Morning, everybody. Morning, and thank you for joining this, which is our quarter one trading update call that covers the 13 weeks to the 1st of July this year. I'm joined on the call this morning, as always, by Duncan Leggett, our CFO. I'll start by giving a few headlines on our trading in the quarter, and then I'll dive into a few key areas to provide a bit more detail, and before, as usual, passing to you for your questions. Also as a reminder, we're today holding our AGM, that's at 11:00 A.M., and that's hosted here at our offices in St Albans, with an option of attending virtually, just like we did last year.
If there are any shareholders who'd like to attend and don't yet have the details, please do contact Richard Godwin in Investor Relations for details of how to attend. Onto the quarter one results, I'm very pleased to say that we've had a strong start to the year, reported sales growth of 21.1%, and branded growth of 17.5% this morning for our first quarter. That's a result we're clearly very pleased with. In addition to this, we've also grown our market share in the grocery business by another 94 basis points. Given the current environment, these really positive results today are partly due to the strength of our brands, of course, and their relevance in the current economic environment.
Also, very importantly, down to us continuing to drive our brand and growth model, and delivering against our five-pillar growth strategy, but more of that shortly. In terms of strategic progress in our new categories, we've more than doubled our sales of Ambrosia porridge, and also actually of Cape Herb & Spice. Our overseas business has made great progress, in particular, with Mr. Kipling, both in the US, and in Australia. With this very positive start, and with strong plans for the rest of the year, we're now saying we expect our to deliver trading profit at the top end of market expectations.
I'll go through a brief review of progress in the quarter, but before I do, I just want to remind you of our brand and growth model, which is at the core of what we do and is the reason why we've been able to deliver such consistent strong performance over the last five years or so. We start with a portfolio of brands which are leaders in their categories and have got very high household penetration. This, of course, is a great starting point, but on its own doesn't give you growth. We then listen really carefully and work closely with our consumers, so that we can bring to market insightful new products, which are based on what we've understood on current consumer needs and trends.
We support our brands with emotionally engaging and meaningful marketing and TV campaigns. Finally, but also very importantly, we work closely with our key retail partners on delivering excellent in-store execution and visibility for our brands. Turning to grocery, the grocery business, then a very broad-based and strong performance all round, and a similar pattern to that, actually, that we reported in quarter four last year. Totally grocery, total grocery sales were up by 26.7%, and all our major brands delivered double-digit growth, contributing to the 25.1% branded sales growth in the quarter. Really, there aren't any brands which I would really call out as notably stronger than the others, or in fact, below par within that.
There was, of course, firm price included, in that very strong revenue growth. Separately and importantly, I'd point out that our portfolio is generally well positioned and highly relevant during the sort of challenging economic environment which we're taking into at the moment, and I'll come back to that thought a little later. One important and very encouraging trend I'm pleased to highlight is that we saw an improving volume shape towards the end of the quarter, across our brands, which, as I say, we're very encouraged by, and we'll be tracking this very closely in the coming weeks. As is always the case, the way we build volume sustainably over the medium term is through our brand and growth model, and especially, our new product development program.
The quarter benefited from product ranges, such as new improved versions of Oxo stockpots, a big-sized version of our very popular Soba Noodle Pots, a premium take on our Batchelors Pasta and Sauce, which we call Chef's Special. From Plantastic, expanding into two new categories with creamy pasta sauces, and also something we call protein pots, all of which have been launched over the last year, actually. I mentioned this briefly earlier, and I'm pleased to say that as we've done over recent years, we've continued to take market share in our grocery business. You may recall that we gained share during the last financial year, 64 basis points over the year, this increased to over 90 basis points in the fourth quarter.
We've continued this momentum into the first quarter of this year, taking a further 94 basis points of share. I think this demonstrates that our brands continue to be very relevant and important for our consumers and also demonstrate their strong competitive positioning. Now, the topic of inflation has been very much debated over the last 12 months or so, and as I've previously outlined, we've obviously not been alone in experiencing significant input cost inflation across a range of commodities, energy, and also labor costs. We monitor our commodity costs very closely, and as I've mentioned before, we've looked to offset this unusually high level of input cost inflation by using a range of measures.
