Good day, and welcome to the Symrise Analyst and Investor Call on occasion of the first half 2022 results. All corresponding materials, including the presentation, have been published on our website this morning, and the replay of this call will be available later today. Today's call will be held by our CEO, Dr. Heinz-Jürgen Bertram, and our CFO, Olaf Klinger. After their presentations, we are open for your questions. With this, I hand over to you, Heinz-Jürgen.
Thank you. Thank you, Tobias. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our Investor and Analyst Conference Call presenting the results of the first half of 2022. Thank you for taking the time to join us today. Our CFO, Olaf Klinger, and I will run you through today's presentation and answer your questions. Let us start with our agenda for today. I will give an overview of our business development, and Olaf will then go into the details of our financials. We will conclude with some highlights from our growth initiatives and give an update on our raised guidance. Symrise once again has proven to operate with a stable business model. The consequences of the coronavirus pandemic and the war in the Ukraine have so far exerted a minor impact on our business development only. The key figures on chart four bear witness to this.
We increased sales by 18.5% in reporting currency to EUR 2.3 billion. On an organic basis, we achieved a growth rate of 10.2%. EBITDA increased by 15.7% to EUR 486 million, with an EBITDA margin of 21.5%. The business free cash flow amounted to EUR 105 million. Net income increased by EUR 33 million and totaled EUR 229 million. Accordingly, earnings per share increased to EUR 1.64, +13% versus first half of last year. We feel very proud of these results. We still encounter somewhat limited visibility due to the geopolitical uncertainties and high inflation rates. In general, we do think that consumer demand will continue on a healthy level.
We are therefore raising our 2022 guidance as far as our revenues are concerned. Details will follow later. Let us look at our sales growth on Chart five. Group sales increased to EUR 2.3 billion, including EUR 59 million of sales contribution from acquisitions and almost EUR 100 million FX effects. Organically, the group achieved a strong growth of 10.2%, driven by both segments and all regions. Chart six illustrates the growth dynamics by segment. Taste, Nutrition & Health achieved a very strong organic growth of 12.7%. Taking into account portfolio and exchange rate effects, the segment's sales in reporting currency exceeded the previous year by 20.6%. The contribution of our M&A totaled EUR 34 million. Scent & Care achieved an organic growth of 6.3% in the first half of 2022.
In reporting currency, this represents +15.2%. The takeover of Sensient Fragrance and Aroma Molecules and the acquisition of Groupe Neroli and SFA Romani contributed a total of EUR 26 million to the segment. Let us move to chart seven for the performance by region. All regions drove organic growth, with Latin America delivering the strongest organic growth of 20.5%. Asia-Pacific and North America ranked second and third with 9.7% and 9.2% respectively. EMEA achieved organic growth of 8.2%. Across all regions, we enjoy continued highest business dynamics. Let me now hand over to Olaf. He will present the financials in more detail. Olaf.
Thank you, Heinz-Jürgen, and also a warm welcome to everybody on the phone from my side. Let me add some details on our growth on slide nine. Our strong growth momentum continued, and Q2 grew even stronger than Q1. Number is 12% after 8.3%. In total, we achieved a remarkable organic growth of 10.2% in H1, which was contrary to the same period last year, well supported by price increases and continuing good volume growth. Our price volume split for H1 is now towards 60% price and 40% volume. FX continued to support our growth with EUR 100 million or 5.2%. Primarily from strong US dollar, Brazilian real, and Chinese renminbi. Please turn to the group profitability on slide 10.
We grew very nicely on absolute EBITDA, but we are not immune against the higher costs like for raw materials, where the quota slightly increased from 43% to 44.3%. Despite our price increases, which I already mentioned, our EBITDA margin dropped slightly from 22% to 21.5%. Assuming your interest in one-offs, I will share some details here. Like the positive one-off last year for Sensient of EUR 13 million, we had a positive one-off this year from the disposal of the Velcorin business of EUR 80 million. Adjusting the margins for both incidents, our EBITDA margin dropped slightly from 21.3% to 20.7%.
