Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to ARYZTA 's Q3 2025 update conference. The call will be hosted by Urs Jordi, Chairman and Interim CEO, and Martin Huber, CFO. There will be a presentation followed by Q&A. This call is being recorded. Now, I'd like to hand over to Paul Meade, Head of Investor Relations, to open the call. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Francois. Good morning and welcome, everybody, to today's call. I just want to say that our forward-looking statements, which detail the risks and uncertainties around our business, cover today's conversations, questions, and discussions. I'd now like to hand over the call to Urs Jordi.
Thank you, Paul. Good morning. Thank you for joining this, Paul, for our Q3 updates 2025. As you can see on page three, the organic growth for the year-end will remain in the mid to single-digit range, supported by volume and by pricing. We will achieve in the year at least EUR 300 million of EBITDA with approximately EUR 100 million of free cash flow. Acceleration and strengthening of the cost initiatives and optimization is now a big topic. You may have read about these pricings of bakery products in retail. On one hand side, this is a challenge for everybody in the business. On the other hand side, we clearly see this as a big opportunity for the efficient and state-of-the-art protagonists in the business. This will help us to strengthen our position, and this will drive cold consolidations in our favor.
There is a current leadership in place with a strong track record of delivery. You remember the journey we did in 2020-2025. With this, we confirm as well the mid-term target we have communicated to the market in our meeting in Dagmarsel. On page five, there is the organic growth visible. Bake-Off continues to take share from fresh. You see this in the stores, in the bread shelves, fresh bakery, a big assortment. Innovation supported is clearly a big driver of footfall everywhere where bakery products are offered. Bakery calorie remains, as I have mentioned several times, the most efficient calorie on our table. Innovation accounted so far for 18% of revenue year to date, which is a high percentage, supportive to our business overall. New capacities in Malaysia, Switzerland, Germany, and Australia are online or coming online. We'll be online leveraging consumer trends we see and we support.
Let me repeat again, cost optimizations are besides the top line growth clearly in the focus. We go aggressively with two programs after costs, a short-term program which is taking costs out in short term, people costs, other costs. We have a mid-term plan in work which basically supports processes, structures, efficiency, supported by newest options of technology which are available in our days. This is the plan. Clearly, with a short-term aggressive program to go after costs, addressing the situation and the circumstances, everybody is in the mid and long-term program, bringing us to a higher level of efficiency and excellence. I would now hand over to our CFO, Martin Huber, for the numbers.
Thank you, Urs. Good morning. I'm pleased to present to you our trading update for the third quarter and the first nine months of 2025. In the third quarter, ARYZTA achieved an organic growth of 0.8%, supported by solid pricing of 1%. Volume was flat in the quarter and mix slightly negative, although improving sequentially. This result was achieved in an increasingly competitive market context and against a strong volume comps of 3.2% in the previous year. Pricing remained at similar levels versus the previous quarter and slightly improved in the rest of the world. Next slide. Organic growth in the first nine months of the year reached 2.1% in line with our full-year guidance. This result is supported by both pricing and volume mix growth. Pricing remains stable at 1% compared to H1 against the backdrop of decreasing commodity costs.
Resilient volume mix contributed 1.1% and supports the year-to-date growth. Innovation share on revenue, as Urs mentioned, is about 18% and has also added to our performance. Important to highlight that all channels are adding to our revenue growth, with food service being the strongest contributor. With this, we reiterate our full-year guidance for organic growth of low to mid-single digit. Next slide. While we have indicated an EBITDA of at least EUR 300 million for 2025, we are confirming our mid-term targets communicated in May this year. We are confident that with the acceleration of our cost optimization measures, as Urs has highlighted and emphasized, that we bring back performance to the flight path towards our 2028 margin targets for EBITDA as well as EBIT.
These actions, together with operating in a growth market and disciplined management of CapEx, will allow us to improve business and financial performance in line with these targets that you see here on the slide. In the course of 2026, we will also provide details on how we plan to return capital to our shareholders. Next slide. You will remember this slide from our Capital Market Day. It summarizes the three building blocks of our cost optimization program for the period 2025 to 2028. I'd like to emphasize that we have a strong track record on delivering on these initiatives. Let's maybe take one step back. Over the period of the last mid-term plan, ARYZTA has generated through these levers significant contribution to the margin progression. From 2022 to 2024, our procurement initiatives delivered more than EUR 36 million worth of cumulative cost optimization.
