Associated British Foods H2 2026 Earnings Results & Report

Associated British Foods EPS Results

• Actual EPS: GBX 156
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Associated British Foods Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: £19.58 billion
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Associated British Foods (LON:ABF) is a diversified international food, ingredients and retail group with sales of £13.9bn, 128,000 employees and operations in 53 countries across Europe, Africa, the Americas, Asia and Australia. Our purpose is to provide safe, nutritious, affordable food, and clothing that is great value for money. With the breadth of our business, our brands and global reach, ABF aims to consistently deliver value to its stakeholders. Our business is split into five segments: Grocery; Sugar; Agriculture; Ingredients; and Retail. From a bakery founded in 1935, to grocery stores and a clothing brand, the evolution of ABF is one of considered expansion, growing popular brands and making acquisitions in adjacent businesses and markets for over 85 years.

Associated British Foods H2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Negative Sentiment: Group adjusted operating profit fell 14% and adjusted EPS declined 11%, with lower Primark profit the main driver; revenue was down 1% at constant currency. The dividend was held at £0.63 per share, and the company completed £250 million of buybacks.
• Neutral Sentiment: Primark sales grew 2% as new stores offset a 2.6% like-for-like decline, while its operating margin fell to 10.2% amid investment in pricing, product, marketing and digital, as well as higher markdowns. The U.K. returned to like-for-like growth, but continental Europe remained weak.
• Positive Sentiment: Primark is expanding its growth plans through a Middle East franchise launch, a new Mexican partnership and planned U.K. home delivery by the end of 2027. Management said home delivery is designed to attract infrequent customers and be profitable without materially diluting group margins.
• Negative Sentiment: Management expects group adjusted operating profit and adjusted EPS to be below 2026, mainly because of sugar, and cited continued caution around consumer sentiment, inflation and energy costs. European sugar recorded a £47 million adjusted operating loss, with high gas costs and low prices weighing on results.
• Positive Sentiment: The proposed Primark demerger remains on track for December 2027, with management expecting two focused businesses and greater strategic flexibility. The group also highlighted Hovis integration synergies, which are expected to start in the second half of 2027 and contribute to earnings accretion in 2028.

Presentation

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Good morning. Thank you all for joining us, either here in person, particularly thank you, or online. We are here to review ABF's annual results for the 52 weeks ending 12 September 2026. I am, of course, delighted to be joined by Joana Edwards, our Finance Director here, Chief Financial Officer, and Eoin Tonge, the Chief Executive of Primark. I am aware that this session in rehearsal went on for quite a long time, so settle down. We've got a fair amount to say, and I ask for your patience. Some of the content is, well, all the content is important and I think, interesting. Let me start by saying that this was a year of good strategic and operational progress across the group. I really mean that. The operating environment, though, was difficult. Weak consumer sentiment and a number of sometimes significant headwinds for our businesses.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Those impacts were evident in the financial results that we've published today. Our adjusted operating profit was down 14%, primarily due to lower profit in Primark, but profit was also lower in our food businesses due to a couple of specific reasons, and I will come on to those. Adjusted earnings per share down 11%, reflecting the benefit from share buybacks. We have maintained our full-year dividend in line with last year. We completed GBP 250 million of share buybacks 2026. This is a statement, the maintenance of the dividend, of two things. Firstly, our confidence in the underlying strength of the group in the medium and the long term, actually for both Primark and AB Foods, and also that even with maintaining the dividend with lower earnings, the dividend remains well covered. This year, our businesses responded well to difficult operating environment.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

We focused on things that were within our control, and we made good progress with a number of important strategic projects across the group, and there were a lot of them. There really were a lot of them. In Primark, I am very pleased with the progress to re-energize our core proposition while opening up new avenues of growth, new important avenues for growth. This time last year, we set out our key strategic priorities for Primark, and we are delivering against these. We have taken significant steps to lower prices, to improve price perception, to strengthen our product offer, particularly in womenswear, and to increase customer engagement. In two areas where we said we would unapologetically focus first, we have delivered like-for-like sales growth. So both in the U.K., which went from -3% to positive, and then in womenswear, our largest category, where we delivered like-for-like growth everywhere.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

We are now building on this as we increase our focus on Europe and in other categories. Primark still has significant white space, and most notably in the year, our new franchise model, which has got off to a very strong start in the Middle East, even in the circumstances of that part of the world. That franchise model will open up markets beyond the Middle East, and next within the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, but then Mexico. Our decision to offer home delivery in Great Britain is also an attractive opportunity for future profitable growth. In foods, we focused on what we could control. We had two very specific headwinds in U.S. oils and sugar, which masked good growth in a number of other areas in both grocery and ingredients. We stayed well-invested in marketing and product innovation, and I will show you some of that as we go through.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

We made significant progress in key areas of self-help we identified in 2025, and in doing so, we really have strengthened our business in a lot of different areas. We completed the acquisition of Hovis, a major project both to acquire it, and now the major integration exercise is well underway. We expect to deliver significant synergies to create a profitable U.K. bakeries business. There are no surprises that we've no significant surprises, at least, that we've uncovered as we've got to know that business. In European sugar, we're reducing our U.K. footprint to meet customer demand more effectively as prices recover. So four factories down to three with the closure of Cantley. In agriculture, we're exiting our U.K. compound feed business, which will allow us to focus more intently on higher-margin growth areas.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

This will both improve profitability within agri, but also free up capital that has been quite miserable in the returns that it's generated for us. Across the group, we invested another GBP 1.2 billion in capital projects. Majority of this will drive growth, new stores, depots, technology in Primark, and new capacity, capabilities, and technology in AB Foods. The large number of new products this completed, either this year just gone or completing now, will contribute meaningfully to future growth and deliver attractive returns, and not in the distant future, but quite close in now. We've made those investments while continuing to deliver strong capital returns to shareholders through both dividends and buybacks, and this is underpinned by our still robust balance sheet with 1.1x leverage. One of the most important, maybe the most important strategic decision this year was the one to demerge Primark.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

We'll create two focused businesses, each with the capability, the investment capacity, and the strategic flexibility to accelerate its own growth agenda. We're on track to complete that process in December 2027, and we've made good progress already to build the systems and processes to operate the businesses as a standalone business. We'll also use the time leading up to the demerger to provide a greater understanding of our businesses. We'll hold two separate capital markets days in autumn of 2027. We know that AB Foods, which is how we'll refer to the food business going forward, is currently less well understood. Over the next 12 months, we'll tell you much more about our portfolio of businesses and brands and how the food group operates.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

This will include a series of four shortish investor education events during 2027, and lovely to see as many of you as like to come at those. We'll start with a deep dive on AB Foods and how we operate, followed by events from each of the three business segments that we'll have within AB Foods, so grocery, ingredients, and sugar and agribusiness. The main difference from the segments we have today is that we'll bring together sugar and agriculture. It won't change how these businesses are being managed internally. However, for reporting purposes, I think it makes sense to group together the commodity elements of these two businesses. With that, Joana, over to you.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Good morning, everyone. Let me take you through this year's results in more detail then. In 2026, group revenue was GBP 19.6 billion, up 1% at actual rates, with a net benefit from foreign exchange translation of GBP 284 million. At constant currency, group revenue was 1% below last year. Primark sales grew 2%, and sales in AB Foods declined 4%, including disposed and closed businesses. Excluding disposed business and closed businesses, AB Food sales were down 1%, as you can see from the slide. Group adjusted operating profit was GBP 1.5 billion, a decrease of 14% at constant currency. While this was primarily due to lower profit in Primark, profit also declined in our food businesses. There was a small impact from foreign exchange translation, a net benefit of GBP 20 million, and the group profit was in line of our expectations.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Within the results, there are a number of moving parts, so let me go through the detailed performance by segment. Starting with Primark, and looking here at sales. These grew 2% to GBP 9.8 billion. New stores contributed 5% to sales growth, and Primark like-for-like sales declined 2.6% in a challenging consumer environment across most of our markets. In the U.K., we had a much improved performance. Like-for-like sales grew 0.5% compared with a 3% decline last year, and we gained market share. This was despite the clothing retail market declining in the year. It is a consequence of the actions we've taken to re-energize Primark's proposition. In continental Europe, we are at an earlier stage in our commercial recovery and in the development of our capabilities in brand, marketing, and digital. Sales were down 1%, and like-for-like sales declined 4.7%. In the U.S., sales grew 13%.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

We made good progress with new space expansion, with 14 store openings in the year. However, it was a difficult trading environment. This was mainly due to the effect of U.S. tariffs on consumer sentiment and footfall. FY 2026 was a strong year of openings, with a total 37 new stores. This includes 33 of our own stores across Europe and the U.S., and our first four franchise stores in the Middle East. Primark's adjusted operating profit margin was 10.2%. This was below last year for two main reasons. The first was our decision to significantly increase investment across price, product, marketing, and digital initiatives to drive like-for-like sales growth. In the areas where we prioritize investment this year, the U.K. and womenswear, our like-for-like sales grew. We also had continued investment in technology to build capacity and scale.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

