Good morning, this is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the ABF pre-close trading update analyst call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions by pressing star and one on your telephone. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. John Bason, Finance Director of ABF. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you very much. Well, good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for joining the call this morning. I really do appreciate that, we were unable to give you much notice of the announcement this morning or for that matter, this call. I really hope that this call will give you some context for today's announcement. I'm joined here by George Weston, and I'll take the time to give a short introduction and maybe clarification of the statement, and then both George and I are available to take the questions that you may have. Let me say a few words first. The statement makes it very clear that our outlook for this financial year remains as expected, and that's a significant increase in group adjusted operating profit and adjusted earnings per share. I think you will see that you will find that those numbers are very much in line with where we were expecting. We do have an upgrade at ABF Ingredients, and that takes actually our ingredients profitability comfortably ahead year on year, this year on last year. That is offset, I think by slightly lower margin profit at Primark. Taking the two factors into account and the results of the other businesses, which are pretty well in line, then we're in line overall. Just a word on net cash and net debt. They're clearly set out for you in the statement. We've had a very high working capital outflow this year of some GBP 750 million. Four hundred and forty million of that is purely timing of the arrival of Primark autumn winter inventory, which is around the year-end timing. We had some later arrivals last year-end, hence the cash, and that was 200 million, are in this financial year, which should have been in the previous one, and 240 million earlier payments this year, which should have been in next year. Of that 750 million, 440 million is really about timing. The 240 million, of course, means that the net cash that we have at the end of the year is probably adjusting for that more like GBP 1.7 billion-GBP 1.74 billion. Let me turn to Primark trading. The performance in the U.K. and Republic of Ireland has been strong. As the statement makes clear, we're close to pre-COVID levels. Really, the trading over the summer has really been very strong, and we're seeing customers return to high streets and city centers, and certainly spending, particularly in relation to the summer holidays. If we look at continental Europe, footfall did not improve as we expected Q4 on Q3. Actually it's pretty flat, so it's pretty similar. It didn't recover to the extent that we expected. I think a number of continental European markets, the market overall has actually softened, I think somewhat since the spring, and I think our figures are reflecting that. If you take that into account, you can see that the Primark margin, which we described as being some 10%, I think is more like 9.6% for the full year. Then importantly, that then gives you a margin for the second half of this financial year, which is 8.0%. Then if you remember, it was 11.7 at the first half, and that gives you the 9.6 for the whole year. Taking that as read, really the statement I think is also giving an outlook for next year. I think if you look at the economic environment, I think we're very much at a pinch point at the moment. You know, you'll be aware that a number of factors that affect our input costs are changing quite quickly at the moment. The two that obviously I would highlight would be the strength of the U.S. dollar. The reason I describe it as the strength of the U.S. dollar is the dollar has strengthened, not only against sterling, which we tend to concentrate on in this country, and by the way, we've moved from about 1.24 to 1.14 over the space of not that many weeks, but also against the euro. From, you know, 1.05-1.06 to more like parity. That's a very, very big move in a very short period of time. The other thing that's clearly very volatile are energy costs as well. We've already baked into our plans for next year some much higher energy costs. Remember, it's not how many tens of percent are they higher, but how many times higher than they were last year. That volatility was still moving. All of this creates, I think, a lot of uncertainty about input costs and certainly it then adds to the uncertainty we all have about consumer spending as we look into the next year against the backdrop of the inflation. In that context, we've taken the commercial decision to not raise price increases that we've either implemented for autumn, winter, or planned to put through for spring, summer any further. Just to give you a feel, the year-on-year inflationary impact or benefit of that is probably high single digits%. We will let that stand. Even given this really quite uncertain outlook and the volatility in terms of input cost right now, we've taken the decision that we have the strength of the balance sheet, we have the strength of the food businesses that we've got beside us to basically say, we want to, from a Primark sense, come out of this strongly and in a stronger competitive position. If prices move from here, then there will be some margin that we will, if you like, concede for this year. By the way, as a reminder for those of you that have followed us for some time, you will notice that this is rather similar to what we did probably some 