I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Barry Irvin, Executive Chairman. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. For those of you that are following on in the results presentation, I will be very brief, but I will start on page three. Look, obviously for me, this is a number of years of presenting the Bega Group's story, and I think I couldn't be happier with how the company is positioned as I speak to you today.
As you know, we have had a singular strategy and focus over a long period of time to build from what was a small cooperative into a largely business-to-business style business and a commodity business into a truly branded business with great opportunities in the future. I think probably the most important thing I would say is that this business is in the position where it has wonderful brands, it has great supply chain knowledge.
In the year that we have just been through, particularly with events such as conflict in the Middle East, we have been able to demonstrate how agile we can be and how we can adjust to great challenges. I think we are very well-positioned for the future.
People talk more about this, but where we are today is positioned for opportunity. We know there is more to do, and we know there is great opportunity not only here in Australia, but internationally and particularly in our near neighbors. I think if I moved on to the next page four, I would reinforce that the vision to become a great Australian food company is well on its way.
We have built this company on the basis of values that are very important to us. If I was to point you to two, and I think very much reflective in this presentation and will reflect into the future, it is that we always invest in our future, and we are positioned for some great investment. We have made some great investments this year. We have got great opportunities to make further investments into the future to further improve this business, to meet that strategy that said that we will be the preferred procurer of raw materials from our farmers, particularly our dairy farmers.
The way we have been able to grow our milk supply shows that the strategy makes us very competitive when it comes to procuring milk from our farmers. We will have a low-cost infrastructure that can meet the market and our brands, our much-loved brands, will respond to the market.
They will respond to the consumer trends that we are seeing in health and wellbeing, in convenience, in value. We have the brands and the products that can meet those consumer trends. We have an ever-improving footprint. We are embracing more and more technology to make that footprint even better. We continue to invest in a business that is extraordinarily well-positioned. That said, I think I will leave that heavy lifting to Pete, and he will take you through not only some of those strategic things that I have mentioned, but also the achievements of the year. Pete, I will hand over to you.
Terrific, Barry. Thank you very much for that introduction. I will take us through some of the key highlights and how we are thinking about what has happened in FY 2026, but also how we think that will play out in FY 2027. Gunther Burghardt, our CFO, will jump in to give an overlay of our financial results, and then I will talk about how we are seeing the FY 2027 outlook. Look, if we turn to page six, which is our key messages, we are very pleased with where we sit at the end of FY 2026.
We developed our strategy in the back end of FY 2023, and it was really about stripping the business back with a mantra of simplify and focus, and applying that to working on our key channels and categories where we had a right to win, streamlining our asset base to create cost advantage, and turning our assets much harder, so making the business more efficient.
It would be fair to say that at this stage, three years into that initial five-year strategy, we feel confident that we are achieving those outcomes and the pillars or the key direction that we set is actually being executed upon well, to the point where we have refreshed our 2028 outlook to 2031, and we still feel very confident about those pillars and the direction we are heading in, and we still think there is a lot of opportunity there.
The result this year, driven by a really solid branded performance. The key categories we really wanted to focus on was around yogurt, milk-based beverages, spreads, where our strong brands sit, and obviously cream cheese into our international markets. Around those key categories, we were able to get some real lift in better-for-you product innovation. We continue to see that thematic evolving over the next 5- 10 years. I will talk about that in a little bit more detail, but we are getting really good growth and tailwinds in that specific space.
The team have done an excellent job positioning ourselves to take advantage of those thematics. Our food service channel, which we really wanted to dial up three years ago when we spoke about our strategy, has continued to perform very strongly.
We had 6% growth in that channel, which is a little bit lower than last year. Given the constraints we have been seeing in that channel around a more subdued consumer sentiment outlook, we were actually ecstatic, and we think that 6% certainly outperformed the market. We continue to see good growth and innovation there, and we are positive about that channel moving forward, as I said, even with some headwinds around consumer sentiment. Our international branded business continues to perform particularly well in Southeast Asia.
We were actually supply constrained for some parts of the year due to the Middle East conflict and actually demand running further ahead of our medium-term outlook. We are solving those issues as we speak, but we still achieved 4% growth in that market, and we are actually expecting that to ramp up even further in 2026.
We still think that over the next 5- 10 years, that market offers us a significant opportunity, and we will continue to focus on it more and more. Our bulk business had a really strong year, and that sort of continues to be the evolution of the work that the business did out of a very tough year back in 2023. We have premiumized a lot of our offering. We have spent a lot of work value-adding to our protein mix and also integrating that business better into our branded business so that we can continue to find different value pools.
Our nutraceuticals and infant nutrition business continues to thrive, and so we are beginning to feel better and better about that business and our ability to separate that business from the commodity milk value index, which I will talk to a little bit later on.
Underpinning that growth across the top line and our connection into our markets has continued to be a really strong focus on efficiency programs. That will always be part of our DNA, to do things better and smarter. If you look at that, we achieved a terrific return on funds employed result of 10%, up 1.6 percentage points from last year, and we actually achieved our 2028 outcome, a couple of years early. Our leverage has dropped to 0.8x , which continues to give us optionality about reinvestment in the business, either organically or inorganically.
I am really pleased with our EBITDA result, which was up nearly 12% year-on-year and represents a double-digit earning CAGR over the first three years of our strategy, which I think we are very pleased about when we look at some of the peers in our sector, and I think sort of outlines the momentum we have built in the business. We move to the next slide, which is slide seven, where we are going to have a look at some of our financial metrics. Really pleased that in a year where we were able to grow EBITDA, grow top-line revenue, increase our margins.
We were actually able to operate successfully across all those key lines there. Our net revenue was driven by both a growth in volume and growth in price. EBITDA continues to represent that strong double-digit growth, and that is flowing through to earnings per share.
We are delivering a growth environment, but at the same time, returning more earnings to our shareholders on a per-share basis, which is represented in an increased dividend. Return on funds employed is an incredibly important metric to us. We want to turn our assets harder. We want to get a better return on all asset employed.
We feel that if we can outperform our competitors across a capital lifespan, that just continues to build momentum in our business and long-term sustainable growth. It also, just in its nature, drives a lower cost per unit. A really important measure that we continue to focus on as a business, and we create alignment across our business on that measure all the time. If I move on to the next slide, which is slide eight, and it is really about creating our long-term competitive advantage.
If I think about our business and what it represents, we want to have mainstream, everyday brands that are ranked number one or number two in their category, that connect well with our consumers, and then we want to underpin that with operational leverage that is best in market. We want a lower cost per unit. We want better delivery and better basics for our customers that support those brands that meet their needs. That is how I sum up our business. That is what I try and achieve.
When we look at that front head of the piece, we do have five power brands that deliver number one or number two market positions in growing categories across this country. We have excellent marketing capability and sales distribution networks that support that.
