Right. Well, good morning, everybody. It's my pleasure to welcome you all here to the Bakkavor half year results presentation. I'm delighted to see so many of you here this morning. Without further ado, I'm gonna hand you over to Agust Gudmundsson, our Chief Exec. Good morning, everyone. Good to see you all. Thank you, Simon. Good morning again. Today I will begin the presentation with a summary of our first half performance. Before handing over to Ben, who will talk through the financials. I will then talk through our strategic and operational progress, and conclude with our outlook for the year. For those on the call, I'm now moving to slide 5. In the first half of the year, the group delivered a robust performance against a challenging backdrop. The geopolitical environment has resulted in unprecedented cost pressures and supply chain disruption. We have worked hard to minimize the impact of these headwinds on our profitability. Our operational delivery has been strong, and we have continued to deliver for our customers. This once again demonstrates our continuing resilience. We remain confident in delivering on market expectations for the full year as we continue to focus on managing our costs, driving performance, and delivering for our customers. I'll now hand over to Ben for the financials. Take us through the financial performance, Ben. Good morning to everyone in the room, as well as on the call. I'm gonna start with slide 7, where we're presenting an overview of our financial performance for the first half of 2022 compared to the same period last year. In light of all the macroeconomic challenges, the group delivered a resilient financial performance in this six-month period. Like-for-like revenues are up 9.2% versus last year, mainly driven by pricing, as the group sought to recover cost increases, or recover increases in its cost base. We also benefited from the continuation of significant volume growth in the U.S., although this was partially offset by the impact on volumes in China from severe COVID-related restrictions. Group adjusted operating profit of GBP 42.5 million is down GBP 4.5 million on the prior period. The U.K. maintained its adjusted operating profit, so the reduction was driven by our international performance, which has been impacted by COVID and inflationary headwinds. Our conversion of cash to profits was really strong. We have a conversion rate of 86%. Net debt is down. Leverage is within our target range and is 0.2 turns lower than the same period last year. The strength of our balance sheet and cash generation supports our long-term growth aspirations, and we recognize the importance of a progressive dividend to our shareholders. The board has therefore resolved to pay an interim dividend of 2.77 pence per share, up 5% on the prior period, and this increase is absolutely in line with what you see in our basic EPS. Turning to slide 8, and drilling into the revenue performance. Starting with the left-hand side of the slide, where we present a bridge of group statutory revenue from the first half of last year to the first half of this year. Overall, group statutory revenue increased by 10.3% to just over GBP 1 billion. Currency movements increased statutory revenues by GBP 10 million, which reflects the strengthening of the U.S. dollar in the period. To be clear, currency is the only difference between statutory revenues and like-for-like revenues, which were up 9.2%. Pricing has had a meaningful impact on revenues in the first half, up 6.3%. Despite many of these price increases being passed through to our end consumer, we have still seen volume growth of 2.9%. Now to the table on the right, which shows like-for-like revenue performance by region. In the U.K., revenues increased by 7.9%. This was primarily driven by price and also included some positive volume growth. Sales in our food to go category have recovered strongly, and our meals business has also benefited as consumers trade away from restaurant dining. Our U.S. business, which you all know comprises around 11% of our group revenue, continued to perform really strongly. Like-for-like revenues are up 34.6%, driven by continued volume growth from our existing customer base. China was impacted by COVID restrictions. These were particularly severe from March onwards, with millions of people in lockdown. This forced many of our customers to close their outlets. Like-for-like revenue was therefore down 12% and sales are still 15% behind 2019 levels. Now to slide 9 and our operating profit performance. In the U.K., we have largely protected profitability with the pass-through of inflation, a really strict control of overheads, and a continued focus on productivity improvements. As a result, adjusted operating profit of GBP 43.7 million is only GBP 300K down on last year. In the U.S., operating profit was down GBP 1.4 million due to intensifying input cost inflation and a lag of price recovery. This was particularly evident in proteins, where we saw inflation at 77%. Temporary operational disruption from onboarding higher volumes has also impacted margin. Price increases did start to come into effect towards the end of the period, and plans are