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21st Annual dbAccess Global Consumer Conference 2024

Jun 5, 2024

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Good morning, everyone, and welcome. I'm delighted to be joined by Damian Gammell, CEO of Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, and we're gonna start with a brief presentation, and then we'll go to Q&A. Damian?

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Thanks, Mitch. Morning, everybody. I achieved one thing already today. I got into the hotel, so I feel like it's a good start to my day. So thank you for making it. Happy to share a very brief overview of where we are at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, and then happy to do some Q&A. So as ever, some forward-looking statements from my legal colleagues. So I'm sure a lot of you have been following CCEP for a while, but we've changed quite a bit. On my first couple of slides is just to, you know, orientate where we are today. So I suppose the headline is, we're in a fantastic category in business. It's growing. It's growing in Europe. It's growing in Asia Pacific. It's a profitable business. It's profitable for us.

It's profitable for our consumers, so it's growing, and it's profitable. And as I'll talk a little bit about this morning, over a number of years and continuing into the future, we've continued to strategically position CCEP to extract a lot of value out of that growing and profitable category. And most importantly, in today's world, it's profitable for our customers. So on average, our customers are making margins above 20% on our products. So nice category, growing, profitable, and hopefully, as you'll hear from me this morning, we're really well positioned within that, both from a brand perspective, but as a bottling business from a infrastructure share, and people capability. So we've got quite a bit bigger since we started in 2016.

42,000 very committed, energized colleagues, EUR 20 billion of revenue, very profitable, and getting more profitable, great free cash flow, which gives us lots of optionality around whether that's returning funds to shareholders, investing in our business or more M&A, you know, and clearly a business that's continuing to grow across a lot of geographies. Little bit of where we've come from. So 2016, we set up CCEP, really with a Western European footprint, turned around that business a lot quicker than actually we even expected, started to generate a lot of cash, gave us great optionality, and we executed that really well with the Coke company, with the acquisition of Coca-Cola Amatil at the time. Brought us to a different geography, different demographics, different GDP growth structure, and that's gone really, really well for us.

And then, most recently, and something we're really happy with, is the acquisition of the Philippines business. So a jewel in the Coca-Cola system in Asia, a great Coca-Cola business with a strong history, great share position, great growth trajectory, and it's profitable. So really, really happy that we could bring the Philippines into the CCEP family. So when we look at that growth, you know, what we're seeing is strong growth in Europe, relatively speaking, in terms of revenue. We're seeing volume growth in Europe. I'll talk a little bit about that later. That's one of our priorities. And obviously, as you move east, that growth profile just improves. So both in Australia, New Zealand, couple of points ahead of Europe, mainly driven by a better demographic outlook and GDP profile.

Then you move to markets like Indonesia and Philippines with high single-digit, very dynamic consumer base, strong growth and a very, very young population. Perfect markets for a company with brands like ours. Very nice macro, and these are the macro growth numbers. Clearly, at CCEP, we have a habit and an intent to beat the market and gain share. As we think about our business, obviously, we expect to do better than these numbers going forward. One of the elements that I think has really stood us well through the last number of years has been our relentless focus on profitable diversification. It's a busy slide. Apologies for early in the morning.

But what you can see on the left-hand side is really where we were when we started our journey, and clearly what has transformed the most has been the geographic mix. So moving to a much more balanced, a much more growth-focused, geography mix, but also our packaging mix. So now you'll see we've got a much bigger refillable business, a big refillable glass business. Our away-from-home business is now bigger, so that's generally more resilient, more profitable. It's where we build our brands, but a nice mix between retail and away from home. And I suppose a lot of the companies you'll see here this week are predominantly retail-focused. And I think the great thing about the Coke business is that, yes, we do really well in retail.

