Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Symrise Q1 2026 trading statement conference call. I'm Sergen, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to René Weinberg, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our first quarter 2026 call. Thank you for joining us today. All related documents are available in the financial results section on our website. With me today are our CEO, Jean-Yves Parisot, and our CFO, Olaf Klinger. After the remarks, we will open the line for questions. Now I hand over the call to Jean-Yves.
Thank you. Thank you very much, René, and thank you all for joining us today. Today, we'll review the first quarter 2026, provide an update on our ONE Symrise strategy and our ONE SYM Transformation journey. We will conclude with our full year 2026 outlook. Let's turn to slide 4 and our first quarter 2026 highlights. We delivered a solid start to the year with first quarter performance ahead of expectations with a year-on-year organic sales decline of 0.4% compared to our expectation at our full year 2025 call. This reflects the strength of our business despite a continued weak macroeconomic backdrop and changing prior year comparisons. At the same time, we are taking deliberate actions to position the company for the next phase of growth.
As part of our transformation, we're accelerating significant structural cost savings and efficiency gains to unlock organic growth opportunities through strategic reinvestments. Innovation remains a core strength, and we continue to bring customer-driven solutions to market, including important new product launches within our Care and Wellness Division. From a geopolitical point of view, impacts related to the Middle East conflict have been manageable and do not affect our underlying growth algorithm. While there is some elevated uncertainty around input costs, largely due to freight and logistic inflation, we are implementing pricing actions to offset these headwinds. Based on our performance and outlook, we are today reaffirming our full year guidance. Let's move to slide 5 on our first quarter 2026 sales performance. Q1 sales came in stronger than anticipated, driven by Food & Beverage, pets, and fragrance, with strong momentum towards the end of the quarter.
At the group level, organic sales declined 0.4% year-on-year, driven primarily by positive volumes of 0.3% and negative pricing contribution of 0.7%. Foreign exchange remained a headwind, largely due to the stronger US dollar in 2025. Performance across segments was mixed, but consistent with the underlying dynamics we anticipated. Taste, Nutrition & Health delivered solid organic growth of 1.7%, driven by volume growth of 1% and pricing of 0.7%. This reflects continued strength in our leading Food & Beverage business, where we had a low single-digit organic sales growth against comparables. This growth was led by Naturals and Savory, both delivering mid-single digit growth, while beverages also grew at low single-digit rate. In Pet Food, organic sales grew low single digits.
This was driven by low single-digit growth in pet palatability and a slight organic decline in pet nutrition, as volumes were positive while prices continued to normalize. Organic sales in the Scent & Care segment declined 3.4%, reflecting negative pricing of 2.7% and lower volumes of 0.7%. Fragrance continued to perform well with low single-digit organic sales growth against a strong year-over-year comparables, supported by mid-single digit growth in consumer fragrance and low single-digit growth in fine fragrance. Care and Wellness organic sales declined low double digits, primarily due to a double-digit decrease in UV filters against an elevated prior year base. Aroma Molecules organic sales declined mid-single digits on tough comparables, while specialty fragrance ingredients performed well. As a reminder concerning Aroma Molecules, we are moving well on our campaign ingredient process.
We are in a constructive dialogue with a strong group of bidders, and we will provide you with an update as soon as appropriate. Overall, our results reflect the strength and balance of our portfolio and the durability of our core end markets amidst a dynamic operating environment. Let's move now to Q1 regional results on slide 6. Organic sales in North America were up 1.9% year-on-year, with Latin America up 2.8%, reflecting solid customer demand and strong commercial execution. Asia Pacific grew 3.4%, supported by broad-based momentum across key markets. This was offset by EMEA, where organic sales declined 4.9%, mainly due to strong comparable, a soft regional macro environment, and the impact of the UV filter business.
This overall performance highlights the benefit of our balanced geographic footprints, with growth in Naturals in Latin America and Asia Pacific helping to offset regional headwinds in EMEA. Let's turn now to our execution highlights on slide 7. This quarter, we made meaningful progress against our strategic priorities with actions that reinforce both our near-term delivery and long-term growth algorithm. In Pet Food, we expanded capacity with the opening of our new facility in Querétaro, Mexico. This investment strengthened our local manufacturing footprint in a high-growth market, enhances service level for regional customers, and supports profitable growth over time. We also took an equity stake in Bond Pet Foods as a U.S.-based biotechnology company, underscoring our confidence in the long-term potential of Pet Food market.
