Glanbia Aktie

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Glanbia's Third Quarter 2026 Interim Management Statement Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I'd now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Liam Hennigan, Group Secretary and Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to the Glanbia Q3 2026 Interim Management Statement Call. During today's call, the directors may make forward-looking statements. These statements have been made by the directors in good faith based on the information available to them up to the time of their approval of the interim management statement. Due to the inherent uncertainties, including both economic and business risk factors underlying such forward-looking information, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. The directors undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made on today's call, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

I'm now handing the call over to Hugh McGuire, CEO of Glanbia Plc.

Thank you, Liam. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Glanbia Quarter 3 2026 Interim Management Statement Call and Presentation. On today's call, I will provide an overview of our performance for the first 9 months of the year. I'm joined by my colleague, Mark Garvey, who will cover the outlook. At the end of the presentation, we will be happy to take your questions.

Overall, the group had a strong performance as we continue to execute on our strategy, supported by structural trends across our markets with growing protein consumption and increasing focus on health and wellness. Year-to-date, our like-for-like revenue increased by 9.9% to $3.2 billion, with volume growth across all 3 segments. In Performance Nutrition, like-for-like revenue increased by 18% year-to-date as we continue to see strong consumer demand in the protein and energy categories, with Optimum Nutrition continuing to outperform the protein powder category and gain market share with like-for-like revenue growth of 25.8%. In Health & Nutrition, we saw continued momentum in priority end-use markets with like-for-like revenue growth of 9.8% year-to-date. And in Dairy Nutrition, we saw volume and pricing growth across Protein Solutions, somewhat offset by market pricing in cheese.

I'm delighted to have Wendy Chang Smith appointed as CFO designate ahead of succeeding Mark next year, and I look forward to a smooth transition. As a result of the strong performance across all 3 segments, we are today pleased to upgrade our full year adjusted earnings per share guidance to 22% to 24% constant currency growth. This will be driven by strong top line performance in Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition and continued earnings momentum in Dairy Nutrition, supported by our group-wide transformation program. Mark will provide a detailed update on changes to segmental guidance.

Performance Nutrition performed ahead of expectations during the third quarter with year-to-date like-for-like revenue increasing by 18%, driven by a 4.3% increase in volume and a 13.7% increase in pricing. The volume growth was driven by strong category and velocity growth, coupled with increased distribution, market share gains, innovation, some shipment timing in quarter 2 and a weaker comparative in the first half of the year. Volumes declined by 4.7% in quarter 3, primarily as a result of tougher comparable in the U.S. region due to new distribution gains in the prior year and margin dilutive promotional activity not repeated this year. Optimum Nutrition performed ahead of expectations with 0.8% volume growth in quarter 3 despite pricing greater than 20%.

Pricing growth was driven by pricing actions taken over the last 12 months with the most recent price increases implemented in quarter 3 in response to whey cost inflation. We have seen an initial softening in some high-end whey prices in the last couple of months, but remain at elevated levels in line with earlier this year. We continue to monitor the situation closely with our estimated whey needs substantially procured for half 1 2027. The visibility and insights that we build through our integrated model and procurement program is an important input into our pricing, revenue growth management model and margin planning. Following our recent price increases, we've seen some elasticity concentrated in specific channels and pack sizes, but underlying consumer demand remains resilient, supported by the higher income SKU of our shopper base and ON and Isopure brand strength.

We continue to monitor elasticity and remain disciplined in our approach, balancing the need to manage the cost environment with protecting consumer value and the long-term health of our brands. From a regional perspective, PN Americas, which represents 60% of revenue, increased year-to-date like-for-like revenue by 11.9% versus the prior year, with strong growth in Optimum Nutrition, somewhat offset by declines in other portfolio brands. PN International, which represents 40% of revenue, delivered like-for-like revenue growth of 28.3% in the year-to-date with strong growth in measured consumption across priority markets and continued momentum in both protein powders and creatine. Optimum Nutrition, which represents 79% of Performance Nutrition revenue, delivered like-for-like revenue growth of 25.8%, growing ahead of the category and gaining market share. We continue to focus on driving recruitment and conversion of new consumers, supported by innovation as we expand usage occasions.

We also continue to invest across our brands to drive market share growth, including a double-digit increase in marketing spend on Optimum Nutrition this year, and we are planning for a similar increase in investment next year. U.S. consumption increased by 22.9% in the 13 weeks to 3rd of October, with strong double-digit growth across core channels, growing ahead of the category. We saw continued growth in our household penetration and distribution. We're also seeing resilient consumption across measured international markets with strong double-digit growth. Isopure saw strong growth in online and food, drug mass channels, offset by declines in the club channel, primarily reflecting reduced distribution in the club channel. We will fully lap that impact by end of year. Isopure also saw good double-digit growth in household penetration and total distribution points.

As a result of the continued strong momentum in the third quarter, which we see continuing into the fourth quarter, we are pleased to upgrade our full year like-for-like revenue guidance to 16% to 17% constant currency growth. Health & Nutrition delivered a strong performance year-to-date, delivering like-for-like revenue growth of 9.8%. This was driven by 11.5% increase in volume and a 1.7% decrease in price. Total revenue increased by 12.8% as a result of a 3% increase from the acquisitions of Sweetmix and Scicore. We're pleased with the continued momentum across our end-use markets of Active Nutrition, Functional Beverages and vitamin and mineral supplements, supported by strong underlying category momentum in protein and broader health and wellness trends. As we noted previously, growth in the first half benefited from some incremental customer-led innovation activity. In quarter 3, growth returned to a more normalized level. Given the nature and timing of customer innovation programs, we can see some variability in growth from quarter-to-quarter, but the underlying momentum in the business remains strong.

Regionally, we saw strong growth, particularly in EMEA and Asia Pacific. Pricing was slightly negative as a result of certain volume rebates to customers throughout the year and due to tariff refunds to customers in the second quarter. The integration of our recent acquisitions of Sweetmix in Brazil and Scicore in India are on track and our capacity expansions in the U.S., Europe and China are progressing well with new capacity expected by early 2027. We remain ambitious to scale this business further through acquisition. We continue to see strong demand for our high-quality protein solutions and bioactives driven by global trends in Active Nutrition and everyday wellness, supported by our expertise in protein innovation, positioning us as a partner of choice for customers seeking premium science-led protein solutions.

Year-to-date, like-for-like revenue in Dairy Nutrition increased by 2.1%, driven by a 1.4% increase in volume and a 0.7% increase in price. The volume increase year-to-date was driven by Protein Solutions with strong whey protein demand, particularly targeting the high-protein healthy snacking category. We continue to see good demand for colostrum targeting gut health and immunity as we evolve our innovation and fractionation to deliver peptides that deliver immunity and other bioactive benefits to consumers. The volume decline in quarter 3 was primarily driven by customer-related timing effects for some commodity-linked products. Pricing is driven by double-digit pricing in Whey Protein Solutions, somewhat offset by declines in market pricing in cheese markets.

And with that, I will hand over to Mark.

Thanks, Hugh, and good morning to everyone on the call. The group has a strong balance sheet. At the end of the third quarter, net debt was $704 million. Capital expenditures, both strategic and business sustaining initiatives for the year are expected to be between $100 million and $110 million, with investments primarily related to capacity expansions within our Health & Nutrition segment as well as group-wide business integrations and digital investments to drive further efficiencies in operations.

In February, we announced authorization for a EUR 100 million share buyback program. This program was completed in 2 tranches, EUR 50 million by way of our regular share buyback program, which was executed from March through July and EUR 50 million in June through a directed share buyback with Tirlan, our large shareholder. In total, in 2026, the group repurchased and canceled approximately 4.9 million shares at an average price of EUR 20.49. Approximately EUR 102 million in dividends were also returned to shareholders this year, in line with our progressive dividend payout ratio of 30% to 40% of adjusted earnings per share.

Now let me turn to our fiscal '26 outlook. We are ambitious for growth, and we outlined our medium-term growth algorithm at our Capital Markets Day in November 2025. Given our position at the heart of Better Nutrition and the strong momentum we are seeing this year in the categories in which we operate, our expectations for 2026 are above our medium-term growth algorithm. Following the strong performance year-to-date, Performance Nutrition like-for-like revenue growth is now expected to be in the range of 16% to 17% for the year, which assumes some volume elasticity in Q4 following cumulative pricing actions. We expect Q4 volumes for Performance Nutrition and Optimum Nutrition to be broadly in line with Q3 volume rates with a tougher comparable in PN International in Q4.

The Q4 year-on-year pricing contribution will moderate somewhat from Q3 as we lap Q4 pricing from last year. We continue to manage our whey needs through layered forward procurement. And at this point, we have substantially procured our estimated whey needs for the first half of 2027. Based on procurement to date, we are seeing higher costs in the first half of '27 over 2026, reflecting continued strong demand. And consequently, we will consider the need for additional price increases as appropriate in early 2027, following further visibility on full year '27 whey costs. Performance Nutrition EBITDA margins are expected to be higher in the second half this year compared to the first half as a result of executed pricing actions. On the full year, we continue to expect some margin progression over the 13% EBITDA margin in 2025.

We are continuing to offset higher whey costs with pricing, revenue growth management initiatives and our group-wide transformation program while also ensuring continued investment behind our brands. Health & Nutrition delivered a strong performance in the first 9 months of the year with some benefit from timing of orders from certain customers in the first half of the year. Growth in Q3 was within our medium-term guidance range of 4% to 6%, and we continue to expect fiscal '26 like-for-like revenue growth in the range of 8% to 10%, with Q4 volume growth expected to be lower than Q3 growth as a result of the phasing of some orders from customers. Underlying end market growth remains in line with our medium-term growth algorithm.

We continue to expect Health & Nutrition EBITDA margins to be in a range of 17% to 19% with increased cost in the second half resulting from supply chain disruption resulting from the conflict in the Middle East. The strong performance in Dairy Nutrition in the first 9 months of the year was driven by pricing and volume growth in Protein Solutions, serving the high-protein ready-to-eat and healthy snacking categories. Following this strong performance year-to-date, we now expect Dairy Nutrition EBITDA will be in a range of $175 million to $180 million for the full year. We expect the group's share of profit after tax in the joint venture to marginally exceed $20 million for the full year.

Operating cash flow conversion is expected to be at least 85% for the year, in line with our medium-term target and net debt to EBITDA is expected to be approximately 1x at year-end. Therefore, as a result of the expected improved revenue performance in Performance Nutrition and continued strength in Dairy Nutrition and our joint venture, we are pleased to upgrade our expectations for 2026 adjusted earnings per share growth to a range of 22% to 24% at constant currency.

And with that, I will hand it back to the operator, and we will be happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions]

And our first question comes from the line of Patrick Higgins from Goodbody.

Three questions, if that's okay. Firstly, just for Mark. First, just to say congrats on the retirement announcement and all the best with the next chapter. But maybe just coming to PN pricing. a big step-up there, 25% growth in Q3, materially ahead of the mid-teens we had expected and a big step-up versus the 12% in Q2. Maybe you could just bridge the step-up in terms of the annualization and the phasing of price increases versus maybe lower promotional intensity and better mix.

Second question then maybe on the ON volume resilience, obviously, still positive despite the scale of the pricing taken and the really strong prior comp. Maybe you could just unpack what's driving that resilience between underlying category growth, share and distribution gains and then innovation, particularly around creatine, I guess? And then my final question is just around the competitive environment into Q4 and 2027 as whey costs ease, do you expect an increase in promotional activity as whey costs -- given the pullback in whey costs? Or how do you think the industry would prioritize, I guess, rebuilding margins versus driving volumes?

Patrick, thank you very much for that. I suppose the first question on Optimum Nutrition pricing. What I'd say, look, at a strategic level, it's a cumulative effect of 3 price increases over the last 12 months. So that's what drove the big pricing increase in quarter 3. And we will lap that first price increase. That first price increase was put in early quarter 4 last year. So we'll lap that in quarter 4 this year. I think pleasing is we've seen the business demonstrates very disciplined pricing execution. I've spoken about it before. We very considered and deliberate around how we approach pricing actions across the last 12 months as we make sure we continue to capture share and consumer demand. And I think as well, you said it yourself, good price realization in the quarter across our portfolio.

And from my perspective, I suppose the real positive is to see such strong price realization, complemented by that healthy consumption growth, which you're seeing globally. Optimum Nutrition, yes, look, I think we said it on our calls. We'll always be prudent as we look ahead as we look -- as we price increase as well and just carefully monitor consumer reaction. I think what we're continuing to see though is continued strong category demand globally, driven by the health and wellness and protein trends that we've spoken about before. We continue to capture share. I think that's driven by our marketing investments. And what will drive most of it really it is category growth and velocity as we take share rather than innovation. They are the 2 big drivers of consumption.

Creatine, yes, we called it out, continues to perform strongly. So pleased to see the performance across both our protein and creating categories. And lastly, the competitive environment, whey -- look, I suppose what I'd say on whey, fundamentally, whey price drop is good for the group. We're a far bigger buyer of high-end whey proteins than we are a manufacturer. So a reduction in whey ingredient prices overall is good. It clearly benefits our PN margin business. It might impact DN a little negatively, but majority of our protein business in DN now is in solutions. So it means it's more insulated. What we see is certainly from our perspective, while we've seen some pullback in pricing on one particular variant only, this is after a record spike in pricing in quarter 2, quarter 3. In fact, over 80% of a price increase in those couple of quarters.

So while it's now of its record highs, it's now only back to where it was earlier this year and still substantially ahead of last year and long-term averages. So from our perspective, we'll continue to watch carefully. Whey demand remains robust. We can see that across our integrated model. So in terms of price increases for next year, we keep it under review. We'll watch carefully as we go into early next year, but we will likely be pricing in half 1 next year on our protein brands.

And I would just add, Patty, thank you for your kind words. Appreciate it. And as Hugh says, I mean, if you think about the upgrade we just have here in Performance Nutrition, it's the ON resilience, as you said yourself, elasticity coming in a bit better than we anticipated and the execution of the pricing realization has come in a bit better than we expected as well. So all of that, of course, has led us to be comfortable upgrading the top line for DN.

We will now move to our next question from the line of Cathal Kenny from Davy.

My first question, Mark, just can you reconfirm your comments on volumes for ON for Q4, please? That's my first question. Second question looks like the Performance International was very strong. Perhaps you could isolate the performance of Optimum Nutrition International in Q3 and what were the drivers of that? I know in the prepared remarks, you mentioned innovation and distribution gains. But if you could elaborate further on that, that would be welcome. My final question then is on margin. I just looking at the context of a much stronger revenue performance -- Performance Nutrition, but you've held your margin commentary for the full year in terms of progression. Does that infer some reinvestment in marketing spend in the back half of '26? They are my 3 questions.

Cathal, so I'll take the first and third and then pass to Hugh for the second. So in terms of Optimum Nutrition, yes, just reconfirming my comments, I just wanted to give some view as to what we expect volumes to be in the fourth quarter for PN and for ON. So yes, we expect the Optimum Nutrition volume profile to be similar in the fourth quarter to what we saw in the third quarter, which, again, we're pleased to see. It will be more Americas than international. We are lapping some distribution gains in international in the fourth quarter last year. So it will be more of an Americas, I suppose, volume profile for ON in the fourth quarter. In terms of margins, yes, clearly, pricing does help.

But I think you might recall at the second -- at the half year, I did say that to the extent that elasticity came in a little bit better than we expected, we would be using some higher cost waste. That does feed in the formula as well. We continued our marketing investment. Our marketing investment this year actually will be around 6%, similar to where it was last year where across the top line has gone. That means there's a significant volume -- a nominal increase rather in the dollar spend there on marketing, which we're happy with as well.

So with that, I'll pass it to Hugh.

Just to speak to performance in international, yes, continued trends that we would highlight at the half year, good performance across all of our kind of Tier 1 marketplaces, whether that be China, India, Europe, U.K. So good strong performance. Remember, international is primarily Optimum Nutrition, although we have seen very strong performance for Isopure in India also. So continued strong consumption and double-digit consumption in a lot of those key markets, again, driven by the health and wellness trend that we've spoken about in the past. We'll see that come back a little bit in quarter 4, up against tougher comps in our international business, but overall trends remain very strong.

And our next question comes from the line of Ana Nogueira from Berenberg.

Congratulations on the Q3 results. I have one question on Performance Nutrition volumes in Q3, given that Optimum Nutrition volumes were positive, whilst the division overall declined. Could you give some color on what drove the volume declines of other brands and how price elasticity and competitive intensity has evolved during the quarter?

Ana, yes, no real change to competitive intensity. I think consumption remains very strong, driven primarily by Optimum Nutrition. The decline in other portfolio brands is, as we spoke about at half year results, and I highlighted in the call earlier, Isopure is the big driver of it, which is -- we're very happy with Isopure growth in food, drug, mass channels, double-digit consumption growth. But we had club channel business last year that we no longer have. We will comp that at the end of this year. So we would see Isopure back in growth in the U.S. in North America market from the start of 2027. And then think! our ready-to-eat high-protein bar, we're relaunching that. We've lost some distribution, but we have a major relaunch coming in quarter 2 this year. So again, that the driver of the decline in the overall number is driven primarily by Isopure and think!, but will be -- that should turn in 2027.

We will now move to our next question from the line of David Roux from Morgan Stanley.

Well done on the results. I've got 3 questions from my side. Firstly, on Performance Nutrition pricing. I think in the update in August, you mentioned you were looking to take an additional pricing in Q3 and then either late in '26 or early '27. Could you update us on whether these have or are playing out as you had expected? And then my last 2 questions relate to your comments around whey procurement. How much flexibility do you have in your overall whey procurement from your suppliers given the spot market is rolling over? Or should we consider your cost base through the first half of next year largely fixed?

And then my last question, sort of building on from this. Can you confirm if costs in '27 are still expected to be higher than '26? I note that you mentioned you're pulling forward some of the higher cost whey given the lower elasticities at the minute? And then also any quantification on how much higher you think costs will be next year versus the aggregate of '26?

David, maybe just talk to the whey point first. You asked, are we largely fixed? No, we've got flexibility in our whey procurement. We have a layered approach. Obviously, our integrated model across B2B and B2C gives us great visibility. We did see significant spikes in quarter 2 and quarter 3 on a single variant of whey that we won't have bought at the high end of that market, and we're buying right now at the lower end of the market. So that will start to flow through next year. So we have phasing in how we approach our procurement. And it wouldn't be as fixed maybe as you suggest we put flexibility around that as well. But we will see higher whey costs in early 2027 off the back of some of those prices we saw in quarter 2 and quarter 3. As I said, fundamentally, we continue to see those prices still remain substantially higher than they were earlier on in the year. And it's only one variant that we saw a drop on. We haven't seen a drop in other variants. And demand, as we see from our B2B Dairy Nutrition business is good.

In terms of pricing, what we said is we -- I think in my half year results, I said we'll be reviewing pricing and may have to consider a price increase at the end of '26, early '27. What I've also said is we've been very disciplined in how we approach our pricing. So watching ahead on input cost inflation, watching ahead on consumption, competitor reaction, market, et cetera. So we won't be -- we do believe we'll still have the price increase in 2027, but it's more likely in half 1, we won't be price increasing between now and the end of the year, but we'll continue to keep that under review.

Yes. And David, just in terms of quantifying, I mean, it's too early for me to quantify at this point. But as Hugh said, as we look at early next year, there is some higher whey than we would have for this year. But we are layering in our procurement. We've got great relationship with our suppliers. And as we look to next year, we'll update you in February in terms of how that will look.

Okay. That's very helpful. Just perhaps just a follow-up question on that. So yes, so it's quite clear you have a lot of flexibility on the phasing, et cetera. But when it comes to the actual contracts with your customers, if you locked into, say, a delivery in, say, April next year, do you have flexibility in renegotiating that lower just given the size of yourselves as customers?

Yes. I think you mean by suppliers. Yes, what I'd say today, but without getting into specifics on quarters or suppliers is we don't believe we're at any competitive disadvantage in terms of our whey procurement. And you can well imagine that the whey we're buying now will benefit in quarter 2. So we moved through whey supplies very quickly. So we're not at any competitive as discussed.

And our next question comes from the line of Karel Zoete from Kepler Cheuvreux.

I have 2 follow-up questions. The first one, I know it's early days, but we already mentioned 2027 a few times. Given the incremental pricing in H2 this year and further increase in '27, how should we think about your 5% to 7% medium-term growth outlook for PN in '27? And related to the medium-term ambitions for PN, the margin improvement of 250 basis points as shared last year at the CMD, is that still possible to achieve given the elevated level of whey prices we've seen?

And the second question is, please, if you can provide a bit more details with regards to what you're seeing in the U.S. with the design for value pack size program, et cetera. Where do you see more elasticities and where less? And yes, any help on that?

Karel, I won't give you 2027 guidance, but I presume it's clear that as you look at the lapping of price increase you're seeing this year, that's going to continue into next year. So probably not unexpected that we would be at least about above our 5% to 7% for next year because of the pricing lap alone, but we'll confirm all that, obviously, in February. From a margin perspective, we're still focused on getting that 250 basis point improvement through 2028. I said at the last call that we're -- obviously, it is taking a little longer because of the fact that freight costs have increased quite significantly. We are seeing some stabilization now, potentially some reduction in one element. We'll see how that plays out. But our pricing has been executed, I think, very, very well for us to continue to catch up on that. Importantly, for us, this transformation program of $70 million also kicks in fully next year, and that will obviously be a significant benefit for us in helping our margin and giving us some space also to increase investment behind our brands. So I'd expect to see further progression next year.

Yes, Karel, and from an elasticity perspective, you specifically mentioned the U.S. I think, first and foremost, I suppose we'll always look at consumption numbers. And our consumption numbers, when you look at U.S. consumption last 13 weeks at 23% -- 22.9% are very strong for ON. So same international markets as well, very strong double-digit consumption in all of the markets that we measure. So very happy with continued demand. And I think that's the fundamental demand remains strong. Yes, we have seen limited elasticity. We've seen some trading down from GBP 5 to GBP 2, but we've also seen some trading up from GBP 5 to GBP 10 in protein. So I think what I'd say is it's still too early to call. Demand remains robust. Quarter 4 started well, but it's again something we keep under review.

And our next question comes from the line of Alex Sloane from Barclays.

Firstly, I just wanted to echo sort of best wishes for Mark and good to see working capital clearly well managed in the quarter as usual. Two questions. Really, one was coming back to the whey procurement, I know there's been a lot of questions there. But your comment that you don't think you're at any kind of fundamental disadvantage. So just to kind of maybe dig in on that a little bit. So you basically don't see a risk that in H1 of next year, if you have to take pricing up again because whey costs are higher, that competition in aggregate has much different procured whey. So at that point could be cutting prices based on the falling spot rate. Is that the right sort of understanding there?

And then I guess, secondly, just on the WPC80 pullback, which I think probably has been more extreme than most were expecting over the last couple of months. What's your read on kind of what's driven that? Is that reformulation for that specific grade? Or is this kind of a signal that maybe we're sort of at the top as regards to kind of demand for protein, do you think? And do you think there's any -- I mean, what's the -- historically, what would you expect this pullback in WPC80 to kind of feed through into WPI to the same extent over time? Or do you think this time it's a bit different?

Thanks, Alex. Yes, I suppose the first thing maybe just starts with the overall markets and overall demand. Our integrated model across B2B and B2C gives us great early insights and read on the dairy and whey markets. And fundamentally, what we see right down to even dry whey and whey retentate, which is the raw material is very continued very strong demand for whey protein. I will hear that from my Dairy Nutrition business. When you think about the WPC80 pullback and like what we saw a quarter -- it was a spike in price. We went up 80% to 100% in H2 quarters. So what drove that? There's a degree of trading. There's a degree of emotion in this as well. Clearly, we had strong demand, but it's now off its record highs. It's back to where it was in quarter 1, which is still substantially ahead of what it was in prior year.

So whey pricing still is robust while certainly in one variant has come back, but it's come back off a record spike in price. What's driven that? I think probably a couple of -- 3 probably things. One, I think, yes, we probably have that variant of whey, we have seen some reformulation in some industries using cheaper variants of different proteins. But there's only so much of that you can do. I think the second thing, remember, a lot of the dairy plants have a variability. They can switch manufacturing across different variants. They can switch from 80 to 90 to the right way. So what we will have seen is given the high whey prices, the 80 prices, particularly, manufacturers switched into 80, they now switched back into 90.

So given those prices pull back. So there's a lot of complexity and moving bits and pieces in this. I think the -- your answer to the spot market, yes, so look, could somebody be -- could somebody discount based on the fact that they have had no inventory and bought off spot in quarter 3 and into quarter 4 for early next year, potentially. But most of our competitors are up scale. They'll have inventory just like we do. It will take time for it to flow through. And what we're seeing is, in reality, this is a kind of a quarter blip. And where I always go back to is the long-term fundamental demand on the whey across our entire portfolio and the long-term fundamental demand for protein remains strong.

[Operator Instructions]

Our next question comes from the line of Damian McNeela from Deutsche Bank.

A few for me, please. Firstly, just on the strong consumption. I was wondering whether, Hugh, you could provide some insight into the extent to which that's been supported by new consumers entering the category, whether you've got any data points you can share around that, please? Second one is just on marketing. I think you talked about strong double-digit increase in support for ON and you're at sort of 6% of revenues for the group this year. Can you sort of provide any insight into the sort of level of marketing support for the other brands within PN?

And then just one final one. You talked about the ambition to do more M&A in H&N. Can you just sort of provide us an update on the sort of the pipeline and the potential sort of outlook for sort of doing more deals in the sort of the next 12 months or so, please?

Yes, consumption, I suppose when I say again, just overall, very pleased with consumption in the U.S. and globally. We continue to see new consumers coming into the market. I think the way we would track that is household penetration, and we see strong growth in household penetration, double-digit growth in household penetration and about half to 2/3 of that will be driven by new consumers into the category. So that's the most pleasing thing. And I've called it out in terms of where we focus our brand spend as well that that's a key focus area for us is to make sure we drive awareness of our brand for those new consumers coming into the category that we recruit them into our brand. And a lot of our brand investment, our quality our heritage, our trust element, I've said it before, we're the most recommended, most reviewed brand out there in Optimum Nutrition. So that's a key focus for where we invest our money.

We have a double-digit increase in our marketing spend in Optimum Nutrition this year in terms of dollars. We will do the same again next year. Currently it's a brand. I think we were clear [indiscernible] we called out the 3 brands that are priority investment are our protein brands, Optimum Nutrition, Isopure and ON. So they're the brands that we continue to prioritize our brand spend around, and we will continue to do that for next year, think! Obviously, until we relaunch next year, we pull back on some of that marketing spend, but you'll see a big increase in support for our think! brand from quarter 2 on next year.

And lastly, just in terms of M&A pipeline, we are very active. I suppose our challenge as always is we have good financial discipline. So some of the valuations that are out there are a little bit frothy. So making sure that we have a very active pipeline, but making sure we acquire the right assets at the right price with the right return continues to be a key focus for us. But as we said in our capital markets, we are ambitious to scale Health & Nutrition more.

We have now reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I'd now like to turn the conference back to Mr. Hugh McGuire for his closing comments.

Thank you very much, operator. Yes, just to say thank you all for your questions and look forward to meeting with you over the next couple of weeks.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect your lines.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Glanbia Half Year 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I'd now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Liam Hennigan, Group Secretary and Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to the Glanbia 2026 half year results call. During today's call, the directors may make forward-looking statements. These statements have been made by the directors in good faith based on the information available to them up to the time of their approval of the Glanbia half year 2026 results announcement.

Due to inherent uncertainties, including both economic and business risk factors underlying such forward-looking information, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. The directors undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made on today's call, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

I'm now handing the call over to Hugh McGuire, CEO, Glanbia plc.

Thank you, Liam. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Glanbia half year 2026 results call and presentation. I'm joined on today's call by Mark Garvey. I will provide an overview of our performance for first half, and Mark will then cover the financials and outlook. At the end of our prepared remarks, we will be happy to take your questions.

Overall, we delivered a strong performance in the first half of the year with adjusted earnings per share of $0.8124, representing constant currency growth of 30% versus the prior year. This was driven by strong growth across all 3 of our operating segments with very good demand for our Better Nutrition brands and ingredients. The group delivered revenues of $2.1 billion, representing an increase of 7% on a constant currency basis.

In Performance Nutrition, we saw continued momentum across our protein portfolio with like-for-like revenue growth of 16.9%, driven primarily by our #1 sports nutrition brand, Optimum Nutrition, which delivered double-digit volumes and strong pricing growth. In Health & Nutrition, we also continue to see good momentum, driven by demand in our core end-use markets and saw like-for-like revenue growth of 12% in the period. In Dairy Nutrition, we also saw strong growth in protein solutions, translating to EBITDA of $92.3 million within DN, an increase of 28.2% in the prior year.

The group delivered pre-exceptional EBITDA of $275.4 million, representing an increase of 14.1% and EBITDA margins of 13.2%, representing an increase of 80 basis points, with margin expansion across Health & Nutrition and Dairy Nutrition, while margins in Performance Nutrition were broadly in line with the prior year as we continue to navigate record whey protein costs. We continue to progress our strategic agenda and have made good progress on our group-wide transformation program.

And as a result, we're increasing our target annual savings from $60 million to $70 million by 2027. We expect to deliver approximately 40% of savings by the end of this year. This improvement has been driven primarily through the implementation of our new global supply chain structure and our digital transformation. We continue to identify significant opportunity across the group to optimize our capacity across our blending footprint for both our B2B and B2C businesses and deliver above expected savings through operational efficiency, procurement effectiveness and supply planning.

Our digital transformation is progressing well with the implementation of our new IT operating model, laying the foundation for greater automation, AI-enabled support and enhanced service delivery. In addition, we have a focused set of AI deployments and agentic solutions working across innovation, planning and consumer and customer journey as we continue to expand AI usage.

We continued our strong track record of delivering returns to shareholders by raising the interim dividend by 10% and returning approximately EUR 100 million to shareholders via our share buyback programs. And as a result of the strong performance across all 3 segments, we are today pleased to upgrade our full year adjusted earnings per share guidance to 17% to 20% constant currency growth. Mark will provide a detailed update on changes to segmental guidance.

For Performance Nutrition, like-for-like revenue increased by 16.9%, driven by a 9.3% increase in volume and a 7.6% increase in price. The volume growth was driven by strong category and velocity growth, coupled with increased distribution innovation and some shipment timing in quarter 2 and lapping of a weaker comparative in the prior year.

