Good day and thank you for standing by in Danone's first quarter 2026 sales call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. Our speaker today will be Juergen Esser, Chief Financial Officer. Now I'd like to hand the conference over to Mathilde Rodier, Danone's Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Mathilde Rodier speaking, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you for being with us this morning for Danone's 2026 Q1 sales call. I'm here with our CFO, Juergen Esser, who will go through some prepared remarks before taking your questions. Before we start, I draw your attention to the disclaimer on slide 20 of the presentation related to forward-looking statements and the definition of financial indicators that we'll refer to during the presentation. With that, let me hand it over to Juergen.
Thank you, Mathilde, and good morning to all of you. Welcome to our Q1 2026 sales presentation. Thank you for taking the time to be with us. I suggest we go straight into it as it is a busy day for all of you. Let's go to slide number two. As you will have seen from our press release this morning, we reported a solid set of numbers for the first quarter, a quarter which was far from business as usual. Firstly, the conflict in the Middle East. Most important is that all our colleagues who live and work in this region are safe and well. A big thank you for their commitment during these challenging times. As you all know, this conflict is having consequences on logistics and distribution flows in the region, a region that is representing around 2%-3% of the sales of our company.
Our start to the year was also impacted by the infant milk recalls that affected the industry in the EMEA zone. This has created shelf disruptions and out-of-stock situations across the region, with a particular challenge for the stock replenishment in the Middle East due to the aforementioned conflict situation. Amid this challenging context, we are pleased that the numbers we publish today demonstrate the resilience of our portfolio, the strength of our categories, and of our brands. Our objective is more than ever to come out of this environment stronger than before. Based on this confidence, we are accelerating on our strategic portfolio management with the signing of two important transactions during the first quarter. I suggest we move to the next page number three, so I can give you more color on it.
Both transactions that we signed during the quarter will further strengthen our unique health-driven portfolio and contribute to our industry-leading value creation ambitions. First, the acquisition of the Huel company. Huel is a leader in complete nutritionally balanced meals with sizable business in Europe and in the U.S. The contemplated transaction will enhance our presence in the premium functional nutrition category. It is offering us new capabilities, especially in direct to consumer channel management, combined with state-of-the-art digital marketing skills. The Huel company is a perfect strategic fit with a highly complementary mission. In parallel, we announced to our Argentinian dairy business an exciting new chapter. Together with our partner, Arcor, we are creating a joint venture combining our respective portfolios to unlock the full potential of the dairy market in this region.
While the transaction will technically deconsolidate our Argentinian dairy business, we expect the synergistic effects to this joint venture to be EPS accretive over time. Both transactions, which we expect to close in the second semester, are fully aligned with our renewed Danone agenda and our capital allocation priorities and discipline. Let me now move on to slide number four. Amid the described complex condition in this Q1, we delivered a solid like-for-like sales performance of +2.7% with volume mix up +1.5%. Our growth was balanced across all categories. EDP delivered again solid growth of +3.4%, driven by the ongoing rollout of our functional innovations, particularly those rooted in protein and gut health. Specialized nutrition posted +1.9%. The underlying growth dynamics across the globe remains strong, which more than compensated for the IMF recall impacts. Finally, Waters that grew +2.3%.
The Waters category saw a resilient start to the season with solid growth in many markets. We will talk about the regional performance in the coming minutes, so I will not enter here into the details by geography. Let me instead suggest moving on to slide number five and to double-click on some of the underlying dynamics. The consumer preference for healthy food and hydration is rising everywhere around the world, and we are continuing to address this opportunity with several platforms contributing strongly to our growth. In dairy, high protein yogurts continue to be the key contributor in all regions, from North America to Europe and Asia.
