Hilton Food Group plc

Okay, good morning everyone and thank you for joining us. Matt and I are pleased to present our 26 interim results today. As usual there'll be a chance to ask questions at the end of the presentation of both of us and maybe even Samy, our Chief Operating Officer who's with us today, I'll pass the difficult questions to him. Over the next 25 minutes or so we'll take you through our financial performance and the progress we've made since announcing our updated strategy five months ago. It's early days, but I'm encouraged. I'm pleased by how colleagues across the organisation have supported the strategy and are working on its delivery. Let me start with a first half summary. We're getting on with doing what we said. There's always much more to do, but I'm pleased with what we achieved so far. Profit was up in our core meat businesses. This includes further strong growth in the East region, particularly in Australia, and our fresh prepared foods business serving Central Europe. We're also realising initial benefits from improving plans in the UK at SeaChill. These can't be seen in the numbers yet, but we expect to see visibility in the second half. The challenges at Fopham will continue into the second half, and against this backdrop we will assess all options for the future of this business. Despite this, Group Adjustee profit before tax from continuing operations of £32.8 million was ahead of expectations. and on the back of this the board maintained our dividend in line with our progressive dividend policy. This first half performance gives us confidence in the full year outlook. We now expect PBT from continual operations to be in the range 66 to 71 million pounds. This is despite the ongoing FOP and challenges. This compares to our previous range of 60 to 65 million pounds. It includes the removal of expected losses from Dalco and a foreign currency tailwind. We're also making good commercial and strategic progress. Importantly, in the first half, we extended our commercial meat partnership with Tesco in the UK. This follows previously announced contract extensions in both the Netherlands and Denmark in late 25. The acronym SVV, short for seafood, vegetarian and vegan, will be short-lived. At the end of July, we announced the disposal of our vegetarian and vegan business, Dalco. This is expected to complete in quarter four twenty six. It's a step towards simplifying the organisation and a move towards our core strengths in meat and fresh prepared foods. We continue to invest in projects and develop platforms that will drive the future growth of Hilton Foods and deliver attractive returns. We're updating our plans to further increase capacity in Poland to meet the rapidly growing demand for fresh prepared food products in Central Europe. Canada is set for launch in January 27. Bacon is also planned for later in the year. A joint venture facility in Saudi Arabia is set to go live in quarter four this year. I'm excited by the opportunity these new projects and partnerships bring for Hilton Foods. I'll come back to this but now I'll hand over to Matt who'll take you through our first half performance.

