Coca-Cola Europacific Partners - H1 2022

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Hello, and thank you for standing by, and welcome to today's Coca-Cola Europacific Partners H1 2022 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. I must advise you that this conference call is being recorded today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy, Sarah Willett. Please go ahead, Sarah.

Sarah Willett (VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy)

Hello, and thank you all for joining us today. I'm here with Damian Gammell, our CEO, and Nik Jhangiani, our CFO. Before we begin with our opening remarks on our results for second quarter and half year 2022, a reminder of our cautionary statement. This call will contain forward-looking management comments and other statements reflecting our outlook. These comments should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary language contained in today's release, as well as the detailed cautionary statements found in reports filed with the U.K., U.S., Dutch, and Spanish authorities. A copy of this information is available on our website at www.cocacolaep.com. Prepared remarks will be made by Damian and Nik and accompanied by a slide deck. We will then turn the call over to your questions. Please note that unless otherwise stated, metrics presented today will be on a comparable and effect neutral basis throughout.

Any growth rate will also be presented on a pro forma basis. Following the call, a full transcript will be made available as soon as possible on our website. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Damian.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Thank you, Sarah, and good morning, good afternoon, and many thanks to everyone joining us today. In May, we celebrated our first year as Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, and I'm incredibly proud, as are the team. I'm pleased with the progress we've made to date. We've built a solid platform for long-term profitable growth, focused on delivering value for our shareholders and of course, our customers. We had a fantastic first half, achieving strong top and bottom line growth, value share gains, and an impressive level of free cash flow. This really gives us confidence for the rest of the year. I'm really pleased to be raising our 2022 revenue, profit, and free cash flow guidance today. We are very proud of our strong relationship and alignment with The Coca-Cola Company and our other brand partners such as Monster, and we are very confident in the future.

We've retained our sharp focus on revenue growth management and driving efficiencies throughout the business, while continuing to invest for long-term growth, particularly in our portfolio, our digital platforms, sustainability, and of course, in our people, to whom I wish to say a big, big thank you for everything you do for CCEP and our customers. Although we're mindful of the macroeconomic and the unprecedented inflationary environment, we do believe we are well-placed for the second half of 2022 and beyond. I would now like to talk a little bit to the categories in which we compete. They've remained robust, and I'm very pleased that we've continued to take share, grow household penetration, and importantly, drive more value for our customers.

We have great brands which our consumers love, and on the back of ongoing investment and innovation in brands, product and packaging, our brands continue to support a very solid RGM growth platform for our customers. This means that we can continue to achieve good pricing in the market, even in the most challenging of times, because that brand love, taste, and quality are always of paramount importance to our consumers. We continue to innovate, driving excitement and growth in the NARTD category that grew by around 5% in the first half across our markets. That growth was even higher in API at around 15%.

This is great for our customers too, and I'm immensely proud of the long-standing and supportive relationships we have with them, particularly over the last number of years with all of the challenges that COVID brought to our business and their businesses. It's great to see that once again, during the first half, we are the largest value creator in the retail channel within FMCG in Europe and across NARTD in API. In fact, in Europe, we delivered more than twice the value to our customers than our nearest peer. We have made structural changes to our business in recent years, which positions us more favorably in the event of a potential recessionary environment. As you know, approximately 40% of our volumes come from the more inelastic away-from-home channel, which is naturally more resilient in challenging times.

In the home channel, we have made bold strategic decisions in recent years, clearly targeting value over volume and improving the underlying profitability of the channel. We've step changed our recommended price pack architecture to continue to address different consumers and now confidently play across a spectrum of recommended price points and elasticities. We also continue to actively manage our headline pricing and optimize our promotions through smart, digitally-led revenue growth management. We do feel good about our categories, and although we're not seeing signs of a shift in consumption, we are well-placed as we moved into more uncertain times. This slide should be familiar. We have a simple but vital purpose to refresh Europe and API, and critically, to continue to make a difference to all our communities and our stakeholders.

We have a simple focus around great people, great service, and great beverages, all done sustainably for a much better shared future. Now I'd like to briefly touch on each of these areas as we look back at the first half of 2022. Firstly, and most importantly, to our great people. The well-being and safety of our colleagues remains our number one priority at CCEP. Our new Get Home to What You Love campaign has really brought the importance of safety to life across all of our businesses. We had a very strong participation in our first global digital engagement survey, with a stable engagement survey overall, a great result in what has been a challenging environment as we establish new ways of working post-COVID. This score continues to position CCEP ahead of our benchmark group.

In June, we saw some fantastic Pride celebrations across many of our sites as we further progress our Everyone is Welcome philosophy. Our D&I credentials continue to be recognized externally too, and we were recently included in Bloomberg's Gender-Equality Index for the second year in a row. We were recently awarded Gold at the U.K. Employee Experience Awards in recognition of the digital technologies we use across our workplace. As ever, great service remains a key priority and a critical driver of our performance. We've continued supporting our customers through the reopening of HoReCa and maintained levels of customer service in the 90s%. In Indonesia, we had a record Ramadan period with our biggest ever activation. A huge event in the calendar, representing about a third of our annual sparkling sales.

More focus on our core sparkling and tea categories allowed us to effectively manage our supply chain and deliver better service to our customers across what is a wonderful period for all of our consumers. Finally, I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate and wish the Netherlands good luck as they will represent Europe in the final of the annual Global Coca-Cola Bottler competition, the Candler Cup, which recognizes world-class customer service and execution. You may recall that we celebrated New Zealand winning the cup last year. We are also extremely privileged to make, move, and sell the best beverages in the world. Coca-Cola Zero Sugar has continued to outperform across all of our markets, growing volumes by 24% versus 2019. Fanta, new flavor launches such as Fanta Raspberry in Australia and the latest What the Fanta campaign continue to drive excitement for our consumers.