We are good at dealing with large customers in this marketplace, with major retailers, with food service channels, with distributors, and with small business. We pride ourselves on that. We give them great everyday brands that meet consumers' needs at excellent value. We then underpin that with a really good low-cost, highly efficient operating network. We have significant scale across our manufacturing capability that keeps driving our cost per unit down, so we can always go to our customers with a competitive price point.
We have focused our supply footprint to be able to deliver on time and deliver innovation as it is required, and we continue to accelerate investment in technology and automation. Those things always underpin our operating network, and by bringing or reducing our factories down, we can actually accelerate that. The third thing we do is we always maximize value from our key ingredients.
We purchase about 1.4 billion liters of milk, and the ability to use that milk extremely well, both across our branded business and our ingredients nutritional business, provide excellent value and gives this company the advantage.
Milk intake actually grew by nearly 7% this year in a stable market, which means that we are offering farmers a competitive proposition because we are able to use those solids to better value, and we are extremely pleased about that. That is where we need to win. That is where we will focus on winning. If we can do that, we will continue to grow our business. If I move to the next page, just underpinning the work we have done around those thematics is the transformation program we have undertaken over the last three years.
I am extremely proud of the enormity of the work that we have done, the speed that we have been able to do it in, and the quality of execution. We have undertaken a significant piece of work, and the team have done an outstanding job in delivering that work on time to broadly meet the outcomes and targets that we set forward. We wanted to increase yogurt capability and MBB capability back in 2023. We implemented a new pouch line. We put in new packaging capability to speed up our milk-based beverage network in 2023.
We closed sites in Canberra, moved 30 million liters of production into our Penrith facility to drive down our cost of production. We acquired the Betta Milk business in Tasmania. We closed both of those sites and integrated those in our Lenah Valley site.
We restructured our corporate head office and took out nearly 250 heads, generating more than AUD 20 million of savings, but more importantly, aligned our capability up with our strategy. We increased capability across our international food service business by going and hiring people that could drive our business forward, and we are now seeing the benefits of that from the growth in those channels moving forward. We innovated in lactose-free and no sugar added to start our wellness transitional journey.
In the first half of 2025, we actually started to launch protein into our milk-based beverages, which has driven significant growth. We sold our Leeton site for juice extraction and actually created a far better cost to serve for our business.
We repurchased our dryer at Tatura at the time and actually regeared up to drive protein valorization in our ingredients nutritional business, which has delivered this year in spades, and we think will continue to deliver in years ahead. We launched our Dairy Farmers protein smoothies piece out of Morwell . We rolled out a new sales portal across all of our customer base that was digitally enabled. It has enabled us to get closer to our customer.
We invested in an infant formula canning plant, to gain access to that and maintain our infant formula business, which continues to thrive today. We got out of our peanut processing asset business, which enabled us to have a far more competitive footprint in peanut butter.
We launched protein, which was completely replumbing our yogurt facility, and which is driving a lot of our yogurt growth at the moment, which has been incredibly successful. We closed our Strathmerton site and pushed all of that volume into our Ridge Street site, and that was done within 14 months, and at the cost of about AUD 55 million and will deliver AUD 30 million of savings to the business in 2027. What we are really excited about is it actually opens up volume for our Southeast Asian market by giving us a globally competitive footprint.
I am pleased to say that over FY 2027, we will make substantial investments in yogurt, cream cheese, and milk-based beverages, which all link to either our wellness trends or expansion into Southeast Asia and will come online in 2028 and provide us with significant growth platforms.
All of that has been done by the team here. It has been done, as I said, on time and to budget. It has created the outcomes we want. It has exposed us to growth in new markets, and we are extremely excited and pleased with our ability and track record that we have created to do that work. If I move on to the next slide, which is slide 10, I will just talk about some of the work we have done across our strategy.
Obviously, significant launches focused on high protein and better-for-you products. We have increased marketing spend over that time. W hilst delivering double-digit earnings spend, we have actually invested in our brands, our five power brands. We have grown our international business. We have employed new expertise in those markets, both across sales, marketing insights, market building, and our distribution networks.
We have gone above and beyond in our food service market, as I said, achieving 6% growth. We have continued to create new formats. One of the benefits of this manufacturing footprint is that we now believe we have incredibly competitive products to offer into that food service market, and we think we can continue to grow that even over the short term with headwinds facing that channel. The bulk business, we are incredibly pleased with that. We continue to integrate more of our bulk business into our branded business.
A lot of that bulk business improvement you see is actually caused by the bulk business selling more fat products into our growing branded business, particularly in Southeast Asia. W hat we are really excited about is the integration now of our protein into our branded business.
As we are seeing the growth in our protein branded products that you will see on shelf, a lot of that protein enhancement will be supplied by our bulk ingredients and nutritional business. W e are really pleased about that. Our infant formula business continues to do really well, and we continue to be a total manufacturer of choice in that bulk business. W e actually picked up some money there. W e feel like we are beginning to really utilize that asset base better.
A s other businesses have retreated, we have kept our capacity, and we are beginning to successfully monetize that. Our manufacturing footprint has gone incredibly well. We did the Strathmerton to Ridge Street changeout within 14 months, which was an exceptional effort by the team.
We did that at a time when we were shipping product out of Europe through the Middle East, so an enormous amount of work has gone in there to make sure that is all worked properly. We have obviously closed the PCA sites. We are actually accelerating capital investment in our key sites. Morwell is continuing to undergo a significant transformation. As is the Tatura site around its cream cheese capability.
O ur chilled distribution network, we continue to optimize through the automation in Laverton and also closing down further sites like Frenchs Forest, which we will sell this year and realize some money. Software investment and AI continues to move ahead, both at an operational point, but also how we are looking at the market. I am really pleased to say that we are delivering excellent AI initiatives across our pricing, promotion, our marketing, our back office and in our factories.
We will unashamedly continue to do that over the next two to three years. We look on the movement in AI and automation as a significant opportunity for us to continue to drive cost and efficiency in our business and get closer to our customer. If I can move on to the next slide, which is slide 11.
We did relaunch or reinvigorate our strategy, taking it out to 2031. The good news is that we will continue to focus on the key elements or thematics of our S28 strategy. We will continue to grow our core brands and categories. In particular, we will have a key driver around milk-based beverages and yogurt, and the wellness pieces attached to them. Our spreads will focus on treat and wellness as well. Of course, our cream cheese category, which is growing at double-digit growth into Southeast Asia.
We will invest around those core brands. Our Win On The Street business, as I said, with our cost reduction in place, and our focus of our team and the expertise we have built into the back office and our distribution networks, we think we can continue to win from food service, and so that will provide a significant plank for us moving forward. Also, our ability to operate well with multi-site owners at the lower end of the market.
