WH Group Ltd. (HK)

WH Group Ltd. (HK)

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Q4 FY2025 · Earnings Call TranscriptMarch 24, 2026

Zhou Xiaoming

Dear analysts and investors, good evening. Welcome to our annual results announcement by WH Group.

Today, we have with us Mr. Wan Long, Chairman and Executive Director, and he is seated on the stage with us.

Next to him, we also have Mr. Guo Lijun, our Executive Director and CEO; our CFO and Vice President, Madam Zhen Jin Yan.

I'm Zhou Xiaoming, the VP. We also have online with us our leaders: Mr.

Wan Hongwei, Vice Chairman of the group; Mr. Ma Xiangjie; Mr.

Dennis Organ; Mr. Shane Smith; and Luis and Mark.

We will first listen to the introduction of our performance in 2025, and then we will proceed to Q&A session. Mr.

Guo, please take us through the financial situation and business review.

Guo Lijun

Good evening, everyone. I am going to take you through the financial summary, business review of 2025.

Packaged meat sold 3.054 million metric tons, a drop of 1.5%; pork sold 4.089 million metric tons, an increase of 8.6%. Revenue realized $28.026 billion, up 8%; EBITDA $3.377 billion, up 9.7%; operating profit $2.612 billion, up 8.7%; profit before tax $2.5 billion, up 13.2%; profit attributable to owners of the company $1.591 billion, up 8.2%.

Basic earnings per share 12.4 U.S. cents.

Based on our operating performance and cash flow for the year to better make returns to our shareholders, we have decided that we are going to propose a final dividend of HK$0.41, together with interim dividend HK$0.20, for the full year HK$0.61. Total payout $1 billion, and they will be distributed after the shareholders' meeting.

If you look at our segment performance, packaged meat is still our core, contributing 50.6% of revenue and 82% of our profit. Pork contribution 40% to revenue and 22% to our profit.

Others 8.8% and 4.1% respectively. North America contribution 54.3% to our revenue, 53% to our profit.

China business contribution 30% to our revenue and 35% to our profit. Europe contribution 15.4% and 10.9% respectively.

Over the year of 2025, we maintained operating cash flow at $2.526 billion, with a declining capex at $611 million, down by 13.6%. Shareholder return, the proposed level for the full year HK$0.61, so that will exceed $1 billion payout.

We have also maintained a conservative leverage level and debt level towards the end of the year. $3.633 billion is our total borrowing, and total debt to equity ratio 0.28.

The global economy demonstrated resilience and escalating trade tensions and policy uncertainties with divergent trends across different regions. Chinese hog market was characterized by strong supply and weak demand, leading to lower pork prices.

Effective demand for consumer goods was insufficient. Hog prices in North America rebounded and market spreads narrowed.

Profit of hog production improved, while the fresh meat and packaged meat business faced cost pressures. In the European market, hog prices declined due to animal diseases, war, and export restrictions.

We leveraged our global platform and vertically integrated business model, optimized our business structure, promoted efficiency improvement and cost control, leading to improvement in all key operating metrics and record-high profits. The number of slaughtered hogs in China increased by 2.4% to 720 million heads.

By the end of the year, hog inventory in China was 430 million heads, up 0.5% over the end of 2024. The volume came up with the prices coming down.

Number of slaughtered hogs in the U.S. decreased by 0.8% to 127 million heads.

Average hog price per kilo $1.57 in the United States and €1.46 per kilo in Europe, down by 8.5%. Hog prices in China and U.S.

both -- China and Europe both went down. If you look at the spread in the market, average pork cutout value in the U.S.

was $2.27 per kilo, an increase of 7.4%. Meat prices went up by 7.4%, and industry market spread narrowed as hog prices increased more than pork values.

Operating profit $934 million in China, down by 1%. Packaged meat $891 million, down by 3.6%; pork $44 million, down by 20%.

We implemented various innovative measures, continued to enhance performance of underperforming segments, expanded sales network, and optimized product mix amid a challenging market environment. Our total meat sales volume reached a record high while profit remained stable.

We have innovative marketing strategies and accelerated channel transformation, driving rapid sales growth in emerging channels. Profit per ton remained strong.