Celebrating its twentieth anniversary in our markets, Monster continued to gain share through great innovation and in-store execution. In GB, we are pleased to launch a new Costa Frappé range in three indulgent flavors, Smooth Coffee, Chocolate Fudge Brownie, and Caramel Swirl. This is being supported by a great summer sampling campaign across the country, so if you come across one, make sure you try it in GB. All of what we have just shared must continue to become more and more sustainable. This is a key focus for all of us at CCEP, our consumers, our customers, and our shareholders. We want to continue to be the leader in packageless solutions, and in some of our markets, we are piloting new compact Freestyle dispensing technology. This is designed for smaller on-the-go and at-work locations.

We continue our journey towards net zero emissions by 2040. We even introduced lighter weight necks for our sparkling drink bottles and will soon distribute 100% of our packaged beverages in returnable glass bottles to all of our HoReCa customers in France. To make it even easier for our consumers to recycle, similar to Germany, we've introduced new attached caps to all our plastic bottles across GB. Our progress continues to be recognized, and we're very proud to be included on the Financial Times and Statista list of Europe's Climate Leaders as one of 400 companies having achieved the greatest reduction in Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions between 2015 and 2020. All in all, continued great progress towards a better shared future. Now, turning to our first half performance highlights.

We continue to win with our customers, and this momentum is evidenced by our NARTD value share, which grew by around 30 basis points, both in-store and critically online. I am pleased that we delivered volume and revenue ahead of 2019 levels. The recovery of HoReCa and tourism, as well as a resilient home channel, led to strong volume growth of 13% in the first half. This was supported by great execution, and as I mentioned earlier, solid service levels across all our markets. Our continued focus on revenue growth management drove solid revenue per case growth, significantly ahead of pre-pandemic levels. In the digital space, our transformation journey continues, and we remain on track to deliver around 30% of our European away-from-home revenue through our B2B portal, MyCCEP.com.

Given the uncertain outlook and some of the macro headwinds that we are facing, it is more important than ever for us to continue focusing on driving efficiencies throughout the business, and as you see referenced here, and which Nik will cover in more detail shortly. Having recently celebrated our first anniversary as Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, I'd like to now share with you some of the key highlights. Last year, we described the Amatil transaction as the right deal at the right time. The more time I spend in the business, the more excited I get about the opportunities ahead. I firmly believe this was not just the right deal, but indeed a great deal. The API business had a great first half with revenue and profit ahead of 2019, and is moving ahead with its strategic priorities at pace.

We've already made good progress in reducing the depth of our promotional support in Australia with little impact on volumes. This is also great for our customers. We are sharing learnings and best practices in both directions in areas such as IT infrastructure and data analytics.

Our Chairman, I recently visited New Zealand and Indonesia, which sets the benchmark for world-class execution, and we look forward to bringing learnings back into Europe, too. I'm even more excited about the transformation opportunity in Indonesia, having spent time there recently with our full board of directors. The reorientation of our portfolio is well advanced. We now have substantially exited beer and cider in Australia as planned, and the majority of the proceeds have been received from the sale of our CCEP-owned NARTD brands, with a few brands in New Zealand and Fiji still outstanding. This is all in line with the long-term growth plans that we continue to develop with the Coca-Cola Company to better align our portfolio with more focus on the core. Clearly, the growth potential from API is significant, and I look forward to sharing more at our capital markets event later this year.

On that note, I would now like to hand over to Nik to talk in more details to the financials. Over to you, Nik.

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

Thank you, Damian, and thank you all for joining us today. Let me start by taking you through our financial summary. We delivered total revenue of EUR 8.3 billion, an increase of 17%. I will provide some more details on this very strong top-line delivery in a few moments. Our COGS per unit case increased by 5.5%. This was driven by higher commodity prices as well as concentrate costs, which have naturally increased in line with the growth in revenue per unit case via our incidence pricing model. Clearly, our mix, as you have seen, is much more favorable on the top line. This has had a COGS impact as well, partially offset by the benefits from recovery of our fixed manufacturing costs given higher volumes.

We delivered comparable operating profit of EUR 1.1 billion, up 29%, reflecting solid top-line growth, the benefit of our ongoing efficiency programs, and our continued efforts on managing discretionary spend. Our comparable effective tax rate increased to 24.5%, which I'll come back to later. All in all then, this resulted in comparable diluted earnings per share of EUR 1.61, up 32% on a pro forma comparable basis. Free cash flow generation continues to be a core priority, and we delivered on an impressive EUR 1.3 billion during the first half. This was due to the strong growth in operating profit as well as some CapEx saving with a few larger projects landing in the second half of the year.

As you know, working capital remains a core focus for us, and I'm pleased that we were able to deliver approximately EUR 400 million of benefits in the first half, with a notable improvement in our payables and inventory days in API as we rolled out our Rebond project into that region. That said, we do expect to see some reversal of these working capital benefits in half two, mainly driven by inventory. We believe it is prudent to build our safety stock levels on key raw materials to ensure continuity of supply and ensure on-shelf availability given the logistics and supply chain constraints that we will continue to face. Finally, on shareholder returns, we paid a first half dividend per share of EUR 0.56, which we declared in Q1 and paid in May.

As a reminder, this was calculated as 40% of the full year 2021 dividend, with the second half interim dividend to be paid with reference to the current year annualized total dividend payout ratio of approximately 50%. Now if I move to our revenue highlights. The strong growth in revenue was driven by both an increase in volume and importantly, continued growth in our revenue per case. As you have expected, the most significant improvement has been in the recovery of our away from home volumes, given last year's base was still impacted by lockdown restrictions. That said, we are pleased that our away from home volumes returned to 2019 levels in half one with traction in immediate consumption, a rebound in tourism in many of our markets, and of course, the start of great weather this summer across our markets.