We love our customers in the retail business, but we've got a really strong revenue and profit growth stream coming from away from home, and that gives us a nice mix and a nice balance. And clearly, with the Monster company and with The Coca-Cola Company, our priority now is really around portfolio and categories. So where can we diversify even further into those higher margin, higher growth segments within NARTD? So a much more diverse business provides, I would say, more growth. Top line gives us an opportunity to accelerate leverage on our P&L, and clearly gives us more optionality as we think about the future, whether that's on portfolio or M&A. How do we look at the business from a fairly simple structure? Our partners at The Coca-Cola Company and Monster bring the love brands.

We're very, very fortunate that we sell, make, move the best brands in the world. Our role is really at the bottom. It's really to drive that pervasive execution, distribution, in-store presence, share of shelf, cold drink, and we do that every day across all of our markets, and we balance that with building capabilities that extract value through, you know, margin and revenue growth management, world-class key account management. Clearly, on the other side, the Coke company and Monster feed that model with great consumer insights, great consumer marketing, and that's really how our business generates a whole lot of value for our customers, but also for our shareholders. We have a simple model at CCEP. It's served us well.

We've challenged it, I think, every year since we created it, to say, "Should we change?" Our employees like it, our customers like it, I hope you like it. It's very simple. It's about let's keep getting the great brands from the Coca-Cola Company and Monster, keep building great talent, it is a people business, drive that execution store by store, day by day, and make sure that we do it in a way that is sustainable for our planet, and that's obviously something at CCEP we're very, very passionate about, and it's something that's now embedded into our business, as one of our core value-creating opportunities. On the brand side, this is not all of our brands, but it just gives you a flavor of the opportunity we have when we look at our consumer dynamic from Europe across to Asia Pacific.

We're not short of brands to extract value and growth from our consumers. So really our biggest challenge here is to pick the brands that will deliver the most value, that will deliver sustainable growth, and that will get to a share position in the market that allows us to price well in our category. And that's the work we do, you know, on an annual basis with our brand partners, and it's different market by market, so we do this quite locally to make sure we make the right decisions, given that most of our consumers operate and think on a fairly local basis. On people, very high engagement at CCEP. We've a great stock plan for our colleagues, so a lot of our colleagues are shareholders in our business.

That's something we kicked off, and have had great uptake in. They're very engaged. They join for the brands. To work in this business, you've got to be really passionate about our brands, particularly brand Coca-Cola, and obviously, they stay for our colleagues, so you know, we've a diverse, inclusive workforce. It's focused on growth, top line growth, quality growth in the P&L, but also growth for our people, career opportunities, and career development, and that's a key, key part of our value creation story, and obviously, our customers feel that, so when we look at our Advantage survey scores, or when we speak to our customers, consistently, the feedback we get is the quality of the people that we send in to talk to our customers about growing their business and growing their P&L, and that's something that we'll continue to focus on.

As a bottler, it is about the stores. I talked about that earlier. It is about, you know, pervasive execution. I hope some of you get a chance to visit some stores in Paris. We've been doing a lot of work here for the Olympics. It's a great market for us. We've over a 90% share here in cola, and we're continuing to drive our execution, you know, day by day, store by store, and that's our business, and that's really what we do every day, and that's what we're passionate about, and that's what creates value for our brand partners, and for our customers, and obviously, for CCEP, and that just gives you a flavor of what we focus on, so getting the innovation in, whether it's in ARTD, a new category for us with Jack Daniel's and Coke, or our Monster innovation.

Chilled space. We buy a lot of coolers, and we spend roughly. And we will be spending nearly EUR 1 billion a year in capital. A lot of that goes into cold drink to drive that space. It's high value, it's immediate consumption. It is about winning SOV, so winning the shelf, and then clearly what we're passionate about is building space off shelf. So we give our brands the space, to grow, and the presence to impact the consumer. As I mentioned, we're passionate about sustainability. We've got an ESG target around CO2 for 2030. It's in our long-term incentive plan. It creates value for the company. So I know there's a lot of debate around the ESG topic, but when we look at what reduces our carbon footprint, it helps the P&L.

