Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. Warm welcome to this, voluntary pre-close investor conference call. It is in the inaugural conference call from the Libstar team as a pre-close update. Very encouraging to see over 40 individuals who have registered for this call. A warm welcome. This afternoon, what we will be doing is taking you through the pre-close update that was issued this morning. I will be using the two colleagues next to me to take us through certain sections as well. I'm joined by Cornél Lodewyks, the Managing Executive of the Perishables category, as well as Terri Ladbrooke, the Group CFO. For you that have joined online, thank you for doing so. You will not be able to ask a verbal question during the time that we will be speaking, but we will leave time at the end for you to raise your hand and then to be acknowledged in order to ask a verbal question. In the meantime, if you do want to submit a written question, you're welcome to do so on the screen in front of you. The period covered by this pre-close trading update is the year to date ended 24th of May. The reason for that is that Libstar operates in a four week, four week, five week pattern. The May month ending in a four week pattern, with the June month then being a five week pattern. As mentioned in the introductory comments to the update, we've mentioned that Libstar continues to execute on its five key value-driving initiatives that were included in the integrated report, as well as our market communications previously, in order to improve our cost competitiveness, earnings quality and return on invested capital. Just a reminder in terms of those key value-driving initiatives, firstly, to simplify the operating model and also the portfolio composition. To optimize our accountability structures to align to our new strategic direction. To grow our categories and channels through dedicated initiatives. To reduce our costs and also our operational efficiencies. Lastly, to ensure that we are able to identify, acquire, and integrate attractive categories from 2025 and beyond. We've mentioned in the introductory comments that the group is on track to finalize the simplification of its operating structures within the newly established Perishables and Ambient categories, which are the two super categories that we spoke to the market on at the start of 2024. I'll just ask Cornél to give us a short overview of the process undertaken in the Perishable Products Category, where that operating model is due to be implemented from the start of the second half of this year. Thank you, Charl. Important to note is that the business units that was included in this strategic process were Lancewood, Finlar Fine Foods, and Millennium Foods. The strategy process started towards the end of January. It took us five months to complete. The starting point was building a narrative around our current reality or call it fact base. That fact base included historical financial numbers, our investments to date, and then also category data, EBIT, net working capital days, RONA, et cetera. We also looked at the detailed macro and micro and sector analysis. This perishable strategy was fully aligned to the group's priorities, and then around the three themes of growth, simplification and sustainability. After the completion of the strategy, the purpose of the mission, the priorities, we started building our operating model. The changes in operating model, it's moving away from a, call it, business unit focus to a category-based focus. The three subcategories that we will report on in the future will be dairy, which is obviously the Lancewood business, value-added meats, and convenience meals. Each subcategory will have a senior category executive, supported by a senior functional executive team, with clear roles, responsibilities and accountabilities. Lastly, key elements of our new operating model. It's consumer and shopping inspired, it's brand driven, it will be category-led, channel focused, and there will be functional centers of excellence. That speaks around the functional execs that will be accountable across the entire perishables category. Leveraging the scale of some of the bigger businesses like Lancewood, and there we will use or implement shared business service or SBS, like it's shared business services. Standardized best-in-class core business processes across the entire category. The implementation date where we will start executing will be the first of July, and it will take us six months from the first of July till the end of the year to, say, fully execute on the strategy. The starting point for us with the new operating model will be the first of July this year. Thank you. Just to mention a few elements applicable to the ambient product super category. In that category, we have integrated the businesses of Khoisan Gourmet with that of Cape Herb & Spice, with the Cape Foods division remaining separate for now, but also benefiting from some shared services within the dry condiments category, which is a subcategory of the ambient products category, super category. Within the wet condiments subcategory, we've started to