These include how we manage our supply contracts, to minimize the impact of rising input costs in the first place, along with our hedging strategy, and then a significant focus on cost saving and efficiency programs, before finally, price increases where we need to. You may recall that when we last spoke in May, that we'd recovered all the input cost inflation, that we'd seen to date, and that, very much continues to be the case. We will, of course, continue to monitor the situation very closely, but we now believe the significant levels of inflation which we've experienced over the last 12 months- 18 months, have now passed its peak. Therefore, we have no further price increases planned for the remainder of the calendar year.
Now, in the current climate, there are clearly some consumers who are unfortunately needing to make tough choices when it comes to their grocery shopping. One thing we continue to see is that more people are cooking for themselves and their families at home. This, of course, makes a lot of sense, because we all need to eat, without doubt, the cheapest way to do this is to cook for yourself at home. As you know, we have a broad portfolio of brands, which resonates strongly with consumers, and many of our product ranges are therefore well positioned to help consumers to create those tasty and affordable meals in a convenient way.
Actually one thing, you know, people tell us is they struggle for ideas for meals that they create at home. A great example of how we're helping provide families with the inspiration and to prepare affordable, nutritious meals at home, is through our Best Restaurant in Town campaign, with delicious meal ideas demonstrated in short videos. We started this last year with a digital campaign with YouTube videos, but it proved to be so successful that we've now significantly upweighted the campaign, and with many of our recipe ideas also now being aired on mainstream TV. Building on the successful YouTube campaign that we ran in the last financial year. Moving to sweet treats, Mr.
Kipling returned to growth in the quarter with sales up by 3.6%. This was really down to us continuing to work our brand of growth model. Mr. Kipling benefited from the impact of new product development, and examples of this include our indulgent Signature Brownie Bites, which I have to say are particularly delicious, and the non-HFSS, so non-high fat, salt, and sugar, Deliciously Good range of cake slices and fruit pies. Additionally, the King's Coronation in early May was celebrated on the packs of some of our most popular Mr. Kipling products, with associated impactful displays in store. That boosted sales in the quarter. Just for completeness, Cadbury sales were a little lower following the slightly earlier timing of Easter this year compared to last year.
Now, of course, another important element of the brand of growth model is investing behind our brands, including in marketing and advertising campaigns. In the first quarter, we again advertised Mr. Kipling, our largest brand, on TV with the popular piano adverts, as we call it, which captures a nostalgic moment between a father and daughter. This is important because I think it's a great example of the kind of emotionally engaging approach that we're employing to build long-term emotional connections between our brands and our consumers. This year, again, we plan to advertise six of our major brands using a variety of media, including digital, posters, and TV. We will again increase our overall brand investment compared to last year. Our non-branded sales were also well up on previous years in grocery.
Sales were up by 38% to GBP 22 million, which was largely down to higher pricing compared to the same quarter last year. Sweet treats non-branded sales were also much higher in Q1 this year, and this was down to some further contract wins in pies and tarts. Of course, as you would expect, there's some pricing benefit in there as well. Again, as we've mentioned previously, over the last few quarters, we're not seeing a huge effect of consumers trading down from our branded product ranges to private label. I think one way you can see the evidence of that, is in the continued increases in market share. If we move on to our other strategic growth pillars, I'm sure you'll recall that one of these pillars is to deliver growth in overseas markets.
As I've said before, this will be in the key target markets of Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, North America, and Europe. Within these target markets, we're focused on Mr. Kipling, on Sharwood's, and of course, now also on The Spice Tailor. That's other than Ireland, which is a more established business that carries a broader portfolio of our brands. Our international business has performed very well again for us over the first quarter, sales increasing by 14% on a constant currency basis, including The Spice Tailor. As I just mentioned, Mr. Kipling is one of our brands which we see as having some true global potential.
As we said back in May, we've completed a successful trial in the U.S. in 220 stores of the retailer, Target, we achieved some really encouraging results there with strong rates of sale. Off the back of this, we've started to roll out to further customers. So far, we've agreed distribution in 1,400 stores across a number of retailers in the U.S., including in Albertsons and Safeway, which is, of course, a major player in the states. Additionally, we're expanding the product range, so this includes strawberries and cream slices for the summer, they're in Target right now. Some seasonal lines planned for Halloween and the autumn.