10 years ago, if you remember when cotton prices increased and they came back down again. The guidance that we're giving in the statement today is that the 8% margin that we achieved in the second half of the financial year, we think that the margin for the whole of next year for Primark will be lower than that. This is, I think, we believe a strong position to take. We're in unusual times with the scale and the volatility of the changes that are taking place, but we think it's important for the business that we make it clear the position that we are taking as far as prices are concerned. This is our view of the pricing that we will take for next year, and we've made a statement that we will focus on rebuilding those margins back to 10% over a period of time. Let me just give a final comment on our food businesses. The food businesses, we've given you a guide that next year, in total, we expect the food businesses to be ahead of this year, particularly driven by our sugar business, where we expect to see quite a big improvement in the profitability there, probably with the other businesses, food businesses year-on-year in profit terms being broadly in line. I apologize that you've only had just a couple of hours to read an unexpected statement. I think at that point, why don't I hand it over to you for any questions? Excuse me, this is the conference operator. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. We will pause for a moment as callers join the queue. The first question is from Roland French of Davy. Hi. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my calls, my questions. I've got three questions, please. Maybe first, John, looking beyond FY23, you've put a marker down around Primark margin there for 10%. I guess, you know, previous narrative had talked about sort of 12%-13% corridor. Perhaps you can give us some color around your thinking behind that. And then secondly, just more specifically in relation to the German market, it kind of feels, I guess, there's maybe kind of second round of problems in that region. Maybe you can kind of parse out what you're seeing or what's happening and how you seek to resolve that. Just finally, perhaps on the cost side of things, you could give us some color or detail around some potentially rule of thumb in terms of the sensitivity on FX, firstly, and then secondly, just what energy is as a percentage of your COGS in a typical year. I'll leave it at that. Thanks so much. Okay. Thanks, Roland. Look, maybe if I could suggest that the best person to answer the first question on the 10% is really George to answer that piece, because I think it sets the context of how we're thinking about this. George? Okay. Look, we wouldn't rule out getting back to the 12%-13% corridors. We can see more clearly at this stage what needs to happen to get us back to 10%. The margin has moved around. That net margin has moved around always, not least because we don't target it. It's the consequence of everything else we do. I wouldn't, as I said, rule this out. I think the reason for that is fundamentally our competitive position. We think it is strengthening, not weakening. We think that our costs, the advantage of our cost base over online is ever clearer. I think in continental Europe, in many markets where the brand is getting better known, and there are, you know, of course there are difficulties in the supply chain, which will be costing us margin in the short run, but I have no doubt that those will be resolved over time. Our buying margin I think will return over time. How long that will take? Well, it sort of depends, I think, so much on when energy prices fall back to more sensible levels. We know what we have to do to get to 10%. There's no reason fundamentally that 12%, 13% in some years shouldn't be possible. If I also then answer your question on Germany, and then perhaps. I'll get cost. Do the cost side and the energy percentages. Germany is, well, I think it is obviously even more challenged by energy prices and availability than the U.K. is, firstly. Secondly, I think the German consumer has shown in the past a greater desire to save when they know that tough times are ahead. The German retail market is just, for those two reasons, in a very difficult place right now. We know and we've been very open over the last few years with about the issues, the specific issues our own business has in that market, and we are acting to fix those. You'll have seen that we've shut two stores, and there's plenty else that we're getting on with, some of which requires consultation with our workforces. Germany, we've got a clear plan that we're acting on. John, costs. Yeah. Coming on to cost, Roland. You're asking about energy. The energy I think we're talking about here is it really is mainly electricity, so there's hardly any gas. It's the electricity cost, and that's the electricity cost of running our stores. To give you a feel, compared to FY 2021, what we already have baked into our numbers for FY 2023 is an increase of over 4x the cost. We're looking at something that was maybe some GBP 50 million back in FY 2021 to being going somewhat over GBP 200 million in FY 2023. That really gives you a feel of the scale of the increase that we are including in the plans for next year. Of course, if that keeps on moving around by a factor of two, you can certainly see the sort of the scale of volatility we're looking at. Does that help you, Roland, on the cost element? Yeah. That's a good color. Thanks, John. Thanks, George. Just one other thing to say on energy. We have now underway the most awe-inspiring program of replacing light bulbs with LED light bulbs, which do a tremendous job of cutting overall store energy consumption. We'll be spending the best part of GBP 40 million on that just this coming year alone. Millions of light bulbs are being changed. That in the long run will bring our energy use down and down significantly. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. We'll take the next question if we can, please. The next question is from Georgina Johanan of JP Morgan. Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Two or three from me, please. The first one, just to understand, thank you for all the clarification around FX and so on. Just to understand how much of that is actually locked in for fiscal 2023. Like, if we were to see the dollar reverse some of that strength, for example, would that be an opportunity for you in fiscal 2023, or would we have to wait for fiscal 2024 to actually see that coming through, please? Georgina, why don't I just take that one straight away 'cause that's really helpful. Given our purchases forward, in terms of what would be realized, you know, what is fixed for the cost of this coming financial year, we're probably now about three-quarters covered for currency. Okay? It's that remaining quarter that's exposed. Obviously as we move through the autumn, then that amount reduces. I might just point out that obviously, if the dollar. Let's go on the track that we all think it's on at the moment, which is the dollar continuing to strengthen. That would have a transaction loss on that diminishing part of the Primark transaction fees. But we would get the translation benefit for the whole of the group for the whole year. We're probably now, I suspect, quite close to, from an ABF perspective, an inflection point where any moves in the exchange rate, transaction and translation are probably compensating at the moment. Thank you. That's very clear. Actually a similar question on the electricity. I mean, I appreciate we're obviously gonna hear from the government of sort of further or many potential support also for businesses today. Is that sort of over GBP 200 million cost that you referenced for fiscal 2023 now like hedged, or could we see that move further up or indeed back down? Some of it is hedged, but there is still significant opportunity if business electricity prices are pegged. Right You know, we're not at the three-quarters level of No, no On covered. I think, Georgina, maybe there are some businesses, well, of course, there would be some, that would have a much longer energy hedge. Remember, we've been living in a world of very high energy prices. It would take a very confident hedger to get, you know, to be hedging for a long period of time at these very, very elevated levels. Certainly the hedge there, if anything, is short to level on. Thank you. Final question on mitigating actions, which I think you referenced in the statement. I mean, should we assume that sort of negotiation with suppliers and so on, is there a freight tailwind coming through? Are there OpEx efficiencies that you're driving? Any color on that would be really helpful, please. Yes. There's a big program of work on OpEx, and that will mitigate some of the cost increases well. On suppliers with suppliers, obviously, high energy costs affect them too. On what is still on board, there is some opportunity to buy better, but that's not huge. Thank you. On the freight tailwind, please, coming through next year? Yeah. I mean, the freight tailwind. Basically, we had this year a fixed tariff for a good part of it. We are on the tariffs that we have, and without revealing too much detail, it's still a very, you know, a good contract that we have with one of the major freight suppliers. The freight is coming off from the top, but as the spot rates that I'm looking at, they're probably still four times what they were before this big increase. Yes, again, it's the, if you can see the picture in your head, it's the coming off from the top that we are seeing. Quite frankly, you know, you would expect, I'm talking as an amateur economist here, you know, for those to come off somewhat more, you know, particularly some of the volumes will likely decline as we go into this year. I'm talking about not our volumes, but those for the market overall. I think we've got some saving coming off from the top. If freight prices really come down a lot, then that would be a following win for us. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next question, please. The next question is from Richard Chamberlain of RBC. Thank you. Morning, guys. A couple from me, please. One on Primark then, just to follow up on the pricing actions. Are you saying that you're currently sort of keeping prices lower than the competition, you know, across the board, or you're doing that more in Europe than the U.K.? My impression is that, you know, Primark might have, might be having to be more aggressive on price or more competitive on price in markets like Iberia than it is, say, here in the U.K. That's the first one. Then just on the sugar side, can you just talk about a little bit about what you expect the contribution of Vivergo to be in the coming year compared to GBP 30 million, Yeah You mentioned startup losses and recommissioning costs? Thanks. Okay. I mean, as you know, Richard, Primark sells everything it sells at the lowest prices in the market, and that's not changing. You know, throughout our history, we've had moments where we've had to defend that position, sometimes very aggressively, and nothing changes there. You know, we're obviously, you know, the worst thing we could do is lose that price positioning through this, I hope temporary era of high costs. I go back to