All right. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome back for our Fireside Chat with Nomad Foods. With us today are CEO, Stéfan Descheemaeker, and CFO, Ruben Baldew. Stéfan is going to start off with some comments, hand it over to Ruben, and then we'll sit down for some questions as well. Over to you, Stéfan, and thanks to you both for being here. Thank you very much, Andrew. So let me start right off the bat with, I think for those who don't know, I think we assume that that's what we are. We are the leader in a very good category, which is frozen food in Europe. So we have, it's a leading position, great brands. You know, some of them, obviously, like, obviously, Birds Eye, but Iglo or Findus are very, very important as well. Then you have probably some brands that you don't know, like Ledo, Frikom, which are great brands in countries like, Serbia or Croatia. Then we have additional brands like pizza and Goodfella's, which is in the UK. So that's our position. I will go fast behind it, you know, brand awareness, preference, brand equity. I think we, we're ticking all the boxes. So that's our position. And again, let me highlight it. It's in a very healthy category. This is a slide that I loved a lot, for me for nine years, because for nine years, you know, we've been able to increase sales, EBITDA, EPS every year. So nine years, but not ten years. Well, as you can imagine, you know, it's frustrating. At the same time, I think we need to go beyond the frustration and to understand, you know, what it really means. So let me first start with the first nine years. It doesn't mean that the first nine years have been easy. They've not been, you know, easy. I think we have to start with the totally strategic change back in 2015, then we went to Brexit, all the distraction that came up with. Then we had COVID, which definitely, you know, challenged our supply chain. Then you had, you know, obviously, a wall of inflation back in 2022 with the invasion, with the Ukraine war. We priced a lot and all these things, and then you also, we had, question marks around your supply chain, especially in fish, at that time. So we went through all these things, and, I think every time, whether it was macro-driven or self-inflicted, which can happen as well, I think we came up with the learnings and then, you know, what we can do to be stronger. And so that's why we came, for example, with must-win battles, which is how to make sure that we're not going to be distracted by way, way too many subcategories where we have no right to win, but definitely per country, where we think we have this 20, 30, 40, 50% market share, where we can make the difference. That's one of the things. Second, for example, we've learned through Brexit that we can, we can diversify, obviously, our supply chain. Then in terms of the Ukraine war, well, we've been able to price, but beyond pricing, also, we have developed a new muscle, which is the revenue growth management, which now allow us to be, to be much more granular. And then in terms of supply chain, again, in terms of protein and fish finger and fish, we've been able to move from not only wild fish, but to farmed fish as well. So a lot of things we've been able to do during this year, all during these nine years, which have been nine years of growth. This being said, I cannot be satisfied with this year. Yes, we are stabilizing our volume market share. Yes, we've been able to take the right decision in terms of what we should price and what we should not price in terms of costs. And yes, weather played a big role between the unprecedented heat wave and the, Ruben is going to talk about it, you know, in. We thought that frozen food would be insulated from that, and it was not. Coming back on that later, and also, paradoxically, a poor summer in the Adriatic region compared to twenty twenty-four, and at the same time, very poor harvest, but I think that would be wrong and probably not helpful to attribute our disappointing performance this year with the weather only, and I think it would be the wrong learning for the future, so I think what we've been good at over the last nine years is every time to take the learnings and then to become stronger, so the learnings from us are very simple. Two big learnings. One is weather, okay, fine. Heat wave was big. We think we can come up for next year with a better assortment, more adapted to heat wave, because we have something that can work very well with barbecue or definitely also with, for example, like say, chicken, marinated chicken and all these things. That's something that exists in our assortment, that we probably haven't emphasized well enough at this stage, because we didn't see it coming with such a magnitude. At the same time, as I said, you know, we've been, we've not been very good. We've been a bit slow this year at accelerating the renovation of some of our key categories, like fish fingers, which is 400 million EUR, or pizza, and this next year, definitely, it's something that we're going to do much faster. For example, fish finger, the idea was to come up with something like Q3. We're accelerating in the big countries like UK, Germany, Italy, to Q1, which is a big difference. And that's the kind of things we're learning. I think making sure that we are paranoid enough to think, okay, what's happening in the market at the same time? So that's these are the key learnings for us. So again, disappointing year, not ten years, but nine years plus this year. But again, a lot of learnings for us for the future, starting in twenty twenty-six. And with that, you know, we think we're