Inghams Group Ltd.

Inghams Group Ltd.

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Q4 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptAugust 21, 2026

Operator

Welcome to the Inghams FY26 financial results briefing. Following the formal presentation, there will be a Q&A session for investors and analysts.

Participants can ask both text and live audio questions during today's call. Text questions can be submitted at any time, and the audio queue is now open.

I'll now hand over to Inghams Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Ed Alexander.

Ed Alexander

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. As has just been said, my name is Ed Alexander, the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Inghams, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to our financial year '26 results presentation.

Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners, both past and present, as custodians of this land that we're meeting on today. As announced in May, after 7 years with Inghams, Gary Mallett will retire from his role of CFO, with Grant Douglas joining us as new CFO from October.

I'm joined today by Andrew Just in the capacity of interim CFO, who will address the financial aspects of the result. Andrew and I will take questions at the conclusion of the presentation.

The headline for financial year '26 is that earnings were below the prior year and below the expectations that we had entering the year. We revised our guidance at the end of the first half, and we then delivered to that revised guidance, with underlying EBITDA pre-AASB 16 of $186.4 million.

Underlying NPAT pre-AASB 16 was $56.6 million. As I said at our strategy day in May and restated just now, those outcomes are not where we want the business to be, nor do they reflect the true potential of this business.

They need to be considered alongside the progress that we made, specifically diversifying the customer base, strengthening the balance sheet, and improving the underlying operating platform, as reflected by an improvement in underlying EBITDA from $80 million in half one to $106.6 million in half two. The half two results should also be considered in the context of the Middle East conflict and the sharp deterioration of wholesale price in the final 6 weeks of the financial year.

We returned the group to volume growth, with core poultry volumes up 1.9%. Net debt reduced by $27.1 million to $403.3 million, supported by improved working capital and cash conversion.

The board has declared a final, fully franked dividend of 6.1 cents per share, taking total FY26 dividends to 10.1 cents per share and representing a 70% payout ratio. While the earnings result reflects a difficult year, we exited FY26 with a more stable operating platform, a more diversified customer portfolio, and greater clarity around where the next phase of value creation is going to come from for Inghams.

There are several key takeaways for FY26 that are shown on this slide. First, we returned to volume growth.

Volumes increased across both Australia and New Zealand, supported by new customer wins and growth across retail, QSR, and food service channels. Second, we materially strengthened the customer portfolio.

Australian retail volumes, excluding Woolworths, increased by 17.2%. That diversification is strategically important and creates a broader platform for future growth.

In New Zealand, our brands of Inghams, Waitoa, and Bostock continued to shine, driving over 100% of the freezer category growth in that market and achieving year-on-year growth of 26% through the frozen category. Third, we delivered substantial productivity improvements.

We achieved $82 million of cost savings through procurement and continuous improvement, slightly above the top end of our range of $60 to $80 million target. Fourth, we strengthened cash and working capital performance.

Australian processed poultry inventory reduced by $32.4 million, and cash conversion improved to 105.5%. These are meaningful achievements, but clearly not yet sufficient.

Our operational performance is not sufficiently consistent. Waste across the supply chain remains too high.

There's further opportunity in yield, labor productivity, plant reliability, and cost to serve, and that is where our attention is now firmly focused. I want to spend a moment upfront on biosecurity and H5N1 avian influenza, because this is a real and a significant risk for the poultry industry, as has been well documented in recent media.

We take this risk extremely seriously, and we are prepared for it. One of Inghams' fundamental strengths is the design of our network, as you can see there on the slide.

We operate across multiple geographically separated regions, with distinct clusters spanning feed mills, farming, hatcheries, processing facilities, and distribution infrastructure. That means an outbreak in one location does not automatically translate into disruption across our broad network.

We have the ability to isolate affected areas, protect other parts of the network, and redirect production and supply. We've also invested considerable effort in prevention, surveillance, scenario planning, and response protocols.

Senior management have spent time in Europe understanding learnings from their experience. We know what we would do, we know how we would respond, and we know where the critical decisions ultimately need to be made.

I want to be equally clear on our guidance. Our FY27 guidance assumes no material disruption from H5N1 avian influenza.

