Absolutely, thank you so much for taking the time. I'm excited to revisit some of the medium and nearer-term topics and questions that I've been getting with investors, because obviously your name has been quite topical in all of my meetings. I think maybe, Tracey, we could take a step back and start with the medium-term algorithm, and then take it from there. When you started the year, the intention was to generate low single-digit growth in 2023, accelerating to mid-single digit growth in 2024. Obviously, a lot has changed this year competitively in the U.S. That said, industry fundamentals are also normalizing. Can we just start off by level setting on your mid-single digit aspiration and dimensionalize how you're thinking about geographic contributions to that?
Okay, sure. So, look, when we issued our medium-term guidance on our Q4 2022 call, we did say that we anticipated delivering higher top and bottom line growth rates over that period than we expected in 2023, so beyond 2023. And at the time, the 2023 guidance was the low single-digit constant-currency growth for both top and bottom line. We also said at that point that we expected to see margin improvement over the medium term, which supported our goal to continue to premiumize our portfolio, with our above premium to reach around a third of our global NSR in the medium term. So yeah, you're right.
Certainly, things have changed quite a bit since then, and those changes then led us to raise our key financial guidance on our Q2 call, to a high single-digit NSR growth and 23%-26% underlying pre-tax growth. And again, both are on a constant currency basis. So, yeah, a lot has happened this year, which allowed us to do that. In terms of dimensionalizing the contributions, I mean, certainly the U.S. is our largest market, and we expect to grow that, you know, obviously, with what has happened. But we also expect growth across our entire business. So if we look at Q2, as an example, our two biggest brands in our biggest market obviously played a large role.
But our entire business contributed meaningfully as well. So if we look at Simply Spiked, for example, in the US, big contribution from that in the above premium space. Coors Light and the Molson brand franchise in Canada also contributing to that. And then, Madrí in the UK, you know, we've spoken about our Madrí brand, which is hugely successful in the UK. You know, that had a big contribution and even brands like Ožujsko in Croatia, which is the largest brand in Croatia, big market share, all had contributions. So across our geographies, we're really, really happy with the growth that we're seeing. And then, you know, we are having a strategy day on October the third, and there we plan to actually give a little bit more detail.
We plan to discuss our long-term growth expectations, and, you know, some other things around strategy. Really excited for that in a couple of weeks. You know, we've spent the last three years really building our business to sustainably grow both the top and bottom line. We've been delivering on that. You know, we grew both top and bottom line in 2022. We're gonna do that again in 2023. You know, all our markets are gonna play a role in that.
Absolutely. That's helpful. I don't, of course, want to take anything away from the October third analyst day, which I'm very much looking forward to. But you know, one of the things that we just talked about with Lester Jones from the NBWA was kind of the just the normalization in pricing, or excuse me, in volume trends for the beer industry and just you know, how elevated volumes got and the normalization. I think you guys have been pretty clear on calling for that too, given the amount of pricing that was taken through 2022. What you've seen in Nielsen or Circana data is that broadly still in line with your expectations in terms of the normalization in industry trends?
I mean, we are... You know, obviously, we ourselves have seen that, that big, that, that big uptick. You know, historically, I'm sure you know, US industry has grown. It's been around the minus 1 to plus 1% growth range from a volume point of view. In the, in the latest 13 weeks, the US industry, we look at Circana, was down 1.9%. So that is a slight improvement over Q2 and Q1, and also an improvement from the second half of last year. So, there are a number of factors that impacted this, like the California weather in, in the first half of the year. You know, obviously that was a, a, you know, a big negative from a volume point of view. Hard seltzer declines is also, you know, driving that.