The second was lower like-for-like sales, of course, and the associated increase in markdowns. There was a margin benefit from foreign exchange, and the cost efficiency delivered across our supply chain, store operations, and central costs enabled us to offset inflation. In grocery, sales grew 2%, which primarily reflected the consolidation of Hovis. Excluding Hovis, our underlying sales were broadly flat. We had sales growth across a number of our international and regionally focused brands, underpinned by continued investment in marketing and new product innovation. We had sales growth—Twinings sales grew in the year. However, strong growth across most of the year was then held back by the extended summer heatwaves in the U.K. and France, which lowered hot tea consumption. Grocery adjusted operating profit was down 11%.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

This was primarily due to lower sales and profit in our U.S. oils business, as George just mentioned, both our retail brand, Mazola, and our joint venture, Stratas, reflecting ongoing pressure on consumer spending. Ovaltine profit was impacted by higher cocoa costs and the phasing of sales in Thailand as we changed to a new distribution model. The implementation of new ERP systems drove higher depreciation costs. At the half year, I noted that U.S. tariffs had affected profit. A large proportion of these costs was refunded in the second half. Ingredients had an adjusted operating profit of GBP 238 million, down 8%, in line with our expectations. In our yeast and bakery ingredients business, AB Mauri, profit declined. This was mainly due to weaker consumer spending in the U.S., which reduced demand for our products.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

There was also subdued demand for our specialty yeast products for use in alcohol beverages. Most of AB Mauri's other markets and categories performed well. In specialty ingredients, ABFI, the portfolio performed well overall. This included good growth across a number of our pharmaceutical products, as well as in yeast extracts and enzymes for food and beverage markets. We continue to invest in R&D, commercial capabilities, and strategic capital projects to drive growth. Sugar had an adjusted operating loss of GBP 47 million. As we guided in April, we did not offset the first half loss in the second half. In the U.K., sales and profit declined significantly. This was primarily due to lower average selling prices compared to 2025, which was only partially offset by lower beet prices. Profitability was also impacted by the recognition of onerous contracts provisions.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

These arose from low European sugar prices, higher gas costs, and lower yield expectations for the beet crop that is currently being harvested due to the hot, dry summer. Lower yields reduced absorption on fixed costs, as you probably would know. Our Spanish business, Azucarera, had a reduced operating loss in 2026 as a result of our restructuring actions last year. In Africa, which is our growth market, overall profit was lower. This was primarily due to lower sales in South Africa and Eswatini, and lower production in Tanzania. One thing to note is that the anticipated devaluation of the Malawian currency did not take place in 2026. We have factored currency devaluation into our 2027 figures. Agriculture adjusted operating profit was GBP 19 million, broadly in line with last year. Our specialty business delivered good growth across specialty feed, feed additives, and nutritional supplements.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Lower profit from our joint venture, Frontier, was due to lower commodity prices, smaller crop sizes, and reduced demand for crop protection products following dry spring weather. We have taken the strategic decision to exit our low-margin compound feed business in the U.K. to focus on higher-margin growth opportunities. The result of this business are now included in disposed and closed operations and not within the agriculture segment. Moving to adjusted earnings and adjusted earnings per share. Adjusted EPS was GBP 1.56, down 10.8%, reflecting lower profit, but benefiting from a lower tax rate and the share buybacks. Regarding the adjusted effective tax rate, which reduced slightly to 23.9%, down from 24.2% last year, this benefited from the reassessment of certain tax positions, which more than offset the negative impact from a change in the geographic profit mix.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

We do expect some upward pressure on the group's effective tax rate in 2027, as we will be lapping the non-recurring benefit. Free cash flow of GBP 652 million was in line with last year. While operating profit was lower, there was a cash flow benefit from having lower net working capital at year end, mostly as a consequence of a reduction in inventories in Primark due to both phasing effect and specific actions to take the reduced inventory levels. Capital expenditure of GBP 1.2 billion was broadly in line with last year, and we also completed a number of acquisitions totaling GBP 0.2 billion. I will share more on these investments shortly. Our balance sheet remains strong and continues to support both investment and shareholder returns. As I just noted, our overall working capital position was lower than last year, primarily due to lower inventory levels in Primark.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Seasonal inventories were also well managed. Our net cash position was slightly lower, reflecting the shareholder returns made in the year, both dividends and buybacks. The value of our pension surplus continued to grow and was GBP 1.7 billion at the year end, whilst we continue to provide a cash benefit through the abatement of employer contributions. Turning now to cash and liquidity. Our year-end net debt position, including lease liabilities, was GBP 2.8 billion compared to GBP 2.6 billion in 2025. This reflects the net cash reduction I just explained and additional lease liabilities from properties acquired as part of the Hovis acquisition. Our leverage ratio was 1.1x, which is an increase on last year, but well within our capital allocation policy. Total liquidity was GBP 2.4 billion, which includes undrawn committed facilities of GBP 1.8 billion. This robust position underpins our continued investment in growth while maintaining resilience and flexibility.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Our total investment in 2026 was GBP 1.4 billion, as I just said, across the group split between GBP 1.2 billion of CapEx and GBP 0.2 billion of acquisitions. Around 40% of our investment was in Primark across new stores, new depots, including Sheffield, increased automation, digital capabilities, and new technology. The remaining 60% was in AB Foods, and a large amount of this spend was to complete multi-year projects. These investments will drive growth in new markets and add capacity where we have been constrained, and also add new capabilities. We also completed acquisitions, including Hovis in the U.K., Abe's Bagels in Australia and New Zealand, and Elementis Pharma in Germany. Across ABF, we have invested more than GBP 100 million this year in technology projects, including automation to drive efficiency in our supply chains and new ERP systems to strengthen efficiency and decision-making in our businesses.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

We expect group CapEx to remain at a similar level in 2027 as we make the final cash payments for projects that have now been completed in our food businesses. We expect CapEx in AB Foods to start to reduce in 2028. Our capital allocation approach is to return excess capital to shareholders, both through dividends and share buybacks. Our 2026 proposed total dividend is GBP 0.63, which is in line with last year. This reflects our confidence in the medium-term and long-term outlook for the group. Our dividend remains well covered. We completed our most recent share buyback program of GBP 250 million in August. Over the last four years, we have returned GBP 1.9 billion to shareholders through share buybacks and GBP 1.6 billion through dividends. These shareholder returns, alongside our continued investment in our business, demonstrates our commitment to delivering long-term value for shareholders.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

I will finish on our outlook for the group. In a challenging year ahead, the group will continue to make significant strategic and operational progress that will serve us well when the operating environment starts to improve. However, we remain cautious on consumer sentiment and the impact of inflation and higher energy costs on our businesses. We expect group adjusted operating profit and adjusted EPS to be below 2026, mainly due to sugar, as previously guided. I will not go through the full detail of the guidance by segment on this slide. I would like to point out that in Grocery, though, we now expect adjusted operating profit to be broadly in line with 2026. While we expect sales growth in most brands and businesses, we expect this to be offset by higher input costs.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Our Grocery outlook includes a one-off impact from consolidating Hovis losses in the first year of ownership as well, and we expect to deliver significant synergies and profit accretion in subsequent years. For the rest of our business segments, there is no change to the guidance we provided in our trading update in September. With that, let me hand over to you, Eoin.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Thank you, Joana, and good morning, everyone. So obviously Joana has actually just taken us through the performance of Primark in the year already. Just a quick recap to set the context. Overall growth of 2%, driven by good expansion, including the start of our franchise business in the Middle East, but like-for-like decline of 2.6%. However, with growth in the U.K. and a decline in Europe, tough overall context, it has to be said, across pretty much all of our markets, including the U.K. In that context, we are very pleased with the U.K. performance, which continues to consistently outperform the market. Clearly, performance in Europe was difficult, so we have more to do to win there, and I am going to talk a good bit about that today.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

And so 12 months ago, when I was standing here, I said we are going to challenge ourselves and have a take a really hard look at our operating environment and our business and be very precise about what we are going after. I think the key point I want to leave here today is that we are very clear on our strategy and the direction. It is about building a better Primark, driving like-for-like sales growth through clear levers of value, category focus, increased brand and marketing activation, and in time, more localization and improved customer availability. It is about leveraging our scale to drive an omnichannel model, which obviously is, I am going to talk more about today, which is new, and also to drive expansion through our store estate and our new franchise arrangements, where we believe we can accelerate.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

It is all underpinned by cost discipline to enable us to invest in the proposition and to protect margin. I also ended the year with a new leadership team in place. It is real world-class talent to help build a better Primark. We are on with this strategy, so let me set out what we have done in the year, what we are learning, where we are getting some wins already, and how we are applying some of those wins. If I can wrap it up in a single sentence, we are going to create a stronger, simpler, more scalable business, and you are going to see some of those themes as I talk through the review of last year. Last year, we talked a lot about refocusing and resetting our value proposition in the year.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