So if you lose less energy, you use less water, you're smarter about how your vehicles drive, you use less packaging, you lightweight your packaging, it not only helps achieve your CO2 target, but it creates value in your P&L. And clearly, over time, particularly in Europe, consumers will value brands that do better for the planet than other brands, and that's something that we're not quite seeing yet, but we're confident it'll come. We certainly see value with our customers, as they have set their own targets around climate, and clearly, our goals fit very nicely with theirs. So it's something that we believe is value creating, and it's the right thing to do. So we've got a clear strategy, and on this slide, I just wanted to share with you, not everything, but some of the highlights that we continue to focus on.

You know, we've got great optionality in our brands, but we're very focused on what can create value. We'll continue to look at geographic expansion, although I have to say, after the Philippines, you know, we've done really well to secure that business, so we're really happy with that. We've got a productivity goal externally. We've talked about taking out EUR 350 million-EUR 400 million of cost. You know, as we've built our business up through acquisition, clearly, we still have an opportunity to become more productive, particularly using technology to unlock some cost out of our business. We're passionate that we create more value, not just from a beverage perspective, but across all CPG categories.

So consistently, when you look at what categories are creating growth for our retailers, we're consistently number one, and as I mentioned, our customers make a lot of money on our brands, and we're very happy with that. So margins over 20%. So that gives us relevance, gives us focus, and clearly, it supports our growth agenda. We love creating value for our shareholders. We're very happy with our TSR of 155%. A lot of our shareholders have been with us from the beginning. We like to reward that with our dividend policy at 50%. We'll continue to look at our capital allocation choices as we go forward in terms of share buybacks. But we have an unwavering commitment to generate value for our shareholders, and that's something that we're doing every year and every quarter.

I talked about our workforce. We've just paid our dividend. We've given back EUR 6.4 billion in cash returns, so we're very happy with that. Healthy TSR, but ultimately, it's all about the strong top line driving a strong bottom line, and as a management team, that's our relentless focus. We get that right, we've huge optionality around what we do with our cash, whether it's returning it to our shareholders, more M&A, and continuing to invest in the business for long-term growth, so very clear on our strategy. That leads to what we believe are, you know, very solid guidance for the midterm. 4% on revenue. What you'll see in that number is more volume. That comes from two elements. We're committed to growing volume in Europe. We believe that's the right thing to do, particularly transactions.

And obviously, with the acquisition of Indonesia and Philippines, we start to see volume becoming a bigger part of our revenue mix. Pricing will remain a priority for us. We've been quite, I would say, sensible in our pricing, particularly in Western Europe, given the cost of living challenges. We'll continue to take that mindset for the long term, but that gets us to a healthy 4%, revenue guidance. Getting leverage on our P&L gets us to a 7% on operating income. Continued commitment to driving strong cash flow gives us great options as a management team. Our net debt to EBITDA will come down into that range of 2.5x - 3.0x that we're very comfortable with. Clearly, we'll continue on the back of the profit growth to improve our return on invested capital.

We have taken a decision to guide a little bit higher on CapEx. I think that's sensible, given we know the Philippines as a market will require a little bit more CapEx in the near term. And then, obviously, we're very happy with our 50% dividend payout ratio. We will sustain that. And as we did previously, we'll consider other methods to return cash to our shareholders, predominantly, probably through a share buyback, and that's what we did previously. So that's our midterm guidance, and clearly a nice top-line growth, nice bottom-line growth, and a lot of free cash flow generation. So why do we believe in that? As we go forward, we have a good track record of balancing a very healthy price mix and now volume algorithm. I think that balances the business and gives us growth.

We continue to invest, so we take a long-term view of this business, so that CapEx goes into long-term capabilities around technology, capacity, and cold drink. We have got a solid capital allocation, quite disciplined, and we're very consistent about that. You know, we are making better decisions faster, and that's on the back of a lot of investment we've done over a number of years on our technology platform, data insights, consumer insights. We've a great innovation pipeline. I had a meeting yesterday with Monster, with Rodney and Hilton. We went through next year's innovation plan, so a lot of innovation, both on our KO portfolio and on Monster. You know, so clearly, we've got a lot of optionality on the top line, but we also know we've got a lot of opportunity and productivity.

