Morning, everyone. Welcome to Bakkavor, and to our half year. For those I think I know most of you, but those that don't, I'm Mike Edwards, and now CEO of the group. And Ben here is CFO, and yeah, we'll be taking you through the results today. I think a bit of housekeeping, first of all. Simon Burke, our chairman, would normally be here, but he's had a clash of diaries, so he's left it in our capable hands, which is all good from our perspective, but just wanted to let you know that he sends his best wishes. So I think in terms of the agenda, I want to kick off and just give some headlines, you know, key messages from today. Hand over to Ben, who'll bring some color to the numbers. Then I'll sort of round off in terms of performance by region, and a bit more detail on outlook. Clearly at the end, probably the bit that you guys look forward to the most is the Q&A. Looking at Charles there. Anyway, so look, in terms of... Oh, and sorry, I need to just sort of do the normal, obviously, we're going to talk about outlook and forecast numbers, but it's a volatile world, and therefore, they are only forecast and need to be taken in the context of the environment we're in. So look, I think the headlines here, I stand here feeling pretty positive about where we are. You know, these are a good set of numbers in a difficult environment, and if we look at the sort of headline numbers there, sales are up, predominantly driven by price. We're seeing cash profit up, predominantly driven by the U.K. And we're seeing net debt down, which is all about working capital and stock reduction, which Ben will talk a little bit more about. Morning. So that's the numbers. I think what we would say is that we have done exactly what we said we were going to do when we stood here at the full year. And that's be true to the strategy, keep driving our number one position in the U.K., and you'll have seen from the documents we're still winning share. And also start to drive better profitability internationally, which is coming through, and I'll give you a bit more of a flavor on that, as will Ben, as we go through this morning. But we also said that we were going to be pretty aggressive in terms of a plan to insulate us from the environment, confident in indicating an improvement to the outlook for the full year. We've picked our words carefully here. We've said at least in line with last year, which is clearly the GBP 89.4. There are still headwinds ahead, particularly in the U.K. If I look at the U.K., and we'll give more color to it in a bit, but, you know, we are still going to be inflationary in the second half. Any notion of deflation is just, you know, a long way off. And also, we are seeing pressure on underlying core volume, and again, we'll talk a little bit more about that, but, you know, confident in delivering in line with last year as a minimum. So I think that's it from me at this point. I'm going to hand over to Ben, who's going to go into a lot more detail on the numbers. Morning, everyone. Good to see you all. Quite a lot of detail to cover over these next few slides, but I'll start with slide seven for those that are joining on the call, which is all about our financial metrics. So like-for-like revenues, up 7.4%, as Mike says, entirely driven by price. Despite further significant inflation in the first half, adjusted operating profit was actually up GBP 0.9 million to GBP 43.4 million. I know how much of a tough crowd this is when it comes to exceptional items, but I do have an adjusting item. At least this time it is a credit, it's income, and it relates to the simplification of our China business, and I'll give a little bit more detail on that later. Our conversion of profits to cash was very good, with GBP 52 million of free cash generation. This represents a conversion rate against EBIT of almost 120%. Net debt is down. Leverage is also down to 0.1x-1.8x, and now sits comfortably in the middle of our target range. In light of that improved profitability, strong cash generation, reduction to net debt, and reduction to leverage, the board has resolved to pay an interim dividend of GBP 0.0291 per ordinary share, which is actually up 5% on the prior year. Let's get into some of the detail, turning to slide 8 and our revenue performance. Like-for-like revenues were up 7.4%. Pricing was the key driver of this growth and was actually up 7.8%. Volume, however, was marginally down by 0.4%. On a statutory basis, revenues were slightly higher. That refers to the 7.9% you saw on Mike's slide, a moment ago, as we benefited from currency movements, and that was GBP 5 million driven by the strengthening of the U.S. dollar. So now to the table on the right, which shows like-for-like revenue profits on volumes from the wider cost of living crisis, and so in H1, volumes were down 1% in the U.K. In the U.S., like-for-like revenues were down 4.2%, driven by two factors. Firstly, last year, we reported the loss of a single customer, and as a result, volume is down year-on-year. If I remove the impact of that single loss of customer, we actually have underlying growth of 11%. Secondly, as we switch our focus to delivering sustainable profit from a stable business, we are taking a much more measured approach to growth. As a result, we expect limited underlying revenue growth in the second half. In China, like-for-like revenues were up 35% as the region rebounded from the impact of severe lockdowns that were in place, and that was particularly the case in Q2 last year, with Shanghai in a major lockdown. But what is also encouraging is that we have continued to bring on new customers, particularly in retail, whilst also managing the return of these very strong underlying volumes.... So now to slide 9, looking at the inflationary headwinds faced by the business. It seems relatively odd that some people are talking about deflation at this point in time, when the industry as a whole is still facing significant levels of inflation. And here you'll see on this slide that we're incurring GBP 91 million worth of inflation, and that is on top of the GBP 230 million we faced into last year. So that GBP 91 million of inflation represents an increase of around 10% of our entire cost base, and is really driven by two things. Firstly, we had locked into some really attractive hedges or prices at the beginning of last year, thereby beating the market. Those hedges have rolled off either at the back end of last year or early into this year, and so we've become exposed to current market pricing. A really good example of that is energy. So we had locked in gas and electricity prices on pre-invasion of Ukraine prices, so really attractive. Those prices held through to March of this year, and so now we've become exposed to current electricity and gas prices, and as a result, we are incurring GBP 25 million of inflation in this year alone. A further GBP 8 million worth of inflation in quarter one of next year. The second component of inflation is really the significant labor inflation that we're seeing. Since March 2019, the National Living Wage has increased by 33%, and we don't expect that change in direction of travel, and so rates of pay will continue to remain inflationary. So while we've seen this tidal wave of inflation grow over the last 2 years, we are cautiously optimistic that the situation will ease in the months ahead. In the Q1 announcement, I talked about a range of inflation for the year between 6%-8%. I now believe we'll be at the lower end of that range. So moving on to slide 10, where once again, we show our economic bridge. This highlights the year-on-year movements in adjusted operating profit. As you saw earlier from our revenue breakdown, volumes were down 0.4%, and this has translated into a GBP 2 million reduction in profits. The next bar you see is the GBP 91 million worth of inflation. We have recovered GBP 79 million of inflation through price increases. Overall, price recovery now sits at 87%. That is up from 75% prior year. I think what I would say here is that when we recovered that 75%, there was a lag in inflation recovery during last year, which is catching up a bit in H1 of this year. So that 75% last year, 87% this year, I would say, on whole, over the 18 months, we're recovering around 80% of any inflation. So