And then switching to other categories like spirits. You know, as you rightly mentioned, I mean, the beer on average took much higher pricing in 2022 as compared to spirits. But, you know, still that core beer drinker is incredibly loyal. They've maintained their share of dollars and volume in beer. So that's what we're seeing now. I mean, it's hard to predict volume for 2024, but we really focus on continuing the momentum for our brands. And again, very pleased that our company and our two largest brands, Coors Light and Miller Lite, are growing revenue, volumes, and industry share, and really looking to capitalize on that with some of the plans and investments that we've got for this year and next year.
Absolutely. And that's a great opportunity, I think, to pivot to the U.S. business and some of the commentary that you and Gavin have offered over the last couple of months. I thought just from a retail perspective, maybe we can start there. You guys noted it's now 40 key retail accounts that you've come to agreements with. That's double from the 20 that you guys offered in July. So I was hoping to just understand kind of more specifically what those discussions look like. Is it linear square footage? Is it end caps? Is it floor displays? Like, how do we think about just the importance of those retail accounts?
Yeah, sure. So look, the number of resets we've seen this fall really does feel unprecedented. And that's not all surprising, obviously, given the fundamental changes that we've seen in the marketplace. You know, the big winners here have been us and Yuengling. Now, the fall resets and spring resets are really important to make sure that those share shifts that we're seeing are more sustainable and make them actually structural in nature. And, you know, now with the summer selling season behind us, the real impacts from these resets we'll probably see in 2024. So, you know, some of the... As we said, some of the fall resets have happened, and again, you know, not the norm.
From the spring resets, I mean, those discussions are taking place right now, and it includes many of the big chains, as you can imagine. So, you know, normally, shelf resets typically happen once a year, but things like displays can be implemented more often, and that's where we're really also focusing on. So we're working with our distributors, who have done really an amazing job of getting more displays during summer. On our Q2 call, we actually shared that we were the number one in retail display dollar gains year to date. And that's really important because it's seen as a strong indicator of shelf reset sentiment. So again, we'll continue to focus on things like display that helps us getting more space in the cold box. That's obviously really important.
So, you know, as you see velocities, so maybe that cold box space opens up as well. And as we're looking at shelf space for our own brands, I mean, Miller Lite and Coors Light is the priority. We've got strong velocity data that we can show retailers to support this. And so, you know, we see opportunities to expand shelf space, not just with those brands, but with innovations. So if we look at, like, our flavor brands and our non-alc, we do think that there's opportunities to continue to gain more shelf space, across, you know, all areas of our portfolio.
That's really helpful. That was gonna be my follow-up, whether those, shelf space gains have to be tied to, to Miller Lite, Coors Light, and sounds like the answer is no, and it's not even necessarily tied to, to core beer exclusively either.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, flavor is, you know, a big growth area right now and, you know, we've got brands like Simply, which again just been really, really successful, you know, since we've launched it. So we do see, you know, opportunities for flavor space as well.
Absolutely. I mean, since you mentioned Simply, maybe we can just pivot there for a minute. I think, you know, projecting category share in anything that's included in Beyond Beer has proven very, very challenging. But do you think that the rate of category growth and the growth that you guys are seeing with Simply very healthy market share gains, is that in line with your going-in expectations heading into summer selling season?
Yeah, I mean, I would say probably exceeded somewhat, especially, you know, we brought in Simply Spiked Peach. You know, that has certainly helped. You know, I think Simply Spiked Lemonade got a real point of differentiation, real juice point of differentiation, so that has certainly helped us. And so, you know, it's not just, it's not just Simply Spiked, but also, you know, the other, the other brand that we've got from a flavor point of view as well with Coke is Peace Hard Tea. So, you know, now entering that space with more meaningful, bold, fruit-flavored point of differentiation. So we feel like brands like that that we've got does really give the consumer a point of differentiation.
So yeah, I mean, we're very pleased with the performance of Simply in particular.
Just to follow up on that, it just feels to me like the approach is far more restrained in terms of SKU proliferation. So can you help us think about kind of the working capital implications of really just focusing on, for the time being anyway, like a lemonade and a peach and Simply, whereas for Topo Chico or for your own Vizzy brand, it felt like the hard seltzer category just required so much complexity and so many SKUs. So do you think that kind of intentionality in terms of flavor proliferation can sustain in the other FMB category?