focus on the burning platforms or the underperforming divisions, focusing mainly on the retailer brands division, which has shown initial improvement in service levels as well as profitability with the team currently investigating broader integration opportunities across the wet condiments businesses of Montagu Foods, Dickon Hall Foods, and Cecil Vinegar Works. Moving on, in terms of the update, we mentioned that our category growth initiatives that were launched in 2023 have started to yield benefits as we saw a strong performance from the dairy and wet condiment subcategories, relative to the prior period. We mentioned the fact that consumer demand remains constrained, that reference being particularly applicable to the retail channel, but also within the QSR market that we serve, on which I'll elaborate a bit later. Consumer demand remaining constrained in those two subchannels, but with the export channel outperforming in the first half, benefiting from the consolidation of our sales and marketing structures in 2023. Just to elaborate on that, we've seen a stronger demand or a resurgence in demand from our existing as well as new customers in the U.K., U.S., and Middle Eastern regions, where we've also benefited from conversion of leads that were generated in attending trade shows and various engagements during the 2023 year, particularly on the export front. Terri, maybe you can just take this one on the capital allocation. Sure. Thanks, Charl. We continue to focus our capital allocation towards the lower end of our internal band of between 2% and 3% of revenue, and we are continuing to sustain our working capital movements, our working capital is expected to remain on the higher end of our revised targets. We have noted that we expect our gearing to reduce below 1.5 by the end of 2024, and we are on track with that. The H1, we are expecting to show a reduction from H1 last year, although we do note that our cash generation is focused on the second half of the year. We do expect the H1 gearing to be higher than our year-end target. Thanks. Moving on to the detail around the trading update. We've reported that revenue has increased by 4.6 percentage points, where revenue growth was predominantly driven by price and mix changes of 6.3% against the volume decline of 1.7%. One of the questions we normally get asked is your ability to drive pricing adjustments. I can comment that our pricing adjustments were passed in accordance with our preset plans in terms of timing. In terms of ranges, we've looked at implementing between 4% and 6% in general, broadly in line with the lower inflation numbers that have started to be reported throughout the market. Maybe you can just go on to the perishable products category. Okay. If we talk around the Lancewood dairy category, again, a strong performance out of the Lancewood unit. Charl mentioned certain headwinds, I suppose the most significant, obviously subdued consumer or consumer spending. Lancewood trading volume decreased by 1.18% in the period. That was more around our non-core categories. Value growth close to 10% of the business. Charl mentioned the fact successful implementation of price increases and margin management, a big focus basically for the entire business, and that's through price realization, but also efficiencies. What we see, those early investments that we made in the Lancewood division is bearing fruits, and we can see a reduction or improvement in our conversion costs in the first part of 2024. I can maybe give an update on the Millennium Foods business as well. Value growth of 10%, volume growth of 5.5%, still benefiting off the trend on frozen meals. That subcategory within convenience meals performing well, 18% volume growth year-over-year. Our business, unfortunate that effectively we lost the beef part of the beef volumes within the McDonald's business. Year to date decrease now 34% compared to the prior year, and that's the beef volumes. Although it's unfortunate that we've lost the beef volumes and we still see the beef or the subcategory within convenience or value-added meats, we do see a positive trend towards or mix change towards chicken, which is obviously a focus of growth, where we see growth and there's also margin accretive. We do see a growth both in QSR food services and retail channels. Great, thanks. Moving on to the ambient product category, where we reported revenue growth of 5.3%. I've already mentioned the piece on a resurgence in interest from our foreign base of customers for particularly dry condiments, but also encouraging to report a recovery of demand for wet condiments out of the Dickon Hall Foods business, which predominantly services contract manufacturing customers. We also then move on to report that gross profit margins, you will recall, in our post-period update, after the release of our year-end results, we mentioned that in that eight-week period, the margin improvements had been sustained into the new year. I'm very happy to also report that the growth margins have continued to be sustained above those of the first half of 2023. This largely due to, as Cornél mentioned, price realization, on