Morning, everybody, thank you for joining this session. We're very pleased to have on stage Hein Schumacher, Chief Executive of Barry Callebaut, especially on this important day when you've released your strategy announcement this morning. Perhaps before we get into the details of the strategy, perhaps you could tell us about your first six months in the role. Your appointment was made in January. What was your perception of the business as you started? Why take this role, and how did you go about appraising the challenges that the company faced? That's quite a few questions in one go. I do keep doing that. Let's get started. Maybe to start with, why did I take the role? I have a foods background. I love global foods. There's only very few companies in the world that have sort of that end-to-end value chain. Also, and I think this is super important, that have a very deep expertise in what they do, and that are truly global in nature. Obviously, I have a CPG background, a branded background, so for me, the new leadership opportunity was the business side of things. So those were probably the three biggest reason. I felt that this was a company where you can really make an impact. The company, and that's sort of a segue, I think, into the other part of your question, the company has been under pressure over the last couple of years, from a number of things. A perfect storm. One, very fast-growing cocoa prices. Literally, it shoot up almost five times to the historical average, which obviously you're all very well aware of. Secondly, a few big quality incidents in the large sites of the network, that hampered customer service. Thirdly, the company went on a massive transformation. If you do everything in one go, that had an impact on the people, had an impact on the organization, had an impact on service delivery, had an impact on stability. I felt this was an opportunity to potentially make a difference. I think the first impressions over the last six months were sort of in line with what I expected. There is a deep expertise. There are good foundations. There's a huge opportunity, I feel, for the medium and the long term for sure. At the same time, we had to get a few things right to strengthen our basics, strengthen the fundamentals, and making sure that we do the things that our customers expect us to do. Thank you, Hein. Looking at the business now, after that period of discovery, perhaps we can walk through your assessment of the business as it stands, and then you can talk us through the Focus for Growth strategy announced this morning. If we divide that assessment maybe into people and culture, the infrastructure, and the go-to-market, starting with people and culture, as you say, there's been significant external volatility, but also a very high number of internal initiatives aimed at improving performance and also cost savings. Presumably, that can take a toll on an organization. How would you position the morale currently, and was it a place, you think, where people who were out-performing actually got recognized? I would say when I arrived, with everything that I just talked about, I think there was a bit of a fatigue factor in the company, and I felt it. Many initiatives that had to be done. We had a high attrition level overall, which is something that we talked about. At the same time, this is a company, we are selling joy, right? This is joy and indulgence, and it's a very global company. I felt that in the conversation with people, the opportunity that we have, and which is what we talked about earlier today, the Focus for Growth program, to charter our own course. I involved immediately 30 leaders from around the globe, not actually my direct reports, but below. We did that exercise to handpick them. With that group, we designed that Focus for Growth action plan that we talked about earlier this morning in a video message. Involving people, making them part of the journey, doing this collaboratively and co-create the way forward, I think was felt as a very positive step forward. In every organization where you come in, there is a certain culture and so forth, but I think there's an opportunity to quickly put everyone, get it in the right direction. I feel there was a lot of enthusiasm and passion in the business, but it needed to be unleashed. It needed to be unlocked a bit. I think that's probably where we are on the people side. I think second, on the infrastructure side, as I said, I think there was an immediate opportunity to strengthen fundamentals. I felt that the customer service process, our planning process, our quality assurance process, were not as robust as I would have liked to see it. I want to be very upfront about that. At the same time, with a high operating focus and requiring discipline around those, I think we are making progress. It's not a silver bullet. Will not happen overnight. We need a bit of time, which I talked about at the end of our second quarter. Hence, we also changed our guidance for this year. At the same time, I feel that we're making rapid progress now, and I think it's a matter of, I would say, towards the end of the year, and we should get that stability right. That's on the processes. I think the second one is on stability in the network. The network was very aimed at closing sites in the last couple of years, to reduce costs, that's a wonderful thing. At the same time, you need to service your customers. What I'm very focused on is, first of all, to get the right capacity in, because the customer and the consumer has evolved