There is no sensible way to predict precisely where or when an outbreak may occur. What I can say with confidence is that Inghams enters this period of time with the most resilient national network, well-developed biosecurity controls, and a team that is prepared to act quickly and decisively if required.

We can't fully eliminate the risk, but we can control how well prepared we are for it. When we introduced our horizon strategy, we were clear that sequence matters: stabilize first, optimize second, grow third.

The scorecard you see here is how we intend on transparently measuring and reporting on our progress against strategy. In the stabilize phase, we have achieved some good, foundational outcomes, many of which I've already referenced, including a return to growth, a reduction of inventory, and improvements to customer service.

The optimize phase is now the major area of focus, and we have significant work to do. Optimize is fundamentally about getting more value out of the existing core business.

This means better productivity, better yields, and better mix. As you can see, while some progress has been made, there's more work to do, and performance remains below potential.

Finally, grow. Australian retail volumes, excluding Woolworths, increased by 17.2%, demonstrating the progress we are making in diversifying the customer base.

We've begun investing behind a small number of differentiated growth platforms where we have a right to win, and I will discuss these at the back end of the presentation. Our return on capital was lower in FY26.

Improving returns from our existing assets is therefore central to the next phase of horizon. This scorecard is how we intend to hold ourselves accountable.

It is deliberately focused on the operating measures that translate into value per bird, stronger cash generation, and ultimately, improved returns. This EBITDA bridge provides the clearest picture of what happened in financial year '26.

Volume and pricing contributed approximately $24 million. Continuous improvement and procurement delivered $82.3 million of savings, and lower feed costs provided a $27.6 million benefit.

Those are meaningful outcomes and demonstrate that the commercial and cost-out engines of the business are working. However, those benefits were more than offset by significant cost inflation.

The significant drivers include $116 million of cost inflation, $50 million of which relates to volume and the remainder of embedded inflation; $13 million of gross Middle East-related transport and packaging costs that will continue through to FY27; and $40 million of one-off items required to stabilize the business. That included costs associated with the reduction to excess inventory and costs associated with the onboarding of new customers and new products.

The key distinction is that some of these impacts were external, some were costs associated with resetting the business, and some were execution gaps that we need to fix. Importantly, in H1, as I referred to earlier, we generated $80 million of EBITDA, and this increased to $106.6 million of EBITDA in H2, reflecting execution of our plan.

Turning now to volume. Group core poultry volumes increased 1.9%, with the business returning to growth during Q2 and momentum strengthening through the second half as new business was onboarded and we lapped the Woolworths adjustment, which took place in Q3 of financial year '25.

Importantly, that growth was broad-based, with Australia growing by 2% and New Zealand growing by 1.5%. Across our channels, retail grew by 1.1%, driven by non-Woolworths growth of 17.2%.

QSR volumes increased 4.1%, supported by the onboarding of the Nando's contract. Australian food service increased 10.3%, and New Zealand export volumes increased 41.9% as offshore markets reopened.

Overall, we exited FY26 with a broader customer base, a stronger volume platform than we entered it. Before I hand over to Andrew, I'll talk briefly to pricing.

Group net selling prices increased 1.4% to $6.40 per kilogram. In Australia, NSP grew 2.4%, while New Zealand NSP increased 1.4% in New Zealand dollar terms.

Pricing increased across all channels with the exception of QSR, which declined modestly due to customer mix and contract timing. As you can see from the chart, Australian wholesale pricing remained above the prior year for most of FY26, but moderated materially during the final 8 weeks of the year as Australian conditions softened.

This has continued through the first 7 weeks of financial year '27. With that, I'll hand over to Andrew to take you through the financial results in more detail.

Andrew Just

Thanks, Ed, and good morning, everyone. Starting with our profit on an as-reported basis, Ed has already outlined the growth we delivered in both volume and net selling prices versus PCP.

Revenue for FY26 was just over $3.2 billion, representing growth of 2.4% compared to the prior period. This was driven by higher core poultry volumes and modest price growth.

External feed revenue declined 8.7% due to lower sales volume and pricing, reflecting the pass-through of reduced feed input costs to our customers. Beyond the half one actions Ed noted to reduce inventory levels, there were significant inflationary pressures across our cost base.