We adhered to the strategy of stabilizing profit and expanding volume for pork business. We expand customer base and sales channels, resulting in increase in sales volume.

We continued to increase the volume of chicken produced and processed, adjusted product mix, and expanded sales network for poultry business. We accelerated digital transformation to drive upgrades in management across operations, sales, hog production, administration, and R&D.

For North America, operating profit $1.393 billion, up 17.4%. Packaged meat $1.097 billion, down by 6.6%; pork $444 million, up 161.2%.

We capitalized on favorable market opportunities, leveraged vertically integrated business model, optimized operational management, and implemented cost saving and efficiency enhancing measures, resulting in high record earnings. For packaged meat, total sales volume remained stable, supported by diversified product portfolio and channel mix, while high-margin products continued to deliver growth.

We continued to improve mix, adjust price, and control costs to absorb the pressure of rising raw material costs. For pork business, profit improved significantly, driven by hog production segment that capitalized on favorable market conditions, improved performance indicators, and lowered hog raising cost.

Fresh meat business enhanced operational efficiency, reduced expenses, and optimized product and channel mix. We continued to improve KPIs of hog production, reduce costs, increase efficiency, and strive to achieve a competitive cost structure.

For Europe business, operating profit $285 million, up 4%. Packaged meat $155 million, up 14%; pork business $90 million, down by 31.3%.

We leveraged the strength of our business model to counteract market fluctuations, focused on the development of packaged meat business, pursued synergistic M&A, leading to sustained growth in volume and profit. We expanded the scale, product offering, and geographic footprint of packaged meat by integrating newly acquired operations.

We adhered to the strategy of improving mix, adjusting price, and controlling cost. For pork business, we leveraged the vertically integrated business model, profits of the segment improved significantly, mitigating the impact of declined hog prices.

The poultry business achieved growth in both volume and profit by improving management and expanding sales network, seizing market opportunities, and controlling cost. We focused on the packaged meat segment, expanded our supporting business, and strengthened business footprint, and successfully acquired [Pifo Foods?]

from Poland and Wolf Group from Germany. WH Group will continue to consolidate our global resources, leverage synergies, adhere to the business philosophy of improving mix, adjusting price, and controlling cost, and the strategy of industrialization, diversification, internationalization, and digitalization to enhance our leading position.

We will continue to focus on our core packaged meat business to achieve steady growth in volume and profit. We respond to evolving consumer market and promote product and channel transformation in China to achieve breakthrough in sales volume.

We mitigate the measures of increasing costs and drive growth in high-margin products to maintain high profit in the U.S. We continue to expand our business scale in Europe through organic growth and acquisitions, reducing our costs and improving our efficiency to increase profit.

We will explore opportunities to optimize and increase the processing capacity of pork business through M&A, new construction, and facility upgrade, optimize product mix and sales channels to enhance profit. We will achieve a competitive cost structure for hog production by improving the KPIs and effectively preventing and controlling diseases.

We will accelerate the development of our poultry business and enhance operational performance to further advance our meat diversification strategy and achieve synergistic development through complementary businesses. That's the end of my report.

Thank you very much.

Zhou Xiaoming

Thank you, Mr. Guo.

Now let's enter the Q&A session. If you would like to ask questions, please raise your hand and tell us who you are and who you represent.

Operator

[unclear] question. You can ask a question either in Mandarin or in English.

Zhou Xiaoming

Let's invite the first question from the floor.

Lillian Lou

Thank you very much for the opportunity. I'm from Morgan Stanley.

I'm Lillian Lou. I have two questions.

Mr. Guo, you talked about 2026 for packaged meat business.

Mr. Wan has been paying very close attention to that and you have been making adjustments.

For this segment in China, if you look at hog prices declining continuously, in 2026 with a rather high level of profit per ton last year, do you think you can achieve new heights this year? Concerning packaged meat business, in terms of sales volume, it's been suppressed by demand, it hasn't been very strong.

What about this year? What is your thinking?

Then about the U.S. side, packaged meat business, as you mentioned, you would like to expand high unit price products and high profit margin products.

What is the overall thinking about 2026? Then taking one step back, Mr.