In addition, our more recent innovations, such as Skyr and Kefir, are flying off the shelves, and we are expanding them fast within and beyond Europe. We continue to innovate in many segments and regions, and are particularly excited about new product launches under the Alpro brand in Europe, including the Meal To Go meal replacement solution, which you can see here in the picture. Meal To Go was launched in Germany recently and is currently being rolled out to other European markets. Finally, in Medical Nutrition, we continue to see strong dynamics supported by favorable demographic trends and rising diagnosis rates. This is benefiting our adult medical as well as our pediatric nutrition business across all regions, both of them going from strength to strength. All these platforms are responding to structural consumer and patient needs and increasingly contribute to the quality of our growth as they scale up.
Having said that, these successes should not take our attention away from key challenges that we are addressing. We mentioned the conflict in the Middle East, which is posing supply chain and cost inflation pressures. We have some short-term hedging protection in place, which is moderating the immediate impact on our P&L. To address the volatile context, we have accelerated the run rate of ongoing productivity projects and are monitoring the situation closely. On the infant formula situation in EMEA, while the supply chain in Europe is mostly back to normal, the Middle East situation is not yet stable due to long lead times of stock replenishment. Our priority is on rebuilding the credibility of the category, and we are refocusing our investments to make this happen. We expect the situation to progressively normalize as we go through the year.
Finally, in the U.S., we talked previously about not being happy with our competitiveness. We have seen an improvement in Q1, an encouraging sign. You will have more capacity coming online during 2026 that will help us to double down on our execution on the dairy shelf. Creamers are lapping as we speak the supply issues of Q1 2025. All of this will support our recovery for the coming quarters. Overall, the opportunity moving forward lies in accelerating our winning platforms, including the ones on the left side of this slide, as much as in correcting the things which do not yet deliver to our expectations. A formula which has proven successful all these last years. With that said, let's turn to the sales bridge on slide number six. Reported sales reached EUR 6.7 billion in the first quarter.
In addition to the +2.7% like-for-like growth previously discussed, we experienced adverse currency effects of -5.6%, resulting from the appreciation of the euro against most currencies. Lastly to mention, for the third consecutive quarter, we are reporting a positive scope effect, predominantly from the Kate Farms integration of +0.5%. Now let's look at the performance by region, moving to slide number seven. Let me pause briefly here because this is an important point. You will remember that as of this year, we have moved from five to three rather classical macro regions. EMEA on the left side of the chart, Americas in the middle, and APAC on the right. This change reflects how we manage the business operationally and strategically. Moving to this leaner setup further enhances our company's agility and improves clarity and accountability.
To ease the reading of our performance, we will make the switch in reporting progressively, and for now, we will continue to provide for additional information, also like-for-like numbers for previous zones of Europe, North America and CNAO. Let me now start the zone review with EMEA on the next slide, on slide number eight. EMEA delivered a 0.6% like-for-like growth in Q1, led by price of +2%. Within EMEA, Europe delivered +0.4% like-for-like. We saw sustained momentum in EDP, driven by many of our functional innovations across dairy and plant-based. In particular, we saw good growth in our winning platforms, including in high protein, Skyr and Kefir, as well as in Alpro. Activia also delivered another quarter of growth, confirming the green shoots observed in Europe in Q4.
As expected, Specialized Nutrition was impacted by the IMF recall in Europe and the Middle East that we already discussed. Our key focus is now on rebuilding trust into the category and in our brands. In Waters, we posted solid growth ahead of the season, particularly in Evian and supported by the rollout of Volvic functional water innovations across more markets in Europe. Overall, a robust underlying performance in EMEA amid the temporary headwinds. Turning to the Americas on slide number nine. The Americas region delivered +3.4% like-for-like growth, led by volume mix of +2.5% and price of +0.9%. Within those numbers, NORAM, North America, delivered +1.5% like-for-like growth. In the U.S., our priority is to regain momentum and competitiveness outside of protein, and Q1 showed some improvement versus the low point in Q4.
