Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Coles Group FY 2022 results announcement. All participants are in listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Steven Cain, CEO. Please go ahead. Okay. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our 2022 full year results announcement from our Melbourne Store Support Center. Joining me on the call this morning are Charlie Elias, our Chief Financial Officer, and a number of our other ELT, including Matt Swindells, our Chief Operations and Sustainability Officer, Leah Weckert, who many of you know, she's Chief of Commercial and Express today, and Ben Hassing, our eCommerce Chief, and Darren Blackhurst, our Liquor Chief. Just before we start, I'd like to pay an acknowledgement of country. I wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land on which we meet today, the Wurundjeri peoples of the Kulin nation. We acknowledge their strength and resilience and pay our respects to their elders, both past and present. Moving on to slide three of the presentation deck, which hopefully you have in front of you. Just a few things to say here. Our team members, customers, and our communities have continued to face a number of significant challenges this year with COVID-19 and floods, and I'd like to thank all of them. Despite this, I'm pleased to say we've been able to successfully execute on the third year of our transformation strategy and deliver a solid result. With families facing increased pressure on their household budgets, our commitment to delivering trusted value remains more important than ever. During the year, we continued to focus on delivering trusted value, innovation and inspiration with more than 1,300 Coles own brand and more than 170 exclusive liquor brand products launched. In e-commerce, we delivered very strong growth with Supermarkets e-commerce sales at 41% and Liquor e-commerce sales at 49%. Significant investments were made during the year in customer experience, capacity and a unified app. We have also recently launched our unified website, but we'll have more to say on this in our Q1 results. We delivered Smarter Selling benefits of approximately AUD 230 million and are on track to deliver the AUD 1 billion of benefits by FY 2023 that we promised 3years-4 years ago. We've also done a lot of work on sustainability, and it's a big focus area for us, as you know. We'll talk more about it later, but possibly the highlight of the year was being ranked by the World Benchmarking Alliance as the second most sustainable supermarket globally. As always, we continued to invest in our team members, which saw a 3 percentage point increase in our My Say team member engagement survey, and importantly, on the safety and wellbeing front, a 14.7% improvement in TRIFR. Finally, the group level achieved a ROC of 16.4%, invested CapEx of AUD 1.2 billion focused on growth and efficiency initiatives, and declared total FY 2022 dividends of AUD 0.63 per share. Moving on to slide four. With regards to the financial results, which obviously Charlie will talk to in more detail. Total sales up 2% to AUD 39.4 billion. On a three-year basis, that's 12.4%. EBIT was stable at around AUD 1.9 billion, and net profit after tax increased by 4% to AUD 1 billion, with the increase driven largely by a reduction in net finance costs compared to the prior corresponding period. Gross operating capital expenditure was AUD 1.2 billion, operating cash flow AUD 3.6 billion, cash realization of 104%, and we ended the year with a net debt position of AUD 506 million, so strong balance sheet. For our shareholders, I'm also pleased to report a fully franked dividend of AUD 0.30 per share, taking the total to AUD 0.63, a 3% increase on FY 2021. Slide five covers our Coles investment proposition. It's been a while since we presented a slide like this, but given where we're at coming out of COVID, and also given the economic times ahead, it's worth reflecting on Coles, our investment proposition, and how we plan to deliver long-term value to our shareholders. We operate in highly resilient long-term growth markets, and that's been none more evident than the last few years. We've clearly demonstrated our ability to maintain a leading market position despite all of the disruption and the disruptors with almost 60 quarters of consecutive supermarkets comp sales growth, excluding Q3 FY 2021 when we were cycling the first wave of pantry stocking, which many of you recall that March was the highest sales period in supermarket history and also alongside toilet roll gate, as many of us will remember. We're also a very important part of the Australian landscape, with our established distinctive omni-channel network. This comprises almost 2,500 Supermarkets, Liquor and Coles Express sites, our e-commerce platforms, as well as our Flybuys loyalty program, which reaches more than 70% of Australian households and is available now in outlets covering approximately 20% of total Australian retail expenditure. Our trusted value credentials are strong and clearly important in the current economic environment. We deliver this through our exclusive to Coles range with just under 6,000 products and approximately 1,400 exclusive liquor brands, as well as thousands of specials every week. We're investing particularly in automation and technology with A DCs landing in a 15-month period with Ocado and Witron, an ambitious but long-term program to grow shareholder value, sales, and profitability. If we move to slide six. Over the past few years, we've reported strong cash flow with an industry-leading dividend payout ratio at 80% or above. You may recall when we did merge, there was some skepticism in some corners about whether we could maintain that, and I'm delighted to say that we have been able to maintain that for our shareholders. We have consistently delivered on our financial results and made significant investments in CapEx and a focus on returns. We take a disciplined approach to investing, and our balance sheet is strong with solid investment-grade metrics, which provides us with flexibility to continue to look at new opportunities that will deliver long-term value for shareholders. It is also pleasing to note that Coles finished in the upper quartile of TSR for the ASX 100 over the last three-year period. Moving on to our strategy, slide seven. Since launching our "Winning in our Second Century" strategy in 2019, we've made significant progress delivering our vision, purpose, and strategic pillars. During the year, we evolved our strategy to set us up for the next horizon, which includes moving from having a sustainability strategy to having a longer-term sustainable strategy, which is an important difference. Our Coles Group purpose statement has been updated to sustainably help all Australians lead healthier, happier lives instead of feed. We've always sold more than just food, and this change reflects the wider role we play in our community and the ever-broadening range of offers encompassing food, drink, and home. The three strategic pillars have also been refreshed to include the following changes. We're extending our inspire customers offer from food and drink to also include home. Similarly with this, we've expanded the anytime, anywhere shopping to include anyhow to meet the needs of our omnichannel customers. We're shifting the focus of Smarter Selling to innovation and broadening the technology-led stores and supply chain to technology and digitally empowered organization. In line with our sustainability strategy across all pillars, we are further embedding sustainability, for example, aspiring to be a destination for convenience, sustainability, and health. If we move to slide eight, we've also updated our strategic differentiators to reflect the progress we've already made and to encompass our wider ambitions in areas such as e-commerce, sustainability, team engagement, and community partnerships. Our 5 strategic differentiators define our priorities, which you can see on the slide here. Firstly, to win in food and drink with a unique omnichannel offering. Our priority is to deliver a unified customer experience through enhancements to our app and website, as well as the increased investments in Ocado ahead of the FY 2024 launch. In terms of our store network, as we've previously said, we will target longer-term net new space growth of 1.5% per annum. The second strategic differentiator to be a great value exclusive brands powerhouse and destination for health and convenience will be delivered through expanding our exclusive to Coles range to approximately 40% of sales, as well as focusing on our Coles Kitchen and I'm Free From food brands. We will achieve long-term structural cost advantage through Smarter Selling programs, including data, automation, and technology partnerships. This will be delivered through an enhanced supply chain and operations through our transformation projects with Witron and Ocado. We will also accelerate self-service transformation in store and focus on Smarter Selling food. This will include further initiatives around technology, AI, and data. I have already spoken about our sustainability credentials, and the fourth strategic differentiator is to be Australia's most sustainable supermarket group together with our partnerships and communities. There's a lot going on in this space. We have already secured transition to 100% renewable energy by FY 2025 and will work towards 100% recyclable, reusable, or compostable Coles own brand and Coles Liquor own brand packaging in Australia by 2025. From a customer perspective, we will continue to focus on their priorities, including animal husbandry, plastics, and our food waste programs, including our long-term partnerships with SecondBite and Foodbank. Finally, we cannot deliver any of our commitments without the right team, so our strategic differentiator of deliver at pace through our agile team will see us invest in learning, development, and the careers of our team members. We will expand our agile ways of working and on the safety front to keep our team members and customers safe. We are introducing a safety index beyond TRIFR, which has a greater focus on leading indicators such as people safety, food safety and injury management. Let's move on to some of the strategic highlights for the year, starting with Inspired Customers on slide nine. During the year, we delivered trusted value with our exclusive brand ranges. We significantly improved e-commerce revenues, as I've mentioned, with Rapid Click&Collect to more than 450 stores and same-day home delivery to more than 520 stores. Liquor