we're still left with this significant gap, as you can see on the chart, and we rely on the GBP 15 million of self-help measures to absolutely underpin our P&L and allow us to step forward with regards to profit. Importantly, those self-help levers of GBP 15 million is on top of the GBP 38 million pounds we delivered last year. The restructure we announced in Q3 was a key component of that GBP 15 million you see there. So we talked about closing two sites and a significant restructure of our leadership team. That has delivered a GBP 7 million benefit in the first half and will give us a GBP 10 million benefit in the second half overall. The restructure was just one component, however, of a series of operational and cost-saving initiatives to offset the impact of unrecovered inflation, particularly in our fixed cost base, and that will continue to be the case in the second half. So moving to slide 11 and our adjusted operating profit performance by region. In the U.K., our adjusted operating profit was up GBP 1.1 million on last year, as we have been able to insulate the business from the dual impact of both inflation and weaker consumer demand. Margins reduced by 20 basis points, driven exclusively by inflation, and that is in two parts. Firstly, the fact that we have unrecovered inflation, but secondly, the fact that we only ever seek to recover inflation, not inflation plus margin. In the U.S., profits suffered due to the loss of a single customer, but also driven by wider operational challenges. Resetting the business to focus on profit rather than growth at the end of last year is delivering the intended results with the business back in profitability in the second quarter of this year. In China, operating losses reduced by GBP 2.8 million as volumes rebounded post-COVID. This is a really strong performance given the volatility that business has experienced over the last three years. With the reopening of the economy, we've also taken the opportunity to simplify the business. We completed the sale and leaseback of a property in April, and in May, we completed the sale of our associate investments in Hong Kong. The combination of these transactions generated income of GBP 2.9 million, which is one-off in nature and has therefore been excluded from our adjusted operating profit. So now turning to cash, which is on slide 12. We delivered a really good level of cash generation in the first six months, due to the combination of our enhanced focus on working capital and the discipline we have around capital investment. We usually see a working capital outflow in the first half, but our focus on inventory management has resulted in a GBP 15 million inflow in the period. Since the start of COVID, we have seen our inventory levels increase, and it continued to increase as we experienced further inflation. At the end of last year, however, we started to see the early signs of stability within the supply chain, and so we kicked off our inventory reduction initiatives. We absolutely believe this inflow will hold, and there is further upside, though the limited upside we expect in H2. Our capital spend was GBP 23 million in the period, with our investment targeted towards productivity. A great example of this is the GBP 10 million investment we've made in our breads business, which reduces our reliance on labor and increases line speeds. This investment also includes the replacement of nitrogen chilling with a low carbon energy solution, so it delivers a cost saving, as well as allowing us to focus on carbon emission reduction. Interest costs increased by GBP 4.4 million due to rising U.K. interest rates. However, the impact of this was partly offset by lower average debt levels in the period. From a tax perspective, cash paid was also up year-over-year due to an increase in the U.K. corporation tax rate. However, cash tax paid is lower than the P&L charge, as we benefit from allowances on U.K. capital spend. So moving to slide 13, and here we see kind of the outflow from free cash to where our debt reduction is. So the cash generation of the business has supported a return to shareholders. So this includes the payment of the final 2022 dividend in H1, as well as supporting the restructure of the business. So when we announced that restructuring Q3 last year, we talked about GBP 17 million worth of cash costs to be incurred. Two and a half million of those were incurred at the back end of last year. Ten point six, as you can see here, or GBP 10.6 million, is being incurred in the first six months. The remainder, GBP 5 million, will be incurred over the next eighteen months itself. So we have also managed to reduce our debt by GBP 16 million in the last six months, GBP 21 million in the last twelve months, and despite all the turbulence over the last three and a half years, we've actually got our debt down by 25%. As a result, leverage has improved, and furthermore, we continue to operate with really good headroom on our facilities, with over GBP 200 million of liquidity headroom, and our debt maturity is a healthy 2.5 years. Furthermore, just on the balance sheet, in April, we completed our triennial pension negotiations with a path to fully funding the scheme by the end of 2025 through contributions of GBP 2.5 million per annum, which is exactly in line with where we've been previously. Importantly, however, we also have an arrangement to cease contributions in early 2025 if the scheme becomes fully funded. So given the strength of this balance sheet, the improved operating performance and the confidence in the outlook, the dividend is up 5%, as I mentioned earlier. So my final slide, just to talk about the confidence in outlook. We anticipate low single-digit revenue growth in H2 as prices start annualizing out, and volumes are expected to remain under pressure. We have upgraded our profit expectation for the full year and are now confident in delivering adjusted operating profit, at least in line with last year, at GBP 89.4 million. Our enhanced focus on working capital will deliver further benefits in H2, and we therefore expect a working capital inflow for the full year of around GBP 20 million. This is expected to support further improvement in net debt, and we expect to hold leverage at the 1.8 times. Overall, while the environment remains tough, the positive momentum in all of our three regions and the strength of our balance sheet provide us with confidence in delivering our year-end results. I'll now hand back to Mike. Thank you. Thanks, Ben. So look, a decent set of numbers for the first half, and what I want to do is bring a bit more color to the operational side of the business, the stuff that's moving these numbers in the right direction. Gonna start in the U.K., because clearly that's still the, by far and away, the biggest region, and really focus up front on the market and our performance in the market. No apologies, really, 'cause these first two slides I've got are very, very similar to the slides that we will have shown at the full year presentation, and the reason for that is the macro environment we're in has not changed at all in reality. You know, the cost of living crisis that we're all facing into is really disrupting things. It's disrupting consumers, and it's also disrupting retailers in terms of their behaviors. You know, we know consumers are very, very worried about the cost of their household budgets, and 35% of them are telling us through our quarterly surveys that food price is the biggest concern that they've got. And actually, that then translates to the way they plan. Forty percent of them are telling us that they're planning their meal occasions a lot more carefully because more planning, you know, results in a cheaper basket at the end of the day. And then, of course, there's the share of stomach to think about. What we're also being told by consumers is that 70% of them are eating out less frequently than they did before. That has to be positive from our perspective because people still need to eat at the end of the day. I think that speaks to the overall market performance, where we are seeing volumes down in the first half, 3.3%, and that's not where we want to be, but at the end of the day, it's not a catastrophic collapse. You know, this is still a pretty