John's comments about the cotton spike in 2000 and whenever it was. On sugar, Vivergo, we're learning to live with volatile margins. They move around, they seem to move around hugely from one day to the next. What we do know is that the plant is coming back up very well. The operational efficiencies are building very, very quickly. The three inputs, well, the two inputs of wheat and natural gas have been moving around a lot, and the price of ethanol has been moving around a lot. Most recently because we believe the prices have come down because we think the ethanol storage in Rotterdam is full because the Rhine is unnavigable in places. We, you know, we've got to put a number in the budget. We expect a nice positive contribution from that business. It's a big turnaround from the startup costs of this year. Okay, great. Maybe, Richard, just while we're on sugar, just maybe a commentary on our European and British Sugar in particular. You know, what we're looking at there is you know, so somewhat higher sugar prices, but the inputs are really you know, so the gas. British Sugar is our biggest user of gas, and a good bit of that was hedged in this last year. We're seeing you know, considerably higher cost for gas in this next year. It's really increased gas costs, higher beet costs. That is going up, obviously because of the higher price that was agreed for higher costs for beet to the farmers. We've got some sales prices that means that, you know, we're there or thereabouts on the profitability of it year on year. Again, going back to the comment about we'll know more by the end of the day, we'll see what the government actions do for gas prices for British Sugar. Yeah, indeed. Thanks. Got it. Thanks. Thanks, guys. Yeah, thanks, Richard. Okay, can we take the next question, please? The next question is from Warwick Okines of BNP Paribas Exane. Thanks. Morning, John, George. Two questions, please. The first is just coming back on costs at Primark. The statement says you plan to deliver lower operating costs at Primark next year. I was just wondering if you could be more precise about what you mean by this. Is this lower as a percentage of sales or per sq ft or what? Secondly, I appreciate the numbers you've just given on British Sugar and Vivergo. Just sort of to triangulate that a little bit, could you say how much higher you expect to contract prices at in the U.K. versus the year just finished? Could it be EUR 100 or more or so on the European sugar price? Thank you. Okay. I hope I haven't given it. Operating costs for the Primark year on year will go up. I hope I haven't misled by the comment. What I think we were saying, Warwick, is that there are the programs in place, particular projects to lower the operating costs. I think George has made. Mitigation rather than. Correct. rather than reduction of the total. Yeah, exactly. Let me put it this way. The scale of that is probably some, I want to say some three figures of mitigation. It's not small. That's actually in there, Warwick. Without me giving specifically what it is, you know, you've got something that's three figures of a mitigation. Okay. Is that helpful on that? Yeah, that's great. Thank you. It gives you a feeling of the scale of what we're going for and what's baked into, you know, what's actually baked into the plans for next year already. It isn't like just, you know, operating costs are as they go. You know, we have got, you know, the price increases that we've got in there, and we've got these mitigating factors. You know, we're working hard at where we are on that. Okay. Can I ask one on the sugar prices? Sugar prices, you know, I think. You've probably seen some of where some of the spot prices are going on the 100-year. I mean, I would say let's, you know. It's north of EUR 100. It's north of EUR 100 per ton as an increase on the book year-on-year. Thank you. At the moment, spot prices are about GBP 1,000 a ton. EUR 1,000. Sorry, EUR 1,000. Yes. Yeah. You won't be contracting anywhere near that. No. Exactly. We wish. The reason for that is, you know, those are normally the small parcels or whatever, so it's the bigger one. Then you've also got some contracts that have rolled forward. You know, you are slightly lagging it in terms of, you know, where you've got longer than one-year contracts. Yeah. Despite that, I suppose the opportunity for British Sugar to grow profits year on year next year largely rests with what the government say on gas. Is that fair? Well, I think it's at the moment, we're waiting to see what the crop's gonna be. It's not the biggest moving part. It's a moving part, and then gas next. Price of co-products is an important aspect of the P&L accounts of Sugar to get. Brilliant. All right. Thanks very much. By the way, the comment that George is making about the crop is, you can imagine that a hot, dry summer, which maybe some of us enjoy it from a recreational perspective, was not great for growing sugar beet. That, that's really one of the things we're looking at. We, having said that, we all remember, crops that have recovered spectacularly well in the autumn when conditions are right, and they've just been perfect for the last three weeks. The rain and warmth. Rain, warmth and sunshine. We'll wait to see. It is quite a big moving element in British Sugar budgets. Sure. Thanks very much. Best of luck. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next question, please. The next question is from Anne Critchlow of Société Générale. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got two, please. I wondered if you could talk a bit about price elasticity at Primark, because I think, you know, some time ago, years ago, you used to say something like a 20% price cut could double volumes. I'm just wondering what you're seeing, and I think you have started raising prices already. If you have any indications there. Secondly, any plans for a mobile phone app for Primark, please? On the price elasticity, I mean, I think what we've seen at the moment, different things in U.K. and Ireland from the rest of the markets. We don't think it's a price elasticity issue. We think it's a willingness and ability of customers to spend money. It's not the pricing that makes the difference to volume at this stage. It is the amount of cash that our consumers have. It's why these electricity energy caps are so important to our estimate of demand through next year. Our customers at the moment, particularly in Europe, are just unwilling or unable to spend on a mobile phone app in time? In time. Let me say something a little bit about. I mean, look, I mean, on digital, I mean, we are really thrilled with the customer response to the new website. You know, we've got you know some four months of data now and you know traffic figures. That's configured for mobiles. This isn't you know the awkwardness of. That is, Anne, a big and major step we've taken. Obviously we'll roll that out to the other markets, and that's coming through very well. That is a big step that we've taken at the moment. Thank you. The next question. The next question. I apologize, sir. The next question is from Rebecca McClellan of Santander. Yes. Good morning. Can you hear me? Yeah. Thanks, Rebecca. Yes. Good morning. Hi. Just a couple of questions from me, please. Firstly, across the food divisions, I think there was a sort of a phased approach to pricing over recent months. Where are you with that, and how are you finding the capacity to get pricing through with your various partners? My second question is, you talk about sort of a strong summer in the U.K. and Ireland for Primark. Is there anything you can say about sort of recent weeks through back to school as we get into September, and how are you budgeting for the autumn? Which ones? Yeah, food pricing through the course of the year, we have done a good job. Some divisions have been easier than others. The grocery businesses inevitably are the hardest. But we have recovered most of the cash of the increased cash costs. What we haven't done, and it will rebuild over time, is recovered to the same margins. The margins in food will come down, but not the cash number. I think with supply chains getting a bit easier, now I'm anticipating the future rather than reporting what we're seeing. I think all producers of inputs will find price rises harder to achieve next year than they did this year. I think the disruption in the supply chains works to the advantage of people trying to put their prices up. If the supply chain improvements continue, then I think that following wind for salesmen trying to raise prices goes away. We've done a really creditable job of getting prices up, recovering the cash costs. The margins will come back over time. The future, I think, will be maybe tougher. Just a little bit of color, Rebecca, on you know I mean the hot weather just the season we're leaving behind you know and you know particularly coupled with the return to holiday travel festivals actually which you know there were lots of this summer really did boost sales of summer clothing you know and that includes things like you know beach wear luggage sliders and so on. We are actually seeing some changes we had into the autumn. You know some of the colder weather apparel is actually starting to sell through. I think you know we are starting to see that transition as we go forward. I think it's worth just noting in the U.K. in particular, just how much great demand creation work there's been. The website is absolutely working now in getting information to customers, including to new customers. It's gonna take another few months to get it rolled out across Europe. That's one of the differences between potentially between U.K. and other markets. Things like the Greggs campaign, absolutely brilliant. Build sort of brand salience and recognition. The most recent vintage clothing collections in Birmingham and Manchester, and it'll be spread further. I think probably including into Germany. That again helps perhaps drive new customers into the stores. I suspect, but I can't prove, that we are picking up customers in the U.K. and Ireland where we're doing all this work, despite the difficulties many of our customers face with their disposable income. Thank you. Of course, we've got click and collect coming, again, starting in the U.K. Yes, should be accessible for customers. Yep. I think there's plenty of evidence that we're becoming a stronger, better business, and we're seeing it first in the U.K. Thanks, Rebecca. Could we have the next question, please? The next question is from David Roe of Bank of America. Hi, John and George. Thanks for taking my questions. Just two from my side. Firstly, on product costs from your suppliers for Primark. In your discussions with suppliers on contract prices, would you say that contract inflation has peaked yet or is nearing a peak? Secondly, on the group's sort of total energy consumption, how much of that would be from Europe and the U.K.? Thank you. George, do you want to talk about suppliers? Yeah. Is it nearing its peak? Well, I would hope over the next few months that the reduction in fabric costs that we've seen so far will continue. In the end, of course, the price of energy and natural gas into things like fertilizer, they need to come back down again before things like the cost of