over the years. For example, customers, it's bifurcation that you're looking, that's pretty global, we're seeing it in chocolate too. Affordable solutions, that means cocoa coatings and compound solutions, premium solutions. Dark chocolate, specialties, et cetera. Our network was very focused on the mainstream, we had to make some changes. That's what we're doing now tactically to make lines more flexible, they can either produce those compound solutions or the full solutions. We also had to invest in capacity, and we had to cut through a couple of knots quickly. Which we also announced this morning, it means a significant investment in Northeast U.S. It's a place called Pennsauken. It's a significant investment in Canada, and we announced the planning or the building of a new site in the Midwest. North America, which is about 23% of our volume, I wanted to absolutely prioritize that, make sure that that's where the money goes, and revamp the network there. It was needed. That was the infrastructure part. You had another one. Yeah. Well, it's on the go-to-market side. The go-to-market. Yeah. I guess when we think about the digitization. Yeah the business, there's sometimes a perception that the level of investment required to fully modernize, Barry, hasn't perhaps been made. Is that fair at all? Yeah, I think that's fair. I think, we had an opportunity on digitization and the use of AI on three areas. One in R&D, I'll talk about that later. The most important one for us is, I would say, in the planning and in the customer interaction. Do you know what the customer really wants? Where is the signal, how can you have your supply chain cater for that? I think that was opportunity one. Secondly, is in our gourmet segment. That's our most premium segment. We inspire chocolate making and recipe making around the world. We're by far the global leader on that. We do that through Chocolate Academy. We have 20 of them around the world. We had an opportunity to digitize that, not just inspire on recipes, but also convert into e-commerce. That still, it strikes me, given the experience in B2C, but that's still at a relatively early stage. That's, I believe it's an area where we can lead, and that's where the investment in digital now goes. What would be your assessment of the way, I guess you've sought to maximize those growth opportunities before? You've sort of alluded to perhaps, a lack of rigor perhaps in the planning and assessment of those opportunities. I guess, how quickly will that change? In terms of the sort of oversight and accountability, how you'll actually be getting the reports and the MIS systems, is that something that's going to change internally as- Yeah. What I saw was an organization that was pretty hybrid in its execution. We had people managing the commercial operations in the regions. We are a food company, and I believe, therefore, a regional focus or having a regional way to conduct your business is the right choice to make. It's because the way people consume chocolate and use chocolate in North America is different than in Asia, is different than in Western Europe, is different than in Latin America. I want to steer the business really on a regional basis. We have defined five regions, and that's where the P&L should sit. That's where the resources should sit. As a function, global functions, they have a very important role to play on the how, on planning processes, on what tools to use, et cetera. There is clearly a value for the company. We needed to get that clear. That wasn't clear, so it was quite matrixed. I feel that bringing that clarity now is super important. That was one. Second, the world was our oyster, and that's a good thing, but we've now defined 10 markets that are more than two-thirds of our volume and definitely more than two-thirds of our profit. They get the first call on resources. When it comes to solidifying planning, for example, and service, first the U.S. That is number 1. Secondly, four countries in Western Europe. Thirdly, four emerging markets. I think, look, choosing is not losing. Learned that the hard way over my career. To make it explicit and then organizing coherently your resources behind those choices, that usually takes a little bit of time. I feel it's happening, and by the end of our fiscal year, which is by the end of August, I believe, we will organizationally be in the right place. Thank you. Well, let's move on to today's announcement in particular then. In your own words, how would you like to give an overview of the Focus for Growth action plan that you announced and its key elements? Sure. I would say three things. First, relentless focus on these fundamentals that I talked about. We had customer service, on time in full rate on our important segments below 80% last year. To customers that need to deliver 95% or 98% to the retail. We just simply have to step it up there. That for me is priority number one. It's a bit brilliant, boring basics, but you simply have to do it. I think that's number one. Number two, we've made a clear choice to do what I would call everything chocolatey. That is full chocolate solutions, compounds and coatings, but also chocolate replacement opportunities. That includes sunflower lecithin that we're doing on a global basis, as well as cell culture. We really want to lead that. That's two. Third, we are making a clear shift towards premiumization. If I would add up the gourmet segments, which I just talked about, plus specialties, plus some of our premium powder solutions, at the moment, it's