The Magnum Ice Cream Company N.V. Ordinary Shares

Good morning and welcome to the Magnum Ice Cream Company webcast for the Q1 2026 trading update. My name is Razia and I will be your operator for today's call. Before we begin, please note that today's presentation is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, we will move into the Q&A session. Instructions for the Q&A session will be provided at that time and we will take your questions one by one. With that, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Michelle Nege. Michelle, please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Mecklenburg Ice Cream Company's Q1 Trading Update webcast. My name is Michelle Nege, Head of Investor Relations, and I'm here today with our CEO, Peter Tarkova, and our CFO, Abhijit Bhattacharya. The press release and investor presentation were published on our Investor Relations website this morning. The replay and full transcripts of this webcast will be made available after the call. Before we start, I want to draw your attention to our cautionary statement on the screen. You will also find this statement in the presentation published on the website. In a moment, Peter will take a few minutes to talk you through the highlights of our top-line performance during the first quarter of 2026. After that, we will open the floor for Q&A with Peter and Abhijit. And with that, Peter, over to you.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Q1 Trading Update. I'm pleased to share that we had an encouraging start to 2026. Before I get into the details, let me give you the headline. The ice cream category continues to grow. We are executing well on our strategy. And whilst we are mindful of the heightened uncertainty in the global environment, particularly in the Middle East, we are reaffirming our full-year outlook. In Q1, we delivered organic sales growth of 4.5%, with a healthy split between volume growth of 2.9% and price growth of 1.6%. India and Portugal were not in the perimeter and paid royalties for the use of the TMICC brands. It was recognized in revenue, OSG and OPG. Excluding these royalties in Q1, 2026, the underlying sales growth was 4.7% with underlying price growth of 1.8%. Our revenue came in at nearly 1.8 billion, down 1.2% versus Q1, 2025. The decline was entirely driven by foreign exchange. The strengthening of the euro created a translation headwinds of 5.5% in the quarter. I am especially pleased with the volume contribution. This represents the kind of quality growth we aim for and reflects the work that we have done on innovation and execution. We are seeing this working across the business. with every region contributing to our growth. In Europe and ANZ, we grew 4.6% organically, excluding royalties, with positive price contribution, excluding royalties, of 0.3%. Volumes were up 4.3%, helped by strong innovations. Germany and the UK delivered high single-digit growth, Italy is still a work in progress. We are improving our distribution and point of sale execution there, and I'm convinced we'll get it right. In the Americas, we delivered 2.6% organic sales growth. The US, our biggest market, delivered organic sales growth of 3.2%, with a positive volume growth of 1.8%, led by Yasso and Popsicle. which both delivered double-digit organic sales growth in the quarter. Ben & Jerry grew low single-digit as we launched new formats. I will come back to that. The work we have done over the last 18 months to build a truly competitive U.S. business is showing up in the numbers. Sales in Brazil declined in the quarter. We continued to execute our turnaround plan, focused on new innovations, more targeted promotional and pricing activities, and increased distribution. In AMEA, we delivered our strongest regional performance at 7.9% organic sales growth, with both volume and price contributing. Turkey and Pakistan delivered double-digit growth, while China had a strong seasonal opening, driven by innovation. including our pistachio and blue mint magnum stick, and new Cornetto flavors, such as sorbet amalfi lemon with light cheese. Doesn't it sound delicious? Our innovations are exciting and contributing to category growth. I'll come back to this to give more color through the lens of our brands. Our productivity program is on track for the full year. with good progress during the quarter. As I've said before, productivity is a core pillar of our strategy and gives us the fuel to reinvest behind our brands. All scheduled Q1 TSA exits were concluded on time and remain on course to finalize all remaining TSA exits by the end of 2027 as planned. I would also like to share a brief update on the separation process and the parameter of the business. When we announced our full year 25 results, we said we would be incorporating India and Portugal to the group in 26. We expected this to happen in H126, and I'm pleased we have already completed the acquisition of our India business on the 30th of March, and we also acquired the business in Portugal on April 1. These businesses will be reflected in our consolidated results from Q2 onwards. On input costs, we expect the increase in the cost of energy