Total costs increased 6.2% compared to the prior year, comprising volume-driven production increases, structural input cost inflation, integration costs from new customer business, and conversion of contract grower arrangements. We also saw further benefit from lower feed costs during the period, with internal feed costs declining $27.6 million.

Depreciation and amortization declined 16.6% to $152 million, largely due to the conversion of grower contracts to variable performance-based arrangements in prior periods. These contract conversions also contributed to a decline in net finance expenses to $77 million.

Net profit after tax was $34.6 million, down 61.5% versus PCP. Tax expenses reduced with lower earnings and included a $12.7 million tax provision.

Inghams has lodged an objection to an amended ATO assessment relating to R&D tax offset claims paid for the financial years 2019 to 2021. The tax provision is based on assessing the likelihood of a range of outcomes that includes a successful objection.

This amount has been treated as a significant item excluded from underlying NPAT due to its size, nature, and relationship with prior periods. Inghams intends to fully defend its position.

Turning now to the balance sheet. As we outlined at our half-year results, we've made significant progress on addressing higher inventory levels.

Australian processed poultry inventory was reduced by $32.4 million on the prior period, reflecting the deliberate reduction of elevated stock levels. Biological assets, on the other hand, increased $4 million, reflecting expected sales growth coming into FY27.

Trade and other receivables declined $36.6 million, driving an overall working capital improvement of $46.4 million, with further potential to improve as planning capability strengthens. Capital employed declined $59.2 million to $648.8 million, driven by the improved working capital results, lower PP&E, and the benefit of grower contract conversions to be variable performance-based.

Grower contract AASB 16 impact has become very small, as you can see in the appendices to this presentation. As a result of these actions, net debt declined $27.1 million to $403.3 million, down $63 million from the half one result.

While leverage increased from FY25 to 2.2 times due to lower earnings, the absolute reduction in net debt reflects the effectiveness of our capital management and a clear reduction from half one. Our objective for FY27 is to reduce leverage back within our 1 to 2 times policy range through improved earnings and ongoing capital discipline.

Tax balances increased to $6.1 million, mainly due to installments based on prior-year profits, which reduced during the year. Moving now to our cash flow performance.

Working capital management delivered material cash benefits during FY26, and operating cash flow at $313.7 million remained strong despite the lower earnings. As a result, cash conversion improved significantly to 105.5%, an increase of 860 basis points.

Capital expenditure was $77.4 million and below our $80 million target, and I'll discuss this in a bit more detail on the next slide. During the half, we paid the interim fully franked FY26 dividend of 4 cents per share.

Finally, tax paid reduced due to the lower earnings and an FY25 refund, but as part of the R&D tax objection process, Inghams entered into an arrangement with the ATO whereby 50% of the tax in dispute was paid to minimize interest if the objections are disallowed. Now turning to our capital expenditure.

Our capital allocation continues to reflect our strategic priorities and disciplined approach to allocation and overall expenditure. Sustaining capital of $28.9 million was approximately 44% of underlying pre-AASB 16 depreciation.

As we noted at the half, while this is somewhat lower than previous periods, some of our investment expenditure is considered to also have a maintenance element to it. Optimization capital of $6.8 million included final amounts for the Lisarow fully cooked line upgrade, expanding capacity and enabling high-value product development, and New Zealand automation projects, which drive yield and labor productivity improvement.

Our growth and strategic investments are focused on automation, strategic upgrades, and improved processing capabilities. We progressed the Queensland and South Australia tray pack automation projects, upgraded the Western Australia one-touch processing, which is an important enabler for WA's self-sufficiency and retail processing, and we largely completed the advanced ingredients facility in Victoria, which has established a high-margin pet food ingredients capability.

We've been investing in further capacity at Bostock Brothers in New Zealand, which in part will support the introduction of this premium organic brand into Australia during FY27. Moving on to feed costs.

The global feed commodity market is experiencing a pricing shift heading into FY27. Global soybean production is projected to reach a new record in calendar '26/'27.

Elevated global fertilizer and diesel prices are encouraging farmers to plant soybeans primarily at the expense of corn. Growing conditions remain generally favorable, particularly in Argentina and Brazil, despite some drought impacts in Brazil's southeast region.