In Australia, another one of our key target markets, our in-market performance of cake has continued the positive momentum that we achieved last year, with market share now at 17.6%. That's another market share record. We've also reached 20% household penetration, which is 2 percentage points higher than the same period a year ago. The scale of Mr. Kipling in Australia is now of sufficient size to support mainstream advertising, including TV, as we start to focus now on building brand equity, just as we do in the U.K. and Ireland. Together with new product launches, such as the same Mr. Kipling Signature Brownie Bites, the rollout of our proven branded growth model from the U.K. is now in full swing in Australia.
In, in Europe, another one of our target markets, we've expanded distribution of Sharwood's in both Germany and the Netherlands in the quarter, which has helped drive total European sales up by over 30%. That's all part of the European expansion plan that we've got for Sharwood's. Another of our strategic growth pillars is taking the brand building capabilities that we've demonstrated in our core categories, where we've got strong leadership positions, and expanding into new categories in the, in the UK. One of the early successes is Ambrosia porridge pots, which as a reminder, is a convenient and ready-to-eat range of breakfast porridge. These are, as I say, ready to eat, so they're not a dried product.
They're made with creamy West Country milk, which of course you'd expect from Ambrosia. We're very pleased indeed with the progress we're making with this range, as it builds critical mass now in breakfast, with Q1 sales more than doubling versus last year, and our market share continuing to build. Additionally, Cape Herb & Spice, the southern style spices range, also increased sales by over 100% in the quarter, benefiting from increased ranging and distribution, and also a strong barbecue season in June, given the hot weather. Just as a reminder, our final strategic growth pillar is to look for inorganic opportunities, which we can bring into Premier, and then deliver further growth by leveraging the strength of our branded growth model.
That was one of the key principles we applied when we assessed the fit of The Spice Tailor. I'm pleased to say that The Spice Tailor is on track and is actually expected to be slightly ahead of our original acquisition model this year. We're securing expanded distribution both in the UK and overseas, also working on a number of major new product initiatives, which will start to come to market over the next couple of years. We continue to explore further inorganic opportunities. You know, we are quite picky, we'll update you when we have anything more that we can share on that. If we now look ahead to the rest of the year, a couple of things to note.
Firstly, we expect to see our grocery revenue growth moderate as we progress through the next quarter of the year. That's the effect of year-on-year price increases as they reduce. Then for sweet treats, this will have a slightly different dynamic, as we expect to see a strengthening trend in the second half of the year. I think that's how to think broadly about the revenue trends for the remainder of the year. Really to summarize where we are, we've had a really good start to the year, a strong first quarter, continuing that very positive momentum from the end of last year, and we continue to drive our proven branded growth model, and our portfolio continues to demonstrate its relevance in this challenging environment.
As a result, of course, we continue to take market share. As we look forward to the rest of the year, we will, of course, bring further new products to market. We'll be increasing our brand investment, as well as expanding our U.K. presence in new categories, and continuing to build our overseas businesses. With this strong first quarter behind us and some great plans for our brands for the rest of the year, we now expect to deliver trading profit at the top end of market expectations. Thank you for your time. I'll now pass back to the operator, and we'd be very happy to take any questions. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now enter our Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind and would like to revoke your question, please press star followed by two on your telephone keypad. When getting ready to ask your question, please make sure that your device is unmuted locally. We will now take our first question from Charles Hall, from Peel Hunt. Charles, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Well done on an excellent quarter. Could you just talk a little bit about the impact of the weather during the quarter? Because obviously it was pretty hot during the period. What did you see in terms of trends in volumes? You mentioned that they were picking up towards the end of the quarter. Is that just because the weather started to normalize, or is that because with pricing now embedded, there's more promotional activity, or consumers are just used to the pricing levels?
Well, Charles, thank you. Yes, you're absolutely right. We had a blisteringly hot start to the summer, didn't we? You'll be aware, most people will be aware, that a fair chunk of our grocery portfolio is quite weather sensitive. I think that did pin us back in the middle of the quarter, and if it hadn't been for that, we'd have probably delivered, you know, even stronger results than we have actually. In terms of the volume trends, what we were really referring to wasn't really linked to the weather. It was more a case of, as we got towards the back end of the quarter, we started to see the trends that we saw after...