growing cotton reduce back to the old levels. But they have come back down. There's also unhelpfully been a disruption in production capacity. So, Myanmar is the latest country where it's hard to do business with now for understandable reasons. Sri Lanka has fallen away, Ethiopia has fallen away, and China, well, the Xinjiang cotton issue is a significant one. That supply base in clothing will take a little while to adjust. In the end, the cost of new capacity in garment manufacturing is not that high, so we expect to see capacity come back. You ask an interesting question on energy consumption. I've just been thinking about that. How much is U.K. and Europe and how much is elsewhere? I think it's probably best to look at that, David, by business. The first one I'd look at is our sugar business, and half of that is clearly in Europe, but half of it is Southern Africa. Southern Africa is either from, you know, generated from our own gas or from, it can be from the grid in some of the Southern African countries, a lot of which are hydro. I don't think we're looking at, you know, particular escalation on the Illovo parts of the sugar business. I think we've touched on the sugar prices being a hedge, if you like, against the high energy costs that we're actually seeing in Europe, which is British Sugar and Spain. Just giving you some of the moving parts, the biggest energy usage by far are the European sugar factories. Yeah. Ingredients plants are probably next. Now, AB Mauri is spread out all across the world. The world, yes. The specialty ingredients plants, yeah, they're about half in the States and half in Europe. The consumer business, the bakery businesses are fairly large consumers. We're baking probably now as much bread in Australia and New Zealand as we are in the U.K., that one's spread. Everyone else is sort of in the surroundings. Yeah. Does that answer the question, David? I think there is. We're benefiting from a breadth on that. I mean, clearly there are a number of local spots here in Europe. Actually, if you wanted more precision than I can give you right now, if you go back to the last ESG presentation, we showed you which parts, where carbon was being produced by business type within the group. If you have the split of locations of those businesses. Yeah I think you'll get closer than you'll be able to with what I've just said. Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you very much. Okay, David. Okay. Could we have the next question, please? The next question is from Jon Cox of Kepler. Yeah, good morning, guys. Just a follow-up a little bit on this energy question. You mentioned earlier talking about GBP 50 million going to GBP 200 million. I guess that was talking about Primark in continental Europe. And I was gonna ask, can you give us the same sort of figure for the entirety of your energy bills, as you mentioned, you know, sugar and other businesses are slightly more, just to sort of have an idea of the absolute figure of energy costs. 'Cause I guess, you know, any of these moves, energy costs were probably around 4% or 5% of your certainly of the food revenue in its entirety. That's the first question. The second question- Well, look, why don't we take them one at a time? Yeah. Look, I'll give you a rough feel. Actually, for the group, we are probably baking in about GBP 300 million extra costs. Okay. Thank you very much. All right? That's being baked into the guidance we're giving you. All right? Yeah. It gives you the feeling of the scale of it, doesn't it? Yeah. Okay. Then the second question, just on your, you know, your grocery packaged food business, are you starting to see any signs of down trading into private label, or own store brand or whatever, you know, given what's happening, particularly in the U.K.? As you mentioned, logistics, things are starting to ease up, so maybe these guys can take advantage of, you know, producing more, cutting prices, discounting, or for the time being, you're not seeing, you know, anything like that for the time being. We're seeing not only here but also in Australasia the consumer behaviors that you would absolutely expect. Shifts, quite major shifts, on where people shop, so the discounters, in particular. Smaller, more regular shopping trips. Shift to own label. Shift away from multi-buys and towards just lower headline price of the goods you want. People shopping with shopping lists. People leaving parts of their shopping basket behind at the till when they get to a certain amount spent. Yes, we're seeing all of this. Again, I think if we see a price cap for consumers in this country announced this afternoon, that will really help the premium products that we produce. Your guidance for- Yeah. Sorry. Having said that, the biggest part of our grocery business is Twinings, and it's just fine. Okay. Your guidance for flat profit in, you said your overall food business, ex sugar, which is gonna be higher, that would be the same as well in that grocery business, you see flat reported EBIT in 2023 versus 2022? Yeah. Broadly speaking, yes. Great. Thank you. I think we have maybe just a couple. Yeah, we have just a couple more. We'll take one of the last two questions. Thank you. The next question, sir, is from Darren Shirley of Shore Capital. Yeah. Morning, gents. Thanks for letting me put the question across. It's just one on Allied Bakeries, maybe a bit specific. Obviously it's been a loss-making business for a while now. It looks to be deteriorating. It's a big energy user. I think George said sort of pre-COVID we were getting to a sort of crunch point with that business. Where do we stand now? What's the latest thinking on