Reflecting strong underlying demand, soybean prices are forecast to increase modestly in '26/'27. Wheat markets present a contrasting picture, with global production forecast to decline marginally in '26/'27 from record levels in '25/'26.

The Northern Hemisphere conditions are mixed. In Australia, wheat production is expected to decline on the prior period, particularly in New South Wales and Queensland, while West and South Australia conditions remain favorable.

Wheat prices are forecast to increase in '26/'27 due to this tightening supply. We now move on to the segments, firstly with Australia.

Australia with revenue just over $2.7 billion, an increase of 3.5% versus the prior year, driven by volume and pricing growth, partially offset by lower by-products and external feed revenue, as I mentioned. Core poultry volumes grew 2%, with growth across all major channels.

Core poultry net selling prices increased 2.4% to $6.50 per kilo, reflecting disciplined pricing and despite the wholesale market softening in the last 7 to 8 weeks of the period. Australian EBITDA was $232.4 million, down 29.2%, with the underlying pre-AASB 16 EBITDA margin contracting to 5.1%.

The decline in earnings on PCP reflected the cost inflation across packaging, ingredients, cooking oil, freight, and labor; integration costs from new customer business onboarding; conversion of grower arrangements to variable performance-based contracts, largely offset by lower depreciation and interest; and partially offset by $22.7 million in lower feed costs. On to New Zealand, who delivered revenue of $573.1 million in New Zealand dollars, representing 2% growth versus the prior year.

However, this translates to a 3.3% decline in Australian dollar currency terms due to the strong AUD appreciation. Core poultry volumes increased 1.5%, with growth across the wholesale, export, and QSR channels.

Core poultry net selling prices increased 1.4% to NZ$6.81 per kilo. New Zealand EBITDA was $74.9 million, up 6.8% in NZD.

The underlying pre-AASB 16 EBITDA margin moved to 9.5%. Costs increased just 0.2% on an AUD basis, reflecting the benefit of lower grain pricing, offset by volume growth and general cost inflation.

SG&A costs declined 16.8%, reflecting the effect of acquisition-related integration costs included in the prior period and the further centralization of group functions. The FX movement reduced AUD EBITDA for New Zealand by approximately $3.5 million versus the prior period.

I'll now hand back to Ed.

Ed Alexander

Thank you, Andrew. This next slide brings the strategy together.

FY26 is the base. The first job for us as a team was to stabilize the business by returning to growth, improving operational efficiency, and reducing working capital.

We've made progress with more work still to do. The next phase is to optimize by strengthening the core processes underpinning how we work.

This covers planning transformation, a consistent operational excellence system, network optimization, revenue mix management capability, and better and improved use of data and artificial intelligence, effectively introducing new capabilities that enable improved margins over time. Beyond that, we grow through differentiation and new sources of value.

I've made no secret of the belief that over time, return on capital is fundamentally driven by the creation of distinctive and consumer-centric propositions. Premium propositions, Bostock Brothers, Just Meat protein, and other platforms where we have the right to win.

The sequencing is important. We do not need to choose between fixing the core and growing the business, but we do need to earn the right to grow by improving returns from the assets that we already have.

Three key capital projects deployed in financial year '26 are now delivering operational benefits and unlocking value. At Osborne Park, our one-touch project has seen automated cut-up lines installed, which have created a fully integrated single-line processing flow, driving efficiency and labor productivity.

Having been over in Osborne Park this week, I can say it's an impressive transformation of the facility, to say the least. At our Lisarow further processing facility, we've invested in a new fryer and oven, which provides critical new capacity to support a market transition to fully cooked propositions.

This is delivering $4.6 million per annum in benefits and creating new product opportunities. Finally, we have installed automated tray packing lines in South Australia and Queensland, delivering efficiency and labor productivity improvements, along with an improved customer proposition.

Whilst only recently finalized, all three projects on the page here are now operational. This next project will be familiar to those of you who joined our May investor day.

This project exemplifies our strategy of maximizing the value per bird, which is premised on harvesting more usable material from every bird processed and then redirecting that material into the highest-value channel. Our advanced ingredients facility in Victoria represents a tangible investment to deliver on this strategy.

