Okay, well good morning, everybody, and thank you very much for joining us for this session, and thank you very much indeed. Thanks. Laurent, CEO of Nestlé, for joining us for this, for this fireside chat. Laurent, you became CEO in September last year, perhaps before we move on to some of the strategic choices you've made. Perhaps you could give us some perspective on how employees and the board were feeling about the company and its direction at the time. Yeah, I think, logically, as the company was slowing down in terms of organic growth and was in a share-losing position, there was a little bit of anxiety and discomfort in the organization. Maybe the best way to highlight the way the perception was, mine included, that we were a little bit of a fragmented Nestlé in a fragmented world. To explain the journey that has been accomplished, I think now we are a much more united and aligned Nestlé in an even more fragmented and transitional world. That is what has been done. I've put a lot of attention on bringing clarity on strategic direction, aligning the organization, making sure that the vision and the strategy design is executed, sharpen the organization, streamline the organization. There is a smaller executive board footprint, more line organization, and I took all the levers of the performance and transformation directly. All the businesses report to me directly, and all the levers of transformation, and there are essentially three. One is innovation, who's already reporting. Second one is sustainability, reporting to me now. The third one is ISIT, technology, reporting to me as well. Okay, thank you. I mean, you moved pretty quickly. You stated in December last year that the first 80 days you completed a market and business review, you developed a strategy, there had been leadership changes. I mean, what were the key aspects to the diagnosis as to why Nestlé was underperforming at that time? Part of the issue was probably chasing too much the bottom line, and, connected to the fact that at the same time we were trying to develop new opportunities like the entire Nestlé Health Science space, which is a good space for us, healthy longevity, women's health, weight management, so many opportunities unlocked through that. We were also investing massively in the plant-based protein space. Nothing really wrong in doing that. The problem is when it's done at the expense of the core. The reality, which we highlighted at the capital market there, is that we had reduced $5 billion consumer-facing spend on the core in the previous three years. I think we were suffering clearly from a lack of investment on the core. The relationship between investing and growth, investing and gaining market share, is obvious. We were kind of entering a vicious circle that we had to turn around. That is why I am talking so much about driving a virtuous circle of sustainable and profitable growth, which requires us to be very aggressive on the cost base to generate the resources, the fuel for the growth that we can invest behind the growth platform. The good news at Nestlé is that there are many opportunities to grow, many growth platforms, that we just have to be choice-full and invest. Okay, thank you. Perhaps before we get on to the growth platforms and making good better, maybe we could address your view on some of the categories that have been underperforming. I mean, you stated that there's about 15- 20, I think 18. In Q1, country category sales, which were disproportionately impacting growth. How are you feeling about the largest of those? U.S. creamers, Western Europe Nespresso, and frozen food U.S.? Yeah. What we highlighted when we meant underperformers, we meant losing share, the biggest contributor to our share loss, and happened that they contribute 21% to our sales. It's very interesting to see what's been happening. The fact that we highlighted those created a healthy tension within the organization, created also the intensity with which we had to scrutinize those, understand what was hampering our performance. And it's always around the value equation that you propose. Is it competitive? Is it attractive for the consumer? And identifying the issues and systematically addressing these issues. In some cases, it's a quick fix. If it's a pricing issue, it's a relatively quick fix. If it's deeper, it may take a little bit of time, as we highlighted. The encouraging side of the story is that we see significant improvement in the majority of those sales, and we got a couple that are already in green territory on an annual basis. It is likely that that list will evolve over time. Some categories will drop off the list. Maybe new will enter, hopefully not too many. It is going in the right direction. We got clarity why are we, or have we, suffered from underperformance and what it takes to win in the marketplace. When it is like creamers, because suffering lack of capacity at the time when many new entrants came into the market, and logically they will take share. And if you are in a position where you lack capacity, you cannot innovate, you cannot promote, then of course, you will suffer from consumers moving to some, at least to, competition. And you will also logically, as you cannot supply the retailers, lose distribution, visibility, et cetera, et cetera. So this we are rebuilding now. We got the capacity available. We had invested in a new manufacturing site in the western part of the U.S. We have one in the northeast. Now we have a second one in the southwest. So perfect location. Now it is coming on stream. We can innovate, we