Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our Q3 2025 call. Thank you for joining us today. All related documents, including the press release and presentation we will reference on today's call, are available in the financial results section of our IR website. With me today are our CEO, Jean-Yves Parisot, and our CFO, Olaf Klinger. After reviewing the sales performance and the outlook for 2025, we will open the line for questions. With that, I will hand over the call to Jean-Yves.
Thank you. Thank you, René. Thank you all for joining us today. Today, I will review third-quarter sales, provide an update on our ONE Symrise Strategy and ONE SYM Transformation journey, and conclude with the full-year outlook. Let me start with the key highlights of our third-quarter performance and strategic progress on slide four. We achieved organic sales growth of 1.4% despite tough comparables, demonstrating the durability of our business model and strengths of our diversified portfolio amid ongoing global macroeconomic challenges. Our ONE Symrise Strategy and ONE SYM Transformation are enabling us to manage short-term volatility while further strengthening long-term resilience. As we have recently added experienced leadership in key roles, we are accelerating our efforts. As part of our transformation, we are laser-focused on enhancing efficiency. Last quarter, we shared with you a EUR 40 million cost-saving program for 2025.
Year to date, we have successfully realized EUR 30 million in savings and are confident we will achieve the remaining EUR 10 million by year-end. We successfully placed an EUR 800 million bond with a seven-year term and a coupon rate of 3.25%, supporting our financial flexibility and long-term growth strategy. Finally, given continued market volatility, tariff uncertainty, and softer consumer demand in selected markets and regions, we are updating our full-year guidance to reflect current and emerging headwinds. For the full year, we are moderating our organic growth target from 3% - 5% to 2.3% - 3.3%. I will provide more on this later in my remarks. We are very confident in our strategy, transformation momentum, and ability to deliver durable, profitable growth over the long term as we create value for our customers, people, and shareholders. Let me now provide some details regarding our third-quarter sales on slide five.
Organic growth of 1.4% was driven by a 1.5% increase in volumes with relatively flat pricing. The macro and geopolitical environment remained challenging throughout the third quarter, leading to pronounced market dynamics and near-term variability. We are seeing softer consumer demand across select markets and regions, including North America, driven in part by ongoing tariff impacts to consumer goods and continued uncertainty. We are not expecting this to reverse in the near term and are carefully monitoring these developments. We continue to work closely with our customers while leveraging our global supply chain and maintaining disciplined expense management. Sales growth was supported by strong execution, translating to mid-single-digit growth in fragrances and industry-leading growth in food and beverages. A healthy pipeline of sales opportunities and dynamic project reliability with selected customers in key markets helped offset our year-on-year comparables.
The organic growth in Q3 resulted in year-to-date performance of 2.6%, driven by a 1.8% increase in volumes and 0.8% increase in pricing. In Q3, we had a negative impact of EUR 54 million from portfolio and foreign exchange, or - 4.2%, driven primarily by the depreciation of multiple currencies. Let's move to Q3 results for our regions on slide six, which reflects both the strengths and weaknesses of the markets. Europe, Africa, and the Middle East are holding up well despite global demand softness. The region generated strong organic growth of 4.5%. We are seeing softer consumer demand in Asia-Pacific, which grew by 1%, as well as Latin America, where sales contracted 1.8%, largely due to continued macroeconomic uncertainties and inflation.
Sales declined 1.1% in North America, where we are observing a continuation of softer demand in certain key markets and weaker overall consumer sentiment, driven by macroeconomic uncertainties, persistent inflation, and growing political and regulatory unpredictability. These headwinds are not Symrise-specific but reflect the broader market environment. Our diversified portfolio, customer proximity, and strong innovation pipeline position us well to capture growth as markets improve. Please turn to slide seven for a review of our taste, nutrition, and health segment performance. We continue to deliver solid results with organic growth of 1.2%, driven by a 0.7% increase in volume and positive pricing of 0.5%. Taking into account portfolio and exchange rate effect of EUR 37 million, or - 4.8%, sales were EUR 750 million in reported currency. On a nine-month basis, segment sales were EUR 2,314 million, or 2.6% organic growth.