Backed by a new customer contract, we have invested $8.5 million in a new ingredients facility at Somerville in Victoria. First orders commenced on the 31st of July, 2026.

We're targeting an incremental $5 million of EBITDA on the $8.5 million investment within the first year. The investment we have made in this plate freezing capability will also allow us to scale this opportunity as we develop new strategic partnerships with pet food manufacturers.

Alongside optimizing the core, we're establishing positions in a small number of high-value growth platforms where we believe that Inghams has the structural right to win. Waitoa bone broth is an example of extending a market-leading free-range premium brand into an adjacent category.

Our investment in Just Meat protein gives us exposure to new applications for poultry protein, and a differentiated technology platform. Bostock Brothers provides a premium organic proposition that we are well progressed with expanding into Australia in the new calendar year.

We're deliberately being selective. The objective is not to build a long list of incremental innovation projects that cannibalize the core.

Instead, it is to focus attention on propositions where scale, integrated supply chain, brands, and customer relationships give us an advantage and where the opportunity can create attractive returns over time. Today, we are providing guidance for FY27.

We are changing our earnings guidance metric to underlying EBIT, which is a post-AASB 16 measure, from underlying EBITDA pre-AASB 16. We will continue to provide the same detailed reconciliation disclosures in the appendices of future results presentations.

Our guidance for FY27 is for underlying EBIT of between $155 million and $180 million, representing growth of between 1% and 17% on the prior year. That outlook reflects a number of factors.

We expect group core poultry volumes to increase, supported by underlying market growth and confirmed new business. Operating costs excluding feed are expected to increase by around 4% to 5%, reflecting volume growth, general inflation, and the impacts of the Middle East conflict.

We currently expect those Middle East impacts to be approximately $30 million, predominantly through higher fuel and packaging costs. As we noted earlier, feed is also expected to be a significant headwind in FY27, currently estimated at approximately $40 to $50 million based on current pricing.

Against those headwinds, we expect benefits from pricing, continuous improvement, procurement, and the operational improvement initiatives now underway across the business. CapEx is expected to remain broadly in line with FY26 at approximately $80 million.

While FY27 is clearly not without significant external headwinds, we're not relying on the external environment to improve our performance. Our focus is firmly on what we can control and on driving sustainable improvements and performance over time: improving farming performance, increasing yield, reducing waste and cost to serve through our supply chain, optimizing customer and product mix, and maintaining disciplined capital allocation.

We enter FY27 with a strong operational foundation, a clear set of priorities, and better visibility of the value that remains available within the business. That concludes the formal presentation.

I'll now hand back to the operator, and we will take your questions. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, Ed. Participants can ask both text and live audio questions during today's call.

To ensure all participants have an opportunity to ask a question, we will initially limit questions to three per participant, following which you can rejoin the queue to ask further questions, time permitting. To ask a text question, select the messaging tab, type your question in the box towards the top of the screen, and hit the arrow symbol to send.

To ask a live audio question, press the request to speak button at the top of the broadcast window. The broadcast will be replaced by the audio questions interface.

Press join queue, and if prompted, select allow in the pop-up to grant access to your microphone. I will introduce each caller by name and ask you to go ahead.

You will then hear a beep indicating your microphone is live. Our first question comes from Craig Woolford from MST Marquee.

Craig, please go ahead.

Craig Woolford

Good morning, Ed and Andrew. Wanted to ask about bird flu, I'm sure you're not surprised by that, but perhaps two things come to mind.

One is are you seeing any impact on demand, in other words, consumers just concerned about consuming poultry? Secondly, when I've looked at other countries, there seems to be far more impact on the egg market than the chicken meat market.

You said you were in Europe—is there any insights as to why there might be that difference?

Ed Alexander

Thanks for the questions, Craig. Obviously, bird flu is very top of mind for us along with seemingly a great deal of the media.

Look, I'd say, firstly, we're not seeing any impact on demand at the moment. I think it's been well communicated that there's no food safety issue pertaining to bird flu, and certainly, we're not seeing that through any of our channels in terms of that impact.

