Okay, we're going to get started. Next up, we have Keurig Dr Pepper. As you all know, the KDP story has changed meaningfully over the past year. What began as a complex transaction debate around the JDE Peet's acquisition and planned separation has increasingly become a discussion about whether the company can prove out two distinct investment cases, a growth-oriented beverage company with strong momentum, and a scaled global coffee company with more diversification, but still some near-term pressure in the U.S. business. Joining us from the company today are both CEO Tim Cofer and CFO Anthony DiSilvestro. Welcome, and thank you both for being here this year. I'm going to skip any discussion of transaction rationale. I feel like that's been really well covered at this point.
Instead, focus our time on how you're thinking about execution, proof points, and what investors should be watching from here. Assuming all goes according to plan, you're about half a year out, maybe a little bit less from the planned separation timing, which you've described as milestone-based. Where do you stand on that journey today? How are you balancing near-term execution with integration and separation work happening simultaneously?
Yeah. Thanks, Lauren. Good morning. Great to be back at the Barclays Conference here in Boston. 2026 is a pivotal year for KDP as we seek, as you said, to establish two advantage pure-play companies next year. This year, our priorities were very clear, oriented around three big themes. Number one, successfully complete the acquisition and the integration of JDE Peet's. Number two, prepare for a successful separation in 2027 into two advantage pure-plays. Number three, and I think most importantly, continue to deliver on the base business results and deliver on our commitments. I feel we've made very good progress on all three, and I would tell you as a headline, we are on track. Let me unpack each of the three. First, on the acquisition and integration. Closed it right on schedule, no major surprises, early April.
Immediately got to work thanks to our work on diligence, a transformation management office. We, for example, in the U.S., moved immediately to one invoice, one sales team, one truck of our combined coffee entity. We started buying coffee together as one entity. We are now the world's largest buyer of green coffee. Third is we started capturing the synergies, right? We've talked about $400 million of synergies over three years, and we hit the ground running in second quarter. You're going to see that ramp in Q3, in Q4, and into 2027. So feel good about early days of integration. Number two is plan for the separation. As you think about what's required to execute a separation, there's a lot. But I feel good based on the milestones we've set that we're making the progress required to set up this 2027 separation. What are those?
Number one, name management teams for both new companies. We've not only named the leadership teams, we've named all of the players all the way down through the organization that will go to Global Coffee Co. and go to BevCo. With one, I think, notable exception, as you know, Lauren, and that is the new CEO of Global Coffee Co. I can tell you today here at Barclays, we've made tremendous progress on that. I'm very excited about that future potential CEO, and I think you should expect to hear from us in the near term on naming that CEO that will lead Global Coffee Co. in the future. Second is board of directors. We have to establish two independent boards. Made good progress there. You would've seen we named two new directors to KDP in the last couple of months.
You'll probably see a few more of KDP in the year-to-go timeframe, and then the balance will come on for respective Global Coffee Co. and Bev Co. next year. Third, making progress on de-leverage. You would've seen just in the last 10 days an announcement about monetization of our Chobani minority equity and a broader deal that we struck with Hamdi and the Chobani team that we feel very good about. Continuing to progress the disentanglements required for separation, the TSAs, et cetera. The other thing I'd tell you is making good progress on the new corporate identities. Newsflash, Lauren, these two companies will not be called BevCo. and Global Coffee Co. There will be proper names. That's well underway, so we'll have the new names, the new corporate identities, the new strategic frameworks, et cetera, so that we're ready for next year.
Finally, get ready for early in the year Investor Day, investor roadshow, investor narrative. So great progress on separation. Third and final, and most important, deliver on our base business commitments. You saw our Q2 print. It ended a very strong front half for the year. We feel very good about what we'll do in the back half. I'll ask Anthony to talk in more detail, but we feel good about the guidance we've provided and our ability to deliver on that guidance on a full-year basis in the back half. That's really underpinned by the way we've set up this interim operating structure. We've got strong TMO, transformation management office, capability, internal, external advisors to prosecute that transformation agenda while allowing the vast majority of our colleagues to focus on base business delivery.
