Barry Callebaut AG (0QO7) Q2 2025 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Barry Callebaut's half-year results presentation for 2024-2025. I'm Sophie Lang, Head of Investor Relations, and our session today will be hosted by our CEO, Peter Feld, and our CFO, Peter Van Ester. After the presentation, we'll have a Q&A session for investors and analysts. And as normal, please limit yourself to no more than two questions. Before we start, please take note of the disclaimer on slide two, and I'd also like to remind you that today's session is being recorded. With that, I will hand you over to our CEO, Peter Feld. Thank you very much, Sophie, and good morning and good day from my side. Thank you for joining our half-year results presentation today. As you are fully aware, we are today in an ever-seeing environment, also in our chocolate industry. On one side, we have the pleasure to create the little happy moments for millions of consumers and to operate in a category that will prevail to be a growth opportunity globally. It is also very good to see that we have started our next level investment program already 18 months ago and we're strongly progressing, delivering on our set course. However, we must recognize today that we are sailing through what one could call a perfect storm right now. The key thing that I want to leave with you is we are here to play to win. We're in an unprecedented bean price volatility environment as we have experienced in the last 12 months, which especially in the last course have significantly impacted customer behavior and hence our financial performance in the short term. We're enhancing our operating and financing model in the new market reality to deleverage and to drive higher returns. This will take some time to be fully implemented in the market. Given offsetting costs from...