Thanks Mark, good morning everyone it's great to see you all. I'll walk you through our 2026 first half financials as usual highlighting the main drivers of volume, revenue, profit, cash flow and net debt and I'll cover the 2026 full year outlook. The results were underpinned by good performance from our meat and fresh prepared food businesses. This is where our core strengths lie, with our expert, committed teams utilising scalable and automated facilities to produce high quality products for our retail partners. Whilst our seafood, vegetarian and vegan businesses continue to face challenges, we're taking action. We've agreed the sale of Dalco and we're starting to see the results of our performance improvement plans in Seachill. Moving now to the numbers. I'll focus on continuing operations so excluding Dalco and of course Fairfax Meadow which as you know we sold in September last year. Volumes were up 2.1% and with prices still at higher levels than 12 months ago revenue was up 11.5% on a constant currency basis. Operating profit of £45.8 million was 3.4% lower or 6.6% on a constant currency basis, with higher core profit more than offset by the impact of the challenges in Foppen. I'll go through a profit bridge shortly. The resulting operating profit margin was 2% compared to 2.4% last year. Profit before tax of £32.8 million and adjusted earnings per share of 25.7 pence were both down compared to last year, consistent with our lower operating profit but ahead of expectations. As Mark says, we've declared a flat interim dividend of 10.1 pence. And net debt was slightly improved compared to the end of the first half last year. This chart shows volume and constant currency revenue growth in our new regional structure, specifically East which includes Australia, New Zealand, Central Europe and will include Saudi Arabia, West which includes the UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Portugal and will include Canada, and Seafood which includes SeaChill and Foppen. We've also provided a slide in the appendix of the packs bridging last year's revenue and operating profit comparatives from the old segments to these new ones. In the East, volumes were up in all markets. Growth was particularly strong in Central Europe, where fresh prepared food volumes were up 26%. Higher Australian beef prices were the key driver of revenue growth of 15.3%, with the mix relatively stable between categories. In the West, volumes were slightly up. We saw good performance from the Nordics and our JV in Portugal, which offset lower volumes in the UK and the Netherlands. Although raw material inflation has largely slowed in Europe, prices remain at historically high levels. The impact this had on revenue was partially offset by negative mixed movements, as we saw some customers trading down within beef categories. Overall revenue was up 9%. Seafood volumes were up 6%, inflation continued to weigh on demand for whitefish and sea-chill, but sales of salmon and prawns were up. FOP and volumes were also up as we met customer demand from our facility in the Netherlands. However, we experienced pressure on margins. Moving on to profit. On a constant currency basis, overall core meat and fresh prepared food profit was up compared to last year, with growth in the east region more than offsetting lower profit from the west. In the East, we drove materially increased profit in Central Europe from fresh prepared foods, while Australia and New Zealand again delivered good volume growth. In the West, core profit was down, reflecting competitive pressures in Ireland and unfavourable mix movements in the UK. In response, we are working with our customers to deliver targeted promotions in half two, while constantly reviewing our cost base against current volumes. As expected, seafood operating profit was down. This almost entirely relates to squeeze margins in foppen, resulting from unfavourable movements in salmon pricing and FX, whilst improvement plans in seachill are starting to take effect. Central costs were down, with lower costs relating to share-based incentive plans, and with interest charges similar to last year, group PBT on a constant currency basis was down 8.9%. However, translational FX movements were positive for us in the period, particularly from the strengthening of the Australian dollar, and adjusted PBT on a reported basis was down 5.2%. Our updated four-year guidance reflects the anticipated positive impact of FX rates over the second half of the year. Now moving on to exceptional items which are excluded from our underlying results. We incurred exceptional costs of £7 million relating to Foppen in the first half. Around half of this relates to the relocation of production from Greece to the Netherlands to ensure continuity of supply to our customers in the US. We remain focused on minimising the impact and expect to stop exceptionalising these operational costs in the second half of this year. The remainder of the FOPEN costs relates to the additional cost of air freight, which we stopped in April, and a one-off loss of inventory due to a fire in a third-party warehouse in the US. Across the group we incurred exceptional reorganisation and restructuring costs of £3.2 million, largely related to redundancy. We also incurred transformation costs of £4.6 million as activity ramps up to drive efficiency, strengthen our operational capability and drive growth. We expect exceptional cash transformation costs of around £10 million per year over the next few years. In addition there was a £16.7 million non-cash impairment relating to Dalco which is now classified as held for sale. Moving to cash flow and net debt. EBITDA was down in line with total profit with typical seasonality in working capital resulting in outflows in the period. We didn't repeat last year's first half investment in inventory. However, we have taken the decision to purchase additional inventory in the UK in half two to ensure supply for Christmas 2026 and Easter 2027. We remain disciplined on capital investment in our existing facilities. With fewer new projects, net core capital expenditure of £15.4 million was lower than last year. As a result, adjusted free cash flow was positive. We're into the last year of major investment in our new Canada facility. In total we've now spent 80 million pounds with operations due to commence in January 2027. We expect to spend around 25 million pounds in the second half of the year to complete the core project with capex relating to bacon being spent in 2027. Total capex will be higher than originally assumed a year ago which includes both changes in scope and incremental inflationary pressures on building materials and automation equipment. We expect the project will generate significant value for the group and it provides an important platform for future growth and long-term returns. We've also paid £3.6 million towards the joint venture project in Saudi Arabia in half one with remaining payments expected in the second half. Net bank debt was a little under £200 million at the half year, lower than at the same time last year. This equates to leverage of 1.4 times. Our balance sheet remains strong. As we said in March, we've strengthened our access to funding with £450 million of revolving credit facilities for at least the next five years, providing flexibility to deliver future growth. In addition, these bank facilities are enhanced by the ongoing benefits of our lease and customer supply chain financing with margins typically 0.5 to 1.5 percentage points lower than our bank facility. Before I hand back to Mark, let me cover the outlook. Overall, trading from our core meat and fresh prepared food businesses was strong in the first half of the year. In addition, improvement plans are starting to deliver in situ. However, significant challenges continue in Foppen. As Mark said earlier, we now expect to achieve full year adjusted PBT from continuing operations in the range of £66 to £71 million. This is higher than our previous range of 60 to 65 million despite the ongoing challenges in Foppen and reflects the removal of Dalco losses from continuing operations and the favourable FX movements I talked about earlier. As previously guided, we expect net bank debt to increase over 2026. It will also now include the impact of the additional second half investment inventory, though we expect to remain comfortably within our targeted one to two times leverage range. Four year capex is still expected to be around £100 million. Our core capex is trending to be at or below the lower end of our £50-55 million guidance, alongside further capex in Canada as the project nears completion. Looking on 2026, we expect first positive earnings contributions for our investments in Canada and Saudi Arabia next year. Alongside the resilience and growth potential of our existing core business, this provides a good platform for the future. Thanks for listening. I'll now hand back to Mark.