going to be stronger, and stronger, and at the end of the day, as I said, and I started with that, you know, with the category that is doing well. That's, you know, the performance of the category overall over the last 10 years, and it's been compared to fresh food. It's going to be. It's been good. I think our view is, how can we be even stronger as a leader in a very healthy category? Because why is it strong? Why is it healthy? Well, for obvious reasons. First, frozen food is convenient. At the same time, it's value for money. Sustainability, however, I doubt that consumers do attribute so much value at this stage. But more importantly, and that's very much in line with our sustainability program, it's very good food. It's very tasty food. All of our innovations, which is around 10% per annum, are going the same way. Which, how can we make sure we're coming up with something which is tasty, which is really appreciated by the consumers? The renovation of fish fingers, for example, goes very much in that direction. Another reason we think, you know, this category has a great future is when you compare with the U.S., penetration is still very low. U.K. is halfway, as always, but you see a lot of countries where basically it's 60% or even 50% of what the consumption in the is in the U.S. And as we see, as we've seen, we have a lot of strong fundamentals going that way. So not going to even Bosnia, but even Italy or something like that, you know, we can see that, you know, there is a long runway of potential growth with this category, which is quite different from some other regions. At the same time, and again, I think it's something that's on top of tasty, nutrition is becoming increasingly important. Health is becoming increasingly important. Well, two thirds of our revenues are coming from basically fish, protein, and vegetables. As simple as that. At the same time, and I hate this acronym of non-HFSS, which is not high in fat, salt, and sugar. Well, something like close to 90% of our food belongs to that category. The only difference is probably pizza and ice cream, and that's it. The rest is really healthy, very, very healthy food, and I think in these times, I think it's becoming increasingly important, so a lot of potential tailwinds for us in the category, as category leader, so let me then quickly go to the new master brand advertising campaign, which is something which we're doing right now. It's on air in the UK. What it does is basically, it's very versatile. It's something that we can use in many other countries with many different categories. We're advertising, we're emphasizing different product, depending on obviously the country. But the idea is obviously how to maximize our media money, so that we can go faster, but also at a decent price. What's the recipe for a good life? It's here, in this omega-3 filled wonder of the sea, in these vitamin-rich miracles, and in this protein-packed perfection. Every day, this goodness feeds your greatness. More champions rise, more mountains climbed, and more of the impossible made possible. Birds Eye, that's a recipe for a life well fed. In the other countries, you're changing the Birds Eye by Findus or by Iglo. You're changing some of the products by spinach or something, and it's there. It's available right now in the UK. It's going to be on. It's going to be in the tubes, by the way. It's going to be digital. There are many different ways to use this, and we think it's a very efficient way to obviously use our media money. Next one is innovation. I talked a lot about renovation. Renovation is part of what we're doing right now. Basically, it's around 10% of the portfolio is renovated each year. So very much in line with how can we make sure that we're going to have superiority vis-à-vis private label mostly. Sometimes brands, but first and foremost, let's face it, you know, in private label is the, let's say, the competition. It's competition. So that's one thing, so innovation, renovation. But on top of that, you know, innovation is really starting to ramp up. We're starting in 2023 with 4.2%, even lower in 2022, quite frankly, and then moving to 2024 to something like 5%. We're going to be close to 6% this year and even further. I think on top of the numbers, what's important as well is, we also have a huge part of that is coming from what we call lift and launch. In other words, when we have a great category like UK in chicken, where we know that we can develop, you know, this chicken in other countries like Italy or Germany. And that's obviously a recipe for lower failure, because innovation always comes with a certain proportion of failure. And, by doing this, you know, we know that we have a proven success in our country. By adapting, obviously, the recipe here and there, we know that we're going to increase, you know, the success rate. That's exactly what we do. It's probably less spectacular, but at the same time, I think it's much more effective. Doesn't mean that we cannot come up with some really new innovation very much in line with what the consumers, especially the young generation, is expecting. This new product in terms of ready meals, chicken-based, 30 grams, 35 grams of proteins, the right ingredients, much better than any competition. We're launching it right now in the UK. It's a new category for us. We're reasonably small in ready meals in the UK, but we're quite big in countries like Netherlands or Belgium, and that's going to be part of the mainstream battles. More to come, but it's really something that we’re really proud of. It's starting basically in September, and then