Remember we increased our prices in the summer last year, and obviously, you get the price elasticity impact of that. Gradually we saw volumes coming back to get, you know, almost back to flat. I think what we're seeing is the same trend, based on the price increases that we put through at the beginning of the year, we're now getting to that point where the volumes have started to get back to fairly flattish. Pleased with that trend.
Okay, understood. Then secondly, on the international side, in the U.S., obviously really good progress in terms of distribution of Mr. Kipling. Can you just give a feel for the timing of product going into store? Any feel about the number of products per store, the number of SKUs? You also talked about some seasonal product going in. What's the timing of shipment of those? Is that sort of looking towards the Christmas period or any other seasonal products that you've got going in?
Yeah, in fact, thanks, Charles. It's a good question. A number of those, I don't know the exact number, but a number of those 1,400 stores have already got products, you know, live on sale. Of course, that includes the Target, original Target stores. Some of them are gonna come on stream as we go through the rest of the summer. Most, look, we've got a range of three flavors of the core range. Most customers seem to be taking the range of three, and which I think is a good start point, a good core range to have in.
As you probably will be aware, you know, in the States, the impact of seasonal events is huge. Having a seasonal offering is going to be a really important part going forward. We're starting to gear up for that, starting with, you know, this fall, and having the, you know, the right sort of autumnal and Halloween-type of products available. Then as we go through into next calendar year, we'll have available an entire seasonal sort of calendar, whereby we transition from, you know, spring SKUs into summer SKUs, into autumn SKUs, that are important to gain that extra feature, space, and support in the sense.
Just lastly, can you just update where you've got to in Canada in terms of Mr. Kipling, just to give a sort of feel for how North America might progress?
Yeah. I mean, obviously, it's a much smaller market. We arrived at a very similar place with the test we did there, that we've then replicated in the States. Since then we've been, you know, gradually increasing the store count. It's sort of similar situation to the U.S. really. Except I think what's happening is, the focus we're putting on the U.S. is delivering a faster rollout, and that's quite intentional, given the given the opportunity size.
Got it. That's great. Thanks.
Thanks, Charles.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Matthew Webb from Investec. Matthew, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. Morning, everyone. Three questions, please. First, you talked about the relevance of your products in the current environment. I mean, do you think that consumers are becoming more and more cost conscious as the cost of living crisis rolls on or are there any signs of that changing at all as some prices come down and others stabilize? That's the first question. Second question, you said you're not planning any further price increases this year. Do you think you'll be able to hang on to the price increases that you've taken? Then the third question, you flagged that you're still on the lookout for inorganic opportunities. I mean, is there much out there where through price expectations, are they realistic?
Anything more you could add on that would be very helpful. Thank you.
Thanks, Matthew. Yeah, I think, you know, one of the things we've definitely seen is that, you know, as some consumers have had to make some tough choices on how they're spending their available, you know, cash, you know, we are benefiting from people eating at home more, and that's quite clear in our data. I think having leading brands is very helpful in that sense. Probably also the fact that we've got such a vibrant new product development program, so we've always got sort of the latest flavors and the latest formats, which is, you know, very helpful.
It's interesting, I've not seen any, as you put it, any increased level of consumer price sensitivity. You know, if anything, I think what happens is that over time, volumes come back, which seems to suggest people get used to new levels of pricing. At the same time, you know, we need to overlay on top of that we're working very hard to make sure we've got great activation in store, we've got great promotional activity, and that we're continuing to drive our branded growth model very hard. It's rather difficult to tease out the different elements of that because obviously, you know, we've got our foot flat to the floor on driving our growth model, and then that offsets a fair amount of the price elasticity.
Moving on to your next question. Yeah, no further price increases based on what we can see in terms of what's happening to commodity pricing. As I said, I think it, you know, the import cost inflation is past its peak, but let's not confuse that with price deflation. Yes, one or two ingredients have started to go down, but some are still on the way up. I think, if we extrapolate forward what we can see, and I think most, you know, most commentators are in the same place, but I think we'll still be seeing food inflation as we get to the back end of the year, just not as acute, as it has been.
