Glanbia plc ($GL9)

Good morning, and welcome to the Glanbia Q1 2026 Interim Management Statement Call. During today's call, the directors may make forward-looking statements. These statements have been made by the directors in good faith based on the information available to them up to the time of their approval of the interim management statement. Due to the inherent uncertainties, including both economic and business risk factors underlying such forward-looking information, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Directors undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made on today's call, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. I'm now handing the call over to Hugh McGuire, CEO, Glanbia plc.

Thank you, Liam. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Glanbia quarter 1 2026 interim management statement call and presentation. On today's call, I will provide an overview of our performance for the first 3 months of the year, and I'm joined by my colleague, Mark Garvey, who will cover the financials and outlook. At the end of the presentation, we will be happy to take your questions. Overall, year-to-date performance for the group was ahead of our expectations. Like-for-like group revenue increased by 7.2% with volume growth across all 3 segments. In Performance Nutrition, like-for-like revenue increased by 11.5% year-to-date. We continue to see strong consumer demand with accelerating consumption in the protein powder category, and Optimum Nutrition is growing ahead of category. In Health & Nutrition, we saw strong demand in priority end-use markets with volume growth of 12.5% year-to-date. And in Dairy Nutrition, we saw strong volume and pricing growth across Protein Solutions, somewhat of an offset in pricing from lower cheese markets. We're making good progress on our group-wide transformation program to simplify our business and drive efficiencies across our new operating model. We are seeing significant benefits from our new supply chain initiatives as we consolidate key functions across the group, and also drive operational efficiency as we continue to expand our capabilities in automation. We are on track to deliver approximately 40% of savings by the end of this year. We're also focused on shareholder returns by leveraging our strong cash flow. And in the year-to-date to 27th of April, we repurchased and canceled approximately 1.3 million Glanbia shares at a cost of EUR 22.2 million, which represents an average purchase price of EUR 17.14. We continue to see strong demand for our Better Nutrition brands and ingredients despite global uncertainty with ongoing geopolitical and macroeconomic volatility. Whey costs remain elevated within our Performance Nutrition segment, and we have been taking decisive action over the last 18 months to mitigate this impact as much as possible. This includes a range of levers such as revenue growth management initiatives across pricing and promotional effectiveness, marketing spend effectiveness, management of SG&A costs, reformulation and new supply via our joint venture operations. As a result of the strong performance year-to-date, notwithstanding the current geopolitical uncertainties, we now expect to be at the upper end of our adjusted EPS medium-term guidance range of 7% to 11% growth. This will be driven by strong top line performance in Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition, and an uplift in expected earnings from Dairy Nutrition. Performance Nutrition delivered a better-than-expected performance during the period with like-for-like revenue increasing by 11.5%, driven by a 9.2% increase in volume and a 2.3% increase in pricing. The volume growth was primarily driven by growth in Optimum Nutrition. Pricing growth was driven by price increases implemented in international markets in quarter 2 2025 and in U.S. markets last November, somewhat offset by promotional activity and tactical price reductions on products in the energy category. We implemented double-digit price increases globally from the beginning of April to offset continued whey inflation, and we'll look to implement further pricing through a combination of shelf price increases and price pack architecture later this year. While it is too early to assess elasticity impacts at this stage, we will continue to monitor consumer reaction carefully. But we are confident in the continued growth of our brands within an accelerating category. From a regional perspective, Performance Nutrition Americas, which represents 57% of revenue, increased like-for-like revenue by 4% versus the prior year with growth in Optimum Nutrition and Isopure, somewhat offset by declines in other portfolio brands. Performance Nutrition International, which represents 43% of revenue, delivered like-for-like