All right. It's 3:45 P.M.
Yep.
We'll get started. I'm just gonna read this disclosure quickly.
Yep.
For important disclosures, please see the Morgan Stanley Research Disclosure website at www.morganstanley.com/researchdisclosures.
Yep.
If you have any questions, please reach out to your Morgan Stanley sales rep. So thank you, everyone, for joining this session. I'm Megan Kopp. I'm one of the consumer analysts here at Morgan Stanley, and I'm really.
I see.
Pleased to be here today with Nomad Foods, the company's CEO, Stéfan Descheemaeker, and the CFO, Ruben Baldew.
Very good.
For those unfamiliar, Nomad's a leading frozen foods company headquartered in the UK, and I'm sure we'll get into a lot more about, you know, what you are as a company. Maybe, Stefan, you know, it would be great if we could just start with a high-level overview of Nomad's story to set the stage for those who might be new here.
Yeah.
Can you spend a few minutes maybe just talking about the evolution of the company, where you stand today as we think about the future, what your priorities are?
When we started, actually, nine years ago, we were together, you know, the two leading brands in frozen food in Europe. I think what we liked from the start is two things. One is it's a good category, and it's proven, we've proven to be right. And second, we're the leader. So the combination of both is, in FMCG, they definitely like to be the leader. You don't like to be the number two or number three, and there is a direct correlation in terms of margin. So that's the first, the starting point. From there, you know, I think we've been through a series of interesting ups and downs, but overall, you know, we've always have delivered. So we've been through a turnaround to start with.
Then we've been through Brexit, COVID, Ukraine crisis, inflation, and well, every year, you know, between 2016 until today, we've been able to grow sales, EBITDA, and EPS every year. So year in, year out, despite all these things. So it says something about probably the resilience of the team, but also very much about the resilience of the brand, very much about the resilience of their category. And that's what we like. We like, you know, this, we like being the leader of a good category. I think today in the food industry, that's absolutely critical, especially at a time where food has to differentiate to define whether they belong to good food or not so good food. We like to believe that, you know, we're good food.
93% of our business is about non-high in fat, sugar, and salt. Two-thirds of the business is about vegetable. It's about poultry, and it's about fish. I don't think you'll find a lot of companies doing the same. I think it's also time now to make, you know, to accentuate the difference between us, good food, and other people. That's something probably for the next 10 years because it doesn't happen overnight. You need to change the perception, but the reality is there.
Great. And I wanna come back to a lot of that, but maybe, Ruben, we can move to you briefly. So you joined the company in April, I believe it was.
June.
You know, spent 17 years of your career at Unilever, so can you just talk a little bit about what attracted you to Nomad? What have been some of the biggest surprises over the last six months, maybe good and bad, if you don't mind, and kind of how are you thinking about the opportunities going forward in your first full year with the company?
Yeah. Well, what attracted me from the outset, I knew the brands. I actually started my first role just fresh out of university in ice cream and frozen food, like 23, 24 years ago. But what really, you know, having started in June, and one of the questions I actually had, you know, in the application process was very much, how strong is the category? I always believe that you wanna play in a category which has strong fundamentals. And I'll come to the fundamentals, but actually, the category we're playing in, in Europe, frozen food, has outpaced total FMCG in Europe, growing 3% in the last 10 years, so more than a percent, around a percent more than the average.
You can have many reasons why that is, but one of the personal beliefs I have, and it's what Stefan also said, it's healthy, nutritious food. You know, from field to frozen, like in certain countries, is within 90 minutes, and then you preserve the nutritional benefits, you preserve the health benefit, it's more tasty. I like food. I like the tasting sessions at Nomad with innovation. So, I think then there's a benefit of less waste, and probably because of less waste, it's also more affordable for consumers. It's convenient. So I really like the category. That is, I think, what attracted me from the outside, but actually coming in and seeing it from the inside, it actually is more confirmed than I thought. We're well-positioned, you know, to further what Stefan just said, strong brands.