This was driven by additional capacity on yogurt starting to kick in and an improving dynamic on Creamers, helped by easier base of comps since the month of March. On top of that, our STōK brand continued to deliver strong double-digit growth. Specialized nutrition saw high single-digit growth in the quarter, led by Aptamil in Latin America and Neocate in the U.S. Overall, an improved situation in the Americas with still a lot of things to do in the U.S. Quality of execution remains the focus area, particularly in dairy, and this is where the teams are fully mobilized. Turning to slide number 10. APAC delivered +6% like-for-like growth, entirely driven by volume mix within APAC, CNAO delivered +10.3% growth like-for-like. In EDP, Japan again demonstrated strong momentum, continuing to gain share in a very competitive dairy market, thanks to strong functional claim execution.
Specialized nutrition continued to deliver solid growth in China across both IMF and Medical Nutrition. In Q1, we saw particularly strong demand for our allergy range within pediatrics, for adult oral solutions in adult Medical Nutrition, as well as for Essensis within the IMF category. The Medical Nutrition category remains vibrant, while the infant milk category continues to normalize as expected. In Waters, we saw contrasting dynamics across our two main brands in the region. Solid growth for Mizone as we are preparing for the season, while severe flooding impacted the category in Indonesia. Overall, APAC remains a growth region for us, with opportunities across countries and categories. With that, let me conclude with slide number 11. As we have been discussing this morning, we delivered a solid performance in this first quarter amid a challenging context.
We are applying with rigor our winning strategy, focused on our health-focused categories that benefit from attractive underlying demand and that continue to grow faster than the average of the food and beverage market. We are therefore confirming today our guidance for year 2026, consistent with our midterm guidance of like-for-like sales growth between +3% and +5%, and for recurring operating income to grow faster than sales. With that, let me hand it back to Mathilde to start the Q&A session.
Thank you, Juergen. We'll start the Q&A session with a question from Guillaume Delmas, UBS. Guillaume?
Thank you very much, and good morning, Juergen and Mathilde. First, quick housekeeping. Could you quantify the impact of the recall on your Q1 numbers? At the time of the full year results, you were talking about 50 to 100 basis points. What kind of impact are you assuming for Q2? My two questions, the first one on the commodity cost outlook, and particularly on this, to what extent this outlook has changed in recent weeks? As a result, what kind of COGS inflation will you be baking in your 2026 operating profit guidance? Still on input cost inflation, we've heard from a large French dairy company. They were already thinking about pricing actions.
Wondering if it's something you're also contemplating, or as you were alluding to on the call, Juergen, for now you think your productivity savings can fully offset these additional commodity headwinds. Then second question, short one, just on North America. Back in February, you sounded confident about a significant step-up in like-for-like sales growth from Q2. We've seen some early positive signs in Q1, so I would assume this is still the case. If you can help us a little bit unpack what will be the key drivers behind that, if it's just the Creamers' basis of comparison, or you would expect a more broad-based acceleration. Thank you very much.
Yeah. Good morning, Guillaume. Many questions, so let me go through that. First on the IMF impact. The impact we saw in Q1 is exactly in line with what we discussed a couple of weeks ago, so nothing more to say here. It's been really an exceptional situation as we faced, in a way, the combined effects of a larger industry recall together with the Middle East supply chain disruption. European supply chain situation is back to normal in most of the countries. Middle East, as you can imagine, is a bit more difficult because shipping a product into the Middle East is a bit more tough, but we are making also good progress there. We expect a progressive normalization of the IMF business performance during the course of the year. When it comes to the commodity outlook, the situation is obviously extremely volatile.
You have seen that over the last weeks, impacting spot prices for transportation and packaging, obviously, immediately, but also for some other materials, including fertilizer. We have, as you know, hedging protection in place, which is moderating short-term the impact on our P&L. The way we are addressing it in this very volatile context is that we have been accelerating, first and foremost, ongoing productivity efforts to mitigate the immediate cost impacts as much as possible. For the rest, we are pretty much monitoring the situation to decide if and where we may need to take other mitigation actions, but that's really too early to say. We are focusing on really monitoring the situation, at least for the next days and weeks to decide upon to do more or less. For North America, I would say we are pleased with what we saw in Q1.