Wan, the entire group is in a stabilization stage. What about the next 3 to 5 years?

What would be the focal point in terms of return to shareholders? What is your plan?

[Speaks in non-English language].

Zhou Xiaoming

The question came from Lillian of Morgan Stanley. The first part relates to the packaged meats, as Mr.

Guo mentioned that packaged meats is a strategic priority for WH Group. With respect to China, given the relatively low raw material cost, in light of the strong profit per metric ton performance in 2025, is there an opportunity to achieve even higher profit per metric ton in China for 2026?

Also, the volume of China packaged meats has been under pressure due to the demand in the market, and how should investors look at the demand for the volume for 2026? With respect to the U.S.

packaged meats, Shane, Mark, I will defer to you to answer this part. As we mentioned, we will promote more high-unit-cost, high-margin products, and what's the outlook for U.S.

packaged meats, I guess, in terms of volume and profitability going forward? The second question for Chairman Wan, what will be the company's strategic priority in the next 3 to 5 years, and what will the shareholder return look like in the future?

[Speaks in non-English language]. Shuanghui leaders, can you talk about the packaged meat business?

Can we connect them?

Ma Xiangjie

Good evening. I'm Ma Xiangjie from Shuanghui.

I'm joining online. Concerning the first question about packaged meat in 2026, the hog prices have been dropping.

Concerning our strategies,

Zhou Xiaoming

Mr. Ma, I think you are too far from the mic.

You are being cut off. You'd better start from scratch again.

[Speaks in non-English language].

Ma Xiangjie

How about now?

Zhou Xiaoming

It's better.

Ma Xiangjie

I will answer the first question concerning about packaged meat business. [Speaks in non-English language].

Response from Mr. Ma, CEO of Shuanghui, on China packaged meats: Based on our latest observation in the market, the recovery of the demand is not very obvious and the competition remained very strong.

In 2026, our strategy for China packaged meats is to balance volume and profitability, with a slight focus on volumes. Consistent with this strategy, our priority will be to expand market shares, to step up our investment in marketing, in innovations, which means that we expect our volume will grow, but profit per metric ton may have a slight decline compared to 2025, but will remain at a very high level, probably the second highest in the context of the historical profit per tons.

The second part relates to U.S. packaged meats.

I will defer to Shane and Mark. Shane, Mark, can you hear us?

Shane Smith

We can hear you. Can you hear us?

Zhou Xiaoming

It will be better if you can get closer to the mic.

Shane Smith

Right, can you hear us now?

Zhou Xiaoming

Yes, yes.

Shane Smith

Okay. All right.

Thank you, Lillian, and thank you, Xiaoming. Lillian, packaged meats continues to be the earnings driver of the North American business.

This 2025 was the fourth consecutive year where we had achieved over a billion dollars of segment profit. From a volume standpoint, we were up in 6 of the 10 billion-dollar-plus categories that we operate in.

In our food service channel, we saw sales increase by 10% in fiscal 2025, but we also saw volume increases in that channel as well, which was up by about 2%. Xiaoming, I'll let you translate that, and then I'll continue.

[Speaks in

non-English language].

Shane Smith

Again, in 6 out of 10 of those billion-dollar categories, but more importantly, that includes the higher-margin categories like deli meat, packaged lunch meat, and dry sausage. We grew dollar and unit share in 2025, and we also grew our points of distribution.

We have 25 key categories, and we saw points of distribution up about 5% for the full year. That was really led by performance in our Prime Fresh.

Our packaged meats, we feel really strong about going into 2026. We will be exercising more along the lines of advertising and promotion to promote brand growth, but we are aware in North America we still were operating with a very cautious consumer, a very cautious spending environment.

We think we have the right strategies in place to see both volume and profitability growth in 2026. [Speaks in

Zhou Xiaoming

non-English language].

Shane Smith

Thank you, Xiaoming.

Zhou Xiaoming

Thank you, Shane. [Speaks in non-English language].

[Speaks in

Wan Long

non-English language].

In response to your second question related to the company's strategies, we have the four-pronged strategies with four themes: industrialization, diversification, globalization, and digitalization. Specifically for industrialization, it means we realize the full benefits from a vertically integrated business model to achieve the synergies between the upstream, midstream, and downstream.