resilient market, and there's no doubt that shift into home eating is supporting the market dynamic. How are retailers reacting to this? Well, at the end of the day, they're clearly putting prices up. The last ONS number for July, I think, was showing 15% inflation in food. The peak was about 19% back in the spring. So things have eased a bit, but that is still a mind-boggling number. They're reducing sale on promotion. So sales on promotion now in our world are less than 30%, and pre-COVID, they would have been mid-thirties, so a big shift there. But they're also focusing on different propositions, and a good example here would be around promotions, actually, 'cause whilst promotions are down generally, volume on meal deal is up quite significantly, so meal deal volumes will show a 30% increase. So a lot of changing behaviors here, but they're behaviors that we kind of-... Understand and are familiar with us now, and the name of the game for us is to respond to those. Within the category splits, the 3.3%, you know, really sort of doesn't explain the full picture because obviously, the devil's in the detail, and we've got some categories here that are performing better and more resilient and some that are suffering more as well, and yet the place to start really is desserts. Desserts is the category, you know, in our portfolio that is the weakest performing in the context of the market. It's significantly behind the 3.3%. It is the ultimate discretionary purchase. People do not have to put a dessert in their basket. They can go without at the end of the day. Salads is also behind the market, less so than desserts, and the dynamic here is people looking to buy into whole head rather than, you know, pre-prepped product that we would be providing. And obviously there, there's an eye on price, but there's also an eye on waste, because whole head generally has a longer life. You know, life starts when we cut into product at the end of the day. So they're the sort of underperformers, if you like. The stronger performers, the more resilient performance is coming in meals. Meals is beating the market, which is good. It's our biggest category. It's still slightly regressive in terms of volume, but it is beating the market, which is great. And then pizza and bread actually is still in growth, which is obviously the standout performance. So the good thing for us here is we've got real breadth through these categories, which means we can ride the storm somewhat, and that really brings us on to our performance. And look, the most important thing for us as a team, when underlying volume is soft, is that we're winning share and, you know, we are beating the market, which is fantastic, both in terms of volume and value. And if you can see the numbers at the top of the chart there around the market, over the first six months, the Bakkavor numbers would read 1% down for 1% down for volume, and 10% up for price. So at the end of the day, we're actually performing strongly, which is really good to see. Probably no difference to the early part of the year when we spoke about our performance per category. The only category we're underperforming in is pizza. The reality there is, mix is against us a little bit. We've got a tighter grouping of customer base, and we're not so represented in the value ranges, which is undermining our performance a little bit, but everywhere else, we're winning. I think the reasons we're winning, again, pretty consistent. I mean, the first thing is we're getting product on the shelf. You know, we're getting good quality products on the shelf. We're dealing with all the challenges the environment's putting out there, and therefore, our ranges are generally performing well. The second thing is targeted innovation. You know, we really are. We recognize, yeah, the disruption cost of living is causing, and therefore, we're responding to that, yeah, with our innovation, and our developments, and a great example of that would be how we've put a huge amount into pizza meal deals, actually. So pizzas was underrepresented in meal deals with two of our biggest customers. We've actually created propositions, selling pizzas, but also sides as well from the broader business that we've got. And we're seeing good, good, strong sale through pizza meal deals, and as I said, meal deals generally are faring well in the market. Another great example here would be looking at core innovation, and, you know, we spent a lot of time and energy redeveloping the Chinese range for one of our biggest customers last year. That launched around Chinese New Year. They had the biggest Chinese New Year ever, and have gone from number 3 to number 1 in the market, and that's just because, you know, we've ensured that range is best in class, improved quality, and people still want to buy good quality product to have in home to maybe even replace the takeaway occasion. Actually, I read something earlier in the week that said that a meal box in this particular customer is 50-70. So a meal box, meal for two, either Indian or Chinese, is actually 50%-70% cheaper than going out and getting a takeaway, which is quite a powerful stat, really, when you think about it. So targeted innovation, really, really important, and we've got a good pipeline continuing to come down the track. And then the final bit is actually winning some of the battles, winning share. And I would say, someone asked me yesterday, "Look, well, you know, which retailers you winning?" It's less about retailers for me, it's more about looking at categories, and the categories where we're winning at the moment are salads and desserts. I think they're probably slightly different dynamics. We've seen a bit of consolidation in salads, which is where fruit would sit, and we all know that there's been some market consolidation in fruit, which we've benefited from. The dynamic in desserts is slightly different. I mean, on an own-label footing, we are just a really good bet. You know, we're a strong business, a stable business when it comes to the supplier desserts, and I think retailers recognize that, and we've seen people coming to us and wanting more desserts from us. But we're also building out our Delicious Desserts proposition, so our brand, and for those that can see, there's a chart there on the TV. You know, this is the fastest growing brand in desserts now. I think it's number five in the market, which, from a standing start, is pretty good. We've got sales increases of 165%. We brought a new retailer on in the first half, so we're now listed in four retailers. You know, store presence would be about 2,000. So not saying every product's in 2,000 stores, but, you know, we've got Delicious Desserts in 2,000 places, which in itself is pretty good. And distribution is increased by 24%, and we've got a really strong pipeline of stuff coming down the track. So this is a real winner for us when it comes to share in desserts category, because it's incremental sale. And the reason it's incremental is we've developed this brand to be more relevant to the younger, consumer, because desserts is a bit tired and old, in its traditional space. So look, I think when core volumes are soft, yeah, winning share is important, and we, we are, we are absolutely doing that and feel confident that we've got a good pipeline, going forward to continue with that. When it comes to sort of the U.K. in the broader sense, I think the first thing, I'm kind of wondering why I put this up here, 'cause I've said the macro environment, for want of better words, feels like it's improving. I mean, this is all relative. You know, we have been through three years of absolute mayhem, haven't we? So, you know, things are better, and we need to look to the positive. I would say that the supply chain is more resilient now. You know, we used to be rolling from one problem to another, generally, moving back to either the labor or capacity issues, you know, in the chain. Now, to be honest, the biggest challenges we have are weather-related, and it's all about extreme weather patterns. So this year we've struggled terribly for melon. You know, massive rainfall in Spain in spring destroyed a lot of crop, and the crop that was left, you know, was poorly yielding. And for us, we can't put little melons on the shelf. You