can promote, we can compete in the marketplace. So things are moving in the right direction. Okay, perfect. Thank you. And now Waters is a standalone business. The division has obviously run into some regulatory headwinds, but also within it obviously has some growth engines. Maybe you could walk through the outlook for that business and thoughts on the nature of any potential corporate actions and whether you'd want to keep a stake in any of the business or brands within? Yeah, it's a good, it's a good question. We lack, the beverage space. We, we lack, that category. It's a huge category. If you look at it broadly, $1 trillion+ and, quite dynamic. The issue that we face is that as much as we like it and as much as we like the brands, including new ones like Maison Perrier, which is unlocking this massive, growth opportunity, it's difficult to see it as a priority for Nestlé. As I said, we got many growth platforms, we got many opportunities, so it cannot be one of our top priorities. At the same time, it requires investments. We just admit it. We are now trying to find a better vehicle, partners with which we could co-invest, to capture, the opportunity without penalizing the core business of Nestlé. I come back to the same story. I cannot put a disproportionate amount of resources on something which is interesting but not the core. I need to keep investing in the core and find a different structure. This is what we have in mind. There is no point in our mind to get out of the sector, but more trying to find the best structure, which we have done in other categories to reach and capture the potential. The potential is there. There is no doubt. The category is intrinsically good. As much as I do not think we will see big growth in the mineral water part because by definition it is limited by the resource, the beverage space with Sanpellegrino or Maison Perrier is a massive opportunity. Okay, thank you. Moving on now to making the good better. You position Nestlé as a nutrition, health, and wellness company. How pervasive and lasting do you see the health and wellness trend? Is that something as a short-term acceleration to a new normal, a more lasting growth trend, or is there any risk that it slows after a post-COVID boom? Yeah, you're right that the COVID kind of magnified the health dimension. You know, it was all about prevention, immunity, and so on and so forth. That has kind of boosted that segment. But if you look at it long-term, I think the underlying trends are very, very powerful. The fact that population is aging, and everyone wants to understand increasingly that it's not just about aging, it's aging in good health. And that food and nutrition plays a big role in that respect. Food is the first medicine, as has been said by Hippocrates thousands of years ago, and it's true. This idea that healthcare's costs are increasingly becoming unsustainable just for the wallet of the consumer and for the system, this importance of prevention, self-care, is so critical and so important. That's a very, very powerful underlying trend. Women's health is another dimension. Weight management is another dimension when you got 2.7 billion people on the planet overweight. I mean, the opportunity is absolutely massive. Nutrition plays a big role in all of those dimensions. We strongly believe that there is a big space in the health and wellness side of the equation. Okay, thank you. I appreciate the macro backdrop always carries some uncertainty. However, in your longer-term planning, do you plan for the same level of volume growth as we've seen historically, or do you have to be a little bit more creative and competitive to take share in what may be an ongoing lower volume growth world? You know, one of the powerful underlying trends supporting volume consumption is the 1 billion more people that we'll get on the planet in the next five years. The dynamic that we have seen the last years will continue at least for a while. That is very, very powerful. More affluent, consumer, more urban, educated consumer, is certainly a powerful, supporting trend to volume growth. I think everyone is a little bit, there's a bit of myopia logically that everyone forgets the, that the COVID impact, the magnifying impact on the categories. Suddenly growth accelerated massively because the business came to us. People staying at home had more meals and more drinks at home. We are also out of home, but in home is a much bigger piece of our business. The business came to us, and business came to the industry in this respect. That is in the base. Same for pet food, and that has to be absorbed. If the numbers are a bit slower in terms of the volume growth lately, it is because we got that high base that has to be absorbed. I do not see any reason why we should not come back to pre-COVID trends in terms of volume growth over time. Okay, thank you. When you look at how the company has innovated historically and, and perhaps importantly then also the oversight of those innovations and, and what's worked and, and what's happened, what, what hasn't, how would you contrast your, your innovation strategy and oversight now compared to, to previously at Nestlé? Maybe there was a little bit of speed to market syndrome that we tried to push quickly to the market as much as we can. Quantity and speed was kind of the name of the game. We are looking more at scale to impact, speed to impact, and making sure that for that matter, we focus a lot more and we are much more systematic in the global rollouts and that looking at innovation as a game changer, as