Other one-offs were kind of EBITDA neutral as a sum of payments from the insurance for the cyberattack of around EUR 3.5 million, almost matched the sum of transaction integration costs for recent acquisitions of around EUR 4 million. D&A saw higher depreciation related to CapEx and FX effects. Amortization slightly increased due to recent acquisitions, but also had seen a positive impact from maturing amortizations from historic merger and acquisitions, more specifically 2003 related. EBIT increased to EUR 344 million. This corresponds to an EBIT margin of 15.2% after 15.5% last year. Let's turn to Taste, Nutrition & Health on slide eleven. Organic growth reached 14.8% in Q2 and 12.7% for H1. The price-volume split was around 60/40 in H1, with stronger pricing in Q2 and continuing good volume growth.
FX was supportive with 5% in H1 and even 7% in Q2. EBITDA increased 22.2% to EUR 315 million. The EBITDA margin of the segment was at 22.5% due to price increases, profitable sales growth, and acquisitions. Despite all the efforts to compensate the rising raw materials and operating costs without the Velcorin effect, the EBITDA margin would have been 21.2%. Let's turn to Scent & Care on slide 12. Scent & Care grew organically with 7.6% in Q2 and at 6.3% in H1, with a price volume split of around 60/40. The portfolio effect of EUR 25.5 million included Sensient in Q1, and that's for the last time, and Groupe Neroli and SFA Romani from Q2 onwards.
FX supported with 5.5% in this segment in H1, slightly increased from Q1 with 3.9% to Q2 with 7.2%. The segment Scent & Care achieved an EBITDA increase of 5.3% to EUR 171 million after EUR 162 million last year. The EBITDA margin reached 19.8% after 21.7% last year. Adjusted for the positive run off for Sensient last year, the comparable margin last year was 19.9%. Please turn now to slide 13 for our bottom line. The financial results declined by around EUR 4 million to -EUR 27 million, and this is due to higher interest expenses for the Giraffe acquisition financing and the EUR 750 million ESG-linked promissory note, which we launched earlier this year.
Our tax rate of 26.2% is unchanged and within our expected midterm corridor of 25%-27%. EPS increased strongly by 13% to a new record level of 1.64 EUR per share. Slide 14 shows the development of our business free cash flow, which declined by EUR 76 million or 42% to EUR 105 million. This corresponds to 4.6% of sales. The reasons for the decrease are investments into further capacity expansions, especially in pet food, and an increase in working capital. The rolling number for the last twelve months at the end of H1 was 9.8% for our business free cash flow. Given the ongoing macro uncertainty, especially for working capital this year, we lower our expectation from around 14% of sales to 8%-10% of sales for this year.
Our midterm guidance, however, is unchanged and stays at about 14% of sales for our business free cash flow. Please move to our net debt development on slide 15. With recent investment activities in Swedencare, Giraffe Foods, Schaffelaarbos, and Groupe Neroli / SFA Romani, and higher working capital, we are currently at 2.5x EBITDA without pensions and 3.0x including pensions. This is slightly above our midterm net debt, including pension targets of 2-2.5x. However, we are confident to get back into the corridor within the next 12-18 months timeframe. The increase in assets on our balance sheet on slide 16 comes primarily from investments and acquisitions reflected in intangibles and PPE, and from higher working capital.
The increase in working capital is driven by our strong growth, additional safety stocks in light of disrupted supply chains, as well as M&A related increases. Our equity ratio remains on a healthy level of 45.7%. In summary, we provided good financials for the first half of 2022. We achieved very strong growth, organic as well as reported, resulting in a substantial increase of our absolute EBITDA. While margins suffered slightly from rising raw material and operating costs, we continue to implement further price increases, which are mandatory in the current inflationary environment to protect our profitability. All in all, we are convinced that our diversified portfolio in combination with our agile and successful business model, including our proven backward integration, will allow us to maneuver again well through these challenging times.
We are optimistic to reach our targets for 2022 and further until 2025. With this, I would like to hand back to Heinz-Jürgen Bertram. Thank you.
Thank you, Olaf. Ladies and gentlemen, before we move on to our updated sales forecast, allow me to highlight some R&D projects and growth initiatives we have driven forward in the first half of this year. As you all know, innovation forms an important growth lever. In the first half of 2022, we invested EUR 123 million in R&D, a plus of 17% versus previous year. These numbers illustrate the importance of running a healthy innovation pipeline. In Taste, Nutrition & Health, we clearly focus on natural product solutions with nutritional and health benefits. The Symrise food portfolio consists of a wide range of trusted and sustainable health ingredients. They come with proven efficacy and support consumer specific health conditions and expectations. Another example relates to our new technology, ProtiScan.