This is about getting Primark back to being who we are, the original and the best value disruptor in the market. It is about getting back to our fashion roots, investing in quality that our scale enables. Most importantly, and the biggest element of this has and will always be price, and that is where we have really focused this year. We started the year with Major Finds, which was a really successful promotional vehicle for our customers, showcasing our amazing value with just killer prices for the products that we offered, and it has been a great footfall driver. We started in the U.K., and we rolled that out to our markets in Europe through the year. We ended the year with Iconic Value, and this really is the major initiative to reset our value proposition and indeed our price proposition.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

We set this out in July as we brought in autumn/winter product. This is about a major price investment in iconic hero lines, focusing where we believe it matters most. We have seen a really good response across all markets, and this has been in all markets. Critically, it has reinforced our category leadership in core categories such as leisure and nightwear, and it has also come with an overall strengthening, we believe, and simplifying of the range, including consolidating our price points. All of this reset now covers over a quarter of our range, and it will continue through autumn/winter of this year and spring/summer into next year. The price leadership underpins new investment in style and quality, including investments in fabric, which leads me on to the work that we are doing on sharpening our product focus. Starting with womenswear, our most important and our largest category.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

I talked a lot about what we were doing in this category last year, and it really has been a standout performer in the year. Not just strong like-for-like growth in the U.K., but beyond. For example, H2 women's clothing was up strongly in France and Spain. What is the playbook? Better product starts with better insights, and we do have our most comprehensive and clearest ever womenswear customer insight across our markets. We understand who our core customers are, and we have much stronger certainty about where we believe the growth lies. Primark is a fashion brand at heart, and so we have reset our womenswear offer to attract more fashion and style-led customers. If you have been in store, and make sure you do go into store, you are going to see how different this looks and feels.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

We've strengthened our womenswear, our core womenswear fashion offer, bringing more elevated contemporary style to the mat, all designed to challenge the perceptions of what affordable fashion can look and feel like. We launched The Scene, which is a new collection aimed at the growing youth market. We continued the strong fashion lens into our collaborations. We had the continued strength of our collaboration with Paula Echevarría, but we also had a new collaboration with Coleen Rooney, By Coleen, which has been very strong in all markets, not just the U.K. and Ireland. Performance wear is another example of investment in value, quality, fabric, and style. This is a deliberate category focus, where we knew innovation in fabric and our scale could disrupt the category. It has been a really strong success story for us.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

We are now the largest seller of performance wear and athleisure wear in the U.K. in a relatively new category for us. To support these new strengthened lines, we have also introduced better in-store merchandising, displaying the complete looks for inspiration. Coordinated ranges have significantly increased year-on-year in store. I mention this because we see good uplifts when we showcase the full outfits together for our customers. Critically, we are also applying the same focus in womenswear to our other categories, where we are, in truth, a little further behind, and we had less strong performance in the financial year just gone. Kidswear has been a big focus for us in the year. We have a huge opportunity, we believe, in this category, and there is a lot of change underway.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

We have already improved the mix and quality, invested in price, simplified the range, improved style, and in some cases, tackled the over-reliance on license. We have a higher kidswear mix in our European markets, so strengthening in this category is critically important for those markets. We launched a lot of these changes just in autumn/winter just now, so more to report on this. Finally, in menswear, we are also rebuilding our style credentials in that category in a similar way to what we are doing in womenswear. Plans are at an earlier stage, albeit you will see some of the changes in our autumn/winter collections already. Underpinning our improved category focus is a continued step-on in marketing and digital engagement across all our markets. We said this time last year we were at the foothills in this, but we have made very good headway in the year.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

We started and indeed invested most of our energy and money in the U.K. at the beginning of the year. It was there that we had our very first integrated marketing campaign, which has delivered strong commercial results. We started off with "In Denim We Can" in last September, which had strong performance, which we measured, with a good uplift in the Primark market share in women's denim. Then we had "Shockingly Chic" in spring, which was actually the launch of that elevated fashion in the core fashion offering that I spoke about, and then "The Getaway" in summer. Pleasingly and quite importantly, brand metrics have moved, improved in step with these campaigns. Of course, the obvious question is, what are we doing outside of the U.K. in relation to our marketing and activation? Our focus is to increase our activation in European markets.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

I talked about Major Finds. They started in the U.K. in the year, and then we moved them all the way through to European markets in the year. But in H2, we really started to step up our broader activation in Europe. So we had our first funnel marketing campaign in Spain with the summer campaign that I mentioned, "The Getaway." We have since continued in Spain with our Primark performance wear marketing campaign just at the start of this financial year, which has been very positive. We launched also our first multi-channel marketing campaigns in France and Italy at the beginning of this year, which were focused on autumn/winter fashion. We have also started more meaningful local activation with what we call our spotlights, where we choose a partner influencer to help us curate a Primark edit to highlight and spotlight in stores and online.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

We started this in the U.K. with a fashion-focused spotlight, and we have since extended these to Spain with a kids wear-focused spotlight, and then in recent weeks, a more, again, a fashion-focused spotlight in Italy. All of these have been successful. I think there is lots of real potential for them, very local, very focused in the market that we are operating in. So we have a lot of focus, more to do in activation in Europe, and we will continue to step that up this year, which, if I take a stand back and think about Europe, I think this step up in activation, along with our investment, our Iconic Value investment, our category focus, in particular kids wear, gives us confidence of recovery in the European markets. And in time, these markets should benefit from more from localized ranging. So there is a lot going on in omnichannel to get excited about.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Across our markets, we continue to invest in digital engagement. Our CRM database that we are actively marketing to was up 38% year-on-year, growing both in the U.K. and Europe. We have continued to see very strong website traffic, particularly in the U.K., which is up significantly in the year, obviously helped by Click & Collect. Our app is now live in the U.K., Ireland, Italy, and Iberia. And overall stock checker usage across web and app is still high across markets, and we have seen higher stock checker usage on the app than the website when available. There is more opportunity here, but we have seen some really good delivery. And we had a full year of Click & Collect in the U.K., which has gone really well with continued strong metrics. The last step is to go fully omnichannel.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

As George mentioned, we announced our Sheffield site acquisition in September to support home delivery in the U.K. This is obviously a big deal, and one we are very excited about. I guess there are a number of key questions that are being asked on this. Why? Why now? Can it be profitable? And of course, when? And we have done a huge amount of work on this in the last number of years. Critically, it starts with confidence around the target consumer. It is targeted on customers who shop with us, but more occasionally, generally more style-led, and do a lot more of their total spend online with other brands. So the first point I want to make here is that this is set up to really focus on incrementality. And Click & Collect has given us some real confidence here.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Sales through Click & Collect have been highly incremental to date and have supported the market share gains that we've had in the U.K. Click & Collect, through our work, reaches roughly a 10 km store catchment area, so home delivery clearly unlocks more. Aligned to this focus on incrementality is how we believe we can protect the basket size, obviously critical for delivering our value proposition profitably. With this type of customer, we feel we can have minimum order sizes to protect the basket size. Basket sizes in Click & Collect have been good to date and also give us confidence here. We are going to protect the economics further by passing on charges in line with the rest of the market. Importantly, having full home delivery strengthens the effectiveness of our digital engagement and the cost of customer acquisition, both for this channel and for our stores.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

After years of review, we feel very confident that it is time to now target a profitable growth in this channel. Our plan is to launch in the U.K. by the end of the calendar year next year. Store expansion continues to be a core growth engine. We delivered 33 new owned stores last year across Europe, the U.S., and the U.K. In total, new space delivered 5% growth. Overall, we still see a lot of runway for space growth in Europe. Our market penetration in some markets is still very low, and with a better and more focused proposition that I have spoken about, we feel we have plenty to go after. In the U.S., we substantially increased our store estate in the year, with 14 new stores taking us to about 50 now.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

That included our Herald Square store in Manhattan, which performed strongly, and around which we drove a large brand awareness campaign, which has really helped. As Joana mentioned, the year had a more challenging backdrop with tariff volatility and a nervous consumer. I was there a couple of weeks ago. It felt a bit more reassuring. It felt conditions appear to be settling, despite everything else that is going on. We are now trialing a lot of new things in the U.S. For example, we are testing more bespoke ranging for our stores there at the moment. Still loads of growth potential in the market. Also see an omnichannel opportunity in the U.S. in time. But off the back of our recent rapid expansion, we plan now to focus on the performance of our current and large estate.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

This includes testing the new customer proposition that I have mentioned before, including the more bespoke ranging, and overall drive profitability and cost optimization. Then we will look to restart our expansion from a stronger base. Our brand has so much untapped potential globally, and franchising is a capital-efficient and expedient route to market and to attractive new markets. In a year, we have already built a meaningful business in the Middle East, now with six stores across four countries. There is so much potential still in that region. I was in Dubai last week, and the stores were performing remarkably well, despite the near-term uncertainty. Next year, we open our first store in Saudi Arabia that George mentioned with Alshaya at the end of March, and that opens up a lot of growth potential.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