We implemented double-digit price increases in quarter 2 globally, and we started to see some early signs of elasticity concentrated in specific channels and pack sizes. But due to underlying consumer demand, the higher-income SKU of our shopper and Optimum Nutrition's brand strength, consumption remains strong. In a recent survey we conducted in the U.S., Optimum Nutrition demonstrated the highest resilience to pricing out of all brands tested. We continue to monitor the situation closely, particularly as we implement further price increases in quarter 3 on our protein brands, which is supported by promotional efficiency, product mix and price pack architecture.

From a regional perspective, PN Americas, which represents 58% of revenue, grew like-for-like revenue by 9.2% versus last year due to strong growth in Optimum Nutrition, somewhat offset by declines in other portfolio brands. Our global brand footprint continues to be a key strength and our international business, which represents 42% of revenue, delivered like-for-like revenue growth of 29.6% with strong volume and pricing growth in the Optimum Nutrition brand across priority markets, particularly in the U.K., Oceania, China and India.

For Isopure, we continue to see double-digit U.S. consumption growth in online and FDM channels as we grow household penetration, and we continue to gain market share in the protein powder category, growing ahead of the category. This was somewhat offset by declines in the club channel. Isopure is our premium high-protein, low-carb brand grounded in purity. This brand allows us to target an incremental consumer from Optimum Nutrition with a consumer affluent and predominantly female that values high-quality and great tasting solutions that they can incorporate into their daily nutrition regime.

EBITDA in the first half of the year increased by 7.4% with an EBITDA margin of 12.6%, which is broadly in line with the prior year. While elevated whey input costs continue to create headwinds for margins during the period, we were able to partially offset this by a range of decisive actions, including revenue growth management initiatives, marketing spend effectiveness and our group-wide transformation program. We carefully manage our cost base to ensure we're efficient and adjust our marketing investment appropriately to ensure we prioritize spend on brand-building initiatives.

We also continue to look to broaden our product mix from whey protein to include other protein sources such as collagen, milk and plant protein, while also driving non-whey innovation, such as within our energy category, primarily driven by creating innovation and distribution gains globally. EBITDA margins are expected to increase in the second half of 2026 as the full impact of price increases flows through. Whey protein has remained elevated due to continued strong demand, and the group has contracted substantial supply through early quarter 2, 2027.

We have seen new supply of high-end whey come on stream as expected, which has been taken up by demand. We continue to engage with our suppliers for longer-term supply investments and supply continues to increase. And as we mentioned previously, we're also investing in our own WPI capacity within our joint venture, which will come on stream in early 2027.

In terms of brand performance, Optimum Nutrition, our largest brand at 79% of Performance Nutrition revenue, delivered like-for-like revenue growth of 25.2% with strong volume growth and increasing pricing growth following recent pricing actions. Optimum Nutrition U.S. consumption grew by 23.5% in the 13 weeks to the 4th of July 2026, with double-digit growth across FDMC and online channels growing ahead of the category and gaining market share.

The protein powder category is growing strongly, part of the general shift in consumers seeking health and wellness solutions with the value proposition resonating well with consumers. We also continue to see new consumers enter the category as they see powders as an attractive and clean source of protein, where Optimum Nutrition is the #1 driver of category growth across protein. I'm pleased to see ON deliver double-digit growth in household penetration and TDP in the U.S. with distribution gains across FDMC in particular.

We are also seeing strong consumption growth across international regions with double-digit measured sellout in our priority growth markets, and we continue to increase our retail distribution with distribution gains for Optimum Nutrition across major food drug mass retailers in the U.K. and Continental Europe, continued success in e-commerce channels across multiple markets and continued market share gains. We have a world-leading portfolio of high-quality products within the Optimum Nutrition brand, and we continue to focus on innovation, in particular by expanding our usage occasions.

And we've launched a number of products in the first half of the year across our protein and energy offerings, including expansion of our creatine range, clear whey, electrolyte hydration powder and additional small pack sizes addressing affordability through opening price points. We are particularly pleased with the performance of ON creatine, which is delivering very strong growth globally with continued expansion of flavored offerings, new pack sizes as well as launching Creatine Gummies and Creatine Stick Packs in the U.S. earlier this year.

We continue to invest behind Optimum Nutrition and our focus is on driving recruitment and conversion and broadening the brand's appeal through increased campaign reach and education. During the first half of the year, we launched our global Optimum Advantage campaign, which reinforces the brand's premium position and deep connection with elite athletes such as McLaren Formula 1 star, Lando Norris and U.S. women's NBA star, Cameron Brink. Early results from the campaign show ads rank in the top 2% of ads in the category, and we're seeing growth in both aided awareness and consideration across our top 4 markets.

In India, for example, we launched the Optimum Advantage of Champions through our partnership with the RCB cricket team with ON positioned as the team's official sports nutrition partner for the 2026 Premier League season. Our sports partnership in the U.S. is anchored in football, leveraging our long-standing partnership with [ iFlag ] and high-impact activations such as our successful activations of NFL standout, Cooper DeJean, which together strengthens Optimum Nutrition's credibility, cultural relevance and connection to the next generation of athletes.

This year, Optimum Nutrition celebrates its 40th anniversary, making 4 decades of trusted quality, innovation and category leadership in nutrition. As protein and energy consumption continues to become more mainstream, our continued investment in brand building, innovation and consumer engagement is helping us strengthen category leadership and capture the accelerating growth in Performance and Active Nutrition.

Turning to our Health & Nutrition segment, which comprises the premix solutions and flavor platforms and focuses on priority high-growth end-use markets such as Active Nutrition, functional beverages and vitamin mineral supplements. This segment delivered a very strong performance in the first half, delivering like-for-like revenue growth of 12%. This was driven by a 14.3% increase in volume and a 2.3% decrease in price. Total revenue increased by 15.6% as a result of a 3.6% increase from the acquisitions of Sweetmix and Scicore, which we completed in August 2025 and January 2026, respectively.

The integration of both acquisitions is on track. We're very pleased with the strong performance in the quarter, which was driven by good growth across our end-use markets supported by strong underlying category momentum in protein and broader health and wellness trends. A key driver of growth has been customer-led innovation, and we're collaborating closely with customers to support innovation pipeline with the co-development translating into incremental growth. We saw some benefit to revenues in quarter 2 pipeline fill as some of our customers expanded into new regions.

Regionally, we saw strong growth, particularly in EMEA and Asia Pacific. Pricing was negative 2.3%, primarily as a result of tariff refunds provided to customers in the second quarter. This was a onetime effect, and we expect pricing to revert to broadly neutral in the second half of the year.

Health & Nutrition EBITDA was $67.9 million, up 9.5% constant currency. EBITDA margins were 18.4%, a decrease of 110 basis points versus the prior year as a result of increased raw material costs, which are expected to persist into the second half of the year. Sweetmix and Scicore integrations are progressing well. We opened our new customer collaboration center in Montreal in the first half of the year, and our capacity expansions in the U.S., Europe and China are well underway and progressing well with new capacity expected by early 2027.

Dairy Nutrition combines our U.S. cheese and dairy proteins portfolios and is largely one integrated manufacturing footprint and is also the route to market for our joint venture supply of whey and cheese ingredients. This business provides a leadership position in dairy as a leading producer of whey protein isolate and American-style cheddar cheese in the U.S. We continue to see sustained demand for our high-quality whey and non-whey protein solutions, driven by global trends in Active Nutrition and everyday wellness.

Our differentiated capabilities in protein science and manufacturing, combined with a proven track record to deliver consistent quality, functionality and taste position us as a trusted partner for customers' growing demand for premium protein solutions. In the first half of the year, Dairy Nutrition delivered like-for-like revenue growth of 3.8%, driven by a 4.6% increase in volume and a 0.8% decrease in pricing. Our protein solutions business had double-digit volume and pricing growth, supported by favorable consumer trends and strong demand, particularly within the Active Nutrition end-use market of high-protein ready-to-eat and healthy snacking categories.

The overall pricing decline was due to negative cheese markets as cheese revenue represents approximately 2/3 of the revenue within Dairy Nutrition. We continue to optimize our product mix towards higher-value protein solutions, leveraging the group's manufacturing expertise, customer relationships and innovation capability and saw good growth in existing and new customer wins in the first half of 2026.

And with that, I will hand over to Mark to take you through the financials.

Thanks, Hugh, and good morning to everyone on the call. Group revenue for the half year was $2.1 billion, up 7% on a constant currency basis. On a like-for-like basis, reported revenues were up 10.7% with volumes up 8.2%, driven by a strong performance across all 3 segments. Price was up 2.5%, driven by strong pricing in Performance Nutrition, somewhat offset by negative pricing in Health & Nutrition and Dairy Nutrition.

The acquisitions of Sweetmix and Scicore added 0.6% to revenue growth, while the disposals of noncore brands reduced group revenues by 4.3%. Group EBITDA pre-exceptional charges in the first half was $275.4 million, up 14.1% constant currency, driven by strong EBITDA growth across all 3 segments. Dairy Nutrition EBITDA growth was particularly strong, up 28.2% in the half, driven by protein solutions growth. Performance Nutrition EBITDA was up 7.4% and Health & Nutrition EBITDA was up 9.5%.

Group EBITDA margin was 13.2% compared to 12.5% in the prior year, primarily due to stronger EBITDA margins in Dairy Nutrition. Adjusted earnings per share for the half year was $0.8124, an increase of 30% on the prior year as a result of strong segment EBITDA growth, higher joint venture profit after tax and some accretion resulting from share buyback activity. Operating cash flow conversion for the 12 months ending July 4 was 95.1% with operating cash flow of $507 million generated during the trailing 12-month period.

The group had net debt of approximately $731 million at the end of the half and has $1.35 billion in committed debt facilities with a weighted average maturity of 2.2 years with no facility due for renewal prior to late 2027. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 1.4x, marginally higher than prior year. At year-end, following another year of strong operating cash conversion, we expect net debt to EBITDA will be approximately 1x, subject to M&A activity.

Investment in capital expenditure for the first half was $50 million, of which $32 million was invested in strategic capital projects with investments in ongoing capacity enhancements, business integrations and IT investments to drive further efficiencies. For the full year, capital expenditure, both strategic and sustaining is expected to be between $100 million and $110 million, which will include spend related to the expansion of our Health & Nutrition facilities in the U.S., Asia and Europe, as Hugh has mentioned.

We continue to focus on a consistent approach to shareholder returns, and the Board have approved a 10% increase in the group's interim dividend from EUR 0.172 to EUR 0.1892. We are committed to a progressive annual dividend with a targeted payout ratio range of 30% to 40% of adjusted earnings per share. In February, we announced authorization for a EUR 100 million share buyback program. This program was completed in 2 EUR 50 million tranches. The first EUR 50 million by way of our regular share buyback program, which completed in July and the second EUR 50 million in June through a directed share buyback of Tirlan, our largest shareholder.

In total, the group repurchased and canceled approximately 4.9 million shares at an average price of EUR 20.49. And this completes our share buyback program for this year. As Hugh mentioned, we've upgraded our savings target for our group-wide transformation program from $60 million to $70 million of annual savings by 2027.

The upgraded savings are primarily as a result of initiatives in our global supply chain related to optimization of blending capacity and procurement effectiveness. We expect 40% of the savings from this transformation program to be achieved by the end of this year and at least 50% of the savings will be reinvested to drive future growth. We expect total charges related to this program will be approximately $110 million, previously $100 million. And to date, we have incurred approximately $85 million of those charges.

The group incurred exceptional items net of tax of $21.6 million in the first half of the year. It's primarily related to the group-wide transformation program. In addition, there was a remeasurement of contingent consideration as a result of the strong performance of the Sweetmix business post acquisition. The joint venture performance increased by $9.3 million versus prior year, primarily related to improved dairy market dynamics and some benefit from the Federal Milk Marketing Order change in the U.S. in June last year.

Net finance costs were $15.9 million, up approximately $2.3 million compared to prior year, primarily due to higher average net debt. For the first half of the year, the effective tax rate was 15%, in line with the prior year. For the full year, we expect the effective tax rate to be between 14% and 16%.

Now I will walk through the components of our updated guidance for the full year. We are ambitious for growth, and we outlined our medium-term growth algorithm through 2028 at our Capital Markets Day last November. Given the strength we are currently seeing in the categories in which we operate, expectations for 2026 are now above our medium-term guidance algorithm. Following the strong performance in half 1, Performance Nutrition like-for-like revenue growth is now expected to be in the range of 12% to 14% for the year, which assumes some volume elasticity in the second half following Q2 and Q3 pricing actions.

The revenue growth of Performance Nutrition during the first half of the year was strong due to our category leadership, accelerating consumer demand, increased distribution and innovation and the lapping of a weaker comparative. There was also a benefit from some shipments and promotional timing. Pricing sequentially increased resulting from the Q4 2025 and Q2 2026 pricing implementations.

Although volumes in the first half have remained resilient following these recently introduced price increases, we are now seeing initial signs of limited elasticity in some markets, which we are monitoring closely. We are executing further price increases in Q3 given continued whey inflation. And while we are confident that underlying consumer demand will continue and the Optimum Nutrition brand have performed well, we are pragmatic and expecting some volume elasticity as the second half progresses as consumers adapt to higher prices on shelf.

As a result, half 2 revenue growth is expected to be pricing-led with assumed elasticity impacting volumes, coupled with a tougher comparable due to the lapping of some distribution gains in Q3 of last year. We continue to manage whey costs through forward procurement. And at this point, we have procured all of our whey needs for 2026 and our anticipated needs to early Q2 2027.

Based on procurement to date, we are seeing higher costs in 2027 over 2026. And consequently, we expect to increase prices further in late '26 or early '27. We expect Performance Nutrition EBITDA margins will be higher in the second half compared to the first half as a result of executed pricing actions. And for the full year, we expect some margin progression over the 2025 13% EBITDA margin. We continue to offset higher whey costs with revenue growth management initiatives, marketing spend effectiveness, transformation program as well as the benefit from the sale of noncore brands last year.

Should volume trends in half 2 prove to be significantly better than our current expectations, this would utilize additional higher cost whey to meet demand and as a result, have some short-term impact on EBITDA margins until future pricing actions take full effect. Health & Nutrition delivered a strong performance in the first half of the year with some benefit from timing of orders from certain customers in the second quarter. As a result of the strong first half performance, we now expect like-for-like revenue growth of 8% to 10% for the full year, volume-led.

Growth is expected to be good across both premix and flavor solutions businesses as we are seeing strong category momentum in our end markets. Half 1 benefited from some pipeline fill by certain customers as they expanded into new regions, and we, therefore, expect half 2 revenue to moderate to more normalized levels, albeit still at the upper end of our medium-term guidance range.

We continue to expect Health & Nutrition EBITDA margins to be in the range of 17% to 19% with increased costs in the second half resulting from supply chain disruption ongoing from the conflict in the Middle East. The strong performance in Dairy Nutrition in the first half of the year was driven by pricing and volume growth in protein solutions, serving the high-protein ready-to-eat and healthy snacking categories. Following a strong first half, we now expect Dairy Nutrition EBITDA to be in a range of $170 million to $180 million for the full year.

We also expect profitability growth in the joint venture and now expect profit after tax to be approximately $20 million for the full year. Operating cash flow conversion is expected to exceed our 85% target for the year.

Therefore, as a result of the strong top line performance in Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition and continued strength in Dairy Nutrition EBITDA and joint venture profit after tax, we are pleased to upgrade our expectations for 2026 adjusted earnings per share growth to a range of 17% to 20% in constant currency.

And with that, I will hand it back to Hugh.

Thank you, Mark. Just to close, today's results reinforce our confidence in Glanbia's growth opportunity. Our purpose is delivering better nutrition, and we're operating in exciting high-growth categories supported by powerful consumer trends. As we outlined at our Capital Markets Day, we have a focused strategy for the next stage of growth. We've made strong progress in the first half of 2026. We strengthened our business through our transformation program and sharpened our focus on our key growth engines of Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition. We are pleased to upgrade our guidance today, reflecting the momentum across all 3 segments and the continued strong consumer demand for our Better Nutrition brands and ingredients.

And with that, I would like to hand it over to the operator for questions.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take our first question from the line of Patrick Higgins from Goodbody.

A couple of questions for me on Performance Nutrition, if that's okay. Firstly, just on the Q2 print, I guess, incredible kind of volume momentum in the quarter despite the price increases you took. I know you've mentioned some elasticities have crept in already, but maybe you could just kind of elaborate on where you're seeing those elasticities? And in terms of the consumer reaction to the price increases, have you seen any shifts in kind of buying patterns during the quarter or so far in Q3?

And then my second question is just around, I guess, the moving parts of Optimum Nutrition growth during H1 and Q2. Maybe you could just unpick how much that's driven by category growth versus distribution gains. You mentioned increased shipments. Maybe you can just give a little bit more color there. And I guess, how much are you benefiting from some of your competitors, I guess, not being able to source supplies as consistently as you guys can?

So maybe I'll start with the first question in terms of -- look, very happy with, obviously, quarter 2 and half 1 performance, very strong growth. I think what we're seeing generally, I would say, very strong category growth. We're clearly benefiting from the positive trends generally in health and wellness, whether that be just interest in protein, interest in additional fortification or interest in energy. So definitely a positive category trend that we're benefiting from.

When I look at elasticity, no, look, we've seen some limited elasticity to date. It's kind of in certain markets and certain channels and certain SKUs. Some will be where competitors haven't quite moved yet in some of the pricing. But certainly, in half 1, as you can see from our numbers, we've seen continued very strong consumer demand. And we continue to see that demand as well as we look out into half 2. I suppose what we're just being very pragmatic on is the cumulative effect of pricing post price increase late last year, price increase in quarter 2 and additional price increase in quarter 3.

So that's obviously been prudent as we look ahead. In terms of ON growth, look very happy. I'd say, what I'd say is a lot of it will be velocity. As I said, we're clearly benefiting from general category growth in all markets, not just in the U.S., in all of our international markets as well. But also, I think we're showing clear category leadership as well in terms of our investment behind the brand.

The -- our marketing now is more effective, better creative, better -- more efficient, better consumer targeting. I think the cautiousness we've taken or the pragmatic approach to pricing strategy in RGM, we've been very thoughtful on opening price points, making sure we give value to the consumer, whether that be a single-serve a 10-serve or an 80-serve product offering. So we certainly see the benefit of that in terms of bringing in new consumers to our brand franchise, new consumers into the category. So that's a clear benefit.

And lastly, in the digital world, we're benefiting from -- it's always been a key focus for us. We are the most viewed, most awarded, most recommended brand. And as the world increasingly moves digital and AI and search, we're benefiting from that. We do regular audits and we continue to see Optimum Nutrition as #1 recommended brand and that's a key focus for us.

So between -- if I just sum it all up, we're seeing very good category growth in health and wellness demand, and then we're seeing very good performance from our protein brands, Optimum Nutrition and Isopure, but particularly driven by Optimum Nutrition. In terms of shipments, very small. Look, that's primarily Middle East as we navigate conflict in the Middle East, where obviously, our inventory levels are higher there, getting products into our markets there takes a bit longer. And there was a little bit of quarter 3 into quarter 2 with Amazon Prime as well.

And lastly, look, you have the competitor question you asked, not really. We're competing against scale players now. I don't think supply is necessarily an issue there, maybe for some of our smaller suppliers. We've certainly seen that within our Dairy Nutrition business. Worth remembering that within the protein category, we're not only competing against dairy proteins, we're competing against a broader protein category, which include plant protein, collagen proteins, et cetera. So very pleasing to see our brand do well across the broader protein category.

We will now take our next question from the line of David Roux from Morgan Stanley.

Congratulations on a very strong set of results. Just got 3 questions. Firstly, on reformulation, which you mentioned. How do you see reformulation to other sort of protein sources playing out across your portfolio? I mean, in particular, given your flagship product is way on the front. I'd be interested to know how you see that working across your offering? The second one is also on Performance Nutrition and notably the Healthy Lifestyle brands portfolio. Backing this out, this was still down quite a bit in the quarter, similar to last quarter. Maybe you can give us some color there.

And also, we note that RTE and RTD like-for-like was down for PN overall in the half. So any color there would be appreciated. And then just lastly, on the PN margin, is it still the ambition to target the 50 basis points that was mentioned at the beginning of the year in terms of margin expansion? Or when you're thinking about pricing, is it still really about maintaining margin or protecting absolute profits, just given this means top line tailwind from price?

David, thank you. I'll answer the first 2 questions, David, and Mark address the margin point on PN. Yes, when we talk about reformulation, it's primarily around new innovation in reality. Look, you said it rightly, Gold Standard Whey is a big brand for us. It's got whey in the brand name. We won't be changing that. We won't be changing the quality. We won't be changing the formulation. And we don't believe that there is any supply issue for that brand long term.

Formulation is really around ensuring that we give the consumer choice, whether that be in a broader mix of proteins or a different price point. So -- we have a number of innovations. We've already started that. We're launching products that contain clear protein and collagen. We're launching milk protein innovation as well. So it's just a broader push towards having a broader selection of protein availability within our brands. It's actually one of the drivers as well of our Dairy Nutrition business, where it's not just dairy protein. We provide proteins with great tasting, high-quality protein solutions that work functionally. And that's a mix also of whey, milk and plant protein solutions as well. So it's an increasing area of focus for the group, which has a protein powerhouse, just to ensure we have a broad base of protein solutions.

In terms of Healthy Lifestyle, yes, that's -- if I look at Healthy Lifestyle, we've spoken about Optimum Nutrition, Isopure, very happy performance in Isopure. We're lapping a very strong performance in Serious Mass. You can see that in our NIQ data. We're just lapping a club channel delisting, which was margin dilutive. We lapped that as we head into quarter 4. And then the other primary driver of that decline will be think!, which we've spoken about as well that just lost distribution from the tail end of last year. And we do innovation, a complete relaunch of the think! high-protein bar proposition at the end of this year, which we're excited about. So we should see that trend change as we go into 2027.

Yes. And David, on the margin point, we are still forecasting margin progression for this year, moderated a little bit from what I might have said earlier and primarily because we're seeing more volumes come through. So demand is very strong as you can see, and that's demand-driven. That's causing whey prices to increase, and we are seeing some extra whey costs coming through in the P&L. But we expect to have progression. You'll see stronger second half margin to the first half margin, pricing, which will lap basically into the second half, will more than offset the cost increases.

And also the transformation savings that we're seeing come through, they'll come through more in the second half as well. So it's just a level of progression. It's hard to fully predict right now, but we expect progression. And clearly, that's our goal as we sort of look to '28 to continue to see margin progression.

We will now take our next question. And the next question comes from Nicola Tang from BNP Paribas.

First, just around PN pricing. I wanted to clarify sort of your planned price increases from here. Is it right to still assume a double-digit price increase in Q3? I think I picked up from your commentary. And then Mark, I think you also mentioned potentially further pricing in late 2026 or early 2027. I was just checking if that was an incremental wave of pricing. And I suppose, how are you thinking about that? Or how will you assess the magnitude of that relative to elasticity? And what are you seeing competitors doing around pricing or planned pricing and promotional activity?

And then just maybe another one on the PN margins. I understand in terms of the whey cost headwinds and sort of how much you procured. But I was wondering why given the strong demand, you didn't see in H1 or you don't expect to see better operating leverage associated with that. And I heard you mention sort of marketing spend adjustments. What are your expectations in terms of spend for marketing this year?

Nicola, I might quickly answer the marketing question, and then I'll go to the first question on pricing and then Mark, you might answer the question on leverage margin. So look, marketing, what we said is we're more effective in terms of marketing spend, but still is -- we still continue to invest substantially behind the brand. So there's no pullback in marketing spend. It's just more focused, particularly given the growth in the category, it's really focused on recruitment of new consumers, driving brand awareness. I think that's a key focus, particularly for us internationally.

If I talk about pricing, look, you can imagine we are very considered and careful and lots of debate internally on ensuring we navigate as we call this high growth in terms of significant record protein price inflation. But we want very good category growth, and we want to make sure we maintain our category leadership. So lots of debate and discussion. You might remember, we price increased at the back end of last year as we came into 2026. Price increased in quarter 2, that's in market now. Price increased in recent quarter 2, that's implemented with customers. We'll start to see that hit shelf probably late August, early September.

It depends on how customers decide to put it through. And then depending on we watch elasticity carefully. As I said, it's been limited to date. I think category trends are very strong, and we'll watch that carefully, but we are planning for price increase in the back end of this year and early into 2027 as well. But that's also something we would keep under review as we watch raw material costs, as we watch elasticity and as we watch demand. In terms of competitors, look, everybody is moving in price. Given the scale of price increases, you're seeing all our competitors move.

What we will often see is we are first to move, so there may be a lag that will sometimes cause a little bit of elasticity. But as soon as the competitive set has moved on price, we tend to see that elasticity wane. So a key focus for the business, Nicola, and lots of debate as we navigate this record inflation carefully.

Yes. Nicola, on the margin point, we are seeing operating leverage. We have transformation savings coming through. And we obviously have pricing as well coming through. We've got some benefit from the sale of noncore brands. Currently, they're offsetting the COGS increase we see in the first half. You'll see those more than offset in the second half. We rolled that through into the second half.

And in terms of my comments around procurement for '27, yes, we would expect to see more price increases come through towards the end of this year as we look to margin progression for next year. I think overall, once we see stabilization of the whey dynamic with the pricing dynamic, we're going to see upside, obviously, in the margin progression that we would expect.

We will now take our next question from Setu Sharda from Barclays.

First of all, congratulations on good set of numbers. Just to get some more color lying on the pricing power of the categories. Like historically, whey inflation has been seen as a headwind for sports nutrition. And this cycle, however, demand has remained strong despite higher pricing. So has this changed your view on the structural resilience and the pricing power of the category?

My second question around the Dairy Nutrition dynamics versus Performance Nutrition, where like can you help us think about the group's earnings bridge? Like if the whey remains high, the Dairy Nutrition clearly benefits from the higher whey prices, but the PN margins face pressure. Net-net, is high whey still positive for group earnings? Or does it become more of a constraint over time?

And my third question is regarding the earnings upgrade. Like on the guidance upgrade, how much of the improvement should we think of as structural rather than any cyclicality into it? Like are we seeing a step-up in Glanbia's medium-term earnings power? Or is this part of simply the benefit of the current whey environment?

Setu, thank you for the questions. In your first question, which I'll answer and then Mark will answer the question on earnings. Yes, I think we are -- look, you can see it in the category growth. Certainly, the category, as I said earlier on in terms of demand for health and wellness, demand for protein, demand for energy, demand for fortification is very, very strong. So you're firstly seeing a general increase in health and wellness. GLP-1 is certainly a tailwind.

The inversion of the food pyramid in the U.S. is also a tailwind for us. So yes, I think you are -- I think growth rates we have in the category now are strong and are accelerating and I've certainly not seen any indication that they are -- that they will come off or decline. And that's across all formats as well.

It's not just the powder format that we substantially play in. We know ourselves that the consumer benefits to our brand and product are very strong. Consumers tell us it's around the quality, it's around the mixability, it's around the versatility of powder. So I think the usability and the affordability are really important to our consumers as is the taste. And I think then the Optimum Nutrition brand, as I said earlier on, is driving the category. It's around -- we're celebrating 40 years of the brand this year.

Our heritage, our quality, our taste and the most recommended brand plays to the strength of -- particularly for new consumers coming into the category. So we see that in pricing power. We've actually taken our third round of price increases. And yes, we are watching carefully for elasticity. I think there will be some elasticity this time with the cumulative effect, but demand remains very, very strong. I think what I'd just say before I hand over to Mark on your question on the earnings bridge, which I'm sure we won't get into too much detail.

But the business is unique to Glanbia, the strength of our portfolio. We're playing broadly across all 3 segments in health and wellness, which is a huge positive. We have trusted capable businesses. We are the biggest buyer of whey protein straight ingredients globally, and we work with all suppliers. And then we're one of the biggest in whey protein solutions to our Dairy Nutrition business. So certainly, there's a natural hedge across those 2 businesses, and it is a unique strength of our portfolio given the growth in health and wellness.

Yes. I would just add, Setu, that, look, we have 3 very strong businesses, as you have said. They stand on their own 2 feet in terms of how they're performing. They're doing very well in terms of the categories that they're selling into. Yes, there's certainly a benefit that Dairy Nutrition is seeing now with high protein markets. But Dairy Nutrition, since we set it up as a separate business, has been doing very well operationally in terms of how it's being managed as well. So I see a lot of strength coming through there in addition, frankly, to what we're seeing on the protein side.

And if you think about the algorithm that we have, we're obviously very confident in the algorithm that we pointed out last November. We're ahead of that this year. And I would say, given the categories that we are currently playing in momentum seems good to us as we head into next year as well.

We will now take our next question from Karel Zoete from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Yes. I have expected a question on pricing, but zooming out a bit, the whey prices have all been cyclical, supply comes on stream and prices go down. But the way you talk about it, it feels a bit that this time could be a bit different. Do you think that if you look back in 2, 3 years' time that this uptick in the whey cycle is really going to reshape your PN industry a bit?

And then the other thing is regarding marketing spend. I think there's no longer a 10% of sales target with regards to marketing investments. But can you share what you've been investing behind incrementally and how you've changed a bit how you invest? Because effective and more efficient marketing spend is a perpetual goal, I guess. So what have you done differently?

Maybe on the whey -- yes, look, if you look back, this is probably one of the things that changed for us in kind of '24 into '25. We've always had a traditional cycle in terms of whey demand. Increasing protein demand drives increasing supply. Prices go up when supply is short and as new supply comes on, pricing goes down. We've certainly seen a fundamental shift in that and all driven by demand. So demand is very strong. The additional supply that we forecast and that we work with suppliers to bring on stream across the broader protein market has come on stream, and that's all been soaked up by demand.

And we're certainly not seeing on either -- that's an advantage. We can see on both sides of the business, the demand, and we're not seeing either at the consumer or the customer level a lessening in demand for high-quality protein. Might that change with elasticity volumes come back, might that change as demand -- certainly, I think it's -- the demand generally for protein is very strong, and that looks like it's going to sustain. So as we look into next year, we're not -- we're certainly not planning for a decline in pricing for protein given the demand we're seeing.

If you look at marketing spend, primarily digital, Karel. We -- while we cut back in percentage terms, and that's as you can expect as we navigate very strong demand and ensure that we meet margin expectations as well, the spend still in dollar terms is substantial. And the primary investment there is consumer recruitment, but also then digital. That's where we've all -- I think the brand, Optimum Nutrition and Isopure doing particularly well in terms of investing in search, investing in engaging consumers online, and that's been a key strength of the business now for probably 15 years.