We saw a step up versus the Q4, and the step up came through yogurts and came through creamers, because of more capacity as you mentioned, and because of the lapping in creams in March. Obviously we'll not give a guidance for a quarter, for a region, for sub-segment. Our ambition is to further improve the situation progressively as we go on here, as we have more capacity coming online and as we are activating more and more our brands across the portfolio in North America.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Guillaume. Next question from Jon Cox, Kepler. Jon?
Yeah. Good morning, guys. Thank you for this. Sorry, just to come back to the formula. I wonder if you can just be a bit more granular in terms of what you think the impact was. If you just, say, take flat the Specialized Nutrition in Europe and do the -4.3%, that's about 65 basis points. I'm just wondering, any more granularity on it? I understand the category is slowing down because of everything that's happened. What your thoughts are on the category in Europe as we go through the year? Just the knock-on impact elsewhere. It looks like there's a bit of a slowdown elsewhere, but nothing really material. I wonder if you can just confirm that about formula. Thank you.
Yeah. Morning, Jon. Look, on the quantification, there's really not much more to say. What you see in Q1 is really in line with what we said, despite the fact that the Middle East conflict was not really on our radar during the full year discussions. When it comes to Europe, as I said, the supply chain situation is pretty much back to normal. What we are seeing is, and there's no surprise that, the category during the recall has been a bit softer, and this is why we are investing into rebuilding the trust with parents and key opinion leaders, which should contribute to recovery. The market share situation, of course, in Europe is quite fluid. We are up in some countries, down in some others. Very much depending on local competitive situations since the recall.
Sometimes market share reading is a bit difficult, because what happened in that situation is that people went instead to supermarkets, more to pharmacies. There's been a big shift in shopping behaviors during the crisis, that is now rebounding back. Net-net, looking at it, I believe that we'll be able to regain a strong competitive situation and that also the category will progressively recover. This is why I believe IMF business for us over the year will progressively go back to where it used to be. Not a lot more to say. Middle East will stay a little bit tense for the coming weeks, depending on how the conflict goes.
Into Asia, like China and stuff?
Yeah. China, look, China was not affected by the recalls. As you can see from the numbers, we had a solid sell-in in Q1. However, we are constantly monitoring social media, which is true for China and which is true for the world, to understand any possible sentiment change. It's also true that in many countries, the authorities have increased since the recall the frequency and depth of quality controls, which is true for China here, especially for imported products. Our teams on the ground are working hard to make sure that we address these requirements while avoiding any supply chain disruptions. That, you know, overall for China, the category is normalizing. There is no new news. Overall, not a lot of news to say.
Thank you.
Thank you, Jon. The next question is from David Roux, Morgan Stanley.
Morning, Mathilde and Juergen. Two questions from my side. First, just on U.S. yogurt, could you give us an update on where you stand with your incremental yogurt capacity in the U.S.? Is this now fully commissioned and how long do we think this should take until it translates to sort of an improvement of the yogurt's volumes there? And then my second one is on the Huel deal. Can you tell us what the right level of interest costs, for Danone, will be now post-consolidation of this? And then what is the earnings accretion from this deal? Thank you.
Look, good morning, David. I would say in the U.S., a good improvement, in Q1, as we were traveling through the quarter. Yogurt, we started to benefit from capacity coming online. As we discussed at several occasions, this is not a one-shot capacity increase. This is several production lines coming online as we travel through the year and especially as we travel through the first six months of the year. As this capacity comes online, we have the ability to reactivate not only high protein, which continues to grow strongly, but also to activate our other brands, in the U.S. That has started in Q1, but it's really started, and so it will be progressive, as we go through the next two quarters in particular. I would say we are rather happy with that. Creamers, as I said, we were lapping in the month of March.