something that creates a before and an after, something that drives incremental growth, not cannibalization, because if it is cannibalization, it is a distraction. It is nuisance, it is noise in the system. We want incrementality. If you look at it that way, and if you still, and it is what we want, keep investing in the core, innovation has to come on top, then you have to be choiceful. The second thing that drives also being choiceful is that at the end of the day, that has to be executed by a salesforce in a given market. How many innovations can a salesforce properly execute in a market? One, two, three, five maybe. That is the maximum. If you try to push too quickly a hundred, 200 to the market, the big risk is that some countries will select this one, also this one, you do not build up critical mass and you lose opportunities and you do not drive the scale that you need to drive. We prefer to, and the choice is identify, making the effort to identify the biggest potential, to give them disproportionate amount of resource to accelerate the rollouts. You get the speed, the speed to impacts. You give yourself a chance to, from the seed, build up a tree that eventually will bear fruits. If you do too much, too quickly without resources, you just create noise in the system and there is nothing that really sticks. We want more Nespressos. We want more Nescafe Dolce Gustos. We do not want stuff that will fill up the pipeline for two, three years and then disappear and then et cetera. That is not what we want. We come back to this idea that focus matters. We want scale and we want to build up scale on the big bets. It is a big revolution because for the first time we define, and I do not think that there are too many companies, by the way, in the industry that are that clear on those are our innovation big bets. Those are the ones that we will focus on for the foreseeable future. It's the discipline that we create for ourselves, and that's the best way to get the speed to impact. Okay, thank you. Maybe we can talk about the marketing spend and the AMP behind those. You have stated that you will increase marketing spend to around 9% of sales by the end of this year. What is the pace of that phasing, and how is that spend increasing? Because you have spoken about the shift towards social media marketing. What are the implications for Roike for you on that investment near-term and longer-term? Number one, the reinvestment is not just AMP. There are many areas where we can and we have to reinvest. I am talking all the time of the value equation, which is what the consumer will buy in the end, products, which should be superior products in terms of quality delivered, at the right price, available and visible everywhere, and with the right level of consumer engagement. AMP is part of it, but there is also investment in quality. There is investment in formats. There is investment in distribution and so on and so forth. AMP is not all of it. It is important that actually you need to make sure that you got the product right, because advertising more a product which is not right is like throwing money out of the window. In the end, increasing AMP is almost the last element of the equation. You need to make sure that you build up product superiority, that you got the price right. If you do not, you do not have it, you can throw as much money as you want to the consumer, nothing will move. Reinvestment is in all the critical elements of the value equation. AMP is important. We had to rebuild, especially on the core brands. The point is that this is not just the amount of money. It is not what we spend. It is also the how we spend. It is not just on which channels we spend, but, do we spend in a way that we minimize non-working? AMP, it is an important equation. If you spend 30% on non-working when you could spend 20%, well, there is a big difference in terms of what will be consumer facing. Are you investing enough to have in all initiatives levels of efficiency? Why is it important? If you spread too much and you invest too little on too many, you are not even visible. Concentration also matters in this respect, making sure that you invest also behind the priority brands and you do not get distracted by the non-priority, et cetera. It is not just how much we spend, it is also how we spend it and making sure that we got the quality. That is a journey that we walk. I want to make sure that we do not just throw money, but we spend, invest the money wisely on the right brands, on the right levers, with the right levels of return, et cetera, et cetera. We prefer to do it cautiously. We also have to invest in some areas of the value equation, product quality, visibility, availability, maybe pricing sometimes, and so on and so forth, new formats. That is the reason why we are decisive. We are increasing significantly, but I want to make sure that we get the returns. Of course, we will keep investing further because there is no doubt that there is a correlation between how much you invest and how much growth you get and how much market share you get. The investment that you've spoken about obviously needs funding. Nestlé over the last five years, 10 years has been seen as a quite a productive company. You now have a productivity program, which puts significantly higher cost savings on top of already good productivity. Where are the biggest inefficiencies in the group, and why should investors believe that these are going to generate, that you're going to generate real gains? You know, generally the inefficiencies are sitting at