Despite tough double-digit prior year comparison, the food and beverage division continued to experience strong demand and achieved industry-leading mid-single-digit growth, which was largely volume-driven. We continue to meet customers' needs through a leading portfolio of innovative, differentiated products and solutions. The EMEA regions reported the highest growth. The beverages business unit delivered another quarter of double-digit organic growth, maintaining very strong momentum. Naturals recorded single-digit organic sales growth, while sales in savory were slightly higher. The Pet food division continued to perform in line with the market and reported flat organic sales. The price adjustments we enacted earlier this year in Pet food have been well received by customers. Please turn to Q3 sales performance in Scent & Care on slide eight. The segment achieved organic sales growth of 1.7%, driven by a 2.7% increase in volume and negative pricing of 1%.
FX continued to be a headwind of 3.5%. Taking into account portfolio and currency effects, segment sales were EUR 473 million in reported currency. On a nine-month basis, the segment achieved sales of EUR 1,462,000,000 , or 2.5% organic growth. The fragrance division achieved mid-single-digit organic growth in the third quarter, supported by continued strengths in both the consumer fragrance and fine fragrance business units. Consumer fragrance delivered mid-single-digit growth despite challenging double-digit prior year comparables, supported by a strong business pipeline. Fine fragrance recorded mid-single-digit growth, supported by new customer wins, and oral care product solutions achieved moderate growth. The aroma molecules division was impacted by price and volume pressure due to increased competition from Asia and overall market volatility. Consequently, the growth was below the prior year period.
The cosmetic ingredients division achieved low single-digit organic growth, recording growth for the first time this year, signaling initial signs of recovery from previous destocking effects in UV filters. Please turn now to slide nine, and I will provide an update on the progress we made on our ONE Symrise Strategy and ONE SYM Transformation during the quarter three. Turning to slide ten. As a reminder, ONE Symrise is our purpose-driven strategy that is aligned to our financial aspirations and focused around three core pillars: one, portfolio; two, growth; and three, efficiency. The strategy, which is anchored by a clear view of where to play and how to win, ensures that we deploy our resources where Symrise can create the most value for our customers, people, and shareholders. The ONE SYM Transformation is a multi-year organizational-wide change program designed to enable profitable growth, enhance returns, and ensure long-term value creation.
ONE SYM will enable us to better execute our strategy and create the Symrise of the future, a more durable, profitable growth, and returns-oriented organization. Our transformation continues to gain momentum. With the addition of experienced leaders in key areas, we are accelerating our efforts to shape the next chapter of Symrise by making deliberate choices about how to win and create value. We are focusing on growth opportunities, differentiated innovation, a more efficient supply chain, and an optimized sales and marketing operating model. We are also empowering our teams to add more value for customers. This is not easy work, but it is necessary work, and our team is excited about the progress we are making and the opportunity ahead. Please turn now to slide 11 for an update on our ONE Symrise Strategy execution. Let me start first: pillar, portfolio. Our strategy begins with defining where we want to play.
We are focused on faster, growing, profitable market segments where we have unique solutions or a differentiated position. In particular, we provide unique solutions in two key areas. In taste solutions for the food and beverage markets, we offer customers a portfolio of flavors and natural flavorings, and in scent solutions for perfume and home and personal care, we provide a broad range of fragrances. These are two strategic areas also where we have developed or are building a differentiated market position. One market segment in Pet food, where we offer tailor-made solutions, including palatability enhancers, nutritional solutions, and food protection. The second market segment is one care. Looking ahead in 2026, our upcoming one care efforts will deliver holistic health solutions through cosmetic ingredients, probiotics, and active health ingredients.
As much as we are looking to target markets and scale, we are also focused on streamlining the portfolio to achieve our profitable growth goals and optimize capital allocation. On the H1 interim group report, we announced that we are seeking strategic alternatives for the terpene ingredient business. As part of this process, we are separating our terpene ingredient business into a legally and operationally distinct unit called AmeriTerpenes, LLC . This will result in clearer accountability, faster decision-making process, focused investments, and dedicated resources as a standalone unit within the Symrise group. The second strategic pillar, growth, is focused on how we win, particularly through innovation. We have developed an innovation ecosystem and a new innovation process, which is already enabling us to create even more value for our customers.
We continue to build a very dynamic pipeline supported by the newly implemented organization-wide CRM and a proactive focus on more profitable sales opportunities. The third pillar, also focused on how to win, is designed to structurally increase our efficiency. Here, we are identifying and implementing standards and best practices for each key function along our value chain. We are also defining a new operating model that will enable us to leverage our scale through centralization of expertise and decision-making processes. I am now on slide 12. Innovation is a fundamental and critical growth driver for Symrise, as well as core comPetency. That said, we are reimagining the way we innovate through our embedded innovation ecosystem, one that connects people, partners, and technologies to deliver transformative impact for our customers and, in return, their customers.