The supply chain issues of last year. We could see that in the, let's say, internal reading, but also in the external reading in market shares, which gives us also confidence for the full year. On Huel, look, first, very exciting. Fantastic company. Fantastic complementary product groups. And on top of the products they are selling, I think what is unique in their model is really the direct to consumer channel management, combined with quite state of the art digital marketing capabilities. This is really exciting. It increases our exposure to fast-growing markets, both in Europe and in the U.S., and so it will enhance our growth profile in both regions. When it comes to interest costs related to the deal, you saw actually what we have been issuing in bonds over the last weeks, which gives you a sense of the interest costs linked to this operation.
It will not be EPS accretive in year one, as you can imagine, but will be EPS accretive very fast. Because it's a fast-growing business, it's very nice gross margins. We make sure that we are pushing this opportunity to the max, leveraging the totality of their product portfolio, as they have a variety of product formats, so really excited about welcoming Huel to the Danone family.
Great. Juergen, can I just follow up on your last point on Huel? Is it fair to assume that some of the expensive debt that Huel has will be refinanced with some of the paper you've issued now?
Well, you saw we issued bonds over the last weeks. In that sense, from a financing standpoint, things have been in the pocket.
Thank you.
Thank you, David. The next question from Warren Ackerman, Barclays.
Yeah. Good morning, Juergen. Good morning, Mathilde. Warren here at Barclays. I've got one small housekeeping and then two questions. The housekeeping is, in China, Juergen, are you able to kind of clarify whether you're seeing any issues on the border, product coming into China, on extended sterility testing as we've heard from a2 Milk? Just wondering whether that's something to think about. That's the housekeeping. Then my two questions are, can you, maybe Juergen, kind of outline the kind of growth that you're seeing in your kind of three sort of growth platforms, which are high protein, out of home, and medical, just to give us an idea in terms of how they're tracking? That's the first one.
Secondly, obviously a lot of focus on Asia, but can you talk a little bit about some of the kind of other EMs as well, particularly thinking kind of Latin America trends and perhaps some of the kind of Southeast Asian, India regions as well, just given the conflict? Thank you.
Yeah. Good morning, Warren. Yeah. First on China and COVID, we see what everybody's seeing, which is that the authorities across the globe are strengthening instantly the, let's say, quality controls. This is also true for imported IMF products into China, that the teams on the ground are mobilized and are managing it to avoid any kind of supply chain disruption. So not a lot to report here. When it comes to our winning platforms, high protein is the number one growth driver of the company. Has been and is, which is exciting, and in terms of scale, it's raising its contribution quarter after quarter as this is not anymore a European phenomenon or U.S. phenomenon. High protein is now a reality everywhere around the world. I've been talking about Japan. I could talk about Latin America. I could talk about Australia.
We are everywhere, prioritizing investments into those platforms, while we are also investing into elements which are more essential protein delivery, like Skyr. I want here to mention the Kefir, also innovation we have been launching, which is not really on high protein, it's more on gut health. It has been extremely well welcomed in the European markets, which we initially launched, and we are rolling that out as fast as possible, but you will see that appearing also in other markets around the world, so we are very excited about it. Out of home continues to grow faster than sales in retail channels. As we discussed at several instances, this is also due to the fact that all our innovations we are launching are eligible for out of home consumption, a lot of drinkable formats.
This is also where Huel is extremely interesting, because it comes with, again, this ambient product format, so just strengthening on this point. When it comes to medical, exciting. If there's one thing which is really exciting us, it's medical across the board. In the U.S., because Kate Farms integration goes very well, and in China, because we are making very good progress, not only in our, I would say, legacy business, which is tube, but also in oral feeding, which is pretty new to China as we've been discussing. Last point on the more emerging markets. Latin America doing actually pretty well, I need to say. Seeing good dynamics, Brazil, Mexico in particular. Argentina will be excited about the joint venture. We will have a platform at scale.
It will be a billion euro platform, which, yes, will not be any more consolidated at top line, but it should be EPS accretive for the company over time. Southeast Asia, actually, very strong underlying dynamics has not been contributing to the same extent in Q1 as over the last year, because we had some phasing effects there. Here, you know that this is one of the big growth opportunities of the company.