I think also coming in, and I can say it because I haven't done it, is the capabilities built in terms of RGM, especially after years where a lot of pricing has to be taken. It is quite impressive. We had some questions today, or what do you see, inflation or not, but I think we have the toolkit, the capabilities built to be very sophisticated and sharp, how, if, and how we're going to do pricing on all levers, promo, normal pricing mix, all of that. I think how we're doing CRM. And lastly, I like the people, you know, in terms of right mindset, team collaboration, but also, we're smaller than some of the other companies, and with that comes more speed and a bit of an edge, which attracted me. So far, so good.
Awesome. Well, let's maybe talk about something which you both talked about, which is good and bad food, as you put it.
Yeah.
And there's obviously a lot of talk in the food world today about GLP-1.
Yeah.
Potential policy changes with RFK maybe getting into the administration, just general consumer preferences for healthy lifestyles. And I think frozen foods can sometimes get a bad reputation, as it relates to how it fits into that all of those themes. So, maybe just talk a little bit more about how you think your portfolio is positioned for some of these changes and what's underappreciated about it.
You have two things. One is frozen food, and when you think about what frozen food can deliver, no additives, you know, it's about water, and it's about ice, and that's it. And then, quite frankly, the waste level is great. So it's really, I mean, in terms of health, it's really great. On top of that, you're adding what we're playing in frozen food, which is really mostly about these categories. So it's the combination of both, as frozen food and these categories. We're spot on in terms of, I think you guys, you know, Morgan Stanley came with something like early samples of how the U.S. people, you know, how they eat, what they eat, and what we've seen. It's early days, again.
It's well, they eat less first, but they eat more of basically good food, which is exactly where we are. I think it goes beyond Ozempic, let's face it. I think it's a big question. It's a question of obesity. It's a question of health collectively, individually. But you know what? I don't know any example of people becoming obese because they're eating too many fish sticks, you know, quite frankly. So that doesn't happen. So we believe that, yeah, it's and if there are questions about, well, you know, about should we tax bad food? Well, I think it's an interesting idea.
All right. Fair enough, and you talked about this a little bit too. You're the market leader.
Yeah.
You're starting to see you've seen positive volumes. Your market share inflected, and this is despite some, you know, maybe transitory issues from the ERP implementation.
Yeah.
So, taking a step back, you know, can you talk about the underlying momentum you've seen in the business? What's driven that? How that gives you confidence as we, you know, head into 2025?
The first thing is, when you are in high inflation, and we've been in high inflation at the retailer level in 2022, and then high inflation in 2023 at the consumer level, and also the first part of 2024, it's a great time for private label. I think people are really concerned about, you know, their own money, and we're never going to be able to compete price-wise with these guys, and we shouldn't, by the way. I think we just need to really, you know, monitor the price difference. RGM is a great tool for us because it doesn't limit us, we don't limit ourselves to price. It's more promotions in all the other tools, which is great.
But what we see is, well, you know, I think retailers back in 2022, 2023, only were talking about price. Now we're starting to go to talk about quality. We're starting to talk about A&P. We're starting to talk about innovation, and that's the kind of things where, in a mild inflation, you know, which is exactly where we stand right now, I think obviously people like us, you know, brand-wise, if they're doing the proper job, you know, obviously have the ability to take market share back from private label. Not necessarily we lost it, but in the categories where we want to gain market share.
Maybe you could talk a little bit about that piece specifically, you know, private label share gains maybe stalling because I think, you know, we're seeing a little bit of a different picture in the U.S. So how's the outlook for the Europe consumer today? Is there a better environment for food, in your opinion, in Europe than in the U.S., as you think about some of the things you've talked about, maybe the opportunity to gain back from private label?