The lower end of the market from a turnover point of view, individual turnover point of view, we think also continues to be a hunting ground for us, and so we are geared up to take those opportunities. International. I actually couldn't be more excited about the international business. I am extremely pleased with the capability we have brought into the company.
Very excited about the capacity we will unlock the start of FY 2028. I see a significant run ahead of us, both in Southeast Asia and in the Middle East. We are focused on cream cheese, processed cheese, yogurt at this stage. Certainly unlocking that yogurt capability, and cream cheese capability at the beginning of FY 2028 will give ourselves a significant leg up into that Southeast Asian market and Middle East market. We were probably currently constraining demand. Streamlining our sites. We have done some terrific work there. Potentially more work to go.
We always want to challenge ourselves to be the most competitive producer in this market, and potentially with overseas expansion, to have something that is competitive against regional manufacturing. W e still think that there is work to do with streamlining our sites and, the team are very focused on that in the background. Obviously securing solids.
We are really happy with the fact that we have been able to grow our milk pool over the last two years in a stable milk pool environment, and we think that we will probably be a good chance of growing our milk pool again in FY 2027. W e continue to look for other sources of solids internationally to help sustain our growth into our international markets and help some of our large customers here in Australia where they want to use international solids, and we believe we are a supplier of choice in that scenario. Obviously, safety remains incredibly important to us. Quality underpins everything we do.
We need to continue to evolve our people, not only to take direct advantage of the opportunities in the front-facing part of our business, but also to ensure that our business is AI enabled and to take full advantage of those efficiencies we can drive through that change that we are seeing. If we move to the next slide, which is slide 12.
The consumer continues to make very deliberate decisions around the products they want to buy and eat and drink, and how they create lifestyle outcomes for them. We are seeing this trend globally. That is why we are also seeing significant shifts in the marketplace around ownership as we see traditional consumer goods companies buying or involving themselves into these segments.
In 2025, we carried out an extensive market research on key trends and thematics driving consumer behavior, and this has really helped us develop a roadmap. We call this Project Thrive. We think that this will direct a lot of our product innovation across our key brands and categories. These five points are things that we think about all the time. We do not think that this is going to be an overnight trend. We think that this will evolve over the next 5- 10 years, and it is really important that we are a part of it.
We look at those trends and, in particular, we think about gut health. That is really about wellbeing. There is some significant science now around having a healthy gut and the vagus nerve, which attaches the gut to the mind, which creates wellness around mood and overall wellbeing.
51% of customers in Australia are already regularly choosing food and drink that specifically supports gut health, and 72% of Australians have now heard of the gut-mind connection. We are seeing this real rise of probiotics and fiber into everyday diets, and we just think that this is going to continue to grow. In fact, digestive health is growing at nearly 40% in the U.S. and 79% of beverages. There is actually 79% in U.S. beverages that support mood enhancement.
We think that this trend is here to stay and will continue to accelerate. We are very cognizant of that. We think our yogurt and our milk-based beverages play into that space very strongly. Weight wellness is also key. People are moving into weight wellness far more.
Body health is actually becoming just as important as body image, and people are seeing that if they carry less weight throughout their lives, it actually helps their health outcomes as they get older, both from an organ health perspective and a joint health perspective. That is why we are seeing a rise of GLP-1 drugs and our products with high protein; dense nutrient ingredients actually play significantly into that space.
We are seeing weight wellness become a real trend, and our protein yogurts and protein beverages are really playing to that, and we think we have some terrific innovation around that. Obviously, everyday performance. I have talked about lifespan and healthspan, I have talked about muscle retention, and I have talked about that now becoming a thematic across all age groups, in the past, and that continues to grow.
We have moved from sports enhancement to just everyday enhancement across all age groups wanting to have a high-protein diet and maintain their muscle skeletal strength, maintain their balance, and maintain their active lifestyles. Then treat reward continues to be important. Treat reward is probably moving to how can I have a healthy treat? How can I have a small indulgence outcome in my everyday routine that doesn't break the bank, doesn't break the health bank?
We continue to play in that space around some of our dessert yogurts, our healthy desserts, ramping up some of the treat varieties around our peanut butter, and we are seeing really good growth there. That is something that we will continue to focus on. Really strong thematics playing out globally. We think we are really well-placed for that, and we are actually investing heavily in that space over the next couple of years to continue to drive really good growth in our business.
If I move to the next slide, I will not spend too long other than to say those thematics that I talked about before are playing across our key categories. You can see the unbelievable growth there. That is both volume and price. As we are stepping up the wellness trends and we are adding functional outcomes, we are actually able to charge more for those products.
We are seeing both a really nice balance of growth in volume and price, and of course, we play really strongly across those key categories with either number one or number two positions. If I move on to slide 14, just really touching on that protein.
We have done a huge amount of work across MBB, white milk, and yogurt across those core brands. In 2025, we sold AUD 20 million of product associated with those key thematics calling our protein and gut health. In 2026, we sold AUD 95 million of product with those key trends, and in 2027, we will go close to doubling that again. Now, some of that is from our traditional products, but a lot of it is incremental growth, and so we are really excited about that, which is why we are investing in those key factories around that space. If I move on to slide 15, obviously we are doing some really good work in-market.
We have increased our marketing spend by AUD 9 million, focusing on communicating those functional benefits to our customers and consumers across our key five brands. We are doing that in a really targeted way through social media and are very happy with the reach we are getting and the communication of that message, which is reflecting now in our growth around those categories. If I move on to page 16, the manufacturing network continues to be really important to us.
That Ridge Street site was really a microcosm of how we think about things. We have closed our Anula site that was under capacity. We have reinvested state-of-the-art technology into another site. We have doubled its volume. We have made it globally competitive. We think that that site is now future proofed for the next decade to grow with our expansion in that area. That really reflects what we are trying to do at Morwell. It reflects what we have tried to do with our Wattle Park footprint and our white milk footprint.
That project was done in 14 months, the Ridge Street project. It was an unbelievable effort by the team. It has been executed superbly, and I am really pleased with that muscle memory that we have built around those sorts of projects and our ability to do more of those. You will see there a photo on that slide of our new pouch line that we put in. That was also executed in just over 12 months. We are really excited about the work we are going to be doing at Morwell right now that will actually have us ready for another significant expansion in 2028. Really pleased about the way we have been able to execute operationally.
If I go to the next slide, which is slide 17, that is a slide that we often talk about, and it is still very relevant to our business, but it is relevant from a point of view about what we are doing about the relationship that we have with that chart. That is the commodity milk value for the Victorian milk price there. You will see the blue line represents the return on a commodity value index, which is the total market index, and the red line is actually our farmgate milk price.
In the past, when those lines dispersed, particularly when the blue line fell well below the red line, we would feel fairly significant pain. Look, we still have some attachment to that blue line, but we have done a huge amount of work to actually create a buffer against that.