We also worked hard on our second franchise arrangement during the year, signing with a new partner, Liverpool, for Mexican market entry just before the end of the year. Mexico as a market has huge potential for us, we believe, and we are moving fast in this franchise space. Taken together, this acceleration plus the continued store expansion gives us a lot of confidence on the current 4%-5% medium-term expansion target. Building a better Primark is also about a stronger operating model, supporting our new growth routes, but also operating a simpler model. We have already taken a substantial amount of cost out last year with self-checkouts and labor cost savings in stores, as well as other broader supply chain efficiencies.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

However, I am signaling a step up in this program, really addressing the complexities of our operating model that our operating model faces today, to get us back to be the most efficient and simple we can be. We simply can't be a value leader without being a cost leader, and we see significant cost efficiency opportunity across all areas. More to come in this space. Of course, technology, automation, and data investment will be needed to simplify and fund growth. An illustration of this are the investments we are putting in to driving customer availability. This includes a new investment in RFID technology for our ranges, which we will be rolling out in phases over the coming months. We see both considerable like-for-like and cost opportunity across all markets with that investment. This is about getting us back to being the most efficient model, simple, and scalable.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

So thank you. All in all, very clear on the direction of the business and a lot of exciting times ahead, and I look forward to your questions later.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Thank you, Eoin. Before I talk through this year's performance, let me start with some wider context. As I said in my opening, ahead of next year's demerger and Capital Markets Day, we will also offer a series of four short education sessions on AB Foods, and I look forward to explaining in more detail what's in our portfolio and how we operate. This morning, let me give you just some edited highlights. We are a deliberately different kind of food group, and I will pick up on some of these differences. The first is the diversification of the portfolio. Food is a sector that never stands still and where consumer needs and preferences will always evolve, and never faster than now.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Our diversity provides both resilience and optionality for growth, and our devolved operating model gives us strong local leaders close to our market and customers, empowered to be agile in response to changing trends. There are structural trends as well, and I think we are well positioned for these. Trends such as growth in food service over decades, premiumization, health, and wellness. This year alone, there are numerous examples of our product innovation driving participation in areas of structurally growing consumer demand. We are positioned where we have leading market positions and a competitive advantage. We like to be in small categories in large markets, and we like to be in large categories in small markets. Industry structure is really important to us. The businesses in our portfolio play different roles. Some provide us with long-duration growth, others provide us with strong cash generation, and there are some earlier-stage businesses.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Again, this breadth gives us resilience and multiple routes to growth. We invest patiently behind growth opportunities where there are attractive returns, and we take a long-term view. In the last two years, we have invested GBP 1.6 billion in capital projects in AB Foods, and the majority of those were growth projects. We also accelerate category reach through targeted acquisitions, and there were some examples of that this year as well. Where necessary, we reshape businesses to improve their competitiveness, financial performance, and long-term returns, and I will also talk about some of those examples this morning. We have talked in the last couple of years about a wave of investment in our food businesses, that GBP 1.6 billion. This slide shows the key projects that have either now completed or are in the process of being commissioned this year.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

I will talk about them in more detail as I review the business segments, but what these investments have in common is they extend our capacity and capabilities in attractive markets, strengthening our competitive advantage and providing a strong platform for future growth. Having set out the broad elements of our strategy in AB Foods, let me go into performance by segment this year and starting with grocery. As Joana set out, grocery profit was down in 2026, and the main reason was the performance of our U.S. oils business. Mazola, which is our retail brand, faced a decline in the edible oils category in a difficult consumer environment, and it was particularly Mazola's core Hispanic consumers that reduced their category spending, who are under pressure for reasons we understand. We have looked hard at the data, and we do not think that this is a consequence of GLP-1.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

The market is smaller than it used to be, but Mazola held its position as the number one brand. We focused on affordability through promotions and smaller formats, and our marketing investment maintained our share of voice in basic edible oils at around 80%. Our joint venture in oils, Stratas, mainly serves the food service market, and consumers reduce their spending on out-of-home dining. We think the slowdown in food service will reverse over time, although, again, GLP-1s may be causing part of the market shrinkage. There were also some smaller headwinds to grocery profit this year, but I would characterize these as bumps in the road. In Ovaltine, we faced significantly higher cocoa costs, which have since come down somewhat.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Then we have had a one-off impact from commissioning our new factory in Nigeria, then a phasing impact as we transition to a new distribution model in Thailand. As we expected, performance was stronger in the second half. Then in Twinings, that long hot summer led to lower tea consumption in the U.K. and France. But there were a number of places where we had very encouraging growth in the year, and I will share a few highlights. Overall, Twinings sales were up this year despite the hot weather impacts in Europe. Growth was volume-led, supported by growing consumer demand for wellness products and really good innovation. Our sales of fruit and herbal teas grew double-digits. Our sparkling tea ready-to-drinks in the U.K. have strong momentum, growing 70% in 2026. This year, we launched them in Australia, alongside a new range of cold infusion tea bags.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Initial sales there in Australia have been strong and demonstrate how we build our resilience to summer heat waves. We will continue to grow distribution and expand in new channels, in particular online. In the U.S., which is our largest market, Twinings was the number one tea brand on Amazon for the first time, driven by sales growth of 37% in that channel. Ovaltine had continued innovation in its ready-to-eat portfolio in Brazil, which is a fast-growing market for Ovaltine. We expanded our presence in food service through a new and really important partnership with McDonald's. McDonald's has launched the Ovaltine McFlurry, which also drives, of course, brand awareness for our retail product. Ovaltine-themed milkshakes in Brazil are the biggest-selling ones in that big market. Our world foods businesses delivered record profits, and again, innovation was very strong.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Blue Dragon sales grew double-digits in the U.K. and grew 30% in the U.S., which is a target market for us. We also had good growth in Jordans, with innovation targeted at consumers looking for more nutritious and protein-based cereals. Our sports nutrition business sales grew 20% this year in the fast-growing hydration space. In July, we completed the acquisition of Hovis, and the integration with our U.K. bakery business began then and is now well underway. There are three significant elements to this integration. We will deliver significant production and distribution synergies. The benefits will start to come through from the second half of 2027 and will be accretive to earnings in 2028. The second element is innovation. We are developing products for the growth sectors in bakery, driven by changing consumer tastes, including shifts to healthier option and cleaner labels.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Last year, Hovis launched its first sourdough loaves, which were developed using specialist expertise from our company, AB Mauri. Hovis will shortly be launching a new Just 3 loaf in Tesco, which is bread made from three simple ingredients. Then third, we are reinvigorating the Hovis brand. It is a national treasure that has not received the investment it deserves, and we have the opportunity to restore it. Our recent consumer marketing campaign is the first major brand investment since 2008. Let me show you the recent TV ad.

[Video Narrator]

If these walls could talk, they would say there is strength in all of us. Excuse me. All right. I have made you this. Hovis, strength baked in.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

We have seen an immediate sales uplift following the airing of that ad. Hovis is a brand that is rooted in heritage, it is rooted in health, it is rooted in community, and we really do love it. Within Grocery then, several multi-year capital projects have either been completed this year or are very close to completion. Investments in Twinings, both in Poland and in the U.K., have increased capacity and also give us some optionality and resilience. We can pack for different markets in both factories. Ovaltine's new production site in Nigeria is up and running. It supports our growth ambitions in both the domestic, very large Nigerian market, and the export markets in West Africa. It enables us to operate much more cost-effectively and four times quicker than before. The chocolate beverage category in Nigeria has 95% household penetration.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Our products are a consumer staple in a country with 220 million people and where 7 million babies are born every year. Ovaltine is really, really well placed to supply this growing market. New capacity for Blue Dragon supports international expansion. The new bakery, and that is in Poland, the new bakery line for Tip Top in Western Australia adds capacity and also efficiency in a market where we are really the only scaled baker. On to Ingredients. As a reminder, Mauri is a business with large-scale yeast production and a portfolio of specialized bakery ingredients. It combines its strong innovation capabilities, and they are very good, with its established routes to market, and both those combine to drive growth. This year, we continue to expand production in attractive markets with structural growth. Our new fresh yeast plant in India will meet fast-growing demand for bakery products.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

The market is growing at about 6% a year, as diets shift from rice to wheat-based foods. That is another one of these global trends. With strong population growth and bread consumption per capita still low, there is significant headroom for future growth. We finally got the capacity we need to play significantly in that market. In Australia, we completed our new flour mill outside Melbourne. This cements our position in the southeast of Australia, where demand for flour continues to grow with population. It also allows us to close two existing sites, greatly reducing our fixed overhead costs and driving efficiency. As Joana set out, it was a tougher year for our bakery ingredients business in the U.S., where there was weaker demand.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

We do believe that some of this is the impact of GLP-1s. On top of that, in specialty yeast, there was subdued demand in the alcohol beverage sector, resulting in lower production and destocking. I may have said it in the past, but we provide a majority of the special yeast to the Scotch whisky market in this country. We expect both of these markets to stabilize, possibly at lower levels than at peak. Our portfolio of specialty ingredients business, the other part of our ingredients portfolio, ABFI, performed well this year with both volume and profit growth. We focus on three growth markets: food and beverage, health and nutrition, and pharmaceuticals, which are both actives and also excipients. This year, in all our target markets, we focused on increasing sales coverage, adding technical capability to strengthen our technology platforms, and accelerating innovation.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