that? Look, they've done a really good job on pricing. They're suffering as the bakery industry is from a switch into own labels. Previous question, David's question. As to where we go from here, work in progress. Okay. A second one, if you don't mind, just more broadly across the business. There's obviously a sensitivity to energy across many areas as you've been highlighting through the call. Given there's gonna be announcements today and announcements ongoing, why have you gone today in terms of providing the guidance? Does it suggest that even whatever actions government's put in place, FY 2023 is pretty much set in stone? Well, I mean, Darren, look, I mean, I suppose the government's announcement today is just one of the uncertainties that we're facing. I mean, I hope we're looking at, you know, a support package that will come out. It doesn't change where the U.S. dollar has gone. I think it will affect one of the variables here. I think it is, you know, particularly, I mean, if I'm looking at the bigger move here, it's certainly the exchange rate, which is the bigger move. Although that diminishes as we get cover for the year, it's still been a major move. I agree that the number can move around. It's that general feel that there are so many costs coming at us here for next year. We felt that it was important that we gave the guidance that we're giving now. Just being tight. Given that we think the Primark margin will come down, we couldn't keep that information to ourselves. We have to share that with the market, as soon as we have it. No, I appreciate that, gents, and there's plenty of color today, so thanks for that. Cheers. Okay, thanks, Darren. Shall we take the last question, please? The last question is from Anubhav Malhotra of Liberum. Hi, team. A couple of questions from me, please. Firstly, can you give us a sense of where your market share is in various continental European markets? If you are happy with the position or if you are losing shares there. Secondly, on the inventory position in Continental Europe, given that sales have underperformed, how happy are you with that, and have you been able to cut back for next season? Lastly, on the scale of price increases that you have already put through in the Grocery division, can you give us a sense of whether it's high single digit, double digit, and how much more is left to come through? Thank you. George, do you wanna take the market shares first? The market shares first. Where we have best data is the U.K. where our market share hasn't moved since pre-COVID. We're back to the market shares we enjoyed in, you know, 2019. By value, I think that's something over 6%. Yeah, that's right. It will be higher than that in Ireland. The problem with some of these markets is that Kantar doesn't exist. Data sources are difficult. Higher by some way in Ireland, building towards these sorts of numbers in Iberia, and then rather lower in Northern Europe, and Italy and then the new markets in Eastern and Southern Europe. Sorry, inventory positions. We will end the year with a markdown percentage, which is very acceptable. There's been a little bit more clearance of spring/summer stock that we'd anticipated two or three months ago, but nothing calamitous. The stock position for next year is in a good place. Yeah. I think the question then was the scale of the price increases in our Foods business. Oh, in our Food business as well. It varies a great deal. Have we got a number? I mean, above that, I think, I'm not trying to sort of a bit obfuscate on this one, but it does vary from, you know, from some FMCG businesses where the products which are probably well into the teens. Then there'll be some that are, you know, high single digits. Across the piece, it's that sort of depending on the product, you know, high single digits to maybe sometimes getting on for 20%. Some specialty ingredients, actually some of the numbers are even higher than that, you know, particularly where they're difficult to get a hold of. You'd asked, are we done? No, certainly not. I mean, in that, you know, in a number of areas, we would see that there'll be further price actions that are being taken here. That really is the reality is that, you know, you get hit by, I think, waves of inflation really out of this. You know, you can imagine that companies that have had, you know, hedges on their costs, certainly get to, you know, they're seeing those higher cost levels, and they're trying to pass those on. I think, we're certainly not through in terms of taking pricing. Okay. Thank you. If that's okay. All right. Thank you very much indeed, everyone, for joining the call this morning. I am available with Chris and Joana here to really get to come back to you on any sort of detailed questions you may have. Just as a thought for you, as I look at particularly the level of sales that I think people have in their models for next year, I would urge you to have a look at those. I think our sales will be really somewhat higher than you might expect. That really is one of the thoughts I give you is, as I've looked at every line in the P&L, they've all been changing a lot. You know, just one area that I think we will see a big improvement in next year actually is the financial line. The finance, interest and other financial income, which I think year-over-year will probably improve by, so probably about GBP 14 million. It's you know every line you look at, the thing is changing. Please do urge you to come back and we'll help give you guidance on maybe it's. Your mind has to go to all of these areas to get it right. From George and myself, thank you very much for joining us this morning. Thank you.