just shy of a third of the volume of the company already. That's where we can make a difference, both in profitable growth as well as in absolute growth. Clear shift to premium and be intentional about our resources. Finally, point number 4, in those market segments, in those 10 markets that I talked about that we believe are attractive, and that's not only chocolate confectionery, but think of the use of chocolate as an ingredient in ice cream, in protein bars, in pastry snacking. Provide a more holistic solution to the customer so that we become a one-stop shop for them. That includes everything chocolatey, but that can also include a specialty like a decoration, a filling, which we already have, but we weren't intentional about it. I want to scale that up significantly. For ice cream, for example, we're working with 10 out of 10 of the largest ice cream companies in the world. I think with everything that I've seen in the company, we can sort of provide that holistic solution, a filling, a decoration, and caramelized nut solution, plus the chocolate side, and that is very attractive if we get that right. Those are the four elements. Okay. Thank you. Obviously given an assessment of the categories and you've sort of outlined the geographies. Where you intend to allocate the majority of your resources to. Yeah return? When you list those specialties that I talked about, for example, I think we need ultimately around 6 or 7 type specialties. Chunks, baked inclusions, so these are, for example, the doughs and so forth. The caramelized nut solutions that I mentioned, one-shot fillings for ice cream. That's a list of around six, seven, roughly, and I would say at the moment, in the periphery of the company, we have around 25, 26, and that clutters the company, and that requires an adjustment in the portfolio. Those are not huge in terms of volume, but they require attention, they require CapEx, they require people, they require processes. There we need to make a choice, and we will. The company's been through a number of costs. By the way, just, Tom, before I go, because I think also that differentiates us a bit, versus the competition. Without going into all kinds of competitions, but there are. One of the companies is actually currently for sale, but they would be a specialty solutions provider for around 30 or 40 different specialties, all very small and so forth. We do need to provide a certain scale to things. We need to make choices. At the same time, we're not a trader. We are a company that is truly end to end. We're putting our emphasis on the value-added side right now, but then you need to choose on what you can do in a bigger way. Okay. Thank you. If we look at the cost side of the business, as we said, there've been a lot of initiatives before, a lot of cost initiatives over the last few years. There isn't a cost-saving target as part of your profitability targets. Where is the productivity going to come from going forward, and can you still make these productivity savings without affecting your ability to supply your customers? Yeah. Look, first of all, we didn't specify a productivity target as such, on cost. We did say, on the medium term, but also on the shorter term, that we expect profit to grow ahead of volume. Right? You do need leverage in your P&L, and I feel that we can do that. If you look over the last couple of years, the company has invested also CHF 250 million in extraordinary items, so one-offs. I expect that level to be way lower going forward. That's, I think, remark number 2. I think three, I feel that the current cost base that we have is mostly served by growing in the areas that I talked about. The four things. We need to shift resources behind those things first. I felt that announcing now a major global restructuring after the last couple of years that I talked about was not the right message in the company, and we first need to make sure that we resource the priorities in the right way. After that, of course, you can never exclude it, but it wasn't part of the plan as such today. Okay. Thank you. I also don't expect major cost increases. We talked about capital expenditure. We were a level of CHF 300-ish. We're ramping that up probably to CHF 350. On an OpEx level, I'm very keen to get inflation compensated by productivity. That's all in the plan, but not a major restructuring. Okay. In terms of the priorities for investment through the P&L, obviously in your presentation, you give a red box that says investments, but that's not quantified at this stage in terms of the incremental OpEx that you'll be spending. Well, as I said, on capital expenditure, I think we're pretty clear. 75 million. That's the step up that we're going to have to make. On OpEx, I feel that with everything there, whether it's digital, but also with the plans that we have, we should be capable to drive net productivity ultimately in fixed costs, which would be a trend change already. As I said, this is also not a plan for a major restructuring or a major step up on OpEx. I feel it's a shift plan. People are doing too many things, have been doing too many things, investments as a result get diluted, and I want to bring clear focus in everything that we do and bring consistency in our performance. In terms, you mentioned the, obviously, the higher CapEx, the investment that you're putting in to support the growth in the four key areas. How should we think about whether you're actually building out capabilities that you already have, or that you're actually having to build