“I said many times that when I look at the underlying per kilo of cocoa or the chocolate business gross profit dollars, I see a number that I like as we exit the year.”

In context

“thinking about that into the back half of this year? Luca Zaramella: So I think, look, this is one of the unknowns of the plan. I think, but I might be proven wrong, I believe that with the new crop data, we will know which direction cocoa is going to take particularly for 2026. And I think there are possibly 2 scenarios: one is this stays elevated; but the other one is it might go down quite rapidly because if there is a surplus between supply and demand, I think there will be material cocoa availability that will drive prices down. In the first case, I think we might need or not additional pricing based on where cocoa is. If it stays where it is, I think all the actions that we are about to take from now to the end of the year in some of the markets, I think, will put us in a good spot. I said many times that when I look at the underlying per kilo of cocoa or the chocolate business gross profit dollars, I see a number that I like as we exit the year. Remember that pricing has a carryover as well into next year. And so if cocoa stays elevated, there might be additional pricing. But I think all in all, we should be in a good spot at the end of the year. If cocoa comes down, the question becomes what do we do to protect demand, what do we do to face potentially some competitive actions, et cetera. But in the end, I think the P&L will thrive because if I apply the elasticity we have seen on the way up to the way down, there is either material price upside or there is a potential volume rebound. Also remember one critical thing, which we said many times, the virtuous model of this company has been in the last few years to protect gross profit dollar growth as opposed to percentages, but it has also been investing, particularly in working m”