know, retailers might be able to. We chop melons up, put them in pack, and we need big melons that yield well. So big challenge for us there, and, of course, that was disruptive for our sale, you know, as we came out of half one and into half two. Another good example on this would be, or like, actually, would be tomatoes. So temperatures in Morocco through the summer hit over 50 degrees, I believe. That has, you know, really undermined the tomato growing season there. So tomatoes are gonna be short. You know, our teams are working relentlessly at the moment to source from Spain, the Canaries, you know, other parts of Southern Europe where, you know, crop is in a better place. So, you know, it's these extreme weather patterns that are hitting us, and they're here to stay. You know, global warming is actually a real thing, and, you know, we're gonna have to face into this going forward and continue to use the strength of our supply chain to pick our way through this. I think the second point I'd make here is that the rate of inflation is slowing. You can see that in Ben's chart, but there is still inflation, and that's a really important message. Deflation is not a word we use in this business. You know, it's verging on a dismissible offense 'cause it is just not there at all. So, you know, we should not get seduced by what we read in the press and the media. You know, and finally, I would say that labor is improving. You know, labor availability is definitely better now than it has been over the last two or three years. You know, we've done a lot to invest in our people. Come on to that in a minute. But to give you a sense, we had 1,000 vacancies at the end of last year. We've got 600 now, so. We never really want to run full. So, you know, we're much more in a much more balanced position when it comes to that. Ben's done the restructuring. You know, it's all gone well. You know, we don't like doing these things, but sometimes you have to face in and do the difficult stuff. You know, the two factories that we shut, you know, were shut ahead of time, which is helping the in-year support we're getting around self-help. About GBP 100 million was sitting in those factories, and we transferred 75% of that volume into other sites, and that's what's driving the benefit. So obviously, a little bit of a share impact there, but we're riding that. The good news is, you know, we did the execution effectively, and the savings are coming through. When I was talking to you, earlier in the year, it was a plan, now it's a reality, and that's an important message here. I think in terms of the change in structure, the move into two sectors, you know, leaner management team, I've got to say, how everybody's embraced that in this business has been phenomenal. I've got no doubt that is absolutely fueling broader performance within the business. So we feel in a, you know, in a really good place there. And, you know, you overlay that with the investment we made in our new manufacturing system. I say new, we started the rollout of this in the summer of 2020, so this has been a three-year program. Our last site went live in May, site in Wigan. So look, phenomenal impact on the business, and really underpinning current performance, but also future performance, 'cause it leads us to see, you know, where the bottlenecks are in our manufacturing operation. It's live data. It's about winning the day, rather than looking back at yesterday, and that's the real good thing here. So in terms of the financial delivery, look, I'm not gonna read it out. You can see there, obviously, as Ben said, you know, we had to recover inflation. It was just so big. That's what's fueled the sales line of things. You know, we dealt with GBP 200 million or so of inflation in the U.K. last year, and we've had another GBP 90-odd million to deal with this year. These are absolutely massive numbers, and while our customers have been phenomenally supportive, there's still a gap. You know, we have not recovered all of this, and that's why this self-help, the plan we called out earlier in the year, is so important to us to underpin and protect that profitability. I think the reality, as Ben also said, is, you know, it's an inevitability. Our margin will go back in an inflation environment 'cause, you know, rightly or wrongly, rightly, I think, given, you know, we want to be very transparent and open with our customers, we're only looking to recover cost. We're not looking to recover margin on cost. So that gives you a bit of color for the U.K. Good, good place, good momentum... In terms of the U.S., more of the same in terms of that momentum. You know, we've talked about a lot of change, and, you know, we've got new leadership out there, both in terms of the head person. Kam was installed in April, and he's got a new team that was fully up and running in July. And, you know, pretty much half of the U.S. leadership team is now new. And that was quite important for us to really embed this shift in mindset from, you know, growth to profit. And, yeah, what I would say is the team, you know, are up and running. Yeah, the new thinking is definitely embedded, and we're starting to see, as I come onto in a minute, some real momentum as we moved through the second quarter. Focus is obviously on improving the basics, but also the numbers. You know, on, on all levels, the basics are improving. You know, you can see our audit scores. So these are external audit scores for our sites. They're all in the, the top category of excellent. You know, our customer service has improved significantly, and the level of engagement we have with customers, which just didn't feel right to me compared to the U.K.'s, has just step changed. And, you know, with that in mind, we've also agreed the terms of settlement, for want of better words, with the, the customer that we were in dispute with, which is great, 'cause we can park that now, move on, and there's absolutely no financial impact to us going forward, with regard to that. So nice closure there. So in terms of the numbers, we don't normally share this, but I persuaded Ben to let me put Q1 and Q2 up here just to illustrate the point. So you can see we were broadly flat for the half year, but, you know, making money in Q2, losing money in Q1. And actually, if you look at the sales numbers, you can see it's not sales driven. And I can't stress enough, the more time I spend in our American business, sales is not what we want to worry about. You know, it's profitability, and that will continue through the rest of this year and actually into next year. And the team are very, very focused on that. We are not out there looking for new business. But as Ben said, the underlying sale that we're seeing when we strip out, you know, the resetting of the business, is still strong. We will start to see an annualization of that in the second half and into next year, because we're not bringing new customers on board. So clearly, the customers we were bringing on board have started to annualize. But look, the direction of travel here in the States is really, really positive. So, China, well, more positivity. Less of our own making in one sense, because a lot of this, as Ben said, is driven off that sales recovery. But we should not lose sight of the fact that the team have done an amazing job in terms of executing this significant growth in the first half. We've got a simplified business. Again, just not having to deal with COVID for the first time in three years releases a huge amount of pressure on the team to do more value-added things. We've disposed of our associate business in Hong Kong, which brings some cash in, which is great, but also is one less thing to worry about in the China business. And our capacity investments, as we've said before, are, you know, are done. And the good thing with that is, we're not, you know, ripping factories apart or building new factories now, and that in itself is quite disruptive. So we've got a lot more stability in the business there. The market is still very attractive. You know, we've got our traditional customers around food service, so this would be quick-serve retail and coffee shop. We're still seeing them get back on the expansion road, really. Well, in 2019, which is the last good year in