This was at the upper end of our targeted range. Operations contributed with annual cost efficiencies of 2%- 3%. We have reduced conversion cost as a percentage of revenue to index 93 in 2024 compared to 2022 and reduced waste as a percentage of raw and packaging material to index 92 over the same period. On structural cost, measured as a percentage of revenue, excluding the investment into the future efficiency program, they have decreased by 20 basis points from 22 to 24. This has allowed us to build up the shared service center in Poland and to further streamline the ERP and system landscape. We are now accelerating these initiatives in these three building blocks that you see here on the page, with a particular focus on operations and structural cost.
Aligning our organizational structures and leveraging the above market entities will be a key driver of these efficiencies. Let me maybe remind you on some action already taken, in Switzerland, for example, where we have optimized the structures by 30 FTEs this year. All these actions will help us to make the company match fit again and bring us back to the flight path towards the 2028 targets. In our upcoming interactions with the capital market, we will provide you with an update on these progresses of these measures. Next slide. In summary, we confirm the full-year guidance for 2025, organic growth in the low to mid-single-digit range, supported by both pricing and volume mix. EBITDA, as highlighted, will be at least at EUR 300 million, and our cash flow will be around EUR 100 million.
We expect the strengthening and acceleration of our cost optimization measures will ensure a swift rebound in business performance and profitability. We count on a proven leadership team that is confident to deliver the committed results and the mid-term plan. Thank you very much, and I hand back to Urs.
Thank you, Martin, for these remarks. We would open now the Q&A session and would then go for the first question, please.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Your question and answer session will now begin. If you wish to ask a question from the conference call, please press star one on your phone. If you change your mind and decide to withdraw your question, simply press star two. You will be advised when your line is open to ask your question. The first question today comes from a line of John Bisset from UBS. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. I would start with two questions and then go back in the queue. The first one is, can you please give us more details why your organic sales growth is so lumpy this year, starting with 1.6% in Q1, then above 4% in Q2, now below 1% again? What exactly is driving this as consumption should be a little more stable? If you can give us an early outlook for Q4, if you expect an acceleration here back to the 2-3%. This will be the first question, please. The second question, given the high degree of uncertainty after the recent updates we got with the reduced EBITDA outlook, can you give us an early view in 2026? What is the pricing range, plus minus? What do you expect in terms of cash conversion, equity to cash flow generation?
Is there a bump in the road or is it a progress already? This would be appreciated. Thank you.
Good morning, Jörn. Thank you for this. Let me start with the organic growth, and I will stress the same answer as all the time. A quarter is a difficult measure for an organic growth. I think half year or full year is there better. This can be driven by day constellation, by promotion constellation. The growth on the year-end will be there where we are prognosing. We have a good innovation rate. We have projects ongoing. As you know, these new lines are coming online there. This is supporting this top line. We are very active on the market. There is a big race out there, as you can read in the newspaper, and we will be clearly one of the winners of this day. The quarter, I would not wait too much in this view.
On the year-end, we did guide where the growth will end, and it will be supported by pricing and by volume. For the second question, I would hand over to Martin for the 26 guidance question. Let me say it like this.
Good morning, John. Regarding 2026, certainly, when we will present our full-year results, we will indicate an updated guidance for 2026. I would refer back to what we have said in the call now in the presentation. We will be accelerating our cost measures, particularly on operations and on structural cost. This will help us to bring us back to the flight level that we'll need to be on in order to deliver towards the mid-term targets 2028. We are confident that we have the measures in place to progress towards that flight path again that we need to be in order to deliver both the margin targets for 2028 as well as the continued contribution to cash flow, supporting balance sheet strengthening, and delivering the capital to distribute to shareholders.
Did we answer your questions, John?
Yes, thank you. I go back in the queue. Thanks.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Patrik Schwendimann from ZKB. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you. Good morning, Urs. Good morning, Martin. Good morning, Paul. Patrick Schwendimann, ZKB. Again, on the volume development, could you give us a little bit more flavor in terms of the new capacity, when it exactly came on stream, and what are the benefits here for the foreseeable future? I'm talking here about the Malaysian, Switzerland, and German lines. A second question regarding this acceleration of the cost optimization program. Could you give us some flavor in terms of the phasing? What does this mean now out of this EUR 40 million-EUR 60 million? How much do you think you can already achieve in the current year and then next year? Finally, a question on for next year. I know it's very early days, but just what do you have in mind currently with today's input cost development? We have seen a much lower bottom price recently.