I'm not anticipating that that is going to lead to decreased pricing on all kinds of products. You know, if we did, and we did get the opportunity, of course, we'd want to be competitive, and therefore we would, you know, we would look at our promotional pricing. I'm not necessarily sure that that's going to be the way that things play out. Sorry, Matt, just remind me of your third question?
Just any more color?
Sorry
on the inorganic. Yeah, thanks.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's fair to say there's not a lot out there, you'd probably be well aware of that. The things that we are looking at, I've said before, we are incredibly picky. You know, we took a while to find The Spice Tailor. We were looking for something that we were absolutely convinced that would benefit dramatically from us applying our brand and growth model, that we could bring something new to the party, which would, you know, dramatically accelerate the brand. That very much remains the case in terms of what we're looking for. You know, we're not gonna buy the first thing we come across. We're, you know, we're very choosy, so it will take a little time.
Super. Thanks very much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Wade with Jefferies. Andrew, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Morning. A couple of questions from me. The first one, we're sort of in the midst of annualizing the price increase, summer price increase, sort of, at the moment. My understanding was it was towards the back end of June and into July. I guess that does tie in with your comment on the volume trends. Just wanted to if you could give us any color on whether it sort of performed in line with how you'd have expected it to, as you, as you've annualized those price increases. So that was the first one. Then the second one, you talked about the Easter impact on Cadbury. Just wondering if we could in sweet treats, just wondering if we could get an idea of the scale of that impact?
More broadly, I suppose, why the branded sweet treats is running, continuing to run sort of below branded grocery now. Obviously, it's partly because branded grocery is doing so well, but just any color on that you can give will be helpful. Thank you.
Yeah. Morning, Andrew. Sure. Yeah. If we think about pricing, you know, the impact year-on-year, obviously, we've got those two big steps where we put our pricing up in the year ago both. It's just mathematical, obviously, that as we anniversary those and go over them, we'll see a decreasing element of pricing in the growth rate. That's just a mathematical, you know, consequence. You know, we've not hit that point yet, so I'd expect that to just play out as you would expect from the math really, rather than anything else.
What I think is possibly more interesting is when you start to think about price elasticity, and I think this sort of starts playing into your third question, around why is branded sweet treats behind branded grocery? You're right, it's because branded grocery is doing so well. The interesting question is, why is branded grocery doing so well? I think what's happened overall is, you know, we went into this environment and our price increases with armed with a whole load of analytical econometric modeling that we that we've done around price elasticities across all our brand ranges. Things have played out a little different than we expected. In fact, they played out quite a bit better than we expected. We have seen less price elasticity on our grocery business than we anticipated.
I think that's one of the reasons why you see such strong performance from our grocery business, in the sense that we've held on to more of the volume than we thought we would. Now, part of that, I have to say, is because of the things we've done to make sure that that's the case, and that's about driving the branded growth model, and particularly that really strong in-store execution. The overall lower level of price elasticity is biased towards grocery. Actually, sweet treats has turned out to be slightly more price elastic than we expected.
You've got this situation where overall our performance is better than we thought it would be because of this impact. It's manifested itself as quite a lot better on grocery and a bit worse on sweet treats. I don't know if that helps with that, Andrew.
Yeah, that's very helpful. I killed two birds with one stone, so great. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Clive Black, from Shore Capital. Clive, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Nia. Thanks for the presentation, Alex, and well done to you and the team. Two from me. Firstly, just interested as to whether there is strategic significance to what you said about applying a branded growth model to Australia. Secondly, in years gone by, Premier used to talk about putting the full oomph of marketing around five or six brands. I just wonder how you would characterize the brand portfolio now in receiving that full branded growth model treatment. Thank you.
Morning, Clive. Yes, thank, thanks for that. Yeah, I do think there's strategic significance around applying the branded growth model in Australia. You know, obviously, when we take our brands into new markets, Mr Kipling into Australia is a great example, you know, nobody's heard of the brand, have they? They're buying it because, you know, they come across it in the store, we're promoting it and trying to get people to try it for the first time. Hopefully, they like it, and they repeat purchase, and you start to build some volume.