Thank you.
Thank you, Warren. Next question from Olivier Nicolai. One moment.
Good morning, Juergen, Mathilde, and team. Just two questions first, and then just a follow-up. Could you please comment on the consumer demand in Europe, what you're seeing? I know it's still early days, but do you expect, on your experience, any type of downtrading in EDP? Secondly, just to clarify on the previous comment you made on the IMF recall, I think you said by the end of the year it will be sorted. Could you perhaps give us a little bit of comment on what kind of impact you would expect for Q2? Then lastly, on North America, following the purchase of Kate Farms, which allows you to enter that Medical Nutrition opportunity, are you currently satisfied with the access you have with the hospital channel, or would you actually need more scale to capture fully this opportunity there? Thank you.
Good morning. Good morning, Olivier. Consumer demand in Europe, no surprise, overall consumer sentiment is quite muted. Having said that, we discussed that over the last quarters. There's very polarized dynamics in food and beverages. Healthy food is on trend, and consumers are willing to pay for value. You need to offer value, but then consumers are willing to buy. This is what we are seeing, high protein, Kefir, immunity, everything which we are proposing, which is functional, which is differentiated, which is premium, by the way, is working very fast. We are leveraging the science we have in our products to deliver on or to make these products attractive to the consumer, even at a more premium price. Same as for Danette, by the way, our premium dessert, because people want to have pleasure during the day.
It's not only about functional benefit on health, but also feeling good, especially in this difficult time. We're less worried about down trading from a product standpoint. Obviously, we pay a lot of attention to be available in the right channels at the right price points, and so format management and channel management, including on discounters, but also on our away from home, is a very important part of our strategy moving forward. As I recall, look, please do not expect me to give a guidance for a sub-region and a sub-category. We expect a progressive improvement as that supply chain situation in Europe is pretty much back to normal. Focus is on really recovering the credibility and the trust of the category.
Lastly, on North America, Kate Farms, very exciting for the reason you mentioned, which is the first time in the history of Danone we have access to the healthcare system, and the hospital system in the U.S. This is a fantastic platform, and what we are doing as we speak is to combine the access of this platform with the science we are bringing from our global Specialized Nutrition hub. The early signs we have are very promising. We see good growth since the acquisition, and we are just starting to materialize the synergies we are seeing. You know that before the acquisition of Kate Farms, we had already two smaller acquisitions of companies also in the same field in the U.S., called Real Food Blends and Functional Formularies. Now we are unleashing the combined power of those assets. Quite exciting.
I hear a lot more partnership.
Thank you. Thank you, Olivier. Next question from Nicolas Ceron, Bank of America.
Good morning, Juergen and Mathilde. I have two quick question for me. First one, maybe you could remind us if you ship your baby food product by plane or by boat to China. The second one, Juergen, do you have any strong view on what might be the changes in regulation in the U.S. baby food market following the Operation Stork Speed that's going on? Thank you.
Good morning, Nicolas. Look, overall, you can imagine that our supply chain is very much a supply chain which is using ship transportation or boat transportation, especially between Europe and China. This is not only between Europe and China, and that's true for our overall operations. In very particular situations, we may ship something by plane. You can imagine from a financial standpoint, that's a bit less interesting. We are having, I would say, good control on our supply chain, because we are used to a bit of erratic behavior in those supply chains, so I think that's pretty much under control and nothing particular to report. When it comes to the U.S. and the infant milk market in U.S., you know that we are not really playing in that market, so there's not a lot to say.
We are not following that very closely, I'm afraid to tell you.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Nicolas. Next and last question from Celine Pannuti, JP Morgan.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My first question is coming back on the short-term impact. Indonesia flooding and overall, you said the momentum in Southeast Asia is good, but do you expect water to see a step up in acceleration in Q2? Middle East, you have this constraint in shipping. Are you thinking that this is going to linger into the quarter, and how big is that? Because you sent me the list, it's 2%-3% impact, and it's more for specialized. Just try to understand a bit those elements. I see that consensus is at 4% on Bloomberg for Q2. Do you think that is in line with what you expect to be a progressive acceleration in itself? Do you think that is a good reflection? Are you comfortable with that? My second question is on margin.