Thanks Matt. So, an encouraging first half. I'm pleased with our performance. Let me now touch upon our strategic progress. Our vision is to be the global partner of choice built on our world-class red meat capabilities. We believe this is an apt description of what Ilton Foods is, particularly with the high growth potential from fresh prepared foods. Our competitive advantage comes from our strong capabilities and positions in red meat. Moves into adjacent categories with good margins will be aligned to these. Let me remind you of the three growth levers we laid out earlier this year. These will be the cornerstones of our growth plans. The first is maximising the core, essentially continuing to utilise our existing structural advantages as well as driving continuous improvement. The second lever is Enhancing the Mix. We are focused on increasing our exposures to sustainably higher margin and growing segments. We'll do this through scaling in areas where we already have existing relationships and capabilities. For example, in value-added meat and fresh prepared foods. Enhancing the Mix is also about ensuring our portfolio is optimised. This includes resolving challenges in our seafood businesses, particularly in Fopham. The third lever is geographic expansion, replicating our partnership model in new, underdeveloped markets. We'll do this through differentiated quality, efficiency and innovation. We've made good initial progress against each of these growth levers. It's important we continue to focus on maximising the performance of our core meat businesses. This is our heartland and where our inherent strength lies. In March we said we drive further manufacturing excellence throughout the group. We continue to invest in automation to improve efficiency. A good example is the use of our line control technology in our factory in Huntingdon. We've materially reduced mince waste by utilising machine learning to continuously optimise pack weights. This has been rolled out across our product lines and factories. We also said we continue to focus on product innovation and category leadership. This is increasingly a feature of the food supply chain. Food innovation has always been core to what we do. We continue to develop new targeted product ranges for our customers. These respond to the wider economic environment and changing consumer trends. In the first half, we introduced mixed protein mints in Denmark and the Netherlands. This comes with a lower price point. We also introduced a new flavoured mince product in the UK. This provides customers with a differentiated value-add product. We're expanding into adjacent categories. This includes slow cook products, which are increasingly popular with customers. Although still a relatively small percentage of the UK sales, sous vide volumes were up 6% in the first half. This remains an area of potential growth for us. Our focus on quality, efficiency and innovation is the reason why our retail customers choose us. I've already mentioned that we extended our meat partnership with Tesco in the UK in the first half. We also continue to seek new commercial opportunities. We plan to roll out the supply of products to our partner's New Zealand South Island stores in the second half. This is in addition to our existing supply to North Island stores. We're now supplying Burger King Sweden. This follows our investment in frozen burger lines in 25 for our retail partner, Ica. This is an example of how we can use existing capacity to add profitable volume with new customers. These are just some examples of how we're maximising the value of our existing core operations. This helps us deliver volume growth against the backdrop of continued high raw material prices. Moving on to enhancing the mix. A key component of this is optimising our portfolio. We said in March we'd look for solutions to resolve challenges in our seafood and vegan and vegetarian businesses. Our overarching objective is to reduce earnings volatility and improve group returns. That means creating greater flexibility and optionality for future value realisation from these businesses. In July, we announced we'd agreed to sell DowCo to LiveKindly for £5.4 million. The transaction is expected to complete in quarter four. DowCo has good facilities, but the market requires consolidation. I'm pleased that DowCo is going to a buyer whose vision is aligned with this. For our seafood businesses, we're taking a very focused and disciplined approach to investment and performance. In the UK at SeaChill, we've been implementing a range of initiatives. These include improvements focused on increasing yields. We've also restructured some departments to right size the business. There's more to do, but I'm pleased with the progress made to drive this business back to profitability. In FOPEN, we continue our efforts to improve commercial performance. This is key given the poor financial results in the first half of the year. We're also driving operational efficiencies. However, we still await clarity from the FDA on the restart of exports to the United States from our facility in Greece. The outlook for FOPEN continues to look challenging. We recognize the current situation cannot continue indefinitely. As a result, we'll assess all options for the future of the business. Now turning to fresh prepared food. We're also looking to enhance our mix by moving more materially into fresh prepared food categories. These are traditionally higher margin. They also have higher growth rates. The market in Central Europe is forecast to grow at 8% per annum. We continue to develop plans to materially increase capacity and upgrade facilities in Poland. We estimated back in March that investment of around £30 million would roughly double the capacity of our facility. However, we are assessing opportunities with our partners to materially increase the scale of this expansion. This would future-proof our long-term growth ambitions. This may result in higher capital expenditure, but also higher profit expectations. Full scoping of the longer-term project is expected to be completed around the end of 26. Subject to suitable returns, we could start spending capex in 27 and operation could commence as early as the back end of 28. In the meantime, we've implemented capital light plans to meet growing nearer term demand. Geographical expansion is the third growth lever. As you know, we have two current projects in Canada and Saudi Arabia. Both are expected to generate earnings in 27. I recently visited our new state-of-the-art facility in Canada. Fit out is nearly complete and it looks impressive. Once operational it will be our most automated facility. We said it would be operational in 27 and I'm pleased to say we're on track to launch right at the start of the year with production ramping up over the first half. At the same time we will work on installing the bacon production lines and they will come on stream later in 27. The facility in Saudi Arabia, built by our partners NADEC, is expected to commence operations in late Q426. It's an important milestone for the group, and this is for a period of at least 10 years. More broadly, we see further opportunity through our retail partners' international footprints and network. So, as I said at the start, we're doing exactly what we said. Let me close by outlining my confidence in the future. We have a resilient and cash generative core business. This is supported by structural advantages and a strong record of execution. The first off performance of our core meat and fresh prepared food businesses helps demonstrate this. We have well invested sites. We estimate it would cost well over a billion pounds to replicate our manufacturing capability. This strong platform gives us an envious position. We have a clear strategy to drive growth. This is built around maximising the core, enhancing the mix and expanding geographically. I have provided you with some examples of how we are delivering against this growth agenda. We will apply a disciplined approach to capital allocation. We will only invest in opportunities that generate attractive returns and underpin our group return on capital employed target of at least 20%. This positions us to deliver sustainable profit growth, strong cash generation and reduced volatility. We believe this will deliver compelling value for our shareholders as we focus on being the global partner of choice built on world-class red meat capabilities. That concludes the presentation. Thanks for your time and listening. I'll now chair the Q&A. As usual, can you ask questions via me and I will allocate appropriately, as I said before, the difficult ones to Samy. And can I also ask that you introduce yourselves and your institution, particularly for the benefit of those listening to the call. Thank you.