across the supply chain, including raw materials, energy, packaging, and freight, to be offset by tailwinds from commodities, our mitigating actions, our productivity program. Whilst we are mindful of the heightened uncertainty in the global environment, particularly in the Middle East and the associated knock-on facts to input costs, our regional direct exposure remains limited and we are taking mitigating actions. Our focus is on executing our growth strategy and productivity program and we are reaffirming our full year outlook. We expect organic sales growth for 26 to be between three to 5% and an adjusted EBITDA margin improvement of 40 to 60 bps on a comparable parameter basis with 2025. The reported improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to be between zero and 20 bps, primarily due to the impact of acquisition of the India business. As communicated earlier, we expect the improvements in the year to be weighted more in the second half of 26 due to the phasing of TSAs and the benefits of COCO pricing. Now, let me take a moment to share with you some more color about our brands, the innovations that are driving our growth. Magnum delivered mid-single-digit organic sales growth, supported by the launch of Magnum Pistachio and Peach across the EU and Turkey. We also continued the rollout of the Bumble format across Europe and the Cone. These are fantastic examples of what we mean by taking a premium brand into new formats to unlock occasions. Ben and Jerry was overall flat in Q1. Americas delivered low single-digit growth, while Europe and ANZ, lapping double-digit growth in Q1 last year, declined. I mentioned earlier the launch of new formats in the US and Europe. The new Ben and Jerry's sandwich and bar formats have been well received, and we expect momentum to build. And in the US, Ben and Jerry innovations are ranking in the top 10 SKUs, with four of the top 10 super premiums. a strong signal that the brand is continuing to resonate with consumers. Cornetto delivered low single-digit growth, supported by the launch of Pistachio Max in Europe and Turkey, and new flavors that supported a strong seasonal opening in China. The Ha brand delivered high single-digit growth, driven by Twisted Freeze, the Minecraft Stick, Volcanics, the five-layer chocolate ice cream stick, and Celerobulbons, rolling out across multiple European markets. Alongside the strong performance of grape ice balls in Southeast Asia. I also want to call out Yasso Pines specifically. Yasso is another great example of what we mean by format innovation that expands the category. moving from sticks to pints, unlocking new consumption locations and new shelf space. It's the kind of thinking we are applying systematically across the portfolio. For those of you based in the US, do look out for them. They're delicious. Before we go to Q&A, let me close with a few thoughts that I would like you to take away from our performance this quarter. the ice cream category continues to grow around the world. Consumer demand for our category is good, and we are well placed to capture this. Our growth this quarter has been broad-based, with a good balance of volume and price, and growth across all regions. On execution, the investments we have made in our frontline first model are delivering results. We are improving brand availability across our three channels, growing distribution points, and deploying more freezers in high-growth markets. As I shared in the previous slide, innovation is driving our performance, helping us to win with consumers. We are well set up for the summer season with better customer engagement, our outlets activating earlier, and innovation rollout. showing the frontline first model is working. We are on track with separation and pleased to have India and Portugal as part of the total group. And finally, we will remain operationally agile as we continue to watch the external environment carefully and we are taking mitigating actions. In summary, an encouraging start of the year built on sound execution as we prepare for the season ahead. We continue to execute on strategy, driving growth through innovation and availability, delivering our productivity program, and reinvesting behind our brands. With that, let me head back to Michel to take your questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Peter. As we move to questions, I would like to ask you to be mindful and ask your questions in relation to this trading update while limiting it to one question each so we can get around as many of you as possible. With that, I hand over to the operator for instructions on how to ask your questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Michel. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. For the benefit of all participants on today's call, please limit yourself to one question so that everyone is given the opportunity to ask questions. As a reminder, please press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Thank you. We are now going to proceed with our first question. The questions come from the line of David Roo from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question.