e-commerce sales grew by 49% through an expanded range, continued rollout of click and collect, and our on-demand immediacy offer, which is now available in more than 400 stores. We provided additional value for Flybuys members throughout the year through our continuity programs, and we are very pleased with the addition of Bunnings and Officeworks to the Flybuys portfolio. Moving on to slide 10, Smarter Selling. As I've said, our Smarter Selling program is a key strategic differentiator for Coles. Some of the initiatives implemented during the year include service transformation in store, such as trolley-assisted checkouts or TACOs, as we call them, and customer bagging benches. We've had front-of-store loss prevention initiatives continue to roll out, such as entry gates and Glass Pallet Shading. We've introduced dynamic markdowns to fresh produce and dairy categories after the success of deploying this in the meat category last year. As you will have read, we aligned our meat operating models nationally. We streamlined distribution center operations through automatic truck entry and exit for the many supplier vehicles passing through our ADCs. In e-commerce, we saw plan optimization through adjusting store catchments, optimizing routes, shift times, and customer offerings. We also delivered energy savings through the installation of demand-based heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, as well as energy-efficient LED lights across the Coles Express network. During the year, we refreshed the Coles career website and recruitment processes using technology to deliver a more streamlined and efficient process. We renewed 50 Supermarkets as part of our store format strategy, including 12 Format A's, 22 Format C's, and 6 local stores. While in Liquor, we had 191 Black and White Liquorland, 8 First Choice Liquor Market, and 9 Vintage Cellars evolution stores renewed. In terms of the progress on our transformation projects, the Ocado Sydney and Melbourne customer fulfillment centers were handed over for robotic fit-out during the year, and internal fit-out of automation equipment and racking progressed in the Witron Queensland Automated distribution center and fit-out of automation commenced at the New South Wales site. Moving on to slide 11, which is "Win Together". Across the many streams of work we have running in the business, I'm very pleased to report our sustainability achievements. Starting with Safer Choices Together, we saw a 15% improvement in safety. Our safety objective's to focus on critical risk reduction, building team member and leadership capability, the mental well-being of all team members, and enhancing the food safety program. During the year, R U OK? Day and our GEM program, Gratitude, Empathy, and Mindfulness, were delivered across all group sites, and more than 1,000 team members completed mental health training to help them identify mental health situations and how to respond appropriately. We want to be known as a great place to work. This year, Coles was recognized as a gold tiered employer for the second year in a row at the 2022 Australian LGBTQ Inclusion Awards. Coles was also recognized by the Australian Disability Network as a top employer for people with disabilities at the 2022 awards. Our ambition towards "Together to Zero" has seen us set ambitious targets across key sustainability areas, including climate change, waste, and hunger. During the year, we secured a path to 100% renewable electricity through three additional renewable energy contracts to purchase large-scale generation certificates. I've mentioned where we are on the World Benchmarking Alliance. We also committed AUD 10 million over 10 years to our Blue Carbon partnership with the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. Finally, we seek to work together with all our stakeholders to bring about positive change under our "Better Together" pillar. During the year, we partnered with farmers in Victoria and New South Wales to produce Coles Finest certified carbon-neutral beef range, providing customers with more sustainable options. It's very nice if you haven't had one. We achieved our highest net favorable score in the Advantage Survey, the fourth consecutive year of improvement. Significant contributions were also made to charities and community organizations during the year, including more than AUD 8.6 million donated, raised and donated for FightMND to help fund effective treatments for motor neurone disease. Moving to slide 12. I would like to provide an update on our Ocado and Witron projects. As you know, this is a very ambitious program in retail, not just in Australia but worldwide. We're planning to land four of the largest Automated projects in food within a 15-month time period of each other. By way of background, our commitment towards modernizing our supply chain led to our partnership in 2018 with Witron to develop two Automated distribution centers in Redbank, Queensland, and Kemps Creek, New South Wales. Our investment in this exclusive partnership with Witron, who are the Automated DC market leader with over 70 facilities globally, is a foundation of our sustainable strategic differentiation by delivering long-term structural cost advantage through automation, data and technology. We have discussed some of these in the past, but the benefits of the Automated DCs include safer work environments with improved service at a lower cost, reduced lead time to deliver better availability, with both sites providing full case pick ambient range in each state and double the volume on half the footprint and approximately 2/3 the operating costs of a standard site. The construction and installation of the Automated DCs is progressing well despite all of the challenges, in particular COVID-19 and disrupted global transport and supply chains. These factors, together with elevated commodity prices and higher labor costs, have increased the estimated capital investment over the 4.5 year period, inclusive of contingency to approximately AUD 1.04 billion compared to the previously advised AUD 950 million. The facilities are due to be commissioned within the previously communicated time frames. The Queensland facility in the third quarter of FY 2023 and the New South Wales facility in the third quarter of FY 2024. Moving on to Ocado. Our partnership with Ocado, the world's leading technology provider in Automated single pick fulfillment technology and home delivery solutions, is a core foundation of our strategic differentiator to win in food and drink with a unique omni-channel offering. The Ocado program is focused on New South Wales and Victoria and includes a seamless digital customer experience with a unified app and website, improved product availability and freshness, with delivered in full on time expected to be industry leading. There's a greater product range. The CFCs will open with an expanded range compared to our current average home delivery store and grow to approximately 40,000 SKUs over time, approximately double our existing home delivery store range. It will also give us increased network capacity with spokes to extend the CFC catchment areas for efficient last mile delivery. Our strategic plans have adapted to meet the significantly higher e-commerce sales that we have now than when we were back in 2019. We've significantly invested in the customer experience and capacity since the onset of COVID-19, and we've updated our arrangements with Ocado, as we talked about last time around. Coles will manage the online store and web presence for the intake of orders, and Ocado will provide OSP Automated facility fulfillment functionality through the CFCs and store pick channels, as well as last mile solutions. At the time of the original announcement in March 2019, we expect the capital expenditure inclusive of upfront Ocado fees to be in the range of AUD 100 million-AUD 150 million over the 4-year development and construction period. In order to maximize the potential of the CFCs, in addition to the significant e-commerce investments, we have enhanced the customer offer to include features such as on-site bakeries, fresh cooked produce rooms, and the expansion of catchment zones within the hub and spoke model. These investments, together with COVID-19 schedule delays, expanded scope and integration costs, have increased the estimated total capital expenditure of the program to approximately AUD 330 million, inclusive of contingencies and upfront fees. The Automated CFCs are due to open within the previously communicated time frames. The New South Wales facility is due to open in the first quarter of FY 2024 and the Victorian facility in mid FY 2024. In FY 2023, we expect to spend approximately AUD 310 million in capital expenditure in relation to both Witron and Ocado, and this is included within the group capital expenditure guidance. The cumulative spend for both projects to the end of FY 2023 is estimated to account for approximately 75% of the total project capital expenditure. If we move on to slide 13. In terms of the EBIT impact, this is expected to be approximately AUD 140 million in FY 2023 and approximately AUD 220 million in FY 2024. As you can see on the slide, this is inclusive of ramp up, dual running and transition costs offset by early benefits. As we've said in the past, net EBIT benefits from Witron are expected to commence from FY 2025, and sales benefits from Ocado are expected from FY 2024 as the customer fulfillment centers build volume. Moving on to the Coles strategy tracker, which we've been reporting every half for the last three years. I'm pleased to say that we remain on track for the majority of our metrics. I've talked to safety and team member engagement already. NPS and market share were impacted by flood and COVID-19 related availability issues. Pleasingly, availability is improving, and we also saw evidence of lockdown shopping unwinding in the final quarter. Smarter Selling benefits remain on track. Cash realization was 104%, and EBIT was in line with FY 2021, despite significant COVID costs, transformation project costs, flood events, and lower express earnings as a result of reduced mobility from COVID-19 restrictions. We will continue to report on our progress with the next scorecard update and our half-year results in February. With that, I'll now hand over to Charlie, who'll take you through the financial results in more detail. Great. Thanks, Steven, and good morning, everyone. I'm now on slide 16, which shows our group results. Sales revenue for the year increased by 2% to AUD 39.4 billion. EBIT was stable at AUD 1.9 