Morning everybody, Damian McNeill from Deutsche Neumis. Can we talk a little bit about the competitive dynamics in Ireland please, Mark? I know this might be a tricky one for Samy but also how we should think about the volume outlook for the second half and how the retailers are thinking about Christmas relative to last year given where the consumer is. And then just can you remind us about how much the bacon investment is in Canada and what the incremental sort of volumes are attached with that please?

Looks like you're going to be busy, Samy. Let me talk about the landscape in the run-up to Christmas. Actually, if I'm honest, it looks pretty positive for us. And I think we spend, if we're not careful, a lot of time in this room talking about the UK. And I've said in the presentation that the business isn't just about the UK. It's effectively a global business. The UK, I think, is probably about a quarter of But if we focus on the UK specifically, we're pretty optimistic about the second half. We see evidence that there is a lot of activity around promotions coming that we're working with our customers to deliver against. We think the second half is going to be particularly strong. So if I hand over to Samy to talk a little bit about Ireland and the competitive dynamics over there and then maybe we'll both come back and talk about bacon at the end.

I think you you raise the point I mean effectively in Ireland which where we have had challenges and a lot of it is coming from volume a year ago we've added actually volume with with Dons we increased capacity in that respect and since then effectively our volume have been under pressure primarily I mean from a competitive standpoint as our customers were effectively tendering opportunities I mean towards other options that they had. At this stage I mean it's a cost if you're on dynamic that we are trying to address I mean over there in order for us to be competitive and regain volume momentum I mean over there. We have a great facility I mean let me put that in the perspective of the fact that Ireland more or less is about roughly let's say a bit of a The volume dynamic is currently being addressed by reviewing all of the opportunity we have from a cost saving standpoint. I think Mark alluded to that in his speech relating to all opportunities we have on effective giveaway or effective Productivity and line speed and automation and so on which we are addressing at that stage to make our offer much more competitive and regain volume momentum. The expectation now is to effectively eradicate the impact of this volume dynamic that is hurting us to be fair and through effectively a stronger intervention on cost that's going to position us much more favorably in the future tender that are going to come across and so that we effectively regain volume momentum coming into the next year. and Christmas of course is going to be an integrated part of that extremely important to the overall business dynamic in Ireland.