China, their average store openings between our three biggest customers, so Starbucks, Yum!, McDonald's, they were opening about 400-500 stores each in overall terms. Now they're all quoting at least 1,000 for 2023. Now, I'm sure they're shutting stores as well, so it's not going to be, you know, 1,000 incremental, but the fact that they've got back to that level of rollout has to be good for us. And then we're building out this retail business. It's now 20% of what we do. And again, pre-COVID, 2019, it was 1%, if you round it up. So that's a big shift. And, you know, we're dealing with some pretty big people out there, both international retailers, biggest would be Sam's Club, and also local players. So Hema would be the biggest local retailer over there. But we're looking at premium retailers here. And this then translates through the numbers. So as Ben said, a big shift on in terms of, well, a big reduction in losses. You know, we are not making money, but the most important thing here for me is the fact that this business in the first half was cash positive. And that is a really important measure for us. We know we've got this big depreciation ticket in China, but we have to make sure we're cash positive. You know, the detail there, as you can see, Well, you can't see, but it's about GBP 1.5 million worth of EBITDA in the first half, against GBP 1 million of capital that you'll have seen from one of Ben's charts. That's, yeah, good news. What does that all mean when we look forward? Well, we've already said that we're, you know, we're feeling cautiously optimistic, and we're upgrading our view for the full year. I guess if I go round that region by region, we are still seeing headwinds in the U.K. You know, we aren't gonna see any deflation. There is gonna be more inflation on top of the GBP 90-odd million; we're expecting another GBP 40 million. So, you know, it's not new, but it's just the roll-through of things like energy and labor. And we're not expecting any recovery to volume. You know, we're expecting the market to still move along at circa 3% down. But what we are doing is running hard to deal with those headwinds, and, you know, we would expect to largely mitigate those headwinds by taking the benefits from the restructures that are still due to come through. All absolutely action now. And then obviously, we're confident about continuing to beat the market in terms of volume. In the U.S., our second half will mean our full year will be broadly in line with last year. A complete mirror image, 'cause last year we made in the first half and lost in the second half. That's not good when you're looking for momentum coming into the following year. This year, it'll be the reverse. So, you know, we'll go into 2024 with some natural momentum, given what we're gonna deliver in the second half. And China really is gonna be much the same shape as half one. Both actually in terms of bottom line and top line. You know, top line will be a similar number, but show a lot less growth, and that's more about the profile of 2022 rather than 2023. So look, we, you know, aggregate all that up and get to a place where we feel confident in delivering, at least in line with last year. So if I move away from the numbers and look at some of the broader things on the scorecard, obviously, ESG agenda is something that's gathering pace everywhere. For us, the top two measures here are still relatively new. The bottom two, very established. And we now have real momentum and traction in both food waste and net carbon emissions. And I think the reason for that is we've now got our operational teams much more engaged with this. They're starting to understand it a bit more, probably more so on food waste, so they understand how this is categorized. We're measuring it, and therefore we can take some actions to improve it, and you can see a fantastic improvement there. Probably the biggest driver behind that would be redistribution. So some low-hanging fruit there. On emissions, still probably a little bit further back in terms of the journey of absolute understanding, but we're definitely getting with the program, and, you know, the investments we've made in refrigeration, you know, are actually driving some big benefits on heat recovery, so we're being much more effective there. And we're really focused on managing gas usage. And a little example there for you would be, we've gone around every factory, done an audit to check for steam leaks, and we've fixed every steam leak we've got. And, you know, we're seeing some, you know, big benefits therefore, in terms of gas usage. So look, some nice momentum there. Turnover is, you know, regressive but, you know, a level now which we don't like, but probably more in line with the industry standard as we would see it. We've probably held a number, you know, where others have seen it drift up, and I'll come on to some of the things we've been doing in a minute. And we're seeing progression in terms of accidents, which is obviously good news as well. So, you know, away from the financials, we've got some good stories as well. If I look at the people agenda, this would have been something—we've got Donna-Maria here, this would have been something that, you know, would have been easy to pull back on, given some of the challenges. But we've doubled down on it, actually, and we've invested a lot more in this over the last couple of years, you know, through these difficult times, than we might have been before. And, you know, we've invested in just our factory-based colleagues working, you know, on our production lines. You know, in the broadest sense, we've invested GBP 50 million over the last two years. That's pushing a 20% increase in earnings over that period of time. You know, but of course, we'd always want to do more, and of course, many of our colleagues would want more, but we are doing our best within the context here to move rates of pay forward, and we will continue to do so. But there's much more stuff that we're doing. It's a very broad agenda. We've, you know, we've launched. If you look at the back screen there, we've launched a range of products that aren't surplus. We make in our factories, specifically, they're branded Proud to be Bakkavor products, and they're available to staff at GBP 1 each. You know, so actually, these would be leading retailers' products that we're, you know, packing in our packaging and giving to our employees at a discount to try and help them deal with the cost of living crisis. A massive sprint initiative that we went on at the start of the year to try and step change the offer. Better Bakkavor. Sorry, Better Behavior, Better Bakkavor is an initiative that we started. We get a lot of feedback through engagement surveys that people want to be treated better, and we want to treat people better. We don't go out of our way to treat them badly, but it's a high-pressure business, making everything every day. We've got to help our leadership teams deal with that pressure and cope with it. So what we've done is set these workshops up, where 10% of our workforce that are on the ground, you know, will come to workshops and talk about how it really is. And then that will cascade up through the total leadership team on that site, so that we can start to understand and get into managing some of these behaviors. So look, plenty of really exciting stuff that we're looking at on the people front. And, you know, we will not let up on this because, you know, people are underpinning the delivery of the business at the end of the day... So that brings me on to summary before question and answers. The clock's gone off, so I don't know whether I'm on time, out of time, or anything, but I guess it's irrelevant, really. 