now well established to drive an improvement in operating leverage in the second half of the year. In China, although the year started well, our performance was naturally impacted by those lockdowns, which led to an operating loss of GBP 4.3 million in the period. The net result for the group is that we are down GBP 4.5 million, and it translates into a reduction in margin of 90 basis points. As previously guided, there has been some dilutionary impact on margin as we seek to pass through cost increases, not cost plus margin. The performance of our international business has also had some dilutionary impact. For comparability purposes, our adjusted operating profit in the first half excludes only one item, which is driven by a recent change in accounting standards. These relate to software costs totaling GBP 1.4 million, which have previously been capitalized, but at this point, we must now expense those items. Now to the chart on slide 10, where you can see the level of inflation we've experienced since 2016, and you can really see how it's been accelerating in these recent months. We have worked hard to minimize the impact on our profitability through a combination of external levers and self-help measures. We have continued to work closely with our customers to ensure our pass-through mechanisms remain really effective. We have also been successful in recovering inflation on those costs that sit outside the mechanisms. Our focus on operational excellence has delivered further efficiency improvements, and whilst there has been some disruption to our supply chain, our forward planning and scale has helped to minimize the impact. Further to this, we are continuing to maintain a tight control of costs. To demonstrate this, and as you will see from our accounts, indirect costs, which total GBP 188 million in the first half of the year, are absolutely in line with last year, despite significant levels of inflation that we've experienced across that overhead base as well. Now, slide 11, where I will dive a bit deeper onto our cost base and inflation. In March, I talked to yourselves about a 10%-12% increase as being the level of cost inflation that we expected to see this year. However, inflationary headwinds have accelerated further. Prices of raw materials such as dairy, wheat, poultry, packaging are all at unprecedented levels. Therefore, we now expect inflation to be 12%-14% across our entire cost base. While the step up in inflation is unwelcome, we have good security of supply and good visibility of our costs for the remainder of this year. In terms of ingredients, around 80% of our spend in the second half is locked in, and over 80% of our packaging supply is under pricing agreements. People costs are the second largest component of our cost base. In December of last year, we completed an out-of-cycle pay reset for all of our factory colleagues, and in April of this year, we completed our in-cycle pay award. As a result, we are currently incurring two rounds of pay increases in the year. Separately, we are also incurring additional costs from the hike in U.K. national insurance from April of this year, although we might hear a little bit more later today around that. That represents an on-cost of GBP 3 million on an annualized basis to this business. We have been well protected from increases in energy costs with contracts in place through to April 2023. As you would imagine, we are actively reviewing the energy market and continuing to monitor the forward price on both electricity and gas. Finally, while the inflationary environment remains very volatile, at this point, we expect significant levels of inflation to persist into 2023. Now on to slide 12. In the first half, we delivered a good level of cash generation with GBP 37 million of free cash flow, representing that conversion rate I mentioned earlier of 86%. There was a small working capital outflow, as we'd expect always for the first half of this year. Interest paid is actually down year-on-year. This reflects the benefit of a lower debt level, which has been partially offset by an impact of increasing interest rates. Tax paid is in line with last year as we continue to benefit from the super deduction on certain capital investments in the U.K. Capital expenditure from the group totaled GBP 24 million and is up GBP 6 million on last year. Spend in the prior period was limited to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 restrictions in place at that point in time. Our investment in the U.K. of GBP 16 million includes GBP 8 million on productivity and capacity projects. We invested GBP 7 million in the U.S., which includes our investment to expand capacity on our ready meals for both the East and West Coast factories. As previously guided, our strategic investment in China is complete, and therefore you will see only GBP 1 million spent in capital for that region. On to slide 13. The strong cash generation of the business has supported an increase to capital, a reduction in debt, and delivered return to shareholders in the form of a dividend payment. This follows our capital allocation policy, which I shared with you in March. During the period, the company