...Yeah, I mean, look, we, we look at all of, all of the, the sort of seltzers and everything as, as, you know, total flavor. And we are a lot more disciplined in terms of, of, you know, SKUs and that. So, you know, our, our philosophy is one SKU in, one SKU out. But we do need to also make sure that we, we keep up with what the consumer is looking for in terms of flavor. So, you know, you, you'll see, maybe different, different, flavors coming in and that kind of thing, but we are really being disciplined in terms of SKU, in terms of, you know, making sure that we're not expanding SKUs. We, you know, we, we...
It's more of a, sort of if it's a seasonal, we'll make sure that we swap out the seasonals. If it's a flavor that's working, as I say, peaches has started off really, really well, you know, it may be something that we sort of innovate within that peach flavor. Yeah, we want to make sure that we keep our SKUs to a level that we can, both us and our retailers, you know, can manage, as well as our distributors, I suppose.
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that. That's super helpful. Maybe just pivoting back to the broader U.S. strategy and the opportunity to drive market share. So across the portfolio, you guys earmarked an incremental $100 million in investment spending for the back half of the year, which seems prudent, given the meaningful share gains that you guys have experienced over the last five months. So I was just hoping to get a little bit of perspective on kind of how you're thinking about consumer targeting against the $100 million. We pay a lot attention to underlying both category demographics, and then we do our own proprietary survey work around brand demographics. So how are you guys thinking about driving more targeted consumer engagement across those two key brands?
Yeah. Look, we've done a lot of work around marketing and targeted marketing over the last couple of years, really based on, like, return of marketing models. And, you know, we've-- when it comes to sort of our core brands like Miller Lite and Coors Light, you know, as I said earlier, it's not just a result of this year, but building our brands deliberately over the past several years, actually, as part of our revitalization plan. So just a quick point. I mean, we have seen incredible growth of our premium lights, brands, in the U.S. In fact, Coors Light and Miller Lite growing volume by double digits.
And as of today, both Coors Light and Miller Lite together are 50% bigger than Bud Light, which wasn't the case, you know, last year. So the growth is driven by a number of factors, and really, we're looking at focusing a lot more on retaining buyers. And in Coors Light, what we're seeing is the positive gains are being driven mainly by retaining buyers who are also purchasing more. You know, Miller Lite, we're seeing positive gains driven by both switching and also retaining buyers that are buying more. So really focused on retaining buyers, really focused on, you know, those loyal Miller Lite, Coors Light drinkers that have been there, you know, for a long time.
Now, look, we've always, we always plan to increase our marketing pressure in 2023, and the majority of that was gonna go behind those big brands. A lot of it was already planned, but some of it is gonna be incremental. Really, it's looking at those, you know, share growth from new consumers. We, we're seeing it across all of our U.S. geographies, across all of our channels, so we're gonna put a lot more focus also on, like, convenience store, for example, where we be under indexed. We are really targeting to both existing, as well as retaining those new consumers, and then also looking at channel, where, you know, we haven't been, you know, as successful, like convenience stores.
That's really helpful. You know, as you think about kind of the evolving marketing messaging, 'cause you're right, right? I mean, Michelle St. Jacques has been working on, you know, brand revitalization and brand repositioning with some very clever creative over a number of years now, since she assumed the role. So maybe can we zoom out and just talk a little bit about the underlying demographics for Coors Light and Miller Lite and what you aim to achieve in terms of broadening the reach of those brands?