revenue growth of 23.4% in the quarter with an acceleration in measured consumption across priority regions and continued momentum in both protein powders and creatine. Optimum Nutrition, which represents 78% of Performance Nutrition revenue, delivered like-for-like revenue growth of 18.8% with the primary drivers being strong category growth, lapping of a weaker comparative, new distribution and innovation. U.S. consumption increased by 13.3% with strong double-digit growth in the U.S. food, drug and mass channel, growing ahead of the category and continued strong growth in the online channel. Our household penetration and distribution both continue to grow double-digit. We're also seeing an acceleration in measured consumption in international markets with strong double-digit growth. Isopure also saw a double-digit increase in household penetration, [ TVP ] and [ ABC ]. We have a world-leading portfolio of high-quality products within the Optimum Nutrition and Isopure brands, and we continue to focus on innovation and education. We've launched a number of products this quarter such as ON Creatine Gummies, ON [indiscernible] ready-to-drink and Isopure Protein Stick Packs. We rolled out our new campaign this quarter, the Optimum Advantage, where the concept involves elite athletes revealing one thing they never want to share, the marginal gains that give them their edge. The launch features McLaren Formula 1 Star Lando Norris, Rugby International Dan Sheehan from Ireland and Marcus Smith from England and U.S. women's basketball star Cameron Brink. Optimum Nutrition was also announced as the official protein and creatine partner of the Mexico National Football team, supporting the team's athletes with Optimum Nutrition products and reinforcing our position around performance, recovery and training excellence. Turning to our Health & Nutrition segment, which comprises the premix solutions and flavors platforms and focuses on priority high-growth end-use markets, such as Active Nutrition, Functional Beverages and Vitamin, Minerals and Supplements. This segment delivered strong performance year-to-date, delivering like-for-like revenue growth of 11.6%. This was driven by a 12.5% increase in volume and a 0.9% decrease in price. Total revenue increased by 14.8% as a result of 3.2% increase from the acquisitions of Sweetmix and Scicore. We are very pleased with this strong volume performance in the quarter, which was driven by good growth across our end-use markets, supported by strong underlying category momentum in protein and broader health and wellness trends. A key driver of growth has been customer-led innovation and we're working closely with our customers to support the innovation pipelines with the collaboration translating into incremental growth. Regionally, we saw strong growth, particularly in EMEA and Asia Pacific. Pricing was slightly negative as a result of certain pass-through pricing of customers. The integration of our recent acquisitions of Sweetmix and Scicore are on track. We also continue to invest in new capabilities, and we're substantially expanding our spray drying capability and application center in the U.S., which will enable us to capture a larger opportunity in powder flavor applications. We've also commenced work to more than double our Asian nutrition and premium capacity and are also expanding our capacity in Europe. Dairy Nutrition combines our U.S. cheese and dairy proteins portfolios and is largely one integrated manufacturing footprint with a high supply and operational interdependency, and is also the route to market for our joint venture supply of whey and cheese ingredients. This business provides a scale leadership position in dairy as a leading producer of whey protein isolates and American-style cheddar cheese in the U.S. We continue to see strong demand for our high-quality whey and non-whey protein solutions, driven by global trends in active nutrition and everyday wellness. Our expertise in protein chemistry and our unique assets, combined with our ability to deliver consistent functionality and nutritional density, positions us as a partner of choice for customers seeking premium science-led protein solutions. Year-to-date, like-for-like revenue increased by 2%, driven by a 6.4% increase in volume, somewhat offset by a 4.4% decrease in price. The volume increase was seen across cheese and protein solutions with strong whey protein demand, particularly targeting the high-protein healthy snacking category, and we continue to see good demand for colostrum targeting gut health and immunity. Pricing in whey protein solutions increased double-digits, but this was offset by declines in cheese markets, which represents approximately 2/3 of the revenue within dairy nutrition. And with that, I will hand over to Mark.