That is probably reflected in the results that you see in our bulk business now, where commodities did actually pull away. B ecause we have worked ourselves at the higher protein, higher value protein assets, we are doing more with our protein, we are selling more lactoferrin, we have found better homes for our fat in our rapid network. We are actually buffering ourselves from that blue line significantly.
We will continue to work towards that over the next few years as we grow infant formula business, as we ramp up our drying capacity through the MSD2 dryer that we bought back off Mead Johnson. We will continue to move further and further away from that value commodity index, and that will become a smaller part of our business. We are extremely excited about that.
The bulk business was a great result, but what was really pleasing, it was done in line with a fairly significant gap to that farmgate milk price. What I would also say is that we have actually increased our milk intake by nearly 7% in a stable milk environment. I think what that reflects is farmers are voting with their actions or their feet. We have more farmers wanting to come and join us because they see our cost as a sustainable cost they can grow their business with. Our existing farmers, in many cases, are actually growing their milk pool for the same reason.
I remain extremely buoyed about the industry. I am really pleased our farmers are happy to supply us to the point where they are giving us more milk. I think it is creating a sustainable environment for both us and them. I would say that as I get out and talk to farmers, the majority or the overwhelming sentiment about our industry is extremely positive. Thank you for that. I will now throw to Gunther Burghardt to push through our key financial metrics.
Fantastic. Thank you very much, Pete, and I will go to slide 19. I will be very brief. I think Pete covered this well. As Pete mentioned, we got together, and I will cast our minds back to April when we had our investor day. Not only did we refresh and extend our time horizon to FY 2031, we also gave more detail in April about how FY 2026 would land. I want to refer back to a few call-outs from that investor day.
One of the things we said is that our net revenue would be between AUD 3.7 billion and AUD 3.8 billion, and we came right near the top end of that guidance. Pete called out yogurt is growing very strongly year-over-year in milk-based beverages.
In our bulk business, cream cheese, infant formula, and milk protein concentrate all had up strong double-digit growth in Q4 compared to the prior year, which helped us get to the top end of that revenue guidance. Back in April, we also said our branded segment would grow from AUD 205 million in the previous year to a range of between AUD 215 million and AUD 220 million. Since reported, we exceeded the top end of that range and delivered AUD 221 million. Again, on the strength of those core franchises.
Even with legacy categories like fresh white drinking milk performing very well and strength in culinary creams in our food and service area. That was very pleasing. We outlined our bulk segment would land at AUD 50 million- AUD 55 million. It landed near the top of that at AUD 53 million, which was excellent.
The truth is, we could have over-delivered that profit by several million more, but in June, we decided to set aside AUD 6 million in our unallocated overheads, for an efficiency program, which is going to benefit us in FY 2027 and beyond. Pete talked about our AI programs and our general efficiency programs. W e did set aside inside our results AUD 6 million for that. We did not normalize that cost because we tend to have an efficiency program in our back office every year.
The things we are most proud about, as Pete mentioned, is really our return on funds employed and our leverage. In April, we call it 1.3x leverage and significantly beat that with a 0.8x result, keeping that in line with the previous year. T hat is an excellent result.
Pete's going to talk in a couple of minutes about our FY 2027 outlook. You will have seen from the deck that we have a high level of confidence in delivering another AUD 15 million- AUD 20 million of EBITDA growth next year. That is going to be back half-weighted. In the first half of the year, we expect our bulk business to come off a little bit, perhaps about AUD 10 million. We expect our branded growth to accelerate, and that will at least offset any declines in bulk in H1. You will see a lot of our profit growth coming in the second half of the year.
In terms of things like depreciation and amortization, for those of you looking forward to FY 2027, we are expecting around AUD 98 million- AUD 99 million of depreciation and amortization. We are expecting a normalized effective tax rate of between 28% and 29% for next year.
All of those things come together and say that we should have normalized EPS growth just in the double digits, a little over AUD 0.25. A nother great year of growth ahead of us, and we are very confident in that. As you move forward to page 20, really only two figures I am going to touch on this page. One is the gross margin. It did come down a little bit, and even though core categories like yogurt were very strong in terms of margin growth, I will remind people we do have a natural cheese and processed cheese toll manufacturing business.
Cheese prices did drop along with butter prices over the last 12 months, and they offset some of the growth and gross margin in our core business. We are very confident that gross margin will continue to climb higher in FY 2027 and beyond, particularly given the scope of the cost savings that Pete outlined in his presentation. Our dividend is AUD 0.145, up 21%. We have well over AUD 100 million of franking credits in the bank to allow great future dividends, and I know this has been a very important theme in this results season. I can skip over slide 21.
On slide 22, you see a little bit more detail on the segments. There is really just two things I would call out that have not been said already. I do want to reflect on the good balanced delivery. Both our branded and our bulk segment both grew EBITDA by about AUD 15 million each, which is very strong, and it shows the balance and the importance of those two segments in our business.
The revenue growth for the group at 6.7%, that was about 2% in volume. The remainder was product mix and mix between our categories, and of course, prices which recovered cost inflation. That is how that revenue growth breaks down.
As you look into FY 2027, yes, we do expect our Nutritionals and Ingredients business to go back a little bit, as Pete talked about the commodity chart at the end of his presentation. You might see it go backwards, AUD 5 million- AUD 10 million, but we do expect a dramatic acceleration in our branded business, so at least AUD 25 million. That is going to be very positive.
The next slide is slide 23, and that shows the normalization of our results. In our earnings call for half year and last year, people asked for a little bit more detail on this one. The manufacturing footprint rationalization, we had AUD 22 million of one-time costs. AUD 13 million of that was to achieve the Strathmerton to Ridge Street project that Pete talked about.
Within that AUD 13 million, about AUD 7.5 million was employee costs, and the remainder was other one-time transition costs and inventory costs of achieving that site consolidation. The remaining AUD 9 million related to our PCA exit, our peanut processing exit in Queensland.
That was AUD 3 million lost on the sale, AUD 3 million of employee costs, and AUD 3 million of other transition and inventory costs. I am going to skip the balance sheet on slide 24 and finish off with a couple of comments on cash flow in slide 25.
I would just say this, not only did we step up our capital expenditure to AUD 110 million in FY 2026, we also had AUD 37 million of cash costs to achieve our various supply footprint initiatives. In spite of this, we delivered a 0.8x leverage. We will continue to have great investment in growth initiatives going into FY 2027, but we will deleverage further to 0.7x or better. We are very pleased to see the continued strength of our cash flows and our balance sheet.
You have seen in this period, Pete mentioned the French's Forest sale. As we are investing more in CapEx, we are taking bits of property that are no longer needed, and we are recognizing cash from those. You are going to see more of that in FY 2027. Our net CapEx investment is not as great as our gross CapEx investment in our growth initiatives. We are very confident next year we will have over AUD 0.25 of normalized EPS, and Pete is going to talk about the outlook for FY 2027. Back to you, Pete.
