Hello, welcome to the Barry Callebaut Focused for Growth Action Plan Q&A session, which will be hosted by CEO Hein Schumacher and CFO Peter Vanneste. My name is Nadia, and I'll be coordinating the call today. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand over to your host, Hein Schumacher, CEO, to begin. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Thank you and good morning, everyone. I hope that you had the opportunity this morning, albeit very early, to watch our on-demand presentation about the Focused for Growth action plan. As you've seen, with Focused for Growth, we are making some clear choices. We are strengthening our fundamentals, we are focusing our resources and stepping up on our position as a solutions provider by, for example, scaling key specialties in market segments that we believe we should win. With that, we are very much looking forward to your questions and the discussion, of course, and I'll hand now back to the operator to get us started with that.
Great. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to remove your question, please press star followed by two. We ask you please limit yourselves to two questions. The first question goes to Joern Iffert of UBS. Joern, please go ahead.
Thank you and good morning. Just to double-check, can you hear me?
We can hear you very well. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Just two quick follow-up questions on the BU, please. The first one is, one or two years ago, the full-time employees of Barry Callebaut were supposed to be reduced by 15%. Can you give us an update where we stand here, and if there are reinvestments happening, in particular, in which areas you want to reinvest in SG&A to implement your new strategy? That'll be the first question. The second question is, please, on the equity free cash flow guidance is CHF 3 million-CHF 400 million medium term. What is your assumption here on the interest cost line, also net working capital swings? Because when usually volumes are growing, net working capital was cash outflow. Just to double-check these assumptions again. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Good morning. I wasn't sure I fully got your first question. Let me give it a try. Please let me know if I'm going the wrong way here. I thought you were talking about reinvestments and reinvestments in our margin or reinvestments in the P&L. When it comes to SG&A, look, this plan is not about making significant investments in our operating expenses, both not in SG&A as well as in, for example, fixed other costs such as fixed supply chain costs. This plan is very much about prioritizing our current expenses and investments behind the priorities that we have talked about. Talk priorities around country focus, priorities around premiumization, and priorities about scaling up specialties to become that solutions provider that I mentioned in my opening.
This plan is built on the foundation that we have, but it is very much around a shift. It's about adding focus, and it's not necessarily about stepping up a massive investment level in our operating expenses. I do want to say something about our capital expenditure, though. That is an area where we have historically been around a level of around CHF 300. There we will give ourselves a bit of room because we feel that investments are necessary in North America in particular, and we've outlined a few details on that one. We are expanding our site in Pennsauken to service the Northeast. We are looking for expansion of our Brantford site in Canada, and we are looking for a new site in the Midwest.
That will increase our overall capital expenditure level to a level that is around CHF 350 million or roundabout, obviously, depending year on year. That is what I wanted to say about reinvestments. Peter, when it comes to the cash flow number.
Yeah. Nadia, good morning. On your question on cash flow and the moving parts behind it. First, maybe on the financing cost, as you asked. As we said already this year, we will be landing below CHF 320 for the year, which is CHF 56 million down versus last year. We will continue on that trend as we are deleveraging further. We're paying back maturing debt, which is reducing our financing cost. We have not given any official guidance on the financing cost itself, but you've seen that the PBT algorithm is faster than the EBIT algorithm, which means that gives an additional impact, positive impact. Overall, historically, this company has been in 2023, 2024, has been around CHF 200 million net finance costs.
This is the direction that we're moving into as well in our plan, obviously, with some improvements coming from our cash conversion cycle that in terms of inventories, that is better than what it used to be to some extent offset as well by evolutions in the Euribor. But overall, that's the direction where we're going with that, and that's why it's an incremental addition to our net profit before tax. Net working capital, you have seen, I believe, and you're not surprised by that we qualified our assumption with the GBP 3,000.
Bean price assumption. We obviously have to take an assumption when we do that because that does have an impact if there's brutal movements on it, especially on the working capital side. We have assumed GBP 3,000. You know that we already have become more resilient to some of those moves by having lower inventories, by having the financial instruments, like the letter of credit, in place. That's not really a big discriminator, assuming that 3,000 flats over the different years in the plan. Next to that, we have some further improvement on the cash conversion cycle as such, as we are completing our efforts to become more effective and efficient, especially inventories, where we have invested and are investing in better systems and tracking to get a better grip on, and monitoring of where our inventories sit, and therefore, be more efficient.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question goes to Alex Sloane of Barclays. Alex, please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Morning, all. Thanks for taking the questions. Two from me also, please.