time pricing adjustments, cost management, where obviously, we have had the benefit of a reduced load shedding relative to the prior year, which has been a welcome benefit in this period. Also maintaining our general and administrative costs below the CPI published rate for multiple years in a row now. The improvement in product basket mix, Cornél mentioned beef versus chicken, improving our mix towards higher margin products, and then a relentless focus on production efficiencies, which also forms part of our key value-driving initiatives. Looking forward then, the group is well-positioned to, although having yielded initial results from these key value-driving initiatives, to benefit in the second half of the year from the HPC divestment strategy as well as the perishables category integration that Cornél mentioned. On the HPC front, we continue to make progress. You will recall that we mentioned that the HPC division, given the difference in product portfolio of Chet and Contactim, does lend itself to two potential separate buyers. There is a sharing of resources, so that complicates matters slightly, but we are making progress towards the conclusion of those transactions by the end of 2024. I haven't specifically mentioned Denny, but just to spend a minute or two. Denny has achieved a better operational performance, although not to the expectation of the broader portfolio. As such, we continue to investigate strategic options for that business going forward into the second half of the year. Within the ambient product category, we continue to develop export opportunities with a strong pipeline of orders to be filled in the coming months. We still continue to experience delays in shipping and delays of, or unavailability of shipping containers, as well as an increase in cost of containers from the East. However, that is mitigated by a stronger than expected pipeline. We continue to focus on improving our customer service levels as well as targeted projects that are designed to improve our operational performance and margins on a sustainable basis. Before I open the floor to some questions, we mentioned something that you might not traditionally see in a trading update. That's a reference to our One Libstar culture program that was launched successfully in the start of the year. This is a process on which we embarked, to ensure alignment around the strategy as well as the key value-driving initiatives throughout the business. We've spent most of May and June on the road, sharing the strategy, sharing the new value structure with the businesses, and also ensuring that they are aware and completely aligned to our 2027 ambition. Thanks for listening. We appreciate it, and we'll open the floor to questions, to the extent that we are able to answer them on this call. Can we have a question from Nick Wilson? Yes. Sorry, can you hear me? Yes. Hi. Sorry. Thanks so much, Charl. I've got two questions. The first one relates to McDonald's. I'm sorry, you broke up on the call at that moment. I just wanted to double-check. Basically, did you lose the McDonald's contract? Is that what actually happened? You were supplying them with Sorry, I didn't hear. Nick, I'll answer that. We lost half of our beef volumes in McDonald's to a competitor. That process started towards the end of last year. We're now currently at 34%. 34% down in volume on beef within McDonald's. If you analyze that, 50%. 50% of the beef volumes lost to a competitor. Okay. Then the second- The reason for that, Nick, is that the customer, being part of a multinational group, has a policy of diversifying supply when a business gets to a certain stage. Okay. That was during the period under review that this happened? It started towards the end of last year, as Cornél mentioned. Okay. My second question's about Denny. Okay. Obviously, you talked about divesting from the HPC business itself, and then you're making progress in that regard. When you said you're exploring options for Denny Mushrooms, are you looking to offload that as well and possibly sell? At this point in time, we are looking at all options to unlock value. Okay. Would that mean that you haven't ruled that out? We are looking at all options to unlock value. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Nick. If. Thank you. I see that Sean Chalke is trying to raise his hand. Call care, if you could please unmute Sean. Yeah. Thanks. Can you hear me now? Yes. Yes. Thank you. Cool. Yeah, I've got about two questions. Obviously, there are lessons learned from the experience with the type of business you guys do in terms of supply contracts, et cetera. If you look at your business, there's a risk going forward, that even on the industrial side, particularly with Tiger as Mrs. Ball's, you might start to lose some volumes. You've experienced those lessons with the beef volumes in McDonald's. I'm very curious as to how you're planning or thinking about mitigating that risk. That would be the first question. Then the second question, I just want to get a sense where on track on new structure, in terms of heads. If I look at perishables, you were aiming at about nine to 11, ambient at