Okay so if we talk a little bit about Canada and I'll start and if I miss anything Samy can come in. I'm going to start by saying there's been a lot of debate around the investment in Canada over kind of the last 12 months and It's been almost seen as a negative. I would come from the opposite end of the telescope and say our investment in Canada is a huge positive. I was over there with Samy a few weeks ago. Samy was there last week. I'm no doubt that come 27 there will be invites going out for you to come and have a look at it. This is a world-class facility by anybody's definition. I think it's going to set the standard for the packing of meat globally. It's an impressive location. And yes, the costs have gone up, but ultimately the costs get paid back through the model that we have. And if we want to go into the detail of that, Matt can probably articulate that better than anybody. In round terms, and this isn't absolutely specific, the incremental capex on bacon will be about £20 million-ish. It will be there or thereabouts, and the returns will be in line with our return on capital employed of 20%. but let me just go back a while and for those of you that have been involved in Hilton for longer than me you'll remember that when we invested in Australia in the early days there's a graduate build-up so for this year as an example we'll start packing meat at the very beginning of January and we'll ramp up production to get to about the half year before we hit anything like full production So you don't get the returns while you're ramping up. They come in years 3, 4, 5 when the business is established. And that is a typical Hilton model. That's what happened on every investment of scale that we've made in the past and this one is no different. And then the final bit that I would say, yeah the costs have gone up. but could you tell me any building projects globally where in the last 12 months costs haven't gone up given the world that we live in? I don't think there's any and it maybe sounds like I'm being a bit defensive of it I'm not actually I want to be able to start talking about the real positive things that are going to come from this because if we get this right the opportunities with Walmart are never ending and that's where we should be focusing our attention getting the launch right getting the ramp up right and actually demonstrating to people like yourselves and our shareholders just what a great facility we've got. Have I missed anything there Samy? No? Thank you.

Charles Hall from Peel Hunt. You haven't said much about Australia in these sets of results is it just business as usual and obviously there's been quite a lot of price inflation for protein in Australia as well it seems though the consumer is more resilient in that market and are there any more opportunities for future business or investment in Australia?

Sounds like I've been doing a lot of traveling recently because I probably have I've just recently been down to Australia as well and The Australian business is a great business. It's got great facilities and we've got a customer that really values what we do for them. I said in my speech presentation that we are starting to supply in the South Island in New Zealand. That's happening as we speak. We're already doing some stores. We'll have all the stores under our remit I think by the end of October, November. So we're growing the business. We talk about inflation. One of the benefits of grey airs and age is you've seen inflation and deflation lots of times over the years. We have to play the cards we're dealt. And wherever we operate, whatever country we operate in, you can only operate in that marketplace. And Australia is a good example where there has been inflation. But working with the customer we've managed to grow volumes as well as have the raw material price increases. And it demonstrates if you work hand in glove with your partner you can in whatever dynamics that exist at a particular time do a really good job of generating value for both. I know because when I was over there effectively the number two in Wormwoods was just about as complimentary to my team down there as I've ever heard a retailer about any team. That's a great place to be and the results are speaking for themselves. The results are very strong in Australia and New Zealand.

And then switching to SeaChill, do you think you've now put the measures in place to turn it back into profitability? And can you just explain a little bit more about what you're actually doing to increase yields and what the impact on the business is?