We will now take our next question from the line of Damian McNeela from Deutsche Bank.

A few for me, please. Just firstly, on the sort of sustained category demand. I was just wondering in your conversations with customers, particularly in the Performance Nutrition segment, whether you would expect to gain incremental distribution space within retailers over the coming years given the strength of the backdrop? And if you could give any color on how those conversations are going with retailers, please?

Second one is just following on from Karel's question around the sort of supply environment. I think historically, you've spoken to sort of incremental 10% to 15% of incremental WPI coming into the market. Can you sort of provide any update on whether that's still the right number, if there are any more sort of supply side investments adding to that? And just to confirm whether your own investment will be completely taken up by yourselves, i.e., it's not going to be sold to any third parties when that comes on stream in '27.

And then the final one is just on -- you've completed the buyback. I was just wondering -- you're obviously talking about retaining balance sheet flexibility for M&A. I was just wondering if you could give any sense of what that pipeline looks like and whether the focus is still on the H&N part of the business, please?

Thank you, Damian. There are 3 very quite varied questions. If I start with the first one in terms of -- like I think I've spoken on the category growth, which is very strong. Yes, I think without a doubt, we're seeing good distribution, particularly for ON, double-digit growth in TDPs, double-digit growth in distribution. Yes, we see it in Isopure as well if you exclude the [ jobs ] club channel. We do see customers expanding shelf space, both in terms of protein and creatine particularly. So we know that our brand and these categories are drivers of foot traffic in store and retailers know that as well. So you will be seeing increase in shelf space.

Locally, these categories and our products have become mainstream. Look, turning to supply. Yes, the 10% to 15% we spoke about is coming on stream. Demand soaked that up. In fact, it's probably more than that has come on stream over the last 12 to 18 months. There is more supply coming on stream next year. So demand is definitely is -- given the pricing we're seeing, all of our suppliers are looking to increase their capacity in high-end whey protein, and that's a positive.

If I look at our own supply, yes, that will either go to Performance Nutrition and in terms of supply in Optimum Nutrition or Isopure go to our protein solutions business. So it will remain within Glanbia. And lastly, just on M&A pipeline, yes, very active actually, very active and yes, primarily in Health & Nutrition.

We will now take our next question from Cathal Kenny from Davy. Cathal, can you unmute your line and ask your question, please? Cathal, your line is muted. Can you unmute and ask your question, please? As we are not getting a response, we'll move to the next question. And our next question comes from the line of Fatma Agnes Hamdani from ODDO BHF.

Yes. So I have 2 questions. Could you elaborate more on Isopure growth in H1 and how did the rest of the brand portfolio in the same period? And how are your expectations for all of them going forward? And the second question, could you provide some color on the raw material inflation seen in Health & Nutrition business during H1? What were the main drivers behind this inflation? And how do you expect it to evolve over '27? Should we expect more pricing to compensate next year?

I'll answer the Isopure question and Mark can answer the raw material question. So in terms of -- we're very happy with Isopure growth in half 1. As I said earlier in our briefing, the main double-digit good -- double -- very good double-digit growth in food drug mass convenience in the U.S. It's primarily -- Isopure is primarily a U.S. business for us. And the overall numbers have pulled back a little bit as we lap a club channel business, but strong growth in distribution in food drug mass, as I said, double-digit consumption, strong growth in household penetration as well. So very happy with that performance.

And we will lap that lost distribution in club as we head into quarter 4 and certainly into 2027. As I spoke about the rest of the portfolio, look, the biggest brand there is think! brand, that's suffering from lost distribution at the tail end of last year. We have a major new relaunch of think! coming at the back end of this year as we go into 2027. It is one of the top high protein bars, 20 grams of great quality protein in a bar. So it's a priority for us, and that will be relaunched at the back end of the year.

In terms of the cost increases we're seeing in Health & Nutrition, primarily coming through as a result of the Middle East conflict, which is causing some challenges in terms of petrochemical feedstocks feeding into manufacturing over in Asia, that's causing then some increases in costs that are coming through to us. We want to see that in the second half. We will look to offset as much of that as we can with our transformation savings, which obviously feed into Health & Nutrition business as well. But we still are very confident in our 17% to 19% margin overall for the business.

And for '27 next year, we see some...

Well for '27, again, we'll see how long this process continues. Obviously, if the conflict continues, we would expect to see higher costs, but then obviously, we'll look to pass those on in terms of pricing as well next year.

That's the end of the question-and-answer session. Thank you all very much for your questions. I'll now turn the conference back to Mr. Hugh McGuire for his closing comments.

Yes. So just to say thank you very much for all your questions. Delighted with half 1 performance and look forward to sharing more with you over the coming days as we catch up.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect your lines.

Good morning, and welcome to the Glanbia Q1 2026 Interim Management Statement Call. During today's call, the directors may make forward-looking statements. These statements have been made by the directors in good faith based on the information available to them up to the time of their approval of the interim management statement.

Due to the inherent uncertainties, including both economic and business risk factors underlying such forward-looking information, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Directors undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made on today's call, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

I'm now handing the call over to Hugh McGuire, CEO, Glanbia plc.

Thank you, Liam. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Glanbia quarter 1 2026 interim management statement call and presentation. On today's call, I will provide an overview of our performance for the first 3 months of the year, and I'm joined by my colleague, Mark Garvey, who will cover the financials and outlook. At the end of the presentation, we will be happy to take your questions.

Overall, year-to-date performance for the group was ahead of our expectations. Like-for-like group revenue increased by 7.2% with volume growth across all 3 segments. In Performance Nutrition, like-for-like revenue increased by 11.5% year-to-date. We continue to see strong consumer demand with accelerating consumption in the protein powder category, and Optimum Nutrition is growing ahead of category. In Health & Nutrition, we saw strong demand in priority end-use markets with volume growth of 12.5% year-to-date. And in Dairy Nutrition, we saw strong volume and pricing growth across Protein Solutions, somewhat of an offset in pricing from lower cheese markets.

We're making good progress on our group-wide transformation program to simplify our business and drive efficiencies across our new operating model. We are seeing significant benefits from our new supply chain initiatives as we consolidate key functions across the group, and also drive operational efficiency as we continue to expand our capabilities in automation.

We are on track to deliver approximately 40% of savings by the end of this year. We're also focused on shareholder returns by leveraging our strong cash flow. And in the year-to-date to 27th of April, we repurchased and canceled approximately 1.3 million Glanbia shares at a cost of EUR 22.2 million, which represents an average purchase price of EUR 17.14.

We continue to see strong demand for our Better Nutrition brands and ingredients despite global uncertainty with ongoing geopolitical and macroeconomic volatility. Whey costs remain elevated within our Performance Nutrition segment, and we have been taking decisive action over the last 18 months to mitigate this impact as much as possible. This includes a range of levers such as revenue growth management initiatives across pricing and promotional effectiveness, marketing spend effectiveness, management of SG&A costs, reformulation and new supply via our joint venture operations.

As a result of the strong performance year-to-date, notwithstanding the current geopolitical uncertainties, we now expect to be at the upper end of our adjusted EPS medium-term guidance range of 7% to 11% growth. This will be driven by strong top line performance in Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition, and an uplift in expected earnings from Dairy Nutrition.

Performance Nutrition delivered a better-than-expected performance during the period with like-for-like revenue increasing by 11.5%, driven by a 9.2% increase in volume and a 2.3% increase in pricing.

The volume growth was primarily driven by growth in Optimum Nutrition. Pricing growth was driven by price increases implemented in international markets in quarter 2 2025 and in U.S. markets last November, somewhat offset by promotional activity and tactical price reductions on products in the energy category. We implemented double-digit price increases globally from the beginning of April to offset continued whey inflation, and we'll look to implement further pricing through a combination of shelf price increases and price pack architecture later this year. While it is too early to assess elasticity impacts at this stage, we will continue to monitor consumer reaction carefully. But we are confident in the continued growth of our brands within an accelerating category.

From a regional perspective, Performance Nutrition Americas, which represents 57% of revenue, increased like-for-like revenue by 4% versus the prior year with growth in Optimum Nutrition and Isopure, somewhat offset by declines in other portfolio brands. Performance Nutrition International, which represents 43% of revenue, delivered like-for-like revenue growth of 23.4% in the quarter with an acceleration in measured consumption across priority regions and continued momentum in both protein powders and creatine. Optimum Nutrition, which represents 78% of Performance Nutrition revenue, delivered like-for-like revenue growth of 18.8% with the primary drivers being strong category growth, lapping of a weaker comparative, new distribution and innovation.

U.S. consumption increased by 13.3% with strong double-digit growth in the U.S. food, drug and mass channel, growing ahead of the category and continued strong growth in the online channel. Our household penetration and distribution both continue to grow double-digit.

We're also seeing an acceleration in measured consumption in international markets with strong double-digit growth. Isopure also saw a double-digit increase in household penetration, [ TVP ] and [ ABC ]. We have a world-leading portfolio of high-quality products within the Optimum Nutrition and Isopure brands, and we continue to focus on innovation and education.

We've launched a number of products this quarter such as ON Creatine Gummies, ON [indiscernible] ready-to-drink and Isopure Protein Stick Packs. We rolled out our new campaign this quarter, the Optimum Advantage, where the concept involves elite athletes revealing one thing they never want to share, the marginal gains that give them their edge. The launch features McLaren Formula 1 Star Lando Norris, Rugby International Dan Sheehan from Ireland and Marcus Smith from England and U.S. women's basketball star Cameron Brink. Optimum Nutrition was also announced as the official protein and creatine partner of the Mexico National Football team, supporting the team's athletes with Optimum Nutrition products and reinforcing our position around performance, recovery and training excellence.

Turning to our Health & Nutrition segment, which comprises the premix solutions and flavors platforms and focuses on priority high-growth end-use markets, such as Active Nutrition, Functional Beverages and Vitamin, Minerals and Supplements. This segment delivered strong performance year-to-date, delivering like-for-like revenue growth of 11.6%. This was driven by a 12.5% increase in volume and a 0.9% decrease in price. Total revenue increased by 14.8% as a result of 3.2% increase from the acquisitions of Sweetmix and Scicore. We are very pleased with this strong volume performance in the quarter, which was driven by good growth across our end-use markets, supported by strong underlying category momentum in protein and broader health and wellness trends. A key driver of growth has been customer-led innovation and we're working closely with our customers to support the innovation pipelines with the collaboration translating into incremental growth.

Regionally, we saw strong growth, particularly in EMEA and Asia Pacific. Pricing was slightly negative as a result of certain pass-through pricing of customers. The integration of our recent acquisitions of Sweetmix and Scicore are on track. We also continue to invest in new capabilities, and we're substantially expanding our spray drying capability and application center in the U.S., which will enable us to capture a larger opportunity in powder flavor applications.

We've also commenced work to more than double our Asian nutrition and premium capacity and are also expanding our capacity in Europe. Dairy Nutrition combines our U.S. cheese and dairy proteins portfolios and is largely one integrated manufacturing footprint with a high supply and operational interdependency, and is also the route to market for our joint venture supply of whey and cheese ingredients. This business provides a scale leadership position in dairy as a leading producer of whey protein isolates and American-style cheddar cheese in the U.S. We continue to see strong demand for our high-quality whey and non-whey protein solutions, driven by global trends in active nutrition and everyday wellness. Our expertise in protein chemistry and our unique assets, combined with our ability to deliver consistent functionality and nutritional density, positions us as a partner of choice for customers seeking premium science-led protein solutions.

Year-to-date, like-for-like revenue increased by 2%, driven by a 6.4% increase in volume, somewhat offset by a 4.4% decrease in price. The volume increase was seen across cheese and protein solutions with strong whey protein demand, particularly targeting the high-protein healthy snacking category, and we continue to see good demand for colostrum targeting gut health and immunity. Pricing in whey protein solutions increased double-digits, but this was offset by declines in cheese markets, which represents approximately 2/3 of the revenue within dairy nutrition.

And with that, I will hand over to Mark.

Thanks, Hugh, and good morning to everyone on the call. The group has a strong balance sheet. And at the end of the first quarter, net debt was $648 million. We have committed facilities of approximately $1.4 billion with an average maturity of 2.5 years.

The acquisition of Scicore in India closed in January for total consideration of approximately $16 million. Capital expenditure, both strategic and business sustaining initiatives for the year, is expected to be between $100 million and $110 million, with investments primarily related to capacity expansions within our Health & Nutrition segment as well as business integrations and IT investments to drive further efficiencies in operations. We are investing behind the strong growth potential of H&N with significant capacity expansion programs underway in the U.S., Europe and China. These programs are underpinned by strong customer demand and are expected to deliver attractive returns.

As announced in February, the Board has authorized EUR 100 million to be allocated to the group share buyback program this year. And at that time, the first EUR 50 million tranche was launched. Year-to-date to the 27th of April '26, we have repurchased approximately 1.3 million ordinary shares at an average purchase price of EUR 17.14 a share, totaling EUR 22.2 million. We continue to progress the first EUR 50 million buyback tranche and expect to complete the second EUR 50 million tranche later this year.

At today's Annual General Meeting, we expect shareholders to approve the 2025 final dividend of EUR 0.2567, which will be paid on May 1st to shareholders who are on the register on March 20th. In total, for fiscal '25, the group will have distributed approximately EUR 106 million of dividends, representing a payout ratio of 35.9% of 2025 adjusted EPS. Our target dividend payout ratio range is 30% to 40%.

Now let me turn to our fiscal 2026 outlook. We are ambitious for growth, and we have outlined our medium-term growth algorithm at our Capital Markets Day in November '25. Over the medium term, we remain confident in growing Performance Nutrition like-for-like revenue in the range of 5% to 7%. We are particularly pleased with the strong Optimum Nutrition volume performance in the first quarter, driven by category growth, distribution gains, lapping of a weaker comparison in the club channel and planned innovation.

Earlier this month, double-digit price increases were implemented on our protein products, which account for approximately 70% of the PN portfolio in response to rising input costs, and which follows high single-digit price increases late last year. Although we have not seen significant elasticity in the first quarter, we are closely monitoring the impact of these price increases on volumes in the coming months, and we are being prudent in our assumptions in this regard.

In addition, we are monitoring the impact of the geopolitical uncertainty in our revenues in the Middle East region. Although this region accounts for a low single digit percentage of PN revenues, there is disruption currently which we are working to mitigate. As a result, we are maintaining a disciplined and prudent outlook for the remainder of the year and now expect 2026 like-for-like revenues for PN to be at the upper end of our medium-term guidance range of 5% to 7% and growth is expected to be pricing led.

We continue to navigate elevated whey costs and we have now substantially procured our whey needs for the year, in line with our outlook. New global whey supply is starting to come on stream and we expect this to continue through 2026, albeit strong demand is continuing to take up the supply. We continue to expect EBITDA margin progression of approximately 50 basis points for the year as a result of price increases, the sale of noncore brands and transformation savings offsetting input cost inflation. Margin progression will be second half weighted, primarily as a result of the phasing of price increases and some timing of marketing investments.

Health & Nutrition delivered a strong performance year-to-date across premix solutions and flavours platforms with double-digit volume growth as a result of demand in our priority end-use markets. There is some lumpiness in customer offtake, which will balance out in the second quarter, but overall performance is ahead of expectations.

Following the strong performance of the first quarter, we now expect H&N like-for-like revenue growth to be at the upper end of our medium-term guidance range of 4% to 6% for the full year, which will be volume led. Health & Nutrition EBITDA margins are expected to be between 17% and 19% for the year. We are anticipating some increased ingredient costs in the second half of the year as a result of the current geopolitical volatility impacting supply chain costs, but we expect to manage this within our guided margin range.

Dairy Nutrition delivered a strong performance year-to-date on the back of double-digit volume and price growth in Protein Solutions, somewhat offset by lower cheese pricing. We expect the Protein Solutions business to remain strong this year with continued demand for high-end whey proteins. And as a result, we now expect 2026 EBITDA in Dairy Nutrition to be above our medium-term guidance and in a range of $160 million to $170 million. Operating cash flow conversion is expected to be over 85% for the year.

In summary, with strong growth evident across our 3 segments, we now expect to deliver adjusted earnings per share growth at the upper end of our medium-term guidance range of 7% to 11% constant currency. We remain appropriately prudent in our outlook, particularly as we implement significant pricing across our protein portfolio as we closely monitor geopolitical developments.

And with that, I will turn it back to Hugh.

Our purpose is better nutrition and we're ambitious for growth, as we outlined at our Capital Markets Day last November. We're operating in exciting high-growth categories with leading brands and ingredients driven by consumer megatrends. We have transformed our business, sharpened our focus to capture growth in our primary engines of Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition.

And finally, we believe we have the right people, the right capabilities and the right portfolio and balance sheet firepower to deliver on our growth algorithm and drive strong shareholder return.

And with that, I would like to hand it over to the operator for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question today comes from the line of Alex Sloane from Barclays.

Congrats on the strong print. A couple of questions for me, please. On Performance Nutrition, you've obviously taken the incremental double-digit pricing in April on the protein side. I appreciate early days. But can you give us some color on where this pricing is sort of leaving you versus key competition on key brands, and what elasticity assumptions you're now embedding in the upgraded PN organic sales growth guide? So how we should think about volume and price phasing through the balance of the year?

And then the second one, if you could give us a sense of how customer inventories were as you exited Q1 versus historical norms on the Performance Nutrition side? I guess the question really is, how confident are you that the Q1 Performance Nutrition volume delivery and strength wasn't flattered by prebuying ahead of those price increases?

Alex, thank you for your question. Maybe I'll start with the second one first. So in terms of customer inventory, no sign of any customer building, obviously -- customer inventory building, obviously, it's something we keep a close eye on as we move into price increase. So comfortable with inventory levels. And look, the question on pricing elasticity volumes and -- is obviously one that we're debating a lot and we just put through the double-digit price increase. We haven't seen any real impact on shelf yet. It's just started to move through. So it's very early. And demand in the categories remain very strong. So we're watching that, too. And the Optimum Nutrition brand, particularly continues to take share, so both in the U.S. and internationally.

So we're taking a prudent outlook to the end of the year and we'll have a better view for you at half year results in August. But for now, demand remains strong, double-digit price. So we'll be probably half 2 -- volume led half 1, obviously, after a strong quarter 1, continued momentum into quarter 2, probably more pricing led in half 2, but it's something we'll be keeping a close eye on. In terms of competition, yes, look, I said at our full year results, given the demand for protein, given the pricing, everyone is taking pricing. So we're comfortable with that as well.

Your next question today comes from the line of David Roux from Morgan Stanley.

Well done on a very good update. The first question I have is just on Isopure and the portfolio brands in PN. Can you perhaps give us a bit more color on Isopure and your other portfolio brands? I mean we've backed up that the PN portfolio ex Optimum Nutrition was down around sort of 14% in the quarter. Any color on how Isopure is developing relative to this number and also the portfolio brands would be appreciated. And then maybe just some color around what's driving the softness in your smaller brands?

And then the second one is on whey costs, Mark, at the last update, you mentioned your hedged whey cost position was up double-digit compared to last year and that you were procured through early fourth quarter. Any updates on this would be appreciated.

Look, if I speak to quarter 1, and it is only a quarter, clearly, Optimum Nutrition has broad-based growth across all channels and very happy with that. And also happy with Isopure growing double-digit in online and food, drug, mass channels, but we've seen lower velocities in the club channel, which is really around just tactical choices around SKUs that we had in that channel, so -- and we lapped that for a number of quarters this year. But overall, continue to see very positive trends on Isopure, both in terms of velocity in those channels, growth in distribution and growth in household penetration.

I think the next biggest one would be Pink really. We've seen some downturn in Pink as expected, due to lost listing and mass retailers in quarter 4 last year, but we have a lot of innovation plans and new investments around the brand in back end of this year, which we're looking forward to. So in reality, it's focused on the 2 biggest growth brands for us, which is continue to drive Optimum Nutrition and Isopure.

And Dave, on your question on whey, we are procured now towards the late fourth quarter, so we're substantially done for the year. I would still say a double-digit increase based on where the costs were last year. I think I said in February that WPI prices have somewhat stabilized. They've stayed stable over the last number of months, and we've seen no significant increases in the last few months. [ AC ] has gone up somewhat, but we're managing that within our overall margin guide. So we feel pretty good in terms of our procurement for the year.

And Mark, can I just follow up? So is it fair to conclude that whey is kind of within the range that's underpinning your guidance from the beginning of the year?

Yes, it's up a little bit from where it was in February, but it's still manageable in terms of our overall revenue guide in terms of pricing and revenue growth management, et cetera. So yes, it's fine for the year.

Your next question today comes from the line of Patrick Higgins from Goodbody.

Maybe just coming back to whey costs, and I know you -- Hugh, you mentioned and you're likely to take incremental price increases later in this year. Like how should we think about that? Is that to enable delivery on margins for this year? Or is it more with an eye to 2027 and I guess, your assumption of whey costs staying that bit elevated?

And my second question then is just around Health & Nutrition. Maybe you could try and help us unpack a little bit just in terms of the kind of key growth drivers between end market growth, your kind of increased share with customers? And then I guess, how much of the growth in Q1 was that lumpiness that you mentioned? And Mark, I guess what I'm trying to kind of back out is how sustainable the Q1 is? Or what's the right kind of sustainable underlying number to kind of pencil in for that H&N division for the full year?

Yes, I suppose in terms of whey cost and assumptions, it's probably a bit of both. Look, we'll be watching very carefully any potential elasticity post the most recent price increase. And we will be doing additional price increases later on in the year as part of the guide. But within that, with the level of price increase, what we do around price pack architecture, level of elasticity, that will all be worked out over the course of the summer. And so -- and we're seeing some good progress on new pack sizes as well, smaller pack sizes, which all helps. So it's a mix of pricing clearly, as well, given the growth in the category, we're looking at broader SG&A as well. So all of that is in place as we manage our way through a really strong demand cycle.

And if I talk to Health & Nutrition, very pleased with quarter 1, very, very strong. Look, what I would say is it's a smaller business. You're always going to have a little bit of lumpiness on a quarter-to-quarter basis here. In saying that, as we outlined at the capital markets, we are very focused on 3 end-use markets. We're clearly seeing the benefits in Active Nutrition as we see across the entire group, very good customer collaboration. It would have been a lot of innovation work for quarter 1 as well. So a little bit of pipeline maybe in quarter 1. But clearly, our long-term guidance is 4% to 6%. We've increased that to the top end -- to the upper end of guidance now. And we're seeing good momentum, but we're only 1 quarter into the year.

Your next question today comes from the line of Matthew Abraham from Berenberg.

Just first one relates to Health & Nutrition. Just wondering if you can give us a little bit more color in reference to those ingredient cost increases that you mentioned in the back half of the year? And if you can just also provide some color on the mitigation strategies that you highlighted in response to that development?

And then the second question is just in reference to the international price increases. Just wondering if you're drawing any parallels between demand resilience observed in the U.S. following those Q4 price actions and how you might see the international markets responding to the ongoing price investment you're making now?

Matthew, I'll take the question on the ingredients cost. Yes, look, we do get a lot of supply in our H&N business from Asia, and we are seeing some of our suppliers having some challenges right now in terms of manufacturing costs because of access to materials that are important, obviously, impacted by the geopolitical situation. And it's more of a back-end issue potentially for us. We're talking to our suppliers right now and we obviously have our procurement team working very hard on this as well, and we expect to be able to mitigate some of it. But it is potentially somewhat of a headwind in the H&N business towards the end of the year, but we are working to mitigate. Early to call exactly what it could be at this point, but I just want to flag it.

Matthew, just to talk about international. Firstly, to say, very happy with the performance. Clearly, this has been a key part of our strategy for many years now as we've invested behind our in-market teams, brands and then obviously, local supply chain as well, which allows us to be more reactive on the ground, and continue to see very strong category growth. Pricing is probably more dynamic in a lot of these international markets given tariffs, taxes, et cetera. So last year, when we had a broader price increase, we saw a little bit of elasticity, but that was only for about a quarter to 2 quarters and it wasn't significant.

And as we look forward, we think demand is so strong at the moment that it's again, similar to the U.S., it's just hard to call what that elasticity may well be. All of the market will have to move given where prices are at the moment. So you may not have significant elasticity. But it wouldn't be anything that we would be more concerned about, let's say, versus the U.S. market. I think it's something we'll keep a careful watch on.

Your next question comes from the line of Nichola Tang from BNP Paribas.

First, on the Middle East, you mentioned in your prepared remarks, it's a relatively small region, but there are potentially some disruption that you're working through. I was wondering if you could give a little bit more detail on what's going on there? And then a question on kind of wider implications from the Middle East conflict. I guess you touched on a little bit with respect to inputs being sourced from Asia for the H&N business. But I was wondering if you could give some commentary on the potential impacts at a group level? For example, is there any -- could there be any change in terms of, I don't know, packaging costs, energy costs?

Yes, and then the second one, maybe I'll ask about H&N and the ability or how the sort of pricing mechanism works in H&N? You talked about having potentially higher input costs in the second half of the year. How does the pricing work? And how quickly can you pass that through to your customers?

Nicola, just from the geopolitical situation, sort of a number of elements. Firstly, I would say, on energy, that's not an issue for us. We're covered pretty much for this year actually. So there's no significant cost issue for us, it's just energy across our various manufacturing footprints. From a revenue perspective, I did mention it in my remarks that we do sales in the Middle East as part of Performance Nutrition portfolio, they're low single digit percentage in terms of overall revenue. Significant, I would say, disruption in the first month, we're now beginning to get some product through. So it's beginning to alleviate somewhat, but it's a factor we're obviously managing and our team working hard to make sure we mitigate that.

And then the area that I just talked to on the previous caller is just on ingredients costs. You mentioned packaging, that's something we'll be monitoring as well as we get towards the end of the year. I mean we're fairly well covered actually over the next number of months in terms of product or inventories that we have. So again, as I said, it's more of a back-end situation for us. And I think we'll continue to monitor how long this goes on and we're working very closely with our suppliers. Our procurement team are sort of over in Asia as needed at time to focus on this as well.

And maybe just to talk, Nicola, pricing in H&N, look, it's obviously something we keep under review, and it's primarily H2 factor mitigate -- we'll have to mitigate. It will be H2 likely. It's hard to call out if it is H2 going into 2027. So we really keep that under review. Pricing will be a mix of annual and quarterly depending across the business, depending on the end-use market. But at this point in time, we feel comfortable that we can mitigate any of that risk within our current outlook. And clearly, then it really depends on what we're seeing as we move into 2027. But we'll be taking that in price if we need to.

We will now take the next question, and the question comes from the line of Damian McNeela from Deutsche.

A few for me, please. So on Performance Nutrition, can you just talk about the -- where you are in terms of marketing spend and expectations for the balance of the year? I think you indicated that you anticipated to spend slightly more this year than last year. And also, any indications from the sort of impact that the new Optimum Advantage campaign is having perhaps on your sort of social media engagement statistics?

And then a second one on Health & Nutrition. You've talked about the sort of increase in capacity. I was just wondering if you can give us an indication of the quantum of revenue that this capacity expansion might be adding to the business, and whether you're seeing other competitors add capacity at the same time?

Damian, maybe if I start with the second one first. Look, the revenue capacity is over a period of time, clearly it's a long-term build. We're doubling our capacity in Asia. We're increasing our capacity in Europe, and also in the U.S. So very pleased with that. It's a key part of our CapEx plan going forward. I wouldn't be able to translate that into revenue for you except that it will support our medium-term ambition in terms of top line growth. And I suppose it's a positive sign that we see the opportunity for growth that we're investing behind those facilities.

The second point in terms of competition, I don't know, is the honest answer. I wouldn't have a specific view nor comment on competitors and whether they're increasing capacity or not. In terms of marketing spend, look, our target is always high single digits. We would have been mid-single digit last year, we have increased spend this year. Clearly, given the category growth is so strong at the moment, we're making sure that our spend is effective. And the growth rates that we're seeing at the moment, are -- we will be, I say, prudent in terms of marketing investment, as you can well expect. Very happy with the Advantage campaign and good engagement and you can see that, I suppose, in our quarter 1 performance as well.

I will now hand the call back to Hugh for closing remarks.

Very good. Thank you, Sharon. Just to say thank you very much for all your questions and interest in our business, and we look forward to catching up with you over the next few months. Thank you.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Glanbia 2025 Full Year Results Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I will now hand over to Liam Hennigan, Group Secretary and Head of Investor Relations, to open the presentation. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to the Glanbia Full Year 2025 Results Call. During today's call, the directors may make forward-looking statements. These statements have been made by the directors in good faith based on the information available to them up to the time of their approval of the full year 2025 results. Due to the inherent uncertainties, including both economic and business risk factors underlying such forward-looking information, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. The directors undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking information made on today's call, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

I'm now handing the call over to Hugh McGuire, CEO of Glanbia plc.

Thank you, Liam. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Glanbia Full Year 2025 Results Call and Presentation. I'm joined on today's call by Mark Garvey. I will provide an overview of our performance for the year, and Mark will then cover the financials and outlook. At the end of the call, we will be happy to take your questions.

Overall, we delivered a robust performance in 2025 with like-for-like revenue and volume growth across all 3 segments, driven by strong consumer demand for our Better Nutrition brands and ingredients, with adjusted earnings per share of $1.3493. The group delivered pre-exceptional EBITDA of $499.1 million, representing a decrease of 9.4% and EBITDA margins of 12.6% in representing a decrease of 170 basis points on a constant currency basis. With margin expansion in Health & Nutrition, offset by our contraction in margin and performance attrition as a result of elevated whey input costs.

We continued our strong track record of delivering returns to shareholders by raising the interim dividend by 10% and returning approximately EUR 197 million to shareholders via our share buyback programs. The Board has authorized a further EUR 100 million share buyback program, and we will commence an initial EUR 50 million tranche of this program today.

As well as delivering a strong operational and financial performance, we continue to progress our strategic agenda and we made significant progress on our group-wide transformation program, with our new operating model implemented to simplify our business and bring greater focus on high-growth opportunities. We continue to make good progress on our portfolio with the sale of noncore brands completed during the year.

We also acquired Sweetmix, a Brazil-based nutritional premix and Ingredient Solutions business within our Health & Nutrition division and agreed to acquire Scicore, a manufacturing facility in India, which provides in-market manufacturing for both Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition with the acquisition completing post year-end.