Reaching that tipping point, where you can then say, "I've got a core range that's big enough, growing fast enough, it's being bought by enough people, that I can start to put on top of that, the MPD pipeline from the U.K. I can start to support that with media, so I'm turning from selling good products into building brand equity and building a strong brand." It's a really important tipping point mentally for me. The reason why it's so strategically significant is, this is about us building businesses in other markets. You know, our aspiration here is to build, you know, a replica of our U.K. business in a number of markets over time.
I think this is just it's an early stage, but it's a really important indicator for me, so I think you're right on the strategic significance of it, Clive.
Sorry, just by way of follow through, clearly it's going to take some time for Mr. Kipling to fully appreciate the resources behind Premier, over what period of time would you expect more brands and more geographies to be experiencing that, going from a selling model to a branded growth model?
Yeah, I think Australia, we're at that point, clearly, you know, clearly on cake. We're in a really strong position on Indian cooking sauces as well, where we're the leader there now, when you look at shops and The Spice Tailor.
Mm.
I think then when you look to North America, you know, we're at a much earlier stage.
Yeah.
As you know, we're in the building distribution phase. I don't have a specific date on when we'd expect them to be able to turn on, you know, mainstream media support. We're certainly looking at how we support digitally, because we can do that in a more targeted and cost-effective way.
Mm.
We're obviously starting to plan what regional support would look like, if we get ourselves into a position where we've got sufficient critical mass in geographical pockets, if you like, within the States, because obviously it's an enormous market.
Yeah.
The thought process is going on, but there's a bit of road to go down first, I think.
Well, fabulous. Thank you.
Then your second question, Clive, you know, I think in the past, Premier Foods did talk about having focused brands. I can't remember what they were called before.
Okay, cool.
Power brands, yeah. I've never been a big believer in this. You know, my experience has always been that, if you go down the road of saying, I'm gonna have some special brands that get all the focus, what the organization hears is, don't do anything on the other brands.
Mm.
It's actually my view that if you want to have a successful business, you need to actually move everything forward.
Yeah.
Obviously, they don't all get the same allocation of resources.
Mm.
Yeah, mainstream TV support is something that goes to the bigger brands with the bigger PNLs and with a bigger outside opportunity.
Mm.
if I look at things like, the MPD program, you know.
Mm
we expect that an MPD pipeline on all the brands.
Okay.
you know, the example I've used before, Clive, is, you know, there is an MPD program on Angel Delight, and it's been incredibly successful.
Yeah.
made Angel, you know, 50% or so bigger than it was a few years ago.
Mm.
We move everything forward, but the resource allocation, obviously, gravitates towards the bigger brands.
That's really helpful context, noting that you mentioned the Cape Herb & Spice in your statement. That, you know, that's really good, perspective. Thank you.
Thanks, bye.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Ning Yang, from Jupiter Asset Management. Ning, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. First, congratulations on a very strong quarter. I have three questions. Firstly, on the cost side, obviously, we have seen a lot of political pressure on the big four supermarkets to reduce prices. Do you feel that kind of pressure that's been passing on to the food producers, you know, in your field? Also, do you feel the recent event in Russia and Ukraine, you know, given now the wheat price and the corn prices kind of increased very significantly, do you feel that will have an impact on your margin?
The second question, do you have flexibility to switch between your branded products and the private label products, in case of, you know, changing in a kind of consumer preferences and behavior, when, you know, when the cost of living squeeze is passed? And the third, my third question is, do you maintain your capital expenditure and the restructuring guidance unchanged, as provided in your Q4 update? Thank you very much.
Sure. Yes, thanks, Ning, for that. On, on costs, yes, I mean, we've observed, you know, the political pressure on the supermarkets, as you, as you called it. You know, I think probably the most important thing to understand here is, you know, we have passed on less costs in our pricing than we have experienced in terms of our inputs and the difference between the two, given that obviously you'll have seen that when we last reported margin in Q4, our margins were flat. The difference between the two is obviously our internal cost-saving programs.
Yeah.