I'm going to smile when I say this because I think people have sat in this chair before and said that they've sorted it out. Look I think we're doing all the right things in the business in terms of getting the hints are a good place. We're focused on cost in terms of people. We've dramatically reduced the number of agency staff that we have on site. That's direct onto the bottom line. We've had projects looking at yield out of fish. One of the challenges with any protein is maximising the use of all the parts. You've heard other people that work in the protein world talk about those things. We perhaps hadn't been as good at that as we should and ought to have been and we've worked quite hard on that. We're working hard on making sure we're sourcing in the right way as well. It's a business improvement plan that runs right across the gambit. You haven't seen an impact in the numbers but we're already into the second half so whilst we're reporting in September we've got two months of the second half and we can see the benefits that are coming through from the work we're doing at CTO already. It's a business that we should be interested in getting into the right place. If you look at the world that we all operate in now, and you don't need me to tell you this, pure protein is becoming a more important part of the diet, particularly as more people get into GLPs, whether they're injections or tablets. Tablets are coming and so that means more people are going to be doing it. and if you if you do get involved in that one of the things that the medical teams tell you you've got to consume more protein because it impacts muscles as well as as well as fat so you know if you said to me what do you think about ctl i think we need to have a really good go at seeing if we can find a sustainable tangible business out of that business before we do anything else with it and that's what we that's what we're doing that's what our plans are focused on perfect thanks

Thank you. Morning. Matthew Webb from Investec. Sorry to be the one to ask some questions about FOPN. First, is there any update on getting regulatory approval for exports into the US from Greece? Second, is there a route back to break even if you don't get that approval? and third if you conclude that there's no way through here and decide that you have to close the business down what would the practical implications of that be in terms of you know your contractual responsibilities and what do you think the cost of that would be?

So the first thing I'd say Matthew is that Look, we are a bit like CTO. We're looking at what the art of the possible is for this business. But we are doing it a little bit with hands tied behind our back. And in doing that, I'll answer the first part of your question. no we haven't had any update we we had a I think I've probably said this to you before we had a we submitted a our response to the audit and then we got feedback with four other things that needed to be sorted we resubmitted to dealing with those four things that would have been probably April time that we we went that back around about April don't hold me to that date and we've heard nothing and so in terms of your second part of the question what can you do to improve matters really we need that decision before we can fully roll our sleeves open and start to improve matters because what is absolutely clear running Preveza in Greece with little or no volume going through it and putting through the volume in Harderwijk in Holland is more expensive. You've seen that in our numbers and it's part of the reasons that we've got challenges in the second half. We're taking those numbers on the chin rather than putting them through the exceptional lines. Therein lies the challenge. Do we think there is a way through to get the business to at least break even? Yes, there is definitely a way through and very simply You look at your cost base, where you manufacture, how you manufacture, how efficient you are in that manufacturing, how you source your product, etc. You do all of those things and also you work with your customers to make sure that you are providing them with the right products at the right margin. In the US we've got a couple of really very good customers that do give the business a reason to believe there is a route out of this. So we're focused on that and will be focused on it in the coming months. Ultimately we will have to improve matters at FOPN and you know what I would say very simply is during 27 FOPN will be dealt with.

Clyde Black from Sure Capital. A number of sort of rather disparate questions. First of all, what's the components of the transformation, ongoing transformation work? I think you talked about 10 million ongoing. Secondly, there was a very big working capital movement year on year. In steady state, what would you see as a sensible expectation for working capital movement in the business? And then lastly, I think Central Europe's probably been one of the surprise features of this company in the last five years. What are the components driving Central Europe and how do you see the prospects there? Have we traveled and arrived or is there more to go for? Thank you.

OK, Matt's been really quiet, so I'm going to let him do the first of those and then I'll do the glory one at the end on Central Europe, Matt. First two I get, I think.

First two of those, yeah. I'll start with working capital. So we'd expect for this year probably a small outflow, modest outflow year on year. I think we touched on we'll be Purchasing some primal in the second half to ensure we hit primarily Christmas but that will flow through into Easter and given where prices have moved that probably gives it a small outflow but modest. I would talk kind of low, high single digit edging into double. I think steady state that's kind of where we should sit now obviously first half into second half we see different dynamics given where we where we kind of end the year at Christmas which is kind of probably the most advantageous time for us given the dynamics of our customer base but that's where I think we'd sit. In terms of the transformation program a number of areas here we're looking at a kind of wider IT and data infrastructure across the business so using data to drive decisions but enhance technology we have, that's a big part of the work stream. Then there's a wider organisational design piece focusing initially on central support functions but beyond that looking at what's the right organisational design for our business and where we sit is how do we get the benefits of what we have and the local focus we have but then also utilise what is the strength of an ever-growing So if we talk about Central Europe, this is a real sweet spot for us. I don't think we can deny that at all.