We hosted our Capital Markets Day on the 19th of November in London, where we outlined the group's growth strategy for the next 3 years, focused on 5 key drivers and our financial ambition for the period 2026 to 2028 and our confidence in driving continued shareholder return. We are pleased with the positive response and interest from attendees and look forward to delivering on our medium-term ambitions.

For Performance Nutrition, like-for-like revenue increased by 4.5%, excluding the impact of noncore brands, which is driven by our 2 priority growth brands, Optimum Nutrition and Isopure and was a combination of strong category growth increased distribution and innovation. The volume increase was driven by strong growth in the online and food drug mass channels as well as continued growth in international markets across both protein and energy categories, somewhat offset by lower revenues in the U.S. club and specialty channels.

We implemented price increases in our international markets in quarter 2 and in the U.S. in quarter 4 to offset record whey inflation. During the year, we also implemented some tactical price reductions and higher-margin products in the energy category, which delivered a strong volume uplift.

From a regional perspective, Performance Nutrition Americas which represented 63% of revenue was down 0.5% versus last year due to the aforementioned club channel headwinds. Excluding noncore brands, Performance Nutrition Americas revenue increased by 1.3%. We are pleased with the trajectory in our flagship brand, Optimum Nutrition, which showed a sequential improvement through the period, delivering double-digit like-for-like revenue growth in the second half of the year, but continued momentum in the protein powders and energy category.

Our international business, which represents 37% of revenue, performed strongly, delivering like-for-like revenue growth of 8.8% or 10.5%, excluding the impact of noncore brands, driven by volume and pricing growth in the Optimum Nutrition brand, particularly in China, India, Oceania and the U.K. Growth was supported by our global supply chain footprint, enabling in-market supply and local innovation in key regions. EBITDA for the year declined by 23.2% with an EBITDA margin of 13%. The contraction in margin is entirely as a result of record whey input costs as previously disclosed, with an improvement in EBITDA margins in the second half of the year.

In terms of brand performance, Optimum Nutrition, our largest brand at 75% Performance Nutrition revenue, excluding noncore brands, delivered like-for-like revenue growth of 6.4%, comprising volume growth of 5% and pricing growth of 1.4%. ON delivered double-digit like-for-like revenue growth in the second half of the year, led by a combination of strong velocities, distribution gains, lapping of a weaker comparative in the U.S. club channels and innovation.

We continue to see strong momentum in the category with an acceleration of the growth of the protein powder category in the last 12 months. U.S. consumption grew by 3.4% in the last 52 weeks, with double-digit growth in the food drug mass channel, growing ahead of the category and continued strong growth in the online channel. In the last 13 weeks, U.S. consumption accelerated to 4.6%, and ON continues to be a top driver of retail dollar consumption growth for protein powder and creatine in measured channels in the U.S. We're also seeing strong consumption growth across many international regions, and we'll continue to increase our retail distribution with distribution gains for ON across retailers in Europe and Asia Pacific and double-digit growth in e-commerce channels in China.

I'm pleased to see ON deliver double-digit growth in household penetration and TDP in the U.S., reflecting strong recruitment and retention. We have an uncompromising dedication to product quality and we are operating in high-growth categories with the most trusted brands in Sports Nutrition, driven by powerful consumer megatrends.

From a marketing perspective, our focus continues to be on driving recruitment and conversion and broadening the brand's appeal through increased campaign reach and education. We just launched the Optimum Advantage campaign, a disruptive campaign rolling out globally where the concept involves elite athletes revealing one thing they never want to share, the marginal gains to give them their edge. The launch features McLaren Formula 1 star Lando Norris, Rugby International's Dan Sheehan from Ireland and Mark Smith from England and U.S. Women's NBA star Cameron Brink.

Early results show that the optimal advantage athlete strategy is driving both scalable media efficiency and authentic cultural relevance across channels. The AI-powered coach Optimum went live in several markets during 2025, with results showing excellent engagement rates. The protein calculator has been going from strength to strength, help the consumer realize how Optimum Nutrition can help them fulfill their daily nutrition needs with trusted high-quality products.

We've also seen strong growth being driven by online channels and the success of the quick-commerce channel in India. We have a world-class portfolio of high-quality products within the Optimum Nutrition brand, and we continue to focus on innovation, in particular by expanding our usage occasions. We launched a number of products during the year across our protein and energy offerings, including multiple creating offerings, whey collagen blends, protein RTD shakes and additional smaller pack sizes, including stick packs addressing affordability through opening price points.

We're particularly pleased with the performance of ON creatine, which delivered strong growth globally as we continue to cement our #1 position in this fast-growing segment.

Isopure, our premium high protein, low-carb brand grounded in purity continues to do well, delivering double-digit like-for-like revenue growth in the year. This brand allows us to target an incremental consumer from Optimum Nutrition with the consumer affluent and predominantly female that values high quality and great testing solutions that they can incorporate into their daily nutrition regime.

During 2025, we rolled out more of What Matters campaign with strong engagement rates, reaching more than 20 million consumers through our digital channels, educating consumers on how to integrate Isopure into their daily routines with influencers such as celebrity, Tiffani Thiessen, sharing simple baking hacks, highlighting the mixability into things like sauces and soups. Our partnership with Top Bolly with Celebrity Rashmika and Mandana, has helped deliver a reach of over 50 million plus for the brand in India.

We've been expanding our distribution of Isopure across food, drug, mass and online retailers, elevating display execution and shelf placement, targeting aisles outside of Performance Nutrition to capture a broader consumer set. I'm pleased to see continued good growth in our core brand metrics with double-digit growth in ACV, TDP and household penetration.

Innovation continues to be a core focus across our portfolio, and we launched several products under the Isopure brand, including protein water, stick packs, colostrum and collagen peptides in the U.K.

Moving to our second growth platform of Health & Nutrition, which comprises nutritional premix solutions and flavors and focuses on priority high-growth end-use markets of active lifestyle nutrition, functional beverages and vitamin mineral supplements. This segment delivered a strong performance of 2025, delivering like-for-like revenue growth of 6.8%. This was driven by a 7.4% increase in volume and a 0.6% decrease in price. Total revenue increased by 11.5% as a result of 6.5% increase from the acquisitions of Flavor Producers and Sweetmix, which were completed in April 2024 and August 2025, respectively.

And the negative impact of the 53rd week in the prior year of 1.8%. We're pleased with the strong volume performance, which was driven by good growth across both premix and flavors, underpinned by strong demand across our end-use markets. We saw particularly good growth in Europe and Asia. Pricing was slightly negative due to certain pass-through pricing of customers. Health & Nutrition EBITDA was $115.8 million, up 16.7% constant currency. EBITDA margins were 18.4%, an increase of 80 basis points versus 2024 on a constant currency basis. Margin expansion was driven by the full year impact of Flavor Producers and strong volume growth from existing customers, somewhat offset by the impact of tariffs in the second half of the year.

We have a strong global footprint in Health & Nutrition with a range of technologies and solutions, targeting functional nutrition in end-use markets across a broad range of customers. We have deep customer relationships and co-development capabilities to help our customers win in their markets.

We hold the #2 global position in customized premix solutions and have a strong position in natural and organic flavor systems, operating in attractive end-use markets such as active nutrition, functional beverages and vitamins, minerals and supplements. We continue to invest in innovation, capacity and new capabilities to ensure we have the best solutions to meet the growing demand for functional taste and macro nutrient needs across a broad range of formats.

During the year, we announced the acquisition of Sweetmix and Scicore. Sweetmix is a high-quality Brazil-based nutritional premix and ingredient solutions business, which will allow continued expansion in the Latin America region. Scicore is a fully operational manufacturing facility in India, which provides us with our own in-market manufacturing for both Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition.

In terms of capacity, we're substantially expanding our spray drying capabilities in the U.S. which will enable us to capture a larger opportunity in powdered flavor applications. We have also approved plans to more than double our Asian nutritional premium capacity and are also expanding our capacity in Europe. Dairy Nutrition combines our U.S. cheese and dairy proteins portfolios. This platform consists of a highly integrated manufacturing footprint with a high supply and operational interdependency and is also the route to market for our joint venture partner supply of whey and cheese ingredients.

This business underpins our scale, leadership position in dairy as a leading producer of whey protein isolate and American style cheddar cheese in the U.S. We also hold exciting positions in dairy bioactives with strong demand, particularly for colostrum, targeting gut health and immunity trends. In 2025, Dairy Nutrition delivered like-for-like revenue growth of 5% in the period, driven by a 4.2% increase in volume and a 0.8% increase in pricing. The increase in volume is across cheese and protein solutions and the price increase was driven by strong high-protein solutions category demand somewhat offset by negative dairy market pricing in the second half of the year.

We're seeing sustained demand for high-quality whey and non-whey protein solutions, driven by global trends in Performance Nutrition and everyday wellness. Our expertise in protein chemistry and our unique assets, combined with the ability to deliver consistent functionality and nutritional density positions us as a partner of choice for customers seeking premium, science-led protein solutions.

We saw good growth in existing and new customer wins in 2025. An example of this momentum includes our novel protein solutions such as the Oven Pro series, targeting high protein breakfast and other snacking usage occasions. These solutions exemplify pleasure with purpose, indulgent products with protein content that taste good, meeting end consumer demand for great taste without compromise.

Turning to whey and whey volatility. We're one of the largest suppliers and the largest buyer of whey protein Isopure globally, and we have a clear ongoing strategy on whey procurement. As consumer demand for protein continues to grow, which is driving growth in our priority brands, we also continue to see whey pricing hit record levels, driven by this strong demand. We have a lot of experience across dairy complex, but there's currently no way to effectively hedge whey protein, but we have a robust program using all available levers to manage it.

As you can imagine, there will always be a lag impact on margin as we implement consumer price increases and navigate this input volatility. We have now contracted supply into early quarter 4, providing certainty on our cost base for 2026, with prudent assumptions for the remainder of the year. New global supply of high-end whey of approximately 15% to 20% has started to come on stream and is expected to expand across 2026.

We continue to engage with our suppliers for longer-term supply investment. And as mentioned previously, we're also investing in our own WPI capacity within our joint ventures, which will come on stream in early 2027. We continue to take decisive action to mitigate the impact as much as possible, and we're very thoughtful on this to ensure we do it in a measured way to maintain revenue growth and protect share.

In 2025, we increased prices in international markets in quarter 2 and in the U.S. in quarter 4, and we are currently implementing price increases globally for execution in quarter 2, which is supported by promotional efficiency and product mix.

To date, we've seen limited elasticity from price increases in 2025, but we'll continue to monitor demand carefully, particularly as we move through the second round of price increases. We continue to review the possibility of further revenue growth management initiatives later in the year, depending on consumer reaction and the evolution of whey prices.

In addition, we also carefully manage our cost base to ensure we're efficient and adjust our marketing investment appropriately to ensure we prioritize spend on brand building initiatives. We will also be pricing across our protein solutions business in Dairy Nutrition.

And lastly, with innovation, we're looking to broaden our product mix from whey protein to include other protein sources, such as collagen, milk and plant proteins, while also driving non-whey innovation, as you've seen at our energy platform. We made good progress on our group-wide transformation program during the year, which is focused on driving efficiencies across our new operating model and supporting the next phase of growth through 3 focus segments. The program is expected to generate annual cost savings of at least $60 million by 2027, and we are on track to deliver approximately 40% of savings in 2026.

Of these savings, we expect to reinvest approximately 50% to drive growth across our Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition segments. Significant progress has been made across 4 key pillars to give us confidence in delivering on the targets. New operating model is now established, simplifying our structure with Dairy Nutrition and Health & Nutrition established as new Dedicated segments and the reorganized performance of Nutrition in Americas, injecting new capabilities into the business.

The second pillar is to unlock efficiencies, and we're centralizing and streamlining key activities and capabilities across procurement, engineering, planning and quality and driving operational efficiency through a mixture of automation and continuous improvement. We're also accelerating our procurement savings and leveraging our global manufacturing footprint for capacity.

The third pillar is about accelerating our digital transformation, and we've expedited the transformation of our back-office functions and continues to focus on automation and the implementation of AI and analytics to enable front office growth initiatives. We are leveraging Agentic AI across the group, which is supporting marketing campaigns and new product innovation and performance attrition and analyzing customer interactions in Health & Nutrition and Dairy Nutrition, providing us with both the intelligence and the infrastructure to drive growth and improve our efficiency.

The final pillar is our ongoing portfolio evaluation. We're focused on simplifying our group structure and optimizing our overall margins. And in 2025, we completed the sale of 2 noncore brands, and we also completed the acquisition of Sweetmix and Scicore, further expanding our global scale.

As we outlined at our Capital Markets Day, we have a clear strategy in place to drive the next stage of growth, and we've shown evidence of this model throughout 2025. Firstly, we're focused on driving Optimum Nutrition globally and growing our portfolio of lifestyle brands. Optimum Nutrition delivered double-digit like-for-like revenue growth in the second half of 2025, and we continue to see strong momentum for the brand. We're ambitious to scale our Health & Nutrition segment as a leading solutions partner in our end-use markets and the acquisitions we've made and a commitment to capacity expansions we've outlined are core to this growth strategy.

We are focused on optimizing Dairy Nutrition to maximize profits across our scale dairy operations while growing our protein solutions and bioactives business. We continue to expand internationally, leveraging our scale and global supply chain footprint. And lastly, investing in innovation to stay at the forefront of our growing categories is vital to us and the savings from our transformation program will allow us to continue to reinvest in innovation. Delivery against each of these requires focus on execution excellence enabled by our group-wide transformation program, our teams, talent and culture as well as our strong financial discipline.

And with that, I will hand over to Mark to take you through the financials.

Thanks, Hugh, and good morning to everyone on the call. 2025 Group revenue was $3.95 billion, up 2.3% on a constant currency basis. At the group level, volumes were up 3.7%, driven by good performance across all 3 divisions and a particular strong demand for our protein brands and ingredient solutions. Price was up 0.5%, driven primarily by positive dairy market pricing and positive pricing in Performance Nutrition. 53rd week in the 2024 comparison negatively impacted revenues by 2% and the net impact of acquisitions and disposals added 0.1% of group revenues as a result of the acquisition of Sweetmix offset by the disposals of SlimFast and Body & Fit.

2025 group EBITDA pre exceptional charges was $499.1 million, down 9.4% in constant currency, primarily as a result of higher whey input costs impacting Performance Nutrition EBITDA, somewhat offset by strong EBITDA growth in Health & Nutrition in the year. PN EBITDA was down 23.2%. H&N EBITDA was up 16.7% and DN EBITDA was up 1.7%.

Group EBITDA margin was 12.6% compared to 14.4% in the prior year. PN EBITDA margins were 13%, down 380 basis points constant currency. And in Health & Nutrition, we saw good progression in EBITDA margin to 18.4%, an increase of 80 basis points constant currency on the prior year. Adjusted earnings per share for the year was $1.3493 down 2.4% constant currency on the prior year and ahead of the previously guided range of $1.30 to $1.33.

The group generated operating cash flow of just over $454 million with a strong operating cash flow conversion of 91%, well ahead of our 80% target. Return on capital employed for the year was 11.3%, in line with our target range of 10% to 13%. Cash flow generation was strong in 2025 with operating cash flow of just over $454 million. Operating cash conversion was 91% compared to 88% in the prior year. Operating cash flow was enhanced by another year of disciplined working capital management. Net working capital balances at year-end were broadly in line with prior year, and net working capital outflows for the year amounted to $11 million.

Free cash flow for the year was $360 million compared to $403 million in the prior year. At year-end, the group's net debt position was $526 million compared to $436 million at the prior year-end. The closing net debt balance represented a net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio of 1.08x. Interest cover in 2025 was 13.7x. Both metrics are well within the group's financing covenants. The group has $1.4 billion in committed debt facilities with a weighted average maturity of 2.7 years with no facility due for renewal prior to late 2027.

Now let me turn to our capital allocation framework. Of the $437 million deployed in 2025, we returned the majority of this capital to shareholders. In respect of dividends, the group returned EUR 102.5 million to shareholders during 2025, related to the final 2024 dividend and the interim '25 dividend. Today, we announced that we are increasing the 2025 final dividend by 10%, so that the total dividend for 2025 will be EUR 0.4287 per share representing a payout ratio of 35.9% of adjusted earnings per share, which is within our updated target payout range of 30% to 40%.

As we stated at our recent Capital Markets Day, the group is committed to a progressive dividend policy. The group also returned EUR 197 million to shareholders via share buyback programs during 2025, acquiring and canceling 15 million shares at an average price of EUR 13.10 per share. In addition, the Board has authorized a further EUR 100 million share buyback program for 2026 and we are launching an initial EUR 50 million tranche of this today.

In 2025, the group spent just over $51 million on strategic capital expenditure with investments in ongoing capacity enhancements, business integrations and IT investments to drive further efficiencies. In the second half of 2025, we acquired Sweetmix, a Brazil-based nutritional premix and Ingredient Solutions business for an initial consideration of $41 million that enabled Health & Nutrition to continue to expand in Latin America.

Post year-end, we completed the acquisition of Scicore, manufacturing facility in India providing in-market manufacturing for both PN and H&N for consideration of approximately $16 million. We will continue to look for organic and acquisition opportunities to scale our Health & Nutrition business supported by our strong balance sheet and financing facilities. The group incurred exceptional charges after tax of just over $100 million during the year. These primarily related to a group-wide transformation program and losses on disposals of noncore brands.

The multiyear transformation program was announced in late 2024 to drive efficiencies across the group's new operating model and to support the next phase of growth. In 2025, cost of this program amounted to $55 million, which are primarily people-related costs and advisory fees associated with outsourcing certain back-office functions and establishing the new Health & Nutrition and Dairy Nutrition businesses. The program is on track to deliver $60 million of annual savings during 2027, of which 40% are expected to be achieved by the end of 2026.

Total cost of the program is expected to be $100 million. The noncore brands, SlimFast and Body & Fit were divested during the year, and we have recognized the loss of disposal of these businesses of $45.7 million in the current year. We've also taken a noncash impairment charge of $16.5 million related to the level of direct-to-consumer retail business. As part of the decision to exit our dedicated European D2C retail strategy, and following the sale of the Body & Fit business, we are exiting the level of D2C retail business as it no longer aligns with our strategy.

Net finance costs were $29.4 million, up approximately $2.6 million compared to prior year due to the acquisition of Flavor Producers in 2024. The average interest rate for the year was 4.2% compared to 4.6% in '24. The effective tax rate for the year was 15%, down from 16% in the prior year. And for 2026, we expect the group's effective tax rate to be between 14% and 16%.

Joint venture performance increased by $11 million versus prior year, primarily related to improved dairy market dynamics, including the implementation of the U.S. Federal Milk Marketing Orders program from June 1. For 2026, capital expenditure, both strategic and sustaining is expected to be between $100 million and $110 million, which includes initial spend related to the expansion of our Health & Nutrition facilities in Asia, U.S. and Europe, as Hugh has referenced earlier. These projects, which are expected to be substantially completed by the end of '26, will have a total investment of approximately $40 million and will enhance our ability to service customers in growing end markets.

We are ambitious for growth and we outlined our medium-term growth algorithm at our Capital Markets Day in November. Over the medium term, we are targeting 5% to 7% annual organic revenue growth in Performance Nutrition and 4% to 6% annual organic revenue growth in Health & Nutrition. We expect to grow earnings ahead of revenue in PN and H&N supported by our transformation program that will deliver $60 million of savings annually by 2027. EBITDA margins in PN are expected to improve by 250 basis points by 2028, and EBITDA margins in H&N are expected to be in the range of 17% to 19%.

Dairy Nutrition EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $150 million to $160 million. From a group perspective, over the medium term, we are targeting annual earnings per share growth of 7% to 11%, with 85% cash conversion. And we will continue to invest for growth and returns, targeting a dividend payout ratio between 30% and 40%.

Our 2026 outlook is aligned with these medium-term targets. Performance Nutrition like-for-like organic revenue growth, excluding dispositions, is expected to be between 5% and 7% in 2026 and will be pricing led. As we enter '26, we continue to see strong demand for our protein products, and we are currently implementing price increases, which will be effective in Q2 to offset whey inflation.

Volume trends have remained broadly resilient following prior year pricing actions, and we will continue to monitor these trends and demand responses closely as the year progresses. As whey input costs are expected to remain elevated this year, we will continue to assess the need for further revenue growth management actions in the second half of the year. We continue to utilize all levers within our revenue growth balance from playbook including disciplined pricing actions, promotional efficiency and product mix management, allowing us to manage the cost environment while maintaining competitiveness and supporting the long-term health of our brands.

We have very good visibility in our cost base this year as we have contracted whey supply needs into early Q4, and we have made prudent assumptions and whey costs for the remainder of the year. New global whey supply of 15% to 20% have started to come onstream, and we expect this to continue through 2026, albeit strong demand is taking up this supply. We expect to see EBITDA margin progression and Performance Nutrition in 2026 as a result of price increases, the sale of noncore brands and our group-wide observation program.

Progression is expected to be second half weighted as a result of the phasing of price increases and timing of marketing investments. Revenue in Health & Nutrition is expected to grow between 4% and 6% and will be volume-led across both premix and flavor solutions businesses, with strong growth expected across our core end-use markets of active nutrition, functional beverages and vitamins and supplements. H&N EBITDA margins are expected to be in line with our medium-term guidance of 17% to 19%.

We continue to expect profitability growth across Dairy Nutrition and the group's U.S. joint venture. In Dairy Nutrition, we expect EBITDA to be in line with our medium-term guidance of $150 million to $160 million with continued strong demand for whey protein. And our U.S. joint venture will see profit after tax growth given the full year impact of the U.S. Federal Milk Marketing Order, which was implemented on June 2025.

We expect to deliver adjusted constant currency earnings per share growth in the range of 7% to 11%, in line with our medium-term guidance. We also expect operating cash conversion to be over 85%, and returning capital employed to be in the range of 10% to 13%.

And with that, I will hand it back to Hugh.

Our purpose is better nutrition, and we're ambitious for growth. We're operating in exciting high-growth categories with leading brands and ingredients driven by consumer megatrends. We have transformed our business, sharpening our focus to capture growth in our primary engines of Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition. And finally, we believe we have the right people, the right capabilities, the right portfolio and balance sheet firepower to deliver on our growth algorithm and drive strong shareholder return.

And now I'd like to hand over to the operator for questions.

[Operator Instructions]

Our first question today comes from the line of Patrick Higgins from Goodbody.

My first question is just on whey cost, a very clear commentary there. And in terms of how you've hedged on your outlook. But maybe just to ask a little bit more color. So at the Q3 point, I think you said you hedged for H1 marginally ahead of H2 '25 levels. given the level of hedging you have in place now for this year, how should we think about year-on-year impact for your whey cost bill for '26 versus '25?

And I guess the second question around this is just you flagged more new supply coming on stream as we speak today, what is your base case assumption in terms of whey prices over the course of the next year? Like are you still anticipating a normalization? Or has that changed just given how strong demand has been over the last kind of year or so?

And then my last question, if I can sneak it in, is just around innovation for GPN clearly dialed up and kind of took more of a focus at your CMD in November, maybe you could just talk us through the success of some of the recent launches in H2 and some of the plans for the year ahead.

Thanks, Patty. Just, I'll answer the cost question, and he will talk innovation. Yes, look, we've been managing our whey fairly closely, as you can imagine. That's why we are procured out to Q4. We've been layering in that procurement since last summer, Frankly, as you sort of look at what we're doing for this year. Costs continue to be elevated. There's obviously a 90 to 80 element to whey, and those have 80 have rising a bit more recently, I would say, 90 a bit more stable, but certainly have continued to elevate as the year has gone on.

So when we look at year-on-year, we'd expect to see double-digit increase in cost of whey versus the prior year. And that, of course, will feed into the pricing conversation, as you can imagine as well. And in terms of your question on new whey supply coming on stream, as I said right now, it's been taken up in terms of the strong demand we're seeing for protein in all different formats. Clearly, we're benefiting from as in our Dairy Nutrition business and our Performance Nutrition business. But certainly, right now, that supply has been taken up. So as we look to '26, I don't think we expect to see any significant change in terms of significant reduction in whey prices. So we've assumed they'll stay at an elevated rate for the year in terms of our overall guidance to you.

Yes. Thanks, Mark. Apologies to all of you, fighting a bit of a cold that you might hear in my voice. Yes, just to add actually to what Mark said on whey at a more strategic level, we see it in Dairy Nutrition, demand is exceptionally strong at the moment across multiple formats. And we're seeing the benefit of that in Dairy Nutrition. So clearly, new supply is coming, and I can assure you that every dairy company out there is figuring out how to make more WPC and WPI given these prices. But fundamentally, it's driven by demand. I think you're going to see all categories price increase over the course of 2026 and figuring out the impact that may or may not have.

But the fundamentals remain very strong for demand of whey protein. If you look at innovation, Patrick, what I'd say is what we shared with you in our -- at our Capital Markets was only coming online at quarter 4 and into this year. So we spoke to you about we're moving into blends of whey and collagen, targeting hydration and recovery so [indiscernible] The U.S. [ Clearway ] In Europe, good start there, very early. A lot of new flavor, variants of creatine. We just launched our new creatine gummies actually in the TikTok shop in the U.S. I'd be interested to see how that does.

The foreground shape that we present here has just launched amino energy stick packs and we just launched new AMP preworkout as well in January in the U.S. So a lot of activity, but very early to say. But obviously, a key focus for us in Optimum Nutrition as we extend usage occasion. And lastly, just to say we are very focused on value to the consumer. So, we've launched 10 -- a lot of new opening price points, whether it be the sachets or 10-server, 14-server, and we continue to invest and support those new pack sizes to support consumer.

Your next question today comes from the line of David Roux from Morgan Stanley.

Just 2 questions from my side. Just to go back to your comments on the Performance Nutrition margin for this year, you pointed out we should expect some margin progression. Now there's obviously the 50 basis points net benefit to margin in '26 from the disposals, which you had previously flagged. So should we expect margin progression beyond that? Or is this only going to be driven by that? That's my first question.

And then my second is on the club channel. Can you just give us some more color here? I see there was a noticeable acceleration in like-for-likes in the second half of your food, drug, mass and club sort of segments. There's obviously the lapping of the club private label issues from summer of 2024. But our sales in the club channel specifically now above levels prior to these issues. I think any and or color on the club channel would be appreciated.

David, I'll take the margin question, and Hugh will update you on the club channel. A number of moving pieces, as you can imagine, as we look to margin in 2026, and we are confident in getting margin progression in '26. You're correct, we'll expect to see a 50 basis point improvement from the dispositions. In the full year, actually, that will be 80 basis points, but we've got some dissynergies as we enter the year that are impacting that as well. But of course, the big thing for us this year as we see costs increase, we also have the pricing coming through. So we'll have double-digit pricing coming through in quarter 2.

As you know, there can be a lag as pricing catches up with increases in whey cost. So we'll see that move as we go through the year. So that will have a negative impact. A positive impact then will be the transformation savings. We said we get $60 million by '27%. 40% of that will come in, in '26 and about half of that will hit the bottom line, quite a bit of that in PN. So that will help us in terms of mitigating some of the lag on the pricing side.

And in the first half, you'd expect to see some more marketing investment relative to the year as we normally do that, sort of how will be second half weighted. So overall, when you put this together, I'd expect about a 50 basis point progression as we work through the year here, second half weighted.

Thanks, Mark. I suppose the first thing I'd say is very happy with performance in Optimum Nutrition, and I secure with double-digit growth in half 2 last year, particularly in -- and a reminder that we're an omnichannel business are focused across all our channels of distribution. And so I wouldn't pick out one in particular. Our Food, Drug, Mass data is very strong categories growing very well. We're growing in both categories, both our brands. So look, the club channel will always have puts and takes, just given the nature of products that go in and out as part of their test and as part of kind of their innovation focus. But from our perspective, we're confident in our revenue guide for the year, particularly driven by Optimum Nutrition and Isopure.

Your next question comes from the line of Alex Sloane from Barclays.

A few questions from my side, if that's okay. I mean firstly, on Health & Nutrition, very strong organic performance in quarter 4 and really notably ahead of quite a lot of larger B2B ingredient peers. Can you give a bit more color in terms of what you think your weighted sort of end market growth was against that organic delivery in Q4? I guess what I'm trying to get is this outperformance really driven by structural mix of categories? And do you see kind of growth being sustainable in 2026?

And secondly, on just to come back to whey, thanks for all the color already, just a couple of questions. Firstly, I guess, have you seen the broader peer set take similar pricing that you put through in November in the U.S. so that your kind of relative price points are unchanged. And secondly, thinking a bit longer term, so you're not assuming that whey costs come down or whey prices come down in '26 because of the strong demand regarding the sort of 250 basis point improvement target out to '28, are you embedding a normalization in whey prices in that assumption? Or can most of that be driven by organic means?

Alex, very pleased with Health & Nutrition performance, as you said, a strong quarter 4 after a strong quarter 3, I suppose, we highlighted this in our Capital Markets again, we're targeting 3 end-use segments, Active Nutrition Functional Beverage and Vitamin Supplements and they're all doing well for us. We're seeing the same benefits in Health & Nutrition in terms of the end consumer we target that we're seeing in Performance Nutrition. So I think that's the first thing I'd say.

Second is that we're focused and agile business as well. It would be smaller than a lot of the peers you referenced, but we're very focused on those segments. We invest in deep customer relationships, good to see continued progress in international. So very positive there. And we're also then leveraging cross-sell opportunities across the broader group, which is an opportunity for us as well. And Clearly, Mark called out as well and as did I, we're investing in capacity expansions in Asia, Europe and the U.S., which is a positive as well. So as we laid out in our Capital Markets, we are ambitious to scale this business.

And in terms of your question on whey in terms of the 250 basis points, Alex, I would say that we are expecting that we'll have a normalization or a stabilization of cost versus pricing at some point here as we get through the 3 years because this year, clearly, there's still some catch-up on lag, as I spoke to. At some point, this should normalize and not necessarily expecting a significant reduction given how sort of popular protein is, and we expect to see that in the medium term.

Of course, I also have significant transformation work going on, which I know will give me margin improvement as well. So we're still confident in the 250 basis points over the period, but we are assuming that we get to a point where we have some stabilization of cost increases on pricing.

And lastly, just on your question, Alex, on whey and competition. I think I'm comfortable in saying that everybody is going to have to move on price and are moving in price given the whey price inflation we've seen over the last 24 months. We saw it first in international, we would have moved in quarter 2. We saw a little bit of elasticity for a quarter until all the competition moved. And now in fact, in international markets, some of our competition are moving ahead of us. And in the U.S. as well, we're starting to see competition move. Just given the scale of these prices.