Yeah. Again, I mean, we... You know, Michelle has always been quite, you know, vocal on, we need to move at the speed of culture, obviously recognizing that we've got loyal, you know, consumers that, you know, have been drinking our brands for many years. You know, we're very, we're very aware that we need to sort of make sure that we, that we send messaging or we have the right messages for all of those, those consumers. Yeah, Michelle, you know, she keeps the brand relevant. I think our, our communication is very relevant, you know, but also making sure that we don't lose what those brands stand for. I think again, you know, Miller Lite and Coors Light, the messaging around those brands are very strong and have been consistent.
You know, Coors Light, it's, it's made to chill. You know, Miller Lite, it's, it's about the great taste. And so you'll see some of our new campaigns really stick to those messages, but, but have got like a little bit of a, of a, a new sort of slant to them. But, but the, the key messages are gonna stay the same.
...Understood. But clearly, the brands are going to be a lot more visible, given that planned and that incremental spend, and then today's announcement that you guys are gonna be advertising Coors Light for the Super Bowl.
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, the surprise Blue Moon ad, I think, caught a lot of consumers off guard. I remember watching the Super Bowl and being on Twitter and seeing your ad shoot right to the top of Twitter in terms of the conversation, and you guys got very good recognition for some of the advertising periodicals as well.
Right.
As you think about leaning into NFL more, and then you guys have also announced some key athlete sponsorships as well, just how are you thinking about just kind of prioritizing that spend, you know, national versus, you know, something that's a little bit more targeted? Because I think you guys were quick to remind all of us back in 2022, heading into the 2023 Super Bowl, that Super Bowl advertising wasn't necessarily new for your brand equities, it just wasn't national.
Right. Yeah. So look, we're really excited. I mean, that's, you know, the biggest sporting stage is Super Bowl, and so we're very excited to come back, you know, next year with a national campaign, really. And we've announced that it's gonna be Coors Light is the brand that we're going to bring to the Super Bowl. But, you know, we really look at... We do look at national marketing, we look at local marketing, and we don't wanna change the core message, but there might be slight tweaks, you know, depending on the market that we're going in locally. So if it's fairs and festivals or whatever, you know, that might have a little bit of a tweak versus the national marketing.
But, you know, I mean, I think the big thing is that our message is consistent, and that we are appealing to, again, the existing consumers, as well as those that we wanna retain and the new consumers. So, you know, Michelle is very focused on that, and, you know, looking at how we spend our dollars and making sure that we provide the, you know, the highest return on our marketing dollars. We've been working on that for years, so we've got a lot of marketing effectiveness tools that we use. And, you know, Michelle sits down with her team, and if something's not working, you know, we pull it immediately.
I think we've actually learned that we haven't had to pull too much because the messaging has been consistent and just maybe modernized or tweaked a little bit. So yeah, we very disciplined in terms of where we spend our dollars and make sure that we are getting the highest return.
Oh, for sure. Tracey, I feel like you and I, well, we've known each other for more than a decade, but we've been talking about ROMI that entire time, because you've brought so much financial discipline to the spend. Since you mentioned experiential, you know, we were talking to the CEO and CFO of Campari today. Obviously, you know, different category, you know, different model. They're very heavily skewed to experiential. How does that rank in terms of the productivity for you guys? Just given the size of your brands, is it less productive, national or larger scale makes more sense?
No, I mean, I think, I think experiential... Again, it depends. You know, if I can use an example, I mean, we've been probably given the best opportunity around experiential marketing this year. It's about, you know, when people decided that they're gonna choose another light beer, you know, the fact that we were relevant, you know, the fact that we've got really strong, healthy brands in Coors Light and Miller Lite, meant that they actually chose us. That gave us an opportunity to actually interact directly with those consumers. You know, it gave us an opportunity to make sure that the consumers were tasting our beers and seeing that they're like, a really good alternative to maybe what they were drinking before.
You know, certainly experiential, a lot of the stuff that we do on digital, you know, directly interacting with the consumer, that's really important. Again, it can be on a national scale, depending on what the message is and the consumer, or it can be local in terms of, you know, a local pub, for example, where we, you know, we want people to taste things and try things and test things. Yeah, it's kind of depending on the message and the brand, experiential is really important.