'Cause I'm going to finish. The summary here, really, you know, is, you know, is that we are in a good place. You know, we have had a really good half one. You know, when I stood here earlier in the year, when we launched the plans in our Q3 update in November or so last year, you know, they were plans. You know, we have executed these plans. We have done what we said we were going to do, and that's translating into performance, and that is really, really important. I think with that comes momentum across the board. And that's momentum in sort of financial measures as well as non-financial measures, and that is really down to the effort of our people. You know, and we're going to continue to invest in our people in the broadest sense, because, you know, we're a business that is absolutely reliant on people. You know, we employ, you know, over 15,000 people, you know, as an organization, and that's a hell of a responsibility. And all of that comes together to allow us to say that we're confident in upgrading the view for the full year to at least in line with last. And again, as I said, we've picked our words there because, you know, we'd like to nudge past that, but there are plenty of headwinds out there, particularly in the U.K., around inflation and underlying volume. And that's a real shame because I've finished on a negative there. But this is a good set of results, we feel. And we're proud of them. Our team should be absolutely proud of them. The key now is keeping that momentum going. So I think in terms of formalities, that's, you know, the end of the slides and all of that kind of stuff. We've now got an opportunity for some questions, which I think Emily will sort of take us through. Brilliant. Great. Thank you, everyone. So, yes, we will now do our Q&A, and we'll look to take questions from the room first, and then for those joining on the call, we'll go over to you. So on to questions. Great. Charles Hall from Peel Hunt. I'll start on a positive, Mike. Looking at the performance in the U.S., obviously really good to see the turnaround coming through, and maybe we could dive a bit deeper into some of the operational improvements that you're seeing. And particularly, you know, labor was a major issue in this, in the States, and where is that sitting now in terms of availability, retention, cost of labor? And there may be a bit of chat on operational performance. It's clearly improved, and the efficiencies are coming through. The customer service levels, really good improvement there. What's driving that? And maybe some comment around individual site performances. That's a long question. Yeah. Um- Four questions. Yeah, okay. So look, I think the first one, labor. Labor has improved, certainly in the U.K. and the U.S. from an availability perspective. And we're not shorting orders on the back of any labor challenges. What I would say in the U.S. is we still do have some turnover challenges. Turnover is higher in the U.S. than the group average, and which is driven by the U.K. at the end of the day, and therefore, some work to do there. But, yeah, we've got this dilemma that when you've got a business that, you know, at the end of last year, wasn't making any money, we've got to be careful about paying people more. So we're picking our way through this. But labor availability has definitely improved, and we've got enough people to service our customers. In terms of performance in our factories, we've just got back to basics. You know, we've got our operational leaders in factories focused on the two most important things, from a financial perspective, which are controlling labor and controlling materials. You know, that's where the cost sits, and that's where the focus has gone. We've seen more traction in labor. It's often easier in factories to get after labor, 'cause you can feel it and see it a little bit easier. But you know, we're also starting to see positive trends on raw materials as well. But it's about the basics. In terms of customer service, we've seen a steady improvement in customer service. I think as efficiency improves, it suggests the business is in more control, and when you're in more control, you're going to service orders more effectively. But I think we've started to take customers more seriously now, and, you know, I think the operational team probably understand that customer service is more important now than perhaps they did before. And that in itself is part of this mindset shift that we've, we've got. And of course, taking pressure off of volume helps as well. So this has all been a deliberate, sort of crafted plan, really. So I've answered three bits. I can't remember the fourth. Site performance. Site performance. Yeah, look, we're seeing improvement at, across the board, actually, but pleasingly, our two biggest sites, you know, we would probably feel, you know, really good about. What does success look like now on a sort of medium-term view? What, what, what are you aiming for? What does success look like? Well, it's not about a sales line. You know, success for me is about a profit delivery next year, that delivers a repeat performance of the second half throughout the year, with some on top. Morning, Damian from Numis. Just to follow on from Charles's question, sort of asking it slightly differently. If you look at the combined international business on what you've said for the second half, it should be just, just profitable. How long do we need to wait before that gets up to a group level of profitability? Yeah, I mean, look, we're on a journey here, aren't we? You know, at the end of the day, international is going to be better this year than it was last year. You know, we're going to be pretty flat in the U.S., and we're going to show some improvement, you know, we're going to show some improvement in China. As you say, that's going to bring us in, you know, broadly flat. I think next year, it's all about America for me. You know, America next year will be chipping in, and therefore, will take us into more positive territory. I'm not expecting anything particularly exciting coming out of China. It's a tough, you know, market out there and, you know, the growth is there, but there's a lot more competition, and it's a lot more difficult to deal with some of the inflationary pressures. You know, there's not a lot of inflation outside of labor, but it's just not something that we can recover given the competition we've got. So it's going to be a, you know, steady as she goes in China. The improvement is going to come through the U.S., and we expect to start seeing that next year. Okay, and then just given the sort of challenges that some of the smaller players are seeing in the U.K. and some of the sort of... Are there more consolidation opportunities in the U.K. that you're looking at, at the minute than you were perhaps 12 months ago? And are there any sort of categories that you sort of think are now posing sort of good options to enter into? Look, I don't think, I don't think many companies at the moment are looking at opportunities to go and spend money on things because it's, you know, cost of debt is so high. So, you know, we continue to stay alert, and we've got a strong balance sheet, as Ben says. But, you know, we're not, we're not chasing after, you know, acquisitions, if, if, if, if that's part of the question. I think I've probably been a bit surprised there's not been more consolidation given the tough times we've been through. You don't wish it on anybody, but actually, most people seem to have come through this. You know, which I've been a little bit surprised by. But I think for us, it's about doing our thing, and continuing to win share on the back of the strengths of this business, which I do believe retailers are seeing. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Jason Molins here from Goodbody. Just the inflation backdrop, and lots of numbers given, which is helpful, but I might have missed some, so if you can just refresh me. In terms of your expectations on recovery of that inflation piece for this year, where do you expect to be, and what does that mean in terms of taking further pricing in the second half of the year? Second question is around retail customers. Are you seeing any change in behavior in how you're interacting with them, how they're looking at SKU ranges, or again, that pricing piece? And second or final question is around the Delicious Desserts, which seems like a great performance that you're putting in in that channel. But again, you're obviously then competing with some of your own customers in that space, so is that something that has to be managed? Look, I think start with the Delicious Desserts. I think the beauty with this is, it's bringing in an incremental sale because it's, you know, it's a different consumer, it's a different proposition, and it's something that the, you know, the market needed and consumers wanted, and therefore, it's a pretty easy sell to retailers, because it's not cannibalizing existing retailer sale. You can see we've got a pretty good set of retailers that we're supplying there. I think in terms of Delicious Desserts, that would be the answer to that one. In terms of inflation, as Ben said, it's a difficult one to look at. The pure maths would say we recovered about 75% last year, and 85% would probably be the view this year. The reality is there's a blending going on there because we did have delays in recovery last year. You then get annualization of that, so it's quite a mixed picture. But directionally, we're running around about 80% recovery, which is good, but when you're talking about GBP 230 million last year, you know, and another big number this year, you know, as Ben said, lower end of his expectation maybe, but, you know, we're talking GBP 90 and another, you know, GBP 45, GBP 40 this year. You know, they're big numbers. So when you only recover 80% of it, you've got to run bloody hard to stand still, which is what we're doing, really, 'cause, you know, we're standing still because we've shut 2 factories, we've taken a third of the leadership team out, we're driving performance in our factories. You know, the 80% gap on those sort of numbers is, you know, really quite material and painful. That's not to say... We've had great support from customers 'cause there's always this balance about, you know, keeping an eye on volume as prices move up. But that's the sort of the quantum of the numbers in the second half and the recovery profile. Anything to add, Ben? No, I think that's pretty much covered it. Well, probably what I would add is that Mike's referring to 80% there for the full year. It is worth kind of referencing that the second half inflation is very much made up of labor, utilities, overhead, which is more challenging to get your price recovery on. So whilst we've had 87% in the first half, probably more like 70% in the second half, to get this 80% overall, which does leave a similar gap on inflation recovery yet again, which we'll need to make up through self-help measures. So that gives you some context as to kind of where we're positioned or why we're positioned in line with last year, for profitability. S aying too much. It's fair to say that we are not in live conversations now about putting prices up with customers, because we've had the energy and labor conversations earlier in the year. So we've got line of sight on that, which gives us that, yeah, some of that confidence in terms of the run out to the end of the year. Thanks. Matthew Webb from Investec. I mean, do you think therefore there's a bit of a disconnect here in terms of, you know, what you're telling us about the reality of the input cost situation? That you're continuing to see inflation, and yet the broader narrative is one of deflation, and you're saying you're not in live discussions for further price increases. So presumably, at some point, you are going to have to have those discussions about further price increases, rather than just enjoying the benefit of previous price increases. Because otherwise, surely you're, you know... I know you're doing a lot in terms of self-help, but at some point, your margins surely are gonna start to come under further pressure. Is that right or not? Yeah. I mean, if we look into next year, I'm not seeing a deflationary environment next year. There will be new inflation. The easiest one to point to is labor, which will hit us in April. We will have to recover that. So I'm talking about the here and now, not the future. When inflation's hitting this business, we have to put prices up. You know, there's only so much self-help you can do, and we've done a hell of a lot of it over the last couple of years. You know, if we wanna, you know, maintain the standards of the business and the service to our customers, you know, there's only so much cost you can chop out. So, of course, when we get new inflation coming through, we will absolutely go and discuss it and recover it with customers. My point is, stood here now, there's no new inflation that we're having to recover. The inflation in the second half, as Ben said, relates to things that we already know about. There's a whole, you know, myriad of things that are up and down when you get into the minutiae, but that's the macro picture. And presumably, the fact that you're consistently gaining market share puts you in a relatively strong position versus your competitors, to have those discussions without putting words in your mouth? Yeah. Yeah. Look, I'm not, I'm not sure about that. I think the... You know, these conversations are always really, really difficult. I think our market shares, you know, coming from we just keep reverting in the business. We've got to do three things: service to drive availability, innovation for the moment, and let's win some of these little battle skirmishes that are around, and, you know, take advantage of things that happen in the environment. You know, consolidation, which is a bit... It's unfortunate, but, you know, we, we, we're, we're, we would be keen to see more consolidation. Then, sorry, Ben, can I just ask you one specific one? You gave us some useful guidance, cautioning us that gas and electricity costs will continue to be a headwind into Q1 of next year. But what about after that? Does it then come your way, or no? It's relatively flat- Right F rom that point in, not seeing at this point, and we've locked in on certain prices, around 50% for next year. Not seeing any further inflation, but not necessarily seeing deflation, either. Got it. Thank you both very much. Hi, Darianna Sheridan at HSBC. Can I ask about capital allocation and whether the prospect for a reduced level of CapEx will be running for a few more years? You mentioned that China is well invested at the moment. Can you update us in, for the U.S. and U.K., please? Yeah. No, I think at, yeah, 50 million is enough capital for this year. You know, it's allowing us to run the business effectively. We've had a benefit of pausing what we were doing in the U.S., because if we'd have carried on with our U.S. plan, you know, we'd have been spending more than GBP 50 million. But of course, without, you know, making money in the U.S., we're not gonna spend the money. So I think going forward, we're not gonna see capital, you know, rocket, but it will be higher than GBP 50 million. Yeah. Anything to add, Ben? Yeah, look, I mean, at the same time, we've seen an average of around 60-65 previously. And that, that would be something that we'd gradually return to, as profits come back into the business as well. In the U.S., what sort of capacity utilization do you have at the moment? What is your aspiration for the future, and also in the U.K.? That's part of the exciting journey we're on. 'Cause you know, when you're running factories that aren't particularly efficient, you know, it's difficult to define what the capacity actually is, and therefore, what your utilization is. But we certainly have no capacity concerns running into next year. Sorry, lastly, in the U.S. as well, I think a couple of years ago, there was the expectation of the U.S., with the existing capacity, to be able to grow till about $300 million, if I'm not wrong. Five. GBP 500 million. Yep. Is that still very much the case? Yeah. Look, I- I think, actually, I'll kill that one, because- Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just don't think we know- Follow up with what you said. W hat our capacity is over there at the moment. But what I would say is, if we thought that a couple of years ago, I'm only hoping it's gonna be better now as we drive more efficiency. But I'm not there yet in terms of what our capacity is. But I am not worried about capacity as we move through next year, you know. And to be absolutely clear, you know, our team over there, you know, is not chasing down sales. So that capacity is not gonna come under pressure. You know, when we see another 12 months of steady performance improvement, you know, we'll start to be looking for those next opportunities from a sales perspective, bring those into the business. There will be some capacity