Symrise offers its customers an analytical approach to the assessment of alternative protein sources and applications. The approach links knowledge about proteins with sensory and consumer-driven data. This way, Symrise can develop predictive models that result in efficient product development and well-performing solutions. The new organization of Taste, Nutrition and Health, in conjunction with our bold own acquisitions, forms also a major milestone for our pet food activities. The former organizations Diana Pet Food, ADF, IsoNova, and Schaffelaarbos are joining forces in one division. The division will address the pet food market, providing high-value product solutions under the master brand Nutrios. Let us move to chart 19. It illustrates that the wheels also in Scent and Care are continuing to rotate. Let me highlight some achievements. Renewable and natural feedstock also plays a major role in the innovation pipeline of Scent and Care.
Hydrolite 8 green demonstrates the latest milestone in the innovation of green multifunctional ingredients at Symrise. With the same strong performance as the well-known and widely used synthetic grade, this cosmetic ingredient comes from 100% bio-based sources. Symrise is producing it with its own proprietary technology. Sun protection becomes more and more important in cosmetic formulations. Symrise has developed a mineral UV filter range, which is positioned in the market under the brand Neo Heliopan. This forms a logical addition to the successful portfolio of existing sun filters. Strategic partner Kobo has supported in the development of the range. The company specializes in cosmetic colors and mineral UV filters. Let me give you one more example concerning our ambitions as an innovation leader in cosmetic ingredients. We started a strategic partnership with German industrial biotech company, Evoxx Technologies.
This follows the idea to develop biotechnological processes for ingredients used in beauty applications. evoxx contributes its expertise in research and development and know-how in manufacturing of enzymes and probiotics. Symrise adds their technology and capabilities in creating innovative and sustainable cosmetic ingredients. Ladies and gentlemen, let us conclude today's presentation with our new outlook on chart 20. We feel confident that we have positioned our company well to continue our profitable growth course. Today, we cannot foresee the further development of the crisis in the Ukraine and the impact on all of us. At the same time, our robust business model with its diversified portfolio, our far-reaching international presence and broad customer base will give us tailwind. Therefore, we raise our annual growth target from previously 5%-7% to now significantly above 7%.
Also, the headwind from raw material and energy prices, we aim at an EBITDA margin of around 21% in 2022. Our midterm targets 2025 remain the same. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention. I would now like to open the call for your questions.
Many thanks, Heinz-Jürgen. Many thanks, Olaf. Turning to Q&A, we are now happy to take your questions after the operator's instructions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your touchtone telephone. Mr. Tobias Erfurth will announce your name when it's your turn to ask a question. In case you wish to cancel your question, please press star two. For your questions or annotations, please press star one.
Thank you very much. The first question comes from Heidi Vesterinen, BNP Paribas.
Good morning. I first have a question on your full year sales guidance. Was the upgrade driven by price or volume, please? What do you actually mean by significantly above 7%? That's the first question. Thanks.
Okay. Thanks, Heidi. Our sales guide is significantly above 7%. Heidi, as I said, we cannot foresee the impact of all the crisis going on, but we feel confident that we will achieve definitely a sales growth of far more than 7%. We had discussed, Olaf and myself, if we give bandwidth but that's impossible. However, for the moment, that is it, what we are willing to give out, and it shows our confidence. Having said that, the second part of your question on what is volume versus price. Olaf has already stated that in the first half of the year, we saw about, as a rule of thumb, half of it from price, half of it from volume coming.
The good news is, although we saw a bigger portion of our growth than historically coming from price increases, we continue to see volume growth. In the second half of the year, we expect a bigger portion coming from volume growth. The good news is we keep seeing strong dynamics also concerning volume growth, and we will see a bigger portion in the second half of the year coming from volume. The price increases, we have already made quite some price increases, and you saw it in the first half year's numbers. That will a bit phase out at least to some extent in the second half of the year. On the other side, we will continue to see a strong momentum of volume growth. Okay.