So that EUR 350 million-EUR 400 million productivity goal just gives us more optionality on that 7% operating profit growth. And finally, but very important for me and the team, is we continue to invest in our people, as we go forward. So that's a quick run through CCEP. Having another good year. Looking forward to the Olympics in Paris, Euros in Germany, full program, and I think summer's arriving. Hasn't been great here the last few weeks, but we're getting a bit of good weather. So thank you, and happy to take some questions.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Thank you very much, Damian. Great overview of the business, and good to see all those drivers of shareholder value. Maybe if we go into some of the growth rates you talked about. So I think you had Western Europe, 2%-3%, Australia, Pacific, 4%-5%, and then Indonesia, Philippines, high single digits. I guess if we put all that together, does that mean that the 4% group organic growth rate that you're guiding to in the medium term maybe looks a little bit conservative? And within that, are you including alcoholic ready-to-drink?

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

We're not including alcohol ready-to-drink in terms of this. You know, any scale impact. Clearly, we're including that we'll do it. We've launched in G.B. We've a healthy portfolio in Australia, New Zealand, going back 16 years, which we'll transition out of from Suntory back into the KO family. From a planning perspective and from a execution, it's in. It's too early to call the impact on revenue. It's a new category for us. It exists in Europe, but it's still quite small. It's big in Australia and New Zealand, so over time, that could play a bigger role than that four. If you look at Australia, New Zealand, ARTD is mid-teen size of the alcohol category. If you look at Western Europe, it's about 1%-2%.

So if we get it right, you know, there's clearly a big opportunity there, but it's not in the four. Yeah, and obviously, if you do the math on the four, generally, if you look at, you know, that algorithm, you could get to a higher number. We've had that question quite a bit. Clearly, it's midterm guidance, and we feel comfortable that that's, you know, obviously achievable. Things could go a bit better, for sure. Yeah. So we're happy with the four, but yeah, let's see.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Understood. Let's look at some of those higher growth markets. Firstly, the Philippines, where non-alcoholic ready-to-drink is a much more established category. What excites you about the Philippines as a market? How is the integration going, and what do you expect in the medium term from the Philippines?

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Yeah, it's a great business. It's a real Coke, Coca-Cola business. The brand's been there over 110 years. It was the first market outside of the U.S. So, you know, I kinda. It's a, it's like a developed business in an emerging market, so it's quite different. So when you go there, and you see the category, you look at the per caps, the availability, the pack variation, the brand variation, you know, it's much more developed than anywhere else in Asia. So if you look at sparkling per caps, very high. Our market share in sparkling is over 70%. So it's a very different business compared to its neighboring markets and a very strong brand affiliation. So we're really happy with that.

Integration's gone really well, so I think that business had been obviously, you know, owned by different entities for quite a while, and I think finally now, our colleagues there feel they're part of the biggest bottler. And we generally, we don't sell businesses, so it's given certainty and purpose. We've committed more CapEx to that business, which is something it needed, and I think that's driving a positive integration mindset. What excites me is the growth, but also the profitability opportunity. So, you know, we're choiceful about where we spend capital. One of the reasons we took our CapEx up was that we believe by spending a little bit in the Philippines, we can extract more value in the P&L. On the gross margin line, and obviously on an operating margin, so that excites us. So the growth is there.

It's really then using some of the capabilities we've had around revenue growth management, capital spend, to unlock a bit more value in the P&L. Yeah, so it's a profitable business, it's a growing business, and we think it'll get more profitable.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Okay.

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

That's what excites me.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Within that, I think, there's a shared service center in Manila. I know you've got one in Sofia. Is there an opportunity to leverage the two?