Strong trading in the home channel continued, benefiting from increased at-home occasions as well as the continued growth in online grocery, with volumes up 7.5% versus 2019 in the first half. This meant that overall volumes grew 13% in the first half or by 4.5% versus 2019. Revenue per unit case grew by 4.5% in H1, up 6% versus 2019 levels. This reflects the strong growth in away from home, but also testament to our revenue growth management initiatives with positive headline price, pack, and brand mix. Now moving to OpEx and our efficiency programs.

As a reminder, our pre-announced efficiency savings and combination benefits equate to EUR 350 million to EUR 395 million in total, and we remain very much on track to deliver that. Some of the combination benefits have been realized at a faster pace than we had initially thought, and so we now expect to deliver approximately 85% of these savings by the end of this year. We remain committed to rebasing our cost base to below pre-pandemic levels, and you can see that here. As a percent of our revenue, our OpEx has continued to decline, not only compared to last year, but more importantly, compared to 2019. Going forward, we will continue to manage costs very tightly, but of course, we do anticipate an increase in our volume linked OpEx, as well as some inflationary pressures in areas like labor and haulage.

We continue to invest for the future. Naturally, our TME investment has increased in order to support our top line growth given the recovery. Let me now move on to updated guidance for full year 2022, which reflects the current market conditions. First to revenue. We now expect pro forma comparable growth of 11% to 13% versus the 8% to 10% previously guided. This reflects the stronger first half results that I just went through and our confidence in our revenue growth management initiatives for the rest of the year. The second half has started well, helped by the continued great weather as well as the continued recovery of the away from home business and tourism. We do remain very mindful of the most uncertain outlook for the consumer as we move into the post-summer period.

I do caveat that with points that we are not yet seeing any signs of a shift in consumer behavior and their buying patterns. From a modeling perspective, volume growth will be lower in the second half, reflecting a tougher comparison as the away from home channel began to recover last year. In terms of shape, we expect our full year revenue growth to be more weighted towards volume, as evidenced by our first half. Additional headline price increases and promo efficiencies are currently being discussed and in progress across all markets in the second half to help offset some of the unprecedented inflationary pressures we're seeing across the industry, particularly aluminum and gas and power and other key commodities, including conversion costs.

Some markets are more exposed to these trends, such as Great Britain, which over indexes to cans, which clearly had an impact on their costs for the second half of this year. These pressures, more broadly, will be much higher in the second half across all our markets. As always, we're very surgical in how we look at these increases across our various brands, packs, and channels that can remain relatively inelastic using strong RGM capabilities that we have developed over the years. We are not looking to fully pass on these cost increases to our customers to ensure that we continue to manage affordability and relevance to our shoppers and consumers, which is even more heightened in key markets like France and Germany, given higher exposure to the home channel, where we need to be conscious of that dynamic of relevance and affordability.

As always, we will continue to work with our customers to optimize our recommended price, range, and pack architecture so that we can expand our categories and importantly focus on joint value creation. Of course, we will continue to focus on our own efforts to manage our cost base as well to ensure continued profit and free cash flow growth going forward. Moving to COGS, clearly these comments are based on what we know today. We now expect COGS per unit case to increase by approximately 7.5%, weighted more towards the second half, as you can see in this chart.

This slight increase from our previous guidance of 7% mainly reflects various small moves driven by gas and power costs, as well as the slightly higher concentrate costs impacted from the additional headline price increases planned for the second half, as I just discussed. This is in line with our incidence pricing model, and as a reminder, concentrate accounts for approximately 50% of our total cost of sales, which is linked to revenue growth. We continue to anticipate commodity inflation in the high teens range, weighted more to half two, and we are now approximately 90% hedged for this year. In terms of the 2023 outlook, as you know, the commodities markets remain extremely volatile. While there has been recent respite in spot prices for certain raw materials such as aluminum, please do remember that conversion costs still account for approximately half of our total commodities exposure.

Here, we and our suppliers continue to feel the effects of higher energy prices, and we continue to work with them to manage this appropriately. We are now approximately 55% hedged on our commodity exposure for next year at a group level and closer to 60% within Europe. We will continue to look at the right trigger levels to lock in more of our exposures depending on market conditions. Taking all this into account, at this stage, our best estimate is for high single-digit commodity inflation in full year 2023. Of course, we're still seeing other inflationary pressures within COGS, such as labor, gas, and power, as well as concentrate in line with our incidence pricing model as we realize more price and mix in the markets going forward.

While it's too early to provide full guidance for 2023, all of these factors combined will result in further cost per unit case pressure next year, albeit not expected at the levels we have seen in 2022. Of course, we will continue to look at all levers to continue to support our profitability with the focus on value creation for all our stakeholders. As always, we will update you on more of that 2023 outlook in due course. Back to our remaining guidance. Taking into account our updated guidance for revenue as well as our latest view on cost per unit case. We're now expecting operating profit growth between 9% and 11%.

That said, we still expect overall operating profit for the full year 2022 to be ahead of 2019 levels, albeit at a lower margin, a great achievement in the context of such uncertainty and volatility in the market, and importantly, demonstrates us managing all levers on our P&L, particularly on our operating cost base, as I discussed earlier. We continue to expect a comparable effective tax rate for full year 2022 at 22% to 23%, implying a lower ETR in H2 versus H1. This is due to certain timing-related factors. For example, we will realize some benefits in H2 from the expiration of statute of limitations on some of our tax exposures. We will continue to reassess our uncertain tax positions as we move through the balance of the year.

Given our strong free cash flow performance in the first half, we are now raising our full year guidance for 2022 from at least EUR 1.5 billion to at least EUR 1.6 billion, well above our medium-term target of EUR 1.25 billion. This equates to a current free cash flow yield of 6.6%. Given this strong focus on driving cash and working capital improvements, we remain confident that we will return to our target leverage range of 2.5 to 3 times by full year 2024, while remaining fully committed to our strong investment grade ratings. Our balance sheet is strong and we will continue to monitor the markets to determine opportunities to further optimize our debt structure and maturities. That's it for me for now.