Morning.
Maybe just the first one. Thanks for laying out the medium-term algorithm. In terms of next year, FY27, should we be assuming a more meaningful PBT inflection year given the reversal of some of the gourmet price pressures you outlined in April? Does that PBT guidance to the medium term incorporate 2027? Just interested in your view on that. The second one, actually, just following up on the, maybe for Peter, just on the cocoa bean price assumption, GBP 3,000 per ton. I guess, I'm interested, why are you assuming that level? I think in the past, you've said structurally, you see the cocoa bean price higher, maybe GBP 4,000-GBP 5,000 per ton, as a sustainable structural view. Has your view there changed? Maybe could you give us the updated sensitivity on that assumption?
I think you've historically talked about 100 pounds per ton move being CHF 70 million - CHF 80 million swing on working capital. Has that sensitivity come down as you've made these efforts to tighten up working capital structurally? Thank you.
Thanks, Alex. Very helpful. I would like to go into your first question on the shorter term guidance. Peter will take your second question. On the short term and on FY 2027, a few overall remarks. The first one is that we have guided on volume. We expect volume to increase roughly around one percent - three percent . That is slightly slower than what we would expect in medium term. There's a few reasons for that. First of all, pricing is still in there. We need to see how consumers are responding to likely price decreases that will happen. Timing, of course, to be seen. Therefore, we do expect some volatility around that. We want to await a couple of months before we give you more precise guidance on that. The second reason for guiding slightly lower on volume is, of course, geopolitics.
We're seeing the movements in the Middle East. That is important area for us. That will impact things over time. We need to see how that progresses. Also El Niño, we're seeing this year a very strong El Niño, and that could have impact on bean prices. Something that will become much clearer in the course of June and July. We're a bit cautious on volume. At the same time, we have guided the volume growth already in the second half of this year. I can confirm that that is indeed happening. We're happy with that. Overall, we are guiding towards a return to volume growth overall for next year, after a few years of decline. On profit. PBT, we would say, in the short term, will go faster up than the mid-term algorithm would state.
A key reason for that is also related to the finance costs. Finance, as you know, we transfer that, or we pass that on to customers in EBIT. EBIT will have a downside effect because of that, but that's reversed in PBT. Overall, therefore, we expect PBT to grow faster than the mid-term algorithm in FY 2027. We are cautious at this point to give you there a precise number. On cash, we would say that FY 2027 will be roughly equal to what we would expect in the mid-term. Of course, on ROIC and leverage, we will be taking steps. You know where we're coming from, so that is a slow build-up towards the mid-term objectives that we set to ourselves. I wanted to give you a bit broader view on that FY 2027 versus the mid-term guidance that we've given today.
For the second question, I refer to Peter.
On your second question, Alex, was around the cocoa bean prices. The main answer is that we've assumed, for our plan, that the bean price remains at the levels that it is right now today. We've seen a bit of fluctuation and movement in the last months. The GBP 3,000 is not a strange assumption from where we are today.
That's the main. What we're looking at is still a supply surplus year, as we've also seen last year. There's not a lot of reasons in the short term to assume that that's going to change. As I hinted into that as well, of course, we're watching the potential effect of El Niño that could have an impact on the bean price. Overall, as we believe that this is the short-term view that makes sense, we took that as a starting assumption. Obviously, it could be higher over time as I mentioned. We do believe that it could be around GBP 4,000 or even a bit higher.
On that, as I hinted at also when I was answering Joern, we have all our measures in terms of working with reduced inventories, having a higher procurement agility in buying beans earlier, later, especially later, having different sources and channels to buy the beans from different origins. Having the operations flexibility to manage it from different origins, which has reduced our dependency to some extent, on those bean prices. Of course, it doesn't eliminate it completely. I think we're in a much better place on that front than we were before.
Thank you.
The next question goes to Jon Cox of Kepler. Jon, please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, guys. Thanks for all the documentation-
Morning, Jon.