Just to clarify, I thought pricing would step up further in the second half because there's usually a lag. Here you're saying volume is gonna step up and pricing is just flattening out. Did I hear that correctly?
Good that you asked again. We will see some impact on price increases in the second half. Yes. I would say we have done two-thirds of the price increases in already, and there is, I would say, one-third of price increases still to come in, but the majority has been done. The shift will change a bit more towards impact of volume growth, but not total, a total dramatic shift. At least to give you some guidance, okay? Good that you brought it up again.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
On the topic of volume, is there anything you can share on Q3 so far, please? Have you seen any slowdown in momentum from your customers? Any change in dynamics?
Well, Heidi, we have just finished the first month, and the first month was just okay. I have just opened this morning for August the first. So far, I would say so far so good. We altogether don't know what's impacting, but no red flags so far, no signs of downtrading at this point in time. Okay?
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Next question comes from Charles Eden, please. UBS.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just following up on the previous question on the volume growth in Q2. Olaf, you referenced 60% pricing in the first half, so around 6% pricing. Given you did 3.5% pricing in Q1, I think from memory, am I right to assume that Q2 pricing was 8%-9%?
Well-
Volumes were around 3%-4%.
Charles, to avoid misunderstandings, Olaf had this for Taste, Nutrition & Health. In general, I would say a healthy 50/50. That is about what we see. We should be okay. Olaf?
Yeah. As I mentioned, last year, we had almost no price elements in there. They are coming in now, and therefore we will use price elements. However, what Heinz-Jürgen is elaborating to, we see this volume growth dynamics in our portfolio, and the mix is good. There was a little bit more price in the second quarter compared to Q1. The volume growth was very good, and as Heinz-Jürgen said, it will, from today's perspective, continue into the second half. I think that describes our growth dynamics pretty well.
Super. My second question, just on a slightly different topic. On the media call this morning, I think you noted that you believe you can offset 70% of your gas requirement for the Holzminden production site through the use of alternative energy sources. Can I just ask how you're thinking about the potential indirect disruption with respect to the availability of raw materials? I'm thinking, I guess, specifically for the menthol business, for example, and the reliance on Lanxess.
Yeah, Charles, thanks for that question. We checked that. We should be okay with this. Of course, we checked that if some of our suppliers would be impacted by that. To the best of our knowledge, we do not expect and foresee that. In our site, we have, as I said, mitigated the risk very well. We feel very confident that we can make up for all these uncertainties, and we checked it with our supply chains. There's the same information. They have alternative sources, so that should be okay as well. That's the status as per this morning.
Okay, thank you.
Next question comes from Georgina Fraser, please. Goldman Sachs.
Hi there. Morning. Thanks for taking my question. You mentioned that there's still one-third of price increases to come through. I was just wondering if you could talk to whether that's still easy to implement or if you're starting to see any customer resistance to your price increases. Maybe if I could also ask a little bit on volume. Clearly a stronger driver coming for the second half. Could you help specify will it be the same areas of the portfolio that are continuing to drive that growth? Thanks.
Georgina, first, price increases is becoming more and more difficult to implement. When we talked about this one-third price increases, the majority of this has already been negotiated and has been discussed. There is just a small portion, which is not still necessary. However, it is necessary, but most of them were large contracts, long-term contracts, and where there is not all of this being factored in. To your question, to sum it up, it is increasingly more difficult to pass on price increases. However, still in some areas necessary, but the majority part of the price increases has been already negotiated and is expected to come in within the next weeks and months. Okay. What was the next? I just took down volume.
Yeah. Oh, sorry. It was just to ask if it's the same areas of the portfolio where we'll see volume strength coming through.
Thanks, Georgina. We will see a bit of shift in the volumes. Yes. We expect the impact of changing consumer habits and maybe even trading down. Heidi had asked about it. We don't see it yet, but it may happen very well. However, we are very, very well-positioned to address that. We deal with a large number of customers, but expect some changes in volume growth. However, we will continue to see volume growth. Mainly for one area to highlight where we expect significant volume growth going forward is pet food, and we expect to see some changes in customer dealings, in particular in Scent & Care, where people start looking to change a bit their habits. However, that doesn't change our overall expectation in this. Okay?