I'll turn back to Damian for a few more comments before we open up to Q&A. Damian.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Thank you, Nik. Finally, to recap on our key messages. We had a great first half with strong revenue growth, value share gains, and our away from home volumes back in line with 2019. This, alongside with our continued focus on driving efficiency, has enabled us to raise full year guidance today for revenue, profit and free cash flow. We are confident in our future alongside The Coca-Cola Company and our other brand partners while remaining mindful of the uncertain outlook. Finally, we look forward to welcoming you in our London offices for our capital markets event on the second and third of November. Here we will share more on our longer term growth ambitions as well as an update on our third quarter performance. Thank you very much. Now we would like to open for questions. Over to you, operator.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, we kindly request only one question per analyst. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone. Your first question comes from the line of Edward Mundy from Jefferies. Please ask your question.

Edward Mundy (Managing Director)

Afternoon, Damian. Afternoon, Nik. So look, I appreciate you're not seeing any shift in consumption patterns yet, but, you know, relative to, you know, prior periods of, you know, consumer weakness, can you talk to how the business is different, vis-a-vis the portfolio, the digital platforms and also the relationship, with customers? How does this help you navigate a potentially, you know, more tricky environment?

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Thanks, Ed. Yeah, I think we, you know, we're very conscious and as you'd expect, given the uncertainty, looking very closely at what's happening with our consumers, our shoppers and indeed some of our customers' strategies. I think a couple of pillars that we've built over a number of years I think give us the confidence that we can navigate it. I think, one, obviously we're seeing stronger revenues and volumes coming on from away from home. I mean, that was a headwind for us during COVID, but clearly it's bringing a much more balanced revenue stream and obviously a little bit more inelastic. That's good. I think within grocery, we've been very focused on generating value for our customers.

We've, you know, we've grown the category, we've grown margin, and I think that positions our brands as a key value driver for our customers. I think that's always a good place to be at any given time. Clearly, as you move into some maybe more challenging times, I think the margin structure and the value of our brands is a big asset, when we, when we look forward. Within that, if you go to any of our retail outlets in particular now, I think we've done a really good job having a much more balanced pack architecture. I mentioned in my prepared remarks, you know, really being conscious about having value across more balanced pack architecture.

I mentioned in my prepared remarks, you know, really being conscious about having value across all of the price points. Our OBPPC work, you know, really has balanced our pack offering now in retail. I think that allows us not just to manage promotions more effectively and efficiently, but does allow consumers to participate with our brands at varying degrees of price points. I think that's critically important. I suppose the final aspect is both ourselves, Monster and the Coca-Cola Company continue to invest in our category you know, well ahead of prior years. I think that's also important because as people make choices, you know, the brand equity and the brand love that we built is critically important. I think all of those give us confidence.

Having said that, you know, we've looked back at previous economic challenges. The category continues to perform very strongly, particularly cola. If there are some moves to private label, it tends to be in flavors, so we're aware of that, and we'll adapt accordingly. I think all of those tools will allow us to manage that. We haven't seen it yet, to your point, but clearly, you know, things can change quickly, so we're prepared.

Edward Mundy (Managing Director)

Thank you, Damian. Just as a quick follow-up, I mean, you mentioned some of the tailwinds you've got from an execution standpoint. If you were to really pinpoint what led to the acceleration of market share from 10 basis points to 30 basis points at H1, you know, what would you really put that on?

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Yeah, I mean, I think if you even look within sparkling, it's in most of our markets even a stronger performance, Ed. I think that's on the back of we continue to invest in, you know, 2021. We continue to focus on the long-term health of the category. We continue to partner well with our customers. And obviously we've a lot of good innovation. I mean, you know, Coke Zero, the new packaging has been phenomenal. There's great flavor innovation on Fanta. The Monster portfolio continues to innovate and expand. There's not really one reason. I think it's just, you know, really the output of a number of different initiatives over many years. It's not something that's just happened this year. We've had strong momentum on share.

Obviously, we were hurt in a way from home with COVID, but during that period, we reoriented our business to being a more retail-focused business, and we probably sharpened our focus on execution, and that's coming through now in some of the share gains. Obviously, we're very happy with that and, you know, we'll see that continue to year-end.

I think our customer service levels have also been very strong in terms of ensuring availability on shelf, which is great relative to a lot of our competition. I think that's also something that clearly helps and will help us going forward as well.

Edward Mundy (Managing Director)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will take our next question. Your question comes from the line of Simon Hales from Citi. Please ask your question.

Simon Hales (Managing Director)

Thank you. Hi, Damian, Nik, Sarah. Nik, probably one for you, but I mean, can you talk a little bit more about your sensitivity, perhaps both directly and indirectly, to potential further moves in the European sort of gas price? I know you've referenced you're doing some stock building, and that will have some work impacts on the second half as you perhaps do some scenario planning from a potential both gas supply and supply chain disruption standpoint. Can you help us with some sensitivity as to how material, you know, a further 10% or 50% move could be when we think about planning for HP margin into 2023?

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

Hey, Simon. Yeah, great question, and very tough to give you know, a clear position on that. I think if I look at half two and Q4 in particular, I think there are a couple of things that we're doing, and it's coming more from ensuring that we have alternatives in terms of what we can use. I think if you take a market like Germany, you know, we've ensured that we've got contingency plans in place, both from an availability of natural gas, also looking at fuel oil. All our plants actually will have dual fuel boilers being available or mobile boilers to allow us to have alternate sources of energy to be used for that.

I think as we look at 2023, that will also help us as we look at other sources of renewables across some of our plants and how we're expanding and building out our ranges there. Obviously, one of the challenges that we're working through is a little bit more with our suppliers to ensure that they have adequate contingencies and backup plans to be able to continue to supply us with critical ingredients and packages to ensure back to that point around ensuring that we have product available on shelf.