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Yeah, so we've about 1,000 colleagues in Sofia, which is a really strategic asset for us, so it's insourced. We do some outsourcing with Cap, and as you'd expect, but we insource. What we insource mostly is around data analytics, robotics and analysis, because we believe that's a competitive advantage. We'll bring the same mindset. We've about 200 colleagues in Manila, that we've obviously came into our business on the acquisition, and we believe those capabilities are very transferable. So that will give us, you know, a balance to our Sofia hub. It'll give us capability closer to our markets, particularly in Australia and New Zealand, where we can extract high value. They're high-value markets. It'll allow us to, I suppose, manage a bit of risk and labor inflation coming out of Bulgaria as well.

So, you know, we'll run those as one entity, so, we'll integrate it from a kind of structure, but physically, we'll keep our Manila base.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Okay, understood. So you're excited about the value growth, but also the margin opportunity.

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Absolutely.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Is there any way to sort of quantify the upside from the margin perspective?

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

There's lots of ways, but I can't really talk about it. But I think when we—I suppose that's one of the things, when we were looking at that business, you know, I think we did a good deal. And when we looked at it, I suppose we're seeing that margin opportunity probably coming a bit quicker than we realized at the beginning, but we haven't put a number on it externally. Yeah.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Understood. Maybe let's go to Indonesia. It's clearly a huge market in terms of population. What do you think about the opportunity to turn that into a really great soft drinks market, and what is the sort of barrier to achieving that?

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Yeah, it's a fantastic country. I mean, 300 million population, young, energetic. You know, it's a well-run country, currency, so there's lots of elements of it that get me really excited. And then you kind of get, take a step back, and you look at the per capitas are low single digit, right? So, you know, as a system, we haven't built a sustainable soft drink business there. That's our number one priority. What we need to do to achieve that, and it's gonna take time, is, one, we need to be very affordable. So what we've realized when we bought that business is magic price points of IDR 3,000, IDR 4,000 are really, really critical. We've now achieved that. We've taken some bold decisions on exiting categories so we can focus on being a soft drinks business and tea.

And then the second element is we've got to build category relevance. So not just brand relevance, we've got to build category relevance, because the sparkling category is just not a big part of the culture. And that's our priority with the Coca-Cola Company. And that's the journey we're on. We've downsized from a 1.5 L to a 1 L in the home market. Again, that gets us to IDR 10,000 , which is a key price point. We've got IDR 3,000 for 250. We've got our 390 at IDR 4,000 now. So when we bought the business, they were at 5 and 6, and 1.5 L was at 15. So it's taken us a bit of time to get that pricing discipline into the market. As you can appreciate, there's a lot, it's very fragmented. So we're there now.

And clearly, our priority for the next number of years is to build that category relevance. So, and that's around taste. It's around intrinsics, and then will come occasions. So if you look at our marketing in most of our other markets, it's about occasions. We've got to build intrinsics in Indonesia first. If you step back, it's not an alcohol market. It's very young, it's very digital, technology-centric, so we can connect with consumers a lot quicker, for example, than we can in Western Europe. It's generally very, very warm, so it's either 35 degrees Celsius and raining or 35 degrees Celsius and not raining. So if you design a perfect soft drinks market, I mean, that's it. So that gets me excited, but it's not easy. It's gonna take time.

We see progress, but to do it the right way, and if you look at the population base, it's gotta be a business that gets to the per capitas of 15 or 20, which would be in line with other Asian markets or Central Asian markets that I used to run, and then you're looking at a business of, like, close to a billion cases, so the prize is huge, and that kind of gives us the belief to keep going, but it's not a straight road, and, you know, for us, we expected that going in, but it's a lot of fun, and we've great people, so yeah, it's an exciting place.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

And within that, is there an opportunity to develop zero sugar and energy? And I know you do refillables in the Philippines.

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Mm-hmm.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Can you do refillables in Indonesia as well?