also began purchasing its own shares from the market through an employee benefit trust. The shares are held to satisfy awards under the group's long-term incentive plan. On to slide 14. The group remains in a position of financial strength, leverage down to 1.9 times at the year-end, and we have maintained leverage at that level at June 2022, which as a reminder, is within our target range. We are operating with significant levels of liquidity with over GBP 195 million of headroom, and we have a strong maturity profile on our core debt facilities which mature in March 2026. We do have GBP 150 million of fixed interest rate swaps in place until March 2024. This provides certainty over the cost of financing for at least half of our debt. In July of this year, we took the decision to put in place a further GBP 30 million of fixed interest rate swaps from March 2024 to March 2026. I'll now conclude with our outlook on slide 15. Revenue momentum has continued through July and August, driven by price and strong volume growth in the U.S., and we expect to deliver revenue at the upper end of market expectations for the full year. We remain confident in delivering adjusted operating profit within the range of market expectations for the full year, supported by the good visibility of costs for the remainder of this year. As a reminder, adjusted operating profit consensus stands at GBP 92 million. The impact of the new accounting requirement on software costs is expected to be around GBP 2 million for the full year. These costs are excluded from adjusted operating profit. From a CapEx perspective, we are estimating 4% of revenue for capital spend for the remainder of this year. This includes ongoing investment in our U.S. sites to increase capacity. Our dividend policy remains unchanged with the interim dividend expected to comprise approximately 40% of the total dividend. Finally, as a reminder, this is a 53-week period. Overall, while the first half of this year has been really challenging for our business, we have delivered a robust and resilient performance and remain in a very strong financial position. I'll now hand back to Agust. Thanks, Ben. Now moving to slide 17. Following a positive recovery in the fresh prepared food market post-pandemic, the first half of this year was a more normalized period. However, increases in the cost of living for consumers have begun to have an impact. The FPF market is still performing ahead of grocery, but this outperformance has narrowed as shoppers more carefully manage budgets and visit stores less frequently. We remain at the forefront of the latest trends with our deep consumer insight, but in a recent survey, 41% of consumers indicated they are choosing to eat out less. We have seen this trade down from restaurants benefit the meals category. Takeaway alternatives in pizza and bread are also performing well. However, a pullback in promotions has impacted performance in this category. Desserts has been impacted as consumers reduce discretionary spend. However, brands have held up well. Our Delicious Dessert Company brand, included. It is now in the top five chilled desserts brands. Salads continued to recover strongly with food to go volumes now ahead of pre-pandemic levels. Now to slide 18. The U.K. is facing significant macroeconomic pressures. Inflation has escalated and is having a meaningful impact. We have seen the retailers respond to this by increasing prices, reducing promotions, and reviewing ranges. Consumer behavior is also shifting, driven by increasing pressure on household budgets. 40% of consumers now say they will focus more on saving money when doing their grocery shopping. This was just 18% before the pandemic. As a result, they are making cutbacks, choosing cheaper products, and trading down from eating out of home. Clearly, value is a priority. At Bakkavor, we are well-placed to succeed in this environment. We have a broad portfolio of products across meal occasions and categories at a wide range of price points from value through to premium. Several of our categories provide attractive alternatives to takeaways and meals out and should benefit as consumers trade down. With an average ready meal costing just under GBP 3, consumers can have a high quality, convenient fresh meal at a fraction of the cost of a takeaway or a restaurant meal. Our strong record of innovation also means that we can work in partnership with our customers to evolve our ranges and reformulate products in response to these external pressures. As a result, we have been able to adapt to this changing market and have increased our market share in the first half of 2022. We remain the clear leader with our share fou times that of our nearest competitor. Our resilient performance in the U.K. is testament to the strong foundations we have in place. We saw positive momentum in revenues, which was largely driven by pricing and some volume growth. We have worked hard to minimize the impact of the micro headwinds on our business and have broadly held our profitability. We have evolved the way we work with our customers, adapting our products and processes, and ensuring we deliver value without compromising on