We also enhanced a number of capabilities within the business to support the next phase of growth. For example, the new customer fulfillment center in our enzyme factory in Finland. Acquisitions are another key element of our growth strategy, hence the acquisition of Elementis Pharma this year. That strengthens our position in the growing digestive health market, particularly antacids, milk of magnesia. Demand is growing strongly from those people who have tummy aches as a consequence of their GLP-1 habit. I do believe there is a lot more to come from our specialty ingredients businesses in the future. On to sugar then, and this first slide is a reminder that we have two very distinct sugar businesses. Africa is a long-term growth opportunity. We continue to grow sales of our leading retail brands.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

The businesses are supported by favorable demographics and opportunities for continuous improvement in our commercial, our operational, and our agricultural performances, and in all those three areas, we did well this year. The opportunity in Africa is not just sugar, although we have to be disciplined. It is also in co-products such as ethanol and electricity. Across in Europe, we own our U.K. and Spanish sugar businesses for their cash generation on average. In the U.K., we are the market leader with a structural cost advantage. Our assets are well-invested, so that CapEx is really only spent on high-returning projects, particularly those to reduce energy costs, and there is a big project that is commissioning now at Wissington to reduce gas use. Last year, we restructured our Spanish operations to focus on back-to-back refining contracts, so where we have only got one factory left in Spain, which is processing beet.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

The rest of the operation is a refining business. This year, we are underway with the restructuring of our U.K. footprint to go from four factories down to three. This will take out significant cost and increase the utilization of the other three remaining factories. Both of these actions will ensure we are well-placed when the market turns. For now, the environment in Europe does continue to be challenging. As Joana explained, losses in European sugar this year were because of lower average sugar prices and because we recognized large onerous contracts provisions at year-end. Looking ahead in Europe, there are early signs of recovery in European sugar prices, and there are reasons that these signs should continue to be evident.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

European sugar production for the current campaign is estimated to be down significantly, more than 20%, and higher world sugar prices make it less likely that imports will fill the gap in domestic supply cheaply. In 2027, our results won't really benefit from the high European sugar prices because this year's customer contracting is nearly complete, at least in the U.K. In Spain, there may be more of an opportunity because there's a bigger spot market in the Spanish market. In 2027, of course, we have ongoing exposure, in the U.K. in particular, to really high gas prices. We should see higher sugar prices in future years. We really believe we're going to see those, and gas prices will eventually come down. In Africa, there were short-term disruptions to performance this year in South Africa, where we had a strike and some problems with import tariffs.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

In Tanzania, again, that was rain-related at the beginning of the season. Joana highlighted that too. But we made good progress in Tanzania, and this is really the important bit, with the commissioning of the new sugar mill. It's a very large, very complex project. It doubles our existing capacity and allows us to meet fast-growing demand in a market where everything we sell is branded and premium. As I said earlier, co-products are another growth opportunity, and we have invested in some important projects. Again, in Tanzania, we've built a new distillery to take all the molasses from the new sugar factory and turn it into potable alcohol, and that is now complete and beginning to sell potable alcohol.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

In Eswatini, we have an ongoing project which will allow us to sell significant quantities of electricity generated from bagasse into the national grid, and that's on the basis of a long-term contract. Agriculture then. Our focus within agriculture is on higher value specialty businesses like Premier Nutrition, which is pictured here, which grew very nicely last year. It's got a very good recent track record. We took the decision in the year to exit U.K. compound feed business. This will improve profitability and free up, as I mentioned before, low-returning capital. We've already sold two of the mills. We'll finalize the future of the remainder in, I think, the first half of 2027. Going forward, this leaves us with an attractive portfolio of value-added products and services, particularly the enzyme business, the phytase enzyme business, which is a nice global value-added business.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

We see good growth potential in our specialty animal nutrition businesses more generally. We've also begun building a presence in pet care in this country. In dairy, we continue to develop a full-service offering for dairy farmers, Asterra. That's going well. Thank you for your patience so far. Just a summary. Looking ahead, I said at the outset, we remain focused on what we can control. Across the group, there are some headwinds which, quite frankly, we can't control. We'll continue to deliver operational improvements and strategic projects that will deliver growth. Primark will continue to strengthen its value proposition and execute on new avenues for growth. AB Foods will continue to drive growth from strongly managed brands and businesses. There'll be tailwinds from the integration of U.K. bakeries. There'll be improved profitability from European sugar and a focus on higher value-added areas in agriculture.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Our capital projects, including stores and depots in Primark and capacity and capabilities in AB Foods, will contribute meaningfully to growth over many years. Delivering the demerger in December 2027 will support long-term value creation as well. Taken together, we have good reason to be confident in the medium and long-term outlook for Primark and AB Foods. With that, let me hand over to you for your interrogation. Thank you. Did you choose?

[Company Representative at Associated British Foods]

James.

[John Stevenson, Analyst at Peel Hunt]

Thank you. Sir John Stevenson at Peel Hunt. New to Primark, so I've got a couple questions on Primark, if that's okay. I know you get probably too many questions on Primark. Interested on the Iconic Value launch, obviously, into autumn/winter. Is the implication here stronger Q4 and a good build into the new year? Then the second question, just on the economics of home delivery and how it stacks up. Again, sort of new to the business, so interested in how you think about typical basket size, number of items, and product discovery in-store, and how do you replicate that online? Where do you need to set that online delivery, and what are you planning for returns rates?

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

I think this is a good question to pass over to my lovely friend on my left.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Yeah. Yeah, look, I think, yeah, we've got good momentum with the Iconic Value investment. As I said before, it is across all our markets. It's not just a U.K.-specific trend. I think, so yeah, we do have good cautious confidence around what that will mean for momentum. We shouldn't underestimate that the world is still a little bit sort of a complicated place out there, but I think that investment really should stand us in very good stead into this Q4 and beyond. On the home delivery omni-profitability, well, I think, look, some of it's what I said earlier. I think we've seen in the Click & Collect that the basket sizes are well ahead of store basket sizes on average, right? So obviously, we get a broader church into our stores, so we've seen that.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

With who we believe we're going after here, we believe we can target higher than even the Click & Collect basket sizes. We're looking for higher than the basket sizes that we've had in Click & Collect. The rest of the economics stack up the way I described. We've aimed to get good basket sizes, aimed to get incrementality, aimed to get good efficiencies through marketing and customer acquisition that will also help the stores, and then pass on charges. That's sort of how. If I take a summary of that, just is maybe what you're asking here is, I don't see reasons why this should not be materially dilutive to group operating margin, once we get to a steady state. That's the way we're setting this up, and that's important.

[John Stevenson, Analyst at Peel Hunt]

Fantastic. Is there a number yet in terms of that sort of minimum basket size?

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

No. To be honest with you, I think we've given quite a lot away in terms of what the proposition is. I don't think we want to be giving more away at this point in time. We think it's going to be great. A lot of people asking for it, a lot of people excited about it, and I think it's going to go well. But we also want to leave a little bit behind for the customer when we launch it.

[Company Representative at Associated British Foods]

Warwick.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Warwick.

[Warwick Okines, Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Thank you. Morning. Warwick Okines, BNP Paribas. I've got two on Primark as well, actually, please, Eoin. I think earlier, a few months ago, you said that you were buying for like-for-like growth in 2027, but with the pretty warm start to autumn/winter, how confident are you that you've got tight enough inventories to win back the markdown that you lost last year? Secondly, just following on from John's question on Iconic Value, what decline in ASPs are you expecting in 2027 from your price investments?

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Yeah, keep coming. Yeah. You are right that the year, our financial year did not start off great. The back end of September was fantastic for everything except selling clothes, with the heat, I mean, unseasonable warmth in the U.K. and all other markets. We have got a bit of recovery to do on that. But I think we have got good momentum. Not particularly anxious about inventories. As you will have seen in Joana's presentation, our inventory level going into this year is good, it is strong, and it is tight. We feel pretty good. So feel pretty good about markdown levels and so on. But a bit to recover on the gap of the last couple of years. But as I said to the previous question, we have sort of decent momentum. We will have to see how the next few, obviously quite important weeks develop.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

But at the moment, it feels all right. The decline in ASP in the year, I am just trying to think what the decline in ASP is year across the whole thing is a couple of percent or so. So roughly across the whole group. Yeah.

[Company Representative at Associated British Foods]

Richard.

[Richard Chamberlain, Analyst at RBC]

Thanks. Morning. It is Richard Chamberlain from RBC. A couple of quick ones on Primark, if that is all right, and then one on the grocery side. Eoin, wondered if you can just talk about how you are hedged on FX for the coming year. Is that sort of pretty much fully hedged now on the cost side, obviously in light of the recent euro weakness against the dollar? And then I guess the operating margin now, 10%, is more sort of towards the lower range of where it has been. How do you see that evolving over the kind of medium term? I guess it is a bit hard to say, but should we think that now as more sort of mid to upper range of where it is likely to be in your mind?