Understood. Thank you for that. Maybe we should move beyond Miller Lite and Coors Light, because you guys have a comprehensive portfolio that spans all the important price tiers and segments within U.S. beer. So maybe we can just pivot to the opportunity for imports. Can you just remind us of your strategy for Peroni, just given how fast-growing the import category has been?
Yeah. So, we are obviously very excited about Peroni. We love, we love Peroni. You know, it, it brings that real authentic Italian heritage to the brand. And in Q2, through July, our Peroni volumes are up double digits with the campaigns that we have got in place. And it's significantly, significantly outperforming a key competing European import that has been struggling with declining sales. So in the first quarter, you know, piggybacking on the strong performance of the Peroni brand, we launched Peroni 0.0 . It's a non-alc. It's a relatively small segment, non-alc, in the U.S., but it's rapidly growing.
I mean, it's up more than 30% year to date, so important for us to play in that space and play with a brand like Peroni, which is in that above-premium space, where it looks like a lot of the growth in the non-alc is in that above premium space. So we've got a great offering with Peroni 0.0 , and the liquid is just amazing. You know, whenever we take people to or sample this, I mean, it tastes just like Peroni regular. So the liquid is really good. And then just last week, at our distributor conference, we announced a new premier partnership with Formula One's Scuderia Ferrari team. So we're really excited with that, about that, really well aligning the brand's Italian heritage.
You know, Formula One's got a huge following, I believe, about 800 million fans globally, and growing, and growing with younger LDA consumers, and the more affluent consumers. So we... Yeah, we love Peroni. We've got great plans for it. We're very excited about it.
Well, I certainly have seen on social media that the traffic in Vegas is a mess ahead of the November F1 race, so I think your timing is good from a visibility standpoint.
Absolutely.
I'm meant to go to the NBWA conference in Vegas in October, and I'm really bracing myself for getting around from one place to the other.
I have heard that. I have heard they've closed off the streets already, and yeah.
No, but you're right. I mean, it got a lot of buzz. The Netflix show has certainly helped. That seems like a very powerful partnership, to be sure. Pivoting to the other end of the spectrum, you know, you and Gavin, I think, have been pretty consistently in noting that you're not seeing material signs of down trading. And I'm just having a hard time reconciling the sentiment indicators that we're seeing from the NBWA around the economy segment, certainly relative to the trends we've seen on a multi-year basis. So I was wondering if you could just offer any perspective on whether that's an actual disconnect or are we misreading the data?
No, look, I mean, look, we've continued to see premiumization, but at a lower rate than what we have been seeing the last couple of years. And yes, look, economy is doing well, but there's a lot of noise there, given, you know, share shifts that we've seen across the markets, including Busch Light trends. But our economy portfolio has been performing well. So in fact, in our latest 13, our economy portfolio is growing the most share of the segments, of the economy segments of all the brewers. And our key economy brands like Keystone, Miller High Life, Hamm's, Icehouse, they're all growing share of industry in the latest 13 and year to date.
Yes, the economy is definitely, you know, picking up and doing well, and we, you know, we'll continue to monitor the trends. But remember, Vivian, we've always said that all segments matter, and so it was really important for us to have strong brands in the economy segments as well. And so we're happy to have brands that play, you know, the... with, you know, really big brands like Keystone and Miller High Life.
That's absolutely right, and thank you for that. You know, it occurs to me that in our audience, there might be investors that are a little bit newer to the story that we're attracted to some of the brand dynamics that we've seen and the market share dynamics that we've seen in 2023. Maybe it might be helpful, Tracey, just to revisit what happened in 2021 in terms of the change in your resource allocation around economy during the height of supply constraints during the pandemic.