What's your best guess in terms of the price effect for next year if everything will remain the same as we see it today? Also, best guess for the volume development and maybe any first indication of the absolute EBITDA number for next year. Many thanks.
Morning, Patrik. I would start with the volume question and then the cost saving, and Martin would then do the next year. Let's remind us, butter is going down, but other costs are going up, massively going up. We still have labor inflation all over the world. This is not just black and white. Let me start with volume. We have this Swiss line, and the Swiss line ramps up step by step, quarter by quarter. Some products you see already in the market, in the shelves of our customers with the clearly improved quality and a much better appearance. This is on plan. Malaysia is good on track with this line ramp-up. There is still one or two steps to go, but this works very well.
These both are lines having an output per hour of about two tons of dough, so it can be with filling maybe two and a half or three. You can then calculate what this could and will do in the next month and hopefully years to come with volume. Germany is completely different. Malaysia and Switzerland are laminated dough lines for pastries, snacks, Kipfels. Germany is a bread line, specialty bread, the way you can see on the picture there on slide four down. This line is ramping up now, mainly in German trade, German retail, but as well in intercompany businesses around Germany with sourdough bread, seeded bread, dark bread, bread with a handmade touch. This is clearly the trend we see in this bakery part of our business. This volume will come online mainly in the year 2026.
We see there already a little bit of volume on the line, but the big chunk is due for the next year. Australia, first, this is a burger bun bakery. I will be there next week. The commissioning and the building is on plan, and we will see their first volumes landing in quarter one, 2026. These are mainly burger buns. You know the protagonists are playing there. You know more or less the output these lines can do, and it will take us 18 to 24 months to reach the capacity level we are targeting with this. These projects are on track. The cost saving, as you did mention, or the question was, is clearly split in two parts. One part is a short and near path, which is very aggressive, going mainly about people costs. Martin will give you the numbers.
We live in a different world in some months or maybe even a bit longer. There is a run for efficiency. We are good on track with this. It's always a bit preparation time and certain decisiveness in the business. We are good on track there, and we will get the savings from this in a continuous way, not too far away. Believe me, these savings will clearly support the year-end result and next year's flight level. Martin.
Good morning, Patrick. In terms of the initiatives, let's say procurement initiative is running on track. When we came out in H1, we said we were close to $6 million savings. We are progressing now in Q3 for the first nine months to around EUR 10 million. That is nicely on track. When it comes to operations and structural costs, these are the areas where we emphasize that we will accelerate. I've mentioned what we have already done in Switzerland with the optimization of 30 FTEs, and we will focus there, driving the acceleration on this part. As I've mentioned before in my answer to John, this will help us to bring the company back towards the flight path of our mid-term plan. We will certainly give clear guidance when we come out with the full-year results where our figures will be for 2026.
Over the next couple of months, there will be certainly some interaction with the capital market where we can give further color on the progress of these measures.
Thanks, Urs and Martin. All in all, does it mean that you will have more than this EUR 40 million-EUR 60 million cost savings?
I think I would say that we will accelerate them in the way that we get back to that flight path that we have set. As I also mentioned, we'll have a further connection with the capital market over the next couple of months where we will give some additional color. For the time being, I would take these figures that we have there on the slide as the yardstick for these activities.
All right. Many thanks, Urs and Martin.
The next question comes from a line of Chiara Di Giamm aria from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. I'd like to ask you a question about the M&A. You mentioned the consolidation as an opportunity. Are there any updates here? Also, regarding the hybrid repayment, is this on track? Do you expect this to continue as anticipated? If you can share anything on this. Thank you.
