Danone S.A.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Donon H1 2026 results webcast and conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Paul Evis, Investor Relations Director. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Paul speaking. Thank you for being with us this morning for Danone's H1 2026 results call. I'm here with our CEO, Antoine de Saint-Affrique, and our CFO, Juergen Esser, who will go through some prepared remarks before taking your questions. And before we start, I draw your attention to the disclaimer on slide 32 of the presentation related to forward-looking statements and the definition of financial indicators that we will refer to during the presentation. And with that, let me hand over to Antoine.

Thank you, Paul. Good morning, everyone, and a warm welcome to you all. Thank you for joining Juergen and me for H1 26 results presentation. As you will have seen in the headline of our press release this morning, we are pleased to share with you another set of solid, high-quality results. Let's start with slide three and our like-for-like sales growth in the second quarter. As you can see on the chart, we delivered strong growth in quarter two with like-for-like sales up plus 4.2% at group level. Juergen will come back to the details later, but this performance was broad-based across both categories and geographies. These strong results are delivered in what remains obviously a challenging and volatile external environment. It once again demonstrates the relevance of our health-focused portfolio and the strengths of our multi-engine growth model. It also reflects the hard work, the commitments, and the passion of the Danoneurs around the world. Their focus on serving consumers, driving execution excellence and continuously improving our business remains at the heart of our performance and I would really like to take this opportunity to thank them for their contribution. With this strong quality to performance, we close a solid first half once again delivering on our business model. Let's move now to slide four. Looking at the first half as a whole, we delivered like-for-like sales growth of plus 3.5%, despite a first quarter which was far from business as usual. Growth was well balanced in H1, with volume mix contributing plus 1.7%. Discipline execution across the organization and strong productivity gains drove a 12 basis point improvement in the recurring operating margin year on year, reaching 13.3%. Importantly, this was achieved while continuing to invest beyond our capabilities, beyond our brands, beyond our science and our innovations. Our solid operational performance and strong financial discipline also translated into recurring earnings per share of 1.92 euros, up 0.9% versus last year, while free cash flow generation reached 0.9 billion. The quality of our H1 performance further demonstrates the resilience of our business model and reflects our ability to capitalize on the favorable structural trends that continue to reshape the food industry. Moving to slide five. As I have said before, the food industry is at a tipping point, and health through food has never been more relevant. Danone is uniquely positioned at the intersection of attractive, health-focused categories, supported by powerful long-term demand trends. Around the world, consumers are placing greater emphasis on health, nutrition, and healthy and we continue to see strong demand across our winning platforms. Our science-based approach, combined with a relentless focus on product superiority and innovation, allows us to offer nutritional solutions that support people at every stage of life. Our science is now concretely translating into powerful innovation. In dairy, High-protein products remain a key growth driver across all regions, from North America to Europe, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific, growing double digits everywhere. Our more recent platforms, such as Skia and Kefir, are also gaining strong traction with consumers, growing double digits in Europe in H1. We continue to expand them both within and beyond Europe. In plant-based, ALPRO continues to deliver high single-digit growth in Europe in H1, with innovation remaining a key growth driver. Our high-protein and Greek-style plant-based yogurt ranges continue to perform very well, while we are progressively rolling out newer propositions, such as Meal to Go across Europe, following its successful launch in Germany. The product addresses growing demand for convenient and nutritious meal solutions. We also recently launched a new matcha coconut ready-to-drink offering, which has seen very positive consumer response so far. If you haven't tried, I only can encourage you to do so. Another area where we continue to see strong momentum in H1 across the region is medical nutrition. favorable demographic trends and increasing diagnosis rates continue to support both our adults and our pediatric businesses. This is reflected in the strong performance of our flagship brands, Nutrisson, Fortimel, and Neocate, which delivered a high single to double legit growth in H1. As these platforms continue to scale, They make an increasingly meaningful contribution to both the quality and the strength of our growth profile. Importantly, they also drive our exposure to attractive channels that continue to outgrow traditional retail. Across strategic channels such as away from home, hospitals, pharmacies, and home care, we continue to grow two to three times faster and Jean-Marc Schutter. While these structural growth drivers