Yeah, sure. So look, I mean, we come into every year, bracing ourself for something that's going to surprise us and generally, it's sort of on the negative side. And you know, back in 2021, we had those winter storms in Texas, we had a cyber incident. Obviously, COVID and supply chain, you know, played into that, and so you know, we made a decision. We had always been speaking about rationalizing our SKUs, but all of those things together, we actually brought forward that decision, and we actually, we took out a number of economy SKUs.
And that helped us, you know, not just be able to deliver our normal brands like Coors Light and Miller Lite, that obviously, you know, were healthy and we wanted to make sure that we had them, especially during COVID, on the shelf, because that's where consumers were. They were moving towards the big trusted brands. And so, yeah, we took that decision. We got rid of a lot of SKUs, you know, that weren't performing maybe like the rest of our portfolio. And, you know, that saw us through 2021. It saw us through 2022.
You know, our breweries are operating much more efficiently and effectively because there's not all those changeovers and things like that that happened with, you know, at this tail end of economy brands. So yeah, we made that decision, and certainly, you know, looking back, hindsight's wonderful, but it was the right decision at the right time because, you know, as we came into this year with having needing, you know, more capacity for Miller Lite and Coors Light, we had that. And so we're able to supply the markets, you know, with this unprecedented demand on those brands.
Thank you for that perspective. That's helpful. Maybe moving more towards the Beyond Beer, we've talked about the other FMBs. We haven't really touched on spirits or energy drinks. So maybe we can talk about spirits for a second. You've built out some nice exposure to the whiskey category in America, albeit, you know, on a small scale. So how do you think about the need for additional scale to effectively compete in spirits?
Yeah, look, I mean, spirits have, has been experiencing growth, you know, as consumers shift their alcohol consumption. Whiskey's got a long history with alcohol beverages, and particularly the higher-end whiskey has seen strong growth, you know, the same way that we've seen in beer, we've seen the consumer premiumize in the whiskey area. So, you know, to capitalize on the consumer trends, we launched Five Trail, which was our first whiskey brand, in-house, you know, organic. And then we launched Barmen 1873 Bourbon. And then just recently, we welcomed Blue Run into our portfolio under the Coors Spirits Company. And we're really excited about that. I mean, Blue Moon is a blue, sorry, Blue Moon as well, but Blue Run, our whiskey, is just a beautiful brand.
Plays in that sort of super premium. So our focus going forward is really building out our spirits capabilities and executing the brands that we currently have in the marketplace. Then, you know, we'll continue to monitor it and, you know, any future opportunities we'll assess them based on our broader enterprise and portfolio strategy. But really excited to now be playing in the whiskey space.
Yeah, I mean, it seems like a very smart and logical extension. You know, we've certainly been constructive on American Whiskey for over a decade, but now actually what you're seeing is that while the... like, the luxury end of tequila, you know, is de-premiumizing, you're just not seeing that in bourbon. The premiumization continues to be incredibly robust. And for those of you who haven't looked at the Blue Run data, what I thought was really interesting, Tracey, is that it seems like they do like, quarterly releases to drive a lot of excitement around the brand. Is that right?
They do, and you know, some of these brands are at really high price points. So they do these huge limited releases at really high price points, and they sell out in seconds. Like, not even like minutes or days. I mean, it's seconds. And so, as I said, it's just a beautiful brand, it's a beautiful bottle, it's a beautiful liquid. We're very excited about it.
Absolutely. Just rounding out the U.S., you guys recently announced that you were increasing your investment in ZOA. Obviously, the energy drink category has been incredibly competitive. How are you guys thinking about driving, or, you know, helping ZOA drive growth in terms of velocity and distribution?
Yeah, again, I mean, we think ZOA is a great brand, so increasing our investment in ZOA, and for those who don't know, that's our partnership with Dwayne The Rock Johnson. It's another way to continue to grow our presence, in the beyond the beer aisle, which was part of our revitalization strategy, as well. So the investment in ZOA allows us to double the planned media budget for the coming year, and also helps us and helps the ZOA company to continue to grow, both the sales and the distribution footprints.