We've also set up an interim operating structure of a coffee operating unit, a beverage operating unit, leaders accountable and empowered to deliver their results. Overall, the model's working well, no real surprises, and as I said, I think we're on track with this transformation and journey. You want to talk about 2026 outlook.
Great. Thanks, Tim. Good morning, everyone. Great to be here. Just a quick note, Tim and I will be making forward-looking statements this morning referencing non-GAAP metrics. Additional information is on our website and in our filings.
As Tim mentioned, the business is performing well. We had a strong first half, and we have good visibility to our full-year guidance, which we can reaffirm here this morning. Our top line is expected to be $25.9 billion-$26.4 billion. That is comprised of two parts, legacy KDP at the upper end of our 4%-6% range, and an incremental $8.5 billion-$8.7 billion contribution from JDE Peet's for the nine months of ownership. At EPS, we expect low double-digit constant currency EPS growth underpinned by legacy KDP at 4%-6% and an additional six to seven points of accretion from the JDEP acquisition. For free cash flow, we are forecasting $2.5 billion of free cash flow, which will support our de-leveraging efforts, which I will talk about later.
As we do this, we are making investments in both of our coffee and beverage businesses to drive long-term sales growth. Sitting here today, we are very confident in the delivery of the guidance and positioning both companies, Global Coffee Co. and Beverage Co., for long-term success.
Great. Let us turn to where execution has been the strongest and talk a bit about the USRB business, broad-based sales growth. What gives you confidence in the durability of the momentum for that business?
Yeah, we are very pleased with U.S. Refreshment Beverages. As you look at our performance over the last couple of years, Lauren, you will see both on the top line and bottom line, high single digit, even in some quarters, low double-digit performance. I am not going to promise that type of performance going forward, per se, at the double-digit rate, but feel very good that U.S. Refreshment Beverage can continue to deliver on that algorithmic outlook of MSD sales and HSD EPS. Why, to your question. One, it starts with a great category. North American refreshment beverage, $300 billion TAM. I have worked in CPG 35 years across a lot of different categories. I would tell you, refreshment beverage in North America is one of the most attractive spaces in CPG. It is a consistent growing category. It is a very dynamic category.
It is a category where consumers continue to seek out new experiences, new brands that fit with their lifestyle, their wellness, and they are willing to pay for it. It is also a fairly rational category as it relates pricing dynamics. For those reasons, we continue to favor the category in which we compete. Number two, our portfolio. I think we have an advantage portfolio. It is obviously anchored by our CSDs, Carbonated Soft Drinks position, flagship Dr Pepper, obviously largest among them. But this is a $50 billion category, once again, a consistent grower, and I think still has tailwinds for growth. It is still on a price per ounce basis, is one of the most affordable verticals within LRB, and that suggests to me with the right innovation and RGM tools that we and other leaders bring, that category can continue to grow. I like our portfolio within it.
CSDs is roughly half cola, half flavor. We are the leader in flavor. Youth are attracted more to flavor CSDs, multicultural, so there is a lot of growth tailwind there. We have strong positions there. Another trend in CSDs we feel great about is zero sugar. Dr Pepper is now the second largest zero sugar brand in the marketplace, and over $1 billion in retail sales. You would have seen in Q2, I mentioned, at a 30% growth rate. So like that position. Beyond CSDs, we have done, I think, a good job of evolving our portfolio into more growth accretive consumer preferred spaces. Think energy, right? Four years ago, we basically had a zero share in energy. If you look at the most recent scanner data, last month, we crossed a 10 share in energy. Sports hydration, ready to drink coffee. I see you enjoying the La Colombe there. Premium water.