That's great. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Next question comes from Matthew Yates, Bank of America, please.
Hey, good morning, everyone. I've got a couple of questions around profitability and margins, one on each division. It looks like the scent margin was only down 100 basis points year-on-year, excluding the exceptionals, which is a very impressive performance. Is that a function of favorable mix within the growth drivers of the business? I guess a similar question around taste. Looks like there the margins are down more like 100 basis points adjusted. Again, is that just because that division has more acute cost inflation, or was there some unfavorable mix in packs contributing to the margin there?
Yeah. Matthew, good question, and that relates a bit to what I just said to Georgina. It is a portfolio mix in some areas favorable, in other areas not. Always the most favorable mix. However, don't read too much into this. Overall, the business dynamics is very good. Yes, as I said, the consumer habits will change, and it may impact on the one or the other end of the portfolio mix, sometimes in the more favorable and sometimes more in the less favorable. Overall, we think our business is running on safe ground. Overall, we feel very confident about the business performance with the implication that the volatility in the market will impact to some extent customer habits.
The good thing on our business model is we can very well balance this out. Okay?
Okay.
Matthew
Please, sorry.
If I may add to that, as you know, as you have parts in the portfolio like cosmetic ingredients, pet food, which make us a little bit more resistant to margin pressure, fast-growing businesses, higher margin businesses, compared to the group. That helped to protect our margin situation.
Thank you, Olaf. Would you mind if I just followed up briefly on, I think it was Charles' question around the gas supply. Heinz-Jürgen, you mentioned you were taking some mitigating steps at your own site. Do you mind just elaborating a bit on-
Yeah, sure.
What are some of those mitigation plans?
Yeah. First to slice the onion a bit, we're talking only about all other sites are pretty much okay with the exception this largest site we have, the one we have in Germany. Talking about that, yes, with the uncertainty of gas supply in Germany, we have done mitigation measures to mitigate the risk. We have a few years ago built our power plant based on natural gas, and we meanwhile have done precautions. We can switch to alternative sources mainly for oil for a temporary time. The oil which we would need to immediately switch to this alternative is already on site. We could do it right away if we have to.
We have also the best treatment you can imagine for treating the exhaust air. We have thermal reactors which are powered by natural gas. There we have meanwhile installed biofilters, coal filters, and we have also prepared measures that we can switch them to alternative energy suppliers there. We are in the process with the officials in here in Germany to get the permission that we could do it if we have to. I'm in contact actually with the Minister of Economic Affairs, and we have a good hotline to Berlin, and I'm confident that we get the permission if we have to.
Having said that, Matthew, I would say we're on safe ground with 70% already as of now, and the missing 30% for some plants we will have a solution to even address that remaining risk within the next weeks. Okay?
Thanks, Hein.
You're welcome.
Next question comes from Lisa De Neve from Morgan Stanley, please.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. First one, I have two, by the way. You delivered very strong growth in Latam in the second quarter. Can you share some of the volume drivers that are underpinning this growth? Also, can you share whether the second quarter contains any level of Latam dollar pricing? That's my first question. The second one is just around some of the couple of comments you've made around changing customer habits. Can you just share what change in consumer habits you're seeing at the moment, and which of these may benefit you or we actually may not benefit you? Thank you.
Yeah. Okay. Olaf, you take the first one.
Let me take the LatAm question first. The volume drivers in LatAm, very much pet food related, as well as food and beverages, good growth. The US dollar pricing impact was almost zero. It's all related to demand. Excellent volume growth supported by local price increases. That created the dynamics in LatAm and the strengths.
Okay. Lisa, I take on the second part, changing consumer dynamics. Let me start with Scent & Care. As we already talked about, we have a strong growth momentum in cosmetic ingredients, and that will continue to support our growth. You see in cosmetic ingredients the nice and significant turnaround, which we have done in sunscreen filters. You heard us talking in the past conferences that is an area which we will have to address and which we will address, and we now addressed it, and you see the momentum coming from that. That will remain. We will see, however, the impact, the positive impact of fine fragrance probably to slow down a bit. That is expected in these times.