This partnership provides early exposure to precision fermentation technology, positioning us to participate in the evolution towards more sustainable protein solutions, and positions us as a first mover in a structurally growing innovative segment. Innovation remains a core driver of value creation in our Care & Wellness division. We continue to advance a pipeline of value-added, science-based solutions aligned with key customer needs, including longevity and inner beauty. At the in-cosmetics Global 2026 trade show, we introduced three new cosmetic ingredients and early-stage concepts that reinforce our leadership in differentiated applications. Customer engagement was strong, validating both the commercial relevance and the scalability of our innovation efforts. This is translating into external recognition. Our best tasting nutricosmetic beverage received the Taste Bar Award at in-cosmetics, and our product, Mindera, was honored with a Silver Fountain Award at PCHi 2026 in the green and sustainable ingredient category.
These achievements underscore our ability to convert scientific expertise into commercially viable, differentiated solutions that resonate with customers. Overall, these actions demonstrate disciplined execution against our strategy, investing in attractive end markets, scaling innovation platforms, and building capabilities that support durable, profitable growth over time. Now let's move to slide nine for a strategy execution update. ONE SYM transformation phase II is progressing very well, and we are picking up the pace, reinvesting cost savings to unlock organic growth opportunities. Over the past two years, we have shown that disciplined execution drives results at Symrise. Since 2023, we have delivered approximately EUR 100 million in cumulative savings and expanded margin by 280 basis points. That give us a solid foundation to build from. We are now sharpening and accelerating the transformation to unlock the next phase of profitable growth. Our priorities are very clear.
Increase speed, focus resources on the highest return opportunities, and scale what is working. With these foundations in place, we are now transitioning to growth activation. We are accelerating the delivery, the transformation drive to step change in organic top line improvement and EBITDA margin expansion. As we continue to execute at pace, we will scale into a true global champion. We are leveraging our strengths as a science-driven organization, operating with more agility and increasingly embedding digitalization, including AI, to drive productivity and innovation. This put us on track over time to return to 5%-7% organic growth. We will provide more detailed target in H2. The key message today is straightforward. We have built the foundation, we are now accelerating from a position of strength. Let's move to slide 10. Within phase II, we have completed the first stage, setting the ambition and direction.
This included establishing our operating framework, defining guiding principles, and identifying value potential. As a result, we are operating with clarity and alignment. We are now in the second stage. During the first half of 2026, we are validating potential through detailed business cases, prioritizing initiatives, and sequencing actions with clear dependencies. At the same time, we are preparing the organization to move efficiently into implementation. In the second half of the year, we will focus on driving results across four focus areas: innovation, commercial excellence, scale benefits, and digitalization, funded by our efficiency gains. Additionally, we will scale new ways of working across businesses, tracking all progress against defined milestones. In summary, the roadmap is in place, validation is well underway, and we are preparing to execute at pace.
Let's move now to slide 11 to discuss the four focus areas I just mentioned that define how we will win. First, differentiated innovation. We are accelerating our pipeline and improving how we translate science into customer-relevant solutions. We are focusing resources on high-impact, scalable innovation bets, prioritizing high-growth markets where we can leverage our differentiated capabilities. Second, commercial excellence. We are driving faster, more consistent go-to-market execution, improving win rates and commercial processes across all divisions. For example, we are progressing a distributor initiative to unlock additional sales channels, and we have launched a go-to-market acceleration program to increase engagement, speed, and effectiveness in our sales teams. Third, scale benefits. We are unlocking efficiency through stronger group-wide alignment by centralizing key capabilities and reducing operational complexity. A clear example is procurement.
We have streamlined and centralized processes across direct and indirect spend, shifting procurement toward a more strategic value creation role. We are capturing on overall spend. We are now looking as well into tail spend optimization, complexity reduction, and supplier consolidation. For finishing, the fourth, digitalization. We are enabling seamless execution through integrated systems and automation, connecting planning, operations, and commercial activities to enable faster and better decision-making. Together, these focus areas sharpen our go-to-market approach, strengthen execution, and improve how we scale across the group. This focus area forms a foundation of our next phase of value creation. Let me conclude with our outlook in slide 13. We are reaffirming our full year 2026 outlook and midterm targets.