[Richard Chamberlain, Analyst at RBC]

George, on the U.S. cooking oils, it sounds like you see that as a sort of cyclical development at the moment. Is that right? And it is just taking time for pressure on customers to ease? I think you mentioned the other softer parts of grocery were more sort of temporary in nature, but cooking oils might, the duration of that downturn might last a little bit longer. Is that right?

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

I think, sorry, if I can go first. I think Mazola is more cyclical, if that's the right word, as our consumer finds a way to more income, and maybe with some of the, quite frankly, just fear of the current administration kind of works through, I think that business will come back. What you're seeing at the moment is people still buying into Mazola, but they're using it more often, and they're also not entertaining with their friends, which are occasions when quite a lot of cooking oil gets used. It feels like those two things will go away. We don't see that community as buying into GLP-1s in any significant way. So, no reason to think that we won't see a rebound there. I think in food service, I think there may be a little bit more of a structural shift.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

I think there are two different things. There is declining disposable income reducing food service volume, particularly at the fast food end, and that will come back. Then I think there's a GLP-1 effect, call it 5%, 10%. I don't think that will come back. Eoin, over to you.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Yeah, I'll cover the hedge and the operating margin, [crosstalk]. So, in terms of hedging FX for the year, as you know, we're right into the year, so the hedging for this year is pretty much covered. I know you've expressed some concerns around the euro-dollar, and there will be some turbulence in the coming months, but we're pretty much hedged for the year. On the margin and the guidance as state at around the 10%, 10.2% for FY 2026, that feels right. But as we said before, it's about like-for-like growth. So we're not going to be medium long term, what's the right margin. There's a lot of growth opportunities. All the investment that is going through should be driving that like-for-like, and with like-for-like, we'll see the leverage coming through as well.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Not guiding medium long term, but feel confident with the margins as they are.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Yeah, exactly. That is what I would say. We are not giving a number for medium to longer term, but everything that we talked about here, driving growth, taking costs out, but at the same time continue to invest in the proposition. Obviously, that is looking to try and improve the business.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Yeah.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

So, yeah.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Yeah.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Okay.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Try again.

[Monique Pollard, Analyst at Citi]

I am not sure if this is working, actually.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Okay. We can hear you.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

We can hear you.

[Monique Pollard, Analyst at Citi]

All right. Okay. It's Monique Pollard from Citi. I had one question on Primark for Eoin, and then a couple on the rest of the business. The first question on Primark, the highly automated warehouse in Sheffield, I was just interested in when that will be operational and whether there will be any period of sort of dual running costs or ramp-up of inventory that we need to sort of consider for this year as a result of that. The second question on the U.S. oils business, just wondering if the results of the midterm could potentially positively benefit that U.S. oils business in the near term. The final question was just on the share buyback. Obviously, you've come in this year, net debt to EBITDA below your 1.5x, at 1.1x.

[Monique Pollard, Analyst at Citi]

Just trying to understand the decision not to do a buyback, whether it's just to do with the demerger, et cetera.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

It's not really to do with the demerger, but we do want to go into separation with two well-financed businesses, both with strong balance sheets. Maybe there's a little bit of something there. It's much more to do with just, we have a policy that when we have surplus capital, by our definition, we'll return it, and we're not really in that place.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Yeah. 1.5x Is the upper end. We say if you are between 1x and 1.5x, then we do not necessarily consider we have surplus cash. We have returned a lot. We have returned GBP 1.9 billion already. I think it is hard when you return year on year, the expectation is you will continue. We are very clear this is not about every year we will return. It is if we feel we have surplus cash, as you say.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Midterms, it is harder to see the transmission mechanism that gets from Democrats taking at least one house, maybe two, in Congress, through to increased confidence in the Hispanic population and increased disposable income. I think the most likely one is resolution of the Gulf, the Straits of Hormuz blockage leading to gas prices coming down and diesel prices coming down. That will feed through to a population who, like everyone else in the States, spends a fair chunk of money on transport, driving themselves around. No, anyway.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Yeah. Well, maybe I will describe the Sheffield. Maybe I will hand over to Joana on kind of what that means for guidance. It is a highly automated facility, and it is active at the moment, actually. When we take it over, there is not a huge amount to do for us to put it into work. There is a bit of work for us to do to put our systems in and so on, but it is not like it is a significant piece of work. There will be some dual running costs, and obviously, we need to scale the facility up. We would expect to be taking control of the facility sometime in the middle of next year, basically. Yeah.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

There will be some one-off costs that we will have. They are included in the guidance. You probably would have noticed that the majority of the actual cash related to Sheffield was taken in FY 2026. We took it just before the year end, about GBP 75 million. It is included in the guidance, and it is not very material. The majority of the cash is first money in FY 2026, Monique.

[Monique Pollard, Analyst at Citi]

Okay. Thank you.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Okay. Yeah.

[Company Representative at Associated British Foods]

Matt.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Matt.

[Matt Clements, Analyst at Barclays]

Hi, Matt Clements from Barclays. Maybe one for George to start off with. Capital investment cycle, we have heard a lot today about capacity additions, and then we have just heard that the timing of the DC spend was in this year, but then CapEx guidance for next year is to be flat. How do we think about kind of multi-year capital investment cycles? Do we expect CapEx to moderate year after next?

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Yeah. CapEx is flat in 2027, year we are in. Really more to do with the final payments for projects which are now essentially complete than payments for work that is just starting. There will still be some projects to complete in following years, but it will be lower.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Yeah.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

There is more to do in Australia. The Eswatini project will run over into 2028.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Zambia.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Zambia, payments will run into 2028, but the actual facility will be finished in 2027. So it will come down.

[Matt Clements, Analyst at Barclays]

Okay, thank you. Then two questions on Primark, if that is okay. First one on the decision to pause expansion in the U.S. Just why now is the right time? What has changed in your year of in your position, what you have seen that has led to that decision? The second question on any near-term assumptions or impact you have seen around social unrest in some of your key European markets. Thank you.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Yeah. I will have a go at both those. I think two main things about how we are thinking about the U.S. One is we actually just have gone through a significant growth phase. So I think it, you know, consolidating when you go through those phases, there is always a bit of a, it makes sense. I think the second thing, which is probably the more important thing, is we have done an awful lot of work. I talked about this last year, but we have done an awful lot of work in terms of how we think we can win in the U.S., and I think we have got to give that a go properly with the new enlarged store estate. So, we have a much better sense of who the target consumer is.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

We, as I said in the presentation, we have done a good bit of rearranging in our stores, aligned to that target consumer. Price is at the moment, although I did say things have calmed down, the U.S. has gone through almost turmoil, I would say, on tariffs, right? It is massive disruption across the marketplace in terms of what tariffs have done to prices, and sort of that calming down. I think we really have to give our proposition a good go with a meaningful store estate that we have now, 50 stores. As I said before, I think sort of the medium term, the vision for the U.S. is still strong. I do think it would help with an omnichannel support along the lines of what I described for the U.K. It is the same principles, right? In that it helps with your cost of customer acquisition.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Yeah. But that is behind that. Look, social unrest in Europe is concerning. We have had a few incidents with our stores. Nothing, thankfully, too bad, but everyone has No one is immune, unfortunately, to a riot. Obviously, look, the usual thing you would expect me to say is we are focusing on the protection of our people and so on when those situations happen. It is a little bit, unfortunately, where it is all a little bit too common in some of the countries that we find ourselves defending. We have had some disruption. I cannot get away from that. We will just have to see how the next few weeks develop over the next period of time.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Yeah.

[Company Representative at Associated British Foods]

Sreedhar.

[Sreedhar Mahamkali, Analyst at UBS]

Thank you. Sreedhar Mahamkali from UBS. Just a couple of follow-ups to Matt's questions, please, and then a separate one. On CapEx, helpful commentary on AB Foods into 2028. Can you just give us an idea how we should think about Primark into 2028 and perhaps beyond? I think you are still reiterating 4%-5% space growth despite a bit of a pause in the U.S. So, which markets are going to pick up the slack, if that was there, if you could talk through? Then on food, I liked bakeries and Hovis. I understand how you are excited about the Hovis business, but if you could talk through a little bit about milestones. Your ambition was to become a profitable bakery business combined. The kind of milestones and time taken to get there. Thank you.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Do you want to do the first two?