The first thing is back to food and frozen food. Frozen food over the last decades in Europe has been slightly higher than food. So it says something about, you know, the people, whether we like, you know, the vegetation and all these things, which at least they like it, and rightly so. And there are reasons because it's affordable as well. In Europe, well, you have all these things. So, I think I would put it that way. I think, you know, inflation is going to be milder. I think it's always difficult to predict how you're getting out of a crisis. I think that's also a big lesson. We thought it would come faster, but it takes more time.
But at the same time, you know, I think we see the sellout and all these things, and it's what we see is people getting a little bit more confident. And the difference with frozen food maybe in the U.S. is, I mean, frozen food in the U.S. is really about pizza and about prepared meals, ready meals. Ours is really about all the things we mentioned. That probably is also a reason, you know, we're doing reasonably fine.
Okay. Makes sense, and then, you know, you talked about it just maybe in a more benign inflation environment.
Yeah.
Ruben, you talked about some of the RGM sophistication. How are you thinking about pricing going forward? Obviously, in 3Q, you had a little bit of an anomaly as it relates to price, but how are you thinking about the ability to price going forward into 2025? And are retailers pressuring for concessions? Is kind of low to no price growth or maybe even deflation something that could occur in your mind in the foreseeable future?
I would say if the retailers were not trying to pressure to negotiate price, I would really feel uneasy, quite frankly. There must be something wrong with these guys because that's the name of their business as well. So it's price is going to be always a question. At the same time, what we know is, I think we're going to rely much less on inflation. In volume is going to be a bigger piece. But as we know, I think even 2022, 2023, sales were high, but sales were high with a whole lot of price and negative volume. Right now, our sales are going to be lower, but obviously with, you know, a much better, let's say, combination between volume and price, and we like it.
I think we can do a lot of things on top, obviously, of RGM, but with RGM in a lower inflation is obviously going to make a difference, but it's critical during high inflation. It's very useful during a lower inflation environment.
Okay. And I've brought it up multiple times now, but the ERP.
Yes.
system, and you know, you faced some challenges related to that in 3Q.
Yeah.
Can you just, you know, maybe for those who are less aware, including myself in the room about this, maybe spend a little bit more time discussing?
Yeah. Sure.
Exactly what transpired and kind of your confidence level that the growing pains, if you will, are behind us?
No. Sure. So maybe three things. What happened? Where are we now and the kind of interventions going forward? So what happened? We've gone live in our UK and Irish business, which is around 1/3 of our business, so $1 billion revenue for factories. So we've gone live big part of our business as a first go-live wave. And with every ERP change, you know, you change the system, you have to shut down the old system, you ramp up again. I think we've learned a lot in terms of how the system works, how it interacts with suppliers. We're actually going live also on a factory where we have a bit limited overcapacity because we see high demand in the market in terms of poultry. Now, if you look where we are currently, service levels have restored.
There's maybe less than 1% difference, but we're very confident, you know, either in the next weeks, but definitely in January, we're out of this, so I think this is kind of what happened and where we currently are. But I think more importantly going forward, and I think there are three things. As I already said, we've gone live for 1/3 of our business for factories. The future go-live waves, so to speak, will be a smaller size of business. Now, I think it's too early to exactly pinpoint how much, but kind of the current view is that next year won't even be, you know, half of this size, so we're going to kind of do smaller waves. The second bit is what you see with these kind of ERP implementation; it's really about training people at the factory line.
It's really about onboarding your suppliers. It's really about user-accepted testing, all these kind of things. So we're going to take our time for this, which means that if we talk about next year, and again, it's not formal, and we're looking at scenarios, but it will be in H2 and maybe more towards the back end of H2. So, we'll take time to do this properly. And the last bit, which I think is definitely not least important, is we know the system now. We know how it works. We know what I just said, the interaction with suppliers. There will be different things you will find out per country, but because we've gone live for such a big size of business, we are more equipped to know what we expect.
Okay. Awesome. Maybe a little bit more here and now, but, you know, your implied 4Q guide, I think, calls for sales growth and a wide range, 3%-7%.