So we have done a good job of building out the portfolio. The third and final point I would make is around our capabilities, right? Whether it is the strength of the brands, the precision marketing capability at KDP that we are investing in and will get better. We can talk more about that if you wish. Our DSD capability and the way that we go to market with that DSD strength, and I think our secret sauce is just our attitude, our entrepreneurial challenger culture in the company. You put all that together, it does suggest to me that the strength you have seen in U.S. Refreshment Beverage can and will continue.
Going forward, do you expect Beverage Co . Or BevCo under its eventual name to be more selective or simply more flexible in how it pursues partnership opportunities? How should we think about the longer-term contribution of owned versus partner or distributed brands to that mid-single digit algorithm for BevCo?
Let me start first talking about our white space strategy and how we approach that as it relates to partners, and then Anthony can kick in and talk about how partners versus owned brands play into the growth algorithm, as you said there at the end. For us, it is about continuing to curate a portfolio that is exposed to consumer preferred growth accretive spaces. And when we see a durable, attractive white space, we look to capitalize on that opportunity.
Where the non-negotiables are, will we have brands that have enduring strength in that area? And will our model, our economic model, generate attractive returns? But with those two non-negotiables, we are actually quite flexible in how we get there. And let me demonstrate that through the last few years' examples. We talk at KDP about a build by partner approach, a flexible approach. So examples could be, we see a white space, and we elect to take an existing brand within our portfolio, extend it into that adjacency with our own R&D, our own supply chain, our own capital investment, DSD. That is a build example. You could do a partner example purely on a distribution agreement. We have a track record of doing just that. Most recent great example is Electrolit. Electrolit is now America's fastest-growing scaled sports hydration brand.
We are the distribution partner with Grupo PiSA, created a great win-win partnership there, didn't require capital. Third example would be a minority ownership. A good example there is what we have done with Nutrabolt, Doss Cunningham, our great partner, with brands like C4 Energy and Bloom Nutrition, and energy and prebiotic sodas. There is a minority ownership and a distribution agreement. And the final example is an outright acquisition. In the case of GHOST, we elected the best return would be to buy that business outright and consolidate that into our financials while keeping all the founders and what made GHOST great. As you can see, Lauren Lieberman, it is a flexible approach. It is not a one-size-fits-all. It is bespoke to the opportunity, where what we are looking to do is do it, as I said, in a capital discipline way and one where we have really got the returns and the long-term sustainability in mind.
Anthony, talk about growth versus partner brands in the algo.
Sure. Look, over the last few years, both our own brands and our partner brands have contributed to top-line gro wth, and it has been relatively balanced over the last few years. As we look ahead, we expect both to contribute to top-line growth going forward. Certainly, our own brands and Carbonated Soft Drinks led by Dr Pepper, GHOST Energy, some of our still beverage icon brands as well. Our partner brands, C4 Energy and Bloom Nutrition, Tim talked about Electrolit, Vita Coco, are all growth brands for us. We will also likely to enter new categories or segments that Tim talked about in terms of our model. In terms of the algorithm, the mid-single-digit top-line growth, we expect both to contribute. With healthy profitability, they support the HSD EPS algorithm as well.
Okay. As we approach the separation, we have definitely been getting more questions about the economics of partner brands versus own brands. Maybe we can talk about that a little more. Are there minimum economic or strategic conditions a brand needs to meet before it deserves space in your DSD system?
Yeah, I can take that one. We certainly expect our partner brands to contribute meaningfully to top and bottom-line growth. They are both strategic and economic thresholds that these brands need to meet. From a strategic point of view, the categories in which they compete need to be growing and have growth potential. The brands need to resonate with consumers. They need to have a right to win. It needs to be a transaction that leverages KDP's capabilities, so it is a win-win for the partner and for KDP. On the economic side, there are a few things that we look at. On a standalone basis, the sales potential has to be there, the distribution margin has to be attractive. There are several additional benefits. There is operating leverage. As we put more volume through our system, we can leverage our fixed costs across more cases.