A lot of moving parts, but I think we're well-positioned, as you've seen from an angle of what we've been able to deliver so far and how we continue to work in what is probably the most volatile and fragile supply chain, but you know, well-protected to the best we can. I think it comes across again in our service levels relative to a lot of our competitors.

Simon Hales (Managing Director)

Got it. Maybe just to follow up on that. With regards to obviously the working capital move that you highlighted, you know, perhaps sort of reversing some of the H1 benefits that we've seen. It's clearly the, you know, the free cash flow you delivered in the first half was very impressive. The step-up in guidance for the full year is quite limited. Is it really all working capital that's sort of depressing the H2 cash flow delivery, or is there something else in the cash flow that we should be aware of?

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

No, I mean, honestly, that's actually quite a small element of it because it's really, you know, like I said, just limited to inventory and what we'd wanna do there. Part of it is definitely linked to CapEx savings, and I think as we were looking at our plans for this year, you know, some of the larger projects are landing in the second half, and that's one element. The second element is a slight impact from the working capital piece. You know, clearly, a very strong delivery. I will continue to say even the upgraded guidance, remember, is a very strong number in terms of full-year free cash flow relative to our midterm target of EUR 1.25 billion. We're very pleased with the progress we're making there.

Simon Hales (Managing Director)

Got it. Excellent. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will take our next question. The question comes from Bryan Spillane from Bank of America. Please ask your question.

Bryan Spillane (Managing Director)

Thanks, operator. Good morning, guys. Nik, just a question on, I guess, gross profit or gross margin, and, two, I guess two parts to it. One, in the first half, given how strong the volume was, the volume growth, is volume leverage a contributor to, you know, COGS efficiency, I guess, or bringing down that, COGS per unit case inflation on a net basis? I guess as we look into the second half, given it looks like we're still looking at, revenue growth, being more driven by volume, is that a factor again as we're kinda looking at, kind of the net COGS inflation to the back half of the year?

Really the question is just how much of a benefit are you or are you getting from volume leverage?

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

Clearly, a big benefit when you think about the fact that 15% of our COGS is the manufacturing piece, and that's largely fixed and largely labor related, right? There's an efficiency element in there. Clearly, as you get that volume returning, clearly that's a leverage tailwind for us from an angle of the COGS per unit case, and that is the case in the second half as well. I think obviously it's clearly not offsetting the challenges that you're seeing from a broader commodities inflation perspective. All in all, if you look at the first half, we're very pleased with what we were able to deliver given our hedging position. Clearly, that will accelerate in the second half when we think about that commodities pressure that we're looking at.

Yeah, that's the short answer, Bryan.

Bryan Spillane (Managing Director)

Okay. Yeah. Nik, just to follow up on that, just as we're thinking about modeling out next year, does that benefit kinda stay in the base? You know, again, we're not knowing entirely what volume growth would look like next year, but just trying to sort of understand whether or not that should stay in the base and we model off of that. Or should we be thinking about, you know, if there's potential that there's your volumes pull back next year that could be, you know, like a gross margin headwind.

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

No, you know, clearly, you know, one, without giving any 2023 guidance, we're expecting growth in volumes for 2023. That clearly stays in our base and should accelerate. Keep in mind, the headwind that you'll have there is you're looking at labor inflation as well, right? We need to continue focusing on efficiency gains to offset that labor inflation piece along with volume growth. It'll be both those factors that should continue to support in terms of efficiencies and volume growth.

Bryan Spillane (Managing Director)

Got it. All right, thanks, Nik.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will take our next question. Your question comes from the line of Charlie Higgs from Redburn. Please ask your question.

Charlie Higgs (Equity Analyst)

Hi, Damian, Nik, Sarah, hope you're well. I've got a question on Australia, where, you know, the, in the three to five years prior to the pandemic, it was quite a tough market in both the volume and the revenue per case growth standpoint of view. It looks like you've already managed to grow volumes and revenue per case at kind of mid-single digit range. Can you maybe just talk about some of the early things you've changed there? Damian, maybe what you saw when you're on your site visit that could be applicable back in Europe, and how much further is to go in terms of optimizing the portfolio down in Australia? Thank you.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Yeah. Yeah, very exciting market and I've been pleased to be down there and see it, you know, hands-on. I think to give credit to Peter and the Australian team, you know, coming into the acquisition, they'd already started to make some changes in the Australian market based on, as you call it, a number of years of stagnant or no growth. Clearly when we've looked at some of the initiatives we've taken in the last 12 months, the portfolio cleanup, I think, is a boost to volume growth. Ironically, because it allows us to focus on the categories that are growing and not to get distracted with ales and beer or cider. There's definitely a focus benefit. There's an alignment benefit coming through now with The Coca-Cola Company as we've executed a brand sale.

We're very clear now on how to win in flavors, a category that we've struggled with in. We've made some bold moves on the back of European learnings, and based on some work that Peter did in Australia around promotional price levels. Clearly that has allowed us to support our revenue growth. With The Coca-Cola Company, I think, you know, Coke Zero in Australia has really had a great year as well. A number of different drivers of growth. Also we're benefiting clearly with COVID restrictions easing and people going back out and eating and drinking and is a big part of the lifestyle down there outside. That, that's definitely helping. It's very sustainable volume growth and revenue growth, which I'm pleased with.

In terms of learnings, I think a couple of areas that I really liked about our Australian business is, you know, a very clear focus on cost or profit to serve. I think the team has done a lot of work.

On a channel level, looking at the cost to serve and how that impacts. That's something we're looking at for Europe. A lot of great work in data analytics. We enjoy a lot of store level data on the category, not just on our business. That's allowed Peter and the team be very segmented about not just what customers, but what stores within our customers really do we need to focus on. I think that's something that we've taken back, and Steve and on our GB team particularly have looked at that for the U.K.. Quite a wide range. Something we'll touch on when we're together in November.