quality across our ranges. We have kept our customer stores well-stocked, and our focus on innovation saw over 200 new products launched. This includes new business wins and extending the range of our Delicious Dessert Company brand. Looking ahead, we are confident that we will gain further market share underpinned by our strong pipeline of launches. Now on to slide 20. We have continued to navigate through in an increasingly challenging environment, and we expect conditions to remain tough through 2023. Combined with price increases, our internal levers have helped to minimize the impact on our business, and we will work hard to ensure they continue to do so for the remainder of this year and beyond. Our operational delivery has been strong with high customer service levels and good track record in both food safety and the safety of our people. We have not been immune to the global supply chain challenges. We have seen some temporary disruption to supply along with heightened costs. We have, however, leveraged our scale along with our well-established supplier relationships to minimize the impact. Operational excellence remains a key focus. The returns from our investment in the smart manufacturing system are delivering ahead of target. This is part of our broader focus on driving efficiency improvements across our people and processes. We are leveraging the scale of our U.K. business by working dynamically to respond to changes in demand and the availability of people. Successfully delivering on the summer peak for our customers is reflective of these efforts. We transferred production of certain salads to meal sites and also invested in capacity and efficiency improvements in one of our salad sites to reduce headcount requirements. Finally, while challenges remain in the wider labor market, we are seeing the benefit of the investments we have made in our people. Levels of absence and vacancies have both reduced significantly. We are grateful to all our colleagues for their continued hard work and commitment. This has helped us deliver a good performance through difficult conditions. In the U.S., significant revenue momentum has continued. This was driven by a strong volume growth in fresh meals with our strategic customers. This category now comprises over 50% of revenue. Demand for our fresh products remains strong. Customers see our offering as a key differentiator to attract consumers to the stores. The national meals program launched last year with a strategic customer is delivering well, and we launched 33 new products in the first half of the year. While profitability in the first half was down, we expect to see an improvement in performance in the second half through price recovery and operational performance. Looking forward, demand in the U.S. continues to grow. We are seeing significant inbound interest from customers for our fresh, high-quality meals. Investment to increase our existing fresh meals capacity commenced in the period as a part of a two-year strategic investment program. This is expected to provide capacity to deliver $500 million in revenue, which will ensure we remain well-placed to capitalize on the significant growth opportunity. Now to slide 22. In China, the year started well with good momentum in retail and office catering channels. However, the business was heavily impacted when Shanghai and the surrounding regions went into strict lockdowns in March. We focused on supporting our customers and our people alongside protecting the business through tight cost controls. Construction of our new site in Xi'an completed, with government approval to manufacture at this new site received in June. We expect to transfer production from the existing site by the end of this year. We remain cautious on our short-term outlook for China while the government's zero-tolerance COVID policy remains in place. However, we have seen an encouraging recovery in volumes since early June as customer stores reopen and mobility restrictions eased. Longer term, we believe the market remains highly attractive, and we are confident of delivering profitable and sustainable growth in the medium term and beyond. Despite the significant challenges we have faced through the period, we have made good progress across our Trusted Partner strategy. We formed a separate ESG committee in June, which reports directly to the group board. This ensures there is a clear focus on our Trusted Partner strategy at the most senior level in the organization. As we focus on reducing emissions, we are continuing to develop our roadmap to deliver on net zero by 2040. We have also continued to deliver good progress on food waste reduction and the sustainability of our packaging. One such example is the removal of our plastic lids from products such as coleslaw, with an annual savings of over 150 tons of plastic with a single customer. We remain passionate about making Bakkavor an equal, inclusive and engaging workplace. We launched a female mentoring program to support gender equality within the organization, and we were proud to be voted the leading company for apprentices in the FMCG sector for the third year running. Now to conclude on slide 25. Looking forward, while the remainder of the year will be challenging for us as macro headwinds remain, we have a resilient business and are well-placed to navigate these challenges. The second half of the year has started well with continued revenue momentum in all markets in line with our plan. We remain confident in our ability to deliver within the range of market expectations for the full year. While we expect the external challenges to persist through 2023, we are well-placed to capitalize on the attractive medium to long-term opportunity. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to taking your questions along with Ben Waldron, obviously. I'll now hand over to Emily, our head of investor relations, to manage the Q&A. Emily, thank you. Thank you, Agust, and good morning, everyone. Just a couple of housekeeping items because we do have people also joining us virtually today. We'll be taking questions from the room first, and then we'll go to those online. If you are online, if you press star and then number one on your telephone keypad to register a question, that would be great. All right, if we open up the floor, Charles Hall, thanks. Morning. Agust, could you just start by talking a little bit more about the consumer behavior in the U.K. as it's, as the cost of living crisis has developed? Have you seen it change during the last six months? Obviously, it changed significantly over the period, but has it developed, and where do you see things moving over the next year? Yeah, well, it is a tricky one. Charles, as you know, we have seen some changes, but I think we will see more. We all know that times are tough for many consumers and they are trading down, and they will be doing so going forward. I think we are in good place to help our consumers and our customers with the choices. I think if you look at the fresh prepared food market, core products are about 86% of the market currently. The top tier is about 10% and value is around 4%. Value is still quite a small part of the market, but it is growing, it has been growing, and I would expect it to grow going forward. You know, it's difficult to say where the consumer will go. That's really not something we know, but what we do know is that people have to eat, people will value convenience. As I said, we are in good place, you know, to react to this and deliver for our customers, you know, wherever they wanna go. Whether they want a meal equivalent, we have some products here actually on the table just to demonstrate, you know, some things that we do, whether they go for the lower end of the market, a very reasonable meal at a very low cost or one of our customers will go to the finest, for example, there is, you know, the core is about half the price of this one. You know, there's a good selection, a good range, you know, for everybody. I think the flexibility that we have within the organization, you know, prepares us well for what's coming in terms of the consumer. Similarly in the US, you're obviously in a very different place in terms of the volume growth you're seeing there. What are you seeing actually the consumer trends over there? Yeah, the U.S. is quite different because there is sort of a structural change taking place, which is. It's not all about, you know, the consumer, it's also about our customers closing down their commissaries and going for prepack rather than the daily counters, so to speak, that they have. You know, they are doing that in terms of saving costs and to make sure that food safety, you know, is also on top of the agenda. It's not just the consumer that is driving our business in the U.S. with these sales, it's also the structural change in the market itself. I would not expect the same impact from a recession on our market in the U.S. as we would see here in the U.K. You've obviously commented about the US margin being compressed by timing of price increases, and that should improve in H2. Previously, you've talked about margins in the US as potentially being above group levels. Is that still the case, or do you see any change in the potential margin you can deliver out of that market? No. I think we. There is no doubt in our mind that the margin opportunity in the U.S. is much greater than we have here in the U.K. I think what we are dealing with in the U.S. at the moment is a massive growth in meals. 34.6% that you saw is mostly driven by meals, and meals is only half of our business in the U.S., so you can imagine the growth in the meals itself. Within the factories too, you know, to onboard this volume at the same time that we are going through a disruptive investment in capacity in the facilities at the same time is just really disruptive. It means that we are just focusing on onboarding. We're not really focusing on margin or getting the most out of it. We are just trying to focus on getting this all on board and delivering for our customers. You know, if or when things slow down, then you know, we will focus more obviously on margin and getting more out of it than we are now. So it's you know, quite a different challenge from what we're seeing in the U.K. where we are seeing you know, very little volume growth. Perfect. That's