the intersection of the functions, or they can be sitting in areas where, when you should play the scale, you do not. Let's take procurement or let's take, in commercial investments, scale matters. If you buy more, you should get better price. You should buy better, and so on and so forth. There was an opportunity at Nestlé to buy better, and has to do with what we buy. Do we buy specific specifications, unique specifications? Or do we buy common specification? There is a big difference between the two. The big difference is that if you have a unique specification with a unique supplier, there is no bargaining power. There is no way you can negotiate. If you got common specification with more suppliers, then you are in the game of negotiating. Do we take the negotiation locally? You play maybe the $1 billion, $10 billion game, or do you play it globally? You play the $100 billion game and it is a different outcome. There is what we buy, there is the way we buy. We are progressing very aggressively on the side of e-auctions. To be able to run e-auctions, you need to buy common specs. If you buy unique specs, again, there is nobody you can invite for the e-auction. If you buy in common specs, you can invite. We want to be at the cutting edge there. We are very aggressive. It is a very, very efficient approach. You know how it works. You invite the guys, you bid, bid, you bid, you bid, and then you stop and then you see the outcome. It is very, very impressive. The third point is where we buy. The assumption that we took on the $65 billion spend on raw packing DIAG material are absolutely confirmed. We see that expectations will be met. There is always opportunity to improve in a large organization. At Nestlé, it will be punching to our weight, playing the $100 billion game where it matters, and also using the best negotiation tactics, the best AI tools, to be on top of our game. We want to be on top of our game in this respect because a lot is at stake that we can reinvest in the business. That is what we are doing. We are looking also at the commercial investments. That is probably a little bit less, but there is always a waste in the system to make sure that every dollar that we invest returns. We are looking also at operational efficiencies, you know, all what digital AI can unlock in terms of productivity, leveraging better our shared services. We are in that journey and the $2.5 billion that we flagged, and $700 million this year are in the making and we start to invest. Okay. Thank you. You obviously mentioned AI there and, clearly, there are some productivity gains that you can generate from that. It is not just marketing, as you mentioned, there is procurement. There are, of course, a high number of use cases. Maybe you could give us a view of your current and planned adoption of AI. Do you at all see AI as deflationary to the prices that you are able to sell at, if retailers are able to use it to spot any mispricing at all? Yeah. We see opportunities in AI everywhere. We want to be very, very aggressive also with the way we enable our teams. We, I think, are one of the, I do not want to make any advertising for everyone, but we are one of the largest users of Copilot. We have deployed across 15,000 users. It is clear that this is unlocking a lot of productivity, and more to come. With gains of productivity, generally there are also deflationary tensions. The key thing there is to be ahead of the game and create a positive gap vis-à-vis the markets and be in a position to be competitive while reinvesting in the business. If you are late in the game, you can just play the competitiveness dimension, but not the reinvestment game. We want to be ahead of our game in this context. Okay. Thank you. Given the planned operational improvements and increased investment, do you think, and we get a lot of questions on this, do you think your IT infrastructure and MIS is fit for purpose for the future? I guess one of the criticisms has been that more recently Nestlé has been seen as more reactive rather than proactive. Do you at all see your IT infrastructure as any blockage to performance? I think our IT infrastructure is a massive advantage. We got one ERP, one ERP platform. It's not that we got 10, 15, or 20, like some of our competitors. When it comes to upgrades, we can do it like this. When it comes to deployment of solution, we can do it like this. I think we got a massive advantage in terms of the visibility we got on the business performance, this capacity to connect end to end and to deploy new solutions. Of course, what has been built up through Globe at the time is still absolutely highly relevant, is being upgraded and enhanced down the road. I really believe that technology is bringing us now at a time where we can really manage in real time, that technology will unlock productivity, will unlock also speed in the system, and innovation, and so many dimensions to it that we have to embrace it. That's one of the reasons, by the way, when I highlighted my agenda, since I took over, I said we want to accelerate performance and transformation. The performance piece is all about being cost efficient, generate the fuel for the growth, reinvest on the core, innovation, big bets, et cetera, et cetera. The transformation, I highlighted the three areas which are the game changers for the future. One is innovation in all its forms and shapes, and that was reporting to the CEO already. The two that were not reporting to the CEO is one, sustainability. We got one planet. Food system accounts for 20%-28% of global