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Yeah. I think it is a good question on the CapEx for 2028. I do not want to be too prescriptive, but just going to give some themes, I would say. It kind of relates a little bit to the second question, actually, which is, if we see a little bit more of a shift to franchise expansion, which obviously low capital, you would argue that obviously that mix in will shift a little bit in the next couple of years. Obviously, if we do not have the same U.S. and we have more expansion in Saudi Arabia and Mexico, obviously that is a reduction in our capital. But I will come back to your second question specifically. We have also, we are probably coming through, we have had a fair bow wave, I would say, of investment in depots. There is still some this year.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Obviously, we have talked about Sheffield, although some of that was last year. As I say, we still have to do some this year to get it up and running. We are completing our depot in Italy this year as well. But we have kind of come towards the end of some of the automation spend. I think, if I kind of take those two big themes, I think it is more sort of tipped to less CapEx in the FY 2028, FY 2029. I do think we will have a step-up in technology spend. Technology spend tends to be more in OpEx than it is in CapEx. But I do think we will have a step-up there. On the countries, yeah, look, outside of franchise, I think is probably where your question is, because I think the franchise sort of expansion is a bit more clearer, I think, maybe.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

I think we still have good opportunities in our Southern European markets. So, we are still opening good stores in Spain and Portugal, and in Italy and in France. We have got quite a lot of white space in Central and Eastern Europe. We have had particularly good expansion in Poland and Saudi Arabia in the year just gone. So, we still see quite Oh, sorry, did I say Saudi Arabia? Poland and Romania. So, I think that is the general shape of where I still think there is quite a lot of areas to grow. [Mike]. Did you have a

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Oh, sorry, was there

[Sreedhar Mahamkali, Analyst at UBS]

The Hovis.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Oh, Hovis. Yes.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Hovis, yeah.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Okay, so there is a big date sometime around Easter where we turn two order systems into one, two routes into one, and we end up with a bakery network to supply those, which is a single bakery network. That is the date we are aiming towards. So it will be the second half. At that point, we start to make savings.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Some of the synergies.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

But yeah, it's another four or five months worth of work.

[Company Representative at Associated British Foods]

Yeah. Geoff, then Clive.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Geoff, then Clive. Sorry.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Yeah, sorry.

[Geoff Lowery, Analyst at Rothschild & Co Redburn]

Oh, thank you. A slightly big-picture question. Sorry, Geoff Lowery, Rothschild & Co Redburn. A slightly big-picture question on the sort of theme of capital deployment and the GBP 1.6 billion in sort of really big projects. Trying to think through what that means for future revenue capacity, and particularly operational gearing as you start to fill it up. Just very aware of the gap between, sort of time gap between capital in the ground and return on that capital.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Yeah.

[Geoff Lowery, Analyst at Rothschild & Co Redburn]

And then second, on the Primark side, can you just help us understand where you're having those successes? What is it? Is it an extra unit in the basket? Is it better conversion of footfall? Is it more footfall? And a slightly naughty one, when you're physically investing in price, what's happening to the absolute gross profit? I appreciate it's just a subset of your business at the moment, but keen to really understand the elasticities. Thank you.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Okay. We will start to see benefits from revenue and profit benefits from the investments back half of this year and into next year. I think we've probably given ourselves capacity for about, in most cases, three years' worth of growth or more. In some places, we've simply put down a starting point. So, will we add more band dryers in Nigeria as we grow our business there? Yeah, almost certainly. The sugar factory in Tanzania will be full straight away. The ethanol plant will be full over a couple of years. Western Australia is built with lots of capacity to come. So it's reasonably quick. India, I think, will fill up within about three years. But again, this is just the first capacity on a site that's built for expansion. So it's a combination of returns to these projects, which I think are two and three years out.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

When we sign these off, we sign them on a kind of three-year return basis. But in a number of places, they are kind of points of entry with more to come behind. Yeah, I think that. And then—

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Yeah. I mean, I think we've had more successes with visits and transactions than we have with conversion. I think there's still more to do in conversion. If you think of a lot of the activities we've had in improving our style credentials in womenswear or indeed marketing, it sort of has drawn more people into the store. So that's possibly the more obvious. I think we've got probably, as I say, I think we've still got a little bit more to do on conversion. Some of the merchandising we're doing in stores at the moment, I think will speak to that. But I think most of the wins have been in transactions rather than conversion. Sorry, then items in basket. I think on your second question, gross profit, look, obviously, we've got to be quite surgical on this.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

We're very careful in terms of how we invest. We do target a certain level of volume uplift, which goes to sort of cover the price investment. We've seen pretty good elasticity in those regards, actually, on the economic value.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Just on what we've seen with lower prices, we're fighting an environment where basket sizes are down, I suspect, everywhere. So quite where the return is coming from. We know that the volume uplifts on the discount products are really good, but we've seen footfall fine, basket sizes down.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Yeah.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

That's just the environment we're in, I think. Until we get through this consumer squeeze, I think it'll be harder to answer your question properly.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

That is fair.

[Company Representative at Associated British Foods]

Clive.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Clive, sorry.

[Analyst]

Yeah, thank you. One for you, George, and then one for Eoin, maybe. Firstly, you mentioned diet suppressant drugs several times through your presentation today. In addition to oils and sugar, you have a bakery and bakery ingredients business. To what extent is that a headwind for your returns going forward in terms of the sunk investment you have made? To what extent does it influence your ongoing M&A? Because medium-term ROCE and returns feel pretty important to ABF.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Yeah.

[Analyst]

For Eoin, you both talked about consumer headwinds. You talked about, Eoin, consumer insights. What are going to be the big themes in apparel to the end of this decade? Is it just continual bumps in the roads, or do you actually have some proper walls to run through? Just lastly, we have had a quarter of a century of returns data in online apparel. How do you feel about that? Because that tends to make a bit of a difference.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Sometimes, yeah.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

I think GLP-1s are as much as an opportunity as they are a threat. I think both in ingredients, but also in the better bits of grocery, we are always looking for change. You know, commoditization is our enemy, and we have got a big chunk of population now looking to eat different things in different ways, and it is really down to us and our branded businesses in particular, well, everything grocery and then the ingredients businesses, to find solutions to new need states. We are doing a very good job in tea. Interesting communication challenge about whether you tell people in different markets what the herbal mixture is actually about, or whether you just assume that they know it. in the U.K., for example, people do not like being told that they are on a GLP-1 diet. In the States, they are absolutely fine and boast about it. So we have got the opportunity for innovation.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

It is true in ingredients too, where health and wellness again requires kind of changes in fashion, changes in theory about how we are going to live forever. In particular, we are looking for things to make our GLP-1 journey easier. Obviously, we are looking for more protein and more fiber, but we are selling a ton more milk of magnesia because it works really well in settling down tummies which are not feeling great because GLP-1s are doing their stuff and the protein that you are on, et cetera. So I think it is an opportunity. In a market where we do not have population growth in many places, we do not have income growth in lots of places, we need these changes. So you can either sit there and go, "Well, it is a bit of a bugger if you are selling sugar into soft drinks," or you can say, "Hey, our job is to delight the consumer.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Let us go do that instead." There are parts of ABF, flour milling in Australia will be down a bit, but there is population growth, so that is fine. I think U.K. sugar is more affected at the moment by people exporting food manufacturing to Europe, probably on the back of high energy costs than it is any dietary shift. Oils in food service in the States I have talked about. But yeah, there are some places where life has got harder, but there are some where just a wall of opportunity has been opened up.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Well, I'll have a go at some sort of visionary answer to your first question. I mean, look, as you know, fashion trends move pretty fast. I mean, there are some trends that I think are going to stay. I mean, the less formal, more informal dressing is, I think, has become a more I mean, this is the most formal setting I've been in for a long time. I think people are much more comfortable dressing in different ways, in different settings, and I don't think that's going to change. I think the youth dynamics of that is it will only just kind of keep driving that.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

I think that's Athleisure is another kind of trend that I think is only going to get bigger and bigger, and it kind of merges a little bit into this leisurewear kind of approach that people are seeing more of. I think fashion, I think, will still be the people that the aim of a lot of retailers is to try and kind of get something distinctive in fashion. I think the years of what people used to call fast fashion are over to a certain extent. I think consumers demand more. I think they value operation, true value operators like ourselves are just not fast fashion, and I think that continues. I think omnichannel truly is omnichannel. People are looking for both an online and store experience, and I think that will continue.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

They would be the things that I think about that. Clearly, the whole AI world is going to disrupt marketing and customer engagement. A lot of people do their searching through the AI rather than now through the more traditional search engines. That obviously changes a whole way we're going to be starting to engage with customers, and that's only going to keep on developing, right? We obviously know that as well, which is good for us to a certain extent because in some ways we've kind of come late to the party, so we can in some ways hopefully kind of bypass a little bit of the more traditional routes to market. The returns, look, returns is a fact of life. By the way, I think the other theme I think is going to be of circularity.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

I do believe circularity is going to become more and more important than just what people purely call sustainability, but that's my very personal held view. Just on returns, I think, look, it's a fact of life in terms of when you do home delivery. I think the world is becoming a little bit more sensible in that space, right, in terms of trying to discourage people from overbuying and then over-returning. I think you've seen that with a lot of retailers in the space. Obviously, we have to factor it into the whole operation and everything I spoke about earlier. Yeah.

[Anubhav Malhotra, Analyst at Panmure Liberum]

Hi, it is Anubhav Malhotra from Panmure Liberum. I have a couple, if you do not mind. Firstly, on the sugar business. The nature of the business, I mean, you book your selling prices early, and the costs come later, and you fix them later, and that is probably part of the reason why you have had to book onerous provisions in there, in the contracts. Is there any way that can be fixed? Your approach for 2-year contracts, have you changed that approach given the world is a lot more volatile place in terms of the outlook for cost going forward? Secondly, on Primark, on the buying margins. Is part of the reduction in average prices being funded by buying margin, and how much of it is being funded by buying margin? If you can give us an example there.