Thanks, Hugh, and good morning to everyone on the call. The group has a strong balance sheet. And at the end of the first quarter, net debt was $648 million. We have committed facilities of approximately $1.4 billion with an average maturity of 2.5 years. The acquisition of Scicore in India closed in January for total consideration of approximately $16 million. Capital expenditure, both strategic and business sustaining initiatives for the year, is expected to be between $100 million and $110 million, with investments primarily related to capacity expansions within our Health & Nutrition segment as well as business integrations and IT investments to drive further efficiencies in operations. We are investing behind the strong growth potential of H&N with significant capacity expansion programs underway in the U.S., Europe and China. These programs are underpinned by strong customer demand and are expected to deliver attractive returns. As announced in February, the Board has authorized EUR 100 million to be allocated to the group share buyback program this year. And at that time, the first EUR 50 million tranche was launched. Year-to-date to the 27th of April '26, we have repurchased approximately 1.3 million ordinary shares at an average purchase price of EUR 17.14 a share, totaling EUR 22.2 million. We continue to progress the first EUR 50 million buyback tranche and expect to complete the second EUR 50 million tranche later this year. At today's Annual General Meeting, we expect shareholders to approve the 2025 final dividend of EUR 0.2567, which will be paid on May 1st to shareholders who are on the register on March 20th. In total, for fiscal '25, the group will have distributed approximately EUR 106 million of dividends, representing a payout ratio of 35.9% of 2025 adjusted EPS. Our target dividend payout ratio range is 30% to 40%. Now let me turn to our fiscal 2026 outlook. We are ambitious for growth, and we have outlined our medium-term growth algorithm at our Capital Markets Day in November '25. Over the medium term, we remain confident in growing Performance Nutrition like-for-like revenue in the range of 5% to 7%. We are particularly pleased with the strong Optimum Nutrition volume performance in the first quarter, driven by category growth, distribution gains, lapping of a weaker comparison in the club channel and planned innovation. Earlier this month, double-digit price increases were implemented on our protein products, which account for approximately 70% of the PN portfolio in response to rising input costs, and which follows high single-digit price increases late last year. Although we have not seen significant elasticity in the first quarter, we are closely monitoring the impact of these price increases on volumes in the coming months, and we are being prudent in our assumptions in this regard. In addition, we are monitoring the impact of the geopolitical uncertainty in our revenues in the Middle East region. Although this region accounts for a low single digit percentage of PN revenues, there is disruption currently which we are working to mitigate. As a result, we are maintaining a disciplined and prudent outlook for the remainder of the year and now expect 2026 like-for-like revenues for PN to be at the upper end of our medium-term guidance range of 5% to 7% and growth is expected to be pricing led. We continue to navigate elevated whey costs and we have now substantially procured our whey needs for the year, in line with our outlook. New global whey supply is starting to come on stream and we expect this to continue through 2026, albeit strong demand is continuing to take up the supply. We continue to expect EBITDA margin progression of approximately 50 basis points for the year as a result of price increases, the sale of noncore brands and transformation savings offsetting input cost inflation. Margin progression will be second half weighted, primarily as a result of the phasing of price increases and some timing of marketing investments. Health & Nutrition delivered a strong performance year-to-date across premix solutions and flavours platforms with double-digit volume growth as a result of demand in our priority end-use markets. There is some lumpiness in customer offtake, which will balance out in the second quarter, but overall performance is ahead of expectations. Following the strong performance of the first quarter, we now expect H&N like-for-like revenue growth to be at the upper end of our medium-term guidance range of 4% to 6% for the full year, which will be volume led. Health & Nutrition EBITDA margins are expected to be between 17% and 19% for the year. We are anticipating some increased ingredient costs in the second half of the year as a result of the current geopolitical volatility impacting supply chain costs, but we expect to manage this within our guided margin range. Dairy Nutrition delivered a strong performance year-to-date on the back of double-digit volume and price growth in Protein Solutions, somewhat offset by lower cheese pricing. We expect the Protein Solutions business to remain strong this year with continued demand for high-end whey proteins. And as a result, we now expect 2026 EBITDA in Dairy Nutrition to be above our medium-term guidance and in a range of $160 million to $170 million. Operating cash flow conversion is expected to be over 85% for the year. In summary, with strong growth evident across our 3 segments, we now expect to deliver adjusted earnings per share growth at the upper end of our medium-term guidance range of 7% to 11% constant currency. We remain appropriately prudent in our outlook, particularly as we implement significant pricing across our protein portfolio as we closely monitor geopolitical developments. And with that, I will turn it back to Hugh.