As Mark said, we're not planning for stabilization in a way at this point until we see what happens to demand and what happens to elasticity and what happens additional volume supply. So yes, we are seeing the market move.

Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Abraham from Berenberg.

First on the Optimum Nutrition. Just wondering if you could provide a view as to how you see the volume outlook for Optimum Nutrition in FY '26 just relative to the positive volume momentum that, that brand reflected in the second half of the year? And then just one more question, in reference to some of the color you provided on whey costs are higher, the longer dynamic you've outlined. Can you just provide a bit of detail as to what impact you're seeing that have on the breadth of brands that compete with you? And if that's having a more adverse impact on some of the smaller, not vertically integrated brands on shelves?

Matthew, the line wasn't great there, but I think I got the first question, which is just continued ON volume momentum into 2027. Clearly, we're very happy with performance in half 2 last year. The year started well for the brand. You can see that consumption numbers as well, we'll be pricing in quarter 2. That's in train now as well. So figuring out the potential level of elasticity versus the level of price, et cetera, it's just all a hard one to call. We've seen limited elasticity to date and the price increase in November in the U.S., and we've been -- we worked through any small elasticity we saw in international earlier in 2025.

So overall, positive, what I'd say is, look, our revenue guidance for PN is across the entire portfolio. So we would be ambitious for ON to be a little bit higher than that. So overall, positive as we go into 2026. And look, you can see it in the category data as well. Category growth is accelerated in powders. We spoke at our capital markets on how powders are mainstream and the different consumer benefits, mixability, higher protein content, versatility. So not just price but affordability is actually -- these are very affordable, even post price increase on a cost per serve versus other formats of high-protein products.

It's a great question on whey. Look, we are effectively vertically integrated. We have a dairy business where we create insights on the protein markets and protein solutions, we manufacture on our powder. So that gives us probably we have good foresight on how the markets are moving. Like the rest of the industry, we want to always get it right, but we are -- we will have good foresight earlier than a lot of competitors.

I would think the smaller competitors, if they weren't locked into some of these prices or if they weren't locked into supply, will struggle to get supply and will struggle with pricing. But I don't know anything for fact there, but just to say that it is likely if they're working to [indiscernible] And they weren't brought forward, they could struggle.

Our next question comes from the line of Damian McNeela from Deutsche Numis.

First one is just on the indicated CapEx increase. And can you just clarify that the increase is going towards H&N and that the planned expansion will complete this year, i.e. you'll be able to sort of start driving that factory growth or factories growth from next year?

Second question is on online revenue momentum. It looked like you delivered pretty strong growth in the year, just over 10%. Can you sort of provide what are the key sort of market drivers behind that? And whether the sort of -- we should expect that to continue through '26? And then just one last one, just on marketing. Are you in a position to sort of quantify what the step-up year-on-year is likely to be in 2026, please?

Damian, I'll take the CapEx question. We're a little bit ahead, you probably noticed of our CMD guidance. We said $80 million to $100 million in CMD, We're a bit ahead of that. And the reason for that, frankly, is the strength we're seeing in the Health & Nutrition business, we're just -- the volume numbers are strong. We expect to see that sustain quarter-by-quarter into 2026. So as a result, we do require increased capacity. So to your question, most of that will be done by the end of 2026. So we should be having production in 2027 in terms of our Chinese and U.S. and European expansion. So we should all -- most of that [ $40 billion ] will be spent by the end of 2026 based on our current plans.

I'll pass it over to Hugh for...

Yes, maybe start with the marketing first. Damian. Yes. So look, one of the things we are -- Mark laid it out, we're pulling all levers, as you can well imagine, across the business given the current inflationary environment on whey particularly. So that will include marketing spend as per last year, but also our transformation project or cost base, our mix -- our revenue mix. In terms of marketing spend, though, to be mid- to high single digits, it will be higher than last year, but all of that increased spend will go behind the Optimum Nutrition brand.

In terms of e-commerce, obviously, as I said it earlier on, we're an omnichannel business so we're pushing for growth across all our channels that we compete in. But e-commerce channel as always, an online channel is always a key channel for us as we can engage so well with the consumer there in terms of information, in terms of content, et cetera. So we continue to expand that. You can expect as well -- that's where a lot of our innovation will go online first because we can move quickest on it. So you could -- we would absolutely be ambitious for continued growth in that channel.

Your next question comes from the line of Cathal Kenny from Davy.

Two quick questions. Firstly, Hugh, just on the affordability piece within PN. Obviously, you mentioned 10-server, 14-server and stick any early evidence on the performance of those formats? That's my first question. And my second question just relates to the guide for PN. I'm assuming that you're -- within that, the assumption is a high degree of elasticity on the second price increase and the price increase in Q2. They are my 2 questions.

Yes, A little bit early in some the sachets were just really launching. But our 10-serve, 14 serve we launched last year and really pleased with the performance there. And in fact, what we're seeing there is it's bringing in a lot of new consumers, particularly the 10-serve online. So affordability hitting the right price point, it's a $20 price point in some instances has been important. So we continue to do that. And we see that in the U.S. and internationally as well.

In terms of the guide for PN, yes, we debate this a lot, and we discussed this a bit in our quarter 3 results as well, particularly internationally, when we price increase. We saw a little bit of elasticity for a quarter. It's hard to call. We have built elasticity into our assumptions. In saying that, demand for whey protein continues to be exceptionally strong. Our categories are going very strong. Our brands are outperforming the categories in this space as well.

So calling what the elasticity will be is a difficult thing to do. As you can imagine, we're very thoughtful in this and careful as we move through the year because our goal here is to continue to start to go to the brands and ahead of category. So there's lots of debates internally, but simply put, yes, you can assume we have elasticity built into our assumptions for the year. We'll keep you updated as we go through the year, how we're thinking about that.

Just a quick follow-up on creatine, obviously, you called it out in terms of very good growth. One is, is there much opportunity to scale that further and I think beyond North America? And secondly, just in terms of the pricing environment you're on creatine, could we get a little bit of color on that, please?

Yes, I think I can be quite clear. When we're talking about price increases, actually, we're just talking about price increases on our protein category. It's all driven, which is a fair 65%, 70% for business. We won't be price increasing on our energy or creatine products. Two, I'd actually say, the creatine growth is low. It's across all of our markets. it was a significant double-digit growth in 2025 over 2024. We've launched a lot of new innovation, different format sizes, different flavors, but continues to do well, and the teams will continue to be -- they are the 2 that kind of energy creatine and protein or what's going well for us.

Your next question comes from the line of David Roux from Morgan Stanley.

Some follow-up questions. I appreciate that is another dairy 101. But just going back to whey, supply is obviously going to react to price, right? I mean can you give us an idea how quickly producers can react to adding new WPC 80 or 90 capacity from brownfield conversions? Or does this all need to be greenfields given that, I guess, there's not been much investment into cheese over the last few years?

And then the other question is on marketing. And Hugh, I promise this is a generally serious question, but can you confirm if Optimum Nutrition renewed its partnership with England Rugby, they previously had or is it only Ireland rugby that it now has like a main rugby team in the 6 nations?

I have to kind of start with that last question given the weekend, it's winner David. We sponsor a number of -- we sponsor Marcus Smith, the English rugby player but not the English rugby team. And yes, we do sponsor the Irish rugby team and a number of athletes within there as well. So the -- yes, like you know what, we could give you a thesis on this, and I know it wouldn't be fully accurate because there's so many variants in this. So the first thing I would say is we know from our own dairy plants that every dairy business is looking at efficiency initiatives to increase the output of high-end whey proteins, whether it be 80 or 90.

I think a lot of dairy plants can switch between the 2. So depending on economics, they can switch between WPI and WPC 80. I think if it was an add-on, the best example I'd give you is probably our own facility where we've approved the CapEx at late next year, and that will be in place for early '27.

So probably from approval of CapEx implementation kind of that probably a 15-month period, and that will be leveraging existing whey stream and they're concentrating upto 90%. If you were to build a new facility, I would obviously take that a little bit longer probably 2 years plus. I suspect everybody is running the rules over whether they build new facilities or not. The challenge always will be in the cheese whey markets as the cheese market is effectively flat. So can you sell the cheese because that's -- and then cheese prices. I think the difference now what you'll probably see is businesses -- dairy businesses start looking at kind of produce whey casing rather than just whey cheese. So not produce cheese at all, which is a different plant configuration.

But given the demand we're seeing in the prices, the returns -- the returns will work. So there'll be a lot of work going on at the moment around at these prices. And with this demand, even if prices were to drop, my sense is the dairy industry be quite confident the demand will remain strong. So even if there were a drop back a little 20%, 30% for a period, they will -- that will still be enough premium there to incentivize new capacity over the next number of years.

Thank you. That concludes the Q&A. I will now hand the call back to Hugh McGuire for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator. Look, just to briefly close, just reinforce our conviction from the team here that Glanbia remains well positioned for growth. We're moving at pace as we laid out at our Capital Markets Day. And just thank you for your time and look forward to connecting with you all individually over the next few days.

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

Good morning to those dialing in from the U.S. Good afternoon to everyone here in London. Welcome to the Glanbia plc Capital Markets Day.

[Presentation]

Very good. So I'm delighted to welcome you to our Capital Markets today and introduce to the great team that we have here in Glanbia, many of whom are new. We'll share the exciting growth opportunities we see in our categories and end-use markets and our confidence in driving continued shareholder return. Before we commence, I have this -- what is we call this important disclaimer on forward-looking statements, just I assume you've all seen it and read it. So just the formality of sharing it with you. We have a busy agenda. What I will do is I'll give you an overview of the group, our strategy and our growth ambition to 2028 and also briefly cover Dairy Nutrition. Before we deep dive into the growth drivers of the business, Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition.

We'll start with our global brand Optimum Nutrition, then our business leaders will take you through their plans to deliver our ambition. And finally, we'll wrap up at the end with a more detailed view of our 3-year financial goals and then set up for Q&A.

I have a lot of Glanbia colleagues here today who will take you through the business, but we've been on a journey over the last 24 months as we build for our next phase of growth. We have expanded our broader leadership capability and team with over 50% of our senior leadership team new in role or new to the business. This injection of energy, new ideas and new capabilities, combined with the deep experience already in the group will help us on our journey to meet our growth ambition. While you get to hear directly from the presenters today, there's lots more leaders present today. Not all are actually on the screen. So please feel free to engage and connect with them later on and hear their ambition for the business.

We're also joined today by our outgoing Chairman, Donard Gaynor; our Senior Independent Director, Roisin Brennan; and our new Chair, Paul Duffy. We, Glanbia are at the heart of better nutrition, and we're ambitious for growth. We play in -- we believe in the power of nutrition to unlock potential in everyone. We're a protein powerhouse and our great nutrition brands and ingredients help consumers all over the world achieve their everyday fitness, health and nutrition goals. Our purpose is better nutrition and we're ambitious for growth. We play in an exciting space in fast-growing categories with great brands and ingredients that are positioned to win with accelerating consumer megatrends. We've transformed our business, sharpening our focus to capture the growth in our primary segments of Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition.

And lastly, as you will see today, we believe we have the right people, the right portfolio and the balance sheet firepower to deliver on our long-term ambition and drive strong shareholder returns. We're at the heart of better nutrition, and it's accelerating. We're at the heart of megatrends. Protein demand has continued to accelerate with 80% of U.S. consumers prioritizing protein on a daily basis. In addition to protein, consumers are increasingly looking for functional benefits in their food from energy and focus to muscle repair and gut health. We've seen this in the growth of creatine, which has gone from a niche $200 million category to a mainstream consumer category worth over $1.1 billion at the end of 2024. The clean ingredient market is expanding, expected to grow from $50 billion to $200 billion by 2030, driven by rising consumer demand for transparency and minimally processed foods.

In terms of behaviors, functional nutrition is expanding out of traditional occasions. Take protein for an example. It's now rapidly expanding outside of inherently high protein categories into adjacent categories such as protein coffee, protein water, high-protein cereals. Consumers want to indulge in taste and texture while staying aligned with health and wellness. 83% of consumers tell us that taste is a key priority when deciding what to eat versus 50% who say healthiness is.

Experienced culture is rising with digital and real-world fusing together. 68% of consumers are willing to share personal health data if it leads to a better personalized care, indicating trust in digital integration. And of course, we have GLP-1. GLP-1 adoption has been one of the most significant trends impacting nutrition over the past 24 months. The most recent research shows that nearly 12% of American adults have used GLP-1 for weight loss. In research conducted by Glanbia among GLP-1 consumers, protein in all formats was cited as a preferred meal replacement option in addition to the need for energy and vitamins and minerals. All consumer needs, which are a significant benefit to all 3 of Glanbia's businesses.

We serve large markets, large markets that are growing. I've talked about the powerful consumer trends in Nutrition, and we're positioned to benefit from these. The markets we address are Performance Nutrition, Lifestyle and Functional Beverages. And while this graph is directional only, it's always an exercise to pull together, what we can take from this is the markets are large and they're growing mid-single digit. We've made a lot of progress over the last number of years. We've been on a significant strategic journey.

We've simplified our business through restructuring and exiting our European dairy joint ventures and sharpened our focus through the sale of SlimFast and Body & Fit. We've brought greater focus to our high-growth, high-margin divisions of Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition. We've acquired flavor producers to scale our business in natural and organic flavors. We acquired SweetMix in Brazil to scale our nutritional premix and solutions business in Latin America. And just this week, we acquired Scicore, a fully operational manufacturing facility in India commissioned in 2023 with 9 production lines that gives us our own in-market manufacturing for both Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition in one of our high-growth markets.

We can see this progress in the financials. We've grown our EBITDA, our EBITDA margin. And when we look at the return to shareholders, as part of a progressive dividend policy and our targeted buyback program that we launched in 2020, we've returned EUR 1.2 billion to shareholders. We're ambitious for growth. And when we look at our business, we're targeting 5% to 7% annual organic revenue growth in Performance Nutrition and 4% to 6% annual organic revenue growth in Health & Nutrition. We expect to grow earnings ahead of revenue in PN and H&N, supported by our transformation program that will deliver $60 million in savings. From a group perspective, we're targeting EPS growth of 7% to 11% with 85% cash conversion.

And lastly, we'll continue to invest for growth and returns. We've had a progressive dividend policy since 1998, apart from COVID where we held dividend payout flat, and we plan to increase our dividend payout ratio to 30% to 40%. And Mark will take you through the details of this later in the presentation. Through 2025, we focused on simplifying our group structure to bring clarity in our 3 divisions. We're proud to be the #1 global sports nutrition brand and continue to grow our lifestyle nutrition brands.

We're the #2 in premix solutions and a leading supplier of natural and organic flavors. We're the #1 in American-style cheddar and a leader in whey protein solutions. And just over 60% of our revenue and 70% of our EBITDA comes from Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition in 2025. We're global in scale, 5,800 employees, 27 manufacturing sites, 20 innovation and collaboration centers, commercial offices in 24 countries, and our brands and ingredients are sold in more than 120 countries.

We have a clear strategy to drive the next stage of growth. 5 clear drivers that we will deploy our resources against over the next 3 years. Firstly, continue to drive ON globally and grow our portfolio of lifestyle brands. Scale our Health & Nutrition business as a leading solutions partner in our end-use markets, optimize our Dairy Nutrition business to maximize profits across our scale dairy operations and continue to expand internationally, leveraging our scale and global supply chain footprint. And lastly, investing in innovation to stay at the forefront of our growing categories.

Delivery against each of these will require focus and execution excellence, enabled by our group-wide transformation project, our team, our talent and culture and as we build out our digital and commercial excellence while maintaining our strong financial discipline.

Just turning briefly to ON and Performance Nutrition. Performance Nutrition is the #1 sports nutrition company in the world. It continues to be the key growth driver for the group. And our ambition is to scale Performance Nutrition to $2 billion over the life of this plan. We'll continue to drive the business globally and grow with our portfolio of lifestyle nutrition brands in locally relevant markets, in particular, with Isopure, our lifestyle targeted protein brand. We're investing behind our strong brands and teams, and Colin, Monica and Andy will take you through our strategy across Performance Nutrition and our key markets to capture this exciting growth opportunity. And we have a strong track record. We've grown Optimum Nutrition since acquisition to a $1.2 billion business, growing at a 15% CAGR since its acquisition in 2008, and we've delivered revenue growth in 18 of the last 19 quarters.

Turning to Health & Nutrition, a division created less than a year ago that brings dedicated focus on providing high-quality specialist nutritional vitamin mineral premix solutions and great tasting natural organic flavor systems across all product formats. Our focus is on the high-growth end-use markets such as active lifestyle nutrition, functional beverages and vitamin minerals and supplements. We have deep product application and development expertise that allows us to move at pace to co-create innovation with customers all over the world. We're uniquely positioned to serve both large customers but also mid-tier emerging customers looking to move quickly, and we're excited by the opportunity with them.

Our ambition is to grow this business towards $1 billion through organic and inorganic growth. And we've announced investments close to $100 million in M&A and planned CapEx in the last 12 months to support the growth of this business and the growth in capacity and capabilities across Europe, China, India, Brazil and the U.S. Arnaud, who joined us 6, 7 weeks ago, will take you through the details of our right to win and our strategy for this business in his presentation.

Dairy Nutrition is a scale business that combines our U.S. Cheese and dairy proteins portfolio and is largely one integrated manufacturing footprint and is also the route to market for our joint venture supply of whey and cheese. This business is a leading producer of whey protein isolate and the #1 producer of American-style cheddar cheese. We're benefiting also from the strong growth in protein demand in this business as the leading WPI protein solutions for a business targeting high-protein, ready-to-eat bars and snacks, where we have best-in-class innovation capability to formulate protein, along with flavors and premix into consumer products.

In addition, we're seeing strong demand for our bioactives, particularly Colostrum, a position we built with the acquisition of two businesses in the last few years. Although only 35% of the revenue comes from protein and bioactives, it represents approximately 70% of the EBITDA in Dairy Nutrition. The Dairy Nutrition business is a key part of the -- sorry, apologies.

Dairy Nutrition business has a number of strengths across our portfolio as a protein powerhouse. First is best-in-class protein technology and application know-how to develop innovative ingredients and products. We also use this know-how to our advantage to cross-sell across our broader B2B portfolio. Thirdly, Dairy Nutrition is one of the key suppliers to Performance Nutrition, and we've just recently approved CapEx for an additional capacity of GBP 10 million of WPI within our joint venture that will come on stream in early 2027. And lastly, Dairy Nutrition is a stable, strong returning business.

Turning to innovation. It's going to be key to delivery of our ambition and you're going to see that running the whole way through the presentation and also in the breakouts later on this afternoon. We believe we're uniquely positioned to capture the demand for functional nutrition through our innovation platforms and expertise across protein technology, functionally optimized nutrients and taste solutions. We're supported by over 230 scientists globally across our 20 innovation centers that enable us to develop exciting new products and solutions that bring real functional benefit with great taste and texture for both our B2B and B2C portfolio. And we look forward to sharing more on our innovation strategy during two breakout sessions, one for Optimum Nutrition and one for Health & Nutrition later on this afternoon.

12 months ago, we announced an ambitious group-wide transformation program with the goal of building a simpler, more effective business model to focus on growth and deliver efficiencies. We initially set out an ambition for $50 million of savings, but we made significant progress and are on track to deliver an annual $60 million of savings by 2027, and Mark will talk about this in more detail.

The program has 4 key elements. We've simplified our operating model, which we've spoken about. We've separated Nutritional Solutions into Dairy Nutrition, Health & Nutrition and reorganized and injected new capabilities into our Performance Nutrition business. Delivering supply chain efficiencies. We're also centralizing and streamlining key activities and capabilities into center of excellence across procurement, engineering, planning and quality and driving operational efficiency through a mixture of automation and continuous improvement. We're accelerating our procurement savings. In addition, we're leveraging our global manufacturing footprint for capacity.

At our core, our Performance Nutrition, Health & Nutrition factories blend powders. Across 10 of our manufacturing sites, we have over 60 powder blenders that can deliver pouches, bags, tubs or sachets and could provide significant expansion capacity for us, especially in international markets. We're accelerating our digital transformation. We've substantially completed the outsourcing of certain finance and HR functions, and we're on a journey to centralize and standardize our processes and back office with AI-enabled functionalities.

And in addition, we're focused on AI and advanced analytics to enable front-office growth initiatives with more than 50 use case studies in development. And lastly, optimize our portfolio. We continue to review and optimize our portfolio to ensure we have the right businesses and brands that can deliver on our growth ambition.

Turning to whey and whey volatility. We're one of the largest suppliers and the largest buyer of whey protein isolate globally. and we have a clear ongoing strategy on whey procurement. As consumer demand for protein continues to grow, driving our priority growth brands, we've also seen whey pricing hit their highest levels ever driven by strong demand. We have a lot of experience across the dairy complex, but there's currently no way to effectively hedge whey protein. But we do have a robust program using all available levers to manage it. We generally will be procured 6 to 9 months ahead as we are now for 2026. And we engage with our suppliers for longer-term supply investment that takes a number of years to come on stream. But we're seeing the benefit of that now as we go into '26 and 2027. And as I mentioned earlier, we're also investing in our own WPI capacity within our joint ventures, which will come on stream in 2027.

As you can imagine, there will always be a lag impact on margin as we implement consumer price increases and navigate this input volatility. We're very thoughtful on this to ensure we do it in a measured way to maintain revenue growth, protect share and consumer demand. We've price increased in 2025 and expect a price increase again in 2026, given the continued strong demand for whey protein. In addition, we also carefully manage our cost base to ensure we're efficient and flex our marketing investment and demand is strong to ensure we prioritize spend on brand-building initiatives.

And lastly, with innovation, we're looking to broaden our product mix from whey protein to include other protein sources such as collagen and milk protein, a recent good example being our Pro Quench launch in the U.S. and while also driving non-whey innovation, as you've seen and will see later around our energy platform.

We have a strong culture within Glanbia and with distinctive values. So while one of our core values is performance matters, and we're very conscious of our mandate as a public company to deliver consistent performance and returns. We're also fortunate to work for a company where our brands and ingredients that we manufacture and sell truly do help consumers live healthier, better lives. We have a team of business builders who are passionate about growth, our consumers and our customers and always seek to find a better way together, whether it be innovation, digital transformation or operational efficiency.

And just to recap before I hand over to my colleagues, our purpose is better nutrition, and we're ambitious for growth. We're operating in exciting high-growth categories with complementary brands and ingredients driven by consumer megatrends. We have transformed our business, sharpening our focus to capture growth in our primary engines of Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition. And lastly, as you will see today, we believe we have the right people, the right capabilities, the right portfolio and balance sheet firepower to deliver on our growth algorithm and drive strong shareholder return. I'm sure I'm going to go back -- I'm sure you're looking forward to hearing the detail behind us.

I'm going to hand over to Colin Westcott-Pitt, who's going to talk to you about the #1 sports nutrition brand, Optimum Nutrition.

[Presentation]

Well, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome. Thanks to you for the kind introduction. My name is Colin Westcott-Pitt. I'm the Chief Brand Officer for Glanbia Performance Nutrition. We are very proud to be the world's #1 sports nutrition brand. We're sold in over 100 countries. And in Gold Standard Whey, we have the world's #1 protein powder. We're the #1 in 21 markets and within the top 3 in 45.

Now the Optimum Nutrition story is 40 years old next year. We were there at the beginning of the category. And as Hugh said, we've enjoyed really strong growth since acquisition in 2008. And while we're very proud of what we've achieved so far, given the growth of the category and the strength of our brand and the power of our people, we believe that we have got great opportunities going forward, and we feel we're only just getting started.

So not only are we #1 in terms of revenue, we are and always have been the most trusted brand in sports nutrition. This position was compelling to consumers in the beginning when the category was growing. We think it's going to be even more powerful as we get through in the future. We're the only truly global brand in the category, respected as a global pioneer and we're very lucky that all of our users tell their friends and family about the really positive experience that they have with all our Optimum Nutrition products.

Net Promoter Score is a really key indicator for us, and we're regularly either #1 or in the top 3 of all of the markets that we track. And these NPS scores are extremely strong. Now for us, everything starts with product. Our commitment to quality is unsurpassed. The vast majority of our powders are manufactured in-house. We keep our quality team incredibly busy with over 100,000 checks and tests every single year. And our products are certified by the best third-party people in the industry, reinforcing the trust that consumers are looking for. We're also the most awarded and the most reviewed brand in the category.

Now this is even more important in the world of AI search, where the algorithms actually search for trusted and relevant sources rather than the old pay-to-play model. And also, our portfolio satisfies every needs of our consumer. Historically, it has been based around the workout moments, but increasingly broader dayparts like breakfast where consumers are consuming protein shakes. And we also satisfy the modern lifestyle trends that Hugh referenced, whether it be protein, energy and increasingly vitamins and minerals.

So the Optimum Nutrition brand continues to be anchored in the product groups of protein and energy. And I'm sure everybody in this room knows the attractiveness of protein at the moment. And in all the research that we do, it confirms both current consumption increasing and also future intent of consumption of protein increasing across demographics and across geographies. Protein powder is the #1 powder format in the U.S. and 1 in 3 consumers consume protein powder annually. And consumers, as we all know, we probably think about are always very busy getting even more busy. So energy is a really important need for them.

Now Optimum Nutrition is very established in the category with pre-workout and AMIN.O.Energy. And with the recent evolution of creatine, we're very well placed to push that harder with creatine moving forward. And you'll hear a lot more about creatine both in the sampling and in the breakout rooms later. Now as many of you are aware, Optimum Nutrition's primary format is powder. And powder is clearly now mainstream. In proprietary research conducted by GPN, consumers confirm their engagement in the format and their future intent to buy.

And critically, in a world of protein proliferation, what consumers are starting to indicate is that we are willing to pay more for high-quality protein. So like us, they believe that not all proteins are made the same. And also from our research, it's really clear why consumers are beginning to really buy into the protein format. It offers a whole range of benefits beyond just value for money. The ability to mix to their own specifications is really critical, indicating that powders may well be the new cocktails for the performance consumer. So we've continued to build a really detailed understanding of the nutrition consumer.

And in 2024, we conducted a global segmentation study, which was actually the most extensive that we've ever done, designed to understand the modern needs and nutrition choices of consumers. Now we identified 3 macro needs and found that there's a large group of consumers who make nutrition choices based on what we can call performance needs, which can be further segmented into build. So think of the classic gym goers and athletic consumers. So think running, cycling and more team sports. So to dig just a little bit deeper into this group. You may be thinking, is this a small niche group of people that go to the gym lifting really heavy weights, absolutely not. We're talking a much more accessible and approachable definition of performance.

Think about gym memberships and attendance post-COVID. 1 in 4 Americans and 1 in 5 Australians and Brits are now members of gyms. Those numbers are all-time highs. And then every Saturday morning, 400,000 people on 5 different continents attend 2,000 events, lace up their shoes to run park runs, either knocking a couple of seconds off their personal bests or just feeling a bit better doing it. And I know all of us can probably think of friends and family in that sort of group and even our kids that are actually getting much better information and understanding the benefits of Performance Nutrition products, and that's changing and shaping their attitude towards what they put in their bodies to be able to perform better.

Now the performance motivated consumer, as we define it, account for between 15% and 25% of the total adult population in the markets that are on the screen there. It's a little lower in India, where we only target a more affluent proportion of those consumers. So while we are #1 in sports nutrition, growing revenue, growing household penetration, we have a very large addressable market. And whether you look at household penetration, which currently, as an example, in the U.S. is 5.8% or the number of these performance motivated consumers that claim to buy Optimum Nutrition regularly, we have significant headroom for growth.

So that was our target consumer. What about our current user? Well, they're highly committed to the category in terms of the performance lifestyle and also the category spend. Sports nutrition for them is just a way of life. They buy multiple product categories, which is another opportunity for Optimum Nutrition given our strong portfolio, and that's something Monica will talk through with regimen a little later. Our consumers' income is typically 20% higher than the average. So in a world of cost of living pressures, we're pretty confident that our users are committed to the performance lifestyle. They're committed to the category, and they're also committed to the Optimum Nutrition brand.

Our playbook for growth has remained pretty consistent over the years, and we see no reason that it won't drive growth in the future. We have thoughtfully and carefully expanded our consumer base to the most relevant adjacencies to protect the credibility and make sure our spend is as efficient as possible. We've continued our uncompromising dedication to product edge, and we're continually ensuring that our distinctive brand assets stand out. Our new pack design that you see on the screen here increases the branding of Optimum Nutrition. It calls out protein much more explicitly. It simplifies the macro call outs to the things that are really important to consumers, and it drives premium cues with the gold band across the middle.

We'll continue to deliver creative that captures attention and drives persuasion and a little bit more about that in a moment. And we'll use digital to drive reach and give consumers a really personalized experience that's much harder to get in the more traditional paid media approach. We'll continue to update our elite athletes and support the brand's high-performance credentials and try to reach the biggest audiences. And we'll bring innovations that truly solve consumers' problems. And all the while, we'll be expanding our retail footprint, both online and offline, often helping retailers that are new to the category build their businesses as well. And we will invest for growth. We have invested over $0.25 billion in marketing on the Optimum Nutrition brand over the last 3 years, and we fully expect to increase that in the next 3 years with the vast majority going to digital media and activations. And so to look a little bit more closely in a couple of those areas.

Now I've talked a lot today about our commitment to quality and our commitment to product. We've developed an AI tool that scans consumer reviews and comments across markets. There's about 240,000 sources across e-commerce and social media platforms. And we've used it to understand a couple of things. First of all, what's really important to consumers in terms of product attributes, and this is for protein powder. I've been in so many groups over the years when you hear this kind of thing being said, this brand mixes really well. It doesn't clump like other brands I know. This brand doesn't digest well for me. I don't use it or this brand doesn't have that choky texture that I've associated with some of the cheaper products.

So when we look at the results across these critical dimensions, what we see is that Gold Standard Whey rates #1 in the big 5 markets that we focus on, and we rate especially well on protein quality and mixability, which are actually the top 2 attributes that consumers call out. We also talked about inspiring creative. Now launching in January 2026 is our new campaign from Optimum Nutrition. It's called the Optimum Advantage. It's a multi-market 360 campaign that features our elite athletes for impact as well as a vast range of assets for reinforcing the functional reasons why Optimum Nutrition gives you an advantage.

There will be a lot more detail in the breakouts later, but we're just happy to share with you today the lengths that one of our elite athletes goes in order to keep his Optimum Advantage. And I warn you, you may never look at him the same way again.

