. We are happy overall with the return we realized on our coffee financial investments. Some of the proceeds will be deployed immediately towards lower”