Our focus is on driving towards execution excellence, ensuring that our capabilities translate into meaningful outcomes. One example of how we are accelerating innovation is through the strategic investment with Cellibre, a U.S.-based biotechnology company. This partnership leverages Cellibre's advanced precision fermentation platform to commercialize high-value natural flavor ingredients and cosmetic bioactives. Together, we are co-developing next-generation manufacturing technologies for globally important ingredients and expanding our portfolio in taste balancing and clean beauty to meet rising consumer demand for natural and responsible products. Another example of our differentiated innovation is Hydrolite 5 green which is manufactured from 100% renewable raw materials. Notably, Hydrolite 5 green adheres to all the 12 green chemistry principles. This cosmetic and skincare ingredient was recently recognized with a BSB Innovation Award, winning the top prize in the raw materials category.
In September, we announced a new production unit dedicated to Hydrolite 5 green at our facility in Granada, Spain. This additional capacity will enable Symrise to meet growing customer demand and ensure a secure and sustainable supply chain. In addition, we are investing in strategic enablers like our data and AI hub in Barcelona, which advanced data-driven innovation and positions digitization as a catalyst for growth along our entire value chain. Through our innovation ecosystem, we are laying the foundation for the next phase of our growth journey. Let's move now to slide 14 and our outlook. While we are not immune to slowing demands, we are controlling what we can control and proactively shaping our future by executing our ONE Symrise Strategy and ONE SYM Transformation. These actions are already yielding tangible results, as seen in our margin ambition and ability to deliver value despite headwinds.
As we look ahead to the remainder of the year, we remain confident in the resilience and agility of Symrise. At the same time, we acknowledge the continued volatility in the global operating environment with ongoing consumer consciousness and tariff uncertainty. Reflecting these conditions, we consider it prudent to adjust our full-year top-line guidance to ensure our outlook remains both realistic and achievable. For the full year, we are moderating our organic growth target from 3% - 5% to 2.3% - 3.3%. We remain confident in our ability to outperform our reference markets and reaffirm our commitment to delivering sustainable, above-market growth. Importantly, we are focused on delivering an EBITDA margin of approximately 21.5%, reflecting our commitment to profitability through efficiency gains and portfolio optimization. Business free cash flow is expected to be approximately 14% of sales. With that, let's open the floor for your questions. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and then one on their telephone. We will return to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to two questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. We have the first question coming from Ed Hockin from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Hi, all. Thank you very much for taking my questions. My first one's on the new guidance on top lines of the 2.3% - 3.3% for the year, is implying a pretty wide range for Q4. I think anywhere between 1.5% and 5.5% organic sales growth. Big picture, can you talk through some of the moving parts we should have in mind for Q4, bearing in mind the comparables? That would be useful. My second question is on Pet. I think a steady flattish performance in Q3, whether you can split out a bit the volumes versus the pricing within Pet, maybe how nutrition has been performing versus palatants. A bigger question is, how soon do you think you should be seeing a more significant acceleration in Pet back towards the kind of level that you'd expect it to be in the midterm?
It seems like some of the pricing reductions that you've done, you are unlikely to cycle until the second half of next year. I guess a big broader question on when Pet might reconnect with a mid to high single-digit growth algorithm. Thanks.
Thank you, Ed. A set of different questions. I will try to answer all the questions the right way by remembering them. Concerning the market, concerning Q4, and concerning our new guidance, our new guidance, as I told, is prudent, but I think we are very now focusing on delivering what we promise. It seems perhaps to be why 2.3% - 3.3%. Today, we are year-to-date 2.4%. Concerning the comparables, you have to know that the comparables of Q3 were very high, more than 10% at the group level. The comparables for Q4 for the company are much less. In terms of volume, it's 6%, right? That's the first thing. We are confident that Q4 will be not, I don't say, a super quarter, but should be a quarter which is positioning us to reasonably land in the magnitude of the new guidance.
We are working on it, and that's what we commit now for the time being. Concerning the Pet volume or price, concerning the Pet price, Pet is continuing to grow. The Pet market is flattish, but we continue to grow with the Pet market. You were asking a price volume. Concerning the pricing, the pricing was increasing price still in Pet food, in palatability. In terms of nutrition, we are still in adjustment of the prices in 2025, which is penalizing the picture of the Pet nutrition as a whole. Concerning the next year, when will Pet come back and rebound? We are all waiting for it. The Pet food market is increasing. The Pet population is increasing 2% per year. By the way, during COVID, the Pet population increased, which is also a positive impact on the potential of the market.