Our purpose is better nutrition and we're ambitious for growth, as we outlined at our Capital Markets Day last November. We're operating in exciting high-growth categories with leading brands and ingredients driven by consumer megatrends. We have transformed our business, sharpened our focus to capture growth in our primary engines of Performance Nutrition and Health & Nutrition. And finally, we believe we have the right people, the right capabilities and the right portfolio and balance sheet firepower to deliver on our growth algorithm and drive strong shareholder return. And with that, I would like to hand it over to the operator for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question today comes from the line of Alex Sloane from Barclays.

Congrats on the strong print. A couple of questions for me, please. On Performance Nutrition, you've obviously taken the incremental double-digit pricing in April on the protein side. I appreciate early days. But can you give us some color on where this pricing is sort of leaving you versus key competition on key brands, and what elasticity assumptions you're now embedding in the upgraded PN organic sales growth guide? So how we should think about volume and price phasing through the balance of the year? And then the second one, if you could give us a sense of how customer inventories were as you exited Q1 versus historical norms on the Performance Nutrition side? I guess the question really is, how confident are you that the Q1 Performance Nutrition volume delivery and strength wasn't flattered by prebuying ahead of those price increases?

Alex, thank you for your question. Maybe I'll start with the second one first. So in terms of customer inventory, no sign of any customer building, obviously -- customer inventory building, obviously, it's something we keep a close eye on as we move into price increase. So comfortable with inventory levels. And look, the question on pricing elasticity volumes and -- is obviously one that we're debating a lot and we just put through the double-digit price increase. We haven't seen any real impact on shelf yet. It's just started to move through. So it's very early. And demand in the categories remain very strong. So we're watching that, too. And the Optimum Nutrition brand, particularly continues to take share, so both in the U.S. and internationally. So we're taking a prudent outlook to the end of the year and we'll have a better view for you at half year results in August. But for now, demand remains strong, double-digit price. So we'll be probably half 2 -- volume led half 1, obviously, after a strong quarter 1, continued momentum into quarter 2, probably more pricing led in half 2, but it's something we'll be keeping a close eye on. In terms of competition, yes, look, I said at our full year results, given the demand for protein, given the pricing, everyone is taking pricing. So we're comfortable with that as well.

Your next question today comes from the line of David Roux from Morgan Stanley.

Well done on a very good update. The first question I have is just on Isopure and the portfolio brands in PN. Can you perhaps give us a bit more color on Isopure and your other portfolio brands? I mean we've backed up that the PN portfolio ex Optimum Nutrition was down around sort of 14% in the quarter. Any color on how Isopure is developing relative to this number and also the portfolio brands would be appreciated. And then maybe just some color around what's driving the softness in your smaller brands? And then the second one is on whey costs, Mark, at the last update, you mentioned your hedged whey cost position was up double-digit compared to last year and that you were procured through early fourth quarter. Any updates on this would be appreciated.

Look, if I speak to quarter 1, and it is only a quarter, clearly, Optimum Nutrition has broad-based growth across all channels and very happy with that. And also happy with Isopure growing double-digit in online and food, drug, mass channels, but we've seen lower velocities in the club channel, which is really around just tactical choices around SKUs that we had in that channel, so -- and we lapped that for a number of quarters this year. But overall, continue to see very positive trends on Isopure, both in terms of velocity in those channels, growth in distribution and growth in household penetration. I think the next biggest one would be Pink really. We've seen some downturn in Pink as expected, due to lost listing and mass retailers in quarter 4 last year, but we have a lot of innovation plans and new investments around the brand in back end of this year, which we're looking forward to. So in reality, it's focused on the 2 biggest growth brands for us, which is continue to drive Optimum Nutrition and Isopure.

And Dave, on your question on whey, we are procured now towards the late fourth quarter, so we're substantially done for the year. I would still say a double-digit increase based on where the costs were last year. I think I said in February that WPI prices have somewhat stabilized. They've stayed stable over the last number of months, and we've seen no significant increases in the last few months. [ AC ] has gone up somewhat, but we're managing that within our overall margin guide. So we feel pretty good in terms of our procurement for the year.

And Mark, can I just follow up? So is it fair to conclude that whey is kind of within the range that's underpinning your guidance from the beginning of the year?