Well, look, thank you, Gunther. I think we have got a strong 2027 outlook at AUD 240 million- AUD 245 million. That is in light of significant cost increases incurred by the Middle East, which we have factored into that number. I think it will be driven off a really strong branded new product development pipeline, both across yogurt, milk-based beverages. Obviously, the cost brinks that we have put in place over the last couple of years will bear fruit, being the closure of the Strathmerton site, and the Laverton logistics program that we carried out last year.
We have got some really good work being done around our Nutritionals business in the bulk business there, which we are very excited about. We have actually gone to invest AUD 110 million on growth capacity for FY 2028.
This year will be underpinned by a fair bit of cost efficiency, but we are really excited about the growth trajectory with our innovation, and our capacity unlocks that will happen towards the very back end of 2027, the start of 2028. We remain extremely excited about the business outlook, about our AUD 310 million strategy, and the opportunities that we have ahead of us. I would just really like to thank the board and our team for their very hard work and alignment.
Our people have done an amazing job of transitioning the business over the last couple of years. There has been a huge amount of discretionary effort. I would like to thank our customers for their continued support and the consumers for wanting to buy our product. We really look forward to working and meeting all of their needs in the future. I would like to thank our shareholders for their support. I guess now I open this up to any questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Julia de Sterke with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Thanks very much. Just wanted to start with your outlook in the branded business and how you are thinking about pricing power there, given the structural growth tailwinds that you guys have spoken to today, continuing to benefit the category and the significant innovation pipeline that now seems to be baked in over the next couple of years.
Yeah. We've sort of worked with our customers to get our pricing set pretty early in the year. We're reasonably comfortable with that. That sort of sets us up for that number that we've talked about. We do keep a close eye on geopolitical events and spikes and falls that occur around that, but we try not to be knee-jerk to those headwinds. We think that we're well-priced in market. We do a lot of work around our promotional effectiveness, so making sure that we turn up to our customers, our consumers, with value.
Then how we think about the next couple of years is we're going to be bringing on a lot of capacity in those growth areas. That capacity will also bring synergies with it, operational synergies with it. We will ensure that we always remain competitive.
We think that the dairy cabinet is actually pretty well-priced. I f you go back to those basic themes we have, we want to have number one, number two mainstream brands that really meet our consumer needs, and we want to have the best operational footprint supporting them. We think that we'll continue to be competitive, and that we'll continue to be able to grow our margin off the back of those tailwinds.
Got it. Very helpful. Then just secondly, just your comments around tracking ahead of your previous S28 strategic plan. I guess looking forward into 2028, what now is giving you more confidence on that trajectory there, that's kind of leading you to make those comments? Is it around kind of earlier than expected supply chain, or is it around some of the growth that you're seeing in the branded business?
Well, look, probably both, I think. Certainly, we anticipate to trim it AUD 250 million by 2028. We're obviously going to be very close to that this year. I would say that we're seeing better branded growth than what we would've thought three or four years ago. That the protein and wellness piece is just playing out much more aggressively than what we thought. Why I get really confident about 2028 is that we'll be bringing on increased, more than 25% yogurt capacity at the start of 2028 to meet those needs.
We're currently constraining the market both here and overseas. We're bringing on more than 20% cream cheese capacity to meet real tailwinds in Southeast Asia at the beginning of 2028. We're bringing on MBB capacity.
That is what that AUD 110 million is going towards, effectively those three categories throughout this year to really set us up for expansion in 2028. We are really excited about that. That for me is definitely stronger than what we thought. I have mentioned the protein growth during my presentation. We have gut health coming into that as well. We do not see that going anywhere, based on what we are seeing overseas. We think there is growth there.
W ith that growth, your cost out initiatives actually end up paying more than what you think because you are driving volumes through a more optimized network. In actual fact, every dollar of growth, and that is how we think about every dollar of growth in a more optimized network, actually drops more to the bottom line.
It would be fair to say if we had not made those optimization decisions a couple of years ago, we would still be getting growth now, but we would not be seeing the size of the benefit. That is sort of how we think about it. I think the 2031 strategy is very much underpinned around capacity and growth in these key areas.
Excellent. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Phil Kimber with E&P Capital. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. I just wanted to maybe go through those building blocks that you went through, Gunther, to sort of get the earnings growth. The bulk business, you're sort of saying down 10-ish? Not down towards that sort of 30 level or?
I would say AUD 5 million because this year we delivered AUD 53 million in bulk, Phil, and so I would figure it's down AUD 5 million-AUD 10 million, and I think branded will be up about AUD 25 million.
Just understanding the drivers of that. Is it AUD 30 million an annualized number of cost savings, or is that the total amount? Because I think your projects basically finished earlier than expected or completed earlier than expected in June 2026. About AUD 30 million, you get AUD 30 million-
Yeah. [crosstalk]
- in 2027?
That is right, Phil, and that is what gives us so much confidence into next year. We do have cost inflation every year. If you look at cost inflation, the 30 some odd million of savings that Pete had talked about is a gross number.
That is going to underline a lot of our profit growth going into next year. Even if we have some Middle East headwinds, and even if we have some FX headwinds as it goes north of AUD 0.70, that AUD 37 million of cost savings is going to offset cost inflation, it is going to offset FX movements, and it is going to able to enable us to grow at least AUD 25 million in branded EBITDA or more.
Yeah. That is what a bit, I guess, I was trying to get to, is that growth in branded, is that where all the cost savings are ending up, or are they also partly ending up in the bulk business and that is why it is only down AUD 5 million-AUD 10 million, whereas I think normally you have said, I know you are being conservative, but you were sort of saying a AUD 30 million-AUD 40 million range for bulk over the medium term for the bulk segment?
That is right. I would say a couple things. Most of the cost savings, when you think about it, the two big projects that will benefit branded next year, is that cheese consolidation, which is almost entirely branded. The PCA savings actually came early, which was great in FY 2026, we got some benefit this year. Then we are going to get, of course, the Laverton automation, and that is worth several million dollars of savings. That project is finished in Q4.
That really underlines why we are so confident in that AUD 25+ million , Phil. I hear your word conservative, and I hope you are right there. W e have certainly got a lot of our bricks in place for next year, as you said in your question.
Sorry.
Phil, it's probably just Barry here. It's probably just worth adding that if we looked at the bulk performance last year, we did see a stronger alignment. As Pete said, there is still some exposure to those global commodity prices, and at the beginning of last year, we saw a strong alignment in farm gate milk price to those global commodity prices.