Thank you for this. I would start with the M&A question. As you know, we clearly focus on our operational strength. We handle the evolution. Times we are in with all these promotions on bakery products, amongst others. By the way, this is not only a bakery appearance. It's clearly driving cold consolidation. Small and mid-sized protagonists will have difficulties to follow this, to get down to a needed pricing level. We are there, I think, clearly in a good position to win this race. You can read this in the newspapers. Unfortunately, I know a lot of these people, and I'm coming from this type of the business. There have been bakers in newspapers over the last weeks and months with small or mid-sized bakery businesses just leaving the business because the race to this higher efficiency was just not doable for them anymore.
We read in Germany in the newspapers that small and mid-sized protagonists are just disappearing from the market. This volume, which goes away there, lands the day after into the store of our customers. This is a clearly support or a strong support of our business. This is the cold consolidation we are calling. We focus on this if the market is changing and protagonists would be up for a change, competitors of us. We would check this and we would not let this just with ignorance go. The focus is clearly on the organic development of the business. Martin.
Thank you. Chiara, good morning. In terms of the hybrid repayment, we continue to manage in a very disciplined manner our financing costs. Just to remind you, for the full year 2025, we target to be at the lower end of our guidance of financing costs. This will continue and we will drive performance, deliver the cash flow, improve equity through the profit for the period, and therefore expect to take out the hybrid, as I've mentioned before, once we have a line of sight towards around 30% equity ratio. As I said, that's not a hard target, but it is, let's say, a yardstick that we look at. There is no change in the plan to address the hybrid over time in making sure we further optimize our financing cost.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if you would like to join the queue for questions, please press star one on your keypads. The next question comes from a line of Jon Cox from Kepler Chevreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, guys. I have a couple of questions for you. Just on the savings, and obviously, we're still looking at that slide eight, and you're talking about the net savings being 20- 30. You know, the recent warning brought the EBITDA expectations down from EUR 330 million-EUR 300 million. Obviously, clearly, these savings you've unveiled there are through 2028. I just don't quite get you saying you should be able to get back onto your flight path again. With what you've announced so far, you won't be able to do that given the fact you've gone from EUR 330 million-EUR 300 million with that guidance cut. Do you have any comment on that at all? That's my first question. As an add on the cost cutting side, you're talking about short-term cost cuts. Should we expect any restructuring charges with 2025 results at all?
I'll keep going just on the top line. The volume weakness in Q3, I wonder if you can just see that you see anything one-off in there at all. You're talking about the comparables, but it does seem quite a decline that Europe has suddenly swung from being quite positive Q2 volumes to negative by 0.1%. Lastly, on the volumes, the production coming on, I'm just wondering, in Asia or the rest of the world business, is this around 20% of new capacity? I'd ask the same question for Europe, maybe about 5% new capacity, the German and Swiss expansion. Just the final one, and I'm sorry, I know I've been rambling on a bit. In the press release this morning, you talk about the EUR 300 million EBITDA being on a like-for-like basis there. Just wondering if I need to read anything into that.
Are you going to start talking about maybe a currency impact or one-offs or whatever it may be? Sorry about the long sort of shopping list of questions there. Thank you.
Thank you, Jon. Let's try to take this one by one. Let me start with the volume. Again, we are reporting volumes and/or trading updates every quarter. Quarters and even eights can be fluctuating. There are impacts of the prior year, of promotions, of lines going online, new lines coming there. I would not, yes, weight this as too much in Q4. We have significant new volumes coming online, as you have mentioned, in Asia and Europe. We always told that we need 18 to 24, maybe even a bit longer month to bring these volumes on the line into customer stores. There is a lot of consumer testing ongoing, consumer acceptance tests of innovation going into this, so this is why this needs time. There is clearly an incremental volume coming online with these lines. This is then not everything.
We are planning, obviously, expansion of other capacities as well. These are just the projects we are in now. Martin on the.
Good morning, Jon.
EBITDA and the savings.
In terms of EBITDA reporting, we continue to stick to our guns in terms of how we report our profitability. If your question was referring to if we're going to an underlying reporting back, I can clearly confirm to you that's not the case. The figure that we have stated for EBITDA for 2025 is all inclusive. There are no additional elements then. Whatever costs are to be taken to do some of these actions will be within that result. I hope that clarifies, having your question number two and your question number three or four. In terms of the savings, we will accelerate the implementation. We will strongly focus on these and put much more emphasis on the operations and structural cost topic, as I've mentioned.