Yeah.
Can you just talk about kind of your approach to guidance for the fourth quarter coming out of the challenges you saw in the third quarter? Obviously, you know, price maybe not as impactful as it was in the third quarter, but perhaps volume's a little bit better. And maybe because it was a wide range, what was assumed at the high end versus the low end?
I think what we've learned is also, as I said, it's the combination of two things. One is the end, the exit of this ERP situation. And second, the fact that, you know, the market remains volatile. And so we've decided, okay, by the way, 3%-7%, it's still, you know, a nice combination. So I would put it that way. So, what we see in the meantime, we haven't received all the numbers in terms of market share, but we've just received Italy, which is a big chunk, I think yesterday, up 0.5% market share in terms of sellout. It's sellout. It's not selling, but it's a good start. But definitely, you know, I think, as I said, you know, the market is volatile.
We prefer to be, I mean, to take, you know, a measured approach, I would put it that way.
Fair enough, and maybe, you know, we can shift gears a little bit to margins, and you've talked a lot this year about, you know, productivity and that being a driver of you've had some pretty impressive gross margin expansion. So what are the sources of the productivity you've seen so far, and how do you kind of think about the roadmap going forward from a productivity standpoint?
Yeah. Yeah. Maybe first a bit broader on the gross margin. So we've seen that drives in the gross margin is, you know, focus on our Must-Win Battles, which are more profitable, which drives mix. And maybe there are one or two quarters where that's a bit less, especially going quarter four because of a bit of a different supply. But I think if you look a bit more mid to long term, we will continue to drive that mixed benefit, which will help in the gross margin. The other bit, if you look at, you know, which also drive a year to date, there are efficiencies in our supply chain network in factories and logistics warehouses, and we think we have more room to go there.
Again, don't think about big factory closures or 200 basis points of increases year after year, but I think every year we should be able to get benefits there. So those are a couple of examples how we see how we can drive further gross margin benefits, and we call it really fuel for growth. Now, how that will fall to the bottom line, again, the strategy is really to invest in our products, to invest in our brands. So a big part of that is most likely A&P, but if we see and that links to RGM, if we see opportunity to actually use some of that gross margin benefit to invest a bit on shop, shop floor and some surgical price investment, we will also look at it, but it needs to lead to a return of volume and overall value creation.
Maybe, just to touch on that, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but you stated a goal to end A&P around 4% of sales this year, and you've talked about wanting to increase that. So as you think about A&P, do you have an idea or are you thinking about what the right level for A&P is, and are there certain brands and categories that you're looking to invest in more than others or markets?
Where are we going to invest more than others? Definitely, it's going to be the newly defined, you know, Must-Win Battles. We've done this in the past. For those, you know, who have monitored us and followed, we've been with us for quite a number of years. We started with the concept of Must-Win Battles something like nine, eight years ago, and we said, you know, we don't have enough money to reinvest behind everything. By the way, the very definition of strategy is to decide where you're going to invest and where you're not going to invest. It's simple. We decided, okay, 2/3 of the business is going to be Must-Win Battles, the best and brightest categories per country.
In other words, again, back to leadership, where you have the biggest market share and the best margin in the market, the best gross margin. And we've invested all A&P behind this and obviously all the talent and all the rest of it. And we've seen this, you know, every year, these categories growing by 5%, the rest growing by 0% and sometimes declining, which is absolutely fine by us because at the same time, you know, you see that, you know, the margin is improving and is increasing. What will happen after six, seven years is, well, the 2/3 became 90%. So again, you know, you need to do the same exercise, which is how can you be more choosy in terms of putting your money, your A&P money.