about 11-13. I'm assuming that excludes your corporate cost. if you are on track on that and what the corporate cost line item is looking like as well. Thanks. Thanks, Sean. To answer your first question, maybe you can Or should I do the second one as well? I think so. To answer your question on contract manufacturing, you mentioned the fact that it poses a risk. That hasn't always been a risk that associates with the industrial and contract manufacturing channel. I would like to argue that it's also an opportunity. On the risk front, we'd like to believe that in consolidating, particularly our wet condiments divisions, that we are able to diversify our product basket, potentially look at ways to potentially integrate our manufacturing capabilities in order to mitigate against any potential risks. We do consider ourselves to be one of the lowest cost manufacturers in the wet condiments category, which does leave some level of protection for the likes of a customer looking to produce in-house. That remains, I would say, more of a medium-term risk than a short-term risk, although you are quite right. What's quite interesting to note, though, is that if you look at the non-traditional QSR, so a food service channel excluding QSR, there's a very healthy balance between your traditional restaurant trade and industrial customers. We actually believe that industrial customers do pose an opportunity, although we obviously understand that that will absorb some capacity that could be otherwise utilized. It's not necessarily a first port of call. Certainly believe that in consolidating the wet condiments divisions, we are more resilient should one of our customers decide in the medium term to manufacture in-house. Okay. If I can take a stab at your second question. Looking at our target ranges, we're not going to provide forward-looking guidance on those ranges. Looking at year-to-date performance on the ambient side, they are tracking within the range. On the perishable side, they are slightly behind in their range. If we look at our corporate costs, they're currently still maintained in line with how we've been tracking in the last few years, other than just inflationary increases. Still very well contained on the corporate cost side. Thank you, Sean. Thank you. We've got a question from Anthony Clark, or a couple of questions from Anthony Clark. Hi, Cornél. Can you clarify your Lancewood growth? Line went off for a second. Can you break down what products did well in which channels, and how is the milk situation currently? Good evening, Anthony. If you look at the latest SAMPRO data, when the mass of on-premise milk in South Africa, that's nationally, is 2.67% up versus last year. Lancewood's milk position is also similar to our volumes last year. Our milk is sufficient to support our growth initiatives for 2024. Your question around categories and channels. I mentioned the fact that Lancewood's volumes is down 1.8% and those decline in volumes came from non-core categories. Top line growth just below 10%, but we saw value or we experienced volume growth out of the wholesale and export channels. Wholesale grew 5% in volume and export 11.1% in volume. Market shares in natural cheese are basically flat similar to our levels last year. We gained market share on soft cheese, and we do see positive trend within the soft cheese and cottage cheese subcategories. That's because toward the trends, high protein and what demand. Our yogurt is still performing well at double-digit growth versus the previous year. Another question from Anthony. You commented that the QSR channel was constrained. Can you elaborate on this? I'm aware from my work with the poultry stocks there has been weak pull-through. I think I'll answer that question, thanks, Anthony. By referring to some market data, don't quote me on this, but the 12 months year-on-year growth in out-of-home consumption, according to the data that we've seen, was about 14.4% last year. If you look at the trend since the start of the year, particularly on the QSR front, that has been significantly lower year-on-year. Whether that is a base effect or whether that is the impact of something else, I cannot really try to comment on. Where we do see out-of-home consumption growing is in the likes of the upper-end restaurant trade, as well as the hospitality side of the equation. Whether that's a function of increased tourism, that might be the case. Within the QSR market specifically, our data tells us that we've seen weaker growth, in fact, a slight decline out of the QSR market. Next question is from Dirk van Vlaanderen. How has Ambassador Foods and Amaro Foods performed? Thanks, Dirk. On the Ambassador Foods side, we've recently relaunched a range of confectionery that was out of market for quite some time. That will hopefully spur some growth. We're doing a lot of category work on that front. In terms of the overall performance of Ambassador Foods, it's been relatively stable year-on-year. No significant decline nor significant growth, which I guess is largely reflective of a relatively mature market where we're trying to introduce some newness into the coming months. On