It obviously fell away through the year, but that strong alignment at the beginning was obviously advantageous and probably largely describes the change to more within the range that we expected to perform at. Having said that, I think what Pete was saying that we're still getting good performance out of it, but there is some impact by that change.
Yeah. Can I just last clarifying point. I wasn't sure if I was, I'm getting old and I can't hear as well. Did you say, just slightly under AUD 0.25 of EPS? I thought you then said slightly over.
No, no, slightly over.
Slightly.
Slightly over.
Yeah. That is what I thought. Sorry, just wanted to clarify that. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Phil.
Thanks, Phil.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Ajay Mariswamy with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Morning team. Thanks for taking my question. First one from me is just around your supermarket customers. We are seeing a little bit of range rationalization happening, and given your brands are sort of sitting in that number one and number two in the category, can you give us a bit of color around whether you are seeing any additional allocation on shelf? Do they rationalize range or how is that sort of playing out at the moment?
W e've worked really closely with the majors around that. We continually have to work with them to make sure that we've got a really competitive offering, both from a functional point of view, new news point of view, and pricing point of view. That's something that we're really aligned on with all the big players. We're really happy with our shelf space. We think we've been able to solidify our key brands on the shelf, with actually all of our large suppliers, and we're really happy with our relationship with them at the moment and how we're working with them.
Thanks. Secondly, just on the international business, the growth there pretty strong around 12%, and just looking at your pack, it's about 9% of your branded revenue. Can you just give us a bit of color around the profit contribution and what it is relative to the rest of the branded business and how much operating leverage could be in there if you guys continue to deliver this type of growth into 2027?
Yeah. We don't usually divulge our international margins except to say that we're very happy with them, and that we want to continue to grow that part of the business because it is delivering solid margins. We think that the branded business overseas will continue to do well, but we're really looking forward to unlocking capacity in 2028.
It would be fair to say that we could sell more yogurt, more cream cheese if we had the capacity, and we're really excited about those extensions that are coming to our business because, at the moment, we're probably constraining that growth. That growth could be more if we had more product to supply.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Josh Kannourakis with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hi, Barry, Pete, and Gunther. Can you guys hear me okay?
We can.
Roger, mate.
Great. First one, just maybe, well, for Barry or Pete, just in terms of from the milk supply environment and going outwards. Like obviously we've had quite a bit of consolidation domestically. I think from the commodity perspective, it looks like some of your other big competitors are a little bit more exposed to maybe some of the cheese commodity elements, which obviously haven't been as strong as protein.
I am just wondering, that backdrop, I guess hasn't been present for a while. Does that create a more rational environment going forward? What are you seeing in terms of the milk supply environment ecosystem and sort of competitive dynamics going forward?
Josh, I think I'd say two things. We would still see competition for milk as being pretty willing as we came into this year. I think, for some of the bigger players, it's important for them to retain milk, because if you lose it, even if your mix is working against you in a particular year, it's very hard to win it back. I think we've seen that in prior years.
I think what probably makes us feel very positive is that in each of the regions we're operating in, we've seen sometimes the larger players, and sometimes it is in fact a market disruptor, that are active in supply. We find that our mix and the fact that we're a fully integrated right food brand sees us able to compete against all comers, if you like, and compete well, and that's what's really been demonstrated in the last few years, in fact.
To sort of refer to Pete's comment earlier, I've often talked about the fact that we've got somewhat two speed, where you've got young people in the industry that are investing strongly and growing really quickly, and then you've got some people who don't have succession for their properties, and they've been leaving, and that's been part of the impact of why we've seen supply a little constrained.
There's no question that as we move around our supply base, we've got a number of suppliers that are increasing their production significantly, which is what we want to see. We've also been able to attract a number of large suppliers that see a great strategic alignment with us in terms of what they're trying to do. I would say in terms of milk procurement this year and the previous year, it's been reasonably willing.
It's been at the top end of the market, but it hasn't been irrational. It hasn't been at that level of irrationality that we experienced a few years ago. We do see, and we saw again this year, some traders and some players, removing themselves from the market because they've had experiences that have demonstrated that they actually can't be irrational. I think we're in a pretty good position in terms of milk procurement.
Great. Thanks, Barry. Just in terms of one for Pete and Gunther perhaps, obviously, a significant step-up, which you observed in marketing investment this year. Sounds like you'll continue that. Can we just talk a little bit about into the next 12 months in terms of some of the product development and maybe some of the innovation focus that's coming out as well and what we should be expecting to see?
I don't want to give too much away, Josh.
Yeah
Otherwise the market people will kill me.
Yeah.
W hat I will say is that, we're continuing, we've actually got some really good product offerings, as I said, very much focused around those five key themes that we talked about. Some of it has proven to be very successful overseas. Some of it's pretty much cutting-edge, but it'll be addressing all the sorts of functional needs that consumers are after around better lifestyle outcomes, longevity, health outcomes, fitness outcomes. W e've got some really good product. W e've actually spent a fair bit of time and effort getting our factories ready to do that. We had to spend.
The Morwell plant was built back in the 1990s. It's a fantastic facility, but it was built around fruit-flavored yogurt. W e've done a huge amount of effort and work around getting that ready to be able to dose protein, low sugar, low macro sort of, pr oducts.
N ow we're really excited about running with that. It's the same with our milk-based beverage capability. W e've got a lot of capability there to add around the core of those products that will bring those functional benefits to life. R eally, really pleased with our suite of initiatives that we've got, going forward. Y ou'll see some really good news on shelf in October, November, around MBB, and then some terrific stuff launching around yogurt and MBB again in March, April. It's all been pre-sold to major customers, and we're really excited about it.
Great. M aybe another way to ask that is if we look at sort of the product release, new product release on cadence, I guess, versus 2026, is 2027 similar, less, more, based on where you're sort of sitting today?
Probably a bit more, Josh. Probably a bit more-
Yep.
-which we are pleased with. Probably a little bit more. We think we probably played a little bit of catch up on protein. We are extremely happy with our results in, particularly in milk-based beverages, where we have made significant ground very, very quickly. In fact, probably far better than what we initially thought. Now I think that with some of our launches, we have the ability to probably step out in front of the market.
Yeah, great. Final one, just for Gunther, obviously a bit of, in terms of investment, software investment, that you have sort of talked about an AI-related investment, in the period, Gunther. How should we sort of think about that, in terms of, I guess the line items going forward? I know you have obviously guided to broadly in terms of where we are in next year. As we look over the next few years, what are some of the opportunities for Bega as a group across implementing some of those new and next-gen AI and automation products?
Yeah, it is a great question, Josh. We have been very excited about that. Pete talked about the strategic revenue management software that we implemented last year. That was the fastest returning project that Bega has ever implemented. We had probably AUD 2 million-AUD 3 million of software implementation costs in our OpEx in the last year, and we think it will be a similar amount as we get into FY 2027. We are very excited about the potential for that, not only for efficiency, but also for capability, Josh.