great. Thanks. Nicola Mallard, Investec. Could I just ask on market share? You said you gained market share in the U.K.. Was that across the board, or was it more specific to one or two categories? Well, it is the overall market share, Nicola. You know, we are losing share in some categories and we're gaining in others. This is the overall share of all the categories that we are in the FPF market. Can you give us a clue where you're gaining and where you're losing? Well, we are gaining in desserts strongly, and we are losing in salads. Morning again. Damian McNeela from Numis. Excuse me. Just in terms of inflation, Ben, I think you sort of said in your comments that it was now expected to be about 12% for this year. If we exclude thoughts on energy pricing for 2023, what's the sort of current outlook for sort of the material cost base in 2023, what sort of level inflation can we expect there, please? Yeah. Just to clarify in the first instance, I gave a range for 2022, and it's 12%-14%, wouldn't want you hovering at the lower end given there's still some volatility there. Yes, of course, energy inflation is gonna form a large component of 2023 inflation, but ultimately, we still have significant increases in raw material prices. Packaging is still going up. We've got poultry prices that still remain really high. Wheat and flour increases of 51% that still need to annualize into next year. I suppose what I'm saying here, Damian, is that I'm still expecting high single-digit inflation next year, at the very least, completely ignoring the reference to utility or energy costs at this point in time. Yeah. Okay. In terms of your pricing recovery that's in the market at the minute, do you feel confident that you've got recovered all of 2022's and some of 2023? Or do we expect sort of, I don't know what wave we're on now in terms of cost recovery, but clearly that's got to be ongoing. Yeah. I think it's really difficult to break down recovery by individual components. I think it's really important that we reference the fact that, if we take the U.K., you can see the fact we're only GBP 300 thousand down in profitability, so you could argue we're 100% recovered. That is not what we've recovered from our customers necessarily. It is our responsibility around our overheads to manage it and reduce overheads. There are productivity levers we are pulling. There's promotional spend that's reducing, that enables overall profit benefits as well. There's lots of different mechanisms that come about to ultimately drive the outcome we're seeing in conversion. That will continue into 2023. I think the point that we need to all focus on, however, is those conversations with customers will continue to get harder, and our focus is about leaning in and reformulation of product to be able to offset that inflation in other means in 2023. I think overall, we've done a good job so far. It's getting tougher, and we'll need to find more ways in which to reduce our overheads and continue to reformulate our products. Okay. Thank you. Just perhaps one last one that sort of segues into my final question for Agust, and sort of back to my favorite topic on customer concentration. Given the sort of consumer dynamics in the U.K., are you seeing your customers more actively sort of try and address the more value end proposition? 'Cause it, sort of 4% of fresh prepared meals. To what extent are people sort of re-engaging on that? Yeah. We are absolutely seeing that, as I said before. We are seeing people trading down, and I think we will continue to see that through this year and next year probably as well. I guess you're confident that your customer base is doing enough to keep their customers in their stores. Yes. So far so good, I would say. I think our largest customers have been doing, you know, pretty well in the market so far. We are, as you know, not big with the discounters, which have been performing the best. Next to that, you know, our customers have been doing, you know, pretty well. Cool. Thank you. Hi. Hi. Amit Sharma from Fifth Third Bank. A couple of questions, if I may. The second cost or second-largest cost you mentioned was labor, and I just wanted to get a sense of how the labor force is. I think from memory, you had about 18,000 workers, and a lot of those were from Eastern Europe. You know, with what's going on, have you been able to keep them? Are you struggling with labor? That was the first one. The second one was around the U.S. market, and obviously that's an attractive growing market for you. How would you be able to grow faster in that market if that was something that you'd be interested in doing? You wanna take the labor? Yeah. Yeah, no problem. Yeah, you're right to call out the challenge with labor. It's still a major challenge today. I would say the environment has got somewhat easier, and with potential recession looming, then, it should ease further. Just to give you some core metrics around that, to give you some confidence and comfort around it, we've previously spoken about 1,600 vacancies, across our business, in the U.K., I might add. We are now at less than 1,000 vacancies within the U.K., so definitely progression there. Absence