For the full year, we expect organic sales growth between 2%-4% and an adjusted EBITDA margin between 21.5% and 22.5%, and an adjusted business free cash flow margin above 14%. Looking ahead, we expect the impact from the Middle East conflict to remain manageable with no change to our underlying growth assumptions. We are seeing elevated uncertainty on input costs, particularly related to freight and logistics. This is something we are actively addressing with a strong focus on our customers, reliable supply chain execution, and targeted pricing actions to offset incremental cost pressure. At the same time, we expect a sequential improvement in organic growth over the coming quarters. From a phasing perspective, year-over-year comparables are more challenging in the first part of the year and will moderate as we move into the back half.
Growth is supported by accelerated execution of our transformation, solid momentum on key customer projects, and a very strong innovation pipeline and resilient end markets. Beyond 2026, we remain confident in our ability to deliver against our midterm targets and outgrow our reference markets. This confidence is underpinned by structural tailwinds such as evolving regulation, increasing demand for clean label solutions, reformulations, and growth in emerging markets. Accordingly, we reaffirm our 2025 to 2028 targets of 5% - 7% organic sales growth, an EBITDA margin between 21% and 23%, and a business free cash flow margin of above 14%. With that, let's open the floor of questions. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the telephone. You'll hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questioners on the phone are requested to stay in loudspeaker mode while asking a question. 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 Alex Sloane from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi, Jean-Yves . Thanks for taking the question. Two from me, please. Firstly, I mean, you guided Q1 organic sales down low single digit in early March, I guess around sort of three weeks or so to go of the quarter, at that point, but delivered obviously a much more modest decline. Were you setting expectations low intentionally or were those final three weeks, you know, much stronger and surprised you? I guess, you know, if that was the case, what surprised you? Do you think there was any tailwind there from potential pre-buying? That would be the first one. The second one, just in terms of the, you reiterated EBITDA margin guidance, good to see that.
You obviously do note, you know, higher energy and input cost outlook given the Middle East conflict. I appreciate it's a bit of a moving target, but could you quantify the base case you're assuming in terms of incremental input cost inflation for 2026 and how much pricing that might require to offset? Indeed, whether you would expect there to be any lag between that cost inflation hitting and pricing with customers landing. Thank you.
Thanks, Alex, for these two questions. The first one, was it intentional that I was the, you know, anticipating lowering decline? No, I think that when I give this information, it was beginning of March. Beginning of March, we had a soft beginning of the year. We were careful. The second thing, it was two or three days after, you know, U.S. invaded Iran. You know, there were a lot of reasons to be cautious. That being said, it's not a question of surprising us. We really work hard to activate our portfolio, to really address our customer needs, to really deliver the right way, the right time, the right quality. It's paying off.
March was definitely better than January and February, so it means that we finished better than we anticipated at beginning of March. Again, it's showing also that Symrise is very well equipped with its customer portfolio, product portfolio and very active teams to deliver whatever is the market circumstance. That's for Q1. Concerning the EBITDA, you know, we are facing, like everybody, the same input costs. When costs of raw materials are increasing, either we are reformulating for avoiding, you know, to penalize our customer and to create, you know, more resilient and durable solutions and a competitive point of view. We are, you know, passing this cost through the price, and that's what we are doing sometime. We are offsetting the eventual raw material cost increase by price increase.
We mentioned also some geopolitical events. For example, you know, armed conflict event is increasing some logistic costs. In that case, we are surcharging. In any case, we are totally offsetting the cost we are eventually facing.
The next question comes from Lisa De Neve from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two. One follow-up from the previous one from Alex. Can you just tell us in terms of the current price actions you're pushing through, your win rates, because last quarter you mentioned various project wins across beverages, consumer fragrances, Savory, and so forth. How should we think about the so-called ramp-up profile for that? I mean, when do you expect to see actual sales from that? Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Lisa. First question, exactly complementary to the one from Alex. To give more color on the price action, we are working on two different type of price action. Some very basic product price increase. When raw materials are increasing, you know, we are not in a commodity business. There is no an automatic price increase when the raw material increase. We are selling compounds, we are selling full solutions, we are selling services. That being said, you know, the value we are creating for the customer has a price. When we are increased price, the customer are accepting the price increase not only because the costs were, you know, the raw material cost was increasing, because they recognize there is a value creation.
The characteristic of Symrise, we have very, very low, you know, cost in use and very high usage value. We create a lot of value for a minimum of incorporation of the product, which is facilitating our job really for increase the prices, which is mainly linked to the service and the value we bring to the customer rather than the raw material. This is the first lever of the price action. The second lever is just to compensate some extraordinary conjuncture, price increase, like logistic, you know, cost increase. In that case, we are really putting some surcharge. In any case, you know, I'm still confident and still projecting that the growth of Symrise should be more or less two-thirds, one-third, means two-thirds volume, one-third price increase.