You're quite right—you certainly see a greater impact across the egg producers, and I'd say amongst other factors, there's two things that predominantly drive that. One is simply the age of the birds, and that is that an older bird is slightly more susceptible to catching avian flu.

The second is, I think, more generally speaking, there's a lower sort of biosecurity controls that can be in place across that industry. We've certainly observed that across Europe as well.

Craig Woolford

Thank you. The comments you made about the wholesale market with pricing, seen on the chart the pricing starting to dip, what do you put the shift in pricing in the wholesale market down to?

Why is it starting to drop?

Ed Alexander

Look, I'd say there's probably a couple of drivers, Craig. As you know all too well, wholesale pricing is driven by supply-demand economics.

I'd say there was too much production flowing in. When producers saw a very attractive wholesale price in the market at the back end of Q3, I think there were more processing volumes that were set forth, which led to the decline in quarter four.

I'd also say, as Inghams has won business, it's created some instability across the industry. As I would have said previously, at some level, instability, whatever way you turn it, isn't great for a wholesale market.

It just results in volumes and flows changing throughout, which impacts economics. We've certainly experienced pretty soft conditions through the first 7 weeks of financial year '27, and therefore, appropriately pulling levers to start addressing that, which will start impacting from the beginning of quarter

Craig Woolford

two. My last question is sort of related to that.

It's just around the inventory position you now have. It seems like you're happy with it.

You've put a green dot against inventory. Is it at a position that's suitable, or does it still need to drop further in terms of inventory levels?

Ed Alexander

Look, the green there is probably more acknowledging, obviously, the efforts that we went to to reduce it on a PCP basis. I'll say two things.

Firstly, pleasingly, despite the oversupply in the wholesale channel, we're not in any material way adding to our inventory position at the moment. As an organization, we've learned from previous mistakes.

At the same time, I also think inventory can continue to reduce from a working capital perspective. I believe that we are still carrying too much inventory.

Operator

The next question is from Ben Gilbert from Jarden. Ben, please go ahead.

Ben Gilbert

Morning, team. I'm just interested in the decision around the factoring side of things, introducing that into the receivables book.

Are you planning to continue to do that? If you could just run us through how we think about the P&L impact on that as well?

Andrew Just

Thanks, Ben, for the question. We did pull a variety of working capital initiatives as we do throughout the year.

One we just discussed was around the inventory side having an impact on that, and we also did have a receivables financing facility in place as well. This is with selected customers that we have, and effectively, gives an early payment associated with those customers with some of their longer-term side.

It's really that combination of inventory reduction and the receivable payable that improved the net debt coming through into our results.

Ben Gilbert

What was the cost from the P&L side? How much did you have to pay for that?

Andrew Just

I'm not sure I can share the exact amount that we pay for that, but it's less than our syndicated interest facility that we have coming through. It's normally for a number of days, typically around 2 weeks, that we would be using that bring forward.

Ben Gilbert

Thanks. Just the second one for me.

Just maybe I'm just interested in the guidance. I'm going to look on the old way you've done it now, but the exit rate that you had for Q4 probably looks like you're pushing above 220 based on Q4.

You obviously had a number of high fuel costs, etc., already coming through in that. What's sort of the driver of that run rate moderating through the year?

Is it around the feed side of things, or is it ongoing costs, because it looks like, as I said, looks like you exited from a run rate standpoint a bit better than the top end of that range you've given?

Ed Alexander

No, that's fair, Ben. You'll recall that the EBITDA profile that we provided at the strategy day clearly showed our two best months last year were February and March, ultimately, before the Middle East crisis hit.

We certainly saw that run rate trail off in June, and that was really driven by the change to wholesale economics. In terms of then what's really driving guidance, I think you're quite right.

One of the reasons for the broad range, and probably the slightly lower than anticipated guidance, one is just cost drivers, and that's predominantly Middle East, as well as the feed cost impost of $40 to $50 million. Collectively, we're saying that's kind of $70 million incremental versus what we probably anticipated at the beginning of the calendar year.

The second one is just wholesale pricing. Wholesale pricing, it will improve.

That's what happens in the industry. We're taking steps to reduce our exposure to that area of the market, but that's certainly playing on our mind relative to FY27 performance.