Really finding the workforce embracing that, and that is accelerating for us. V ery exciting, and AUD 2 million-AUD 3 million is what I would expect, but that is broadly similar year over year, and we are actually assuming that our unallocated overheads are probably fairly similar year over year, plus or minus a few million.
Great. Thanks, I will pass it on to someone else.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one. Your next question comes from Jonathan Snape with Bell Potter. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hey, guys. Can you hear me okay?
We can well, Jonathan.
Thanks. You might need a pen for this, going to throw some numbers at you. Look, I just want to go through, I guess, branded and then bulk real quickly. I f I look at branded, it looks like you've got AUD 30 million cost out from Strathmerton, and you got eight from Laverton. If I'm looking through your portfolio, I'm seeing mid-single-digit price increases were pushed through and you apply similar numbers in there. Farmers Union was high single, low double-digit. Your white milk was similar to that as well.
I t is indexing well north of 2% on the branded portfolio, which is, that is not an immaterial tailwind year-on-year, in your branded portfolio, which when it waterfalls all the way down, means you must be assuming some fairly hefty cost inflation, like well north of AUD 100 million in that business to do AUD 20 million growth. I guess my first question is, am I doing the bridges right there? T hen are you able to, I guess, the second component of that, isolate down where those costs are? Is it coffee, sugar, diesel, HDPE, LDPE, those kind of things? M aybe I will do that one first, then go to bulk.
Yeah, it is a great question, John. I t is fair to say we have been a little bit conservative in areas like diesel and resin. Resin costs really spiked in April and May when the Middle East conflict started. They have come off a little bit since that time, but they both remain elevated. If you look at terminal gate diesel prices, they are still well over AUD 2 a liter.
R esin prices are certainly still above where they were before the conflict started at the end of February. R esin and diesel are part of that cost. Coffee remains elevated. T hose are the sorts. Of course, there is labor cost inflation, which you have every year, and the sites that continue. Those are sort of the four or five call-outs in terms of what is inflationary. Then you are right in terms of what our savings are, the AUD 37 million.
Got you.
O f course, currency, Jonathan, probably about AUD 10 million-AUD 13 million currency impact, that's going AUD 0.64, AUD 0.65 . We're, I think this morning, at a little over AUD 0.71 , Jonathan.
Yep. T he pricing's right. It's like you've been getting mid to high single digit in some of those core portfolio brands.
Yeah.
That's holding okay by the looks of it?
Yeah, that's right. The pricing has gone well, and we've been seeking to recover a big portion of our costs with that pricing. As Pete said earlier, we're confident as that's gone into the retailers. If you're looking at it going, it may be a little concerned, listen, we love to underpromise and overdeliver, Jonathan, no question. W e're pretty comfortable in AUD 25+ million .
Jonathan, I reckon your pricing might be a little bit high. There is a volume driver there as well.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
When you think of, Jonathan, obviously farm gate milk is an element of inflation. Last year in FY 2026, farm gate milk was up several percentage points nationally. This year, it is a little closer to that similar cost year-over-year. For that reason, you will not see as much milk-related pricing that we are putting into the market. In some of our core categories that are driven by protein, yes, there is some price we put into the market.
Yep. If I look at your bulk business, it does look like you have decoupled from milk fat pricing at the bare minimum in the returns you are getting. E ven when I look at it, like what a normal skim bucket would get, you seem to be getting high double-digit higher, like returns relative to what a normal one would get.
Yeah.
With skim kind of matching up AUD 600 a ton next year, are you still seeing those premiums hold, or have they come in a little bit in your thinking, and have you taken out some of the one-off IMF restocking gains you would've got this year, into next year's assumptions?
Yeah. W e've been pretty conservative on skim, Jonathan. W e're sort of moving further and further away from skim. O ur brand strategy is very much aligned to our branded business. Cream cheese or into branded product. Our food service business where we achieve better returns. Our protein strategy has really been transitioning as much skim into MPC as we can. We've opened up some really good markets in the U.S. and in Australia, and they're continuing to evolve with protein consumption generally as an ingredient.
W e've decoupled a fair bit of skim. The other thing is because of the quality of our skim and because of the experience and long-term connections we have with customers, we tend to do a bit better than GDT. W e've been working really hard on that.
T hen, of course, we've experienced some slightly better lactoferrin pricing than what we thought, and our infant formula business continues to grow. We've been working pretty hard around that, around our drying capability, around our acquisition of a stake in the Snow Brand, infant formula canning and blending plant in Tatura. W e're offering a really good integrated infant nutritionals business, and that's growing as well. W e actually try to decouple ourselves from skim as much as possible from that traditional GDT skim play.
T he other thing, Jonathan, I'd mention is, Phil asked in his questions about the AUD 30 million- AUD 40 million range in bulk. Because of the changes we've made to that business, in nutritionals, cream cheese, lactoferrin, we now think it's AUD 30 million- AUD 50 million or more. W e've taken the range up in our nutritionals business and just want to make that point on the call.
Yep. Yeah, no, as I said, it looks like you got the return per liter's double digit improved year-on-year relative in a premium sense to the skim basket.
Yeah.
That is why I was kind of wondering if that premium is still holding.
Yeah. The team have put in a huge amount of work over three or four years to claw that value index up, Jonathan. I hope it stays because there has been a huge amount of work and a bit of capital investment. We think it sort of sets us up to make that a far more robust business. I know that has always been a concern of everyone. Yeah, that has been very much a focus of ours to premiumize our business as much as possible. Integrate it. Integrate it, yeah.
The fat piece into our branded business, protein into higher value products. Where I am at, Jonathan, is if our branded protein business continues to grow, I actually think the integration of those two businesses, not just through fat but through protein, will create significant opportunities for us. Hamish and the guys are working on that very closely.
Yep. Just one last one. On the balance sheet, obviously the debt came in materially better than where people were thinking, and it looks like you are utilizing less of the off-balance sheet facilities as well. Probably the operating cash flow is probably understated, I guess, relatively to what it would have been.
Yep.
It is probably the first time in a long time you have had a lazy balance sheet, if I can use that term. How far or where would you gear this thing up to if the right opportunity came up? Would you be talking 2.5x EBITDA? Would that be about as far as you would want to take it if the right target were to...
Jonathan, as much as, I think, what is the saying that most of the financial institutions put out? Past performance is not an indication of future outcomes. I think you can look at our past performance and know that for the right investment, internal or external, we will gear that balance sheet pretty hard because we actually believe in gearing it up and then knocking it down quickly. 2.5+ , it has never frightened us in the past. It would not frighten us in the future.
I think we have got a much stronger business now than what we did when we were actually gearing up for expansion in the past. A s you know, by our behavior, we are responsible in how we think about value and how we deploy. We are alert to it.