we’ll obviously keep you informed of what, where we are. The next one is something which is already existing in the UK. It's Chicken Shop. Basically, it's some sort of fakeaway of basically takeaways, you know, and what's existing in the chicken category. We're already very big in the UK. It's something like EUR 200 million of sales, so it's one of the big categories. But that is making a big difference, you know, in terms of subcategories in the UK. As I said, it's replicating what USA is doing, but obviously at a fraction of the price, which obviously is something that we've really appreciated, and as I said, you know, chicken, we started from the UK, and then we saw some countries like Italy, which is now our number two country with great margin, by the way. We could. We have seen that frozen chicken was very small, and quite frankly, it's quite sleepy. We've taken, you know, this category by, I would say, very quickly, and in two years, we've been able to move something like 7% of market share, even with less, but we doubled the market share. We're really taking the market, the, let's say, the category, which is really what our role is as category leader and brand builders. We're doing this. We're using, obviously, the products coming from the U.K. We're adapting them, and then obviously, we're creating the category, which is what the trade likes, obviously, because it comes with higher margin. We're doing the same in Germany, slightly different because the category is there, but it's very much in the hands of private label. Then we're coming with something which is obviously, in terms of quality, is definitely superior. So a lot of things are happening in chicken. Definitely, we believe that chicken is, I will say, the protein, but basically is a protein of the future, and we're well positioned to get it. Then, you know, something we haven't talked a lot, you know, in the past, which is food service. Food service for us is around 8% of our business. It's doing well. It's mostly in countries like the Nordics, a bit lower, obviously, also in the Adriatic, Serbia, Croatia. We have a great route to market, and a bit of Spain and Portugal as well. And we have developed over time, you know, great relationships, especially in Norway, with McDonald's. We've come up with a product which is basically Plant Protein Nuggets. And believe me, I've been through a lot of tasting sessions in terms of plant protein. I think plant protein, you know, the issue over a lot of time was basically the product is not as good as the "real stuff," quote, unquote. This one is great. This one is really great. I'm trying not to be biased, but I don't think I am. I think it's a great product. Starting now in the Nordics, we'll see obviously how it's working with McDonald's. And we also believe that if it's successful with McDonald's in these countries, it will spread to other countries. At some stage, we may use it obviously for own as a retail brand, further and further again. That's the kind of things we're doing. We also believe that food service should grow faster in the future. We have some great plans in some countries, like in Southern Europe and in Adriatic, as we said, where we have a fantastic, you know, route to market that is unparalleled and something that is unique and that we, I think we should leverage further. A lot of things are happening at this stage, despite, you know, obviously, this difficult year. But definitely, you know, it's something that we are building for the future, for 2026 and beyond, so that basically this year is going to be a year of learning and then learning to get stronger. But with that, you know, I will give the word to Ruben, that obviously is going to go into more details behind, you know, what we mentioned this morning, and obviously, more numbers to come. More numbers. Thank you, Stéfan. Let me go into a bit of the market share numbers. As Stéfan said, we've been leaning into investing behind our brands, growth platforms, rolling those out across Europe, and the strategy so far is working. If you take a step back, this company took pricing ahead of the market in 2022, 2023, and that led to pressure on our market shares. And you see the impact of that and the aftermath of that also in 2024, especially in the first half of 2024. But that pricing did enable us to maintain our gross margin and to allow us to do those investments. And you see the recovery of both value and volume share in H2 2024, and after the decrease in quarter one 2025, you see that we, in quarter two, have stabilized value share and are growing volume share. That is growing volume share in a category which is growing. Our category has been growing, if you look at the last ten years, in a positive way. It grew last year. It grew up until P4, so the first four months of the year, and then we saw a decline of the growth numbers in the category, and decline in P5, in P6, and in P7. We think that it's transitory, that's linked to the unusual hot weather and dry weather we've seen, especially in Northwestern Europe. You see some of the evidence of that back in, you know, P8, you see the category back in growth. Also want to be clear that that P8 number is only for a selected number of regions, because we don't have all the market data yet, so that's mainly our Northwestern European business, where we see the category recovering. If we look at our ice cream business, for which we don't have market data yet, we do see that in July and August, our own numbers, our own sellout has been slow. And a big part of that is also due to the unrest we've seen on the streets in Serbia, with