billion, despite significant COVID-19 costs, flood events, lower express earnings, as well as approximately AUD 30 million of transformation project costs in relation to the Witron and Ocado projects. Net profit after tax increased by 4.3% to AUD 1.048 billion, and basic earnings per share by 4.6% to AUD 0.788. As Steven mentioned, the final dividend for the year was AUD 0.30, with total dividends for FY 2022 of AUD 0.63 per share, a 3.3% increase on FY 2021. Moving to slide 17. Supermarkets and Liquor reported sales revenue growth despite cycling elevated COVID-related sales in the prior period. In Supermarkets, sales increased by 2.2% year-on-year and 12% on a three-year basis, driven by a successful execution of trade plans, customer continuity programs, value campaigns focused on lowering the cost of living for customers, as well as continued growth in e-commerce. E-commerce sales of AUD 2.8 billion increased by 41% with penetration at 7.9% at the end of the year. This growth was driven by increased capacity through expansion of our home delivery and click and collect network. Supermarkets' EBIT increased by 0.8% to AUD 1.7 billion with higher sales and Smarter Selling benefits partially offset by COVID-19 costs, transformation project costs in relation to the Witron Ocado projects. In Liquor, revenue grew by 2.5% and 18% on a three-year basis, and was driven by strong trade across the year and growth in the e-commerce sales. The closure of on-premise venues during the first half of the year during the lockdowns in New South Wales, Victoria, and the ACT also contributed to revenue growth. Liquor EBIT of AUD 163 million, a slight decline of 1.2%, driven by increased depreciation and amortization as a result of investments in renewals and new stores. Express revenue declined by 5%, increased by 8.1% on a three-year basis. Express revenue was negatively impacted by lower forecourt traffic due to lockdowns in the first half, as well as cycling strong tobacco sales in the prior corresponding period. Express EBIT of AUD 42 million declined by 37% due to lower fuel volumes and commissions driven by reduced mobility as a result of COVID-19 restrictions in New South Wales, Victoria, and the ACT during the Delta COVID-19 wave. The other segment comprising corporate costs, property earnings, and Coles' 50% of the Flybuys joint venture recorded debt costs of AUD 51 million for the year. I'm now turning to page 18. Operating cash flow, excluding interest and tax, was AUD 3.6 billion, with cash realization of 104%. This was supported by an improvement in working capital versus the prior corresponding period, with high trade payables, given the timing of year-end, 26th June, partly balanced by an increase in inventories held at year-end to support availability. This was partially offset by a reduction in cash flow from provisions as a result of the utilization of Witron and Transformation project provision and a reduction in employee entitlements. Trade payable days remained steady, while inventory days improved, or relative to the prior corresponding period as a result of sales growth and fluctuations in inventory balances throughout the year as availability was challenged at certain times. I'll now take you through CapEx on slide 19. Gross operating capital expenditure on an accrued basis was AUD 1.2 billion, driven by new store openings, renewals, accelerated e-commerce growth, in-store service transformation, and the Ocado and Witron transformation projects. Within supermarkets, CapEx was incurred in relation to 11 new stores and 50 renewals and in-store investments such as trolley-assisted checkouts and fresh produce easy ordering. Liquor CapEx focused on 16 new store openings and 208 renewals. In particular, the new Black and White Liquorland format, of which 191 were completed during the year, as well as investments in IT systems. Finally, continuing to optimize our property portfolio, we reported a net property inflow of AUD 12 million compared to the outflow of AUD 35 million in the prior corresponding period. Now turning to slide 20 in relation to the balance sheet. As at 26th of June, we reported negative working capital of AUD 1.4 billion, capital employed of AUD 11.4 billion, and net assets of AUD 3.1 billion. We have maintained a strong balance sheet with investment-grade metrics, which will provide flexibility for future growth. Starting with working capital of negative one point four billion, working capital improved by AUD 232 million compared to the prior corresponding period. Total net assets improved by 3.1%, most notably from investments in property, plant and equipment and equity investments, which increased by AUD 343 million compared to the prior corresponding period, largely driven by an increase in PPE consistent with the capital investment made in technology, partially offset by amortization. Net debt, excluding lease liabilities of AUD 506 million, was AUD 151 million higher compared to the prior corresponding period. Turning to capital management on slide 21. As we announced in the first half-year results, Coles established a AUD 1.3 billion, 4-year Sustainability Linked Loan under its bilateral debt facilities, replacing existing debt commitments. The arrangement draws a direct line between Coles' sustainability performance and cost of capital, providing transparency and accountability as we work to fulfill our ambition to be Australia's most sustainable supermarket. On credit ratings, we remain committed to solid investment grade ratings with S&P and Moody's, which provide us with the future flexibility to invest in growth. Coles retains its existing annual dividend payout ratio target of 80%-90% franked to the maximum extent possible. Turning to the current market environment, slide 32. Before handing over to Steven, I'd like to make some comments on the current environment and some of the headwinds we are facing. Firstly, as you are all aware, we are seeing rising food inflation from an increasing number of supplier price increase requests and weather-driven availability issues in fresh produce. High prices and other cost of living pressures are starting to impact customer behaviors, where we are seeing them make more value-oriented choices. Through our suppliers, we do have an effective and well-established process to manage the volume of supplier requests which we're seeing, and consider the merits of such requests, being both mindful of both customer impacts and our grocery code obligations. For our customers, we'll continue to invest in trusted value through our extensive exclusive to Coles range, value campaigns, and lowering the prices for longer in Liquor. Overall, we expect overall neutral impact to our earnings from supplier cost inflation. Regarding rising cost of doing business, our successful Smarter Selling program has been designed to help mitigate cost pressures. We're also developing Smarter Selling 2, which we have more to say about this in the not-too-distant future. We have minimal exposure to rising electricity costs and interest rates in the near term due to our renewable energy agreements and hedging strategies and our debt structure. We'd like many returning back to business as usual. Overall, we expect the unwinding of COVID-19 costs to be a benefit to earnings in FY 2023, while we'll be cycling the elevated sales from FY 2022 as always. We'll continue to have a strong focus on managing the COVID-19 costs. Currently, these costs are mainly related to absenteeism due to COVID and the flu, and lower than our Q4 run rate. We'll use our Flybuys data and analytics to realign customers who turn to local shopping during COVID, while flexible rostering and team mix optimization will help to alleviate many of the challenges we experience around absenteeism in FY 2022. Finally, regarding the battle for talent, we're continuing to invest to attract technology and digital talent via our refreshed career website, and recruitment processes will deliver more efficient recruitment at all levels of the business. We also have an award-winning graduate development program. I hope you take from this slide the broader presentation and the message that while we are not immune to the challenges facing the broader market, we are actively responding to these challenges and seeking to ensure we take a long-term view in relation to delivering value for our customers and partnering with our suppliers to ensure sustainability of their businesses. Importantly, we are well-placed for the investments we are making in new technology, automation and data to deliver long-term value for our shareholders. Now I'll hand back to Steven, who'll make some concluding remarks on the outlook before we go into Q&A. Thanks, Charlie. I'm on slide 34 here. As Charlie's alluded to, in terms of forecasting for the year, obviously need to remember that we'll be cycling COVID-19, and we're already cycling some of those in the first half of FY 2022 in New South Wales, ACT and Victoria. Obviously we'll be cycling inflationary sales in the second half of the year. In July, we have seen further cost price inflation in produce due to flooding, in bakery due to weak commodity prices, and in packaged groceries due to various supply chain cost increases, including wages, packaging, raw ingredients and freight. In Liquor sales growth is also expected to be impacted by the cycling of COVID-19 lockdowns in the first half of FY 2022, when some pubs and clubs and restaurants were closed. In Express, weekly volumes and sales are expected to benefit from increased mobility, having been impacted by lockdown restrictions. The scale of this benefit will very much depend on fuel prices and the impact of the government's reinstatement of the full fuel excise levy of AUD 0.22 at the end of September. In other costs around corporate, they're expected to be around AUD 95 million this year, and property earnings are expected to be slightly below FY 2022 levels. With increasing inflation and rising interest rates placing pressure on many households, Coles will continue to focus on delivering trusted value to customers through our differentiated ranges and our Flybuys loyalty program. As you will have seen this week, we have locked the price of more than 1,100 products across supermarkets and online until at least the 31st of January 2023, and have begun lowering the prices on an additional 500 products across the store. Consistent with our suppliers and customers, we are also seeing inflationary pressures impacting our own cost base with increasing wages, rent, fuel, supply chain, and capital costs. In addition, COVID-19 and the flu have seen increased team member absenteeism costs continue in the business. I won't mention the Smarter Selling program because we've probably touched on that enough, but we are turning our mind to Smarter Selling 2, and obviously, we won't be complacent about delivering the AUD 1 billion this year. In terms of store development programs, we're expecting to open around 20 new stores, close approximately 9, and renew approximately 40 in Supermarkets. In Liquor, we are accelerating our new space program, and we expect the renewal program to be at a similar level to FY 2022. FY 2023 will be another year of significant investment for Coles as we continue to commit resources and capital to transformational projects, which will underpin our customer experience, the efficiencies, and long-term shareholder value. Capital expenditure is expected to be around AUD 1.2 billion or between AUD 1.2 billion and AUD 1.4 billion, inclusive of the Witron and Ocado projects we've talked about. Finally, for those of you who like the complete burger or Caesar salad, I'm delighted to announce the return in abundance, as Curtis Stone would say, of the iceberg lettuce to Coles, at around AUD 3. Alternatively, if that's not your thing, then you're looking for a Father's Day solution or treat, then please don't forget Coles or Liquorland in the coming week. Thanks for listening, and I'll now hand back to the operator for Q&A. Thank you. Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question. If you wish to ask more, then you may rejoin the queue. Your first question comes from David Errington from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Morning, Steven. Morning, Charlie. Steven, I'm trying. If I go to slide 32, I think that this is the key chart that most people are trying to grapple with or certainly I'm trying to grapple with and what the message you're trying to tell us. Then when you look at, I suppose what you didn't include in slide 32 was the impact of the costs in slide 13. Now, that's, you know, with bringing Witron and Ocado, it's quite a significant level of OpEx. When I look at that slide, it shows me that you've got two really tough years ahead of you in 2023 and 2024 in terms of operating costs. It shows if the message, correct me if I'm not getting this message, 'cause I suppose what I'm trying. The question that I'm asking is, what are you trying to tell us by giving that? Are you trying to tell us that the earnings are gonna be pretty tough in 2023 and 2024? What's the message you're trying to give us? 'Cause when I see that, there's one green arrow up, but that's only COVID. That's a one-off. But there's 2 big red arrows down that rising cost of doing business, structural change in workforce, and then I suppose added to that, the Witron and Ocado. It looks to me that the next 2 years-3 years are really gonna be tough for you guys. Now, you guys are doing a great job managing your business. I mean, when you look at your gross margin, your cost of doing business, you're really running it well. You're operating a business that's benefiting shareholders and employees and customers to the best of your ability. The industry looks like it's gonna be pretty challenging the next two years. Is that the message you're trying in slide 32? Look, I might start. Thanks for that, David. I'll make a note of that and let the rest of the team know. Praise indeed. Thank you. I think what we're trying to do here is just articulate a few things that have been, I guess, circulating around and about, but just clarifying what they mean for Coles. I think there's been some sentiment in the marketplace that inflation will be, you know, a good thing for all businesses. You know, what we're trying to say is that, if you look at the price increases that have gone through so far, as always with price increases, there is a lag effect on our P&L. As we've talked about previously, we can either put the price increase through at the full gross margin percentage, we can pass on the absolute price increase in dollars, or we can maintain the pricing. People shouldn't assume that the gross margin percentage is gonna remain stable or increase as a result of those things. The reason why our gross margin has been improving for a number of years now is due to strategic programs around Smarter Selling and strategic sourcing and so on. That's one message that we definitely wanted to give everyone, which is, don't naturally think that higher inflation is gonna give you a significantly better sales line, which all flows through to the bottom line because there are a lot of costs coming through our business at the moment. As you'll have seen from Fair Work and the increases there that impact most of our team members. That's point number one, which is trying to provide clarity around the impact of inflation. I think the costs of doing business are probably a little bit better understood. I think we're in good shape relative to some others in the industry because we have done some hedging, as Charlie referred to earlier. We're not immune to the costs that are going on, and obviously Smarter Selling helps us. Although there's only one line going up and two going down, the COVID unwind costs are significant. That was a huge number in our P&L this year. Not all of these lines are equal, so I wouldn't be, sort of, you know, saying there's four lines, one's flat, two down, and one's flat, therefore net-net is all negative. I think you have to work out what each box means. Then the structural change in the workforce. You know, everybody in Australia that I speak to is experiencing higher levels of turnover. They're experiencing longer times to fill roles. There are some sectors that are very challenged, like technology and so on. What that will mean short term is that the price of technology type projects will go up or some projects will be delayed. I, you know, I'm not sure again that everybody is factoring in what impact that will have on different types of businesses. Really all we're doing here is talking about the four buckets that there's been a lot of commentary on and sort of trying to clarify what they mean for us. By no means are they all equal. Charlie? Yeah. Thanks, Steven. Look, if I could just add, obviously what Steven's outlined is clearly there's a lot of moving parts here. If I can then, David, take you just a little bit about the Ocado and Witron projects. Clearly what we're trying to do is give you a bit more visibility around those project costs and on EBIT. Let me just take you through those because I think it's sort of important because a part of those costs is actually a rephasing. If you look at FY 2022 and 2023, we had guided that those costs would be about AUD 75 million or up to AUD 75 million. For 2023, guiding that they would have been up to about AUD 160 million. When you look at over the two-year period, it's AUD 235 million. What we're really sort of saying now, it's AUD 280 inclusive of what we spent actually in FY 2022. What we're really talking about in terms of those project implementation costs, it's over a three-year program. It's about AUD 280 million inclusive of what we spent in FY 2022. But also we're just giving you some visibility around depreciation, okay? It wouldn't be a surprise. You've got AUD 1 billion of the Witron project landing effectively in FY 2024. You know, if you just take these are long-term facilities with the depreciation. It's not that hard to sort of calculate that would be a you know, a significant depreciation experience in addition to what the Ocado facility. That's really what we're trying to give you a guide in slide thirteen. Well, thanks, Charlie. Thanks, Steven. It's not all doom and gloom then. It's actually there's some offsetting. It just looked a bit doomy, that slide 32 and that. But you've made me feel a little bit better. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from Ross Curran from Macquarie. Please go ahead. Hi, team. Thanks for taking my question. Steven, I thought your explanation around the increased CapEx around the automation projects due to COVID expanding capabilities appeared logical. I'll just take you to the Remuneration Report, where the Board has said you haven't achieved their expectations on the Ocado program. Can you just help us understand where their thinking is at versus where your own thinking is at and maybe where the discrepancy sits? Yeah. Thank you, and thanks for getting to the Remuneration Report as well. You've been busy this morning. Just a couple of things on that one is, on Ocado, there were five or six metrics in the year that needed to be achieved. I think we in year achieved most of them, collectively. Where the board and I was really around the longer term program, which is, if we're announcing that we're gonna be investing more in the program, then, you know, it's inconsistent with paying an STI payment. That was what happened in that regard. The actual progress in the year was good. It's more around investing more in the program over time than originally planned. Sorry. I'm just struggling with that because assuming you're investing more because you can see more opportunity in it. I don't understand why you're getting penalized if the opportunity set's actually bigger than you first thought? Yeah. Look, that's not one for me. No, look, at the end of the day, we have to deliver what we wanted to do in the year, and we also look to deliver what we wanted to do in the program more broadly. You know, I think it's quite right that if you change the program and the investment goes up, then obviously the board should look hard at how that impacts everybody. I am in agreement with it, by the way. I didn't have a different view on this one. Look, I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it. I think it's the right decision. I think it's the right decision that we invest more in Ocado to maximize the potential of the CFCs, given what we know about the market today. As we know, Ross, the investments and there are a number of elements to that investment. Yeah. Clearly, the enhanced experience that we're looking at offering our consumer through the Ocado program. Clearly the additional scope that Steven spoke to with the on-site bakeries and the fresh cut produce rooms and the like, the expanded sort of catchment area. There are sort of different moving parts there in relation to where we are investing additional dollars in that capital program. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Adrian Lemme from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Good morning, guys. I just wanted to focus on the store portfolio, if I could. There were 50 store renewals in Supermarkets this year out of 835, and then 40 in FY 2023 is the guidance. That's like 1 in 20, less than 1 in 20 Supermarkets being refurb. Can you talk about what we should expect? What's normal for refurb activity? And also just the quality of the store portfolio relative to your major competitor at the moment. You know, is there major investment required to bring some of the older stores up, for example, the old Bi-Lo stores that were converted to Coles? Thanks. Yeah. Thank you for that question. It's a very good one. The way we view store renewals is as follows, which is we've tried to segment the store base as you probably are aware, into Format A, B, and C. We've got you know a growing number of Coles Local as well. What we're not trying to do is to invest money in stores that we don't think are long-term contributors to Coles. One of the differences with Coles to other operators is that we are closing more stores. It's not because they're necessarily an anchor. They might be an anchor in 5 years or 10 years, but equally, if they're not making a contribution, we're not gonna keep them open for market share purposes or any other purpose. We have a more active store closure program than, I think, anybody else in the marketplace. You'll have seen that, you know, this year we almost had sort of net no new stores out there in the marketplace. We will continue the store closure program of unproductive stores, which means that, you know, we're not investing capital in them either. For stores where we think they are viable, that's where Format C comes in. What we try to do there is focus more on value, but we also try and take out some costs in those stores, and that's been through the self-serve deli and a few other initiatives. If we look at the rest, the key priority for us is to continue investing faster in the Format A stores that tend to be our bigger traders. For those of you who are around about, you know, Bondi would be an example of one of those that we've completed recently. What we've also got is a program that's not called renewal, but touches an awful lot of stores every year, which is more around category innovation, and that's things like treat bars, mochi, all those type of things, flatbreads, and so on. The store numbers that you've seen over the last few years, that's the sort of range of full renewals that we'll get done, so to speak. Don't think that's all that's happening. There is a significant category improvement program going on behind the scenes, and there is a fairly significant store closure program going on behind the scenes, so that we end up with a store base which continues to grow at net 1.5% over the long term, but becomes a lot more productive and is a lot more resilient to the changes that we're seeing in the home shopping space. Just to put a few more numbers to what Steven has sort of indicated, I think as we've sort of guided for FY 2023. We're talking about approximately 20 new stores in supers this year. Closure of approximately nine in terms of what the plan looks like, but renewing about 40 stores during the course of the year. That's obviously consistent with the sort of levels that we've done previously. Thanks. Thanks very much. Thank you. The next question comes from Bryan Raymond from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Thanks for taking my question. Just on the like-for-like outlook and impact that we're seeing at the moment from a bit of trading down going on as inflation picks up in certain categories. I'd just be interested in how you're seeing the outlook, given 4Q inflation was ahead of like-for-like, and given cycling and lockdowns, 1Q 2023, that gap should widen. How much trading down are you seeing, particularly in those categories that have gone through two or more price rises? Has that stepped up much in the last sort of 6 weeks- 8 weeks? 'Cause that's something. That's some feedback that I seem to be getting a bit more recently. Just interested if that's something you've experienced. Yeah. Good morning, Bryan. Yeah, probably just a few things to add, and I'll let Leah do a bit of a deeper dive for you. What we've seen. Well, what we saw in Q4 was that our market share continued to improve as local shopping and availability improved during that quarter. What we've seen in the current quarter is that for the first time we're seeing some significant increases in transactions, but we're also seeing some reductions in baskets as well. It really feels like we're heading towards a bit more of a normal. In terms of shopping patterns, the days are almost back to where they were, with Saturday and Sunday very much back to normal from a weekend point of view. As far as time of day, versus pre-COVID, there's more shopping going on in the mornings and less shopping going on late at night. I'm not sure whether that was the impact of curfews and everything has changed people's views on going out after dark, particularly, maybe in winter and things. That's changed. Versus where we were pre-COVID, we've still got, you know, bigger baskets and less transactions. It is interesting that the transactions are in quite healthy growth, at the moment, and we are seeing increasing customer numbers through, you know, through our Flybuys, program. As far as, you know, trends and trading down is concerned, I might hand over to Leah. Leah? Thanks, Steven. Hi, Bryan. In the very back end of the second half, we did start to see some trends that would indicate that the beginning of trading down is starting to happen. As we sort of talked about at the Q3 results, it has been quite slow to come on, and I think that has been a result of quite good household savings. But there's definitely a cohort of customers that are starting to exhibit those behaviors now. What we've started to see is that we're seeing stronger growth versus the rest of the store in what I'd call your sort of core value food category. That's things like pasta, your canned meals, canned veg, and the like. Then within those categories, what we are seeing is that we've got much higher growth in your own brand lines than what we're seeing in the proprietary line. You're seeing that shift into the cheaper items to actually make a meal, and then within those categories, the cheaper option that's available. We've also seen the trend start to happen in meat as well. That's probably been a more long-standing trend, and I think it probably is a good indicator of what we can start to see more ongoing as the inflationary environment continues. There, where we've had beef that's seen inflation now for a couple of years, we have seen a fairly consistent trend out of the red meat categories and into the cheaper proteins like chicken. The other thing I probably would say is that it's only a cohort of customers. At the sort of upper end of the affluence spectrum for our customers, actually spending there is holding up very strongly. I think we are seeing that also reflected in the data that we're seeing from some of the consumer spend reports that are coming out in the ABS around how buoyant hospitality continues to be. For many consumers, eating out and taking advantage of that in a post-COVID world, that is something that we're seeing very strong growth in. They're likely the customers in our stores where we're continuing to see spend hold up quite well and no trading down happening. What I'd probably say is we're almost seeing a bifurcation, where for customers where budget is important, it's starting to happen. For customers that you know have secure jobs and good income, they're still continuing to enjoy eating out, buying premium foods in the store and have you know less regard for what they're spending on the grocery bill, regardless of the inflation that's coming through. Yeah. The only thing I'd add to that. Thanks, Leah. The only thing I'd add to that, Bryan, is from a volume point of view rather than a trading point of view is probably produce has been the area that we've been impacted most, and a good deal of that has been related to floods. We've also seen a little bit move into, you know, canned and frozen sort of veg and things, but we expect those volumes to sort of come back now that the AUD 3 lettuce is back in town with a few friends shortly as well. I was up in Queensland end of last week, Bryan, I got to go and see a whole heap of the iceberg lettuce farms. I've got to tell you, there is a lot of iceberg lettuce on its way. It is magnificent, and it's beautiful quality. I hope you get a chance to, you know, get in and get a AUD 2.50 lettuce in one of our stores in Sydney this week. I look forward to it. Absolutely. Thanks. Thanks, guys. Thank you. I'm not sure Bryan did sound like he was looking forward to it. Maybe not an iceberg lettuce there. Thank you. The next question is from Thomas Kierath from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead. Morning, guys. Just got a question on the food cost growth in the second half. On my math it grew at about 8.7% ex D&A. I think if you strip out the Witron and the COVID costs, it's about 7%. Just a couple of things on that, I suppose. Are there any one-off factors driving that growth? Can you maybe give us a few building blocks and then just how to think about it into 2023? Obviously, wage rates are going up into 2023, and just wanna think about kind of underlying when you strip out the Witron and COVID stuff, which who knows how that will look. But just how you're thinking about that? Thanks. In terms of the cost of doing business, we look at some of the biggest impacts on that in 2022. I mean, store rent was obviously driven by, you know, the increased sales volumes through the year. Clearly we had COVID costs, which were elevated in the cost of doing business. As I called out earlier, we'd spent AUD 30 million on Witron and Ocado. Just reminding you that we clearly continue to make investments in digital and IT and e-com sort of initiatives. If you strip off some of those things, but also when we look at, you know, there was also clearly benefits from the Smarter Selling program. About 2/3 of Smarter Selling actually impacts the cost of doing business line. We did have some favorable movements and provisions. If you look at it on an underlying basis, and I think that's probably the way to sort of look at it, and you strip out some of these sort of one-offs and the like, then we probably saw about a 2.6% increase year-on-year in the cost of doing business. Yeah, clearly, you know, wait. In the second half? Sorry, that was over the year. Over the 12 months. Yeah, it just looks