On the other side, we expect a solid contribution from an area which has suffered a bit, consumer fragrances. You see, we expect some changes there. On the other side, on the customer end, we expect that if customers were to trade down, a bigger impact and growth of private label and lower priced products. However, that does not impact us or does not mean that we are negatively impacted. We do business with all different customer levels and different customer types, and the margin with all these different types is not necessarily different. Having said that brings me to Taste, Nutrition & Health. Again, a stable growth driver, which will continue to support us is pet food, definitely. Pet food will continue to be a strong element, in particular in the second half.
We saw a big positive impact on beverages that will come back to somewhat normal. We saw a bit of something to catch up on savory that will come back to normal as well. With the customers, private label versus branded customers, same impact like Scent & Care. I hope, Lisa, that gives you an outlook on what we expect.
Thank you. It's very helpful. If I can just sneak in a third one. Can you just provide us with a little of an update on the raw materials, what level of inflation you're expecting for this year? And are there other components of inflation that may kick in in the second half or next year, for example, wage inflation? Is that something you're exposed to in the latter part of this year?
Olaf, I take it. Cost impact, some of it we have visibility. Raw materials, the biggest impact on price increases, I would say we have seen. We may see some more, but the biggest impact, our anticipation has been there, and it relates to the question we had before. It is becoming more difficult to push forward for more price increases for our products if we haven't already negotiated that. That is the same impact we see on raw material prices, which we buy. It will come back to somewhat normal. Something where we don't have full visibility, of course, is the energy cost. We expect that to be also coming back to somewhat normal with a disclaimer we just talked about in Germany.
If we were to switch to alternative sources, we have at the moment not enough visibility to give you a clear guidance if there is something to be expected or not. It will not change the big picture anyway. There could be at least some limited effect there. On salaries and wages, needs to be seen. There could be an effect, but so far, we believe it is manageable, and we are preparing at the moment our budget, and we believe this impact will be very well manageable. Okay?
Okay. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Next question from James Targett, Berenberg, please.
Hello. Good morning, everyone. Two questions from me. Firstly, just following up from the last one, actually. You know, I'm just trying to understand if you expect any benefit from, you know, moderating costs in the second half of this year or not until the first half of 2023 at the earliest. And then secondly, just on the business free cash flow guidance, clearly expecting a better performance second half of the year. Could you just talk about some of the moving parts, if that's just seasonality or some unwinding of your inventory stockpiling? Thanks very much.
Okay, James. I pick the first one. You bet. Actually, I just said we will not have any disadvantages, big disadvantages from the mitigation of raw material price cost, but we will also not have benefits. We believe it will be manageable for us, but it would be far too early to expect any benefits, but also not negative effects. That gave us to the guidance, which we gave for this year. To elaborate even further, I would say even until first quarter next year. Having said that, Olaf, you, business free cash flow, that's your pet project.
Yep. You saw this strong increase on working capital side and a lot is linked to the inventory. Naturally, we have an eye on this. The disruption of the supply chain in the last 12 months led to the fact that we hired a little bit further beyond normal, and this is now addressed and therefore carefully managed. On top of that, the second half of the year is always stronger when it comes to business free cash flow, and therefore our guidance, which is higher than for the first half, however, less than the initial guidance for the year.
Thank you.
Okay. Next question from Isha Sharma, Stifel, please.
Good afternoon. On organic growth, would you continue to attribute your outperformance to high exposure to local and regional players and your nutrition business? On margins, just to clarify, the pressure I would have expected more at Scent & Care, given the high proportion of petrochem-based raw materials. It seems that you've been able to maintain the margin year-over-year. Is it purely through mixed effects that you were able to maintain the margin? I think I would stop there.
Hey, thanks, Isha, for the questions. Good to hear from you. I would say it is not our solid performance in terms of growth and also bottom line is not contributed necessarily to the local customers exposure versus global customers exposure. As you know, we have a slightly different view on this thing than maybe the one or the other. No, that contribution is not that significant. Our growth, the contribution, our by far higher growth than others is contributed to two main things. First, in Taste, Nutrition & Health, we have something which is different than any others. We have pet food. In Scent & Care, the main contribution to make it different is also something which is different to all the others.
We have cosmetic ingredients and a far bigger business. It is about EUR 400 million, which means that is a big driver for our stability. All the other factors I would neglect versus that. Okay, Isha?
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Next question.