Ben Gilbert

That's great. Thanks, appreciate it.

Ed Alexander

Thanks.

Operator

The next question is from Richard Barwick from CLSA. Richard, please go ahead.

Richard Barwick

Good morning, everybody. Just thinking about the commentary already provided on the wholesale pricing, and it seems like the prices improved, supply increases, that puts downward pressure back on prices.

Is there a flow-through here or is there any sort of indicator what we're seeing in wholesale pricing, will that impact broader chicken pricing, I guess is the question?

Ed Alexander

That's a good question. Look, I'd say at some level, even at the moment, it would affect broader chicken pricing by way of we end up having surplus material through our supply chain, and therefore, we do two things: firstly, it means we're having to push product onto the wholesale channel, and we're also having to offer discounts through to the retailers to move that surplus.

I think at some level, you certainly see a more overarching softening of ASP when the wholesale market is long. I'd say that is a short-term reality.

I think then over the medium term, you don't tend to see that correlation. Wholesale will adjust because it's economics-based, and I continue to believe that the industry is a rational one.

Retail pricing moves more with changes to the cost base as opposed to supply-demand economics.

Richard Barwick

Okay. Then thank you for including that slide seven looking at the national footprint.

I think that's useful, but it's obviously by definition extremely broad in terms of the way it's presented. I understand you don't want to go into too much detail in terms of specific locations, etc.

Can you give us a little bit of color around perhaps some of the relative sizes? Where I'm going with this is if there's an outbreak, and from our reading you'd expect it might be an isolated outbreak here or there, and so then it would come down to specific sites.

My question is how material, how big is any one specific site for Inghams? Because if we're talking about a site here or a site there, then that just gives us a sense for the materiality if you can shut down one particular site or a couple of sites, then how material is that for that group level?

Ed Alexander

Sure, I can give a bit of a flavor of that. Look, firstly, it's taking the opportunity to reiterate my point: I think we're better set up than any other player within the industry to manage and de-risk the risk that is posed by bird flu in Australia.

In terms of our sites, look, our biggest sites are in Queensland and South Australia, our next biggest site's Victoria, and then WA and Tasmania are smaller sites. Obviously, New Zealand operates Te Aroha, which is the major site, and then Bostock is materially smaller than that.

In terms of the question, I think the big ones are Queensland and South Australia. They're our two largest facilities.

If so,

Richard Barwick

can you talk to the materiality, we talking if they're the biggest, is any one site greater than 10%, as an example?

Ed Alexander

Look, I wouldn't concentrate as much because assume bird flu does hit, it'll hit obviously one of our farms, and at that point, we've got then separation across farms. Within a 2-kilometer radius, it's problematic, but then as long as you sort of depopulate within that zone, yeah, that's the kind of impacted portion of the population.

I'd say, Richard, at some level, the geographic separation is critical from a structural perspective. Then I kind of think about it as three layers: you go the geographic separation, then you go separation across farms, which again, I think we've designed our farms and our spreading of farms with biosecurity in mind, and then thirdly, it goes back to, obviously, the capability, expertise, and ability of the business to respond.

By that, I'm saying I'm not concerned that there'll be a large-scale breakout at, for instance, a processing facility, because it becomes more of a farming issue.

Operator

The next question is from Phil Kimber from E&P Capital. Phil, please go ahead.

Phil Kimber

Hi, guys. I was just going to refer to slide nine, and maybe get a broad shape of that for FY27.

You've given the guidance, let's call it 200. You sort of given a sense that we're probably going to have a similar level, if not more, of underlying cost inflation, and then the feed column's going to go the other way, you've talked to the 40 to 50.

CI and procurement savings, can they be a similar amount to what they were in FY26? Then I guess my second question is, it looks like you're going to need price on top of 2.5% to 4% volume, and are they sort of mutually exclusive to an extent, as you try and push price, it actually sort of hurts your volumes?

Thank you.

Ed Alexander

No, good question, Phil. Look, I'll go kind of pretty broad and maybe then a little bit more granular following that.