There is what we call a halo effect. When, again, when you put more volume in our system, we can have greater frequency in stores. We can have larger drop sizes. This improves that customer relationship as well. The third benefit that we look for is potential minority stake investments that Tim talked about. You put that all together, and it is a healthy economic contribution. In fact, when you look back historically, since 2021, the mix of partner brands has increased. Yet at the same time, our operating margin in U.S. Refreshment Beverages has increased by almost 100 basis points since 2021. We would expect this dynamic to continue going forward and to support the MSD HSD algorithm.
Okay, great. When I think about flexibility and the rationales of split, one of them is to give more flexibility to BevCo. You have talked about investing differently in this as a standalone business. Stance on DSD is really clear. Where would you say, though, you are still most, the BevCo piece, is most subscale? What are the next logical opportunities to improve the route to market model? Anthony, you were speaking to volume through the system. How much of it is that volume through the system versus changes in territories?
Operating model or digital tools and retailer-level execution?
Mm-hmm. Good. Let me start with why DSD matters, why it is so critical, and then get to your question on what we are doing to invest and to optimize our system. Fundamentally, in CPG, there is a basic growth model that says you need to make your brands mentally available and physically available. I believe in that basic premise. We are a brand-led company. We are here to build our brands, and both through mental and physical availability, that is how we will achieve success. Physical availability is absolutely critical in beverage, right? You want that beverage at every channel, at every outlet, whenever that consumer has a need or a demand space for a beverage. DSD is the critical and scarce asset to capitalize on that growth opportunity. You would know that at what will be BevCo, we are one of only three national providers of coast-to-coast DSD.
We cover, with our own system, 80% of the U.S. population, and the balance through great partners. DSD gives distribution depth, breadth. It gives cooler space, that is critical. It gives multiple points of interruption. It allows for superior merchandising and really influence at that local store level. DSD is also very local. It is not a national, again, one size fits all. For us, to your question, what is most important for me is access to and influence over the winning local DSD operation. When we look at any given territory, any given geography, we think about a few factors. One is scale. What is the scale required to run an efficient and effective DSD? Scale is the biggest friend to a DSD operation. There is a big fixed cost associated, and so you need that scale. The second is the operator's growth orientation, and importantly, their focus on our brands.
If it is my team, I know we are going to get the focus because it is KDP. But if it is a third party, are they going to give the focus to Dr Pepper, Canada Dry, et cetera, that it deserves, that our consumers deserve. The third is obviously economics, deciding whether I want to invest in that locally and the capital required for that, will I get a return, versus through a third party, and then it is a margin game. And the final consideration, Lauren, would be contractual rights, because you would know, as a long-term beverage student, the labyrinth or mosaic of the contracts of refreshment beverage distribution is quite a thing. And we will always respect the contractual rights that we have that have come before us.
When you look at those four factors I have just outlined, I would tell you it, in majority of cases, favors our own ownership of KDP. And that is why you have seen us continue to invest. And to your question, I would say we invest in three areas. Number one is adding additional scale, and that is through the organic growth of our own brands like Dr Pepper, Canada Dry, 7UP, whatever, as well as these new partnerships. The halo effect that Anthony DiSilvestro just mentioned, adding the Electrolit, the La Colombe, the C4, et cetera, adds scale and helps that virtuous cycle grow. Second is new territories. You have seen us be opportunistic on new territory opportunities, and we will continue to be. We look at every one when it comes available. We have done 25+ since KDP has come to fruition the last eight years.
I have done three or four in my tenure as well. Kalil in Arizona would be one recent example. And then the third area of investment is around tools, digital tools in particular. Obviously, handhelds, system, order taking, order fulfillment, and selling tools so that our men and women are really focused on value add. In the end, our DSD philosophy is not just ownership for ownership sake. It is about investing in the strength of the local winning system at attractive returns for our shareholders.