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Yeah. So we've just launched Predator from Monster into the Philippines. And I think that's something we'll definitely look at in Indonesia, because I think that category is there, and it's emerging. I think if you look at our business in the Philippines, we've a massive refillable glass business. That really plays to that affordability. We're looking at launching refillables in Indonesia end of this year, in glass, mainly in Java, just to see how the consumer reacts, how does the customer react, you know, how easy that supply chain will run in a market like Indonesia, because clearly, there's some complexities with refillables. There's lots of benefits, but it comes with complexity. So we'll definitely look at that. We've launched Zeros at the beginning of this year in Indonesia. We first launched with Coke Zero.

It's gone much, much better than we expected. Much better. In modern trade, we're getting 20-30 share points in some customers, which is much higher than we expected. On the back of that, we've launched Sprite Zero, which is a reformulated, great-tasting product. And actually, that's something we're gonna look at now in the Philippines. We don't have a big Zero business in the Philippines. I think what we've learned in Indonesia, we're gonna go back now and look at the Philippines and see whether that can play a role there. Sugar prices are very high there, as you know. I think a lot of consumers in the Philippines will like a zero-calorie, great-tasting product. So that's gone better in Indo, and that's given us a bit of ambition now to look at it in Philippines.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Okay. And I guess that refillable opportunity is an example of what you were talking about earlier, as you know, something that helps you in terms of your ESG performance, but is also a big cost benefit.

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's good in terms of packaging. It's good in terms of affordability. It comes with complexity and water usage, 'cause you've got to obviously wash the bottle, so there's that side. I mean, one thing in Indonesia, which is something we're happy. We're now collecting over 80% of all of our packaging. So when we bought the business, there wasn't a structured process to take back packaging. Just didn't exist in Indonesia, not just in our business. On the back of our commitments in Europe, so we didn't change our ESG commitments when we bought Indonesia or the Philippines. We said, you know, "What's good for Europe is good for there.

We've got to get them to the same level." We set up a local recycling and collection system with a local JV partner, and that's getting us to 70%-80% collection. Probably by next year, we'll be at 100%. And that's important. One, it's great because it's no litter. It's good for the environment, but it's giving us a reusable PET pool locally, so our PET packaging will also become very sustainable. So both with glass refillable and a recycled PET content, we'll get a much better sustainability footprint.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

That's great. Moving to Australia, which you've owned for three years, now. You successfully reduced the depth of your promotional discounts from, I think, 50%... Yeah, 40%. And how did you do that without impacting volumes? Can you do more? And is that, you know, is that harming in any way your relationship with the retailers, who obviously, quite like those deep discounts?

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Yeah. So I can give you a real strategic answer.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Okay.

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

But I'll tell you the truth. So we had a CO2 crisis.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Are they different?

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Yeah, they're different.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Okay.

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

So we knew what we wanted to do because we did it in Europe, and we said, "Promoting at 50% constantly is destroying value for the retailer, and for us." So we knew we wanted to, like we did in Europe, when we created CCEP, unwind some of those really heavy promos that were really habit-driven. And so we had a plan in place, and we shared all the learnings with our retailers and with our colleagues in Australia on what happened in Europe and how it worked and how it created sustainable value and growth. So we had the plan, and we were looking at how we'd execute it. And then, I'm sure you know, at the time, Australia ran into a CO2 crisis, so basically, supply was an issue. So the whole market was drained of CO2, so effectively, everybody struggled.

So it was a perfect time to say to the retailers: "Listen, even if you want to promote at 50%, we... You know, the market's too tight with product." You know, it was day-to-day supply, so we said, "Let's take promo..." We actually went to 30%, and that was the catalyst to get the pricing in. And then from 30%, we're between 30% and 40% now, and that works. So it was a good example of don't waste a crisis. So that CO2 shortage, which was painful for our supply chain, honestly gave us the window to say, "Okay, if there's ever a time now, 'cause we can't meet the demand at 50%." Yeah, so very strategic.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Okay, understood, and I guess, you know, staying in Australia. You know, how have you broadly succeeded with that market, you know, and done things that Amatil wasn't able to do? What did you do that was different other than the promo depth?