I think it's gonna be a topic at the capital markets today that we'll be able to share a bit more about what best practices have gone both ways. I'm very confident that, you know, the commitment I made, that it's a great deal, not just because we're buying a great business, but it's a great deal because it'll make Europe stronger. I think I see that coming through more and more, and that's really exciting.

Charlie Higgs (Equity Analyst)

Thanks, Damian. That's very useful. Then just a quick follow-up for Nik. On the cost savings from the combination benefits coming in quicker, is the way to read that they're all gonna be realized in 2022 and therefore none in 2023?

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

No, no. I, all I've said is that there's an acceleration, and we now expect to have delivered about 85% of the total benefits that we had announced of the EUR 350 to EUR 395 by the end of 2022. There's clearly definitely more savings to come in 2023 and 2024, although I'd like to accelerate that to help us in 2023. That's the plan.

Charlie Higgs (Equity Analyst)

Perfect. Thank you very much.

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will take our next question. The question comes from Sanjeet Aujla from Credit Suisse. Please ask your question.

Sanjeet Aujla (Managing Director)

Hey, Damian, Nik. Just a question on pricing. Can you give us a sense of the magnitude of pricing you're putting through in H2, relative to what you did earlier this year? It sounded like you were striking a bit of a cautious tone on France and Germany in particular, perhaps pursuing a bit more of an affordability approach there. Just love you to elaborate a little bit on that. Is that anything to do with what you're seeing with the consumer today? Thanks.

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

No. I'll come back to the first question. On your second question, no, I was just talking more around the fact that, you know, clearly the cost pressures that we're seeing are across all our markets, and both France and Germany do have a larger home market relative to some of our other markets, and hence we just need to be mindful and watchful of that. Nothing other than that. I think, you know, obviously, the good news is, as we're looking at some of the markets in Northern Europe as well as Spain and Portugal, we've kind of already been able to land our pricing in July, and that is now in the market, so that's great news.

You know, the markets now ahead of us are really France, which is live as we speak and should be concluded during this month, and then you've got Germany and GB coming right on the back of that. I would say, you know, the price increase is gonna range across our markets depending on obviously the channel mix, the brand mix, and it'll vary, like I've said and Damian said, we're not really taking just a fixed price increase across channels and across all brands and packs. We're being very surgical in terms of how we're looking at it based on brand packs, in channel, and elasticities, and then back to the broader comment around also being mindful around continuing to be affordable and relevant to our consumers and shoppers.

I mean, the great news is I think we're an affordable product that you know obviously has strong brand equities, strong brand love, and ultimately taste and quality are of critical importance, right? We remain very excited about the category as a whole and the robustness of the category and what we've also seen you know during past downturns in terms of how the category continues to perform. That's where we are.

Sanjeet Aujla (Managing Director)

Great. Just a quick follow-up on Indonesia. Clearly there was some phasing between Q1 and Q2 in terms of the Ramadan timing, but can you just give us a sense of how much of the portfolio you're rationalizing and taking out? How impactful has that been?

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Yeah. I mean, it's made a bigger impact quicker than we kind of expected, to be honest. I think we clearly have aligned on two core categories, sparkling and tea. I think what we've seen in Ramadan and actually it's continued post-Ramadan is that has allowed you know our sales force and our supply chain and indeed our customers to align against you know two categories where we believe we've got brand strength. Simplifies our business quite a bit and frees up the supply chain to deal with that peak around Ramadan. Clearly, our long-term objective is that peak gets smaller because we build a bigger business outside of Ramadan, and that's the strategy we're now working on with the teams locally and with the Coke company. It's had an immediate impact.

It's been executed quicker than we expected. The team locally has done a great job. I think our customers understand it because for many years they saw us trying to compete in multiple categories with very limited success. They now start to see the growth in sparkling. Clearly, when you look at the sparkling category and the margin structure for them as well, it's more attractive. We'll continue to focus on that, but the bulk of the work has been executed and is already in market. Clearly, you know, as we understand that business better and the consumer better, it gives us the opportunity to invest, not across six categories, but in certainly one category, sparkling, and in the second one, tea. Yeah, it's been a big driver of our progress in Indonesia.

As I said, for myself and Nik, we were down there, you know, really great buy-in from the teams and our customers, and because of that, they executed it quicker than I thought we could. That was a nice surprise.

Operator (participant)

Great. Thank you. Thank you. We will take our next question. The question comes from Bonnie Herzog from Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question.

Bonnie Herzog (Managing Director)

All right. Thank you. Hi, everyone. I was hoping you could talk about, you know, any changes you're making to your price pack architecture to ensure, you know, greater affordability for consumers, you know, given all the pressures. Just, you know, curious to hear how quickly you can pivot your portfolio and, you know, maybe just how much lead time you need to switch things over. As we think about the second half, you know, how should we think about your mix changing? You know, any key callouts by region based on this? Thanks.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Hi, Bonnie. I mean, it really comes back to what I talked about. I think we've over a number of years built a much broader pack and indeed brand portfolio within retail, where if we start to see that pressure, it'll be more in retail, obviously. I think that gives us existing SKUs on shelf. You know, if you visit any of our retail outlets across CCEP, you'll see our brand pack architecture representing premiumization in terms of glass, multi-pack, all the way through to more value-conscious consumer offerings around, you know, large multi-pack, six by 1.5-liter PET or multi-pack cans. You know, what we have seen in COVID is our business pivoted much more towards retail, so we've seen a lot more momentum on multi-pack cans.

Clearly that is a pack that if we look through the consumer becoming more price sensitive, it is, you know, possible for us to change our promotional focus with our customers and pivot more towards some of those value packs. The good news for us is value packs now are at a lower level of discounting than you would have seen certainly four or five years ago in Europe. We've done the same now in Australia. We can continue to offer value and margin for our customers, and I think that's critical, and also for our shareholders. In terms of lead time, it's quite flexible once they're on shelf, so I think we're in a good position. It can differ from 4 to 12 weeks, depending on the customer you're talking to. We're quite, you know, flexible.