The price adjustment will be behind us next year. Next year should be a year for us for rebounding. After concerning the when and concerning the magnitude, we are in very close contact with our customers for anticipating. All what we are doing now is to control what we can control, which is the profitability. Even if we had to decrease the prices in nutrition, we increased the profitability by working a lot on logistics and production costs. When the market will rebound, we will even be more profitable with the Pet business as a whole, which is also, I remind all of us, very contributive. Cash delivery is also helping us to reinject money for growing the company in other compartments of the organization.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ed.
The next question comes from Charles Eden from UBS . Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you. Yeah, two questions from me as well, please. First one, I'll just follow up on the previous question on Pet, which obviously was flat in Q3. Would I be correct to say so that's positive organic growth in palatability and probably positive volumes and pricing, whereas nutrition probably saw a high single-digit decline organically, probably entirely driven by pricing? You kind of alluded to something similar to that in the response to Ed's question, but if I could just push you on those numbers because I think it is important to understand that this is a nutrition issue. Secondly, on aroma, obviously, the decline in organic sales is not new in Q3. You saw a similar decline in Q2. Could you help us understand what specific product areas in aroma are seeing sharp declines currently?
I'd also be interested if you could share your thoughts on the extent to which this is structural versus transitory. Finally, on this topic, you obviously announced the strategic review of terpenes and legally separated this business. Can you remind us of the strategic rationale for having the aroma business as part of the portfolio altogether? Thank you.
Okay. Yes, thanks for asking. Again, you know the question concerning the Pets, and I will be more precise on the nutrition part. Concerning the Pet palatability, you have to know that altogether it's flatish because the market is flatish. We are preparing ourselves for the recovery of the market, and we will be much more prepared than before, really, to make profitable growth because this period, we use this period for improving our raw material costs and production costs, which is part of our efficiency gains. Concerning the nutrition, the volumes growth is totally offset by the price decrease adjustment we are doing in nutrition this year. It's a strategic repositioning. Nutrition is a strategic protein. It is a specialty protein. It is a valuable protein. Now we are really repositioning strategically these solutions.
The volume growth, which is, by the way, a mid-single-digit growth, is offset by the price adjustment. Concerning aroma, we are under pressure, and you know there are competitive pressures from some, also Asiatic competitors. You have to know that the comparables last year were very high, double-digit comparable last year in Q3, specific in aroma, where we made huge Q3 for aroma. It is one thing. The second thing is to understand that it is a business which is under pressure, where we are also to go through the current situation. Again, it's not structural. It's cyclical. As I told you, we are constantly assessing the portfolio of the company. When there will be some structural impact, we will definitely address it. Coming back to your third question, which is a terpene, which is a structural situation where we definitely decided to divest, means deconsolidate the terpene business.
I had the opportunity to explain before why we deconsolidate. We want to keep the strategic advantage of the upstream integration. This terpene business today is growing nice, I should say, as planned. As I told, we created an autonomous entity for facilitating the carve-out and the deconsolidation. We are totally on track, on plan for the terpene. I really hope that next time we'll have a call to give you much more information about the next steps.
The next question comes from Nicola Tang from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. I actually would like to start with a follow-up on the aroma question. You mentioned there that you see it more as a cyclical rather than a structural issue. Can you explain a little bit what's going on with the increased Asian competition? Is it basically a product that's being redirected away from the U.S. into other markets, or is it something a bit more complicated than that? The second question, you reiterated the margin target and the free cash flow target. Can you explain what gives you confidence in margins and free cash flow, given the fact that you haven't changed the view or the cost savings for this year? I was wondering if there could be any impact from weaker operating leverage, and if so, what's offsetting that to give you confidence in the margin and free cash flow targets? Thanks.
Yeah. Concerning aroma, thanks for the question, Nicola, to dig in on this question. What I'd say also, there are a lot of things happening now in the geopolitical domain. You know that U.S., they didn't close the border, but it's very difficult for Asiatic companies to enter Europe. There's a tendency to put more pressure in Europe to enter in the U.S. There's a tendency to put more pressure in Europe. It has an impact on the price. That's the reason why we are also really facing this, what I call cyclical, this situation today. It is really increasing the Chinese competition. It's not a Symrise-linked phenomena. It's a geopolitical aspect valid for a lot of other industries. In aroma, we have a lot of different molecules, and each molecule has its own competitive environment.