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

So we got out of categories that didn't create value and were massively, you know, I'd say, distracting our business. So we got out of beer, we got out of cider. You know, we exited a number of peripheral, low-margin, complex businesses. I think Amatil had kind of, due to its, I suppose, its smaller geography, had more of a become a beverage player, portfolio, get into spirits, get into beer, cider. Very difficult to generate money in that, particularly in a market like Australia, where everything's a duopoly. So I think what we brought back was a focus on Coke, soft drinks, energy, where we've high margin, high growth opportunity, strong brand love. And I think that just sent a signal to the organization and to our customers that we're gonna focus on, you know, what we're good at.

We're not good at selling beer or cider or spirits. And I think that was a catalyst for a kind of mindset shift. And clearly, you know, on the back of the acquisition, our relationship with KO was stronger locally. We were competing with them on soft drinks. We had our own brands in flavors, and no surprise, our share in flavors was really low. So we sold our brands at the time back to KO, and that just unlocked a strategic review of flavors. So now I think we've gained about three, four share points in flavors since we did that. So a number of small moves that. But I think it was just more about belief and that, you know, it's a great business, and it's paying out.

I mean, that acquisition has been fantastic, well ahead of where we thought we'd be in terms of value creation. I think what we did there led us to get the opportunity in the Philippines.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Understood. We shouldn't leave Europe out, given that's where the CCEP story began. So you talked about achieving volume growth within Europe. Where does that volume growth come from? Can you grow, you know, things like Classic Coke? You know, do you need to go... Is it coming from adjacencies like energy or alcoholic ready-to-drink? You know, where do you expect to deliver volume growth in Europe?

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

So, Classic Coke is growing, even particularly here in France, so very healthy revenue growth. We see volume growth coming. Obviously, Coke Zero continues to grow revenue and volume. Monster's growing a lot of volume. That category is, you know, mid-teens growth. We're participating ahead of the category. That's growing volume. Our tea business is growing volume. You know, we have a share of about 15% in the tea category, so we see volume growth coming on tea. We've about a 20%-25% share in flavors, depending on the market you pick, and that's with brands like Fanta and Sprite. We've reformulated Sprite Zero. It's a great-tasting product. We've a lot of innovation on Fanta with Exotic. That's delivering volume growth. So what we haven't quite got yet is Coke Classic to grow volume.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Okay.

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

It's growing revenue. It's growing volume in France, so France is a good example, but it's growing revenue. So our Classic brand has been growing revenue year on year. That's mainly been through price and mix, and it's not quite got to the volume growth of the other categories. So that's something we're very curious and passionate about, because if we can achieve that, given the size of that brand, it's a big win for our growth targets. Some of the initiatives we're doing now that you would not have seen in Europe previously is now we're innovating on Coke Classic with flavors, so whether that's cherry, vanilla. Previously, we only did flavors on Zero, and that worked on Zero.

We now believe, speaking to our consumers, that there's a lot of Classic Coke drinkers that also want innovation, so we're bringing innovation back to Coke Classic. We've done a good job on pack mix and variety, so if you go to any supermarket here in France or G.B., you know, we've done a good job hitting all those price points, whether it's on mini cans, glass, large PET, multi-pack cans. So that will support growth as well. So, yeah, clearly, we're conscious that the consumer's under a bit of pressure in Europe, so you'll see a lot more large PET in our mix. That was the case last year. It's the case this year. You'll see a bit more sold on large multi-pack cans as they look for value.

We're seeing strong growth in our small PET, so 1.25, 1-L, that kind of hits a price point in Europe of around EUR 2 or less. We know that's important because people are looking at absolute price points and value. We rolled back our pricing in Spain on 2-L to EUR 1.99, that's working. So as we look at that growth as well, logically, we see that value will play a role in Europe, I think at least for the next couple of years. Who knows what will happen in G.B. with the election? So I think G.B. is also a market where we see consumers pivoting a little bit more to value. We're not spending more on promotions. We're not going deeper.