the Amaro Foods side, as I mentioned in the QSR comment, on the QSR side, we've seen very slow uptake in the wraps. That is a function of QSR, but we've seen a very healthy performance out of the retail side of that business. Cornél, maybe any updates on Saudi beef exports just in general? We're working actively towards expanding our presence in the UAE and the Saudi region by engaging with our client base. We've quoted customers. Unfortunately, this process will take a bit longer. There's NPD initiatives. I would say the constraints at this stage is more shelf life, and we're working with our customers to extend shelf life because that's normally the one barrier. We will also now, part of our new financial strategy is we will allocate dedicated resources to support our initiatives in those regions. Thank you. We've got a question from Semil Siraj. Can you indicate which division is benefiting from the export volume? Is this a recovery in CHS? Would this be new or existing customers driving these volumes? Semil, yes, indeed. It's not only Cape Herb & Spice, it's also Cape Foods, the division, as well as Khoisan. As an aggregate subcategory, we have seen, as I use the word resurgence in demand. It is both in new and existing customers. We have, as an example, a new listing in Tesco U.K., where we've had repeat orders, but also in our existing customer base where we've launched. Last year, we won an award for our chili flakes under the Cape Herb & Spice brand. We've launched both that in a private label and branded offering in an existing customer. We are seeing a broad improvement in demand, be it in the existing customer base as well as in new customers. I referred to the conversion of leads out of trade shows that we attended last year. There's a retail customer in the Philippines that attended a trade show last year, and we received the first order for a container last week whilst we were on the roadshow. That shows that these things do take some time to convert, but we are seeing some positive momentum on that front. Great. Another question from Tumi. "Hi, team. Given the strong H2 profit performance last year, how should we think about the momentum carrying through into this H1 period to June? What is cash generation like year to date given the target to debt levels by year-end? Should we see lower interest costs this year?" You want to take the first part, I'll take the second. Tumi, yes, indeed. If you recall, we had a very strong second half of the year. That makes it more difficult by implication to outperform. We are still aiming, or our ambition is still to outperform the second half of last year, predominantly, as you would expect, in the fourth quarter of the year, which will be the critical one for us. That's why we are quite hesitant on this call, sitting here in middle of June, to make a prediction around how the end of the year is going to turn out. In terms of trajectory, you are quite right. We are up against a stronger H2 of last year. On the cash generation front. Year to date, we have seen very strong cash generation in comparison to last year. On the interest front, we were hoping to see maybe more significant interest or reduction in interest, with an earlier interest rate reduction. Having not seen that, just in line with your question, we are expecting to see slightly lower than last year interest to year-end. Are there any further questions? Just give it a couple minutes. Okay. It doesn't look like. Sean. Call cam, can you unmute Sean? If we leave Sean to keep asking questions, we're going to be here until tomorrow. Okay. One last question from my side. Go for it, Sean. Charl, when you look at the portfolio, I just want to get a sense of Obviously, this is a lot of smaller businesses, in terms of consolidation. Some it works on consolidation, on distribution, some maybe on manufacturing. Is there opportunity to still dispose more? Because there's a lot of businesses within your portfolio. What makes the most sense? If you had to keep two or three businesses that are margin accretive, yeah, and not to try and consolidate eight different businesses, how would you think about that? Sean, I'll answer you slightly cryptically, because I think, well, I know I'm not in a position now to say too much. There are some of the smaller divisions to which you refer, where we'll be taking some decisive action, by the time that we see you on the tenth of September. That will speak to the fact that we will not necessarily continue to participate in smaller, let's call it fringe categories that aren't value accretive. Our first port of call is obviously to try to dispose. If that doesn't yield the necessary result, we would need to make some bolder decisions. I think we've reached that point in one or two instances. We'll share that with you when we are able to do so. All right. No. Thanks. I appreciate it. Um and with that- I'm not going to keep you any longer. This concludes the first official pre-close conference call. Thank you, everyone, for joining. We appreciate it, and we look forward to engaging you from the 10th of September when we release our results. Thanks for joining.