like it really stepped up in the second half, which yeah, is kind of what I'm trying to understand because that's kind of the rate, I guess, at which you're entering the FY 2023 year. Yeah, well, I think if I just go through again some of the just some of those trends, there really wasn't anything that was really specifically second half related. I think all those elements where I talked about an increased volume was quite significant for the year. The second half, the underlying rate was about 3.3%. Okay. Okay, that's great. Thanks, Charlie. Thank you. The next question is from Shaun Cousins from UBS. Please go ahead. Thanks. Good morning, all. Just regarding cost savings, maybe to address some of those sort of issues there. Can you talk a bit about Smarter Selling 2.0 and the Witron savings given that your EBIT this decade has very much been supported by Smarter Selling. You've called it runs out to the end of 2023. Should we Envisage 2.0 as something that could hopefully maintain that run rate of cost savings? And is it a one-year sort of gap to get you to Witron in fiscal 2025, or could it actually be something that continues on just given how important cost savings have been for the business and the cost pressures that you're facing, please? Yeah, Shaun, thanks. Perhaps I'll take that first, and if Steven wants to elaborate further on that, he can. Clearly what we're calling out is, you know, Smarter Selling 1 has been an amazing benefit for the business over the last three years, and that continues obviously into FY 2023, where we're very confident that we'll deliver on our commitment of AUD 1 billion cumulative savings through FY 2023. In terms of sort of going forward, I mean, Smarter Selling 2, it really just means that it's just the way we're gonna do business. Going forward, it's always gonna be on. Smarter Selling 2 is just part of our normal operating rhythm here of actually continuing to focus on the cost of doing business, focus on actually, you know, increased automation, where we can use technology, where we can actually continue to keep a lid on costs. We're working through what Smarter Selling could look like. You know, if that helps work us through until net benefits, obviously, that we expect from Witron in FY 2025, that's just part of what we expect as our normal modus operandi. On that one. Maybe I should be clear there. You don't expect to have a gap where you hit an air pocket and you run out of cost savings. Is that potentially like in 2024? That, that's what I'm very much interested in, please. Well, Shaun, I'm not gonna give a forecast in terms of gaps on an earnings forecast going out that long. I think what I'm sort of indicating, Smarter Selling will be the way we continue to do business going forward. If that works for filling gaps as you describe it or yeah, continuing to underlying earnings, that's what our focus continues to be. Yeah. Thanks. Okay. Thanks, Charlie. Thanks so much. We'll probably be able to say more either at the half year or full year, Shaun, in terms of what that next program looks like. Okay, fantastic. Thank you, Steven. Thank you. The next question is from Craig Woolford from MST Marquee. Please go ahead. Good morning, Steven. Morning, Charlie. Just a question just around the gross margin. Maybe I'll just start off with the question around the Smarter Selling benefits that were in the gross margin for supermarkets? A nd I'll follow up with a clarification once you've provided that. Yeah, great. Okay. Well, as I indicated earlier, I think about 35% of our Smarter Selling benefits sort of work their way through into gross margin. There's really three main buckets, if you will, three main areas. One's around the sort of stock loss type measures that Steven sort of indicated earlier, the glass balustrades, the sort of gates that we sort of put into our stores and the like. Another element of it clearly is the fresh produce easy ordering, which has obviously helped in our waste and markdowns space. Then sort of the logistics side of the business, where we've actually increased some automation into the ADCs around the trucks entry and exits, but also in things like the eCom van optimization, you know, how we actually route our vans, if you like, route the order to the various store catchments, but also in terms of shift times, et cetera. There's some of the sort of key initiatives that have helped drive you know some of the gross profit improvement through Smarter Selling. Okay. Thanks. That makes that clear. The gross margin gains actually accelerated in the second half on the first half. Taking what you've just said there around Smarter Selling, it does still look like there was an acceleration in underlying percentage gross margin improvement in the second half compared with the first half. Just be interested in what were the drivers of that better gross margin performance in the second half of 2022? Yeah, look, yeah, clearly there's probably a couple things. I think there was certainly Smarter Selling sort of phased a little bit stronger in the second half compared to the first half. In terms of the impact on gross profit or gross margin. Also some of our shelf margin sort of initiatives, including our strategic sourcing, where we work with our supplier partners in terms of optimizing their costs in terms of a product and how that product gets to the shelf. Yeah, and clearly we had some also with higher pricing for our export beef and export meat as well, sort of all contributed towards effectively shelf margin. We did see some sort of mixed benefit from bed sales, again, through a lot of our strategic partnerships with our suppliers. Yeah. The one other thing I would probably add to that in terms of the shelf margin benefits that we had coming through. One is we did see some really good benefits coming through from range reviews in the second half. We have had quite a strong focus in terms of improving the mix through range reviews and ensuring that the innovation that we're bringing through is category accretive from a margin perspective, and that's been quite successful. The other thing I'd call out is that because of the lockdowns that happened in H1 in New South Wales and Victoria, we saw very strong meat sales in that first half. Meat in general has a lower shelf margin than our packaged areas. You then saw that reverse out in H2, where we saw more normalization as the in-home consumption elevation came off and we came back to normal behaviors. What you saw is the reversal of that, and you saw an over-index in the amount of package going through, which tends to run at a higher margin. That definitely has impacted it as well. Okay. Leah, just to follow up, back in the third quarter, there was a comment that promotions were lower in that March quarter, mainly because of Omicron making it very difficult. What was promotional intensity like over the half compared with the prior corresponding second half? You're absolutely right. Q3 did have reduced promotions because of the Omicron impacts. I mean, it actually seems like a very long time ago now, Omicron. We had some real struggles across many of our suppliers around labor at that time because we just had so many people that were out with COVID. That did impact our availability, and we pulled back on promo during that time. As we then sort of came out of that and have gone into Q4, that has really all normalized now and we're back to what I'd probably describe as, you know, normal and very healthy promotional penetration levels. Right. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from Ben Gilbert from Jarden. Please go ahead. Morning, Steven and team. Just on the trading update, and I suppose sort of lack thereof from explicit numbers, could you just give us, like, some color on how you feel the Aussie consumer is gonna behave through this year? I suppose what I'm trying to sort of understand is that ultimately I wouldn't think that volumes are gonna go backwards in grocery and obviously exited the quarter at around sort of 4.5% type inflation. Is that sort of what we should think about as the baseline, you would think, in terms of flat volumes and then the benefit of price or? That's the first part, then the second part is just the decision not to give an explicit number for a trading update, which you gave in the last few results. Yeah. It's a good question. I'm not sure I actually have the answer. I'll give you some thoughts. One is, you know, clearly hospitality spending is probably higher than anyone expected. I can't remember the exact numbers, but I thought hospitality might have risen to about 29% of total food sales now on the last ABS numbers, which is a couple of percentage points higher than it was pre-COVID, despite the fact that there aren't enough chefs or waiters or waitresses in the industry. There's a lot of consumption going on in a more condensed time period, which is a little bit what we're seeing in supermarkets as well. Anyway, if you think about you can only consume food, you know, at home, at work, or in hospitality, then, there's no doubt that the food market overall is in good health, at the moment. Also bear in mind that every meal or coffee consumed in a hospitality venue is one not purchased in a supermarket. As far as volumes are concerned, in the supermarkets, we've called out produce as being the biggest issue that we've had over probably the last 4 months or 5 months in terms of not having everything available, and that obviously extended beyond iceberg lettuces. We're starting to see that come back, a little bit now. You've got the cycling of COVID last year, where there was more in home consumption as well. What we've seen overseas is a genuine volume reduction in some places, as well as people actually consume less. Over there, we've seen far more dramatic shifts than we've seen here so far of people avoiding meat or you know, just trying to make as many meals as they can out of a bag of rice or whatever it is. So I think we can expect some you know volume contraction in the market, which might come back slightly as maybe hospitality gets impacted further down the track once savings have come down a bit. But at the moment, there's you know there's still so much savings around that both markets are growing in dollar terms. How long that will last for, we don't know. There's clearly, you know, maybe up to 20% of consumers who are obviously finding it tough, and there's still a lot of fixed interest rate mortgages in society, and a lot of those will roll off at around about, well, later in the year, but around about Christmas time. There'll be a delayed