keep boosting our winning platforms, we remain equally focused on the areas where further progress is needed. In North America, we have previously discussed our dissatisfaction with the competitiveness of parts of our EDP portfolio. We saw some improvements in performance during Q2, which is encouraging. That said, We are still only at the beginning of the journey and we even focus on sequentially executing the initiatives that are needed to deliver a sustained improvement in performance over time. In our yogurt, as we have already shared, additional production lines are coming online throughout 26, enabling us to further strengthen our own shelf execution and better self-demand while progressively reactivating segments beyond high protein and obviously leveraging the breadth of our portfolio. Looking ahead, we have a comprehensive innovation roadmap planned across H2 26 and into 27. This includes reactivating Actelia by leveraging successful learnings from Japan on functional claims and from Europe on fiber-based innovation. while expanding our presence in formats and segments such as nourishing everyday Greek yogurts and tubs with oikos and therefore addressing the gaps in our portfolio. And there is more to come including additional initiatives aimed at leveraging the strong heritage and equity of the Danone brand and there you will have to stay tuned. In CRIMUS, We will continue to support the ongoing improvement of international rights through innovation and re-innovation in 27, including upgraded core recipes and new products designed to capture the fast-growing clean label trend. In plant-based, as part of our efforts to reposition our silt from a plant-based brand to a plant-powered nutritional complement to dairy, We have recently expanded our protein range with the launch of silk protein yogurt and silk protein shakes. As said, all of these initiatives will be allowed progressively to support a gradual improvement in our North America EDP performance over the coming quarters. In our EMEA, in the IMF category, We are now back to a normal situation in terms of presence on shelf. Our focus has now shifted from restoring supply to rebuilding trust in the category. Our sales teams are engaging closely with maternity hospitals and healthcare professionals, and we are giving parents greater visibility into how our products are made to enforce confidence in our brand, virtually opening our factories, showcasing our quality processes and highlighting the extensive testing behind our products. In quarter three, we will launch a new campaign to support these efforts and remind consumers of the quality nutrition and expertise that comes with our 50 years of early life nutrition research. Although the disruption affecting IMF market continued into quarter two, We expect the market to progressively normalize throughout the remainder of the year. Let's now move to slide six. Our business model is predicated on quality organic growth, and this remains our top priority. At the same time, as part of Renew Danone Chapter 2, we have also made clear our ambition to be more active on M&A. Our approach remains highly disciplined, and is guided by three clear filters. First, strong strategic fit, focusing on opportunities within our core categories or adjacencies. Second, strict financial discipline with value creation at the core and maintaining structurally double-digit ROIC as a key priority. And third, but equally important, execution capabilities, ensuring We have the capabilities and the teams required to successfully leverage acquisitions. The transactions signed during the first half are strong illustrations of this approach. They further enhance our health-focused portfolio and support our value creation ambition. As Juergen discussed in quarter one, the contemplated acquisition of you would extend our presence in the premium complete nutrition space. You is a well-established player in a nutritionally balanced meal with a sizable business in Europe and the U.S., positioned in a highly complementary segment to our portfolio. Beyond the category opportunity, they bring extensive capabilities in direct-to-consumer channels, digital marketing, and community engagement, while operating at the intersection of health and convenience. In parallel, we announced a new chapter for Argentinian dairy business. Together with our long-time partner ARCO, we are creating a joint venture that combines our portfolio to unlock the full potential of dairy markets in the region. While the transaction will technically deconsolidate our Argentinian dairy business, We expect the synergies generated by the joint venture to be EPS accretive over time. Finally, in June, we saw the acquisition of Maid Group, expanding our presence in the fast-growing, healthy nutrition space in Asia-Pacific. Maid brings a well-established portfolio of brand-spanning, high-protein, ready-to-drink products, gut-health yogurts, and coconut-based products aligned with our health-focused strategy. The transition would strengthen our presence across Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia. Together with the acquisition of the remaining stake of our Australian Fresh Day joint venture, it would double the size of our EDP business in APAC, adding more than 400 million euros of sales. MADE would be accretive to both operating margin and EPS from year one. We expect to close all these transactions in the second half of the year. So as you see, we keep moving at pace organically and inorganically. And with that, I'll hand over to Juergen. Juergen.