We've come up with a new range of Must-Win Battles, the really best and brightest, plus what we call the growth platforms, which is one or two maximum categories per country where we think, you know, with persistence, with patience, with investment, that these categories can become Must-Win Battles. Like, for example, poultry in Italy, which is a category we're building almost from scratch together with the retailers. That's exactly where we're investing A&P. The question is, you know, how much A&P should we invest? We started to reinvest in the second half of 2023. This year, we're investing much faster than inflation, much faster than sales. We're going to do the same next year.
Fair enough. Chicken, you mentioned in Italy. Can you talk a little bit, poultry? I think you like to call it. Can you talk a little bit about the progress there? Any, you know, metrics you can share from a share standpoint of where you are and benchmarks to think about what the incremental opportunity could be?
I think we like overall above and beyond Italy, by the way. We like Italy, Germany, UK. We like the nickname for us in terms of poultry is that it's going to be the new fish. So that's the big thing. We're not there yet, but we can see, by the way, that across the board, not limited to us, you see that, let's say, the growth of poultry consumption in Europe is really remarkable, even compared to fish, which is more expensive, by the way. Poultry is coming with the right components of protein. It's healthy. It's very versatile in terms of what you can do with the product. I mean, what we have in the UK is remarkable.
Then, you know, in Italy, I think you're starting from scratch and you have, I mean, numbers like 40% plus five to 50%. Again, a bit of marketing numbers you're starting from a lower level, obviously. So these numbers are going to slow down at some stage as obviously it's going to be bigger, but definitely, we're going to grow much faster. The trade likes it. The trade likes it because it's a good margin business for them. We're starting something new, so it's a win-win.
Do you have the capacity?
Yes. We do have the capacity for the next two years and a half. So we actually invested behind a new big line, you know, two years ago in the UK.
Okay. Great. Maybe we can just shift gears, big picture to innovation. It's certainly been a bigger focus, and you've talked about it a little bit, but can you just, again, maybe if we take a step back, talk about how your process is related to building that innovation pipeline, where the ideas are sourced, how that's changed over the last couple of years?
Yeah. Well, let me start. It's a good segue with poultry in Italy. Now I may shock you, but I would say poultry in Italy coming from what we have in the UK, which is basically an adaptation, a bit of changes because for the Italian mode, let's say, taste, it's an innovation for us because for the consumer in Italy, it's an innovation. What I really like about it, it's an innovation that is already proven in other countries. What we see is innovation. Don't get me wrong, it's exciting, it's great, you need it, but the success ratio is obviously smaller than renovation by definition. Here, basically, we have something which is proven. What we have is a lower risk innovation, this lift and launch.
We have a lot of examples within the organization where we have some great products, you know, in some countries. We believe, you know, they could be a must-win battle or growth platform in other countries. We are adapting if needed, you know, the product and off we go. In the meantime, we're also starting. We believe we're working on our strengths. For example, next year, probably Q3, Q4, we're going to come with, you know, frozen food really dedicated to high protein, and we have what it takes. So it's kind of. These are examples of the kind of things we're going to do. On both, we're feeling very comfortable. It's going to be a success.
Awesome. I want to pause there just to see if there's like 10 minutes. Let's see if there's any questions in the room. Any brave souls?
Yeah. Two.
Your efforts in ice cream, are they foreshadowing in any way or?
No.
No?
No, no. It's working well.
I just want to repeat for the webcast here, so your efforts in ice cream, are they foreshadowing in any way?
Yes.
Foreshadowing, what do you mean?
Do they suggest that there's greater ambitions inside of ice cream?
Oh, inside ice cream. Well, you know, for example, if you're asking me, well, am I, are we going to build, you know, the Ledo brand, which is a great brand in Croatia, and we're going to introduce it in the UK? Absolutely not. That would be totally contrary to the concept of, of Must-Win Battles. I think you're dealing in the UK, for example, with big guys like Unilever, even if they're trying to build, to build, to, to sell their business with Magnum and then Froneri. We're not, we're not going to do this. However, we've, we've been surprised. For example, you know, the trade in, in Austria asked us, you know, we would like to have your brand in Vienna. And why? Because, you know, basically, there is a community of 500,000 Croats in the country. So we're going to, we're going to do this.