I think last year the business grew sort of quite a bit over 20% or this year's growing yeah first off has grown over 20% and that's against a backdrop where our meat business over there is probably flattish and all the growth comes from fresh prepared foods Why are you doing so well? It comes back to the things that Hilton has historically been very good at. Innovation. Our customers demand innovation and we would be launching new products at a rate of knots. they demand that you're efficient and I think we run a very efficient facility there and they demand quality and we deliver against those three criteria and you know that during this year you know the expectations from certainly from Zabka which is the biggest buyer of the fresh prepared foods but there are others that buy fresh prepared food from us their volumes probably I don't know more than doubled during during the year and it's working with with those guys that is encouraging us to lay down investment and we laying that investment down in the form of a partnership not not with huge commercial risks so it is more akin to a typical Hilton, longer term contractual relationship than a short term commercial relationship. So Central Europe is a really exciting place for us. Would we do fresh prepared foods in other places? Some, but maybe not and definitely not here in the UK. But we've got a very good business in Central Europe. Thank you very much. Excellent.

Hi, it's Anubhav Malhotra from Panmure Librem. I have a couple as well. Firstly, on the guidance for this year, obviously for the first half, for the results you said numbers were ahead of expectations and you seem to be excited about the prospects of second half in the UK and New Zealand. Just why is the guidance kept stable on underlying basis? I know there's benefits from DALCO and FX in there. Is it all due to the foreman losses increasing or is there anything else? And then related to that, what's the extent of foreman losses we should be seeing in the second half given some of these exceptional costs are being brought into underlying now? Thank you.

I'll let Matt talk specifically about the numbers in a second. Maybe I'll talk about the principles. Look the base business is doing very well and you know I'm sure you've picked up we're happy with the way it's performing as a total and you know anybody that operates businesses around the world and tells you every business is doing fantastically well I would question whether they're whether they're being straightforward so we have businesses in some areas that are doing better than others but that's the benefit of having a group the fundamentals of our meat and fresh prepared Fresh Prepared Food businesses are rock solid doing very well. But we have got a challenge at Foppen. So we are being, I think, realistically cautious in setting expectations and I suspect if most of you were sitting in Samy, Matt or my chair, you'd do exactly the same. So let's not get ahead of ourselves. We've got lots to do and getting Foppen into a better place and Sea Chill for that matter are things that are on the agenda. Matt do you want to talk specifically about the numbers?

Yeah so sort of half one of this year Poplar made it was a low single digit operating loss and then look we've talked about absorbing exceptional costs or de-exceptionalising I don't know if that's a word but in the second half so that will obviously add to that plus I think we see a continuation of the challenges we we've had in the So that's kind of where we sit and it looks a meaningful movement for us as Mark says, offsetting the strengths of the core and some of the improvements we're seeing in the sea trout business as well.

I'll just lighten the mood a bit you wouldn't be you would be forgiven for thinking somebody's trying to have us over here because we get we get fop and started started supplying through through boats rather than flying which is a big cost reduction we get product into into the US and then somebody sets fire to a warehouse with all our products you think what the hell what the hell is going on so we have to having got the product there we end up writing off another just over a million pound in somebody else's warehouse so yeah Rest assured we're on with getting Foppen to a better place. It's taking some time and effort. But the challenge is, as I said to the previous question, we can get it to a better place, but we need answers from the FDA to help us do that.

Can I just follow on that? Do the FTA have to adhere to a timeline to give you a response or not really?

What do you think? No. Clearly not. I was going to be flipping there. I won't be. No, they don't. And that's the challenge. They're under no obligation to give us an answer in a month, a week or six months.

And then on Central Europe, can I ask you mentioned some short term capital light measures you're doing to maintain production volumes? Are they limiting profitability in any way at the moment of the business that could be released once you have proper capacity installed?

Look if we could if we could switch the brand new facility on tomorrow once we've commissioned it and got up and running the opportunity would be there to make more money. What we're doing is working with our customers you would expect us to do to grow volumes with in realistic time scales and realistic capabilities and you know we're working with them I'm over there at their conference in two or three weeks time to talk to the to the CEO of the group and the CEO of Poland about our plans. I think they're very happy with what we do for them but of course if you've got more capability there's more opportunities which is why I think when we come back and talk about the investment I think I said in my presentation the investment will be more than 30 million which is what we flagged up before but the returns will be significantly higher as well. Okay, no more questions. Thanks everybody. Thanks for the questions. We're hanging around for a little while. If you want to grab us individually, feel free. And no doubt we're talking to various sales desks and stuff over the next few days. So we'll see you then. Thanks again.