lower sellout in out-of-home. So that gives you a bit of context of where we are today. We're also reiterating the guidance which we shared with our last earnings. Let's now pivot a little bit more towards the future and forward-looking. Today, we have announced our new set of medium-term targets, and they're centered around two elements. The first element is around our EBITDA, where in the next three years, we're targeted to have 1%-3% EBITDA CAGR over that whole period. Now, that number can vary year over year. For example, next year we're going to have our bonus rebuilt, so that could be then on the low end of the range or even slightly below the range, but over the full period, we'll have 1% to 3% CAGR of EBITDA, and clearly, every year we will target to have positive EBITDA accretion. Now, the second target, and it links to that, combination of EBITDA growth will go in combination with better quality of earnings, us focusing very much on exceptional items, bringing those exceptional items down, and that also in combination with continued strong working capital and CapEx, will lead to 15% more free cash flow in the next three years compared to 2023 to 2025. Now, how are we going to do that? Today, we announced that we will step up our productivity program with around 25%, so a EUR 200 million program for the next three years, mainly in supply chain, but also in overheads, and I'll come to speak about that. We're going to use those savings to reinvest in our brands, in product quality, in renovation, in innovation, in communication, but also in shop, in shop floor activities. And by that, we should be able to have competitive positions in our healthy category and have growth. Now, if we go a bit more into those supply chain savings. So as I said, we're accelerating those. Over the last three years, we've done EUR 145-EUR 150 million. In the next three years, we're going to do EUR 180 million, and you see the buildup and the big increases in procurement. And on the next slide, you see the breakdown of the procurement drivers. So we're going to double our procurement savings, and you see the biggest increase there is strategic purchasing. So we clearly already had a centralized procurement organization, but in the next three years, we're going to work further on supplier reduction, supplier rationalization, and having more leverage there. And you also see that in the past, we had four drivers. Now, our total savings project, program is much more broad-based, so we're also looking at savings, for example, in the customs area. Second bit is a continuation of the logistics savings. We have been putting savings forward in logistics already, and we will continue to do that. One of the elements will be the reduction of the numbers of depots, which we were going to have 22%, which, by the way, will also help from a cash perspective. The third last pillar in supply chain is our factories, conversion cost. So on the right, you see the utilization. Our utilization, on average, is 66%. Some factories are at almost 90, some factories are at 25%, and we're going to do three things. Firstly, if you look on the left, at this moment, there's around 20 to 22% of our volume done by co-packers. Some of that co-pack volume we're going to bring in-house in our own factories, and that will give us leverage and cost per unit benefits. The second bit is mainly for the big factories. We're going to do cost optimization to make sure we have the right capacity and cost level for the right volume, and on the right side of the graph of the table, you will see that we will look at network studies, and you've seen, for example, in quarter two, that we announced the closure of a smaller factory in the Nordic region, so that's the supply chain piece. Next to that, we will also look at overheads, on the left, you see our overhead evolution, so our overhead, up until 2024, has gone up 8% every year, but if you take out M&A, it has gone up 5% every year. Now, clearly, there was inflation. Clearly, we have been investing in capabilities like revenue growth management, and cyber. But in 2025, you see that's the year where we're actually bringing the absolute amount down, thanks to EUR 20 million of savings, and those savings are actually centered around two things. One is the simplification of the organization, and secondly, is a rigid approach on all the discretionary spend and having a zero-based budgeting approach, and we will continue to drive that also in the next three years. So on the low end, we expect to have around EUR 20 million of savings, on the high end, EUR 35 million savings, and you see it's more front-loaded as well. Now, all those savings, we're going to reinvest, as said, behind product quality, renovation, innovation, but also behind our brands and our communication. You see that our A&P has gone up in the recent years. We're now around 4% of net sales, but also on the A&P level, we're going to look for efficiency. In quarter two this year, we started with indirect procurement to look at all the non-working spend in media and to see how we can become more efficient there. Stéfan has shared the master brand campaign, which will give us leverage, which will allow us to roll out growth platforms and leverage our brand. We're also going to work to make our spend work harder in terms of a centralized media buying with one central partner, and we continue to work on marketing mix modeling. Now, this focus on ROI, this focus of, on efficiency is not only from a P&L perspective, it's also from a cash perspective and a quality of earnings perspective. So on the left side, you