But again, we are a strong believer of being a leader in a category. And so building a category from scratch, you know, like this in countries which are very mature already and where, you know, the big guys are there, we're going to waste our money, and we don't want to do this.
Thank you. All my questions would have been similar simply on offsetting opportunities for peer acquisition.
For the acquisitions, yeah, there are opportunities in acquisitions. Well, the first thing is, are we obsessed by becoming big for the sake of becoming big? No, absolutely not. So we like this positioning of being the leader in a good category. The category has what it takes to grow organically. And there are also some other businesses that we could acquire, all new categories where we are present in some countries. For example, we did it in the UK with pizza and with Yorkshire pudding. And it generated a lot of synergies, which is great. Or we could acquire a new business like Findus Switzerland, which is the leader. So two different businesses, but again, very focused behind Must-Win Battles, behind the frozen food. We're not going to deviate from this.
You still have a sizable number of opportunities. At the same time, well, you know, we were talking to an investor today who has a good business, local business, good brand, leadership, leader brand in a given country. The ask price, the asking price was $12. Our stock price is $8. The math do not work. The math are working when we are trading at around $10, and we can buy something at $10.5, and then we know that, you know, with all the synergies, we can bring the final price down to $8, thereabouts. At this stage, doesn't work. The best acquisition we can do at this stage is buying our shares.
By the way, I'm on cross-selling and also linking ice cream. It's a great business, great ice cream business, high, high premium, but a brand, you know, Stefan just alluded to, is also branded with frozen food.
Yeah.
You can talk about cross-selling, you know, we have quite a bit of expertise in frozen food, fish, vegetables, so actually leveraging our product capabilities into that market because we've both go-to-market access, and this is how we look at it.
Is it changing a little bit your logistics system for ice cream that's in Austria now, or?
No, no. It's very, it's very simple. It's been produced in Croatia.
Yeah.
And it's been sent, you know, by truck to the number two retailer there, and well, in the DCs, and it's working well. No, it's good. And by the way, we're taking a bit of space during the summertime, which is great. So we like it.
Anyone else? No? Maybe, you know, related to some of these questions, anything that, maybe just big picture, how does it's been a few years since you've done an acquisition, so understand the math doesn't matter.
Yeah.
12 times, eight times, but how, how does M&A kind of thing fit into your priorities today, just given, you know, your history with?
You know, M&A was, is my background. So, I like M&A. I don't love M&A. In other words, you know, I'm not going to fall in love with the deal for the sake of a deal. I think I'm taking a very surgical approach behind M&A. For the first three years between 2015, 2016, 2017, we had no right to play in the M&A game because we had first to build our business, the business model. So why would you, you know, do M&A when your business is not in the right order? Then we had, you know, this M&A period between 2017 and 2021, I would put it that way, four years, fine. We did, you know, four deals in four years.
Since then, you know, I think we had the first two years, 2022, 2023, quite frankly. I think we had other things to do during that time. We just had to make sure that, you know, we would go through the pricing trees and all these things. So, and anyway, the market was gone. Since then, you know, it's starting to come back, but again, I think it's going to be, if these guys, you know, are able to sell their business at 12 times, good for them. Well, it says something, you know, at some stage we should consider the investors. Why don't you buy your shares at 12 times, you know, that's some stage, and if they don't buy it, if they don't sell it at 12, then we have a conversation later.
But we're not going, I think we have a good track record in terms of M&A by being focused, but also by being rigorous. And we're then going to change this.
How, what's your appetite to get more into the U.S. market?
Let me start. I purposely started with, you know, we are in a category that we like. It's a good category, but we're also the leader in every country where we are. To be the leader in the U.S., well, it's a big thing. And we don't want to be the number three, the number four, because I can tell you in all the FMCG business I've seen, including, by the way, retail. Be the number one, maybe the number two. Don't be the number three. So then, you know, you're talking about big business. And, well, some big business are there, but again, I think it's a question of currency. And, at this stage, you know, we don't have the currency. It's a fact.