We're just using better insights to allocate our promotional funds to the packages that make a difference, and so that's large PET, large multi-pack cans, and that's probably a dynamic you'll see, I think, for the next 24 months.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Okay. I've got to ask about the summer of sport, so there's a lot going on. What are your plans to leverage those sporting events, and are there really opportunities to create long-term value?

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Being a Chelsea fan, I fell out of love with sports quite a while ago, so I'm looking forward to getting re-engaged in the summer. Olympics in Paris, I mean, it already feels like it's started when you look at the traffic and all of the, how difficult it is to get around, that's gonna be amazing. Euros in Germany is probably bigger. Not to upset my French colleagues, but clearly, most of our CCEP markets are in euros. G.B., obviously Germany hosting it. That's gonna be great. Gives us a lot of execution capability across our markets. We've the America's Cup at the end of the summer in Barcelona. Not a massive consumer event, but a big customer event, so a lot of interest from our customers.

So, a lot happening on the sporting front. So, yeah, it's busy summer.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Understood. I'm conscious we're getting quite close to the end, but I do wanna ask you about digital. I think 85% of your revenues are now fully digital, and you talked briefly earlier about, you know, some of those insights leading to pricing decisions. How do you leverage your data analytics in order to make sure you have the right pack price mix architecture?

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Yeah, so we've been in a gathering strategy for a number of years, so to get all of our revenue onto the platforms. MyCCEP.com is our customer portal. It'll do over two billion in revenue just on that portal. And then the rest comes through our EDI network. We've got all of the revenue coming through our system now, and in Sofia now, we're looking at how do we just make smarter decisions on that. We started a few years back on revenue growth management, so really elasticities, analyzing promotions, you know, what drives household penetration? We're making much smarter decisions now on how we allocate our promo funds, so we can be more value relevant without spending more, and I think that's really important for us.

And we're seeing that, and that goes back to that Australia example. In some ways, I feel we're not at the beginning, but as I look at AI and some of the robotics, now that we've got the data, I think we're having lots of conversations with partners externally on how do we get more out of it. I think until we had it, we couldn't really have a conversation. Now that we've got 85% in our own platform, yeah, we're having lots of exciting conversations. Lots of people making promises to us as consultants on what they could do with that. But at least we now have that option, and I think where we're probably getting more value than we realize is on supply chain.

Just basically using analytics to do forecasting, demand planning, and that's giving us a bit more efficiency and productivity, and that flows into that EUR 350 million-EUR 400 million that we talked about.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Okay. Probably finish with a question on capital allocation. So you've successfully been able to acquire within the Coke system. It's completely changed the geographic mix of the business. Do you think on a five, 10-year view, there will be more opportunities to pursue other businesses within the Coke system? And how do you balance the value that creates versus the dividend that you spoke about earlier and, you know, the opportunity to return cash to shareholders with buybacks?

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Yeah. So the dividend stays. I mean, we've been disciplined about that, even through the big acquisition of Amatil, even through, you know, the pandemic. I think we're gonna be a bit quieter on the M&A front, Mitch, in the near term. If I look at assets available for sale of quality that I think will create value for our shareholders, it's hard to find them now. Ten years is a long time, so I won't go beyond the next three years. So I'd expect, absent something coming up that we don't forecast, that we'd probably get back to returning cash to shareholders in 2025.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Okay.

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

And that would be through a mechanism that will keep our dividend at 50%, so probably share buybacks. And that will give us the optionality, if for some reason, which I honestly don't see happening, a market of real value comes up that we'll be able to acquire in any way. And we wanna have that choice. I just don't see it, so I think it'll be a bit quieter for my M&A team. I'm happy with that in the near term. It'll give us a chance to extract the value that we need to from Indo, Philippines, deliver on the productivity, and then probably in two or three years, just take a step back and see where we are as a company.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Okay. It's a perfect place to leave it. So, Damian, thank you very much for your time.

Damian Gammell
CEO, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Thank you.

Mitch Collett
Director, Deutsche Bank

Thanks for your insights. Thank you.

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