This Q&A session. Very useful. A couple of questions for you. Just sorry to go back to FY 2027, not so much on the PBT. I think everybody can see that financial line is coming down pretty rapidly. Just on the EBIT line, you're guiding for one percent-three percent growth on the volumes. Would it be correct then to assume that the EBIT growth with, you mentioned no significant investments, but you seem to be hinting at maybe some, maybe EBIT growth will be closer to volume growth in FY 2027? That's the first question.
Second question, maybe just on that net financial line, Peter, you said you're going down towards CHF 200. We're below CHF 320 this year. Could you give us a bit more granularity, like, I don't know, I'm just looking at my model now, CHF 280 next year, FY 2027, CHF 250 the year after, CHF 210 the year after.
Does that sound sort of reasonable or not? Then, sorry, just more of a question on that guidance of two percent -four percent you've come up with. It's lower than the companies had historically, and I understand you're obviously going to focus a lot more on the premium segment. You talk about one percent -two percent growth in the chocolate market. You mentioned GLP-1s, I see in the presentation earlier. Why don't you just give us a breakdown of where you think you can get the two percent -four percent ? Historically you've always talked about more outsourcing deals, gourmet growing faster plus emerging markets. You seem to be not talking so much about outsourcing deals and talking a lot more about gourmet and elsewhere. If you could talk a little bit about that two percent -four percent and the building blocks associated with that. Thank you.
Thanks a lot, Jon. I'll take question one, then I'll refer to Peter for question two, and I'll do question three, but I may do question one and three in one go if that works for you.
Yeah.
Yeah. First of all, on PBT and EBIT, Peter, please add, of course. Look, as you talked about the dynamics on finance costs, will not belabor that. What I can confirm is that for FY 2027, we do see EBIT increase ahead of volume growth. However, we're very cautious at this point to give you there a precise guidance for some of the reasons that I already mentioned, which is obviously around volume. I do want to state a few things, though, because you mentioned it on costs. Over the last five years, we've seen cost increases in the company, both in FCNA as well as in other fixed cost areas. We've also seen a significant investment in transformation in one-off costs that was around CHF 250 million.
Whilst I would never exclude, of course, taking a one-off if that is necessary, I would overall say that would come down to a much lower level. That's something that I wanted to make sure that that's noted. The second thing is on the cost levels, I've suggested no major restructuring at this time. However, as I said in my first answer today, I expect we are very keen to keep costs stable. That means offsetting inflationary pressures. I believe that's something that we should do given the focus that we are bringing to the plan and given the fact that we are shifting our resources behind our most important priorities. That's a trend shift, but it's not a major disruptive event on the cost side. Cautious on volume, EBIT ahead of that, but cautious for now.
PBT ahead of the midterm algorithm and on the cost side, we will be prudent, but we're not envisaging a big one-off of a major restructuring. I hope that adds some color to it. On volume developments, I think very good observations. I think there's a few elements here, Jon. First of all, as I said on the short term, the one percent -three percent , we do expect the market overall to return to growth. Confectionery at a level of one percent -two percent , that is a bit lower than what we've indeed seen in the past. Yes, that is there. In addition, we've said that for us specifically, outsourcing, and I've commented on that at the half-year results as well. Outsourcing has come to a halt. It's not increasing as fast.
The reason for that is volume pressure in the sector, our performance in the past on service, which has not been great, and some of the large companies are therefore insourcing. Those decisions have been taken, and that will impact FY 2027 growth for us because we expect that to bottom out. We don't see, after all the conversations that I've had with large customers, that is a structural trend going forward. The second thing to say about that is that mid-sized companies, as well as the fast-growing local companies, they don't insource. That is for us, algorithm-wise, that will help us given their strong performance in driving volume there. Why do we see the 2.4 therefore ahead of confectionery? That's for two reasons. One, what we call adjacencies and where chocolate is used as an ingredient. By the way, chocolate is a very versatile ingredient.
You have to think of snacking bars and protein-type solutions. You have to think of ice cream solutions, where we still see a faster growth than in the confectionery side. That's the areas where we are already strong. With the strategy that we're pursuing, which is to provide those solutions, including specialties and so forth, we believe that we can tap into those adjacencies in a good way. That will add a half to a percentage point or something ahead of the chocolate confectionery growth that I pointed out. The third one, over the last couple of years, we have suffered some market share losses.