Good morning. Peter and Abhijit, well done on the update. I just had a question around commodity costs. I mean, you flagged a tailwind from commodity costs through the rest of the year, notably cocoa, but perhaps could you just talk a bit about how you're thinking about dairy and sugar inflation into the second half, and will this be a net? sort of headwind and tailwind. And can you just remind me how much of your dairy exposures to liquid milk versus milk powder? Thank you very much.

Hi, David. This is Abhiji. Good morning. Thanks for the question. So when we did our year-end call, you know, we were not fully covered or hedged for the year. You do that progressively. And I think the way the cocoa prices have developed give us a little bit of tailwind. Similarly, on dairy, a little bit of tailwind as well. So we have, and a little bit on palm oil as well. So overall, on all these three elements, we've got a little bit of tailwind compared to the place we started off the year. And that's helping, of course, to partially offset the headwinds that we get from the whole fuel situation with the crisis in the Middle East. Thank you.

We are now going to proceed with our next question. And the questions come from the line of Warren Ackerman from Barclays.

Yeah, good morning. Warren here at Barclays. Hard to only ask one question, but I'm going to give it a go. Can you maybe, Peter, kind of sort of dive into a couple of the kind of geographies in a bit more detail? I mean, Brazil and India have both been in turnaround mode. India obviously coming into perimeter. You know, how should we think about those two big ones in the balance of the year? And then maybe just related on North America, it just seems like things are picking up a little bit. Can you maybe kind of go into a little bit more detail about what you're seeing in terms of market trends, categories, et cetera, brands.

Thanks. Good morning, Warren. Let me start with the U.S. The ice cream market continues to grow with approximately 3% latest readings. That is driven by consumers moving out of bulk ice cream into handheld ice cream, better quality, higher price, or more healthy. And as we discussed before, GLP-1 strengthens this trend. So American market is solid. You know, we look at weekly shares, monthly shares, but when you look at the last couple of trend lines, our share is good in these markets, driven by some really successful innovation like the Bluey, like the Yasso Pies, which now are taking really serious share. So innovation and execution grows in the States on the back of a good market. Then when you look at India, last year, we basically changed everything in India. We moved from vegetable fat ice cream, which made us a frozen dessert, to dairy, ice cream. We're progressively changing the portfolio, doing a major step up of quality. We price corrected and brought us the portfolio in line with core snacking price points. We basically built a completely new team. And this is literally completely. And we changed our distribution approach. Unilever traditionally did not invest in cabinets. nor in distributors with cold stores. And we basically brought our classic Turkish distribution model to India, and we started to invest behind it. We now see volume picking up. And as I said before, India is the largest dairy market in the world. Within time, it will also be the last ice cream in the market in the world. and we will work very hard to take our fair share there. Covertibility is still not very good. We are investing behind the business, but especially need to make a supply chain intervention because historically we had one factory, and with our current growth rate, we need four factories, and we're working on, and when we do that and we get the growth and get the premium brands growing, Magnum is growing plus 50% at the moment, At a certain moment, profitability will come. That is two good stories. In Brazil, we changed all management because I believed we had an execution problem, and we did have an execution problem, but it's slightly more so. Our pricing is not correct. We're not in line with core snacking price points, and I need to do a portfolio adjustment. which will take time, just like it took time in India. Fundamentally, Brazil is a very good, fast-growing ice cream market.

Thank you.

We are now going to proceed with our next question. And the questions come from the line of Robert Janvolf from ABN Amru Udo BHF. Please answer your question.

Hi, good morning all. Thanks for taking my question. I thought that your eight memoir had a bit more horses thrown about trading than the solid growth that you reported this morning. Is it fair to assume that growth accelerated in March and related to this, did this momentum continue in April? Thank you.

It is the beginning of the year, and we stand firm with the guidance that we have given last year, the 3% to 5% growth, the 40% to 60% BIPs underlying margin improvement. And, you know, what is really pleasing, that operational rigor is improving in this business. That was the core problem, whether that was channel and customer execution or marketing and innovation execution, demand creation programs, and we also seem to have more grip on cost and productivity. So that is basically driving the results.

We are now going to proceed with our next question. And the questions come from the line of David Hayes from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Thank you. So my question is just on the Asia risk in terms of out-of-home behaviors changing and I guess in terms of energy uses, freezer usage. Some of these markets in Southeast Asia, they can't use air conditioning. So we're thinking is that a risk for using freezers in store outlets? So just wondering, A, is that a dynamic that you're seeing markets like the Philippines, Indonesia, and what the percentage of sales exposure would be to those kinds of markets, that kind of dynamic? Thank you.

Thank you, David. As you know, some Asian markets have subsidized energy markets like Indonesia. They don't have that in Philippines. I think we see a little bit the same as we saw during COVID. It hasn't happened yet, but it could happen. When consumers go under stress, they go less on trips. They don't take the car anymore, but stay around their houses, which tends to be a good thing for us because we have very fine maize distribution. You literally find us arm's length of desire in Asia. And maybe you can't afford to go to a restaurant anymore, but you can still afford to have a nice ice cream after your... So, in general, we don't see anything yet, but when people stay more around their houses, there tends to be a tailwind instead of working against us.

We are now going to proceed with our next question. And the questions come from the line of Celine Panutti from JP Morgan. Please answer your question.