see the exceptional items we've been booking in the last three years, which has been around 70 million EUR on average every year. Going forward, we will halve that by around 35 million EUR, and a big driver of that is a rigid approach and governance on our exceptional items, and clearly a big driver there is by lowering the spend on our ERP transformation, where we've said before we will go slower, smaller, and simpler, focusing on process and data first, and then systems to follow. And we think that this is a big driver to lower the exceptional items here. If you were to sum it all up, we will drive 15% more free cash flow in the next three years. One of the drivers is the one to 3% CAGR over the next three years, driven by the step up in productivity program, which we will reinvest in our brands and our products, and therefore leveraging the healthy category we're in. We will continue to have a disciplined approach around CapEx and working capital by benchmarking, forecast optimization, and I just spoke about halving our exceptional items, having ROI focus, and a slower and smaller transformation program. With that, I would like to thank you for your attention and hand it over to questions. Perfect. All right. You both are so far away. All right. Yeah. Move over. You can sit here, right? Yeah. You want to move over? Great, perfect. All right. Good. We got a couple of minutes for some questions here. Maybe start off, less than two years ago, you established long-term targets, calling for three to 4% revenue growth, five to 7% EBITDA growth, and seven to 9% EPS growth. You're now walking away from the revenue and EPS growth and meaningfully lowering your EBITDA growth targets. I guess, what's changed to cause this? It's a great question. I think what we've seen is, we were a bit too tight, definitely during a very volatile environment. You know, I think since twenty twenty-two, I think the market has differed, and you have heard that from many different food and beverage companies. So I think the cornerstone of our guidance is centered around two things. One is we're coming with a bigger savings program, and at the same time, lower EBITDA guidance. You may say it's paradoxical, and we don't think so. We just think that it's creating the space for us to be able, when needed, to reinvest more in the business. I think we've been through a lot of price increases. We're still in a very volatile environment in terms of COGS, and at the same time, we think, you know, we see some here and there, we might need also some more advertising intervention and all these things. And that's between these two elements, you know, with more savings, lower EBITDA guidance, we think, you know, we're going to do the right thing. We're going to make the right decisions for the business in the long term. And that, obviously, at the same time, as we said, in a great category. So what we think is going to help also our top line at some stage, and even if we don't meet the guidance, to go back to all points, I think we're doing the right things for, obviously, the long-term top line development of this company. At the same time, we're also coming with free cash flow, an increase, I mean, quite a substantial increase in terms of free cash flow, which should help also the investors to understand what we're doing. But the cornerstone is really how can we create the space in a very volatile environment, in a very healthy category, so that we, we're doing the right, we're taking the right decisions for the business, whether it's sometimes not to take the whole price, sometimes it's more advertising, or sometimes it's only going back to the P&L. Great. Should we view your prior three to 4% long-term organic sales growth target as no longer achievable? No, it doesn't, it doesn't mean that. You know, I think it just means that at this stage, we think, you know, it's. Well, first, we're not being very pleased with missing our targets. And so I think what we want to do is also to create, obviously, the right level, so the right expectation, so that people are less anxious from that standpoint. But at the same time, we know that it's volatile. Sometimes it might go up faster, sometimes it might be a bit lower, and that's why we want to create, you know, obviously, let's say, the space to get to the right business model. Objective in the long term is, well, not long term, but let's mid-term, is to make sure that for each and every category in each and every country, we have the right, let's say, model in terms of value, so superiority and also price level vis-à-vis private label. And so the combination of these two elements, also with the right investment in terms of A&P, is what we want to go for. And I think with that, you know, we will have a, I wouldn't say never the perfect business, because perfection doesn't exist, but it's definitely something that's, it's going to be the right decision for the long term. 200 million EUR of cost savings equates to about 35 to 40% of your EBITDA. You're targeting only one to 3% EBITDA growth over the next three years. I guess the question is: Are these savings real? And if so, where are they going? Yeah. No, it's a fair question. Let's be clear, we said in the presentation, that in the past, we've already been delivering savings. So the 200 million EUR is not an incremental number on top. We have been having around 160 million EUR of savings. So if you look at that over the next three years, it's a cumulative increase of 40 million EUR, which is a bit less than 15 million EUR per annum. So that's one thing. We also have to be clear that our competition