You know, you can decide to cry about it or then to be about. Well, you have to decide, okay, fine. Well, let's go. Let's move on. Let's deliver. Let's make sure that, you know, we're coming with the right guidance next year, which is something that I didn't do well this year. Then, let's move on. Well, you know, every multiple point is going to help, and it's, by the way, worth our dollars.
Okay. Going back to the good, good food versus bad food, I think we talked in an earlier meeting about, you know, the definition of processed, and I think inherently fish sticks are technically a processed food.
Yeah.
So what are you focused on? This is more, I guess, of a medium-longer-term question, but what are you, you know, how are you participating in educating and, you know, lobbying and things of that nature to make sure?
More and more we're becoming vocal, I think, and we don't want to limit ourselves to the UK. I think we're working with all the players, all our leaders in the countries to make sure that they're going to deliver this message, not only to the media. Media is an important piece, but also to the trade. Trade likes it, you know, it's back to their values in terms of, again, I mean, good food. I think the trade doesn't like the idea that they're going to limit themselves to non-processed food. I think it's difficult. By the way, I'm not sure that it's remarkable, not very scientific, but also, is it, you know, realistic to feed the whole population in the world with non-processed food?
That's a bit difficult. I think what we've done is, for example, in pizza, we've reformulated, you know, our business was really too high in terms of fat, sugar, and salt. And what we've done is we reformulated, you know, while respecting the taste, we've reformulated all our pizza. They're all now below the level. We're very proud of that. That's reformulation. That's not a bad word for me.
Are there any other categories where you might think or need to do reformulation or you feel like you're good at this point?
I think it's a never-ending story. I think there are always things that we can do better. And so, as I said, you know, besides ice cream, which is 5% of our business, 93% of our business is. It's a UK definition, sorry for that, but it's a non-high in fat, sugar, and salt. So non-HFSS, it's terrible. UPF works better, by the way, from that standpoint. We still need to find something which is a bit more catchy. But it's scientific there anyway. So 93%. Well, the ambition is to keep that level or even increase sometimes, aside from any acquisition where we obviously have to come back, but to progress. Not at the expense of taste. So that's a very important piece. We know we want to be affordable, we want to be healthy, and we want to be tasty.
I think the big learning also from the what we've seen in terms of plant protein, which was sustainable, but more expensive, not necessarily tasty at that time. Also, by the way, in terms of ingredients debatable. I think we all have learned from these lessons, and I think, you know, these three things are very important for the consumers: taste, price, and health.
Makes sense. Okay. We probably have time for one more. Anyone, any brave souls in the room? Anyone else? Okay. That all ends maybe on a softball that we've already.
Okay.
Maybe we've already answered, but what do you think is the most underappreciated part of Nomad's story today by the investor community?
I think, you know, that way, I think the market doesn't see the growth, and that is the underlying growth in this business. I think we suffered from the risk profile of the business increased, you know, during the war with the question of fish and all the rest of it. I think we have totally changed the whole thing. Obviously, with the fish, by the way, with new acquisitions with the fish growth, chicken growing faster has moved from 42% to 1/3. And by the way, our dependency on Russian fish has decreased as well. So that the risk profile has really decreased a lot. And I don't think it has been, what we lost has not been regained.
Second is, well, you know, well, the last, as I'm starting with what I'm going to finish with what I started. Well, nine years of growth, sales have been down EPS. You may say, well, you know, the past is the past, but at least we have a good track, we have a very good track record. We think, you know, this combined with a good category and leadership, we have what it takes to grow in the stock price right now.
Awesome. Great place to end. Thank you, Stefan, Ruben, for being here, and thanks everyone in the room and on the webcast for joining.