muscle in areas that you don't necessarily have now? Yeah. I think to give you a statistic, our network at this point is capable, without going too technical, but 35% of our lines, they can sell cocoa coatings or switch back to real chocolate solutions. Cocoa coatings tend to be more affordable, because cocoa coatings in combination with oils and fats are an important ingredient list for many of our customers. Interestingly, when the cocoa price, which is around now GBP 3,000 per ton, when it drops, no, when it's higher than that, around GBP 3,500 or something, then these cocoa coatings become a lot more financially interesting. When we're at the current level, that's sort of an inflection point, and people do prefer taste and do prefer the more premium solution, and they tend to go for chocolate. We can talk about that and say, "Well, we like this," or, "We like that." I'm taking a fairly pragmatic approach, and I'm saying, "Hey, we need to bring that chocolatey experience, and that means I need to have lines that are flexible." We need to increase that flexibility and agility. A third of our lines can do that in our important geographies, but I feel we can still make a step there. Secondly, on the specialties, as I said, for example, we have baked inclusions, which are super popular on ice cream. They have been out of stock because the demand has been there. We have a supply point in Europe, we've got a supply point in India. Wonderful. We need to step that up in other markets. I feel that that's something that we need to be faster on. When we see those trends happening, okay, caramelized nuts, we produce in Spain, wonderful solutions in combination with chocolate, and particularly chocolate that performs great when it's frozen in ice cream again. That combination is golden. All right, great. How do we move faster? I feel that's a muscle that we need to build up. It will take a bit of time, but I feel those are probably the two changes that we need to bring. There's a lot of aspects that we've spoken about. Perhaps, if we bring that together to the targets that you're setting, the phases of the plan, and the timeframe in which you're looking. Yeah deliver those outcomes. You're targeting 2% to 4% volume growth. On the margin side, mid to high single-digit EBITDA growth and low teens PBT growth. That's right. with the impact of lower financing costs, as well as cash flow, CHF 300 million-CHF 400 million. What are the key phases of the plan and the milestones that we should all look for delivery? First of all, that's a medium-term algorithm that we feel is feasible in combination, by the way, with 11% to 13% ROIC as well as a leverage in the company that should get us to a safer level than where we were a few years ago. I think that's ongoing and going in the right direction. It's a medium-term outlook. In the short-term, we've guided towards a volume growth, for the next 12 to 18 months, that is not 2% to 4%, but around 1% to 3%. First of all, what's driving that? First of all, we've seen 50% price increases over the last three years, and we need to see prices come down, and we need to see the consumer responding to that. I am positive that that's happening because we've guided for this fiscal year, for the second half of our fiscal year, towards volume growth already. That's with all the knowledge that I have today, that is indeed coming through, and we expect that to continue to some extent next year. Of course, it will depend on the pricing and how consumers are responding. I would say I just want to be a bit cautious on that one in combination with higher fuel costs and disposable income and so forth. That's one on volume. On profit, we expect also for the shorter term, we expect profit to be ahead of that volume, but I want to be careful as well. We are making investments in our capabilities that I talked about. We need to step up fundamentals. We have things to repair. I just want to be a bit cautious. We have a cost headwind on the fuel side, particularly, and logistics, which is an important part for us. I feel that we're going to make steps, and the steps will be also that profit before tax actually will be ahead, I expect in the shorter term, will be ahead of the midterm algorithm. [Schedule] reduced financing costs that are coming through to a faster extent than what we anticipated, which is all good. I want to caution too great expectations on margin development per se. Okay. In terms of a definition of medium-term or milestones, is there anything you can sort of say about what medium-term means, I suppose? I would say, around 18 to 24 months, you should get to a medium-term type of view. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. If we link this to your mission to be a reliable and innovative global leader, how do you think about the balance between wanting to get that volume growth and the positive benefits of operational gearing, and wanting to provide a more consistent, solid foundation to that growth? Yeah. I think the world, and what we do, is changing a bit. I talked about it this morning in the Q&A as well. The chocolate confectionery market, from what I can see, versus the past, is not growing to the same extent. I set for the short term, but I feel overall we'll be sort of between 1% and 2%. That's lower than probably what it has historically been. I feel that chocolate, as a very versatile ingredient, is used in adjacent categories that are super interesting. Ice cream, which I know from some experience, has been growing and will grow, I would