Yes, it's up a little bit from where it was in February, but it's still manageable in terms of our overall revenue guide in terms of pricing and revenue growth management, et cetera. So yes, it's fine for the year.

Your next question today comes from the line of Patrick Higgins from Goodbody.

Maybe just coming back to whey costs, and I know you -- Hugh, you mentioned and you're likely to take incremental price increases later in this year. Like how should we think about that? Is that to enable delivery on margins for this year? Or is it more with an eye to 2027 and I guess, your assumption of whey costs staying that bit elevated? And my second question then is just around Health & Nutrition. Maybe you could try and help us unpack a little bit just in terms of the kind of key growth drivers between end market growth, your kind of increased share with customers? And then I guess, how much of the growth in Q1 was that lumpiness that you mentioned? And Mark, I guess what I'm trying to kind of back out is how sustainable the Q1 is? Or what's the right kind of sustainable underlying number to kind of pencil in for that H&N division for the full year?

Yes, I suppose in terms of whey cost and assumptions, it's probably a bit of both. Look, we'll be watching very carefully any potential elasticity post the most recent price increase. And we will be doing additional price increases later on in the year as part of the guide. But within that, with the level of price increase, what we do around price pack architecture, level of elasticity, that will all be worked out over the course of the summer. And so -- and we're seeing some good progress on new pack sizes as well, smaller pack sizes, which all helps. So it's a mix of pricing clearly, as well, given the growth in the category, we're looking at broader SG&A as well. So all of that is in place as we manage our way through a really strong demand cycle. And if I talk to Health & Nutrition, very pleased with quarter 1, very, very strong. Look, what I would say is it's a smaller business. You're always going to have a little bit of lumpiness on a quarter-to-quarter basis here. In saying that, as we outlined at the capital markets, we are very focused on 3 end-use markets. We're clearly seeing the benefits in Active Nutrition as we see across the entire group, very good customer collaboration. It would have been a lot of innovation work for quarter 1 as well. So a little bit of pipeline maybe in quarter 1. But clearly, our long-term guidance is 4% to 6%. We've increased that to the top end -- to the upper end of guidance now. And we're seeing good momentum, but we're only 1 quarter into the year.

Your next question today comes from the line of Matthew Abraham from Berenberg.

Just first one relates to Health & Nutrition. Just wondering if you can give us a little bit more color in reference to those ingredient cost increases that you mentioned in the back half of the year? And if you can just also provide some color on the mitigation strategies that you highlighted in response to that development? And then the second question is just in reference to the international price increases. Just wondering if you're drawing any parallels between demand resilience observed in the U.S. following those Q4 price actions and how you might see the international markets responding to the ongoing price investment you're making now?

Matthew, I'll take the question on the ingredients cost. Yes, look, we do get a lot of supply in our H&N business from Asia, and we are seeing some of our suppliers having some challenges right now in terms of manufacturing costs because of access to materials that are important, obviously, impacted by the geopolitical situation. And it's more of a back-end issue potentially for us. We're talking to our suppliers right now and we obviously have our procurement team working very hard on this as well, and we expect to be able to mitigate some of it. But it is potentially somewhat of a headwind in the H&N business towards the end of the year, but we are working to mitigate. Early to call exactly what it could be at this point, but I just want to flag it.

Matthew, just to talk about international. Firstly, to say, very happy with the performance. Clearly, this has been a key part of our strategy for many years now as we've invested behind our in-market teams, brands and then obviously, local supply chain as well, which allows us to be more reactive on the ground, and continue to see very strong category growth. Pricing is probably more dynamic in a lot of these international markets given tariffs, taxes, et cetera. So last year, when we had a broader price increase, we saw a little bit of elasticity, but that was only for about a quarter to 2 quarters and it wasn't significant. And as we look forward, we think demand is so strong at the moment that it's again, similar to the U.S., it's just hard to call what that elasticity may well be. All of the market will have to move given where prices are at the moment. So you may not have significant elasticity. But it wouldn't be anything that we would be more concerned about, let's say, versus the U.S. market. I think it's something we'll keep a careful watch on.