Given the weak start to the year Specialized Nutrition impact, are we expecting any margin in the first half of the year? In H2, you will be facing higher COGS inflation. Do you think we should start to think about that as we model for potential pressure in the second half of the year? Thank you.
Good morning, Celine. Let me go one by one through your questions. First on water. Indonesia is a big business for us. It was a tough quarter because it has been raining a lot and a lot of flooding, which was very public. Which, when you have a business model like we have it, going through all the hundreds and thousands of islands of Indonesia, has been quite disruptive. That should be back to normal as we speak, and we will see a better performance moving forward, which obviously will help the overall water's performance. Middle East, I would say our people are doing everything possible to find workarounds to deliver our product in the region. It's going better and better. Of course, we are also hoping that the overall situation will improve.
Here, I think, the situation is better managed from day to day. It happens that this is a lot of imported products going into that region. Again, workarounds are working better and better. Don't ask me to give you a precise Q2 outlook or to comment on what today's consensus is. I think what the takeaway should be is probably that we are confirming today with confidence our guidance. I think that's an important statement. This is true for top line, which means implicitly an acceleration versus Q1, and this is true for the bottom line. We know that in our business model in Danone, the bottom line, the margin is direct consequence of the top line, because our business model is based on quality growth. For the margin, obviously two things to keep in mind.
One is the softer start to the year with Specialized Nutrition, and the other one, as you say, we don't know really what the inflationary pressure will do for the full year. Too early to say. For the moment, we have hedging in place, as I mentioned, moderating the short-term impact. We are accelerating as much as we can, productivity for the rest. You see the oil price one day at $80, the next day at $120. It's extremely difficult to make a forecast for that. I think what will help us moving forward is the agility we have learned over the last years to react to an erratic environment and to launch mitigation actions. Our focus remains quality growth.
Here we are extremely pleased to see that the underlying dynamics of our business remains very strong because this is the best way to create value for the company for the years to come.
Thank you.
Thank you, Celine.
Thank you, Celine. We have one very last question that came at the last minute from Tom Sykes, Deutsche Bank. Tom?
Yes. Morning again. Just quickly coming back on the China nutrition business overall. Sorry, I missed it earlier on the call. Could you give a view on what the growth rate of the infant formula is versus the adult nutrition in China, please? And what do you see as happening to your market share, in international formula, please, in China? And perhaps what's happening to pricing like-for-like versus mix impacts on growth, please.
Yeah. Good morning, Tom. Look, China and Specialized Nutrition, pretty solid print in Q1. Very exciting growth rates in a number of areas in Medical Nutrition. Actually, on pediatrics, very strong, especially on the allergy formula. We are making, on the adult side, a pretty good progress on launching or I would say solidifying the presence in oral Medical Nutrition. This is something which hardly existed some time ago, and we believe that has a huge potential. That's very exciting, growing very fast on that side. On the other side, also, IMF with a pretty solid print in Q1, where we are benefiting from two things, I would say the overall very strong markets and market share position we have gained over the last quarters, and you have seen that our market shares have been evolving strongly.
Secondly, the strength of the Essensis brands or sub-brands, which has helped us to have a very strong footprint, by the way, in both Chinese label and international label. Pricing in that category, there's nothing really to report, actually. Pricing for us has not been really a driver. Not in Q1, not for the last quarters. In the end, all the numbers you see in pricing in LFL, all the numbers you see in net sales in LFL of last quarters are equal to volume mix contribution. No particular comment on pricing.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Tom. With that, we end the Q&A. Thank you, everyone.
Thank you everyone for listening, for connecting, and talk to you very soon. Have a great day. Bye-bye.
Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect your line.