We are very pleased we have got a strong balance sheet because it positions us to take opportunity, and we are alert to those opportunities. I think what I would say, just reiterating what Barry said. The way this is shaping up with the categories we play in and the channel growth we are seeing both here and overseas, I think we are going to have significant internal, both organic and non-organic opportunities. As they come up, we will go after them very aggressively.
All right. Thanks a lot, guys.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Richard Barwick with CLSA. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Just flowing on from the last piece of discussion there. In terms of what types of acquisitions you might consider, do you have preferences? I guess the options would be, would you be pursuing brands that are reliant on the major supermarkets, for instance? Would you have a preference for brands that you would be taking international or ones that have a bigger proposition through food service? Is there a way to frame up the way, the options that you would be finding more attractive or ones you would steer away from, I guess is what I am asking?
I think we have probably said this publicly before, so I am happy to repeat it and I will throw to Pete for some addition. We fundamentally see, as I said in my opening comments, we fundamentally see this business as very well-structured at the moment. The fact that we've got an end-to-end business is what we worked towards for many years. The way we think about this now is either focus on scale, so bigger, more of what we currently do, more adjacency.
If your question is branded, for example, we work, as Pete outlined, very closely. We own big brands. We work largely with the retailers. W e've got a skill set in that area. We would add in that area. I t's scale of what we currently do. When you think about some of the things that Pete talked about, that can be both in Australia and internationally, as we get very excited about that international growth.
Equally, it can be adjacency to what we do, because I think what we want to do is utilize the agility and the skills that the business has developed to be able to respond to opportunities where we see them. Pete?
Yeah, I very much obviously align with Barry's comments. If you go back to that page 8, Richard, creating long-term competitive advantage. We run mainstream everyday brands with a competitive moat around them and relentless execution around them. W e would buy something that would help us build our long-term competitive advantage. T hat really doesn't fit into that very basic-
Number one, number two brands.
-number one, number two brands that we can operationally leverage.
Yeah.
That becomes pretty attractive. Sort of, probably less chance specific.
If it fits those parameters, we would look at it.
Okay. Thank you. The second one for me, are you able to give any sort of breakdown, if you are just talking broad proportions, on the composition of the branded revenue, so AUD 3.2 billion? Where I am thinking here is, again, a mix across what you might call major retail or food service or international or any other breakdown that you would care to talk to. Because where I am going with this is, if I look at your branded revenue growth +5.27%, that is obviously a great number.
If I compare that to slide 13 and look at the growth rates in the categories that you compete in, I know that slide only talks to basically the main supermarket businesses, and there is a lot that is not included. If you take a really crude blended average of the growth rates there, you are looking at more like 10%. I am wondering, are there areas that you compete in whereby those growth rates on that slide 13 are not being achieved elsewhere?
Yeah, that is right. I think when you think about the AUD 3.2 billion you talked about there, Richard, do not forget that we do still have a cheese cut and wrap business. I referred to that, the retailer brands. That one was down a little last year. What a timely thing to have the Strathmerton to Ridge Street consolidation, because that is going to bring some profit back into that business. T here is AUD 600 million- AUD 700 million in retailer-owned brands out of the AUD 3.2 billion.
Once you take that off, you have about AUD 2.5 billion, which we call our core branded business. Of that, you have a little around AUD 300 million, which is the international branded component of that business. Y ou are left with AUD 2.2 billion, Richard, which is what we would call domestic branded. In that-
Yeah.
- over AUD 1 billion would be with what we would call the national customers, discounters, grocers, et cetera. You are left with several hundred million dollars, which would be independent food service, local trade, and those kinds of channels . T hat gives you a rough breakdown.
Richard, I would say that that food service channel local that's some of those unstructured customers. They're doing pretty tough.
Yeah.
There's no doubt that there's been a bit of consumer sentiment that's hurting them. W e still feel we've got a good offering in that space. The other thing is, if I'm brutally honest, we're probably capacity constrained at the moment. Our yogurt, MBB, and cream cheese businesses are actually growing faster than what we thought, which is why we're spending AUD 110 million on boosting capacity this year. I think that if they continue to have those thematics, the growth of FY 2028 could probably get a tick up.
I think the last thing I would say, Richard, is the retailer brand cheese that we do or the tolling for cheese, that shows up in retailer market share as not me. It is very important to understand that. That is their brand.
Say that again, sorry Gunther. What was the last point?
If we toll, for example, cut and wrap or shredded or sliced cheese for retailers, like natural cheese. That is brand, so it shows up in their market shares. We do not report on that. It is not our brand.
Gotcha. Okay.
That business, that went backwards a little bit last year.
Yeah. Okay. All right. No, that's really helpful. I'm just trying to reconcile a few of the moving parts there, but that's really good. Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. Oh, pardon me. We do have a question from Belinda Moore with Morgans. Please go ahead.
Sorry, gentlemen. Just if I could clarify your first half 2027 comments. Were you saying as a group, it would be flat with branded obviously up but bulk down? That is my first question. Just how fully hedged are you for 2027? I suppose in that first half 2027 for bulk, I think you had some extra milk trading opportunities. Are they there this year? Thank you.
Belinda, just let me start with your H1 question. If you remember, in our bulk business, we had a really strong AUD 41 million of EBITDA in the bulk business in the first half of FY 2026. As Pete said, the year started with very strong commodity prices in FY 2026, well-aligned to farm gate milk. T he fats and the cheese and butter dropped through that second half of the year. We do expect a AUD 5 million-AUD 10 million drop in the profitability of the bulk business in the first half, but that will be at least offset by an increase in our branded business.
The programs that Pete talked about, the consolidation into Ridge Street, the new automated warehouse at Laverton, they are ramping up in this first quarter of the year, and then they hit their full run rates by the end of the first quarter. By the time you get into H2, you really see an acceleration in the branded business growth, and that is why we are very confident in the full-year brand and being at least AUD 25 million higher. That is a combination of the price we did not take, but it is really underlined by cost savings. First half is broadly flat, AUD ±5 million, with bulk down and branded up.
Thank you. That is all the time we have for our question-and-answer session. I will now hand back to Mr. Irvin for closing remarks.
Thank you, everyone, and I will reiterate Pete's thank you to our shareholders and indeed, we have a number of suppliers and customers that we are all pleased to acknowledge in terms of and of course, our staff and our team who pull this together.
At the end of a day like today and results like this, I always try and see whether I can describe appropriately the team. I think I would probably say, I hope what the listeners have noted is the energized executors that you have in the room, and I think they are a reflection of the entire team in that we see the opportunity, we have the agility to respond to it, and the whole team is very energized in terms of how we might take those opportunities. T hank you all very much for listening. Thank you all very much for your support and look forward to seeing a number of you on the roadshow. Thank you.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.