[Presentation]

So we wish both Oscar and Lando all the best at the race this weekend. Our commitment to education and advocacy remains extremely strong. We're incredibly proud of our sports nutrition school, and I just wanted to share with you a little bit of our story on that.

[Presentation]

We select our elite athletes very carefully. We only work with people who use and love our products, and we back up their efforts with more local on-the-ground local heroes that drive more regular on-the-ground content and activation. We've also made a big impact in digital. Now we know from our research that consumers use social, search and websites intermittently as they go around their research and consideration phases and all the way through to advocacy.

The number of followers on our social platforms has increased by 16% over the last year. We're now up to over 6 million followers. And our elite athletes actually have a very large social following as well. And we were delighted earlier this year when our friends at Google rang us to tell us that Jeet Selal's video explaining that the Gold Standard Whey is made from the highest quality ingredients was the highest video view count for any reviews -- for any searches on protein reviews across the world. It currently has 14 million views and still counting. So also our education engagement efforts and our series of McLaren has surpassed our expectations. This is the unlock series and we'll share more on our digital experiences a little bit later.

Now this effort has led to really strong results across all of our battlegrounds, as you can see on the page. And we'll continue to integrate our brand activations and experiences using a combination of paid, owned and earned media across all of these battlegrounds, always educating, always informing and always earning trust.

So in summary, I said at the beginning that we feel we're only just getting started. The category is growing and consumers are getting more and more educated and interested about sports nutrition. There is a really large untapped pool in all of our major markets. We have the #1 brand in the category. It is loved and respected by consumers and has really strong business momentum. We have award-winning products as well as best-in-class digital activation, and we're committed to scale investment to support our growth ambition.

Thanks very much for listening. I'd now like to introduce Monica McGurk, the President and CEO of our Americas region. I have a video.

[Presentation]

Thanks, Colin, for that intro. And welcome, everyone. I'm Monica McGurk, CEO of PN Americas. I'm delighted to share with you today the opportunity for growth in our market, particularly focusing on the U.S. After joining PN a little over a year ago, I've come to appreciate, whether on the line or in our labs, the special magic we bring to our products, the quality and efficacy so critical to establishing consumer trust and holding our market position.

The time I've spent walking stores and with our leading customers has given me a real sense of our category leadership. So I'm confident when I say we enter the next 3-year cycle from a position of strength. We operate a scaled business with 1,200 employees, over $1 billion in expected revenue this year and a 3-year CAGR of 4%, demonstrating sequential quarter-over-quarter momentum this year. Our portfolio includes 5 brands, including think, Amazing Grass, BSN and Isopure and is anchored by Optimum Nutrition, which is about 2/3 of our business and a U.S. market leader with a nearly 10% share of the total protein powders market. We're a protein powerhouse with over 70% of our revenue from protein powders, alongside a strong ready-to-eat platform in our top 10 ranking high-protein bar brand, think! and a growing presence in ready-to-drink.

We have the largest blending facility in the category with significant headroom for capacity expansion at minimal investment. And this also gives us enormous flexibility for rapid innovation. In the last 18 to 24 months, we've launched 70 innovations, flavor variants and new packages to respond to market opportunities. As such, we are perfectly positioned to capitalize on the American consumers' demand for protein. Our priority brands are targeted at a large and growing addressable market in the U.S. Core powders, which includes protein and creatine is an $8 billion market historically growing mid- to high single digits, having accelerated to double-digit growth in the last 12 months.

As Hugh spoke to earlier, demand for protein is rising globally. This is true in the U.S. as well, with GLP-1s now about to become cheaper, fueling growth among lifestyle-oriented consumers. These protein categories are resilient to economic uncertainty. Colin and Hugh shared the high-income SKU of our core consumer. Multiple independent sentiment trackers confirm that this consumer remains confident with recent upticks in sentiment and expectations to grow their spending.

Further, these categories behave more like a staple protected in the basket like groceries even in tough times. Hence, third-party research shows consumers report a fairly stable net intent to purchase in our category year-over-year and contrast to other semi-discretionary categories such as beauty, for which consumers report a 15-point decline in net intent to purchase. We are well positioned to take advantage of this underlying demand given the strength of Optimum Nutrition.

But even with its strength, ON has headroom, for example, to expand its household penetration of 5.8%, closer to the category penetration of 33.5%. And we have even further opportunity to access high penetration formats across our branded portfolio, led by think! in the ready-to-eat area and Isopure against ready-to-drink. So we'll capture the opportunity of these resilient categories primarily through the protein engines of ON and Isopure, complemented by the ready-to-eat platform of Think.

So let's start with the first 2 engines. Our first, Optimum Nutrition is ready for another era of growth, building on its legacy of trust and product edge. It has momentum. Optimum Nutrition had a household penetration of 5.8% this year, reflecting strong recruitment and retention. Reported past 6-month buyers are growing 2 points ahead of the category. New-to-brand buyers are contributing 65% of this household penetration with 61% of that cohort being new to protein powders, a reflection of Optimum Nutrition's firepower in delivering true category growth. It has strong aided awareness at 40%, rising to 64% when combined with the awareness of Gold Standard Whey, a testament to the resonance of the brand.

Growing double digits, ON has outpaced the category in household penetration growth, total distribution points or TDP growth and ACV or all commodity volume growth. Across measured channels, it is the #1 driver of retail dollar consumption growth in the protein powder category and is the #2 driver on that same metric in creatine, speaking to its criticality to our retail partners in their own search for growth.

Equally exciting is our second engine, Isopure. I'll speak more to it in a bit, but from a much smaller base, it has also delivered double-digit household penetration and distribution growth, growing unit and dollar consumption ahead of the category with aided awareness approaching that of ON. So let me unpack the keys to driving growth in Optimum Nutrition. ON's growth will be driven by strong category momentum captured through velocity and distribution. Retention of our current consumer base and ongoing recruitment is a function of building what I like to call brand love, cementing trust and turning consumers into advocates in their own right.

Colin highlighted a number of the ways we build these sticky consumer relationships globally. I'm going to highlight just a few local twists. First, we continue to lead on digital innovation. We're live with our AI-enabled advisory tool, Coach Optimum, showing industry-leading rates of engagement at 83%, over 20 points ahead of Google benchmarks for excellence. The U.S. version of the Optimum Advantage campaign featuring basketball, phenom, Cameron Brinks will focus on regimen penetration.

On average, we know ON brand consumers regularly use at least 4 products in their regimen, but only slightly more than one of those are an Optimum Nutrition product. This is a massive share of wallet opportunity that we will directly attack with our creative platform. You can see the way it will come to life in commercial excellence. Optimum Advantage will have 360-degree execution through incremental display activity and the release of a special regimen pack designed to introduce consumers to the ON trio of protein powder, preworkout energy powder and creatine, messaged in-store as built to stack, backed by the insight that consumers who adopt an ON branded regimen double their satisfaction to 80%. We'll be relentless in the pursuit of new distribution across traditional immediate consumption and trial channels with an ambition to deliver another double-digit compound annual growth rate in TDPs and ACV. And we'll leverage the capabilities of our new dedicated revenue growth management team to ensure we're delivering the right pack at the right place at the right price.

Finally, we'll grow through innovation, focusing on our winning powder format, diversifying our mix from whey and expanding into new formats to drive household penetration and relevance. Examples include new creatine variants and formats such as gummies, Pro Quench, a 20-gram protein powder blend of clear whey and collagen enhanced with electrolytes to directly address the need for joint health and hydration and our 40-gram ready-to-drink offering with fiber for gut health, tackling one of consumers' biggest barriers to increase protein consumption as ON seeks to participate in this format. Collectively, this strategy reflects an ambition to grow ON's household penetration to an industry-leading position.

Now let's turn to our leading lifestyle brand, Isopure, beginning with a dip into its new brand campaign, More of What Matters.

[Presentation]

So Isopure is a premium everyday brand that delivers the highest quality protein and great taste with a clean and short ingredient list, enhanced by vitamins and minerals, incidentally sourced from H&N. It reflects our target consumers' behavior of intentionality, making small, consistent choices in every element of her daily routine to get the most out of life for her and her entire family. This positioning allows us to target an incremental consumer from Optimum Nutrition. As Colin shared, our Nutrine segmentation identifies 27 million U.S. consumers looking to shape, tone and build lean muscle, a different need than that expressed by the performance motivated target of ON.

And panel data shows that the Isopure consumer is predominantly female, broadening our portfolio's demographic reach. There are some other unique features to this consumer. They are even more affluent than the ON consumer, spending 38% more on the category than average. They incorporate protein into their diet beyond a traditional shake format, using our products as an ingredient in cooking and baking, a unique usage occasion. And they seek premium product experiences with an interest in women's health and beauty. Hence, Isopure is a strong platform for incremental growth. We'll capture the opportunity by building brand love and relevance in 3 ways. First, through the rollout of our More of What Matters campaign, a top tertile scoring campaign in pretesting, which you just saw within early days has reached 20 million consumers.

Second, by educating consumers on how to integrate Isopure into their daily routines as the ideal culinary mixing. Influencer content shows them how. For example, with celebrity Tiffani Amber Thiessen sharing simple baking hacks and holiday recipes to activations highlighting mixability into things like sauces and soups. Third, we're building premium associations through high-quality partnerships and asset activations like Volvo Fashion Week in Mexico. Isopure participated with branded space, product sampling giveaways to over 50 influencers with a collective follower base of over 53 million, generating tremendous reach, including 10 million views or more on the Isopure Instagram alone. Alongside this brand building, we are innovating to meet our lifestyle consumer needs across formats and occasions. -- including Isopure Protein Water, which launched earlier in test this year in the club channel with plans for further national distribution. If you haven't seen it yet, it's in the coolers outside.

The rollout of a stick pack format offering 10 grams of protein plus electrolytes, a convenient format to capture on-the-go occasions and innovations that expand Isopure into high-growth non-whey offerings such as collagen and colostrum. Expanding our distribution through visibility and new channels is the final piece to delivering on Isopure's growth ambition. This year, we launched a premium visual identity refresh across the entire brand, creating a distinctive look that provides stronger taste and quality cues while improving shelf impact and shoppability. We continue to elevate display execution and shelf placement. And to capture the critical mix in occasion, we are targeting displays and cut into aisles outside of the Performance Nutrition set.

For example, the bakery and pasta aisles supported by sachet packs. And we're ambitious for further distribution, aiming for a double-digit CAGR of ACV and TDPs, expanding with and introducing new customers that are consistent with our lifestyle-focused aesthetic-oriented consumer target. A great example of this is Ulta, a leading U.S. beauty retailer whose strategy includes a keen focus on beauty from within. Isopure is the perfect partner for their shopper, which has earned us category captaincy and designation as their wellness and supplement anchor brand. Hence, we have significant headroom for growth with Isopure.

Since 2022, we've doubled our investment behind the brand, and we'll continue to invest to capitalize on this opportunity. Finally, we'll continue to leverage think! as our lead ready-to-eat horse. think! has a strong legacy as the first brand in the protein bar to put protein into bars and a positioning grounded in great taste, high-protein functionality, all without the gunk. We continue to build on that position, driving relevance with the refreshed campaign, Don't think. think! We're expanding our channel presence with an increased focus on strategic shelf positioning and incremental display and are disrupting the category with new sensory delights such as Crispy Squares and new snacking formats like Pretzel Protein bites.

So to summarize, we are confident in our journey to growth, underpinned by our strong track record, market position and leading brands. We operate in large growing categories across powders, ready-to-eat and ready-to-drink driven by strong consumer trends that benefit our full portfolio. We'll continue to build on the strength of and the upside for Optimum Nutrition while capitalizing on the growth potential for Isopure and our broader lifestyle portfolio by targeting incremental consumers. We've built a flywheel to deliver profitable growth, building brand love, meeting unmet consumer needs with innovation that expands occasion relevance and then driving relentless commercial execution, including the right revenue growth model. This enables us to continue to invest in brand building and innovation while delivering margin progression.

All of this is enabled by a talented team of highly engaged brand and business builders with strong capabilities in commercial and operational excellence. Some of them are here today. I encourage you to meet them if you have the chance. So as you can see, the future is bright for Performance Nutrition Americas and it's equally so for our business around the world. To tell you about that, I'm going to hand it over to Andy Shaw, the CEO of our PN International business. And as he's coming up, I'll give you a peek into last year's very high-performing New Year, New You campaign with Cameron Brinks.

[Presentation]

Thanks, Monica, and good afternoon, everyone. My name is Andy Shaw. I'm really delighted to be here and have this opportunity to take you on a bit of a whistle stop tour of our international markets for Performance Nutrition. I'm going to start off with a slide that Monica showed as well, just gives you a nice snapshot of how our business is built, some of the growth drivers that we've had over the previous 3 years. So this year, we're estimating revenue coming in at $600 million or above $600 million for 2025, which will be a 12% CAGR since 2022. So decent growth in the business and very much driven by our very talented 725 employees, some of which are here in the room today, but across the world. We have 20 locations across the world, kind of small offices to midsized offices. And we operate 15 markets at a scale presence, so over $10 million revenue. And this is all enabled by our supply chain.

We have a real competitive advantage with our supply chain. So if we drive 250 miles north of here, you'll get to Middlesbrough roughly. That is where we supply our European and U.K. businesses with powders. On top of that, we have coming out of Chicago powders going to Asia, so places like Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand. And then our real competitive advantage, which has helped a lot in recent years, particularly with news around tariffs is our local manufacturing, which we have in China, and we have in India as well. So this gives us a real superiority advantage in those particular markets. The other piece I would draw your attention to on this slide is the top right. We are heavily focused on Optimum Nutrition. And that's been a conscious decision over the last 3 years. We really believe this brand has the right to travel, and I'm going to talk you through that a bit more in the next few slides. But it currently is 87% of our business.

So just talking through, I guess, the left-hand side, this will give you a little bit of new information regarding how the international business is actually split up. So our 12% CAGR over the last 3 years has taken us from $435 million in 2022 to $600 million or just over $600 million this year. We have a nice split across our business. So on the chart, you can see we have Europe and the U.K. and the rest of world. And actually, when we look at where we'll finish this year, it's about 50-50. So we have a nice balance across all these different regions. And actually, nice to say as well, we have 12% CAGR growth across both those regions, too.

And when you look at the right-hand side of this slide, this gives you the breakdown of Optimum Nutrition's growth versus 4 of our key priority markets, so China, India, the U.K. and Australia. And Australia has, as an example, a category of $0.8 billion, so the sports nutrition category, it's growing at 9% and Optimum Nutrition over the previous 3 years is growing at 10%. So we're growing ahead of the category and taking share within that market. And we have some standout performances there, particularly in China, which I'm going to talk about in more detail. The one that we're showing growth less than the category is India. So that's showing 15% over the past 3 years and a category growing at 23%.

However, when you look at the data over the last 12 months, that growth rate is now at 23%, so just in line and actually just above NOI category. That's very much a result of the supply chain piece that I was talking about earlier as we've really ramped up our local manufacturing in that market, it's enabled us to really get a bit of speed and momentum into the business. Finally, China at the bottom is growing at 47% over the last 3 years for Optimum Nutrition, which is a really standout performance versus the category growing at 9%. And there's probably one person that can do a better job explaining that than me, and that's our General Manager of China, Michael Yang. So I'm going to pass over to him via a video.

I'm Michael Yang, the Country Director of Glanbia Performance Nutrition, Greater China. On behalf of the entire 24th strong team here in China, I'm proud to share the story of one of the fastest growing markets for Glanbia globally. Over the past 4 years, revenue in China region has more than doubled as we continue to build the optimization brands locally. Our market share has grown steadily, and we have become one of the top 3 port nutrition brands in China by using global and local partnerships with high paying athletes and influencers, we have driven record levels of brand awareness and penetration for Optimum Nutrition among our target consumers.

Looking ahead, we will continue to win through our relentless focus on driving category leadership through consumer education.

This year, Optimum Nutrition China partnered with the Chinese Nutrition Society, a government affiliated nonprofit industrial thought leader to co-author and publish China's first protein powder white paper. We are set up for success with our local manufacturing network, which now delivers nearly 40% of the portfolio in China, driving more flexibility, operational efficiency and enabling localized innovation. We continue to execute our omnichannel strategy in market on leading e-commerce platforms like Tmall, JD and TikTok, which account for the majority of our business, we continue to hold a top position in our category. We have experienced strong growth in social commerce TikTok with sales almost doubling in the year. Additionally, we continue to expand our offline presence with ambitious plans to grow our institution within the FDM and top channels with a proven track record, strong brand metrics operational agility and a clear vision for expansion. We are excited to continue to grow the business into 2026 and beyond.

So fantastic to have a flourishing business in China. It's a really exciting market, and we have a really talented team actually led by Michael in that market. And it links nicely to this. So we have a lot of markets in the international business. We have over kind of 30 to 35 I would call active that we are proactively managing. And we try to go about that in a methodical way. So we have a repeatable business model, growth model that we try and take to all the different markets because it can come with a lot of complexity, a lot of volatility. And this just talks you through how we tackle that challenge.

So on the left-hand side, you'll have markets like Malaysia or our smaller markets and there are established markets usually between $0 million and $10 million revenue. And we really approach these in a very simple way. So we take the brand and we go very much digital first. We look at the core range, the core powders range. We keep it very simple, and we look at e-commerce and specialty. Specialty is always an important channel to get into early because that's where our core consumers are. And then as we expand and these markets expand, they become build and we kind of add on. So we start to look at how our creative expands more and more to that local consumer.

The channel, we would start to have conversations with more strategic distribution partners and portfolio, we start to expand. But it's very important you almost earn the right to grow. and earn the right to actually expand this business in a structured way. And good examples of that would be the UAE. We have a very nice business there or Ireland. And then finally, and that's where I've spent most of the time today, our kind of priority markets, your India, your China, your U.K., they are $50 million plus, and we really want to be the leaders and kind of reflect, I guess, what we have in the U.S. as a business model. So lead on things like the category, on RGM, obviously start to bring innovation into those markets. And when we talk about innovation later on, they're very much specifically for these priority markets.

Channels, we obviously then start going into places like FDM and portfolio, we also start to look at our other brands. So within the international business, the focus at the moment is obviously Optimum Nutrition. But as a good example of starting to expand that would be we launched Isopure in the U.K. in the second half of this year. And that leads me nicely to the U.K. Obviously, delighted to have everybody here in London and host the Capital Markets Day. Just a quick snapshot of our U.K. business. It's in good health, which is pleasing. We are actually the #1 protein powder brand in the U.K. in measured channels. We're also the #1 creatine brand in the U.K. in measured channels, and we've had a 7 percentage point growth since 2022. So it's in decent condition.

I think one of the key drivers we're really focused on in this market is our omnichannel distribution. So really getting the brand out there in the different customers such as Sainsbury's, Tesco, Holland & Barrett, which have been with us for a long time, people like PureGym, really good strategic partners that have our core audience in them and obviously, Amazon as well. I won't spend too much time on this slide actually because Colin has done a good job obviously explaining to it. It is at the core of our growth model though. So brand building is actually incredibly important for the international business, probably more so in some aspects when you look at that portfolio of markets than innovation. It's important that we lead with Optimum Nutrition and build a really strong brand that has foundations for the success and the future.

The other thing that's worth flagging in this is that we take these global assets, and it's a very efficient model where we then localize them. So we would change the language, we would change the athlete, but effectively, the nonworking spend around that is a very effective and efficient model to spread what is and should be a global brand message. On the right-hand side, you've seen some of the athletes today. We are very proud of the athlete portfolio, very elite athletes that we've built across our markets over the last 3 to 5 years. Some good examples are Harley Reid, who's a new AFL superstar in Australia. Rishabh Pant is a God of Cricket and actually linked to Cricket, the bottom right images are the RCB, the Royal Challengers Bangalore, who just recently won the IPL. Thankfully, we signed them before they won. And it was pretty cool because we obviously have Virat Kohli, those of you who are cricket fans will know who this is. He also has 274 million Instagram followers. And in terms of trying to bring your brand to an audience, I think there's probably no better examples.

But again, I will leave the explanations to Sumit, who's our Indian GM, and who's going to talk you through that in a bit more detail.

Namaskar, My name is Sumit Mathur, and I have the privilege of leading the GPN business in India with a 40-member plus strong team. Together, we are building an enduring Glanbia legacy in one of the fastest-growing sports nutrition market in the world. The India business has proven. It has consistently delivered sustainable growth. In fact, in the last 4 years, we have nearly doubled our revenue. We believe we are set up for success. We are set for success because we have an India first business model with 100% local manufacturers, this drives speed to market consumer-first innovations and business resides. We are set for success because we play a full brand portfolio with Optimum Nutrition and Isopure. And that allows us to win both performance and lifestyle consumers.

Optimum Nutrition continues to strengthen in India through our approach of executing global ideas locally. Case in point is the partnership with Royal Challengers Bangalore. They are the reigning champions of Indian Premier League, and that partnership has helped Optimum Nutrition reach 62 million people and delivered a record-breaking 130 bps improvement in brand awareness and not to be left behind is Isopure, a tie up with top Bollywood Celebrity Rashmika Mandanna, has helped deliver a reach of over 50 million plus for this brand. We are set for success because we are leading in the channels of future. Majority of our business comes from online channels like marketplaces, quick commerce, D2C, while we also continue to lead and win in traditional offline channels like specialty and pharmacy. Our D2C business is the largest for Glanbia serving consumers across 350 cities every month in India with cutting-edge martech capabilities.

On the other hand, quick commerce is exploding in India. With Glanbia driving thought leadership in category development with increasing availability, customized channel pack architecture and data-driven decision, robust business model, 2 strong brands winning in the channel of future and last but not the least, great people are our recipe for success in India.

So as you can see, Indian business also really good health. I'd encourage you to talk to Satyavrat, who actually is our President for the EMEA region. He looks after both the China and India businesses, and he's here today. But yes, then I just wanted to move on to innovation. You'll see outside today, and I hope you get the opportunity to try some of these products. They're all set up. They've been set up by the U.K. team. And if we want to continue to lead the category, particularly in those priority markets, then innovation is fundamental and key to that being a success. We have some nice examples here. Everybody is probably aware of creatine.

But again, I would encourage you to go to the creatine session afterwards because you'll get a real good insight into what is driving this category, but we've had an explosion across creatine and some fantastic flavored creatine being sampled outside that was launched in the U.K. and in Europe this year. Alongside electrolytes, so hydration another booming category, and we launched electrolytes in the U.K. and Europe this year. As well as our whey and collagen product, which is similar to the product that has just been shown to you by Monica called Pro Quench.

Our RTD business continues to expand. We have a very focus again on priority markets. So the U.K. and Australia are leading the way there. We recently got our RTDs listed in Tesco Express as part of the meal deal alongside co-op and some other retailers in the U.K., and that will continue to be a focus for us going forward as it is in Australia. And then finally, Isopure. Isopure, as you saw from the video, Sumit and the team in India have done a fantastic job there with some real superstar Bollywood representatives. And then just about 5 months ago, actually, we launched it in the U.K. as well. So it's in Sainsbury's, Holland & Barrett and Amazon as we speak.

And my penultimate slide is around omnichannel execution. It's a passion of mine. I think making sure the brand shows up well, both online and offline is absolutely critical for any superstar brand. I've got some nice examples here, Marketplaces and D2C on the left. Amazon is a big customer for us, but as is now retailers like tesco.com, sainsbury's.com. And as the traditional FDM retailers expand into online, it's very important that we get our brands there. Within Amazon, in particular, we have a good relationship. We've worked well with them, and we're now the #1 protein powder in both the U.K. and in Australia.

Moving over to China. You saw from Michael's video, TikTok Shop has been an explosion over the last 3 to 5 years. Really, the majority of our business was actually in JD and Tmall. It is now JD, Tmall and TikTok. Very much those 3 platforms are dominating Chinese commerce at the moment. I'm pleased to say we're performing well there. We're up 88% year-on-year within TikTok Shop. Moving to India. And again, Sumit talked about it. It's an extraordinary thing to witness the different Indian cities where you go to the dark stores and you see anything being ordered and delivered within 10 minutes. It's really, really an extraordinary thing to see. And Sumit and the team have done a fantastic job working with the big players like Blinkit and Zepto, and we have a business now that's growing at 124% in that quick commerce specialty. We are seeing as well quick commerce slowly evolve into the Middle East in places like Dubai as well.

And finally, FDM, it's really critical, particularly as new users come to this category, a lot of them want to pick the product up. So often when you get into the category, you'll be over towards the left-hand side of this slide, you'll be regularly ordering in Amazon. However, with things like collagen and creatine, people like to pick it up and the physical experience of stores is still actually fundamental to this category as it grows. We've done a good job growing our distribution across multiple regions, particularly in the U.K. Continental Europe, we've had some great wins recently in the big retailers like Carrefour, Auchan across Spain, Italy, Portugal. And then we recently had a very big win as well in Australia, which was with one of the biggest retailers there, Chemist Warehouse.

So in summary, the international business is in good health. I'm pleased to say we have a good strong track record of growth and good ambitions for the next 3 years. The mainstreaming of protein that we've all talked about today is something we are seeing in our markets. They are behind America, but they are absolutely showing that growth is coming in a similar fashion for the protein market. We're very proud of the brand. It's showing up very well. Our awareness is growing across all our markets over the last 3- to 5-year period. Our global footprint and our agile supply chain gives us the ability and flexibility to be able to deal with regulatory challenges. And most importantly, actually, when you look at the people on the video, the teams that we have built across the markets are very, very strong. They're coming from traditional backgrounds in terms of FMCG. And we really believe that if we continue to build those talents in the markets, we'll make the most out of this opportunity.

That's it from me. I believe there is now a break for everybody. It's 5 minutes and if we could ask you all to be back in this room in 5 minutes, that would be fantastic. Thank you.

[Break]

I'm the new leader. I'm the leader of the new business. Newly created division of Glanbia Health & Nutrition. I'm 6 weeks into the game So I guess I would give you -- I thought I would give you a few elements of background. I've been leading B2B businesses in the food industry for a bit more than 20 years. Before joining Glanbia, I managed global businesses at DuPont and IFF, so ingredients and systems businesses. There are many things I like about Health & Nutrition, and I will cover that in my presentation in a minute. But before I do that, I thought I would give you a brief introduction to the business with a short video.

[Presentation]

All right. So Health & Nutrition was created very recently. It was carved out of the Glanbia Nutrition business earlier this year. What it's really about it's a high-growth, high-margin nutrition platform. It's structured around 2 main product lines. So the premix or custom premix solutions first. And maybe explain a bit what it is for those who are less familiar with the business. When you think of premix, think of 13 vitamins and hundreds, if not thousands of minerals or single ingredients. And the magic of premixing is to blend those at the required ratios in the right regulatory framework and then to deliver them at scale wherever your customer needs it with the right quality without impacting taste basically, okay? So quite an interesting game. We are globally #2 player in this field. So that's the first product line.

The second product line are natural and organic flavor systems. And I guess everybody sees what flavors are. What I find quite remarkable about those two product lines is that both of them, they have a strong impact on the consumer experience, either through taste or through the benefits, the functional benefits you get, while at the same time, they represent a very small portion of the food product cost. We operate in 12 manufacturing sites. We own 10 innovation and customer collaboration centers with 125 scientists in 2025, we'll reach a bit more than $600 million revenues, a bit more of the $110 million of EBITDA. Over the last 2 years, we grew by 11% per annum. And that's, of course, a combination of category of organic and M&A. Very interestingly, we are very focused on those 3 categories you see on the right-hand side there, right? And the good news that those categories enjoy a nice mid-single-digit growth. They're also supported by long-term consumer trends.

So the BU is new, and Glanbia has been playing in this field for a long time, for more than 20 years. The journey started in 2004 when Glanbia was looking for adjacencies to its dairy ingredients business. It acquired a business, I think this gentleman on the right, that acquired a business in Germany at the time in Premix. And since then, it's been a story of finding the right targets, acquiring them, integrating them, capturing synergies and then expanding them, investing to yield further returns to the shareholder. A good example is Watson. We acquired Watson in 2019 that not only gave an interesting footprint for premix in the East Coast of the U.S., it also brought a portfolio of technologies we leverage everywhere in our network.

The flavors journey is also interesting. So we had a tiny flavor business until we decided to scale it up. And in 2020, Glanbia acquired Foodarom a business headquartered in Canada with a strong natural focus. Then acquired Flavor Producers in 2024. And those businesses were very well integrated into the business, provided nice cost synergies, but also revenue synergies we enjoy today. They also gave us the size we needed to stand up H&N as an independent business unit, okay?

So the journey continues. I think Hugh referred to $100 million spend in 2025 in H&N. If I look at the last 2 years, so 2024 and 2025, we will have vetted as much as $400 million of capital to grow this business in acquisitions and in organic in CapEx. I'll start with acquisitions. You heard of SweetMix, so that's a premix business located in Brazil. We also acquired and Hugh referred to that last Friday, we signed a binding agreement to buy -- to acquire Scicore, a state-of-the-art facility in India. That's for the M&A this year. On the organic side, we broke the ground 2 weeks ago in China to double capacity. We are currently exploring the best options to increase our capacity in Europe. And lastly, in the U.S., we invest in Spray Dried Flavors. That's very important to be able to address the flavor or powdered flavors market. We also expand our customer collaboration center in Ohio, which is centered around beverages.

So three fundamental reasons why we are very well positioned to compete and to win in this market. I'll start with the footprint. We are one of the very few players who can serve customers globally. We serve global players who typically look for consistency in terms of supply into their manufacturing network across the globe. We also serve local regional players who typically look for local needs, local tastes. The second key success factor is our range of technologies, and I'll cover that in a bit more detail next page. The third factor is our applications or customer collaboration capabilities. I'll cover them page after next. And maybe before we move on, this business is really focused. So we have this deep expertise in a few strong categories. We're also pretty lean and agile. And we also win business because we respond faster and we deliver faster.

So going through technologies and areas of strength, I'll highlight four quickly. The first one is what we call our fun technologies, functionally optimized nutrients. It's basically around protecting the single ingredients so that when they get into the premix and into the customer manufacturing process, they don't lose their benefits. The second one is around, when I introduced the premix business, I referred to this notion of consistency and homogeneity. So think of ingredients like some vitamins, some think of folic acid, it comes at a very small concentration, really trace concentration. And you want every single bag you deliver to your customer to include the same amount of this trace vitamin. So it's quite an art or science rather to get to this level, and we typically use trituration to get to this.