We will, with that, come back to that flight path that we need to have to be flying towards that 2028 targets of at least 15% EBITDA and at least 9% EBIT. We are confident that the actions we are taking in quarter four now and into 2026 will bring us back to that flight path. More exact numbers in terms of the guidance for 2026 will come out when we present the full-year results. As I've mentioned, there will be updates until the year-end with the capital market on different occasions where we will provide an update on the progress of these measures.
Should we expect any restructuring charges?
As I said, the result is all inclusive. If we have restructuring, it will be within the quoted EBITDA number that we have communicated.
Any cash costs would also, the EUR 100 million will be net of any cash costs.
Yeah, exactly.
Great, thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Thomas Oswald from AWP. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. I have a question to the cost reduction programs, the short-term aggressive one. Could you confirm again? You already reduced 30 FTEs in Switzerland this year. Is there more to come and how does it look like globally? Thank you.
We did a benchmark of processes of people count over all businesses in the entire group. Switzerland was just an example from Martin Huber. There is clearly more to come. These are mainly people costs, increasing efficiency in all parts of the businesses. This is a project we did start some months ago and is now gaining on speed and on traction. Let me repeat this. There is more to come in the next weeks and months. You can see, by the way, exactly this or very similar programs in other Swiss-listed consumer companies. This is a bit the mood of the environment. You can expect something similar from us. Clearly, a run for efficiency and a run after people costs.
Could you say how much of the percentage of the workforce will you let go?
No, Martin just mentioned that it will bring us at least back to the flight path. We have a mid-term target 2028, a mid-term plan in place, and all these measurements are giving us confidence that we will head towards this target. These plans are a bit different from country to country, from legal environment to the next one. Believe me, these plans are aggressive and consequent and will help us back to the flight path we need.
Thank you.
We've got a follow-up question from John Bisset from UBS. Please go ahead.
Thank you. To take my follow-up question, it's just a small technical one. Can you tell us what is roughly the wage inflation for your business in 2025? You today, are we speaking about 3%-4%? Are we speaking about closer to 7%-10%? That we just have a rough indication. Thank you.
Yeah, are you asking about the official inflation rate in the country or the inflation rates we have in the business?
What you have in the business, I mean.
What is happening with your personnel cost? By how much percent is it going up this year?
Let me come back maybe with this answer to the cost-saving program. We clearly see a more flattish trend in wage inflation around the world. We are in a different place than a year ago or after COVID. We clearly push the businesses to keep these inflations, or if there is an inflation, as low and as flat as possible. The cost program goes clearly after people costs. Therefore, you can anticipate that inflation is for sure lower than the official inflation rates and the inflation rates we did see in the last years. We go after people count. This is a bit the obligation of our days and our time.
Be assured that we will find ourselves there in a good place versus the market, versus the official numbers, and versus the challenges which are out there in our days.
Okay, thank you. As a final reminder, if you would like to join the queue for questions, please press star one on your keypads now. We have another follow-up question from Jon Cox from Kepler Chevreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the follow-up question. You alluded to another big Swiss food company, I guess. Just wondering, in terms of you seem to be hinting at maybe something coming in terms of something bigger, in terms of cost cutting. I just wonder if you think it would be in the same sort of magnitude as the other company you mentioned in terms of percent of the labor force. Thank you.
John, again, good morning. This is a link you are doing. This is not our link. My remark was just saying that this is the obligation of the industry. We go after a significant number in our business, again, to maintain and to gain back the flight level and to have our 2028 target in sight. Unfortunately, these are people costs. This is the name of the game. Whether we like this or not, this is never nice, but be assured it will be a strong supporter of our flight level for the months and years to come.
Thank you.
There are no more questions in the queue. Now, I will hand back over to closing the conference call. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Thank you for joining this. As Martin Huber has told, somewhere around the year-end, we would provide you with another update so you don't have to wait until the full-year results 2025. We'll be somewhere around the year-end, year change, early next year, maybe late this year, to let you know where we are with our plans, with our top line, what the growth is doing, and what the cost-saving projects are doing. In the meantime, feel free to talk to us, to raise your question, to hire Martin Huber. This is then the way we go for the next three months. It will be busy and harsh over the next some weeks and months, but this is the world we are in. We take the bulls by the horns. Thank you for joining, and I wish you a good day.
Thank you. Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your lines.