[Anubhav Malhotra, Analyst at Panmure Liberum]

What are you seeing going forward in terms of cost inflation coming through in factory gate prices? Thank you.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

You ask a very good question about the timing differences between particularly when we contract for sugar beet and when we sell that sugar beet. We take all the risk of price movement through that period. Now, two-year contracts, multi-year contracts, we do more of them than we did in an attempt to even out some of the risk profile we have got. Quite frankly, I wish we could do more of that than we can at the moment. I also wish in the U.K. that it was a bit more Spanish and that there was a bigger element of spot. That is easy to want when the market is rising, and we are always very glad in the U.K. that we do not have spot contracts when the market is falling.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Some more complexity, some more optionality than what we largely have at the moment is we have a fixed cost of beet, and we have a fairly fixed selling price for most of what we sell, but a year on. That is the dislocated bit. Gas, there are different ways of covering gas. Gas never used to move around so much, but we now, particularly, we will now cover gas as an element in a contract when we sign the contract. So that takes some of the risk out of it. But yeah, we take, in British Sugar in particular, I think we take more of the commercial risk than either the farmer supplier or the customer.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Yeah, trying to build more contracts in which are linked maybe to world sugar prices, more contracts which cover more years, and maybe some upside and downside, more upside-downside sharing with the farmers. So, low sugar beet price, but with added benefit if the prices move. We do some of it in all those areas. It would be nice to be able to do more.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

But there has been quite a bit of progress.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Yeah.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Yeah.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Yeah.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

It has changed.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Yeah. I mean, we really haven't been sitting there. I talked about sort of self-help in the area where we could help ourselves in sugar. That has been one example. The new sugar contract has a lot more risk-sharing in it than the old ones.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Buying margin.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Oh, margin, yeah, buying margin.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Well, I'll have a go at that. I mean, I think some of it was funded by buying margin. I think there's always opportunity for more of it to be funded by buying margin, but we would have kind of, we would have worked specifically on certain lines in that regard. So, that's probably the best way to describe that answer. I think factory gate prices obviously did increase, in this sort of, really since the beginning of the war, there's been pressure on underlying fabric costs, et cetera, and so on. We've had to kind of navigate through that as well. So yeah.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

I think it is well worth emphasizing, though, that we believe that there is a lot of cost to be released from the Primark supply chain, both the bits that we control and also the effectiveness of our buying. We do not have to make a decision, is it margin or is it sales volume?

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Yeah.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

We can drive, what we are trying to do is to drive price through cost release.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Yeah.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

There is also a lot of waste in the system in terms of putting the wrong product in a store. Our accuracy of our fulfillment is not good enough, and we can improve that, and RFID will be an enormous step towards that. Now, it is not waste as you throw things away, but it is waste in customer coming into the shop and cannot find the size that she wants in particular. It is also waste in having to take summer product off the shelves across the whole of Spain on a single date, rather than keeping the Mediterranean stores with summer ranges for another three or four weeks. There is so much opportunity to, as Eoin said, to simplify the business, to reduce the cost of the business, and to use that to drive like-for-like through price.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Yeah.

[Anubhav Malhotra, Analyst at Panmure Liberum]

Thank you.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Thanks, Anubh.

[Operator]

We have a question from the phone lines. Please stand by. Your question comes from Cédric Norest from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

[Cédric Norest, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Hi, good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I have two, if that's okay. The first one would be on Primark sourcing. There have been recent news flow around protests creating supply chain disruption in Bangladesh. Could you just comment on whether Primark has experienced any disruption so far, which is ahead of the key holiday season, and perhaps provide some indications on the scale of your sourcing exposure in the country? Then on agentic commerce, if I may, agents such as Meta Muse should arguably improve price discovery and make Primark's value proposition even more visible to consumer. But on the other hand, could further increase price transparency and therefore somehow intensify competition.

[Cédric Norest, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Do you see this primarily as an opportunity to improve your visibility and to acquire new consumers, or do you see a risk that it creates a race to the bottom, with price becoming even more important in consumers' purchasing decisions? Thank you.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Yeah, two very good questions. I mean, look, yeah, look, more recent disruption in Bangladesh is actually, when I say it's more recent, it's literally very recent, and in relation to wage protests, and they do happen on a periodic basis. But at this point in time, we don't think it's going to have an impact on. It's too late anyway for disruption for peak trade. We did actually have more significant disruption in Bangladesh a few months back, actually, around gas shortages, and that was more material, I would say, which we've had to navigate through. Then on the, I think I got most of your question on the sort of agentic search and agentic marketing. I think, look, yeah, I think we're going to have to work hard at it, like everyone's going to have to work hard at it to kind of improve your visibility.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

I think, I guess the optimist in me thinks that it's not going to be. I think if you've got good product and you've got good ways of getting your visibility in these platforms, I think you can do well. So my belief is that we can do a good job in terms of improving our visibility rather than being a race to the bottom.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

I'd just add that we've been frustrated for years and years and years by the nature of the wage renegotiations in Bangladesh. We think that they are more confrontational than really they need to be. We've worked hard and led the retail industry in trying to ensure that wages in Bangladesh are fair and working conditions are safe. So, we look at these periods of violence as real failure of the garment industry and its leadership in Bangladesh. It shouldn't get to this.

[Operator]

Thank you. We will take our next question. The question comes from Georgina Johanan from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

[Georgina Johanan, Analyst at JPMorgan]

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions on the phone. I had two, please, and both related to the online proposition, home delivery. When you open up the new site, I just wanted to understand if you, and maybe you could talk a little bit about how flexible that home delivery stock pool is going to be and how integrated or not that is going to be with the stores, please. If you ended up overstocked for online, could you ship the product back to stores and vice versa? The second question was just around your confidence on the incrementality of that offer and talking about the larger basket sizes from Click & Collect and so on. Is what you are saying that it is actually a different and new customer that is coming in to shop for Click & Collect?

[Georgina Johanan, Analyst at JPMorgan]

The fact that it is larger basket sizes, is that kind of indicative of a higher income demographic? Effectively, is that what you are targeting with home delivery, or would that be the wrong way to think about it, please? Thank you.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Well, if I take the last question first, I think it, no, I think it is the right way to think about it. I would not necessarily just call it higher income, but what we are seeing in Click & Collect is, yeah, definitely is a different type of customer. A customer that does shop in Primark already but prefers to shop also through this methodology, through this way, and also would also tend to shop elsewhere. So yeah, as a result, we are getting a little bit more of their wallet, and that is kind of the theme for home delivery, same theme. The work we have done and the analysis here is we have got a considerable number of customers who shop with us on a very infrequent basis. So it is not like we are trying to convince people who just do not like Primark.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

They actually do shop in Primark, they just do not shop in Primark very frequently. I think this gives them a channel with convenience that they prefer, or the way they shop. So I do think that is exactly. You have got that right, Georgina, in terms of the way to think about it. The stock pool, look, I mean, we are not the first, this is not the first rodeo for a retailer to kind of run home delivery in stores, right? So yes, it is a different stock pool, because obviously it is single pick fulfillment versus the pack fulfillment in stores. So obviously we have got to manage that well, and manage that effectively. But we are already doing that with Click & Collect. That is already a, we are already managing that way of stock pool.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

It comes back to something that George was picking on there, which is, as we get more sophisticated and cleaner with our stock flow, including through RFID, that becomes better and more effectively managed. But you are absolutely right that we will have to manage those stock pools well.

[Georgina Johanan, Analyst at JPMorgan]

Thanks so much.

[Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark]

Thank you.

[Operator]

There are no further questions from the phone lines. I will hand back to the room.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Thank you. One last chance for any further questions. We have taken a lot of your time, so perhaps everyone would prefer another cup of tea. If not, thank you very much indeed, and we will be seeing more of each other, I think, over the next 12 months—

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Yes.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

than at any other time in our history, and maybe you will send some of your colleagues along. But thank you.

[Joana Edwards, CFO at Associated British Foods]

Thank you all.

[George Weston, CEO at Associated British Foods]

Thank you.

Participants

Executives

• George Weston, CEO
• Joana Edwards, CFO
• Company Representative

Analysts

• Eoin Tonge, CEO at Primark
• Video Narrator
• John Stevenson, Analyst at Peel Hunt
• Warwick Okines, Analyst at BNP Paribas
• Richard Chamberlain, Analyst at RBC
• Monique Pollard, Analyst at Citi
• Matt Clements, Analyst at Barclays
• Sreedhar Mahamkali, Analyst at UBS
• Geoff Lowery, Analyst at Rothschild & Co Redburn
• Analyst
• Anubhav Malhotra, Analyst at Panmure Liberum
• Cédric Norest, Analyst at Morgan Stanley
• Georgina Johanan, Analyst at JPMorgan