We are assessing it, and we are adapting our price and our volume depending on the different competitive evolution. Today, the Chinese coming in Europe more specifically are definitely changing the picture. It's for the moment being. Concerning the target free cash flow, even if the sales are not at the level as we initially had in mind, we are totally committed to deliver the EUR 40 million efficiency gains, EUR 20 million beginning of the year, EUR 30 million year to date. I'm very confident to deliver the EUR 10 million remaining. It's really self-help gains. As I also mentioned, we are accelerating the transformation, and we are in the second phase of the transformation when we are structuring it.
Now we are not only working on a lot of ideas concerning what we call a continuous improvement program, but by structuring it, we are also putting in place some more central organizations, some more powerful centers of expertise and centers of excellence. It is accelerating the delivery of the gains. The target remains whatever is the top line. The free cash flow, we are still also targeting this 14%, working on the working capital. We are really also putting a lot of resources and a lot of energy to optimize the working capital, which can be still optimized very, very significantly. We are on it. We are definitely on all these initiatives. I am very confident that it will deliver organically, constantly in the coming months and in the coming quarter.
The next question comes from Martin Roediger from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Hello. Yes, thanks for taking my two questions. First is a follow-up question on the price pressure in aroma molecules. Is there any acceleration in this price pressure evolving? I ask that because there was 2% + pricing in Scent & Care in Q1, almost 2% pricing in Q2, and now it's - 1%. Did that price momentum surprise you? The second question is on Latin America. You had - 1.8% growth in local currencies in Q3 after + 10.6% in that region in H1. You mentioned in your speech that macro and inflation are the reasons for that. What is different to the first half? Explain that sudden collapse. Thank you.
Okay. I'm here with Olaf, and I will let Olaf Klinger take the second question concerning the Latin America impact because it's not only business-driven, but also currency and macroeconomic reasons. I will take the first one, which is the price pressure. Is it surprising us now? Because we all know that the Chinese competition is not new, but the Chinese competition is more and more visible in terms of production versus European countries and in terms of productivity and competitiveness of the Chinese products and the quality of the Chinese products. It is not new. There is a competitive edge. By the way, aroma molecules, it's SFI, FAC, menthol, terpenes. There are a lot of different products. We have a very rich portfolio in Symrise, which is also making us unique in terms of backward integration.
The price decrease you see is due not on a more on what I call tactical fight than a strategic fight. We have also for taking market share, we have also to make some price volume arbitration. Today, the market is not an overperforming market. We have to do more effort on the price than we should do in a fast-growing market. That's very, okay, I should say business-driven. Concerning the -1% in Latin America, I would just hand over to Olaf.
Yeah, Martin, thanks for the question. Also towards Latin America, I think it's a good observation which you have that there was a quite weak environment in the third quarter pretty much across the portfolio in these countries in Latin America. It was partly driven by currencies, and some of you know that we have U.S. dollar pricing environments in some parts of the businesses which affected us a little bit in the third quarter. We don't think that this will be lasting. It's a very kind of unusual situation which we experienced in this specific quarter and also in comparison to the first half of 2025. I think overall good observation, but nothing which completely worries us in the current rather weaker macroeconomic environment.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from Lisa De Neve from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, and thank you for taking my two questions. One was a little bit on the cost savings. You've now delivered EUR 30 million out of EUR 40 million targeted savings for this year. How much of this do you think will be retained and how much of this will be reinvested? It would be good to get some color on that. Also, when do you expect to see the benefits of the digital program? I have a third sort of side question on this. What do you actually mean with centralizing the decision-making? Is that for investment purposes, for networking capital? It would just be helpful to understand what you mean with centralization. These are my questions on cost savings. A quick follow-up on Pet food.
We talked about a flattish market backdrop, but it would be very helpful if you could give us some color on how you're performing across the different regions and also across the different customer cohorts, such as, for example, private label, which seems to be doing a lot better versus the large CPGs that seem to be lagging the market performance. Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Lisa. I will start with the cost savings. We are continuing to increase the year-on-year contribution on the efficiency gains. Last year, we were at EUR 50 million, but there was some cost avoidance and cost cutting. Today, the EUR 40 million we speak about are really efficiency gains in the way we are working differently. I'm very confident to deliver this EUR 40 million this year and to continue to deliver in the future. What is the part we are reinvesting and the part you will see on ABDM? An easy way for me to answer you, and I think very pragmatic, is to tell you that we commit to deliver the 21.5%-ish profitability for the end of this year. I think it's very important to continue to grow profitability. This is a new model of the strategy, meanwhile, to prepare the future. It gives me an opportunity.