available, and that will be an accelerant on the profitability of the business, 'cause we'll convert it. You know, this is what went wrong last time. We brought it in when we weren't stable, and it ended up being a drag on profitability and took us to a loss-making position. F rom a competitive point of view, do you have retailers asking for more and you're holding them back, or do you have retailers going to competition? Yeah, we're not really seeing competition in our space that's doing exactly what we're doing. You know, fresh prepared foods in the U.S. is still, you know, our USP. You know, others are around the edges, but they're not really doing what we're doing. So we still see the U.S. as being a fantastic opportunity for us. And the most exciting part of our business at the end of the day. We've just got to move it forward in a you know in a much more responsible way, and not get ahead of ourselves. And if we do that, we will deliver the opportunity, and it will be every bit as exciting as we believe it is. Okay, thank you. Andrew Hall from Peel Hunt. Just one on supply chain resilience. I know there's a few events, weather events last year, and it looks likely that that trend is going to continue. Is there anything structurally you've done or are looking to do to improve your, your mitigation there? Or is it more just sort of learning... You've learned how to deal with those better, on, on the foot? We're continually looking at de-risking through regional supply. The challenge sometimes is, you know, when we had our melon challenge, we could buy more melon from South America, but it costs a hell of a lot to get the melon here, and it takes a long time. So we're, you know, we're continually weighing all these, you know, weighing all these things up. But the biggest, you know, work stream is, you know, de-risking through geography. You know, bringing other regions on. You know, the example I used on tomatoes, I mean, it's not that we haven't taken tomatoes from Spain in the past, but the guys are looking at where else can we get tomatoes from as we run into the, you know, run from now through autumn, really. Thanks. I think that's all the questions from the room, so we'll hand over to the operator for any questions on the conference call. Thank you. As a brief reminder, that is star one for your questions on the telephone. We have a question from Karel Zoete of Kepler. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks for taking the questions. Good morning, all. I have three questions. The first one is on the leverage. Our cash flow was solid and you're within your 1.5-2 times target range for financial leverage. However, given the 6% interest rate in the U.K., is that still the most optimal leverage ratio to run the business at, or given the expense of debt situation, should we anticipate less leverage in the business, ideally going forward? And then the second question is basically a follow-up on all the prospects in the U.S. and earlier questions from China. Again, what's the medium-term potential for the Chinese business? Because it's not been profitable for the last 5 years. In case you kind of become decently EBITDA positive, would that then be a good moment to look for alternative options and to focus all the growth efforts in the U.S., potentially? And the last question is on sustainability, because I looked at some of the data, and when you look to your energy use, it seems all energy is from non-renewable sources, and I thought it was surprising. So is it so difficult to secure solar, wind or other energy? Or is that something that's just more expensive? Thank you. Okay. Well, look, I'll, I'll try and work back. I think from an energy perspective, yeah, when, when it comes to, net emissions, we're, we're very, very focused on gas because our electric is green. So it's not coming necessarily from renewable, but it is green. When we've looked, recently at some, opportunities in this space, you know, cost becomes, you know, a, you know, a factor, and therefore, you know, we've not, moved forward with anything, renewable around solar or, or wind, you know, with the business. It's not that we've not looked, but it hasn't made, sense, and there are other opportunities to get our, emissions down. So I think that would be my, answer on that. In terms of your- Green, green would then be, green would then be like nuclear? Nuclear power or, or what? Yeah, what, what's green then? Well, do you know? Yeah, so. I know our electric's green, but- Yeah. Our electric is absolutely green. We buy it on that basis. We did have an opportunity in which to invest in direct solar power, but at this point, we're just getting the security of green electricity from third parties, rather than directly ourselves. But I can't say whether it's nuclear or I don't know. A ny other form at this point. But it's definitely green. Yeah. Um- All right, thanks. So in terms of your question on China, I mean, difficult to get drawn on that because, yeah, that's a big question. I mean, I think what we would say is we are more excited about the U.S. Of course, as China stabilizes and recovers, we can start thinking about, you know, what strategic options we have, you know, what levers we might pull, but it's very early days. I mean, we're talking about a business here that's been in turmoil for three years. The most important thing is we stabilize. I think the really good thing about China is we've got capacity, so we want to fill that capacity. We're gonna have to remain competitive 'cause it's a competitive market, and we're actually looking to really drive efficiency hard. Having been over there with Ben a few weeks ago, you know, we saw plenty of opportunities in our biggest factory when we walked around it. And actually, you know, we've got a team from the U.K. going over to do an opportunity analysis in the coming weeks. So, you know, the plan for China in the short to medium term is continue with the stabilization, drive growth, drive performance to ensure we can get that growth, and start fill the factories that we've got over there. So I think that was the second question, and the first question, I think, was around leverage and all that kind of stuff. And obviously, it's on our minds, given the high interest rate, but maybe, Ben, you- Yeah. Share a few words on that. Yeah. So, Karel, debt reduction absolutely remains a major focus for us when you have interest rates as high as they are, they are. Partly in response to that, we kicked off this working capital initiative, which is driving this GBP 15 million inflow in the first half, and we'll continue with those projects to ensure we can pay down debt. The other components that sit here, obviously, is continuing to retain discipline our, in our capital investment. So Mike and I have healthy debates around the allocation of capital, and we can only really support capital increase if we see profits starting to come through. I suppose the final point that I just want to make is that you'll see a dividend increase of 5% and maybe think, Well, ultimately, could that have paid off debt and get your leverage down? I just wanna provide some context to that 5% increase in dividend because it's equivalent to GBP 2 million. And we have shareholders that find dividends very attractive. That GBP 2 million was never gonna switch us, or turn the leverage any particular way. So, No. T he point of all of that, Karel, is just to explain continued absolute focus on debt reduction. It is a priority. Super. Thanks. You, there are no further telephone questions at this time. Now, good. Well, I think we've overrun a little bit, so just wanna say, thanks to everyone for making time to come and see us. It's always great to do these things in person. It's just another step back to normality in my mind. But hopefully, you'll take away your positive feelings. You know, we feel we're a business in good shape. We've got momentum, and we're certainly moving in the right direction, and you know, hopefully, that's something that you guys can see and feel when you leave us today. So thank you very much. I think, as ever, there's probably some goodie bags to collect on the way out. I think we'll probably be hovering around if anyone wants to chat offline, but thank you for your time. Thank you.