Sorry.
Oh, sorry. Isha, go ahead.
The question on Scent & Care margin, please. Is it just mix effects? Just a follow-up, if I may. Could you also tell us a bit about inventory levels at your customers, given some easing in the supply chains now? Thank you so much.
Yeah. Okay. Inventory on our customers and it's guesswork. At the moment, we do not see, frankly, any major changes in the inventory level on customers and not on our end. As Olaf already said, I would say it's a normal reaction. Everyone in the whole supply chain will look on reducing inventory at some point because we all believe that the disruptions in the supply chain will sooner or later go away, and it doesn't make sense to buy material at any price and just pile up the stocks. We believe it's manageable for us. Again, on the customer end, we do not have the necessary visibility. However, at present, we do not see it.
Sooner or later, we expect this to happen with limited impact on our business. The pricing on Scent & Care, we had some areas where we have been very active on pushing through cost increases. That's what it is. Very simple. I personally have been behind the guys to really push these prices through. The good thing is in some of the products and product lines, we are pretty much inevitable, and we are the main, if not the only supplier. That is what made it possible for us to stabilize the margin on Scent & Care in particular. Okay?
Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
You're welcome.
Next question comes from Charles Bentley from Jefferies, please.
Thanks, Chris. Can I specifically get for pet an indication on pricing and volume for Q2, and then volume indications into Q3? And then secondly, a couple questions on cash. I mean, you talk in the presentation around strategic inventory building. I mean, is this specifically in menthol? And if so, kind of how much inventory have you built? And then finally, just on kind of capital deployment, if the plan is to get leverage back to the kind of the target corridor in the next 12-18 months and inventories are likely a bit higher, does this mean the ability to do both on M&A is a little bit less significant in the next 12 months, or how are you thinking about that? Thanks.
Okay. Charles, I start while Olaf puts the answer together for most of the other ones. First, pet price increases in Q2, I would say about 70% of growth came in that segment from price increases. That and volume were about 30%, so that was above average in that segment. It was necessary due to the limited availability of protein sources. That's why we kept buying all these plants to support the growth in that segment. Charles, expect in the second half of this year a bigger portion from volume to come in. That was your specific question to pet food. Overall, Taste, Nutrition and Health was a slightly different picture as it was in Scent & Care.
I take the last one, M&A activity. Don't expect any change in M&A activity in our company. As you have heard from Olaf, our debt ratio is pretty healthy. We are very well equipped to do other acquisitions if necessary. We are still in the process, looking at some more in early, some others in more advanced stages. Imagine we have visibility to areas where no one else has built visibility, as we bought all these egg plants and who else has built visibility in that. I'm sure of none of these acquisitions, any of you guys have heard anything about it, like Schaffelaarbos, Wing Biotech, and so on. Our M&A activity will not necessarily change in the months to come.
The good news is, with the dynamics of the business we have, we don't have to acquire any business if we believe it doesn't help us. Don't expect any changes. With that, Olaf, you do the rest of these questions.
Yes. If I got you right, you were asking about price volume in Q2 and how we expect that in Q3. I think it's important to look at the growth in Q1 and Q2. Organic growth in Q2 was very strong, and therefore the volume piece continued to be strong in the second quarter. As Hans-Jürgen elaborated, it will go further into Q3 and Q4 as we see it from today's perspective. That leads to the expectation that for the second half, price volume mix should be around 50/50. If you apply that, you can make up your numbers for the growth profile going forward. As we indicated, we expect substantial number above the 7% growth guidance. The strategic inventory situation is, as I said, temporary.
It was linked to the disruption of the supply chains. We are managing this now, and therefore it should be less of a burden going forward when it comes to our cash flow situation.
Brilliant. Thanks very much.
Yeah.
Very good. We are running a little bit out of time here, so can you please cut your next questions down to one? Next question comes from Thomas Swoboda, Société Générale.
Yes. Good day, everybody. I actually only have one left, and it's on a slightly different topic. On Scent & Care, congrats on the perfect strategic progress here. If I remember correctly, you wanted to rehire the head of Scent & Care at some point in time. Are you still looking toward that? Have you made any progress?