Given our service track record, we believe we can step that up, all the signals that I'm getting is that will give us an uplift on share, just given what we offer in terms of taste, in terms of solutions and so forth. That will take us to the 2.2%-4% range. It has three components. A slightly slower confectionery chocolate, our ability to capture the adjacencies that are attractive and that we believe will grow ahead, and then step up in our base and our fundamentals and in our performance to drive execution.
Maybe to pick up on Hein's comment on the first one on the EBIT evolution and so on, linking it to the finance cost. As Hein said, for next year, we're also looking at a profit and EBIT evolution that is faster on the EBIT line than it is on volume line. Even faster on the net profit before tax. What's important to note there as well is this impact that the finance cost reduction has on EBIT versus PBT. As you know, it's neutral on PBT, on EBIT. As we reduce finance costs, we price through less finance costs. That has actually a negative effect in the short term. That's one of the drivers that will make EBIT grow slower than PBT next year because mechanically, it has this impact. As the B pass goes down, we price through less on EBIT.
That's one thing to keep in mind for next year. Having said that, we believe EBIT is going to grow faster than volume. On the point you made, Jon, on the financing costs. That was quite a specific question. I'm not going to quote annual numbers, but the direction is as you said and as I said. It will take a few years to get to that level, but we will see meaningful drops. We are seeing meaningful drops this year. We will see meaningful drop next year as we're paying back maturities. You heard me say in the past, there's about CHF 700 million maturing debt average per year over the next years, and we've been deliberately spreading that when we were raising debt over the past few years.
Maybe the last thing, next thing to add is that we are evolving very strongly towards more flexible debt with the BBF, where of course, that secures the sourcing of the funding when we need it, but also that allows to not use it when we don't need it, which then obviously also helps to keep the finance costs down when the bean price are all over.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment. We have a question from Antoine Prevot of Bank of America. Antoine, please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, thanks for taking my question. Two for me, please. One, we saw a bit of volatility in some trading sessions around cocoa over the past couple of weeks. Just to confirm, the move towards the letter of credit system, did it work as you expected or intended to smooth the cash outflow in this kind of volatile trading sessions? I just wanted to confirm a bit on that. Second question is around private label. You don't really talk about this in your plan, but it has been a part of the market in a few subcategories, which has been doing pretty well, ultimately in terms of gaining market share and volume. Is it not a part of the market you are really interested to address a bit more? Any indication on how big private label exposure is for you?
Thank you.
Thanks, Antoine, for your questions. I'll refer for the first question to Peter, and I'll come back to you on the second one.
Yeah.
On the letter of credit, Antoine, yes, it is fully in place, and it is being used. Now, of course, the first benefit of this letter of credit, again, maybe for people who don't remember, what it does is that when the bean price increases, instead of having to deposit cash with our brokers as the bean price goes up and impacts our futures, we work through a way of a bank guarantee. It avoids big cash outs in the short term, and therefore it smoothens the cash flow. That also allows us to keep less buffer because we basically smoothen those spikes. The main benefit, obviously, is when the bean price goes up and there's cash to be deposited.
Yes, that's working. What we've seen very recently, of course, that smoothens out the increase that we have. Obviously, it's not very critical at this moment because, first of all, the bean prices are still at very reasonable levels. Secondly, we're also working, as I mentioned before, with a much lower amount of open futures as we are buying later, we're buying more flexibly from different origins. Versus the past, our exposure is simply also lower. It works as we anticipated.
On your second question, Antoine, it's indeed well-spotted, on private label, we obviously see the growth there. Historically, the company has been focused more on branded consumer products. You're absolutely right. We do see that opportunity. In fact, that is happening today. In the algorithm going forward, we do see that as a meaningful segment, particularly in Europe.
It does mean, however, Antoine, that it is for us a bit of a different way of working and let me add some words to that. Where you normally work with CPGs, that will be a direct connect between the customer and ourselves. When you work with retailers, obviously they have manufacturers to produce their end products, so it means a three-party cooperation. Historically, again, we've gone through those manufacturers directly. At the moment, and I cannot be specific, but I hope to be capable to announce a few things in the next half year or so, is that we are actually developing strong contacts with retailers, define solutions of what they need, and then make sure that we can be part of that manufacturing solution. That's an interesting area of growth.