The third one is around our understanding of the protein molecule. So that comes from our dairy background, from work we've been doing with universities. We understand how the molecules work and interact together. And thanks to that, we can balance stuff and get to the right flavor profile.

The last one is quite critical when you try to address clean label needs. So it's about our capability or ability to extract natural botanicals from -- from botanical raw material so you can extract natural extracts, natural essences and from there build clean label flavors. So that's a few -- four areas of strength, and you have a chance to hear more about those in the H&N breakout after this explanatory.

The second area I believe of interest that was the -- yes, the second area of interest or the key success factors is what I call applications or customer collaboration. That's where the science comes to life and where you codevelop with your customer their product, which will win in their market.

So we picked three examples. I'll start with the first one in China. The market is shifting over there. Customer came to us, they want a clear protein drink with some hydration benefits, which would also be clean label, okay? So you can't use the usual tricks with hydrocolloids to get the right texture because they want this clean label. So they really had to iterate a few times applications team, customer and regulatory team.

And they found a limited set of additives that would allow to keep the label clean and reach the right flavor profile. We also help the customer scale up, found some co-manufacturing capacity so that they could launch domestically in more than 400 retail outlets. The second example, actually, the next two are U.S.-based.

The second one is a customer with a range of ready-to-mix protein products. So think of -- it's a sachet, you open, you pour in a mug and you add water and you have your beverage. And they wanted to add a coffee one. So it had to be protein, coffee, clean label. Again, we iterated and that's where we use this knowledge of proteins and interactions between proteins and flavors. Very interestingly, the -- when you look at the back of the pack, the label doesn't mention any flavor. It only mentions botanical extracts, which are either organic or natural.

The third example, you may be more familiar with the third one. The third one is how do you call that, an influencer-based or inspired brand who wanted to launch some trading -- trending -- sorry, botanicals through a gummy format. So they wanted add a claim around energy, concentration, stress reduction. Now the challenge comes from the fact that the -- to produce a gummy, it's a hot molding process. So that typically damages the botanicals or their impact so that it doesn't reach unfortunately, the consumer.

Good news, we had this FON technology, and we micro encapsulated those botanicals so that they would be fully bioavailable to the end consumer. Okay. So I hope I gave you a good feel of how this works, the science part, the applications part. And again, this will be covered in the H & N breakout. You have a chance to try some samples.

So looking forward, our strategy is very straightforward, four pillars. I will start with -- the first one is around expanding with our customer base. So it's around deepening relationship, it's also about supporting our customer's growth as a go to new geographies. Second one -- and maybe on this one the fact that we acquired India -- footprint in India and Brazil is obviously to support this first pillar.

When we move to the second pillar, it's about acquiring new customers. So here, typically, we would look at midsized customers that are more sensitive to innovation, agility or partnership. We also have a good track record of growing with those customers once we've acquired them, we grow nicely with them. In the second pillar, we also try to maximize cross-selling. So think of cross-selling between flavors and premix and also between flavors and dairy nutrition or between flavors and Performance Nutrition.

The third pillar is about continuing to invest in our R&D pipeline, expanding our applications and customer collaboration centers. I mentioned our investment in Ohio.

And the fourth one is about M&A. So we'll continue to pursue targeted acquisitions, either to expand our footprint further or to acquire other technologies. Our approach to M&A remains very disciplined. We have strict return hurdles. Obviously, we focus rigorously on the execution of the synergies and focus on financial strength. So with those 4 pillars, combined, we target a consistent 4% to 6% organic growth over the next 3 years, to which we will add the M&A impact. As far as EBITDA margin, we'll stick to the 17% to 19% range.

So to conclude, we believe we are very well positioned to accelerate growth for Health & Nutrition in the coming 3 years, 4, 5 reasons for this. We have a strong track record of organic and M&A growth. I'm looking at my notes here. We are focused in very attractive core categories, growing mid-single digit. We've got a strong scale platform we can leverage with deep relationship with regional and global customers. We've got a strong global network of innovation and collaboration centers. And lastly, we have a new leadership team in place and fully dedicated to driving growth, okay.

So that's it. With this, I will hand it over to Mark. He will wrap all of this up into a beautiful financial presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Arnaud, and welcome to the team. Definitely a baptism of fire having to do a presentation like this so quickly. I don't have any videos as you probably would not expect. But I am happy to be here today to talk you through our ambition and give you a little bit of an update on the track record that we've had over the last number of years. And I hope you've been inspired by the presentations you've had from Hugh and the leadership team over the last bit of time as well.

Before I start, I'll take that as read in terms of the forward-looking statements that I will speak to. So firstly, I would like to look back at our track record of performance at our last Capital Markets Day in 2022, we set 3-year financial targets in terms of adjusted earnings per share, cash conversion and return on capital employed. And notwithstanding a volatile macro environment over the last number of years, I'm happy to say that we've delivered across all three group metrics.

We committed to growing adjusted earnings per share on average of 5% to 10% per annum and taking into account our latest guidance for '25, we expect to deliver average growth of approximately 7% over the 3 years. We've ensured cash flow has been a strong focus. Working capital optimization has been important for us. And as a result, we've been able to exceed our expectation on cash flow conversion and on average, over 85% of EBITDA will have been converted, which means we'll have generated operating cash flow of over $1.3 billion over the last 3 years. That's obviously given us a lot of optionality in terms of investment, including what Arnaud was just speaking to. The return on capital employed metric is a very important one for us. The average return on capital employed over the 3 years will be approximately 12%, 10% to 13% being our target for that metric.

Turning to divisional performance. For the 3 years, Performance Nutrition average annual revenue growth was approximately 2%. That's below our target of 5% to 7%. And as many of you will know, that's because of the performance of SlimFast primarily. We've now completed the sales of both SlimFast and Body & Fit. And on a pro forma basis, excluding those brands, the average revenue growth would have been 7% over the period. We're on track to exceed our targets. We set for EBITA margins for the Performance Nutrition division in excess of 12% and expect to have an average margin over the 3-year period of approximately 14%, which translates to an average EBITDA margin of just over 15%.

In 2024, we changed the primary financial reporting metric from EBITA to EBITDA. So we felt that was a more comparable metric in terms of industry standards. At the beginning of this year, as Arnaud said, we resegmented our group separating Glanbia Nutritionals into Health & Nutrition and Dairy Nutrition. And as such, the Nutritional Solutions metric is a little bit different in terms of how we come through that. We've done a pro forma here to show you that we would have been approximately 3% growth over the 3 years versus the 3% to 5% target that we have.

Again, many of you may recall, in 2023, industry-wide customer destocking was a challenge we were all facing with. But '24 and '25, that stabilized. We saw significant growth coming through in those years. We're also on track to meet our EBITDA margin target of greater than 12% with an average of 15%. That has been helped, of course, by the JV agency model change that we did also.

Now looking at our capital allocation record, our delivery of $1.3 billion of operating cash flow facilitated a disciplined and progressive approach to capital allocation over the 3 years, and we invested for growth while also returning capital to shareholders. Just over $170 million was allocated to high-returning strategic capital projects to enhance capabilities across the business. Key projects included capacity expansion, IT and digital enhancements and business integration, given the acquisitions that we made during the period.

Approximately $430 million was invested in accretive acquisitions being flavor producers, Sweetmix, Scicore just announced and the U.S. bioactive ingredients business. During the period, we also received proceeds of approximately $180 million from the sales of noncore assets, including SlimFast, Body & Fit and our European Dairy Joint Venture in 2023.

In terms of shareholder returns, approximately $320 million was returned via dividends, in line with our payout ratio range between 25% and 35%. We also returned capital via share buybacks. And in the period, we bought back 28.5 million shares at a cost of approximately EUR 14 a share -- just over EUR 14 a share. We maintained strong financial discipline, achieving an average return on capital employed of 12% over the period and an average year-end net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of less than 1x.

In terms of our core financial principles, these are the principles that we've applied over the last number of years, and we will be applying over the next 3 years as well. Firstly, we are focused on delivering strong revenue and EBITDA growth across our portfolio of better nutrition brands and ingredients. We are progressing an important group-wide transformation program, which will enable the group to unlock efficiencies, which we'll use to fund growth and to improve EBITDA and margins.

We are committed to strong cash conversion, enabling us to fuel investment in growth and also returns. We have a disciplined capital allocation framework, which utilizes our strong cash generation for organic investments and acquisitions, ensuring they deliver strong returns. We're committed to returning capital to shareholders via our dividend payout ratio target and using excess cash for share buybacks.

And finally, we're committed to maintaining a strong balance sheet and target an investment-grade-like leverage position. These principles give us confidence that we can continue to drive long-term shareholder value. Now let me talk about our group-wide transformation program, which we announced in November 2024. Pleased to say we're upgrading our targeted cumulative annual savings from at least $50 million to at least $60 million by 2027, with up to 40% of these savings expected to be achieved by the end of 2026.

As Hugh mentioned earlier, our transformation program has four key pillars, which include optimizing our operating model, delivering operating efficiencies, accelerating digital transformation and streamlining our portfolio. We expect to reinvest at least 50% of savings to drive further growth, primarily focused on innovation and marketing with up to 50% of savings driving EBITDA and margin progression. The total cost of the program is now expected to be approximately $100 million, previously $70 million to $80 million. These costs primarily relate to severance, change management costs as a result of outsourcing certain back-office support functions and costs associated with establishing the Dairy Nutrition and Health & Nutrition business and the global supply chain organization.

By the end of 2025, we expect to have approximately 2/3 of those costs incurred. As part of optimizing our portfolio, we have recently concluded the sales of SlimFast and Body & Fit. As the program progresses, we will continue to keep our portfolio under review to ensure all assets contribute to long-term shareholder value.

Turning now to Performance Nutrition and in terms of our ambition for that business. We expect to deliver annual organic revenue growth of 5% to 7% over the medium term. We have strong confidence in our brand's ability to capture growth in the attractive categories we operate in. We particularly see Optimum Nutrition and Isopure as driving that growth. Organic revenue growth will be driven by a combination of category growth, increasing penetration and points of distribution as well as innovation.

We expect to grow Performance Nutrition EBITDA ahead of revenue over the period, and we are focused on margin progression with a target of structurally expanding margins by up to 250 basis points from a 2025 base. As we plan to improve margins over the 3-year period, commercial initiatives focused on revenue growth management in terms of pricing in line with cost inflation, price pack architecture and promotional effectiveness are important elements in our toolbox.

There can be a lag when input costs increase quickly and we can thoughtfully increase prices to our consumers. We are working through this currently, having taken price increases across our markets during 2025 with further price increases planned for 2026. We are proactively managing the current unprecedented level of input cost inflation, which has been driven by strong category growth. We are taking a more layered approach to whey procurement, so we are procured at least 2 to 3 quarters ahead of expected requirements, providing good cost visibility.

Significant new whey supply is starting to come on stream, which we expect will, over time, moderates this inflationary cycle. And as I noted earlier, group-wide transformation program savings as well as portfolio optimization from the recent sale of noncore brands will also result in margin accretion in Performance Nutrition. All of these elements give us confidence in progressing Performance Nutrition margins over the period.

Turning to our new division, Health & Nutrition. We expect to deliver annual organic revenue growth of 4% to 6% during the period '26 to '28. Our Health & Nutrition division operates in attractive end-use markets across premix and flavors that are growing at mid-single digits. Drivers of organic revenue growth for Health & Nutrition include end-use market growth, commercial excellence and added capabilities as we scale with our global and regional customer base.

In addition to this, we expect acquisition investment to contribute to total revenue growth over the period, and we are focused on scaling Health & Nutrition in target geographies across premix and Flavors, and we'll also look at adjacencies as appropriate. We expect EBITDA to grow ahead of revenue over the period with margins in the range of 17% to 19%, driven by operating leverage and our group-wide transformation program. Our key focus will be on scaling up this business via organic and inorganic investment, and our ambition would be that over the medium term, we will be at the higher end of this EBITDA margin range.

We are also focused on optimizing cash profits in our Dairy Nutrition segment, which is now a stand-alone business. Dairy Nutrition has a scale U.S. cheese, proteins and bioactives portfolio with a strong track record of delivering cash returns, driven by operational efficiency, commodity management and cost optimization. We also have a strong joint venture operating model with Dairy Nutrition as an operational and commercial partner, earning commissions on cheese and whey sales.

The joint venture is also one of Performance Nutrition's key whey suppliers. Over the medium term, Dairy Nutrition will deliver annual EBITDA in the range of $150 million to $160 million with the joint venture also contributing consistent profit after tax. Dairy Nutrition revenues are primarily driven by pass-through pricing of end dairy markets, and therefore, revenue is not a KPI in this business. Our focus will continue to be on earnings and cash returns.

As I mentioned earlier, we have a strong track record of operating cash flow conversion, reflecting the strength and discipline of our financial model. Operating cash flow has been underpinned by EBITDA growth, strong working capital management and disciplined sustaining capital investment. We have a centralized working capital management approach, ensuring appropriate receivables and payables terms as well as strong sales and operating planning processes to manage inventory levels.

With the creation of our global supply chain organization, we will benefit for operational efficiencies through further automation as well as leveraging blending assets across both Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition. With this new organization, we also expect to see significant benefits in inventory management. We are targeting a 5% reduction in average inventory investment over the medium term.

Today, we are upgrading our operating cash flow conversion target from 80% to at least 85%. We are confident in delivering over $1.5 billion in operating cash flow in the next 3 years, an increase of $1.3 billion in the prior cycle. We have a strong track record of shareholder returns. And from 2020 to 2025, we returned EUR 1.2 billion to our shareholders via dividends and share buybacks. Since 2020, since we started our share buyback program, we've been consistently using excess cash to execute share buybacks. And since that date, we repurchased approximately 52 million shares at an average price of just over EUR 13.

And today, with our confidence around cash delivery, we are announcing an update to our dividend policy, increasing the payout ratio range to 30% to 40%, reflecting our ongoing commitment to maintaining a consistent and progressive dividend policy. Looking forward then, along with strong cash delivery, we will continue to have a balanced capital allocation framework. Organically, we expect business sustaining and strategic capital expenditure to be in an annual range of approximately $80 million to $100 million over the 3-year period.

Looking to acquisition targets, we're focused on new and complementary capabilities and regions, primarily within Health & Nutrition as we are ambitious to scale up that business. We will look for opportunities that unlock synergies and that meet our return hurdles. We will continue to have a progressive dividend policy within our updated payout ratio range. And we will deploy excess cash on further buyback programs consistent with prior years, and we will update you on our buyback plans for 2026 when we report our full year results in February. We will continue to maintain a strong balance sheet and expect the group's average net debt to EBITDA will average less than 2x over the period.

To summarize our growth algorithm then, we have an ambition to grow adjusted earnings per share by 7% to 11% per year over the next 3 years. This will firstly be driven by our divisional ambition of 5% to 7% annual revenue growth for Performance Nutrition and 4% to 6% annual revenue growth for Health & Nutrition, both organic metrics. Secondly, earnings growth with both PN and H&N growing EBITDA ahead of revenue and a focus on margin progression in both businesses. And thirdly, capital investments by continuing to refine our business model, invest in capability, capacity and technology and accretive acquisition activity with a return on capital employed ambition of between 10% and 13%.

We're upgrading our operating cash flow conversion rate to 85%, and our dividend payout ratio will be between 30% and 40% of adjusted earnings per share. And hopefully, from what you've seen today, you can appreciate why we believe the group is well positioned to achieve these targets. To summarize then, I would like to remind you of the core pillars of our investment case. We have a complementary portfolio of better nutrition brands and ingredients with leading market positions. We are operating in an environment of powerful consumer trends and growing categories.

We have evolved our operating model to simplify our structure and focus on growth within our 2 core divisions of Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition. We have a talented team of brands and business builders with a strong culture and values across our organization. We are ambitious for revenue growth, EBITDA growth and EBITDA margin progression over the 3-year period. We will continue to have strong cash generation, enabling organic and acquisition investment opportunities at or above our target return range. And finally, we are committed to a framework of progressive returns to shareholders while maintaining a strong balance sheet.

So I appreciate your time today. And now we're going to move to Q&A.

First question in reference to the category dynamic and how that relates to GLP-1 adoption. Just wondering if there is an in-house view on what oral GLP-1s might mean for the category and the opportunity for your brands.

Yes. Matt, the lights are on us here, so it's hard to see people. But maybe first before just introduce, we obviously have all the presenters here, but I've also asked Sorcha McKenna, who's our Chief Strategy Officer, who leads the transformation project program to join us here as well up on the stage. Yes, look, I said this earlier on, Matt, clearly, what we're seeing is GLP engagement, particularly in the U.S., but soon to be global and certainly in a lot of developing markets, we're also seeing is strong. 12% of U.S. adults have taken GLP-1, consistency of about 7%, 8%. So we're clearly seeing this.

And Monica would have called out the benefit -- without a doubt, Isopure has seen some of that benefit from GLP-1 users because we see in terms of consumer needs, consumer usage around weight management as well form. So protein as a macro is in strong demand for consumers who are taking GLP-1. So clearly, we've called it out today as a tailwind, but not just for our consumer branded business, also if you think about Health and Nutrition, consumers are also saying they need protein when they're on GLP-1, they need energy and they need vitamin mineral supplementation. And that plays across all parts of the Glanbia business. So from our perspective, we would see GLP-1 as a tailwind for the entire organization.

Karel Zoete, Kepler Cheuvreux. I have two questions in relation to GPN. The first one is on Isopure. Successful brand within Glanbia, and it seems you've made quite a sizable shift in where you -- and how you want to position the brand -- the brand identity. So what's been driving that to make that change?

And the other thing is on the international market. If you look back 5, 10 years or even more, with the exception of the U.K., it's been very volatile in terms of how you want to grow the international business, route to market, the brands. In the future, looking ahead, is this going to be really about premium brands, ON and Isopure and it's very similar to your U.S. business? Or do you still see differences across markets?

Maybe I'll answer the question a little bit first, going back a little bit of history before I hand to Monica on Isopure. Yes, you're absolutely right, Karel. When we bought Isopure, it was actually a premium sports nutrition brand. But the big insight we had for us at the time was what we loved about it was less about the [indiscernible], which was the ISO part of the name, the [ isoloprotein ] and more about the purity.

And that was the reason that we saw an opportunity there. So over time, as our business has continue to grow and we continue to scale Optimum Nutrition, we saw an opportunity where this brand appeal to female consumers. It was around the purity piece, and we believed we could grow and extend it. So there was a lot of work done about 4, 5 years ago on repositioning and evolution of that brand, and it's clearly worked well. And maybe just, Monica, do you want to talk a little bit more about U.S. consumer on Optimum.

If I go back to the Nutri-Needs segmentation that Colin shared, as a reminder, this particular segment, the Form aesthetics segment is completely complementary. So as a growth driver, it's very accretive to our portfolio. The continued shift from purity to a broader intentionality position recognizes the behaviors of this target consumer, Hugh as -- again as he was saying, less concerned with the ingredient itself as opposed to the cleanliness and the simplicity and the need to be intentional in boosting all of her daily routines.

The same is true for how she thinks about her family. So the shift in the positioning just recognizes the inherent behavior and allows us to capture it across multiple formats as we continue to grow the brand.

Yes. In terms of international markets, the short answer is, yes. The growth model that we showed earlier is kind of our mapping, our structure around how we approach the different markets. Optimum Nutrition is absolutely the focus. And there is so much opportunity in these markets, particularly those middle and underdeveloped markets to actually get distribution right, build the brand properly, get our supply chain in place and then just keep doing the basics really, really well.

And then I used the words earlier that kind of almost the right to have a second brand needs to be earned by the markets. Now they do go well together. I think the thing I love about Optimum and Isopure is they sit brilliantly together. They're really complementary. They target different consumer groups, and you can do different things with them. But the risk of distraction by trying to do too much too soon is also something that we're very cognizant of. So we absolutely focused on ON. And then the U.K. is a great example of when you get to a scale position, you have your distribution built out, you have your account managers in place. That is the right time to then bring in a brand like Isopure.

Maybe just to add to that, Andy, Karel, you've followed us quite a bit, like there's always a degree of volatility in international. We always -- whether there's a war breaking out somewhere, there's tariffs, there's currency because we're U.S. dollar-denominated. I think the team do a brilliant job of managing that and then setting the right priorities.

Also, you go back to when you followed us, the scale of our business is now in some of these international markets. Let's take India as an example. The scale of that business and the scale of the team, the leadership that we have there compared to 10 years ago is fundamentally different. So -- but Andy and team do a great job is navigating that volatility. It takes a certain skill set. But also then building out that more entrepreneurial team in these markets that can grow the brand and distribution for us.

And in reality, when you think about drivers of growth, the key drivers of growth for us still is the opportunity around driving velocity in categories that are still growing fast and are less mature than in some of our main markets. And then secondly, driving distribution. And that's how you see the focus on range as well. Smaller core range as we joke Andy -- for these smaller markets, you kind of 2 tubs of Whey Gold Standard, 2 tubs of Energy and Creatine and when they're in full distribution, come back to us again. And then in the top-tier markets, it's very much about your classic brand building capability as the leading CPG in the market.

Patrick Higgins from Goodbody. Maybe a couple of questions on GPN or PN as well, please. Firstly, just in terms of, I guess, the innovation strategy going forward. It feels like there's been a kind of meaningful step-up in terms of NPD and new product launches in the last 6 months. What's underpinning that step-up? And how should we think about innovation going forward and how that balances, I guess, against other growth drivers like A&P spend?

And then kind of linked to that, I guess, is, obviously, we've had some recent innovations around ready-to-drink in particular, and Isopure, which seems to be well received, but conscious that it's a competitive space, it is difficult and expensive to scale. How should we think about, I guess, the evolution of your portfolio from a format perspective over the next, say, 2 to 3 years?

Maybe I'll talk about innovation and I hand over the Isopure piece to you, Monica. A couple of things to call out. We -- if you look at the one-page strategy I put up briefly, innovation was the fourth -- was the fifth pillar. We've never had innovation as a key pillar for growth at a group level before. We've had it at a business unit level, but not at a group level. So we've clearly elevated innovation to a key driver of growth for the group across all our businesses.

Actually, second -- Loren Ward is in the audience, our new Chief Science Officer. Loren was our Chief R&D Officer on the -- for Glanbia Nutritionals, and we moved him into a group role, very much focused, less on the innovation application work we do in the businesses, but more on driving our science agenda, particularly given the leader in sports nutrition, but also a leader in Health and Nutrition. So it's been a key focus for us. And I think when I go down into the businesses then, you heard a lot today about the capability we have that build. And we've also resourced that, particularly in Monica's team when Monica came in, innovation was a key focus for Monica to rebuild that team to help drive the growth.

And Rizal, who's our Chief Growth and Innovation Officer, is in the audience here today as well, who's with us probably 7 months, maybe. So it's been a deliberate, Patrick, build for us around taking what we are really good at and have lots of capability, leveraging it more across the broader base. Like that's the first time we've broken with 230 scientists across the group. We wouldn't have talked about that in the past. How do we leverage that group -- that large group of scientist application capability to benefit our innovation platform.

Yes. And then just generally to the rest of your question, we fundamentally believe in the growth upside in our core powders business. And as we think about the drivers of growth, as I said earlier, we're looking for balanced growth across category momentum, velocities, distribution and innovation as well. Innovation is a key part of enabling us to continue to take price. So it is an important part of our strategy. With respect to ready-to-drink, our lead horse in the ready-to-drink market is Isopure because it is more of a lifestyle growth opportunity. This particular launch is early days. It's still in test mode. So too early to report anything other than the consumer feedback has been very strong.

It's Alex Sloane from Barclays. A couple of questions from me, please. The first one, just on Performance Nutrition. I mean, I guess about a year ago, you were getting a bit of a hard time in terms of overweight ready-to-drink and is powder kind of a challenged category. But we've seen this year, powder growth coming back. So I'd love to maybe dig into sort of what's driven that? Is it to do with it's cost per serve versus the ready-to-drink and advantages there? Or is it maybe more to do with the versatility that you also showed in some of the presentations. I guess the question is kind of do you see that trend that we've seen this year as sustainable?

And then the second one, just on Health & Nutrition. Arnaud, thanks very much for the presentation. I was struck by the growth this year for that unit actually being quite strong when it compares to some of your global peers. And I think you explained some of that by showing the advantaged sort of end markets that you play into. Do you also have an advantage in terms of the customer mix in terms of maybe overexposure to faster-growing customers? I'd love to get a bit more detail on kind of local and regional customers versus multinationals and how you're growing with the 2 cohorts?

Thanks, Alex. Do you want to start with that question?

Thanks for the question. Look, yes, we've enjoyed a very nice growth, as you said, three factors here. The first one is category growth, as you highlighted. There is also something about having the right customers in the category or the right subcategories, if you will. If you think of VMS, we've grown faster than VMS. And we are not really strong in gummies. We've done better than the average category. So that's one of two factors. Having the right customers or winning with the customer is another one. And lastly, we've enjoyed nice cross-selling. I refer to the Flavors acquisition and how they support it very nicely. I mean, we see it this year very clearly.

Colin?

Yes. And regarding powders, yes, I mean, if you look at the numbers across every category of powders, you see penetration increasing in our track market. So we've seen the data. When we dug into it and ask consumers, I mean, consumers have always thought about powders as great value for money. What was great for us to see is that they saw just this range of benefits that I showed earlier on. So the versatility is a huge thing. They like to be able to personalize the dosages and what they put it in, there's a fair bit of cooking sort of piece going on as well.

So whether you're in that performance or you're in the Form piece, it's a really versatile format that most of the formats don't offer. So we think that's actually been driving the growth of powders. And it's one of those things once people start getting used to it and really enjoying it, it just sort of snowballs. And that's what we hear from consumers and we see in the data.

Damian McNeela from Deutsche Numis. A couple of questions on the guidance. So these might be for you, Mark. But some really good presentations on the strength of ON and Isopure and the growth we could expect from them. But if we look at the 5% to 7% organic sales growth, what should we be expecting from the other parts of the sort of lifestyle business? How do we think about that? And then the second one is in the 250 bps of margin expansion, what do we think about whey pricing over the next 3 years?

Yes. Not a surprising question. I would say from an Optimum Nutrition perspective, it's clearly going to be at the higher end of that 5% to 7% range in terms of how we're thinking about it. Isopure will be above that range, I would say. Others may be a little bit to the lower end of that range, okay, as we look at it. I think from a North America perspective, will be in the mid-single digits, International will be high single digits in terms of the expected growth rates as you put it all together. We're trying to be mindful of a 3-year view here in terms of how this plays out. So that was important in terms of our thinking.

In terms of the margin, look, I would say right now, we would regard ourselves at a trough in terms of where our margin level is. It's been clearly significantly impacted by rising whey prices, and we're playing a bit of catch-up in terms of pricing as we manage that through the market. And you've seen us talked to that. We just increased prices recently, and we'll be increasing prices more likely again, I would say, in the first half next year based on where we're actually going to. We're doing other things that will help us structurally. So the portfolio sales that we did recently or the noncore brand sales as well as the transformation program, all of those will give us structural benefits in our margin.

And we are expecting some moderation as you go into '26, '27, '28, towards the end of '26, '27, '28. We do expect we'll see some moderation overall in terms of whey cost. More new supplies coming on stream, 15% to 20%. That will have some impact we would expect. And we also expect you will see -- begin to see some elasticity as you get to higher pricing as you go to the back end of next year potentially. So that's how our model is built. But we feel that a mid-teens margin is a reasonable place for us to be on a normalized basis.

A couple in the middle here...

David Roux from Morgan Stanley. So I think the first question is just a follow-up on the Performance Nutrition portfolio, perhaps for Monica and Andy and also Mark. What is the strategic rationale for the brands beyond Isopure and Optimum Nutrition? Because if I look at the track channels over the past decade, I think it's really only Optimum Nutrition that's been gaining share. Isopure, I can definitely see the utility now with people wanting more protein, et cetera. But what is the rationale for Amazing Grass, BSN, et cetera? And even to the point on the guidance, those will be coming in at a lower sort of growth cadence.

And then the second question for Mark is just perhaps you can give us some color on how we should think about marketing costs over the next 3 years. There was at the beginning of the year, the intention to pull back a little bit on marketing. How should we think about that, in particular, for Optimum Nutrition and Isopure? And then I might have a follow-up for Hugh after this.

I will take a photo with the microphone off. He's going to talk about the match last Saturday. I know he is.

I'll go ahead and take the first question about the rest of the lifestyle portfolio and the other brands. Within our sports nutrition portfolio, BSN has a very distinct role playing in the specialty channel, which is a stronghold. As for the rest of lifestyle, think!, of course, is a strong top 10 ranked ready-to-eat player, and it does have a distinct positioning against the Boost need state that Colin introduced you to earlier. For Amazing Grass, that again, has a unique need state aligned against our mental function consumer segment. And it's been a particularly strong segment historically for us in the natural channel.

In terms of the marketing spend, and you're absolutely right. I mean, this year, we will be around mid-single digits in terms of our marketing spend. We've talked about that. And our goal over the 3-year period is that we will move to mid- to high single digits in terms of our normal spend. So that's taken account in terms of even the margin progression I'm talking about that there will be some additional marketing spend coming through in the next 2 years.

And Hugh, while we're on the topic of marketing, I know Optimum Nutrition recently signed Ireland Rugby. So I just want to get your thoughts into Saturday's game. I fear Hugh in the stadium and whether you think that could be a positive catalyst or a short-term headwind for the brand.

Yes. Clearly, I won't laugh, but it was a fine game of Rugby. And as you know what, on a pure personal level, it was great to see the Optimum Nutrition logo around the stadium throughout the game. That's a decision by the local Irish team actually, given the growth and distribution of the brand. And you may know we were heavily -- we've been supporting Leinster for 20 years. But they felt just given the growth of the brand in Ireland is doing very well in Ireland. It's growing double digit and has been consistently and it's very broadly distributed. So that was a local decision.

But just to add to Mark's point on marketing as well. Look, clearly, we call out marketing investment as something we have to flex as we do with SG&A as we deal with significant inflation. And the inflation over the last 18 months for PN has been significant, over $200 million. So -- but our ambition is that high single-digit marketing spend. Our focus this year has been to prioritize the spend on Optimum Nutrition Isopure. That has impacted some of the smaller brands in the portfolio. We have to pull back marketing spend, particularly on Amazing Grass and think! to prioritize in ON and on Isopure.

Look, what I'd say as well is I think we have a huge push in innovation. I think it's strong in the category, but that category is led by innovation and our innovation hasn't worked in the last couple of years. So it's a key focus for Monica and Rizal to drive the innovation agenda on think. She highlighted some of the products that are coming. It's probably going to be the back end of the year before -- somewhere next year by the time we get them into market in reality.