Thomas, we will have a replacement probably within the next few months, if not earlier. As I said, I'm gonna do it for a temporary point in time. I believe some changes were necessary. Just to name sunscreen filters, I said, I'm not happy with the performance. Things have to change. In the meantime, we have signed a partnership with Kobo. We have widened our portfolio to mineral sunscreen filters, and you see a significant change there. We have done good progress in the fine fragrance business with the acquisitions of Groupe Neroli and SFA Romani, which brings us in a total different level in that business. We have strengthened our business in consumer fragrance with the acquisition of Sensient.
A lot of changes have been done, and you see it in the solid numbers which we delivered for the first half of this year. Thomas, and that brings us to the point. I think the changes are implemented in the direction where I wanted it. Yes, you're right, it's now a safe point in time to think about a succession, and we are in advanced stages in doing this. Okay?
Thank you. Congrats again.
Thanks for the one question. Next one question comes from Olivier Schwarz, Warburg.
Thank you for taking my question. Just a quick one on CapEx. As you saw, let's say an increase of 60% in H1 in that regard, what are your plans for the full year? Was the H1 number already inflated by higher costs, or is that just due to the number of projects you have under your belt? What is to be expected in that regard of cost inflation in the second half of this year, maybe also in 2023? Thank you.
Olaf, you want to take it or shall I take it?
No, go ahead please.
Okay, I start with this. I would say Symrise has shown always the most dynamic growth momentum in our industry. Coming with that is also a bit higher CapEx ratio, showing a high project activity. At present, it comes as no surprise, nearly half of our CapEx spending is in pet food just to support the dynamic growth. As I said, by the year 2025, we will have brought this to a EUR 1.5 billion business, which is a significant increase. But on the other side, it shows that we have some pockets in our portfolio which allow growth momentum of significantly above 10%. The other I would like to highlight where we have done significant CapEx investments is cosmetic ingredients, just to support the strong organic growth rate.
I believe that shows a very healthy sign of confidence in our strong business momentum and our belief that this will continue to go on. Okay?
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Next question comes from James Hooper, Bernstein.
Hi. Thank you very much for taking my question. I've just got the one about the pet food growth. Obviously, it's performing fantastically well. To what extent do you think this is because you're consolidating the pet food market, versus the underlying market growth? Do you think this kind of, you know, huge growth in pet food is sustainable going forward?
That's crystal ball, James. I have not the full visibility to see if we're gaining market share from others because there is simply no other major supplier. My main belief would be the most is we are just fulfilling the increased demand of the market. However, we are the only global supplier in the pet food business, and that's why we did the acquisition of Wing Biotech that brought us to the last market in the world, to the number one position where we hadn't been already number one so far, and that was China. If you are a global pet food company and you want, like other global companies in other areas, to be supported on a global basis, there is simply no other supplier.
With a lot of markets just starting with the dynamics in pet food, I would say it's a safe bet the strong momentum in pet food will continue to go on easily for the next decade. Our effort is to grab all the business opportunities wherever they may arise. If at one point we grab market share from someone else, I don't mind, but the main dynamics comes from organic growth of that segment. Okay?
Thank you.
Okay. Next question and last question today comes from Cathal Kenny from Ireland, from Davy. Please go ahead.
Thank you. My one question pertains to China. Can you speak to the performance of China in the second quarter and the outlook for that business for the remainder of the year? Thank you.
A tricky question, I would say, okay. The outlook and the expectation we have at the moment with all uncertainty, okay. There is at the moment, and that is different than in the past, other markets in Asia with totally different dynamics, okay. Without being able to give you a detailed number as it is, it is a bit volatile there, okay. Imagine with all the lockdowns and shutdowns, sometimes even we have been affected as we had to shut down our place as well. We're not in better situation than anyone else, but under these circumstances, okay. If you read the news in China at the moment, the dynamics has come down somewhat. However, as you see from our results, it does not necessarily impact our total performance, not even in Asia, okay.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Dear participants, this brings us to the end of our conference call today. Thank you very much for your time and your interest in Symrise, especially in the light that there have been so many companies reporting today. We are looking forward to seeing you in person in the upcoming conferences and road shows. We will publish our trading update for the nine months and third quarter on October twenty-sixth. That's it for today. Goodbye. Have a nice day and a great summer. Thank you very much.