I like it, and a couple of the teams are realizing some of those opportunities. Thanks for asking the question, and indeed, that is an area that we believe is interesting predominantly in Europe and later on in North America as well. It's a developed market phenomenon, as you well know, but that's where we're focusing our efforts on.
Thanks a lot.
The next question goes to Samantha Darbyshire of Goldman Sachs. Samantha, please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning.
Hi, Samantha.
Good morning. You already touched on this, but you mentioned that one percent -two percent chocolate confectionery market growth, but your addressable market is higher. Can you quantify the actual addressable market growth for your business specifically, and maybe kind of go into some of the driving factors of which categories or regions are driving that? Also just you mentioned uncertainty around how consumers could respond to price reductions. Are you able to see anything in the market so far, or have there been instances of price reductions in the past that we can kind of take learnings from to extrapolate to this scenario? My second question is, sorry if you've already covered this, I might have missed it, but do you have a leverage requirement before beginning to increase your dividend payment?
Does it need to come below that two times target, or could you start increasing your dividend, say, when leverage comes below two and a half times? Thank you.
Thanks, Samantha, for the questions. Let me start on all three, and Peter, please add on the last one. You're right. The one percent -two percent chocolate confectionery, I think it really differs per adjacency. On the data that we are seeing, let me just give you two examples. On ice cream, for example, we're seeing roughly two percent -four percent , and that's what I've seen historically as well when I was working in a different capacity. I believe that's an attractive segment overall. Roughly that. If you look at energy bars, for example, we're talking four percent , and in some markets four percent plus. When you think of pastries and particularly the more premium side of that, we're also looking at roughly three percent- four percent . Just to give you some indication.
Therefore, the question is, of course, how much of our chocolate ends up where? Therefore, given that mix, I find it a bit, not difficult, but I find it a bit cavalier to sort of give you the precise outcome of that. If we do the mix, we believe, as I said, that overall, by increasing our exposure to those segments that we believe are attractive, where we can offer holistic solutions in combination with specialties, that could add somewhere between half and a percentage point of growth versus the confectionery part. As I said, we should not forget that for us, just simply being capable to drive perfect service in itself is a growth lever as well, since particularly in the last one and a half year, we have been below what customers should expect from us.
I think the combination of the three would lead us to the 2.4 on the midterm. In the shorter term, we are a bit cautious. I'm happy, though, to say that the second half of this year, as I said already, the sector is returning to growth, and we are seeing that coming through in line with the guidance that we have given you earlier on for this year. On price reductions, maybe let me just verify if I understand your question correctly. I think you said how fast consumers are responding to the price reductions. We are seeing price reductions coming through, certainly in the gourmet segment as well as in the price-listed business, as we call it, as well as in the consumer market overall. Many manufacturers have also gravitated to solutions such as chocolate coatings, for example. Yeah, consumers are responding.
As I said, we are seeing a return to growth already in the second half, so there is a response. I want to be a bit careful given the overall development. I talked about in at least about the direct effects, but of course, the indirect effects with higher fuel costs and so forth. What is the disposable income that consumers will have? What is the bean price in the short term going to do given the El Niño effect? I just want to be a bit cautious on that. That said, we are seeing an effect of market growth now that prices are stabilizing at a lower level than where they were before.
Maybe to pick up on a separate question on leverage, and then linking you made to the dividend, obviously leverage, it's a very key metric, yeah, for financial health, for ability to invest and all of that. We don't have any governance related to leverage. We have them on a few other elements, but not related to leverage, and that's clear. Also the dividend as such is not linked to any leverage thresholds. We mentioned that our intention is consistent, stable or increasing dividend over the next few years, but there is no formal link to reaching one or the other level of leverage.
That's really helpful. Thank you both.
The next question goes to Matteo Villani of Vontobel. Matteo, please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, everyone. I've got a question around your customers and the outsourcing agreements. You were talking about some larger players insourcing. Can you share with us the maturity of the long-term agreements maybe, and also furthermore, do you expect some of the customers to cut back the way of volumes or renegotiate the contracts with you? My question is that already included in the new volume and EBIT guidance going forward?