We don't see a significant shift. We're already coming into the second half of the year. Summer's been very strong. Once we get to Christmas, which will be the next big peak in our business, anyway, our portfolio tends to move towards larger pack sizes as people enjoy Christmas and celebrate at home. That's already in our mix plans anyway. It'll really be then into 2023, do we see a significant move from the consumer side towards more value, and do we change our pack emphasis going into 2023? That's something we can update you on later in the year.

Bonnie Herzog (Managing Director)

Okay. Appreciate that. Helpful. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will take our next question. The question comes from Fintan Ryan from J.P. Morgan. Please ask your question.

Fintan Ryan (Equity Research Analyst)

Good afternoon, Nik, Damian. Just one question for me, please. Sorry for slightly belaboring the point on pricing. With regards to the conversation that you're having with customers currently, do you still feel confident that you'll be able to take another round of pricing come the start of 2023? And presumably, you've sort of taken the low-hanging fruit in terms of promotions to cost. How should we think of the balance between absolute pricing, product mix, and promotional intensity as we look into 2023? And is there any sort of. Are you seeing any changes within the competitive environment of competitors maybe being more or less active or assertive on pricing in your big markets?

Also assume that given some of the pressures around Europe, and the energy costs, would it be a fair assumption that you'd start to be more aggressive when it comes to price realization within Europe versus some of the API markets as we look into next year?

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Hi, Fintan. You did well to fit in four questions into one. Let me make sure we try to answer them. You know, as I think we've called out before, I mean, our pricing strategy is multi-year. I mean, I think we've done a good job and we'll continue to do a good job managing pricing over multiple years. Clearly, when we look at the pricing that we've taken in 2022, and we're currently looking at what we will need to take in 2023 as well. We don't see any difference, you know, clearly based on some of the topics you outlined, continuing pressure on energy costs, labor inflations, Nik's talked about. You know, clearly we've managed our pricing strategy on a multi-year level.

As I said on previous calls, with a view to, you know, maintaining momentum with our customers and with our consumers. You know, I think we've been very mindful about what pricing we take and what pack and what channel. Nik mentioned that it's really driven by good data insights and understanding, you know, where we can pass on pricing and where we wanna maintain a value proposition to keep the category healthy and to make sure that we grow value for our customers. That will continue into 2023. No change. We're actually investing more in promo, if you look at our numbers. You know, clearly, you know, we've come back with a strong retail business. We've got a strong away from home business, so our promo is growing 'cause our volume is growing.

We, you know, we've redeployed our promo funds into smarter promotions, but we've continued to invest in promotional pricing because we believe, you know, it's good for the category, it's good for our customers, and it gives us a tool to manage some of that potential consumer headwind if it comes. We've been quite protective of that investment. We've tried to continue to spend it smarter, and you're seeing that in our net unit case revenue growth. Clearly that is a large, as Nik continues to remind our commercial people, it is a large amount of funding, which drives our business, but also gives us flexibility to look at in 2023, how do we wanna deploy that? That's something we'll continue to look at.

From a European and API perspective, obviously Indonesia is a little bit different, but you know, we would see similar strategies across New Zealand and Australia around our price promo. Not a big difference, which has also, I think, been somewhat encouraging since we did the deal. You know, a long answer, but clearly more pricing in 2023, continued investment behind the right packs and channels to make sure we continue to drive this very healthy category. We will continue to grow value for our customers. If we need to make bigger decisions on promo, we've now you know, we've got that value to play with, and we'll continue to make smarter decisions. Nik, I don't know if you wanna add anything else.

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

No, I think you've covered it. I'm good.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Great. Thanks so much for the multi question.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will take our next question. The question comes from the line of Lauren Lieberman from Barclays. Please ask your question.

Lauren Lieberman (Managing Director)

Hi. Thanks. Good morning or good afternoon. I just wanted to ask, again, another question on sort of revenue growth management, and this time focusing actually on away from home outlets. Struck by the many mentions of glass, any increases in glass in the release. I know some of that's gonna be related to just the reopening. I was curious if you could speak to how you've actually, to the degree you have, changed the package mix within away from home accounts. You know, the degree to which that's been a focus over the past two years, if you think there's sort of been a structural change in mix within those outlets. I think that'd be, you know, helpful and interesting to talk about as well. Thanks.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Thanks, Lauren. Yeah, I suppose if you go back to pre-COVID, if I can talk like that, so or maybe even back to the origin of CCEP, I mean, one of the growth drivers we identified in Europe was away from home pack mix. Within that, we've been offering a lot more options for our customers and our consumers around glass and premium can offerings in particular. You know, we've got great businesses, you know, like Spain, Belgium, and now New Zealand, where we really see and can demonstrate, you know, the power of having a really healthy pack mix and away from home. We set some goals across our European businesses to continue to kinda mirror that. We've made investments. If you go to Germany, you know, we're now offering four to five different glass pack sizes.

That investment's been over multi years. We've now just moved our whole portfolio in France into RGB. It's really been, you know, clear to our sales force what we believe is important in away-from-home, supporting that with cooler investments, DME, promotions, advertising, so you'll see a lot more glass being advertised now in Europe. Then making sure that the value structure for our customers is in place. Clearly, the margin structure on RGB based on the prices that they sell for is very, very healthy. There's a good profit story for the customer. Our biggest challenge has been continuing to keep up with demand, so is to get our supply chain and continue to invest in glass and in RGB to meet that demand. That will continue.

As I said, it's multi-year. We're also seeing with you know, HoReCa coming back post-COVID, you know, there is a slightly more premium offerings in the market now, which also plays into that glass and premium can proposition. Yeah, so it's gonna be part of our story for a number of years, Lauren. It's we've got a lot of growth potential. If you look at, you know, you've been to Spain, you look at our market there, and you look at some of our other markets, clearly we've got a way to go, which is great. I'd like to particularly call out GB. I think if you look at our market in GB, Stephen and the team have done a great job driving glass distribution in GB.