impact on some of the interest rate rises that we're seeing out there as well. It's a difficult one to call, but you know, I think volume will be challenging overall for the industry. Ultimately. Steven, sounds like you're pretty happy with your market share trends based on what you're saying. You said they improved or they're steady through the second half. Is that right? Sorry, Ben, just repeat that one. It was a bit muffled. Apologies. On a relative basis, if we think about how you're performing within your competitive set, I think you made the comment that market share trends were favorable through the half. It sounds like you're still pretty comfortable with how you're performing in a relative sense, even though we've got all these different economic conditions in the market. Yeah. Lots of ups and downs and moving parts. What we did see is that, you know, our market share was impacted through Delta, and then Omicron, and then each time, it just keeps building back up. That's what we saw from Easter onwards, this year, is a, you know, a gentle unwinding of local shopping. Also we're seeing obviously, people back in shopping centers, which is not inconsistent with what you may have seen from, the likes of Scentre, yesterday. You know, if we looked at, we were looking at the CBD sales, for last week and, you know, Melbourne CBD sales last week were, you know, significantly up year- on- year. Overall, there is a return to normality going on with the exception of this absenteeism around COVID and flu, which we expect will get better as we get through spring. I guess the overall message is a bit more of a return to normality. There's a cohort of customers, 20% or more, who are gonna be really disadvantaged and we need to look after. Then the rest depends on what happens to hospitality and then this community of customers who are gonna be coming off fixed interest rate mortgages. I think the other thing I'd add from a inflationary perspective is that, as Leah's mentioned, there is a supply of absent any floods or bushfires or anything else that can happen to us, derailments, anything else. Absent all of that, there is a lot of product gonna be coming through in the next few months from the whole farming community, and I think that will help produce pricing and meat pricing. We could be over some of the worst of what's going on from a, you know, an Australian farming perspective, albeit that the packaged cycle has, you know, still some legs to it. That's great. Thanks, Steven. Thank you. The next question is from James Li from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Hi, Steven, and thanks, team, for the update. Just a quick one from me on the KPIs for the Ocado, Witron part of the business. Qualitatively, what are we looking for in the medium term, and has that changed, I guess, with that increased spend? Sorry, James, that was the first. Have the KPIs changed? Well, what we do with Witron and Ocado is set KPIs for the year in question based on what we expect to achieve, but also with a view to what the long-term plan is doing. The mantra of on time, on budget, and on strategy is well understood by myself and the rest of the executive team. Obviously, things do move in that regard from a year-to-year basis. Okay. With that, what, I guess, point should we be looking for in terms of the success of that on the medium-term basis? Well, there's a few ways to look at this. If we go back to, you know, on time, we've given you the timings of when we expect all four facilities to be open. So that's the on time piece. On budget, we've given you, very transparently, the CapEx and OpEx impact for the next couple of years. We've also said that, you know, Witron will be having an earnings benefit in 2025 and that Ocado will be having a sales benefit in 2024. What we do is as we get nearer to all these things and they become operational, we'll have operational budgets for them all, and the relevant members of the team will be likely to be measured against what we expect. You know, obviously what we want is, including, you know, an NPS that's the best in the industry because that's why we've invested in Ocado in the first place. There will be lots of new metrics, I'm sure, coming down the track, whether they end up in STIs, LTIs or some other measure remains to be seen. I can give you full assurance that we're all very committed to making these, you know, four Automation DCs work and deliver the sales and EBIT benefits that will make it a, you know, a positive business case and a real difference for Coles in the long term. Yeah. Steven, all I would add is there's clearly a bunch of benefits that we've called out qualitatively, which really sort of translate themselves into KPIs themselves in terms of what we expect when those facilities are actually up and running in terms of delivery on time and full and the sort of cost running there and the customer expectations as well. There are a whole bunch of clear measures that we'll translate into over time. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from Phillip Kimber, from Evans and Partners Capital. Please go ahead. Hi, guys. Just a quick question, following on from that on Ocado. You'd specifically used the word sales benefit for Ocado, or are you talking about an EBIT benefit for Witron? What typically would the timeframe be once the CFCs are open? You know, does it take 2 years or 3 years for it to sort of become EBIT, you know, contribute to the EBIT number? Is there sort of a standard timeframe it takes for that business to ramp up to profitability? Yeah, look, Phillip, thanks for the question. It's a really good question. Look, in terms of giving you a timeframe, I'm not gonna talk about timeframes. What I'll talk about a little bit is those facilities. You ramp up those facilities once you actually obviously work it through. We'll be starting to see, as we turn on those facilities, sort of sales benefits work through. You do actually need to ramp those facilities up over time. It's really important in terms of when you start getting to a certain volume, which we obviously haven't worked through in terms of the number of orders and things that are fulfilled out of those facilities, is when you start seeing a contribution to, if you like, earnings and returns going forward. We specifically called out, you know, clearly when we turn on those facilities, we expect sales to be through those facilities in FY 2024. Clearly these are investments for the mid to long term, and we would expect that turns into profitability over that timeframe. Okay. That's great. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from Michael Simotas from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Morning, Steven, Charlie, and team. I've got a question on trading down and then just a quick clarification question if I can. Obviously you're seeing some early signs of trading down. I think there's a reasonable chance that that becomes a little bit more widespread. Can you just talk about what that actually means for Coles? Presumably we'll be able to see it in a difference between sales growth and inflation. What does it mean for market share and margin when consumers trade out of some of those categories into other categories out of branded, into private label, et cetera? I'll probably leave you to work out what the impacts on market share might be of all these things. There's a lot of complicated things going on that you need to consider. I always start at the top and say, where is the food expenditure? It's traveling nicely. How does it split between hospitality and supermarkets? Within supermarkets, you know, who offers the widest range? Because I think it's gonna be more important than ever because there is this sort of, you know, you've got to de-average the customer, and there's a customer wanting, you know, budget products, and there's a customer wanting premium, and I think we have a good offer in that regard. It's continuing to improve. You know, as we drive own brand and exclusive product market sales penetration towards that 40% goal, there is normally a little bit of deflation in that in terms of if someone trades from a AUD 2 pasta to a AUD 1 pasta, what's the impact? Again, that's deflationary too. The main thing for us is, you know, we wanna make sure that we get as many customers back as we can who have gone to local shopping. We think there's upside still in that. We've got to sell people more product and, you know, while it might have sounded like a strategy presentation at times, talking about we're moving from food and drink to food, drink, and home, that's really around things like our Best Buys program. You know, if we're seeing deflation in a few categories or if we're seeing it through mix of own brand or whatever, then we've got to sell people something else that, you know, would normally fit in their shopping basket, or they can buy increasingly online, and that's why Best Buys is an important program for us. So I don't think you can look at these things in isolation. What we have to do as a management team and a business is to continue to grow the business under all conditions and think about how do we leverage the Coles brand, how do we leverage Flybuys, how do we leverage our increasing strength in e-commerce, and how do we leverage eventually Ocado? That's what we spend a lot of time thinking about as a team. Margin of those products and categories that you would expect consumers to trade down to. I mean, there was some conversation around red meat versus white meat, and I think most understand the margin dynamics of that. But what about other products and trading from branded product into Coles brand? I mean, we don't generally talk a lot about the margins, but it depends on the tier that you're really talking about in your own brand portfolio. Across the whole of the own brand portfolio, people trading between proprietary or own brand isn't a significant impact to us from a margin perspective. If, for example, you were to see customers significantly trading down at the sort of the value tier, the entry tier, that is where you might start to see some impact because that's where we work to be really, really price competitive across the whole market. Equally, at you know, the more premium end, quite often our products are margin accretive when we can get customers to trade from a proprietary into an own brand. It really is about the art of achieving the right mix, which is why on that slide that Charlie spoke to around the market environment, we've got it as, you know, broadly flat because that's our job is to manage that mix with, you