Thanks, Matteo, for your questions. We will not disclose particular negotiations or particular insourcing agreements. As I said, we have enough reasons to believe that insourcing has happened, and I talked about that at the Q2 results as well, and that is something that we've seen coming through. I also believe that the decisions on that have been taken. We see that given the available capacity at some of our customers, that that will also bottom out by the end of 2027. If there is a rather substantial announcement on that to be made or if it's material effect, of course, we will disclose. At this point, I just want to be careful that we're giving individual customer data and individual customer dynamics.
Overall, we feel that with the choice of seven global accounts, where we have seen some volume decrease in the last two fiscal years. Our goal is to obviously stabilize that overall and return to growth in the midterm, and that is baked in our plan. Also, the normal insourcing decisions, apart from any decisions that may come up, because you never know, I cannot look precisely in their kitchen, but that sort of bottoming out effect is included in the one - three, and overall the direction is included in the good support.
Perfect. Thank you very much. I've got one maybe quick follow-up question on North America, the investments regarding the factories.
Sure.
Is the investment more about capacity expanding, or is it just making the process more resilient of the factories in North America and to be more agile? Can you give us some more color on that, maybe?
Yeah. On North America, and that's a very important market for us, and we needed to make some adjustments there, but I'm looking at it through three lenses. I'm looking at it through the short term, the midterm, and the long-term lens. Let me just give you a few facts. First of all, on the short term, it is indeed about adding flexibility. We are currently converting liquid lines and so forth to also be able to provide chocolate coatings. That flexibility is really going up. Around 35%, I believe, of our lines at the moment is capable to switch very quickly between the two. Of course, depending on the level of the bean price, at this moment, chocolate, we're seeing demand increasing, but with the high chocolate price, we're seeing the demand for cocoa coatings increasing.
That inflection point is probably around where the bean price is today. We should be capable, and the name of the game in the future will be flexibility, and this is something that I think strategically we need to be ready for. That's part of the upgrades that we're currently doing. We believe that that will add the necessary coatings capacity throughout this year, but we would still be a bit short of where I would like to be. In the midterm, a few investments. First of all, although we say it, but our Pennsauken factory servicing the Northeast, that is truly additional capacity. That's not flexibility, it's additional capacity in areas where we feel it's the right one.
The second one, particularly on specialties, we see a great opportunity on specialties on fillings, as well as chunks, as well as some of what we call nutrition. You have to think of sugar solutions, for example, and that needs additional capacity. That's where we anticipate an uptick in the overall capital expenditure level. As mentioned, we are expanding our site in Brantford, you have to imagine that currently we have one major hole with a number of lines in there. We're adding a second hole to that, including more lines. For the longer term, we're seeing a site in the Midwest. The question is net, whether that's an increase or whether we would be looking to consolidate, but I don't want to go there right now.
I would say in the short and the midterm, it's about capacity expansion, as well as having flexibility between coatings and chocolate production.
Perfect. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We have a follow-up from Antoine Prevot of Bank of America. Antoine, please go ahead.
Thank you for that. Yeah, just two other questions. First one is a bit more like, let's say, healthier indulgence product or a bit better for you, talking the high flavanol product launches that you did. Wanted to know, how have been the launch in terms of this product or the uptake from the clients? I guess in general, I think that dark chocolate volume trends have been clearly a bit better, probably also because a bit healthier in general, less sugar and so on. What of it is your exposure to dark chocolate globally, and what's kind of a bit maybe your plans to go that side of the business more? Second question is on coatings or compounds, whatever you want to call it. It was a big focus, I guess previously. Was clearly much less mentioned today. Any reason why you talk less about this?
Clearly you have strong capability there. Is it just because you're a bit more maybe cautious going forward because maybe the economics are a bit less interesting with cocoa butter price coming down? Do you fear maybe some customer go back to a bit higher with chocolate content? What's kind of the rationale behind that? Thank you.
Thanks, Antoine. Yeah, a few remarks. First of all, when you talk about health and wellness, I'm taking it a bit broader, but I'm coming very quickly to your question on flavanol. We're seeing a really significant interest in what I would call everything health-related. Those are chocolate in combinations with protein. Those are low-sugar solutions or different sugar solutions. Indeed, those also include the high-flavanol content chocolate. On the latter, we're seeing mostly impact in Asia. Flavanol, as a concept, is not that well-known in Europe and in North America with consumers. It's very well-known in Japan. It's very well-known in China, and particularly in China this year, we're seeing a significant increase.