I effectively think about it as you take your FY26 number, you add, give or take, $130 million of cost inflation driven by a combination of feed, Middle East, as well as embedded inflation, and then that will ultimately be offset by a combination of volume and price, as well as CI and procurement initiatives. In terms of your question around price and volume, as we've got mechanisms established with sort of our major retail and QSR customers as it relates to the passing through of feed costs in particular.

We will see that take effect in some areas through the sort of half one, but more materially into half two, which helps us, obviously, from a ASP perspective. Then, yes, from an operational excellence standpoint, I'd say two things.

Firstly, there remains a significant amount of sort of trapped value within our supply chain, whether it's wastage, cost to serve, yields, or labor productivity, that we should be going after. I'd also say that we've continued to see improvement throughout financial year '26, and as we get that kind of annualized for FY27, that obviously provides annualized benefit heading into that year.

We need to work hard to continue offsetting cost.

Phil Kimber

Would we see something similar to the 80-odd million CI and procurement saving when we see that bridge next year? Then just trying to understand the risk of lags, where you've got the feed cost, but you can't get the price rise for, say, 2 or 3 months later, and you're exposed for that period?

Ed Alexander

Yes is the short answer. Look, I'd say in terms of what we're targeting from a CI and procurement perspective, it'll be similar to this year.

Say, 82 was what we delivered this year. I think we'll be setting a target that's similar to last year as well for financial year '27.

In terms of lag, look, I'd say, yes, there's a slight lag. We try and create a mechanism such that they are back-to-back, and so there isn't a lag.

Certainly, what we see over time is on the way up, there is a squashing of margin marginally, but then we obviously get the benefit of that when feed's going back down. Yes, slight lag, but it works, obviously, both ways.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Ajay Mariswamy from Macquarie.

Ajay, please go ahead.

Ajay Mariswamy

Hi, morning, team. Thanks for taking my question.

Just a question around CapEx. You're guiding to about $80 million of CapEx in '27 with $50 million of that stay-in-business.

Can you just confirm, is that $50 million equivalent to the '26 number where it was $29 million? Do you think that $80 million sort of going forward is going to be enough to drive those efficiency initiatives?

Andrew Just

It is on the same base, Ajay. That 28-odd million increases to 50 in stay-in-business.

Certainly, while we've got the points that we're working through at the moment, we're going to be keeping that capital expenditure around that $80 million.

Ajay Mariswamy

Yeah. Then just secondly, if you do need to drive additional CapEx here, if the business does come CapEx, sort of in the medium term, is there a potential here to cut the dividend down in terms of payout ratio?

Andrew Just

Look, the payout ratio that we've got is 60% to 80%, as you know. That's been in place for some time.

It does give some flexibility. Obviously, in a year where the earnings underlying have been lower, that 60% to 80% is applied, and we pay a smaller dividend.

We do have a investor base that is very much interested in the dividend, we've maintained that. Obviously, we consider that in relation to the capital that we spend, and also the net debt that we have.

Signaling that the net debt is coming down, being tight on our capital spend, allowed that dividend to continue in line with the policy.

Ajay Mariswamy

Got it. Thank you.

Just last one for me. In terms of the cost growth relating to sort of the onboarding of new customers and products, can you talk to whether these issues have been worked through, and if you do win more customer contracts and have to diversify that customer base, is there risk that the costs could start to ramp up again, or is it under control now?

Ed Alexander

No, that's a good question, Ajay. Look, it's not as under control or as efficient as I would probably like it to be at this stage.

When I talk about kind of the onboarding costs, that includes things such as wastage in terms of product wrong location, or product that gets damaged throughout our supply chain. I'd say we've continued to see improvement as the year's progressed, but it's not at a point where it's sufficient from my perspective.

At some level, there becomes a dependency on improving our planning processes before we can see kind of material and more structural improvement to that cost to serve. There's work to do.

There's just work to do, and certainly, sits squarely within the optimize phase of our strategy.

Operator

As there are no further questions, I will now hand back to Ed to close the meeting.

Ed Alexander

Brilliant, thank you. Look, thanks everyone for the questions.

Truly appreciate it, and appreciate you dialling in. On behalf of the management team, I'd like to thank you all for joining us today, and we look forward to meeting many of you over coming weeks.

Thanks very much.