levels are starting to come down, which is good. Agency availability is also up. Don't want to take away from the massive challenge that we have with regards to labor, but it's certainly easier from where it was, and we expect that to continue. I think in regards to the U.S., our current investment program will bring us to about $500 million in capacity in the U.S.. We have also started a project on another site in the Midwest, which will take us about three years to get up and running, which would typically add another $150 million to capacity. We are running our run rate at the moment is about 330, maybe 350, something like that. That means that Dollars dollars. Yeah. That basically means that if we grow 15%-20% in the next two years, then we'll be full. There is a big capacity challenge in the U.S. and not only about sites, but also about people and capabilities, you know, to deliver on this. Yeah. Hi, Jason Molins from Goodbody. Appreciate you've hedged your energy costs, but maybe if you can give us an idea of what your total energy costs will be for the year, and perhaps, in terms of your discussions with customers in advance of your hedges running off and how you'll try and recover them, certainly in FY 2023. On the second question, back to the U.S., you mentioned that you've been slower to recover that inflation piece. But what changes have you made, with your customers and your retail customers to maybe recover them, to, I guess, bring a model that's more in line with what you have in the U.K.? Thanks. Shall I start with energy? Yes, please, Ben. I thought I'd been really transparent and helpful in creating this pie chart, which shows you the breakdown of costs, and you want more, Jason. What's the split of energy costs? Look, it sits within our indirect costs. It's still a significant component of that. You saw our indirect costs at around 9%. Clearly it's an important component of our cost base. Yes, we do have it locked in through 'til April next year. We are actively monitoring the forward price day in, day out, and we have our trackers that we review each day. We are starting to work with our customers around how we should build a strategy for locking in with regards to price or costs, I should say, from April onward of next year. I mean, it is absolutely a focus, but what I don't want to do is talk about kind of what the energy inflation might be for next year because the movement in price day by day is so huge. I'd rather we continue to calmly look at these prices and work with our customers to determine what an appropriate strategy is and fall in behind them based on what their strategy is as well. The final thing I would say that 'cause I know I avoided your question is a little bit of more detail, which is 80% of our spend on energy is electricity, 20% is gas. The reason I reference that is because obviously there's some consideration as to whether you de-link the two components, so I just wanted to emphasize the concentration we have on energy rather than gas. In terms of the U.S., I mean, the U.S. retail market is very, very different from what we have here. Relationships between retailers and suppliers in the U.S. are very different from what we see here in the own label space. There are no mechanisms in place at all with our customers like we have here in the U.K. in terms of inflation recovery, et cetera. It's all direct negotiations with our customers. We have been in four times now in the past year to get price increases and there is quite a lag as Ben alluded to in his presentation. You know, a very different environment. In some instances, you know, this is all new, I mean, for our customers as well. We have one dedicated facility in the U.S. You know, we are making some progress in implementing a U.K. style sort of structures into that relationship, which you know, might become a blueprint for, you know, how we can do things going forward. It's just a very, very different environment in terms of relationships between us and our customers in the U.S. Great. I think if we can now go online, the operator, if you're ready. Thank you, Emily. Your first question comes from the line of Doriana Russo from HSBC. Your line is open. Pauly, we're not hearing anything in the room. Doriana, I don't know whether you're able to connect. Have you got any issues? Sorry, can you hear me? Yeah. Hello, can you hear me? Yeah, Sorry. Thank you for taking the question. I wanted to ask about elasticity of demand with price increases. In the U.K., I suspect you have pushed through price increases multiple times. Is there a risk that as you keep pushing prices up, at one point, volumes might start dropping more significantly than they have already done? Also, have you experienced anything like that, or do you have any study like that in the U.S. as well to prove that customer demand will still be resilient on price increases even if pricing goes beyond perhaps you know the mid-single digit level that you might have pushed through so far? Then I've got a second question, which it's on scale. I think you mentioned some new business wins in the U.K., which has made you four times bigger than number 2. With the challenges