Concerning the win rate and how we can ramp up, you know, our business and the profitability of our business, the win rate is very important. What is also super important in our opportunity pipeline are the size of the lead, the size of the opportunities. Today, what is really very important within Symrise, we are increasing not the number of leads, not the number of opportunities. We are increasing the size of the potential opportunities. When we win, we win bigger. That is also the way Symrise will come back to, you know, the leading growth company also for going more and more on big bets. You know, we won a significant business in U.S. in Savory, big bets. We won significant beverage in U.S., big bets.
Today the win rate is something, but the size of the opportunity is much critical. Concerning the win rate, I just would like also to tell you, it's very important to also focus on the time to market. The question is not only to win, but the question is to be the first to provide a good solution. It's about speed to sampling, speed to deliver the right solution to the customer, and speed to deliver on time in full. It's linked to the supply chain, it's linked to the operational excellence program we started two years ago, and it is paying off.
Lisa, it's Olaf. If I can specify on the timing, which you asked. It's not next year, it's this year. It's something we are working on now with our customers to take these price actions. That's more a topic for Q2, Q3, without any delay. I think we are in an action mode.
The next question comes from Matthew Yates from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. I've got a, guess a short-term and a long-term one. The short-term one, just specifically on the outlook for the Scent division in Q2. Would you be expecting another decline here? The comps don't necessarily get easier, at least on a one-year view. Curious at how the UV business may be impacted from the shortage of jet fuel, which may curtail some summer vacation plans. I don't know if you already see that rippling through retailer order patterns. The second, more midterm one for Jean-Yves. I guess I'd like to ask about this concept of picking up the pace on the transformation. I'm wondering to what extent this was always the plan and the timeline for momentum to build, or whether it's exceeding your expectations.
I ask because from the outside it is pretty hard to tell when we see a, you know, a 0.4% sales decline in Q1 is pretty uninspiring. Is it fair to say you haven't yet seen the benefit of all your actions coming through on the top line? Just curious, given what you said in late 2024 when the strategy was communicated, whether things are on track, behind, or ahead of what your initial timeline was?
Yeah. Matthew, thanks for these two questions, which are very linked, by the way. Concerning the short term, I will not give you any idea on Q2. It's too short for me, so I can give you an idea of the full year guidance. Definitely we'll have a sequential improvement of sales growth. Not only on Scent & Care, but globally for Symrise. There are the scent sequential improvement because also the comparables will be softer for the second part of the year. Also, it's linked to the second question, and it's linked also to what I explained to Lisa. We have a very strong sales pipeline. We have a very strong sales opportunity pipeline. By the way, we're also a very strong innovation pipeline.
When we say that, you know, we will pick up the pace, when we started the transformation based on our new strategy two years ago, the growth was there 5%-7%. Last year was a big surprise for everybody about the softening of the market. We react. We are proactively reacting. We are proactively redefining our portfolio. We are proactively innovating for growing, and we are proactively putting in place this efficiency program. Efficiency delivered EUR 200 million in two years. Growth is not so, you know, short term, you know, impact. Believe me, you will start to see the impact of this growth acceleration in the coming quarters. Yes, you are disappointed by a decline in Q1. We explained why.
Also because of big comparables last year, a softening market. We are proactively addressing that. We are not only following, you know, what is not controllable, the GDP, but we are choosing our reference market. We are choosing our customers, the customer portfolio is shifting. We are continuing and continuously improving our solutions and innovate in different domains which are linked to health or natural profiles. Late 2024, we were confident to deliver the 5%-7% growth. We delivered lower last year. We are confident to deliver 2%-4% this year. With the momentum we are creating now, we are confident to come back to the 5%-7% CAGR we were anticipating two years ago.
Thanks, Jean-Yves.
The next question comes from Fulvio Cazzol from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon and thank you for taking my question. Which is really on the guidance for the full year. You left your guidance at 2%-4%, but it sounds like now you anticipate more pricing than perhaps when you first issued that guidance. That is to compensate for the higher freight costs and logistic costs. I was just wondering, does that kind of imply that your volume growth expectations have kind of moderated a little bit for the rest of the year? If so, I was just interested in understanding what's driving that. Thank you.