Thank you. Good morning. So my question is on the growth and the balance of the year. So basically, you started a very strong Q1 with the growth at the top end of your 3% to 5% range. Obviously, we know there is a timing of Easter, which we've seen in other companies, like in other segments, like soft drinks and beer, for instance. Can you... Would you agree that – can you quantify to which extent that has helped? And then, obviously, we are mindful that it's a tough comp in the second quarter, so if you could give us a bit of color on that. And I presume the other one on Q2 is the impact on Middle East on Turkey, which is one of your big markets. Are you expecting a low incidence of tourism to have an impact? I know it's a broad market share you have there, so it's not just tourism. If you could give us a bit of an overview of your thinking around that big and profitable market. Thank you.

Okay, let me start with Turkey. Turkey had a very strong strat of the year. Approximately 5% of our sales goes to tourists, so it's not a big impact. But assume, because one of you guys wrote an article on tourism in Turkey, but assume that 20% of the tourists are down, that's 20% of 5%, not assuming that the cheap routes won't go to Turkish tourists. So this is, you know, this is not going to have a really big impact on the business. And when I go to Q1, you know, our most important festival this quarter is is actually Ramadan, because as we know, as part of our occasion-based growth model, we activate all these festivals. But a really good Ramadan this year, Indonesia, Pakistan. We had a good Chinese New Year, which is a large one as well. And Easter was a little bit earlier in April than last year, and that will have a marginal. impact on our Q1 sales. Just a little bit, not, you know, nothing meaningful.

Thank you. We are now going to proceed with the next question. And the questions come from from BNP Paribas. Please ask your question.

Hi, good morning. Just a point of clarification on the commodities. So you said compared with where you were at the start of the year, dairy and palm oil are now more of a tailwind. Yet when I look at any price index for dairy powders or palm oil, they've increased quite markedly. So if you could just elaborate why those are now more of a tailwind, but that's so much at odds with what's happened to market prices. Thank you.

Yeah, hi Jeff. So, we actually covered pretty early in the year and basically the prices that we covered for the full year are better than the prices that we had assumed. So, the assumptions that were there were slightly higher. So, that gives us to, in our model, a bit of a tailwind to partly offset the headwind that we talked about earlier.

We are now going to proceed with our next question.

And the questions come from the line of Antoine Prevost from Bank of America. Please answer the question.

Thank you. Hi, Peter, Abhijit, and Michel. My question is, Wanted to dive a bit more on the Europe and Australia. Very good foreign mix there. Could you unpack a bit the drivers here? Especially because it's significantly better than what I can see on the scanner data. So anything to flag here? And could you quantify, I mean, you said Easter is not big, but I guess it is some benefit into Europe. So any quantification of the impact for this year on Iran?

Thank you. What we set... when we presented ice cream for the first time last year, is that what the business really needs is operational rigor. And our operational rigor is improving. We were earlier with our innovation this year. They were ready in time. We were earlier with activation of outlets. We have better customer programs. And that's New York, because in Australia, we're obviously in core summer. And that is basically driving this extra little bit of growth. And, you know, that's why we're also confident to reaffirm our guidance for the year. The impact of Easter 10-day earlier in April, as I said to Celine, is really marginal, doesn't have a really big impact. Our business in Australia, we don't often discuss Australia, have been struggling for a number of years, but our Minto factory performance has really come back after many years of struggle, which helps. So we have supply, our innovation programs are good, and generally we have a good run in Australia with good shares. for the first time in many, many years. Very clear. Thank you.

We are now going to proceed with the next question. And the question comes from the line of Bing Ching. Lou from Rothschild & Co. Redburn. Please ask your question.

Hi, Peter, Asha, and Michelle. Thank you for taking my questions. I think in the Capital Market Day, you've outlined the target to grow the capital appraisal number by 2% per year over the next five years. Can you share the progress? Which regions or markets will see the most addition? And, of course, the appraisal number is not just about numbers. Can you also talk about what you're doing to enhance the appraisal deployment or maybe raise the return on investment on your existing appraisers, just getting ready ahead of the summer season? Thank you.

This is a very good question. When I talk about operational rigor, obviously the cabinet system is really important. It's not just buying the cabinets, but having the distributors, the IT systems, the replenishment, the maintenance in order. It's very operationally intense, and we make really good progress, and we can start outwards earlier.

You know, when I look at India, I believe in India we have placed 50,000 cabinets and activated them over a two-month period.