know, the most minimal amount of impact in terms of the margins. Okay. Thanks, Leah. Just before we get to the end of the questions, Michael, sorry if you haven't finished. I'll let you carry on just one second. Before we get to the end of the questions, if there is anything for Matt, who's happy to talk about supply chains and COVID and everything else. Ben, if you want anything more detailed on the e-commerce side of the business, and obviously Darren, who is available to talk about one of our other businesses, Liquor, which obviously reported, you know, a solid set of results this time as well. Michael, was there anything else on your list of one question? Just a very quick clarification, if I can, around Witron in FY 2025. When you talk about net benefits, is it net EBIT benefits in the year FY 2025 on an absolute basis, or are you saying a net benefit relative to the AUD 220 million? No, it's a net EBIT benefit on an absolute basis. The swing that implies a swing of more than AUD 220 million into FY 2025? AUD 220 million includes both Ocado and Witron, and obviously includes the impact of the ramping up and dual running during those periods. Remember, we've got three of the four Automated facilities landing in FY 2024. If I think about a delta from 2024 into 2025, does that mean it's positive something between 0 and 220? I'm not gonna give a 2025 forecast, Michael. That's not appropriate. I think we have called out effectively two things there, if you like. There's the one-off implementation costs that you need to factor in. And that includes, that obviously includes not only the implementation costs to complete the projects, but also the dual running and the like. It is inclusive of the net benefit as well. We are calling also depreciation in that particular year, which has increased and stepped up in 2024, obviously. Okay. I might take it offline. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is a follow-up from Adrian Lemme from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Oh, thanks. Sorry, just a quick one. Just the fuel prices have come off, you know, pretty substantially over the last month or so. Just interested to get a read on what that's done to your fuel volumes, but also, you know, foot traffic into your other stores, your supermarkets and liquor stores. Just finally, how the lower fuel prices, you know, would flow through to your P&L through lower supply chain costs? Thanks. Okay, we might split that into two parts. Leah's here, and she runs Express, and then I might hand over to Matt actually to talk about fuel, how fuel's impacting the day-to-day operations. Leah, do you wanna kick off? Yeah. Well, we saw, I mean, the average fuel volume across the year was 54 million L per week. In Q4, we did see that step up to around the 57 million L per week. Going forward, as we've come into the new financial year, you know, we are starting to see as consumer behavior normalizes that continuing to step up. We did have a number of weeks where we're getting up to volumes around the 60 million L mark, which is obviously sort of a bit of a mark for us of where we sort of talk about things starting to normalize post-COVID. As we continue to see more normalization of customer behavior, people returning to the office, the warmer weather coming, that should all be indicators that the step up we've seen into Q4 should continue. Did you want to cover off the fuel bit? Yeah sure. Thank you. Thank you for the question. It's worth recognizing the teams that have worked through supply chain to help recover our availability. Actually, the transport fuel cost is a good example of the slide that David highlighted at the start of the call of swings and roundabouts. Of course, there is an increase in fuel costs in secondary transport that the team worked through to try and minimize. Compared to the disruption that we faced through Omicron and floods and all of the recovery through the supply chain through last year, it's a better place to be for recovering availability and overall cost. The only other thing I'll just add to that, obviously, just we did call out that the fuel excise reinstatement occurs toward the end of September, and clearly that will have an impact on fuel volumes depending on the overall fuel price, obviously, and what that might mean for the forecast. Great. I appreciate all those comments. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is a follow-up from Thomas Kierath from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead. Oh, g'day. Just another one on the Witron cost. I think, Steven, you said in your preamble that the cost of operating them, these Witron DCs are 2/3 that of a, like, one of the existing ones. Can I just clarify if that's right, A? B, does that operating cost comment, does that include D&A or is that just the cash operating cost? I'll take this one. Thank you for the question. It is cash, and the combined cost obviously is volume-related, so we need to think about that footprint is doing twice the volume, which is an important factor. Actually, the activity within the center shouldn't really be thought of as a distribution center. It's more a manufacturing principle. The resourcing inside is a different mix as well as a different quantum. It's more technical, it's more digital, it's more engineering. But broadly, that's how we generate the 2/3 lower cost. Right. Double the volume, but 2/3 the cost. Is that right? Yeah. Double the volume, half the footprint, 2/3 of the cost. Yeah. Okay. Just the other way to think about it as well, Thomas, you know, we're spending AUD 1 billion of CapEx on it, and we've always said that, you know, we would achieve a good level of return on this program over time. Yep. Got it. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is a follow-up from Bryan Raymond from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Thanks for taking the follow-up. Just in terms of your commentary around closing stores and your discipline around that, which I think makes sense. Just wanting to understand that a bit better in terms of how do you determine an underperforming store, or one that's not contributing at the level that you would want. Is there a threshold there? How many stores in your network currently aren't meeting that threshold? Is there a long line of stores that are less productive than you'd like? Which would be a bit surprising given the strong environment we're just exiting? Keen to understand that a little bit better. Well, thanks. Great question. Look, we do look at stores. We do have a bit of a, if you like, we monitor the profitability and the bottom line profitability of each of the stores on an ongoing basis. Clearly, we look at you know, how we sort of you know, stores with a marginal contribution effectively and what they do to the overall profitability. Really, it's all about looking at you know, what each of those stores in the fleet actually contribute to the bottom line. There's just an active management of what they are. You know, clearly the first call isn't to close the store. The first call is, can we look at how we improve the cost within that particular store, the contribution of that store, and through other initiatives before we move to sort of closure as the first port of call. Clearly it's like any business, we monitor what those trends look like over time. I think the other thing to add there, Charlie, is that, you know, clearly we engage with landlords as well. Sometimes they engage with us, by the way. It's not a one-way street, so the engagement with landlords can be two ways in terms of what the future looks like. Sometimes they're in centers or in locations that need redevelopment, so obviously when that happens, there's no alternative, and sometimes you get the first rights on when, you know, when it opens again, if it's still gonna be a supermarket or whatever. So there's conversations with landlords. Obviously what we look at is the long-term growth of the market in that vicinity and what home shopping will do, and we've got, you know, long-term models on that to sort of say, you know, will it remain viable? Also, are we doing any other store activity in the future or is anyone else doing some store activity as far as we can tell? There's a number of factors to consider, including all of them. Okay. Great. Thank you. Then just if I can sneak one more in just very quickly. Is the 1,600 or so products that you've called out that are either being dropped or held in terms of price until end of January what percentage of sales is that? I'm just looking down the list of products. There's some pretty high-profile SKUs, both branded and private label there. Is that a big portion of the overall sales base? I normally look past these press releases, but this one looked a little bit more meaningful. What sort of implications does that have for inflation over the next sort of five months or so? Thanks, Bryan. I mean, it's a meaningful list of products. As you've probably seen from the list, it includes things like mince and sausages, eggs, cheese, bread rolls. It is products. Their customers do put into their basket on a regular basis. Actually, that was a lot of the thinking here that we did, which was if we were going to do it, don't just do it around the edges, 'cause then you get a little bit of a customer halo for, you know, a couple of days while there's all the PR in the media, but then someone comes in to shop with you, and they actually are a little bit disillusioned by what they can find in store. Whereas what we've tried to do here is something which is meaningful and customers will actually see a real difference on so that they can really plan around budgets coming into Christmas. In terms of the inflationary impacts on it, we have worked really hard here with this program to structure up something which does balance that impact for customers, but is commercially sensible as well. All right. Thanks. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead. Sorry. I think I jumped in there. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Cain for closing remarks. Okay. Well, thank you, and thanks for all of the questions today. Of course, if you've got any further ones, you can follow up with the IR team. You know, we look forward to seeing you in due course. Don't forget, iceberg lettuce, Father's Day, footy finals, and then we're gonna have the spookiest Halloween ever coming up after that. A long list of events before Christmas to get into Coles, Liquorland and everywhere else for. In the meantime, safe travels. Thank you. Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.