Okay. Fulvio, thanks. A very good question. Again, there are some external factors which are forcing us to increase prices, like logistic surcharges, like sometime raw material increase, what we are doing and our customers are really accepting because we are really very transparent also with our customers. Does it mean that if there is more pricing, volume will be down? Not at all. You know, today, our guidance is between 2% and 4%, mainly depending on the, you know, underlying markets. The markets are for us, you know, still growing. Every market we are on is growing. After the question is what will be the speed of growth of the reference market? The pricing and we are applying could be an upside and what we had initially forecasted.
At the end of the day, it will not have any impact on the volumes. We are really very keen and focusing and really providing to the customers the volume they are needing. The price can only be an upside, which will be, you know, certainly helping us to be closer to the high end than the low end of the bracket we gave, i.e., 2%-4%.
Thanks very much. Thank you.
The next question comes from Edward Hockin from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Thanks a lot for taking my questions. One question was on regional growth. I just wanted to clarify within EMEA region that was down close to 5% in Q1, how the Middle East specifically evolved in the quarter. Going forward, does your guidance include some sensitivity on whether demand in the Middle East should falter and as well any sensitivity on consumer and customer demand in areas such as Southeast Asia that may see some knock-on effect from the conflict and higher oil prices? My second question, please, is on Food & Beverages by segment. The beverages, I mean, for a couple of years now, has been high single-digit, even double-digit growth contributor, but I think slowed to low single-digit in the quarter.
Wonder please if you could give some color on what we should expect from Food & Beverages going forward, whether this is just a matter of the base of comp for beverages and that we can see a resumption of that higher growth level from Q2 onwards. Thank you.
Edward, thanks for these two very good question related to growth. To come back, starting with EMEA. You know, EMEA first had a big comparables last year. EMEA last year was a very strong region. First, very strong comparables. Second, we are still suffering in UV filters. I was giving, you know, a reason of strong comparables also last year at the same period. You have to know that the sales we did in 2024 Q1 were exceptionally high. We see the comparables problem, you know, the second year. Concerning the Middle East, Middle East is a small piece of all Symrise sales revenue, which is around 3%. It is not impact a lot. It is slowing down some deliveries. It is not slowing down the market demand.
That's something very important. The Middle East events are not slowing down the market demand. It's slowing down the way we can deliver for the reasons you know, there are a lot of breakthroughs now. The question today is, it doesn't, you know, Middle East can explain a small piece, but it's mainly comparable on UV filter for EMEA. Coming back to, by the way, you were asking the question about Southeast Asia. Let's see. Today, we see a very dynamic APAC region, Southeast Asia included. Southeast Asia suffered last year in term of softening of the market, but this year is really coming back on track, and we are doing very good performance in Asia-Pacific in all the subregions.
Concerning Food & Beverages, yes, we have a very strong development in beverages the last years, and sometimes you have to, you know, slow down a little. It means that last year, beverages growth was very high. This year, first, we have a big comparables, and the beverage business will also ramp up in term of, you know, growth in the coming quarters. You will see an improvement of the beverage activity in the coming year because we have very active beverage portfolio, a lot of leads linked to non-alcoholic drinks, linked to non-sugar drinks, linked to by some new coffee solutions. We are working a new citrus solution. There are a lot of good news and a lot of new innovation in the beverage business.
It's just a question of phasing and a quarterly event. All together, concerning Food & Beverage, we are from far the leading company. We are very positive, even if strong comparable last year, Savory is still delivering a lot with big bets. Naturals, which is our key differentiating factor, is also delivering very well. We are really sitting on key trends, which are paying off also. The Food & Beverage performance Q1 is good and will improve during the year.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Charles Eden from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Just 1 really on Pet Food, please. Obviously, you talked about the group seeing sequential improvement in organic growth through the year. Does the same hold for your assumption for Pet Food versus the low single-digit organic growth in Q1? If there's any sort of variance between palatability and nutrition, and if you could expand on that. I guess sort of part two, just thinking on the pricing in pet nutrition, have we lapped the negative pricing now, and therefore should pet nutrition pricing be broadly neutral from Q2 onwards? Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, Charles. Concerning Pet Food, normally Pet Food is coming very much sooner, I'm happy to have a Pet Food question. Thanks. Concerning this strategic segment, as you know and everybody knows around the phone, it has been a strategic growth driver, and it will be a strategic growth driver. The situation we face is temporary. Concerning palatability, we have a low single-digit growth, which is, you know, driven by volume and price growth. You know, concerning Pet Food, the business is growing, really growing very nicely and very good way in palatability. We are still the leader, we are still innovating, and we are still over-performing the market growth. Concerning the nutrition, the question about the price is still that we are still normalizing the price.