So we really developed a muscle to do this really well. And then when you have a portfolio that rotates with brands that are attractive at attractive price points, you relatively quickly get volume going through these assets. And then, as we have said before, in two, three years' time, that's your payback on a new cabinet. But it's all about operational rigor, and not perfect yet. You know, it's never perfect, I suppose, as a CEO, but we are getting better.

Thank you. We are now going to proceed with the next question. The question comes from the line of Carol Zute from Kepler Shiver. Please ask your question.

Yes, good morning. Good morning all. Thanks for taking the question. I have a question on the Americas. So in the US market, you do 2% volumes, even better on top line growth. But the Americas in total is down. Can you speak a bit about the other markets, for example, Mexico, Latin? And related to that, what can we expect around World Cup activation? Is that going to be potentially a trigger for the category as well? Thank you.

Goedemorgen, Karel. Yeah, World Cup activation. You know, these events are for us an opportunity to draw people to the cabinets and to the retailer shelves. And in different countries we have activations, whether that is special ice creams or promotions. And this one, just like America 250, is one of these occasions that you can make the category relevant. especially when lots of people come together in their houses. Ice cream is a fantastic way to celebrate. But going back to your first question, yeah, the United States had a very strong start of the year on the back of a strong ice cream market. Volume-wise, South America was weaker. Main culprit, Brazil, where we had declining volumes as we haven't got the core price positioning of the category right. And we're working on that, but it always takes time before you have relaunched most of your portfolio at different price points with different, you know, different executions. Thank you.

We are now going to proceed with our next question. And the questions come from the line of Sam Dubchir from Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question.

Good morning. Thank you. My question is kind of more around the mechanics of how you actually sell in your products in Q1. And I'm just thinking about this because, you know, in Q4, you brought back some stock from the freezer cabinets. And as we come into Q1, does that impact selling back in? Do you have any kind of retailer buy-in ahead of the weather getting better, so not just thinking about Easter, but do you have any material impacts there? Just trying to understand because, you know, we're not quite as familiar with the mechanics of how this business works yet. Thank you.

Good question, Sam. You know, we have in-home channels, grocery channel, and we have fabulous channel. In grocery, retailers have winter assortments and summer assortments. And our job is to get as large a possible share of the shelf and then make a share of promotion. And I think this year we were across the world very successful with our shelf programs and which will definitely have helped in Q1. Then when it comes to cabinets, yeah, cabinets get activated at the beginning of the seasons. Sometimes retailers don't have a lot of stock in their cabinets anymore. And then you load, you basically replenish these cabinets to be ready for when the sun is there. And you place new cabinets or you reallocate cabinets from poorer locations to better locations. And that is the sort of work that happens in Q1 and still also in Q2.

Maybe clarify, Sam, you mentioned about taking cabinets back in Q4. I just want to clarify that that was nothing out of the ordinary. In the Q4 call, Peter was just explaining that's how normal business works. We take cabinets back, refurbish them, and put them out in the trade. So there is no impact of taking stock back and then giving it back in the Q1 numbers.

Very clear. Thank you. We are now going to proceed.

We really run, and this is our deep, deep belief, we run the business on fundamentals and operational rigour. That is, in the complexity of an ice cream business, that's the only sensible thing to do.

We are now going to proceed with the next question, and the question is from Maxime Stranet from ING Bank. Please answer your question.

Hi. Good morning. I hope you can hear me this time. So one question on my end. We have talked a lot about innovation in this quarter. could you maybe elaborate on the contribution of those new products you have launched over the last 12 months on top-line growth and how the older portfolio has performed as well? That would be all for me. Thank you.

It's still early days to see what's going to be the big winner of our innovation. But we have, as presented also at the CMD, changed our innovation strategy. Historically, this business did a lot of flavor innovation, flavor rotation innovation. And although that's important to activate the brands, it doesn't tend to drive growth. When you really structurally want to drive growth, you need to make your brands relevant in different occasions. And moving from a Ben & Jerry pint to a Ben and Jerry sandwich is a really good example of that. It's very difficult to eat a Ben and Jerry pint when you're driving a car. The sandwich is made for on-the-go consumption. It's, by the way, also incredibly addictive and delicious. So our innovation is shifting to occasions and formats And I believe, next to the operational rigor in execution in sales, that will also help to drive category growth. And when you are the one who drives category growth, it tends also to be good for your shares.