But it's still -- it is one of the leading high-protein ready-to-eat bars in the U.S. market. So we believe still has plenty of runway for us, given the growth. And we see that on the other side of our business as well, Dairy Nutrition as a key supplier, best-in-class in terms of our solutions into that high growth -- that plus 15 plus 20-gram protein bars. So we see -- we can see on both sides of the business, the growth in demand for high-protein bars.

Cathal Kenny from Davy. First question is just on energy within ON. Didn't get a lot of airplay, but it's very fast growing, particularly around creating. Maybe, Monica, you could just expand on that opportunity set, firstly. That's my first question.

Second question is on H&N. R&D rates, I don't think you really touched on. Obviously, you're in an industry with very high reinvestment rates around R&D anywhere up to 8%, 9%, depending on the company. Just wondering in terms of your algorithm around margin, what's baked in there for R&D rates?

And then final question is just back to ON on mix. Obviously, the Form -- if we sat here 10 years ago, it was 5-pound tub of whey it's changed materially over that time. And obviously, now we get into the accessibility of powders has changed because of sachets, smaller tub sizes, et cetera. Just interested to think about the mix effect there over that period, and that's how beneficial that has been to growth and profitability.

Do you want to take the first one? Maybe hit on price points as well.

Take that one instead of the Energy one.

No, Energy one...

Yes. Energy. So you rightly called out the creatine and broader energy demand is skyrocketing in the United States. The underlying drivers are a few. First, it is one of the most research supplements and the accessibility of the research as consumers are going online, doing their brand research, connecting with advice on how to improve their own performance. It's really driving awareness and acceptance of this category.

Second, there's been a broad mainstream of it. Traditionally, you'd think of creating as something for body builders who are seeking to put on muscle mass. It is now becoming widely recognized and accepted as a key additive for mental focus, general energy, general wellness, and you see female adoption actually taking off quite significantly in the United States. So it's becoming very, very mainstream.

The last thing I would point to is continued format innovation. And it was something that I shared in my own presentation. It's very convenient in a powder form, but now we have capsules. We have flavor enhancements. Our own innovation has powders enhanced with hydration and gummies. So the more formats that are available, the more accessible and convenient it becomes for consumers, it's going to integrate into their lifestyles more and drive further growth.

I think what I'd say, Andy, you might comment as well, but I think one of the significant benefits and why ON has led the charge in terms of the creating category as well is the trust that Colin spoke about. It's an unknown ingredient. There's a lot of excitement and interest in it. But consumers are going, okay, I want to buy this product. I'm going to definitely buy it from a brand I trust that I know will be high quality and safe. And that's one of the benefits of ON. And we can see that in international.

Yes. No, that's the thing that's changed the most over the last 5 to 10 years is these conversations happen globally. So social media, when we look at through what people are searching, they're looking for information about Creatine, but it's not a U.S. topic. It's a U.K. topic. We see it in India. We see it in China. So the growth because it's so driven by social media and the conversation around the product, we see popping literally all around the world. So it's -- yes, it feels like there's still room for growth with Creatine.

On the R&D side, I mean, look, we haven't given metrics on our R&D rates, Cathal. I think what you've seen today with our transformation program, wanting to invest at least 50% into innovation and marketing that we are sort of eager to increase what we're doing from an innovation perspective. Hugh and the team have talked about it significantly, potentially a metric we may look at going forward, but the ambition is to increase our innovation percentage.

Okay. I'm not seeing any other questions in the room. So I think that concludes the webcast. That concludes Q&A component of this. So we can stop the broadcasting now, and then I'm just going to take you through. So we're going to have some breakout sessions. All of you have colors or most of you have colors on your badge, the external attendees do. Anybody with green on their badge, please come with me. Everybody else can stay here because we're going to go into the first breakout session here, which is going to focus on the Optimum Nutrition brand and some innovation and digital engagement.

The green team will come with me. I'll take them to breakout to focus specifically on the H&N business and some solutions that we're providing there. And then we will be on rotation so that you can rotate and you can see that as well. And just a reminder, there is goody bags for all the external guests, not for the internal guests. So please help yourself to those and any product you like on your way out when you're leaving. So look, I'd like to say thank you. I'd like to hand it back to Hugh for some final words as well.

The only purpose of today was to take you through our ambition for the growth opportunity, the growth we see in our categories, the growth we see in our end-use markets, the engagement we see with our consumers as well, the different components of the business and how they are complementary, but also are quite distinct in terms of the opportunities they're driving. To meet the new team, there's a lot more here today as well and hear their passion and ambition for the opportunities that lies ahead. And fundamentally, I hope you enjoyed the couple of hours and got a better deeper understanding of where we want to take Glanbia. Thank you very much.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Glanbia Third Quarter 2025 Interim Management Statement Call.

[Operator Instructions]

Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I'd now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Liam Hennigan, Group Secretary and Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to the Glanbia Q3 2025 Interim Management Statement Call.

During today's call, the directors may make forward-looking statements. These statements have been made by the directors in good faith based on the information available to them up to the time of their approval of this interim management statement.

Due to the inherent uncertainties, including both economic and business risk factors underlying such forward-looking information, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these statements.

The directors undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made on today's call, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

I'm now going to hand the call over to Hugh McGuire, CEO of Glanbia plc.

Thank you, Liam. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Glanbia Quarter 3 2025 Interim Management Statement Call and Presentation. On today's call, I will provide an overview of our performance for the first 9 months of the year. And I'm joined by my colleague, Mark Garvey, who will cover the financials and outlook. At the end of the presentation, we will be very happy to take your questions.

Overall, quarter 3 year-to-date performance for the group was ahead of our expectations. Group revenue increased by 3.3% with strong performances in our Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition segments in the third quarter and continued good growth in our Dairy Nutrition segment.

In Performance Nutrition, like-for-like revenue increased by 2.5% year-to-date, excluding the impact of SlimFast and Body & Fit.

We continue to see strong consumer demand with double-digit volume growth in the third quarter in our priority growth brands, Optimum Nutrition and Isopure.

In Health & Nutrition, we continue to see good momentum with strong demand from end-use markets with like-for-like revenue growth of 6.1% year-to-date.

And in Dairy Nutrition, we saw strong volume growth across proteins and cheese and an increase in pricing driven by protein solutions.

We continue to make good progress on our group-wide transformation program to simplify our business and drive efficiencies across our new operating model, supporting the next phase of growth.

We've completed the sale of non-core brands Body & Fit and SlimFast in our Performance Nutrition division, and we acquired Sweetmix within our Health & Nutrition division.

We'll continue to focus on shareholder returns by leveraging our strong cash flow and, in the year-to-date, we repurchased and canceled over 15 million Glanbia shares at a cost of EUR 197 million, which represented an average purchase price of EUR 13.10.

I'm pleased to say that based on the continued momentum within our Performance Nutrition segment, we are upgrading our like-for-like revenue guidance for the full year to 3% to 4%, excluding the impact of SlimFast and Body & Fit.

And we now expect full year adjusted earnings per share to be at the upper end of our full year guidance range of $1.30 to $1.33.

We look forward to meeting investors and analysts at our Capital Markets Day in London on the 19th of November, where we will have an opportunity to delve more into the growth strategy for the group and associated financial targets.

Performance Nutrition delivered a better-than-expected performance during the period with like-for-like revenue increasing by 2.5% excluding the impact of SlimFast and Body & Fit, which have now been sold.

In the third quarter, we delivered a sequential improvement growing like-for-like revenue by double digits excluding the impact of disposed brands.

Year-to-date, the volume performance was driven predominantly by strong category growth with good growth in food, drug, mass and e-commerce channels in both the U.S. and international markets, somewhat offset by lower revenue in the club and specialty channels in the U.S. and a reduction in margin diluted promotions.

We continue to scale our international business, which delivered strong like-for-like growth of 8.8% year-to-date excluding SlimFast and Body & Fit, particularly in Asia Pacific.

Pricing was broadly in line with expectations with a marginally negative year-over-year impact as a result of tactical price changes, primarily relating to higher-margin products in energy category, which are delivering a strong volume uplift.

We continue to navigate ongoing elevated whey prices driven by strong category demand and have responded to this inflation by increasing prices in our international markets in the first quarter of the year. Pricing in the U.S. market comes into effect in the fourth quarter.

We continue to expect approximately 15% to 20% of new whey protein isolate supply from the back end of 2025 and through 2026.

In terms of brand performance, Optimum Nutrition, our largest brand at 68% of Performance Nutrition revenue, delivered like-for-like revenue growth of 4.6% and U.S. consumption growth of 8.8%.

We saw strong double-digit growth in the U.S. food drug mass channel, growing ahead of the category, and continued strong growth in the online channel.

We continue to grow our household penetration and expand the brand's distribution. We have a world-leading portfolio of high-quality products within the Optimum Nutrition and Isopure brands, and we continue to focus on innovation and education.

We've launched a number of products this year, such as Optimum Nutrition Pro Quench, Clear Whey Collagen, and new products across our creative platform, plus the extension of our Isopure proposition into gut health and immune system support.

And we're seeing good growth in our non-whey innovation products for both brands. Our education effort continues to pace, including the Optimum Insiders event we hosted at the McLaren Technology Center, the launch of the Optimum Nutrition Academy program in the U.S. and the continued rollout of Coach Optimum, our AI-powered virtual coach into new markets.

Our healthy lifestyle portfolio delivered like-for-like revenue growth of 2.6% and U.S. consumption growth of 6.8%. Our priority growth lifestyle brand, Isopure, continues to enjoy strong growth across all our channels.

We introduced a new look and formula for Isopure, improving brand visibility and flavor, and we also launched our new creative campaign, More of What Matters, driving continued growth in household penetration and TDP.

We're continuing to roll out and market test of our new ready-to-drink innovation, Isopure Protein Water.

As stated already, due to the momentum in the third quarter, which we see continuing in the fourth quarter, we are pleased to upgrade our full year like-for-like revenue guidance to 3% to 4% growth excluding the impact of SlimFast and Body & Fit.

Turning to our Health & Nutrition segment, which comprises the premix solutions and flavors platforms and focuses on priority high-growth end-use markets such as vitamin, minerals and supplements, active lifestyle nutrition and functional beverages.

This segment delivered a strong performance in the year-to-date, delivering like-for-like revenue growth of 6.1%. This was driven by a 6.9% increase in volume and a 0.8% decrease in price. Total revenue increased by 11.5% as a result of a 7.6% increase from the acquisitions of Flavor Producers and Sweetmix, somewhat offset by a decrease of negative 2.2% as a result of the impact of the 53rd week in the prior year.

We are pleased with the strong performance in the quarter, which was driven by good growth across BMS and functional beverage markets, and we continue to see good broad-based demand with strong growth particularly in EMEA and Asia Pacific.

Pricing was slightly negative as a result of certain pass-through pricing to customers. During the third quarter, we completed the acquisition of Sweetmix, a high-quality Brazil-based nutritional premix and ingredient solutions business, which will allow continued expansion in the Latin America region.

We'll continue to invest in innovation and new capabilities and are building out our new powder flavor capability with planned capital investment in Flavor's spray drying that allow us to capture additional opportunities across our broader B2B customer base.

In terms of guidance, we are reiterating our full year guidance of mid-single-digit like-for-like revenue growth in 2025, which will be predominantly volume led and is currently tracking towards the upper end of the range.

Dairy Nutrition combines our U.S. cheese and dairy protein portfolios and is largely one integrated manufacturing footprint with a high supply and operational interdependency and is also the route to market for our joint venture supply of whey and cheese ingredients.

This business provides a scale leadership position in dairy as a leading producer of whey protein isolate and the #1 producer of American-style cheddar cheese.

In the year-to-date, like-for-like revenue increased by 6.1%, driven by a 3.5% increase in volume and a 2.6% increase in price.

Total revenue increased by 3.2% as a result of a negative 2.9% decrease from the impact of the 53rd week in the prior year. The volume increase was seen across cheese and protein solutions with strong whey protein demand, particularly targeting the high protein ready-to-eat category. And we continue to see good demand for colostrum targeting gut health and immunity.

Pricing increase was largely driven by favorable dairy market pricing in the first half of the year with strong protein markets in particular.

Broader dairy market pricing turned negative during the third quarter. For full year '25, we'll continue to expect profit growth across Dairy Nutrition and our joint venture combined.

And with that, I will hand over to Mark.

Thank you, and good morning to everyone on the call. The group has a strong balance sheet and, at the end of the third quarter, net debt was just under $719 million. We have committed facilities of approximately $1.4 billion with an average maturity of 3 years.

At year-end, we expect net debt to adjusted EBITDA to be approximately 1.25x. The acquisition of Sweetmix in Brazil closed in August for $41 million. The disposals of SlimFast U.S., SlimFast U.K. and Body & Fit have now been completed as of September 22, October 20 and October 31, respectively.

Prior to completion, these businesses have generated approximately $105 million of revenue in 2025. Total consideration for these transactions including working capital transferred was approximately $63 million, of which $14 million has been deferred up to 15 months.

Following these transactions, a further charge of approximately $30 million is expected to be taken related to the sale of the SlimFast brand, which will be confirmed with our annual accounts.

Capital expenditure, both strategic and business sustaining initiatives for the year, is expected to be between $80 million and $90 million with investments primarily related to ongoing capacity enhancements, business integrations and IT investments to drive further efficiencies in operations.

During the first 9 months of the year, the group repurchased approximately EUR 197 million worth of ordinary shares via our share buyback program, which equated to over 15 million Glanbia shares at an average purchase price of EUR 13.10.

Shares repurchase represents over 5% of the weighted average number of ordinary shares and issue at the beginning of the year. Approximately EUR 103 million in dividends were also returned to shareholders this year, in line with our dividend payout ratio of 25% to 35% of adjusted earnings per share.

We look forward to the opportunity to review our capital allocation framework with you at our upcoming Capital Markets Day on the 19th of November.

Now let me turn to outlook and, firstly, revenue growth. We are pleased to upgrade Performance Nutrition revenue growth expectations. We now expect Performance Nutrition like-for-like revenue growth excluding SlimFast and Body & Fit to be 3% to 4%, previously 2% to 3%.

We continue to see strong growth in the category, which is supporting growth in the second half alongside distribution gains and planned innovation. Providing further confidence in the third quarter, we saw a strong sequential improvement, particularly in our Optimum Nutrition brand, which increased like-for-like revenue by 14.3% in the quarter.

Health & Nutrition delivered a good performance year-to-date across premix solutions and flavors platforms, while we continue to expect like-for-like mid-single-digit revenue growth for the full year, the business is currently tracking towards the upper end of this range.

Moving on then to earnings expectations. In Performance Nutrition, we continued to navigate elevated whey costs, and we have now procured our whey needs through the first half of 2026 with whey costs remaining elevated due to strong end market demand.

As previously discussed, we have line of sight to approximately 15% to 20% of new whey protein isolate supply coming to market late 2025 through 2026, which has been somewhat delayed from expectations earlier in the year.

We have implemented pricing in our international markets in Q2 and in the Americas in Q4, and we anticipate further pricing actions in 2026 as demand for protein is expected to remain strong.

Performance Nutrition EBITDA margins are tracking towards the lower end of the 13% to 14% guided range for the full year as we manage some dissynergies for the remainder of the year related to the disposals I've mentioned earlier. Health & Nutrition EBITDA margins are expected to be between 18% and 19% for the year.

Dairy Nutrition delivered a strong performance year-to-date on the back of good volume growth in protein solutions and strong dairy market pricing in the first half of the year.

We continue to expect profitability growth across Dairy Nutrition and our joint venture operations combined, as previously guided.

Operating cash flow conversion is expected to be over 80% for the year. And finally, we are also pleased to update adjusted earnings per share expectations to the upper end of the previously guided range of $1.30 to $1.33.

And with that, I will turn it back to Hugh.

Thanks, Mark. Just to close, I'd like to reinforce our conviction that Glanbia remains well positioned for growth. In terms of our focus, we're pleased to upgrade our revenue guidance in our Performance Nutrition division today as we're seeing improved trends with strong growth in the category. We also continue to see strong customer demand in our Health & Nutrition and Dairy Nutrition segments.

We continue to execute initiatives as part of our group-wide transformation program across our four pillars, simplifying our organization and delivering efficiencies for the next phase of growth. We are navigating high-end whey prices carefully with a number of initiatives ongoing to address this.

We continue to invest in key talent and capabilities to drive growth across our great portfolio of Better Nutrition brands and ingredients that operate in exciting categories with market-leading positions in high-growth end-use markets. We are focused on delivering long-term growth and shareholder value.

And with that, I would like to hand it over to the operator for questions.

[Operator Instructions]

We will now take our first question from the line of Alex Sloane from Barclays.

The first one, actually just to dig in a little bit on the impressive acceleration in Optimum Nutrition in quarter 3. You've given some stats that show that obviously some of that has been driven by new distribution, but actually there's been also a strong healthy uptick in consumption growth in the U.S.

So just wondering sort of kind of slightly at odds with what we're hearing on the kind of broader U.S. consumer. So what do you think is driving that and how sustainable you see that with kind of potentially more pricing as you alluded to come?

And the second one, in terms of the margin outlook, obviously, thanks for the color there in terms of tracking towards the lower end of that 13% to 14%. As we think about 2026 and the moving parts, I mean, it sounds like that whey costs are maybe slightly more elevated. How should we be thinking -- it's early days, but how should we be thinking about '26 margin outlook for PN in this environment?

Alex, Hugh here. I'll let Mark take the margin question and maybe I'll address the acceleration in ON. I suppose first thing I'd say, look, very happy with consumption in the quarter and performance across our priority growth brands.

A mixture of reasons, I think we're seeing very strong growth across our protein and creatine categories. Certainly, strong category growth in powders and ON, and Isopure continue to take share. We're seeing strong growth in international as well, as you'll see in the numbers, and some new distribution wins in the quarter in the U.S., particularly and no longer lapping the kind of private label impact that we spoke about earlier on in the year and then a little bit of innovation. But I think happy that majority is velocity with a little bit of distribution in there. So overall performance is very strong.

I think what I'd say as well is, look, protein is a mega trend. We're seeing good demand for powders. They're the highest quality, the cleanest ingredients, the most versatile and they have a low cost per serve. So we're seeing the powder category growth rates accelerate.

So overall very happy with that. In terms of pricing, we've called it out. We priced earlier on in the year in international markets. We saw a little bit of elasticity. But once the market competitors reactive, we're not seeing that elasticity now. We're back into volume growth.

I think for North America, given the timing with elasticity, we're not expecting significant elasticity at this point in time. Price increases go live this week. Consumption is strong. Our consumers are highly engaged in the category. It's an affordable product. So would be positive about outlook as we go into quarter 4 and into 2026.

Alex, just on your margin question, yes, you're right, we did say it's going to be towards the lower end of the range, primarily because of the sales that we just announced.

We have some dissynergies we have to manage through, and we'll manage through those into early '26. So I'm not overly concerned about them. We'll sort of manage through that. You're right, it's early days for '26 at this point, and we'll obviously talk a lot more about this when we get to our full year results.

But I would say at this point, look, we're very comfortable with the revenue momentum we're seeing, and we probably expect to see that now coming into '26. And overall, I would expect to see EBITDA and margin progression into '26.

We have acquired our whey now for the first half. We had said you might recall the last call, we acquired whey for the first quarter. And I said that price is pretty much in line with the second half '25.

Now that we acquired the first half, it's marginally higher than the second half of '25. We are putting price increases through in North America. They're done now, and that will be coming through in market. And I expect as we see whey continue to be elevated, we'll probably putting more price increases through next year to be determined in terms of timing.

There will also be a margin benefit, obviously, for the Body & Fit and SlimFast sale. That will help us into next year, and some of our transformation work will help as well. And as we sort of look to increase more marketing as well, all in all, I still expect to see margin progression from '25 to '26.

We will now take the next question from the line of Patrick Higgins from Goodbody.

Maybe just focusing on Health & Nutrition, obviously, another really strong print in terms of volumes there. Obviously, at the time of the H1, you were expecting maybe a little bit of a slowdown just on possible tariff pull-through in Q2.

Was that perhaps a touch conservative on your part? Or did you just see a kind of uplift in terms of the EMEA and Asia Pacific markets that offset that?

And clearly really strong given the broader consumer trends we're seeing across the U.S., but globally. So interested to hear your kind of comments on what's underpinning that kind of end market demand. And that's on the volume piece.

And then on the pricing side, could you maybe just talk us through some of the pricing dynamics in that division and expectations into Q4? I know there was some tariff kind of costs that you might have to pass through at some point. Should we expect that in Q4?

Yes. Patrick, I speak to kind of overall volumes and Mark will speak to price. I think in H1, we probably were being a little bit cautious. We were still coming through a significant tariff turbulence, I suppose, is the best way to put it. So we weren't quite clear on the impact, particularly between China and the U.S. Pleasing to see good growth across all of our end-use markets, but particularly in our international markets, as we've called out.

And I think what you're seeing here is this is a smaller part of our overall portfolio, but we're leveraging our broader B2B base and benefiting from the trends that we see in Performance Nutrition overall. So very happy with quarter 3 performance in H&N.

Yes. On the pricing dynamic, Patrick, there are some tariff impacts, but there's also some commodity pass-through impacts as well. So to the extent that certain prices of materials have come back, we will actually pass those through. So that tends to be how that flows through in the pricing. I think for the fourth quarter, we're expecting the pricing negativity to be a bit better actually than what you saw in the third quarter.

So overall, for the year, probably less than 1% negative on price, I would say, for the year, expecting a reasonably good quarter as well on the volume side, and that's why we say we're tracking towards the upper end of our mid-single-digit range now. I'm pleased to see that as we come to the end of the year.

Our next question comes from the line of David Roux from Morgan Stanley.

Just a couple from my side. Mark, so just to clarify on your comments around whey costs. So as you mentioned, Q1, you had indicated your sort of covered whey costs were sort of flat versus last year. Can you just confirm your comments on how that looks for prices covered to H1? Did you say it was higher versus last year overall?

And then -- so then just my second question on Optimum Nutrition. The implied guidance on like-for-like for Performance Nutrition into Q4 implies quite a marked slowdown. Could you maybe just comment on how Optimum Nutrition has performed over basically the first part of Q4? And has it kind of seen a marked slowdown from Q3 as implied by your Performance Nutrition guidance?

So on the whey cost, David, so as I said at the last call, we have procured through the first quarter, and those costs were in line with the second half '25.

As we procured in the second quarter, whey cost went up a little bit. So we're going to look at the first half of '26, they are marginally ahead of the second half of '25. So a little bit higher, and that's why if you look at pricing, that's part of dynamic for us into next year as well.

Yes. Maybe just to add as well, David, I think when we spoke to you in August, we would have actually seen whey come off its peak. But what we've seen as we went into September and then specifically at October, we saw prices increase again, all driven by demand.

Demand is very strong. You can see that from our own numbers as well. We haven't changed our view on the additional supply coming onstream next year. In fact, we're starting to see that come in now, but demand is very strong.

So as Mark said, pricing is done this year. We are now starting to evaluate pricing for kind of late spring, early summer next year as well. But overall, fundamentally, it's all driven by strong demand.

In terms of second question on ON, look, probably it's a little bit of conservatism. Consumption remains strong and, answer to your specific question, we're happy with consumption as we go to quarter 4. But you always have -- we ship to a lot of markets all over the world, and we always have a little bit of inventory movement as we go into the back end of the year getting ready for New Year, new you.

And sorry, just a follow-up on the whey costs. So is the covered position through 1H of next year, would that be inflationary or deflationary versus the prior year?

It will be inflationary.

Our next question comes from the line of Nicola Tang from BNP Paribas Exane.

First, maybe just to come back on the H&N business again. You talked about this broad-based strength across end markets. Could you give a little bit more color on are you outperforming your end markets? Or are you just exposed to end markets which are growing particularly well?

And the second question is -- congrats on all the non-core divestments that you managed to close in Q3.

I remember when you announced those non-core divestments, the wording was quite open with respect to continuing broader portfolio assessment and you continue to look at potential further divestments. Do you see scope for further non-core divestments in the near future?

Nicola, yes, I think what I'd say, I think you answered it. Look, we're doing well in the end markets that we supply into vitamin and minerals function and beverage and active lifestyle nutrition, so quite similar to our consumer goods business as well.

So we're seeing a lot of those similar trends. I think I said it earlier on as well, we're leveraging our broad-based B2B customer base right now particularly with our Flavor acquisition, we have a natural and organic liquid flavor business.

We're building our natural and organic powder flavor business as well. That's very much on trend also. And then we're also leveraging our broader protein capability through Dairy Nutrition as well, where we're doing a lot of flavor and fortification work combined with protein.

So overall, benefiting from the good trends we see across the broader Glanbia Group. I think, look, what I'd say is the non-core investments, we'll always keep that under review. We're very much focused on driving our priority growth brands within PN. We have a nice portfolio as well, but decisions will all be made in terms of priority investments.

And we'll give a little bit more color on our growth drivers at our Capital Markets Day in a couple of weeks' time.

[Operator Instructions]

We will now take our next question from the line of Damian McNeela from Deutsche Numis.

Two questions from me, please. Firstly, can you just provide a little bit more color on the sort of the U.S. category growth? I think you pointed to both protein and creatine has been good components of the growth. But can you sort of talk about whether it's split or weighted to one versus the other there, please.

And then just I think at the time of the interims, you talked about longer-term discussions about incremental whey coming to the market beyond '26, '27, '28. Is there any sort of update that you can provide on those conversations, given the sort of continued demand for whey that we see coming through from the U.S., please?

Damian, yes, what I'd say is both categories are growing very strongly, both protein and creatine, and not just in the U.S., I think we're seeing that globally as well. So with very strong growth for Optimum Nutrition creatine, and we have a multitude of products across that portfolio now as well with new flavors and new formats being launched.

And we're seeing good growth in protein. And what I can say is, look, we've clearly seen the ready-to-mix powder protein category accelerate in the U.S., of course, in 2025.

And we're benefiting from that. Our powders -- like we manufacture. We have the largest brand. We manufacture the highest quality. All our manufacturing is in-house with the cleanest ingredients. And powders are versatile.

And look, I have no direct data that would say that consumers are switching or moving across formats, let's say. I wouldn't conclude that, but we do have the lowest cost per serve. I think we spoke to you before about making sure that we had the right price pack architecture, the right opening price points.

And an example, one of our online customers were seeing very strong demand for the smaller price points. And particularly for our new customers over 80% of customers buying that size of Optimal Nutrition are new to our brand, which is really interesting for us. So overall, I think generally, we're in good demand spaces.

In terms of incremental, yes, actually, we have approved capacity for one of our own facilities in the U.S., where we would put it in additional capacity for whey protein isolate for 2027. And one of our local partners here in Europe actually will be announcing additional capacity actually next week as well.

So we're working across '26, '27 and into '28 because these investments take time to plan, time to build. But certainly, all of our suppliers are interested in putting in more capacity.

Our next question comes from the line of Karel Zoete from Kepler Cheuvreux.

I have a question with regards to channel dynamics in the U.S. because it's been, of course, some discussions out about the club channel last year and then the contract loss. What are you seeing across U.S. channels? And then within club, is private label still gaining share?

Yes. I think we've called it out specifically. Actually, for our brands, where we're seeing the greatest growth right now is across food, drug, mass and e-commerce channels. Very, very strong double-digit growth across both. Club channel continues to be very important, the broader club channel. We've had some nice wins across -- there's a number of customers who do the club channel. So we've had some nice wins in that broader club channel base.

And within private label, the impact on our business from private label that we spoke about earlier on in the year, that has stabilized now and we're happy with ON performance.

[Operator Instructions]

Our next question comes from the line of Cathal Kenny from Davy.

Firstly, back to the category growth in Q3. What's your best guess for the powders category growth in North America? That's my first question.

Second question then is Isopure. Obviously, a very strong Q3, backing up a very good volume growth in Q2. Can you dial in to some of the drivers of that? I know you gave some headline commentary on velocity, distribution, but would be interested lean into the Isopure performance a little bit more. They are my two questions.

Yes. It's hard to call -- look we don't get data for some of the channels in the U.S. So it's hard to call overall growth. But what we've certainly seen in food, drug, mass channels where we do get data, that is publicly available, that we have seen growth accelerate from flat to low single digit now into the teens, low teens.

So good category growth overall and which ON and Isopure outperforming that category growth. We see good growth within our e-commerce channel as well. So demand generally for powder has certainly accelerated in the U.S. over the course of 2025.

Now how long that will continue, that's always hard to call. But certainly, the demand currently is good and we don't see any signs that, that demand will come off as we head into 2026.

In terms of Isopure, probably velocity for ON certainly is the key driver, also a little bit of distribution, a little bit of innovation for Isopure. Primarily, it will be significantly more distribution that's coming off a much lower distribution base, much lower household penetration numbers as well.

So significant growth in household penetration and point of distribution. But also some nice new innovation as well that we're launching. So for all -- for both our priority growth brands, it's strong velocity, some nice new distribution wins and nice innovation coming into the category.

Just a quick follow-up on the pricing point. Are you saying that you expect lower levels of elasticity around this price increase you're now taking in North America?

Yes. I think what we've traditionally said, Cathal, is we sometimes talk about elasticity of, one, it tends to come out at around 0.8 from prior experiences. But that doesn't last that long because normally, it's once the entire -- we're the first to move on price, and the category will tend to react. We saw that earlier on in the year in international.

The volume growth is back now. I think demand is so strong at the moment that this pricing is well expected. And I think generally, for consumers, it's an inflationary environment in the U.S.

But also as we said before, our consumer demand is strong. They're highly engaged in the category. The consumer demand tends to be resilient, and we're in a great format in terms of cost per serve.

So it's hard one to call. We're also coming into New Year and new you. So while you won't have much promo effect between now and the end of the year, quarter 1 is obviously a big promotional calendar period for the entire industry. So by the time everything settles, you're kind of coming out into quarter 2 next year. So at this stage, we're not actually expecting significant elasticity.

I'm showing no further questions. Thank you all very much for your questions. I'll now turn the conference back to the CEO, Mr. Hugh McGuire, for his closing comments.

Thank you very much. Look, just to close, very pleased with the strong performance in the third quarter. Glanbia remains well positioned for growth. We're moving at pace to deliver on our strategic ambition, and I look forward to speaking more about this at our Capital Markets Day on the 19th of November. Thank you.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect your lines.