is not doing anything either, right? So they will also drive a savings program. So for us, it's very clear. We have today announced a target on EBITDA and cash, but this is about being competitive, and this is about reinvesting those savings back into product quality to make sure we have the best fish fingers in terms of crustiness, in terms of communication, that we have the best products out there in terms of renovation and innovation. So it will go back into investment in our business. You reaffirmed your 2025 guidance, but can you maybe shed some light on how you expect the phasing between the third quarter and the fourth quarter to sort of shape out? Yes. So look, we have a couple of pros and cons in quarter three. We know we're lapping the disruption we had last year with the ERP transformation, especially, clearly, in the UKI. So that's helpful, but what we also said very clearly after our quarter two, and you saw also today, that P7, in terms of our savory business, our frozen food business, especially in Northwestern Europe, has been disappointing. Now, I think it would be too easy to say it's all weather, but weather had a big impact, and we're humble enough to see, okay, how can we react on that going forward to how we play better into the weather? But that has impacted our sales, specifically on a bigger frozen food business in P7. And then what I said is bit of a, you can call it perfect storm, but we have had a July and August, which were disappointing so far for our ice cream business in adriatic for several reasons. There's a bit of unrest on the streets in Serbia, so people don't go out. So that won't help. No, we're not going to give a guidance on quarter three. We think in quarter four we have a strong plan, and overall, we're still in line with the- To your point, we are reaffirming the guidance. I guess on that, on that basis, what gives you the confidence and sort of the visibility that you've maybe finally called the full year guidance low enough, given the pattern more recently of sort of missing and guiding lower over the past year? So look, if you look at this guidance, and also taking into account a bit of these pros and cons with the ERP transformation, it's kind of between a plus 1.5 in H2 versus a minus 3, minus two and a half. The category year to date is, despite all the weather and all the disruption, a 2% category. Our sellout year to date is around plus 0.5%. So if you look actually what we're doing underlying, despite all these issues, the guidance is broad enough to make sure we will deliver that. Company spoke about taking some price actions to cover recent cost inflation. As the brand leader typically means Nomad leads on price. We saw a couple of years ago the type of market disruption that, you know, in the markets, ultimately, that caused some share losses. I guess, how do you ensure it's that you're able to take price this time around while minimizing the impact on elasticity and share? You know, in the vein of being conservative, I guess, would you expect to see the market share losses for some period of time as the pricing gets implemented and Private Label and others typically sort of lag a bit in catching up? Let me start with, because I was there, but basically in 2022. We were literally facing, you know, a new world of inflation. And I think we had to take the decisions right away on what do we want to protect. And we decided, you know, we want to protect, obviously, the gross profit and the growth margin, so we would be in a position to reinvest. And we took, you know, basically, you know, we took some sort of wholesale approach. We didn't have the time to elaborate too much, and we didn't have yet at that time, the muscles, the revenue growth management muscle, to be able to be more granular. So that's what we did. We were successful in doing this, but at some stage, as I said, you know, I think with some of the categories probably might have been maxed out. In the meantime, we have developed, you know, this revenue growth management tool, which allows us, category by category, country by country, to know, okay, fine, here we can price, or here we can do this, or here, basically, we will need something like a renovation plus price, or maybe here, basically, I don't think it would be smart to come with additional price or maybe half of the price, and that would be expected, and that's why, again, I'm coming back, circling back to the guidance. That's exactly what we're doing right now, which is to give us the space between, let's say, savings and less demanding, let's say, with the margin, to give us, you know, the capability by country, by category, to make the right business decisions. If we can't price everything in some categories or some countries, so be it, but that will be the right business decision. Maybe lastly, on capital allocation, Nomad's delivered really strong free cash flow over the years and has been pretty smart about how you allocate that capital. How do you think about that going forward, given the visibility to the free cash flow generation that you've talked about today? Look, we have been, if you look at H1, doing quite a bit of buybacks around $110 million. We did also $30 million in July, and then on top of that, we have the dividend. Look, we're not committing to ourselves to a certain capital allocation, but let's also be clear that with the current valuation, you know, that is probably something we will continue to look at. Okay, good. All right, I think that's a great time to cut it off. Please join us over in the breakout session. Thank you, Stéfan and Ruben, for being here.