The price normalization continues. It's absolutely not the same magnitude as last year, which was a strategic, you know, readjustment, which was a sharp price decrease to come back to the price, the market price. Today, we are on the market price. We are on the, what I call the tactical normalization, which are negotiation price volumes. For sure, the price today is negative, but small. Very, you know, low single-digit negative, and the volumes are up. We are back on track on nutrition also, and it should be totally fully normalized if it's not mid-year at, for sure, end of year.
Thank you.
The last question comes from Nicola Tang from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Sorry to start with a short-term question, but I just wanted to come back on the commentary that March was a lot better. I was just trying to understand what gives you confidence that there isn't a bit of pre-buying going on. You know, can you give us any color in terms of your customer inventories or order patterns or anything like that? Any commentary on April would be helpful. The second one may be on the Aroma Molecules side. I mean, I know you've been facing headwinds from Asian competition, which is nothing new. I was wondering if you see or expect to see actually any benefit if any of your Asian competitors might be a bit more constrained due to the conflict in the Middle East, whether it's around availability or cost. Thanks.
Thanks, Nicola. To answer your first question about March. Two things. You know, the beginning of the year was weak, and we were just reacting to the beginning of the year soft. We were really promoting better, you know, approaching the market the right way, I think, you know, going to the right customer at the right time. One part of this good March is totally internally driven. We can control the customer visit, we can control the product we push, and we can control, you know, the way we are speeding up the deliveries. Now, that being said, there is also another impact. You mentioned the pre-buying.
We announced to our customer very early that we should increase the prices depending on the, on the war effects in terms of raw material and/or logistics. Some customers, perhaps certainly, anticipated some delivery before having any price increase. It's something very difficult to measure, but it does not have any impact on our confidence to see a sequential improvement of our sales growth during the year. Now coming back to the Middle East and. Sorry, coming back to Aroma Molecules question and Chinese and so on. Aroma Molecules for us is a strategic activity because we are an integrated company. You know, we are backward integrated in Naturals, but we're also backward integrated in chemicals. Specialty fragrance ingredients, Menthol are the way we integrate our solutions.
This is a way we are, you know, leveraging our solutions, leveraging the value we are providing to the final customer. We have really an entire value chain approach. We have a customer-driven approach, Aroma Molecules, whether it is a Menthol or SFI, even Terpene before divestment, we are very close to customers. We are very close to specific type of offers, which is also linked to the capacity we have to integrate our solutions, either in specialty fragrance or in Menthol. You know, it's very important to understand that Aroma Molecules is not a single business, it's part of our fragrance business and competitive edge. That being said, we have a lot of competitive advantage.
We speak a lot about costs, but, you know, for Menthol, we are the only one to be in Europe and in the U.S. For specialty fragrance, we have very strong chemical knowledge, which is recognized by our competitors. A lot of competitors are buying from us. Even if we suffer in Aroma Molecule, even if we have some price adjustment in Aroma Molecule because of Chinese pressure, debate or battle is not that. Our battle is really to innovate quicker, to get stronger customer relationship, to define and invent better, you know, complete solutions. That's the way we are fighting. It has an impact today, the Chinese competition or, you know, the trades or most trade, it has an impact, a consequential impact on some prices.
We are very confident that it will normalize, and our key competitive edge will come back, you know, as definitely key buying factors for customers. We are confident that on this business, even if Aroma Molecules suffer short term, it's a long-term strategic, and it will deliver, and it's part of the value creation of Symrise. I think, Nicola, you were the last question. I think it's the first time. We just stop without having anybody waiting with an answer. Thanks all of you for your very good questions. I will close very shortly. We are controlling what's controllable. In all my answers, you see the market, we cannot dictate what the market is doing, but we can proactively execute what is necessary. We continue to execute our strategy, and clearly, we accelerate the necessary transformation.
This acceleration is to reinvest quicker and stronger in top-line growth. That's the story. The idea is to accelerate our transformation, to reinvest quicker and stronger in our top-line growth, to be back to the leadership in top-line growth. All that is backed by a clear strategy, a disciplined execution, and a very strong investment-grade balance sheet. We are confident in our ability to deliver this durable earnings growth, free FCF, expanding returns, sustained long-term value for shareholders. All of you, thank you for your interest in our company, in Symrise, and we are looking forward to speaking with you again in the future. Thank you. Bye-bye, and have a very nice end of your day.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference now went to main or disconnect the lines. Goodbye.