say between 2% and 4%, roughly. Snack occasions, such as protein bars, and where chocolate is by far the preferred taste and ingredient, will grow faster. Also pastries will grow faster. The second thing that we need to do is to move in those adjacencies, and therefore expand our addressable market more intentionally. Then third, as I talked about, our service. Look, I feel that stepping up the fundamentals is arguably our best lever for growth right now. Your question, look, I think this is the three things that we need to do, and that will give consistency over time, but we do need to build that machine. As I said, I'm not asking here for everything long term. I say, "Hey, 1% to 3% volume growth in the shorter term, profit ahead of volume, and PBT somewhat ahead of the midterm guidance because of the particular dynamics around financing costs." At the same time, we do need to build a machine. That is not an overnight exercise. You've very clearly introduced more oversight and accountability at organizations you've been in charge of in your career. What can you say about the degree of rigor to that which will be brought to Barry, and will that affect the rewards and incentives framework that the business operates on? Answer is yes. As I said, I felt the organization is a fairly matrixed organization in terms of global functions, regional responsibilities that are not fully defined, and so forth. What we're going to do, five global regions, a simple set of targets for the regions, in which they have accountability to deliver. Of course, a global target set that's there. Key functions supporting the regions in a few important areas, supply chain and engineering. Obviously, finance and operations to global shared services. We have now four locations, and I want to stabilize that, get the cost levels out there, which I believe will help us to reduce that inflationary impact that you have every year, which I talked about. That's, for me, finishing a journey. I would say those are probably the key things. We do need to get the accountabilities in the organization absolutely right, and I want to be very straightforward. If you're the president of North America in our organization, then you run that show. Our regions are around 85% self-sufficient. A large region like North America, for example, is around 85% to 90% almost self-sufficient. Then there are some, of course, chocolate from Belgium, which is super famous, and that's what we own. Cacao Barry, here in France, which is a very super premium chocolate. It's wonderful. You should taste it. That's something that we can export, but for the rest, they should run the show based on, and with the help of, global colleagues. Clear, light regional offices, light head office, fit for purpose, and put the resources as close as you can to the market. Yeah, I have to admit, that's something I've done a few times. I've experienced before, as you probably are aware of. I think it works to have the accountabilities right. Absolutely. Sustainability's been a top priority for the industry, clearly, and particularly for yourselves as a global leader. What role does this play in the Focus for Growth plan? It's bigger than you think. Right. I think it's worth saying that the undercurrent of sustainability, and particular for us in the ESG framework, the S, so child labor issues, but also, of course, deforestation issues in the chain, I take them extraordinarily serious. Not just that, but actually we see the demands from our customers and the brand owners are going up and not down. While the topic of sustainability is sometimes not hitting the front pages these days, the undercurrent on the demands, the action that the industry is taking, I think are very serious. We have a program, it's called Forever Chocolate, that was started 10 years ago. Big credit to my predecessors on that. We are not relaxing our targets on that. I'm not going to make major changes. I want to make sure that the couple of key targets that are in there, that we hit them. I'm prioritizing three or four, and that's what we will go after. I think by doing that, we will be capable to provide something to our customers that no one else can. That's a clear level of differentiation. We've spoken about a number of different aspects across the plan that you've announced, and there's obviously a number of different stakeholders as well. In your view, what does success look like in the Focus for Growth action plan? We cannot have, in our most important segments, customer service levels below 80. They need to be 93, 4, 5% plus, that needs to be reached pretty quickly. Second, that 30% of premiumization in the portfolio needs to go up as a percentage of the total because it's a clear trend, we need to address it. Third, the segments that we want to win in, I called out ice cream, I called out bakery, I called out snacking and protein. With the specialties that I talked about, we need to win those segments and be the absolute market leader. For me, those are the three big ones. Of course, a very motivated and happy organization. That's something you probably won't see from the outside so much. Okay. Well, look, Hein, we've been through an awful lot this morning in a short period of time, and there's some significant actions that you're taking to improve the performance at Barry. Thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you, Tom. For giving us this chance to speak on this important day as you launch the strategy. Thank you. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Okay.