At this point, I don't have a precise number on how much that's influenced by flavanol, but overall, the growth in China is very significant, and this is definitely playing a role in our offering. If you look at dark chocolate, it's about a third of our volumes, and yes, that's growing. As I said, also in our powder strategy, we're looking at dark, we're looking at low fat. We see that overall trend on dark, and we see that increasing also as a result of GLP-1. I think I said something about it in the video. It is important, but I wouldn't point to dark as significantly ahead of some of the other forms of chocolate. Even milk chocolate, you can do a lot with sugar solutions. You can do a lot with protein solutions.
I wouldn't call that one out as something that is growing much faster than other parts of the portfolio. On coatings, actually, it's a good question, and as I said, coatings obviously get a lot more interest when the price of the cocoa bean is very high. As I said, there's sort of an inflection point that is around the price where we are when the one is financially and economically more favorable than the other. Then there's the question of manufacturers, whether they prefer a coating solution or whether they prefer a full chocolate solution. That's a question that depends on brand's preference, depends on premiumization and so forth. We're having those conversations with them. We are indeed the largest coatings provider in the world. As I said, we're adding capacity in the U.S. because that's where we are short.
I believe that in coatings, while economically interesting, there is a significant interest in seeing better taste, a better experience overall, and that is why we are investing in a concept called Cacao Max, which is a part of our premiumization strategy in each of the segments. Coatings is a segment, but within the segment, you can actually premiumize because the whole concept, idea around sensory, about taste, super important, and that's where we're focusing on right now more than just talking about coatings as such. We want to improve the experience.
Amazing. Yeah. Thanks for the color, Hein. Just maybe as a follow-up on flavanols.
Yes.
Interesting to understand this difference between Asia and the rest. Is there anything you can do to?
Increase the awareness of that in Europe or the U.S., because ultimately, these markets, really, as you said, they are shifting towards a bit more focused on health. Anything you can do there to drive that?
Matteo, obviously my consumer brand heart is ticking on this because I think it's fantastic. At the same time, we are playing our role in supply chain. The way to think about it is, I'm very keen, and this is something that we're actually pursuing at the moment on the back of Focused for Growth is, we talk about innovation platforms. Health, for example, is one of the platforms. Taste experience is one of the platforms. Think of Cacao Max. When I talk about health, within health, we have a couple of areas. Think of sugar solutions, but also think of flavanol solutions. When we talk with the big customers, our role is to provide some of those platforms and then say, "Hey, this is what you can say. This is what we see as the benefits." We have great R&D.
We can prove those benefits. Ultimately, it's depending on the brands to talk about this with their consumers. It has just more fertile ground in Asia since there is a base awareness with consumers and less so in Europe and in the North America. Hey, I'm hopeful that that could change, but I don't see it as our role necessarily, to advertise, of course, for that, because that's just not who we are. We can prove, we can show, we can experience, and we're doing all of that good stuff, and that's what we will do more of, given it's an important platform in the Focused for Growth direction.
Thank you so much.
We have a follow-up from Jon Cox of Kepler. Jon, please go ahead.
Just to maybe follow up on that last conversation. You talk about coatings, what about the non-cocoa alternatives, and are you still looking at that market now prices are back? Do you think there will be long-term growth in that market after the shock that came to the market from super high cocoa prices? I wonder if you can just sort of split out your capabilities there in terms of chocolate is, I don't know, half of your volumes. Cocoa coating is maybe, I don't know, 40%, non-cocoa, probably just a couple of points. Is that a fair guess? Second question, just to follow up, I think it's from Alex' question earlier. On this, if there is GBP 100 move in cocoa prices, the impact on Swiss franc free cash flow or working capital, historically, I think it's like CHF 70 million-CHF 80 million.
You seem to be alluding to using other things like promissory notes and stuff like that. Has that figure actually gone down there, Peter? Is that what you're trying to tell us? Thank you.
Thanks, Jon. I'll take your first question. Peter will take your second one. As I said, if you look at the chart, I think, if I remember well, it's chart two or three in the presentation that we showed to you this morning, which is about our ambition. I was really trying to be super clear about that. I'm just now getting the chart number. It's chart number four. If you look at that chart and the ambition, it says on the right upper corner, that we want to offer a full portfolio across cocoa chocolate, cocoa coatings, and non-cocoa solutions. I wanted to be very explicit about that. That means that we will continue our efforts on cocoa replacements. For us, we are making two "bets" here.