And, you know, it is something that I think is needed on the brand, and then through this increased investment, in addition to, you know, being able to spend more, invest more, we also have a presence on ZOA's board of directors, so we'll be able to influence some of the strategy around that as well. But, you know, if we look at ZOA, I mean, since we launched ZOA in 2021, it's now available in 45,000 retailers across the U.S., and in Canada, and we achieved $100 million in sales in the first two years. So, as you said, it's a growing category. You know, we see continued growth in that way. It's ZOA at the moment, it's a top 15 energy drink, according to Circana.
It's got all natural ingredients, it's got zero sugar, so it plays well into that better for you category. That better for you category has been growing, like, 100% year to date, so... We don't see any signs of it slowing. So we're really excited about that, that opportunity, with ZOA. But just another point as well, like, just in terms of the investment, Vivian, it is a great example, and this is coming from the finance person. It's a great example of how we approach investments in our business. It's, it's a very capital prudent way. You know, we, we take a stake, we, we see, you know, if this is gonna be something, and then, you know, it allows us to increase our investment when the opportunity warrants it.
So we've done that with ZOA, and we really are excited about next year and the plans that we've got for it next year.
Absolutely. Thank you for that. And within the answer, you mentioned Canada, so why don't we move to Canada, as we've got about 10 minutes left. One of the things that I think has been really interesting, Tracey, is how you're able to lift and shift innovation out of the U.S. into the Canadian marketplace. But even perhaps more interesting is that kind of the outcomes can look very, very different. I think hard seltzer is a great example of that. So can you just provide an update on hard seltzer in Canada?
Yeah. So look, like, like in the US, the Canadian seltzer segment is also experiencing overall declines. It's down about 8%, year-over-year. But, you know, having said that, Molson Coors Canada is staying competitive in this space. It's gaining share with Vizzy, with Coors Seltzer, and with Topo Chico. So just as a reminder, we have Coors Seltzer in Canada, which we don't have in the US. So three really strong brands gaining share. Our Canadian seltzer share has reached a record high of nearly 17 share points, and we are the only major brewer growing share in Canada with seltzer. So, you know, as we look at taking innovations across geographies, I mean, we've done that in Canada.
We considered it in the context of our broader enterprise strategy, and we're always looking for opportunities for our brands to enter new markets. So again, you know, we did that in Canada. We've also launched Simply Spiked in Canada as well, so you know, adding to that flavor profile. And then, you know, in Europe, I've spoken about Madrí. I mean, we've got a huge winner with Madrí. And we could consider expanding, you know, that brand into other markets. And, you know, even though we've got this large footprint in the U.S., the global presence that we have actually gives us opportunities to move some of these brands, not just in the Americas, but over into Europe and the U.K. as well.
Thinking about Europe and the U.K., just in terms of kind of the economic backdrop, it seems like inflation continues to run well ahead of what we're seeing in the United States. Obviously, energy inflation is a bigger headwind as we think about that too. So just an update on how you're thinking about the macro backdrop in Europe.
Yeah. So look, I mean, the UK has been pretty resilient. And at the UK consumer, you know, we haven't seen any slowdown. You know, the on-premise is back to pre-COVID, et cetera. So, UK is a different market to what we're seeing in Central and Eastern Europe. And, you know, Central and Eastern Europe is challenged by those inflationary pressures that you mentioned. And, you know, while the inflation rates are lowering there, we're still seeing double digits in some of the markets, and it really put pressure on the consumer's disposable income. It's resulted in a more sort of promotional retail environment. So we continue to monitor the promotional activity there.
We maintain the right commercial balance of promotions and below-the-line activation, you know, just to make sure that we are physically available for our priority brands. But it's a challenge there for sure. So we're gonna continue to invest in our strategic priorities in those markets. We've got strong commercial support for some of our key brands there. So I mentioned earlier, Ožujsko in Croatia, very big brand. It's actually our biggest core brand in that region. Got a big market share, and so we'll continue to put pressure behind that brand. And then on the above premium side, we've got Staropramen.