Your next question comes from the line of Nichola Tang from BNP Paribas.

First, on the Middle East, you mentioned in your prepared remarks, it's a relatively small region, but there are potentially some disruption that you're working through. I was wondering if you could give a little bit more detail on what's going on there? And then a question on kind of wider implications from the Middle East conflict. I guess you touched on a little bit with respect to inputs being sourced from Asia for the H&N business. But I was wondering if you could give some commentary on the potential impacts at a group level? For example, is there any -- could there be any change in terms of, I don't know, packaging costs, energy costs? Yes, and then the second one, maybe I'll ask about H&N and the ability or how the sort of pricing mechanism works in H&N? You talked about having potentially higher input costs in the second half of the year. How does the pricing work? And how quickly can you pass that through to your customers?

Nicola, just from the geopolitical situation, sort of a number of elements. Firstly, I would say, on energy, that's not an issue for us. We're covered pretty much for this year actually. So there's no significant cost issue for us, it's just energy across our various manufacturing footprints. From a revenue perspective, I did mention it in my remarks that we do sales in the Middle East as part of Performance Nutrition portfolio, they're low single digit percentage in terms of overall revenue. Significant, I would say, disruption in the first month, we're now beginning to get some product through. So it's beginning to alleviate somewhat, but it's a factor we're obviously managing and our team working hard to make sure we mitigate that. And then the area that I just talked to on the previous caller is just on ingredients costs. You mentioned packaging, that's something we'll be monitoring as well as we get towards the end of the year. I mean we're fairly well covered actually over the next number of months in terms of product or inventories that we have. So again, as I said, it's more of a back-end situation for us. And I think we'll continue to monitor how long this goes on and we're working very closely with our suppliers. Our procurement team are sort of over in Asia as needed at time to focus on this as well.

And maybe just to talk, Nicola, pricing in H&N, look, it's obviously something we keep under review, and it's primarily H2 factor mitigate -- we'll have to mitigate. It will be H2 likely. It's hard to call out if it is H2 going into 2027. So we really keep that under review. Pricing will be a mix of annual and quarterly depending across the business, depending on the end-use market. But at this point in time, we feel comfortable that we can mitigate any of that risk within our current outlook. And clearly, then it really depends on what we're seeing as we move into 2027. But we'll be taking that in price if we need to.

We will now take the next question, and the question comes from the line of Damian McNeela from Deutsche.

A few for me, please. So on Performance Nutrition, can you just talk about the -- where you are in terms of marketing spend and expectations for the balance of the year? I think you indicated that you anticipated to spend slightly more this year than last year. And also, any indications from the sort of impact that the new Optimum Advantage campaign is having perhaps on your sort of social media engagement statistics? And then a second one on Health & Nutrition. You've talked about the sort of increase in capacity. I was just wondering if you can give us an indication of the quantum of revenue that this capacity expansion might be adding to the business, and whether you're seeing other competitors add capacity at the same time?

Damian, maybe if I start with the second one first. Look, the revenue capacity is over a period of time, clearly it's a long-term build. We're doubling our capacity in Asia. We're increasing our capacity in Europe, and also in the U.S. So very pleased with that. It's a key part of our CapEx plan going forward. I wouldn't be able to translate that into revenue for you except that it will support our medium-term ambition in terms of top line growth. And I suppose it's a positive sign that we see the opportunity for growth that we're investing behind those facilities. The second point in terms of competition, I don't know, is the honest answer. I wouldn't have a specific view nor comment on competitors and whether they're increasing capacity or not. In terms of marketing spend, look, our target is always high single digits. We would have been mid-single digit last year, we have increased spend this year. Clearly, given the category growth is so strong at the moment, we're making sure that our spend is effective. And the growth rates that we're seeing at the moment, are -- we will be, I say, prudent in terms of marketing investment, as you can well expect. Very happy with the Advantage campaign and good engagement and you can see that, I suppose, in our quarter 1 performance as well.

I will now hand the call back to Hugh for closing remarks.

Very good. Thank you, Sharon. Just to say thank you very much for all your questions and interest in our business, and we look forward to catching up with you over the next few months. Thank you.