We continue to work really hard on those, and that has meant that we have passed on less pricing to the consumer. You know, I'm not particularly, you know, felt any specific pressure on us, as you know, mentioned with the supermarkets, and I think we'd be very clear on that point is, you know, actually, we've helped consumers here as best we possibly can by limiting the amount of price that we've passed on to them. In terms of wheat price, look, yes, I'm, you know, I'm sure we're going to see some significant increases in wheat pricing, but we've also got some commodities moving in the opposite direction. When I look at it all on balance, I think we're still.
quite clearly able to stand behind the same one we've made before, which is that we've recovered all the pricing that we need for the rest of this year. I don't see that the recent events in Ukraine actually have any significant impact on the overall picture from our portfolio. Your second question was about flexibility between brand and private label. I mean, the simple answer to the question is yes, but the actual, you know, real point for me here is that, you know, our job is to build brands. We're brand builders. That's what we do, that's what we're good at, that's how we've managed to grow the business so successfully and consistently over the last four or five years.
Therefore, it is really about us making sure that we've always got the right offering for the consumer at the right price, with the right new products, et cetera, and therefore, to make sure that they stay in our brands. You can see from the market share gains that we're getting, that we've been successfully able to do that, and that will continue to be the focus of our strategy. I think, Duncan, you're probably best placed to answer question three.
Hi, thanks for the question. I mean, yeah, typically we give, you know, updated cash guidance at year-end and at half year. You know, you can probably assume the fact we haven't felt the need to say anything for quarter one, that what we said a few months ago still stands. Of course, we'll update and just give updated guidance on all the cash moving parts about the half year when we get to November.
Understood. Thank you, thank you very much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Damian McNeela from Numis. Damian, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi, morning, everybody. Just 2 hopefully pretty quick ones from me. Firstly, on The Spice Tailor, I think, Alex, you talked about it performing better than your initial expectations. I was just wondering whether you could give us a little bit more color on what was driving that outperformance versus your initial view, and maybe even how much it contributed in the quarter to overall branded sales. Just 1 quick one. On the non-branded sweet treat contract wins, just to clarify, are they annual contract wins, or is there anything we should know about those when thinking about putting them in the model? Thank you.
Good morning, Damian. Yeah, Spice Tailor, I think, you know, when we bought this, we were very much of the belief that, as I said, our branded growth model, as we applied it to Spice Tailor, would, you know, deliver disproportionate growth, the intent very much being to make the brand, I think I used the word several times, the size it was when we bought it. And that's very much what's baked into our acquisition model. We're at the first phase of that, which is really about plugging gaps in distribution because the product sells faster than the amount of distribution it's got would suggest, if that makes sense. It deserves more distribution in more stores with more products than it actually has.
Obviously, compared to the previous owners, we've got a, you know, a pretty big sales team, with some quite, you know, backed up by quite sophisticated analytics. Our ability to deliver that increased distribution is very different from the previous owners. Who've clearly done a super job building the brand, but it's got to that size where it's, you know, gonna perform better in our hands, I think. What we're seeing at the moment is that actually we are getting all that distribution as we expected and probably more. We've got increased distribution in the key retailers in the U.K. That's bigger product range, essentially more SKUs and also more stores. That's all sort of coming on stream.
We've seen significant increases in distribution as we've rolled out in Ireland. I think the brand was only in Tesco, in Ireland, and that was really by virtue of Tesco U.K. We've now got it into Dunnes and SuperValu, that comes on stream later in the summer. We've got distribution in Walmart in Canada, we've got distribution now in New Zealand, and we're working quite hard on how we get the brand into the U.S. and where we've applied for FDA approvals. That's a formality, we've just got to wait for that to come through, and also into a couple of lead markets in Europe.
When I look at that, I also look at the activation we're able to do, the promotional activity we're able to do in store, and then extrapolate that out over the full- year, I think we're gonna be in a position that's a tad ahead of our internal acquisition model, which I appreciate you've not seen. Nevertheless, it gives us great confidence to know that things are tracking, you know, better than we expected. My other point was, you know, we're quite excited about the new product development, initial work that we're seeing from the marketing and R&D teams.