The first one is a partnership that we have with Planet A Foods. That is a cocoa replacer through sunflower seeds. We believe that is the best opportunity in the market available at this point. That comes closest to what we believe is right taste, what we can offer our customers, and so forth, and also what we can deal with from a manufacturing perspective. That's an interesting partnership. We are seeing first volumes coming through actually in several markets in Europe as well as North America. We're also looking at Asia. Super, super exciting. Therefore, we will continue to work that. At this point, the volumes, I wouldn't want to quote a certain percentage. Of course, it's small versus the total. The second one that I want to call out is the non-cocoa solutions is the development of cell culture.
Also here we are looking at partnerships with whom we work and that we could do in different ways, either through equity stakes to manufacturing agreements. We're bringing that clarity at the moment, and I believe that that is for the long term. That could be interesting. We should be prepared for that so that we cannot be surprised. We're absolutely on that. I see ourselves, and I hope you got that from the ambition. If you take that full portfolio in combination with specialty, scaling key specialties, it is truly about providing solutions to customers in the area. Call it everything chocolatey. I like that term, but I saw my IR people didn't really include it in the script, but I like chocolatey. I think that's who we want to be. We want to be passionate about that.
We can add to that, and I believe we can sort of take that space if we are very clever about it and if we are making very strong choices. I hope that gives you a bit of a background on that. Peter, on the second point.
Yeah. Second point, Jon, on this CHF 70 million-CHF 80 million, obviously the bean price has an impact, as you know, on especially the inventories, right? It's especially inventory side. We have an impact on payables and receivables as well when the bean price moves up or down.
A bit offsetting each other to simplify a bit. The biggest impact really is on inventories. Indeed, I was commenting on the fact that we've been making good progress on our buying agility, our inventory management, sourcing in different origins and so on. That does mean that we see the impact of this rule of thumb of CHF 70 million, CHF 80 million lowering more into the area of CHF 60 million to CHF 7 million change in working capital for every 100 GBP move in the bean price. To note still that this is a midterm effect, right? The short term, it can be impacted by many things.
It's impacted, smoothened by our letter of credit, as I mentioned before, but also depends a bit on when exactly the bean price is moving, right? If it's the middle of the peak harvesting season versus summer, that has a different impact.
Midterm, you can assume that the impact will be a bit lower than what we said before, around the CHF 60 million-CHF 70 million. Thank you.
Thank you. We have a follow-up from Matteo Villani of Vontobel. Matteo, please go ahead.
Much. A quick question on the LTI scheme. Could you remind us about the key KPIs you measured on and, for example, our volume and EBIT development included, for example?
Thanks, Matteo. I'm not sure I fully got the question. You were asking for the long-term incentives, right?
Yes, exactly.
Okay.
The KPI that are linked to the LTI.
Yeah. Well, we've got a number of elements within our long-term incentives plan, depending on the level in the organization. First of all, short-term, we of course have the volume EBIT and free cash flow, where we're having this across the organization, and it's one of the things that we will further simplify and of course, focus towards the Focused for Growth priorities that we're putting in. This is on the short-term incentives. If we go to the long-term incentives, we have the element of ROIC, return on invested capital within our targets. We have the customer Net Promoter Score, NPS, within our targets. We have sustainability within our targets. That's what is basically driving us. That's adding up to about 60% of what I just mentioned.
Next to that, there's the share price, which is basically being linked to the peer group and the performance of Barry Callebaut share versus the peer group. Again, to summarize, the share price performance, and then the different elements I just mentioned before.
Thank you.
Thank you. It looks like we have no further questions, I'll hand back to Hein, CEO, for any closing comments.
Thank you. Thanks everyone for your interest, of course, in the company, as well as for, again, listening to the message that we have shared earlier this morning. We really appreciate it, and we know that we'll be exchanging thoughts and questions in the next couple of days with many of you. We are looking forward to that, and to that ongoing dialogue. I wish you a great day, for those who are here in Paris, and wherever you may be. Thanks a lot. Thank you