We are now going to proceed with the next question.

And the questions come from the line of Vandray Kondria from UBS. Please ask your question.

Good morning, and thank you, Peter, Abhijit, and Michelle. One for me, please, on your margin guidance. Obviously, you've already spoken about your costs increasing as a result of the crisis in the Middle East, with one of the offsets being commodity tailwinds from cocoa, dairy, and palm oil. However, could we see your gross margins essentially expand less over the full year as a result of these, with SG&A being used more as a source of savings? And within that, would you still seek to grow your AMP this year versus last? Thank you.

Yeah, hi. Let me give you some color on that. As you know, the situation with the inflation of especially related to oil is quite fluid. So we work a number of scenarios to see what mitigating actions we trigger at what point of time. But let me give you three big buckets. So the first one is on revenue growth management where we look at our discounts, etc. So that we expect to recover about one-fourth of our headwinds through better and more rigorous revenue growth management. About a quarter of the headwinds will be mitigated through what I spoke about earlier, the tailwinds that we have on commodities compared to the start of the year. And the remaining half will come through certain acceleration of productivity measures that were in the pipeline, but we have quickly kind of underpinned them and made the investments necessary to get them. Now, regarding advertising and promotion, we continue to spend what we need to on advertising. We are not going to cut advertising to make the targets. Having said that, I think Peter mentioned in our Q4 call, we have shifted agencies. We are moving to much more digital content creation and some of those productivity measures will come. But in terms of working media and what is visible to our consumers, we will continue to invest what we need to and no cuts there. Thank you very much.

We are now going to proceed to the next question. And the questions come from the line of Tom Sykes from Deutsche Bank. Please ask your question.

Yeah, morning. Thank you. Just to follow up on this sell-in commentary that you've given, I mean, you've historically made 70% of your EBIT in H1. So just to clarify some of the things you said, Did you say you started a little bit earlier? So does that mean that there's a bit of extra sell-in, if you like, ahead of consumption rates? Is the actual cabinet square footage higher, and do you expect, therefore, the sell-in ahead of the season in the northern hemisphere to be higher? And given your cost commentary... Isn't that all largely H2? I mean, your costs must be covered and largely sort of sorted for H1. Maybe there's a bit of inflation. Doesn't that mean you will largely know your EBIT for H1, which is your highest semester?

Thank you, Tom. Yeah, we were, as we said in our last call, we were largely covered. for H1 with most of our costs, including energy, so you're right. So that bought us a little bit of time to do all the mitigating actions for H2. And last year, we had 380 bits cost inflation, which was, of course, quite a shock to the system. But we developed a real muscle to develop with cost shocks. So that was the the advantage of this unfortunate cocoa spike. So we built a muscle to deal with shocks. Then coming to cabinets, we have said at the Capital Markets Day that growing our cabinet fleet and distribution versus declining what happened in the Unilever days, actually give half a percent to a 1% of additional growth, and that is coming through. activation of the fleet always happens in Q1 and early Q2 yeah maybe we do it now with a little bit more discipline but that's not a big change but we're actually growing distribution whether that is shelf positions in grocery or whether that is out of home and you're right that's helping to drive growth in line with plan I have to say so also no surprises there

Thank you. We are now going to proceed with the next question. And the questions come from the line of Jeremy Kincaid from VLK. Please answer your question.

Hi, good morning. My question is on the Ben & Jerry's brand. Growth there slowed in the first quarter. You know, it was flat overall and declined in Europe and ANZ. So I'm just curious about how we should think about the trajectory for that brand for the rest of 26 and if you're seeing any impact from ongoing brand reputation concerns in certain markets.

Brand health of Ben & Jerry is really solid. You could even argue noise, more noise is good for the brand. Momentum of the brand, shares of the brands are very solid. Last year, we had 14% growth in Europe A and Z in the first quarter. It was very difficult to beat that. We have a different trading strategy for this year. But the real big news is that we take Ben and Jerry now very forcefully and rigorously out of the pines in other formats that unlock new occasions. I'm convinced Ben and Jerry will have a very good growth trajectory in 2026 on the back of innovation and, you know, strong demand creation programs.

Thanks. With no further questions showing, I will now hand over to Michel to close the call.

Yes, thank you, Maria. Thanks, everyone, for joining the call today. Much appreciated. Any follow-up questions, don't hesitate to reach out to us. And have a nice day.

Bye-bye. Bye.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.