You asked about digital. We are continuing to invest in the digitalization capacities, capabilities. You have seen in one of the slides, I'm mentioning the hub we created in Barcelona with more than 30 postgraduates where we work on the AI, GenAI, Agentic AI, all these kinds of tools where AI will represent for every industry a breakthrough. The reason why it's very important for us to invest in these technologies is for better prevision, better selection of the customer, better selection of the recipe, and also the creativity in fragrance. It's also a very powerful tool. Concerning the centralization, the idea is not to centralize or to decentralize one thing or another. The idea is to work on a new operating model. We are working on a new operating model.
What we see by working on this new operating model is there are some decisions which must be centralized for leveraging our scale. What we centralize, for example, is operational excellence, the way to improve the productivity of the plants. These are know-how which have been shared across the organization. What we centralize are the CapEx decisions. What we will centralize also is all the warehousing setup and definition, things like that. That's for industrial operation. Concerning procurement, we mentioned that it is really a big bucket of economy. Definitely for the indirect procurement, we are on the way to centralize the decision on the indirect procurement, which is more than EUR 700 million at stake where we can really make economies through packaging, logistics, transportation, technical materials, or things like that.
This is where we are really today deciding, depending on the functions, if we keep it decentralized in the business unit or if we centralize the decision-making process. Even if we centralize some functions or decision-making process, the full responsibility of the P&L will fully remain end-to-end in the end of the business unit leader because we want to keep the agility, the customer centricity, and the accountability of our managers. I will finish with Pet food. You asked about Pet food. It can be surprising, but Pet food Europe is still going well. We suffer in the U.S. We suffer in APAC. We are still growing, but we suffer. What is still more than ever valid is quicker growth from the local and regional players, like in food, and the private labels. The trend is there, and the trend does not change.
That is what I can tell you, and that is what we verify every day.
The next question comes from Ranulf Orr from Citi . Please go ahead.
Hi. Just one left from me. Thanks. Just going back to the asset review at the start of the year, could you just remind us what the strategic rationale for retaining the menthol business is? With hindsight's wonderful, do you still stand by that decision, or what would it take for you to reevaluate keeping menthol within the portfolio? Thank you.
Thanks, Ranulf, for the question. What we did is an assessment of all our chemical production plants. What we realized, and I think I mentioned that in a previous call, is that we are really very performing in the production costs, menthol included. Menthol, we are in a specific thymol-based process versus some other types of processes from other competitors. What we see on the market is we are very cost competitive. We are not only cost competitive, but we are also present in different regions of the world. We have one big entity in Holzminden and one big entity in the U.S. It means that also a key competitive advantage where you see all this evolution of the tariffs or different kinds of country protections. It means on a cost competitiveness, we are there. On the geographical footprint, we are there. Menthol is also integrated in the company.
We have a very strong oral care business where we have also some synergies on different types of products we are also developing internally. Today, there is no reason to reconsider it. We are seriously following the competition, as you see and as you know and as I mentioned. Today, you know we are really considering that menthol is part of the aroma molecules portfolio, and Symrise are still a card to play and profitable growth to do there. I think that the time is there. I don't know. I can imagine that some questions are still there. If you don't mind, I will make the closing remarks, okay? First, I thank you. I really appreciate this question. I will conclude with three key takeaways. The three key takeaways, you have them on the slide 15. We are executing our ONE Symrise Strategy across three core pillars.
I mentioned portfolio, growth, and efficiency. While accelerating our multi-year ONE Symrise Transformation, energizing our teams, and progressing on a journey to realize our full potential. Our commitment to efficiency is translating directly into financial strength, and we are successfully advancing towards our goal of EUR 40 million in cost saving in 2025, already realizing the EUR 30 million year to date. These significant efforts are delivering margin accretion directly supporting our profitability target. Finally, I really want to recognize our people, our passionate team of nearly 13,000 Symrisers, which continues to advance our goals through deep accountability and an entrepreneurial spirit. This collective drive is a true engine of our success. We are still in the early phase and early chapters of this ONE Symrise story, and we remain totally committed to keeping the investment community up to date on our transformation progress in a thoughtful and transparent way.
I really thank you for your interest in Symrise, and we look forward to speaking with you again in the near future. Thank you all.