Okay, great. Wanted to talk a little bit specifically about the BevCo portfolio. You mentioned Dr Pepper Zero Sugar growing nearly 30% this last quarter, Dr Pepper Creamy Coconut LTO tracking ahead of its prior run. How do you think about the runway for the Dr Pepper brand? With so many compelling brands in your CSD portfolio, how do you think about driving success more broadly? What do you see as the highest return opportunities for incremental investment, and what determines which brands move to the front of the line?
Well, let's definitely start with Dr Pepper, our largest brand in the portfolio, a $6 billion retail sales brand. You would know, Lauren, two summers ago, we passed another brand and are now the second largest brand in the CSD category, and that's a leadership position that's only strengthened in the last two years. We are the number one brand, Dr Pepper, among teens today. That's a good indicator of future health, vitality of the brand. We're a brand that very much invests in continuous recruitment to really fortify that share. In fact, year to date, Lauren, we're on track for share growth, and when we achieve it will be our 10th consecutive year of market share growth on brand Dr Pepper. When you say, "Okay, what's behind that?" I'd point to a few things. One is very distinctive positioning. A brand needs great positioning.
It needs to be distinctive. Dr Pepper is, right? What is Dr Pepper? It's not a cola. It's Dr Pepper. It's a unique blend of 23 flavors. Not only does that come through the liquid itself, but it's the brand personality. We talk about we're a unique, one-of-a-kind brand, and I think for youth and a lot of our consumer cohorts, they identify with that because they're unique and one of a kind too, and that brand speaks to them. So a distinctive positioning. Really strong marketing, and marketing that we're investing to get even better, more precise, and more personalized, but it's a hell of a platform. Right now, I don't know if there are college football fans here in the room in Boston, but college football is back. Dr Pepper, it's one of our biggest platforms, college football. Fansville, ninth season, our strongest season yet.
A lot of surprises coming, if you're a football fan. Winning innovation, you mentioned. This year was Dr Pepper Creamy Coconut, blockbuster success. Last year was blackberry. We've done strawberries and cream. Dr Pepper Zero Sugar, big success. So winning innovation. Then finally, the last element of that success toolkit for me is the strength of sales execution at DSD, whether it's our own or a partner brand. So that's really the playbook that has worked on Dr Pepper. To your question, then we now have the opportunity to extend that playbook to other brands. We're doing that, and I would say we're in the early innings of that, which is why I'm bullish on continued growth potential on USRB. Let me give you two examples. First, Canada Dry. Canada Dry, billion-dollar-plus brand, far and away leader in ginger ale.
Distinctive positioning, all about the demand space of a relax and rejuvenate time, kind of kick your heels up after a tough, chaotic day with the kids at work, whatever. It is your time to relax with a refreshing Canada Dry ginger ale. Really anchor the brand there, understanding the occasion, the demand space, the consumer. Great marketing. We launched a campaign earlier this year we call Dry Time is My Time. It is your time to unplug and relax. That has seen great returns, significantly better than what we have seen before. Winning innovation, part of the playbook. We launched this Fruit Splash platform two years ago. Crisp, delicious taste of ginger with a splash of cherry juice, a splash of strawberry juice. Finding that platform to be highly incremental to the base business, driving overall trademark sales, great sales execution.
The other shout-out I am going to give too in our brand portfolio is 7UP. 7UP, you think about, Lauren, 7UP from when we were kids, the Uncola . The big lemon-lime brand. Our marketing group has really come up with a clever relaunch. It is our largest relaunch of 7UP in at least 15 years. It just broke a couple of weeks ago. Actually, here at Barclays Boston, in the coolers out there, if you have not tried it, we have got the new 7UP formula. I encourage you to try. We are having a little fun, Lauren, and if you indulge me for 30 seconds. You know that that segment is lemon-lime soda. The clever idea the marketing guys came up with is why does lemon get all the love here? What is it about lemon? Lemon pastries, lemon cleaning products, lemon-lime soda. Why is not it lime-lemon?