We launched a new campaign a little while ago with Orlando Bloom, and that brand is not just in the Czech Republic, but we've taken it across quite a few of our geographies, and it plays in that above premium space. So, you know, we're monitoring it carefully. We're very cautious about the consumer there, but making sure again, that we've got all the right brands at the right price point, and that you know, we can cater to the majority of the consumers.
Yeah, that makes good sense. I was in Dubrovnik in August, and your brand is very visible, and the seaside is a great beer drinking occasion.
Absolutely.
For sure.
Good.
So maybe in the last couple of minutes that we have, I'd love to touch on capital allocation, and if we have a minute, we can double back to commodities since we were talking about inflation. But maintain... On the capital allocation front, maintaining a sustainable dividend has been a key priority as you work to de-lever the balance sheet. Can you just remind us of your leverage targets?
Yeah. Our leverage ratio target is 2.5 times. We set that target back in the beginning of the year. With the strength of our EBITDA and our continued progress in reducing our net debt so far this year, we actually hit that target as at the end of June. What that has done is provided us more optionality as we consider how we balance the allocation of capital now, you know, more evenly across our existing priorities. You know, those priorities, just as a reminder, the number one is to invest in our business to drive top-line growth and efficiencies. Now some of that could include, like, bolt-on acquisitions. Again, it's that string-of-pearls approach.
We are not gonna go and buy $ billions. You know, we, we're gonna make sure that it's a string-of-pearls approach that fits a, a geography or a white space or a capability that we can't do ourselves. So that's investing in our business. The second priority is around reducing net debt. Obviously, you know, wanting to maintain our investment grade, but also improve our investment grade rating. And so I think we've done a really good job, you know, as, as we spoke about the leverage ratio around our, our debt. And then the third priority is returning cash to shareholders. So, you know, when, when, when we, when we put the dividend in place, and, and reinstated it, we really wanted to make sure that we can sustainably grow the dividend.
Now, we've raised it each year for the last two years. You know, that's one part of the dividend. Also, we've got a small share repurchase program, mainly an anti-dilution program, around share buyback. You know, overall, we look at all our capital allocation decisions. We've got models that help us determine what gives the greatest potential returns to shareholders, and we make our decisions based on that. Yeah, we mentioned the strategy day on October the 3rd. Capital allocation is always a question, Vivian, so I would have been disappointed if you didn't ask it. Yeah, we plan on giving more color around capital allocation at that strategy day.
Absolutely. I do have time to squeeze in one more. Commodities have been incredibly topical. Can you just remind us how we should think about the commodity backdrop as we head into the back half of 2023, Tracey?
Yeah. So, look, I mean, we hedge all the commodities that you can hedge. Now, there are obviously some commodities that you can't. So, for example, freight, which, you know, impacted us, all of us, during the COVID time. But there, you know, we have contracts, you know, fixed-price contracts and sort of longer-term contracts with, like, freight carriers, et cetera. But there are things that you can't hedge. But in terms of commodities, we hedge everything that we can. We don't have a programmatic approach to hedging our commodities. We actually... It's a lot more opportunistic. We operate within guardrails, so minimum and maximum guardrails.
And then also, depending on which commodity we're hedging, that may determine if it's a sort of shorter-term or a longer-term, you know, commodity. So, you know, we can hedge out 3+ years, or we can hedge, you know, 12 months. It just depends on the commodity. But really, what we've been trying to do is make sure that we take a lot of the volatility out of the COGS and not try and beat the market. And I think if you look at our COGS, you'll see, I think we've been fairly successful with that.
Absolutely. Well, that's a great note to end on. Tracey, thank you so much for your time and your insights, and I look forward to seeing you in October in New York.
Thank you. I appreciate you having us, Vivian.