“Trade destocking is a one-time impact. You saw that it is meaningful. It is 2.5 points, 3 points of volume mix in the US and we assume that is non-recoverable in the year to go.”

In context

“utside of North America. We have positive volume mix in the category. And clearly there are some cost upside versus our original plan. And as we mentioned, the overall tariffs is causing a small and manageable impact. So those are, I would say, the positives that we see continuing into the second part of the year in Q2 as well. And among the things that didn't play out as we planned, it is clearly the consumer sentiment in the US impacting our categories. But biscuits as a category despite being soft is faring better than other snacks and we are winning share. When you put both the market dynamics and the share, actually our consumption in Q1 is slightly down. So I think that given some of the numbers we have seen published by others, I think it is relatively speaking terms, a good thing. Trade destocking is a one-time impact. You saw that it is meaningful. It is 2.5 points, 3 points of volume mix in the US and we assume that is non-recoverable in the year to go. I think particularly as we enter into Q2, you will see an acceleration of top line and volume mix. And I think that's clearly to the testament of what the teams are doing. All considered, you might not expect anything differently at this point in time, but we are retaining some flexibility within the plan. So should things worsen in the US, I think we have what it takes to deliver both top and bottom line. But also bear in mind that if we have earnings upside, we will be reinvesting in the business as we are trying to enter '26 from a stronger position. We remain disciplined on capital allocation. We will continue to buy back stock in a sensible manner. As you might have seen, we were active buyers in Q1 at what I believe are very compelling prices. So very happy on that front too. Andrew”