Next time you're in London, we'll hopefully show you a bit more of that as well.

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

November, coming up soon.

Lauren Lieberman (Managing Director)

Exactly. As soon as possible. All right. Thank you so much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will take our next question. The question comes from Robert Ottenstein from Evercore ISI. Please ask your question.

Robert Ottenstein (Senior Managing Director and Partner)

Great. Thank you very much, and congratulations on terrific results. I was wondering if you could please remind us about your packaging mix in Europe. Just specifically European question, you know, the mix between PET, glass, aluminum. And then I know you touched on it earlier, in terms of your discussion with your suppliers, but can you just kinda give us, you know, any more granularity in terms of your confidence in glass supply, in worst case scenarios with natural gas? Thank you.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Hi, Robert. I'll just take the second question. I mean, I just wanna, you know, call out the alignment with our suppliers based on the challenges has been fantastic. I mean, clearly, we're a big customer for them, but over a number of years, we've been working, you know, to try and build more strategic relationships, and they've done a great job keeping up with not just the challenges that you mentioned around energy pricing and availability, but also our volumes have been a bit stronger, you know, than we originally planned. That's worked well. I'll hand over to Nik just to kind of share with you a little bit around how that mix looks in Europe.

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

I think just building on Damian's point, I mean, the fact that we've been able to continue to support the growth that we're seeing across the various packs, and I'll particularly call out our can and our glass suppliers has been testament to, I think, the strength of our relationships with them. I think if we look forward, we continue to feel good around continuity of supply. From a mix perspective for Europe, about 55% of our business is in PET.

Just as a reminder, you know, we have over half of that in terms of recycled PET that we use, and a number of markets have transitioned to 100% rPET, at least for, you know, the on-the-go part of the business or a market like Sweden that's 100% rPET across all their packages. About 30% in cans, and that's where we've seen some strong growth. About, you know, 7% to 8% in glass and post-mix each. That's roughly the mix that you would see in Europe.

Robert Ottenstein (Senior Managing Director and Partner)

Terrific. Thank you.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

I think just on that, Robert, I mean, that's volume.

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

Yeah.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

If you wanna translate that into revenue, clearly those numbers will change dramatically with glass and cans in particular being a much higher share of our revenue, which is really what we look at internally. That's the volume mix. On the revenue side, it's even more balanced with glass and cans playing a bigger role, which I think back to a lot of the questions around price mix or how we're gonna deal with any potential consumer headwinds, it demonstrates a much healthier list of options for our sales force and our customers to work with than previously.

Robert Ottenstein (Senior Managing Director and Partner)

Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will take our next question. The question comes from Eric Wilmer from ABN AMRO and ODDO. Please ask your question.

Eric Wilmer (Executive Director Equity Research)

Hi, everyone. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the difficult situation at the European airports, especially in July, with the potential knock-on effect on August. How do you see consumers behave in this regard, perhaps by canceling or changing holiday plans? What would be the impact on your Iberian and French business in Q3, which I believe is very much on-trade geared during this quarter? Thank you.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

I think the biggest impact is people are getting to the airports earlier.

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

Consuming more of our products while they wait.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

I know we are. I mean, I think proportionately, what you're picking up is very, very small relative to the size of our business. If I just look at our Spanish business, our French business, which are probably more tourist-centric, we're not seeing any sign of a slowdown. In fact, trying to get hotel bookings or restaurant bookings across all of our big cities is quite challenging. Even in London, I commented, I was around some of the tourist areas last night in London, and they're completely packed. You know, we are picking up noise. You know, BA have canceled a few short-haul flights. We know there's been challenges at Schiphol. You know, maybe a percentage of people have canceled their holiday, but generally, then they stay at home.

We pick up a bit more volume maybe in Holland and or Netherlands and a bit less in Spain. Overall, it's on the edge, really, and quite marginal when we look at the volume of people who are moving. If we look at tourism numbers across all of our markets, extremely strong. Clearly a bit less than traditional from Asia, so that will probably be a benefit coming into next year as that reopens a bit more. Certainly we're not seeing any dramatic impact other than probably a few people moaning about security queues. I think that's gonna be life. As you said, definitely into Q3, it could probably run till the end of the year as airports continue to cope with what has been dramatic demand. Again, nothing material in our numbers at all.

Nik Jhangiani (CFO)

No, I think as we look out and, you know, our business units have good visibility at least 6 to 8 weeks out in terms of order flow, and no real impact that we're seeing. You know, we feel pretty good about the continued strength of the growth in the away from home, at least through the summer.

Eric Wilmer (Executive Director Equity Research)

Perfect. That's very helpful. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference back over to Damian Gammell for his closing remarks. Damian, please go ahead.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Great. Thank you. Again, thanks everybody for joining us. I'd just like to wrap up by once again just saying a big thank you to all of my colleagues at CCEP for delivering what has been, as you've heard today, a great first half. I'd also like to, you know, thank our customers for their partnership as we continue to grow this category and this business. As we touched on a little bit in the call, I do wanna call out a big thank you to our suppliers who've clearly stepped up to meet stronger demand in a more volatile environment and continue to keep our lines running. Again, a big thank you to our suppliers.

You know, as I wrap up the call, I'm extremely pleased and proud today to be able to raise our guidance for 2022 and to have shared with you the opportunity around our business, not just looking at the first half of 2022, but how we see the year progressing and the actions we're taking also to ensure another successful 2023. I do look forward to welcoming you, those of you who travel to join us in London for our Capital Markets Day in November.

Operator (participant)

This concludes our conference for today. Thank you.

Damian Gammell (CEO)

Everybody, a great summer, and look forward to seeing you in London. Thank you, everybody.

Operator (participant)

That concludes our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.