emissions. If we want to control global warming, food system will have to be part of the solution. We are leading the food system. We have to be part of the solution. We are engaged and we want to collaborate in this respect. Sustainability reports now to me and ISIT digital is critical game changer, was not reporting either to the CEO, is reporting to me now. I got the levers of performance and transformations in my hands to be able to accelerate the agenda in this respect. Okay. Thank you. Perhaps now we could, as we come towards the end of this, maybe take the temperature of consumer demand, at least in the markets in which the business operates. Firstly, perhaps we could look through a geographic lens. How do you see consumer demand across your businesses, across the different regions? Is there any end to the bifurcation of demand between lower income and higher income consumers at all? Yeah, that's, there's good observation, that lower income and higher income, because there is different impacts on consumption. I'm absolutely convinced this is why we are watching also what's happening globally, that an unemployed consumer starts to change totally, consumption patterns. This is probably the part that impacts the most. And we have been through that in the previous great financial crisis. So we know, we know the playbook and how to react to that. Yeah, there is a little, it's not new. There is, there's consumer sentiment is not, is not a bit anywhere. There is anxiety. Food prices are still high. So, consumption is, you know, like we said in Q1, I don't think there is anything that has fundamentally changed since then. Europe is interestingly quite resilient in that context. Maybe the welfare system also is absorbing the tensions or the shocks. In China, we got the context where the government wants to support consumption. It was not in their playbook so much. They were more supporting the supply, but they are determined to do that. It's, it's, we'll see what, but they have the muscle and they can do it. The point there is that, in a context of uncertainty, there is propensity to save money and not to spend money. It's a big difference with the U.S., generally speaking, in this respect. Yeah, everything we describe is still at play. In many parts we got consumer sentiment, which is subdued, without any, there's no euphoria anywhere. Yeah. To be clear. Okay. And maybe we could look through a category lens. Maybe you could walk us through some of the dynamics, particularly across some of the, the global platforms like Pet, Coffee, and maybe Nutrition as well? Yeah. Yeah. In all cases, the comment that I made that we are in the post-COVID hangover, in a way, and that the bubble that has been created has to be absorbed somewhat, really is at play, particularly pet food, but the underlying trends are very, very strong. Urban population increasingly, the world passed the 50% and continues to increase. Smaller households, less babies, more pets, aging population, same story, less babies, more pets. We see that dynamic at play. We'll continue to grow. Gen Z is eager to adopt pets, sometimes reluctant to. It's unfortunate maybe for mankind, but less babies, more pets is the dynamic. Good, obviously, for the pet food category, calorific coverage, huge potential, for us in particular, Asia, huge potential. The connection between what we see in human food applies to pet food. The correlation between nutrition and health outcome, science, nutrition, health outcome is obvious. It is even easier to prove in pets. Also, great space to grow. Coffee, great category. There is the cold coffee space, which is expanding, which is growing. Coffee is winning over tea everywhere, attracting Gen Z. Maybe they do not drink like the Italians, but they still drink coffee. Amazing category as well and huge potential to grow, cold and across many geographies. Nutrition, huge potential. I highlighted healthy longevity, women's health, weight management, affordable nutrition, for us to capture. On the, let's say, more specific strongholds like ambient food, great dynamic as well. We have affordable solutions. We have tastemakers. We have lots of options that are resonating with the consumers. In the confectionery space, we are really well placed in many geographies to capture the opportunity, which is at the intersection of chocolate, biscuit, and wafer. Biscuit and wafer make chocolate more exciting and cheaper, and chocolate makes biscuit and wafer more exciting and more premium. I think there is a perfect marriage and we are well placed to capture that opportunity. We see opportunities to grow in many areas, longer term. What is very, very critical in that scenario is that we make sure that we put the focus on the best opportunities, on the best brands, on the best innovations. I am a huge believer of the Pareto principle. I am a huge believer of the concept of the vital few. We are identifying the vital few and we are acting, executing upon them. We even went to the level of, you know, that we had that work on SKUs, stock keeping units, to define what we call the triple AAA SKUs that require maximum attention, best possible service across the value chain, because those are the vital few, the make or break of the performance. The less than 10% that account for 50% of the growth and margin. Laurent, thank you very much indeed. I do not think you can be in doubt as to the identity and the philosophy of what you are trying to do. Thank you very much indeed for your time and thank you for everybody for attending as well. Thanks. It was a pleasure.