We have done a lot of work around lime over lemon. There is this whole campaign. You know who is keeping lemon on top? The Lemonati. We are leading the resistance for a lime-lemon soda. So we have got an all-new formula, lime over lemon. We have got a new visual ID. We have got a really clever marketing campaign. I think that is part of the success formula you are going to start to see employed across these brands. All told, got a lot of confidence that we can continue to grow, not only Dr Pepper, but many of our other brands as well.
Okay, great. Let us shift gears to coffee. Starting with U.S. coffee business disappointed in the second quarter. How should we distinguish between issues that are cyclical, like elasticity to elevated pricing because of green coffee inflation and tariffs, or issues that are actually more strategic, like format competition or the rise of private label in pods?
Yeah. If you look at the most recent print in Q2, I think coffee in aggregate delivered a solid quarter. But you definitely see diverging trends between legacy JDE Peet's Coffee and U.S. Coffee. Since your question was U.S. Coffee, let's go there. Q2 was a little weaker than we had anticipated. Our profit declined at a rate similar to what we saw in Q1. Why? The primary factor was cost, a highly unfavorable cost envelope. You would know that last year, C price hit an all-time high. We've also shared that given our inventory positions, our hedging forward buy strategies, there's quite a lag between C price when it hits the market and the P&L impact. About six to nine months. We saw peak unfavorable green coffee price pressure in the second quarter. Second, tariffs.
Tariffs were quite a headwind for us in Q2 as well. In addition to that, there was volume mix pressure. The volume mix pressure manifested in two ways. I think it all comes back to a bit of a pressured consumer, particularly low and mid income, who is exhibiting a bit more value-seeking behaviors in aggregate. I would say in particular in coffee, given that coffee is a high dollar per unit ring in the grocery store and has experienced multiple years of inflationary impact. These two factors were, one, we saw a bit of occasion leakage from our single-serve U.S. coffee stronghold into other more affordable formats, like instant coffee, like a big pot of black drip coffee. The other dynamic is you saw a little bit of growth of private label.
While we actually manufacture both private label and brand in our K-Cup line, no doubt our share position is stronger in branded and our margin position is stronger. So you saw that unfavorable mix. When you hear all of that, Lauren, I do think to your question, we would say this is cyclical, not structural. This is a response to a highly inflationary environment that hit our P&L in the front half, and that is temporarily impacting consumer behavior. I've been in coffee for decades, in a past life as well, and you see that especially on the tail end of an inflationary period. So what about going forward? In the back half, I expect a very different picture. Let's start with costs.
I think the headwind you saw in Q1 and Q2 on green coffee costs, as well as tariff costs, turns far more favorable and begins to present itself as a tailwind. Second is you will see good brewer shipments in the back half, a good early indicator of the future. We will grow household penetration again this year of Keurig installed base, and you will see a far more favorable pod trend. Next, you're going to see early synergies floating through the U.S. coffee P&L, as U.S. coffee and legacy Peet's Coffee come together for one U.S. coffee business. Then finally, Anthony said this on the earnings call, the Peet's K-Cup business will shift from a reporting segment standpoint from JDE Peet's and U.S. Coffee.
Yeah.
For all those reasons, we are anticipating a much improved back half on U.S. coffee relative to front half.
Okay, great. When we think about coffee more broadly, the combined entity, what should investors look for over the next year to believe this is becoming a stronger coffee platform rather than just a larger one? What do you think is the timeline to realize some of the revenue synergies for the broader coffee business that you have talked about?
Yeah. Look, ultimately, I expect the strength of this new platform to be evident in the results that we produce. I am going to start with the category here again. Global coffee is a $400 billion TAM. It is a consistent growth category. In fact, if you look over the last four decades, you would see round about a 2% volume CAGR and a value or sales CAGR even stronger. It is a ubiquitous habit, a wonderful habit. I cannot imagine starting the day without coffee every day. In fact, here in North America, it is the number two most consumed beverage behind water, mostly tap water. Globally, it is the number three, which also presents a growth opportunity. It is behind water, tea, and then coffee.