Those products won't come to market for a while yet, but there's some really quite exciting expansion plans, which I think will add a lot of value as well. You know, overall tracking, you know, at least on track, if not, if not, rather better, I'd say. I think your second question was about what did, what did it contribute to in the quarter?
Yeah, annual contract-.
Yeah.
Sweet treats. Contracts and sweet treats, yeah.
I don't know off the top of my head. Richard, do you know what?
I mean, that's, I mean, we've got more contracts on private label. I mean, we saw that we won some contracts through last year. There's actually more contracts that we've won that will carry. You know, we generally expect to grow them sort of annually, and therefore, would expect these to carry through for the bulk of the year. You can see in the quarter...
probably about half the number and it goes with volume and contract given and the rest half is with more price.
Okay, brilliant. Thank you, Duncan. Thank you, Alex. Very clear.
Thank you.
As a final reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Darren Shirley, from Shore Capital. Darren, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Morning all. Just sort of one and a half from me, if you don't mind. You've mentioned the importance of sort of in-store activation to your share gains in the UK market recently. I mean, is this being achieved across the board? I mean, is this with specific retailers where you're working particularly well? I'm not looking for you to name names, and I'm just wondering whether you think there's still a sort of further upside in as that broadens out, maybe across categories or across retailers.
Well, I think if you, if you look at the brand growth model, working closely with retailers in strategic partnerships, and therefore being able to drive great visibility for the brands, you know, including through in-store activation, has always been a critical part of the model. I think the way we've looked at it over the last 12 months and continue to look at it through this year, is given that the impact of pricing on volumes and the, you know, price elasticity, what we've done is we've sort of doubled down on the importance of that in-store activation.
One of the things we've been doing, I think I talked a little bit about this in the full-year results, actually, is we've been trying to find really big, impactful tie-ups with third parties. For example, we've done some work with the Minions franchise. We did some great execution with one of the key retailers whereby we teamed up with the Minions movie franchise, and people could win tickets and things, and that was featured on our packs. That was only available in one retailer in exchange. In that one retailer, we were therefore able to build, you know, quite big and dramatic displays with cardboard cutouts of Minions and things.
That sort of in-store theater, as we might call it, you know, we know is incredibly impactful in terms of driving volume. What we've been doing is we've been, you know, increasing our investment in those big in-store events, and using that to offset the impact of price elasticity.
Okay. So that is something we should expect to be a feature of the all brands going forward then, in terms of the success you've seen?
Yeah, very much so. It's been incredibly successful. You know, as we've sort of seen that, we've basically done more of it, and we've put more funding towards it. We're doing it across a broader range of brands and in more stores.
Just, just, I suppose I said it was a half a question. I mean, there's been a lot of talk around international. During the, you talked about applying the European growth model to Sharwood's. I mean, how would that differentiate, to be different than what we're seeing in Australia, et cetera, with Mr Kipling? Or is there any much difference?
Yes, actually, no, what I was saying on Sharwood's is that it's actually a rollout plan we've got. Obviously Europe is not one place, it's lots of countries. And there's lots of retailers, and we work across Europe with a series of distributors. And our plan is to, you know, keep rolling out Sharwood's into more and more countries. What we've seen, today in Germany, for example, over the first quarter, has just been an expansion of distribution, which is very much just part of that rollout plan.
Okay. It's targeting broader Europe as opposed to sort of specific retailers and countries?
We're sort of going, you know, going country at a time into more and more. Obviously, you know, it's very different to make your comparison with Australia. Australia, one country, two big retailers. You look at Europe, lots of countries, absolute patchworks of retailers. It makes clearly a longer and slower process.
Yeah. Okay, thanks for that, and well done. It's nice to meet you.
Thanks, Darren.
Okay. There are no further questions on the line. I'll now hand back to our host, Alex, for any closing comments.
Thanks everybody for dialing in this morning. You know, to summarize for me, look, I think we're feeling pretty confident. We've had a really good start to the year, we've got a lot of really quite exciting plans actually for the rest of the year as well. I'm feeling pretty good and hence why we've presented a trading profit be on the top end of the market expectations today. I think we're in good shape and nine months left to go. Thank you very much.
That concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines. Have a lovely rest of your day.