being sort of still ongoing into next year, do you see the opportunity on your side to gain further business or also see any of your competitor basically folding up or getting weaker? Thank you. Well, of course, it is a major concern about prices going up and our consumers not being able to afford our products. At the end of the day, it's up to our customers to decide how much and where they increase prices. You will know that across retail, you know, prices have been going up. Some retailers have pushed prices more than others, et cetera. At the end of the day, that's not really in our control, you know, how that is all done. Of course, there is a major concern about what this will mean for demand overall. I think on the other one, Doriana, I'm not quite sure what you mean by big business win. Ben? Yes. I think, Doriana, you're referencing. Well, basically, just to simplify my question, I just wanted to know whether you have seen any major changes in the competitive environment, whether this is, we're talking about the U.S. or the U.K. I'll go to the U.S. first actually, 'cause there was another question you referenced with regards to U.S. pricing. Yes, right that, mid-single digits for pricing in the first half of the year. We have seen a much better uptick in pricing recovery in June, July and August, seeing absolutely no impact on volume. I think it's important just to distinguish between a rapidly growing market in the U.S., which sees a really attractive proposition to a more mature market in the U.K. No volume impact at all within the U.S. From a competitor dynamic, no real change in the U.S. or U.K. I think the only benefit we are seeing is that some organizations in the U.K. are choosing to close factories, which is allowing for consolidation within the market. That can only be a good thing, even though you don't wish it on anyone. I think it's important that competitors are gonna feel the strain as we move forward. I think our financial strength will help us respond to others that feel the strain and for us to respond to that. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Karel Zoete from Kepler. Your line is open. Yes, good morning, all. Thanks for taking the questions. I've two questions, actually follow-up ones. The first one is on the manufacturing project you alluded to briefly in the press release. Can you speak a bit more about the project, what it entails and progress and benefits? The second thing is a bit of a follow-up on the previous one. It's about capital allocation. The U.K. market will offer opportunities to the U.S. as you see fast growth. But at the same time, China continues to get a call on capital. How do you see your capital allocation priorities going forward? Thank you. Yes. We are in the last stage of implementing a new sort of smart manufacturing system in our U.K. factories. We have implemented so far this system into all of our factories except four. This basically gives us real-time information about the production, the whole production process within a factory. Where we can rectify mistakes and deal with underperformance in some parts of the process immediately, rather than having to deal with it afterwards. It has been a major success, this process for us, and we have seen a really good payback on this investment. Don't know really how I can explain it in more detail, but you know, a very helpful system that is basically bringing us all the information immediately so that we have all the information we need at our fingertips at any given time to make the right decisions around you know, how we manage the lines and processes, basically. All right. That's clear. Thank you. Capital allocation question that you asked secondly. We referenced the fact that we have completed our investment in China from a significant capacity perspective. We'd spent GBP 1 million in the first half. We expect that source of investment to continue in the second half, i.e., very limited, and going forwards actually. Therefore, our capital spend will be significantly skewed towards the U.S. as we look to put down more manufacturing footprint. In the first instance for this year, that focus is all about expanding capacity within our existing sites. As Agust referenced, we are looking at a site within the Midwest. I just wanna kind of mention that we have not identified a location yet. This isn't a case where we have a place in mind and we're absolutely going ahead with the investment. We are gonna proceed with the investment, but it will take up to three years because we've got to identify that location and move from there on in. Absolutely going to skew our investment towards the U.S. more so, out of the portfolio of capital that we have. All right. Thank you. Great. I think that's all the questions for now. If I hand back to Agust just for some closing remarks. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, Emily. To conclude, we have a strong foundations, an experienced team, and the financial strength to enable targeted strategic investments to support growth, drive efficiency and deliver returns to shareholders. Those were my last magic words. Thank you very much for coming. Yeah, that's the end of it.