When you see a lot of the emerging world in global coffee, you see a step-by-step shift from tea culture to coffee culture among youth, another tailwind in addition to premiumization. So we know what it takes to win in this category. Scale matters in global coffee, brands matter in coffee, and a set of capabilities oriented around consumer orientation. The platform we are building, this new Global Coffee Co., is built for purpose to capitalize on that attractive category and really fortify those advantages. We will have leadership positions, number one or number two, in 35 markets around the world. We will have the scale in supply chain, in coffee procurement. I have already mentioned number one buyer of the coffee bean globally. We will have $4 billion brands and a host of $100 million- $500 million brands, kind of taste of the nation brands around the world.
We will have the breadth of the portfolio playing in every format, every major geography, channel, at home, away from home, to really fortify that look. As it relates, the combination benefits that you mentioned at the end of your question, there is definitely growth or revenue opportunities, and there is cost. Let me quickly hit on growth and revenue, and I will ask Anthony to hit on cost. I would point to three or four key areas right out of the gate. The first is Peet's Coffee. Peet's Coffee here in this country, it is a great brand, billion-dollar-plus brand, California origin provenance brand, really one of the pioneers, even before another brand you might know from Seattle, that pioneered coffee here in the U.S. in the early days.
There is an opportunity to extend that brand nationally on the back of the Keurig national footprint and the great partnerships and scale we have with our retailers. Second is the opportunity to take legacy Keurig brands, think Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, think The Original Donut Shop, licensed brands like McCafé, and extend those brands across all formats. Because here too, for legacy Keurig, we basically played in one swim lane, K-Cup single serve. We now have the set of capabilities to play across our brands. The third revenue opportunity I would speak to is around our systems or our brewers. One of the spikes of excellence of legacy Keurig is we know brewers. We do our own brewers in-house, right? We lead that innovation, and we do it in a profitable way. There is a lot we can bring to the JDE Peet's side as it relates brewers in that area.
The last one I just shout out here on stage that is timely is Keurig Alta, right? Keurig Alta, you would know, Lauren, is that new system. We are on track to launch that in a targeted way here in time for holiday 2026. Great new system. Brews every cup of coffee you would look for, high pressure espresso, cappuccino, latte, et cetera, long drip, black cup of coffee, and do it in a very sustainable way, plastic free, aluminum free. We will launch that here, but now courtesy of this combination, we can consider taking that on the road beyond the U.S. You want to touch on cost synergy?
Sure. We are targeting $400 million in cost synergies over a three-year period post-acquisition. They come from three buckets. The first is IT and SG&A. We will look to optimize the organizational structure. We will look to consolidate IT systems and vendors. We will look to increase the use of digital tools, including AI. The second area is procurement. Obviously, we have significant green coffee buying scale that we will leverage. We see efficiencies in other areas like packaging and media. Tim Cofer mentioned brewers. We will look to consolidate our brewer design as well. The third area is supply chain. There are significant opportunities to consolidate manufacturing and distribution, particularly in North America across Peet's Coffee and Keurig, and that activity is already happening. In support of these individual work streams, there are dedicated teams across KDP, JDEP, third party experts as well that are all contributing.
There are specific accountabilities and timetables, and there is a management review process supporting the whole thing. We are very confident in the delivery of the synergies. We started to see some in Q2. This will step up in the back half and improve into 2027 and 2028. Synergy attainment is an important part of the HSD EPS algorithm for future Coffee Co.
Okay, great. We are going to have to end there, and we are going to go to breakout. Please join me in thanking KDP, and also for the cooler of beverages all week, too.
Great.
Thank you.
Thank you.