In hog production in U.S., we are reducing our capacities. In China and in Europe, there's a slight increase.

For fresh pork and packaged meats, we'll maintain their steady growth. We want to achieve the optimal balance between the different businesses to maximize the synergies.

Secondly, diversification, it means, while we continue to focus the meat processing business, we will continue to diversify, while we continue to grow the pork business, we will also diversify into poultry and beef as opportunities arise. Thirdly, in terms of globalization, because we are a multinational company, we have a lot of synergies between different parts of our business, through various trading opportunities, we want to achieve synergies between our business subsidiaries.

In terms of digitalization, we aim to use new technologies to improve our business management, to use artificial intelligence, robots to replace some existing processes, to improve efficiency, improve productivity, and use these new technologies to transform our traditional meat processing industry. To execute on this strategy, we will have three priorities.

First priority is that for our existing pork, poultry, and packaged meat business, we'll focus on the core existing business, expand their volumes. In the last couple of years, we have some pressures and declines in the volume of our business, and we'll focus on recover the volume growth in China and U.S.

Secondly, in terms of technology, we'll introduce more technologies to improve the process efficiency to reduce cost and expenses. Thirdly, in terms of acquisitions, we will selectively identify and execute acquisitions in pork, poultry, and beef to further expand our scale and strengthen our business portfolio.

[Speaks in

Wan Long

non-English language].

In terms of shareholder return, as our dividend policy is that no less than 50% of the profit attributable to owners of the company. We will obviously continue to adhere to our dividend policies.

As you have seen, in the last couple of years, we have made some reorganizations, including the IPO of Smithfield and the separation of Morliny Foods from Smithfield. After this restructurings, all these subsidiaries performed very well, and we're also confident about the outlook.

For 2026, we have very good plans for volume, for revenue, as well as the profits, and we are confident in our ability to deliver shareholder returns in 2026 and going forward. [Speaks in

Wan Long

non-English language].

That's all from Chairman. [Speaks in

Operator

non-English language]. [Speaks in

non-English language].

Shane, Mark, two questions from BofA Research, Chen Luo, and they're all related to the U.S. business.

The first is on U.S. hog production.

It looks like the 2025 hog production profit per head was $18, which is one of the highest in the recent history. In your previous guidance, you have guided hog production profits of $125 to $150 million, but in the final results it was 200, which has far exceeded the guidance.

In light of the recent conflicts in Middle East and the rising of crude oil and other commodity prices, how will this higher raw material price impact the hog production business in the U.S. in 2026, such as the feed, the hogs, and how will that impact our profit per head in hog production?

Given our hedging strategies, and how much visibility we have for 2026 hog production? Secondly, related to the recent Senate bill on the meat business, and the part obviously talked about the separation of different animal proteins, but also talked about the foreign investment in the U.S.

meat industry. What's the possibility that the bill will be passed by the U.S.

Congress, and how long it will take for this to become a law, and what will be the impact of this bill, and what measures is the company taking to address this potential risk?

Shane Smith

To the first question, U.S. hog production had a fantastic 2025, and I think you quoted a number that was $200 million, it was actually $176 million is where we finished the year.

That's really a reflection of both improved operations and market conditions. Inherently in that, if you look at our raising cost, raising costs year over year was down 4.8%, and that was really driven by an improvement in our wean pig cost, which if you go back and reflect upon the things we've talked about from our genetic strategy to improve our wean pig cost, we're really seeing that come through.

That was down about 8.1%, and feed cost was down about 5%. Those things combined really drove that 4.8% decrease in raising cost, coupled with a really good hog market throughout 2025, allowed us to print earnings that were the best we've had since 2014.

Xiaoming, I'll let you translate that. [Speaks in

non-English language].

Shane Smith

For 2026, we are seeing some impacts from some of the things that you pointed out. Crude oil is up, which is having an impact on corn.

We've seen corn go up $0.20 to $0.30 a bushel over just the past few weeks, which will have an impact on our raising cost. We've seen diesel prices increase from $3.50 back in January to close to $5 now, so that's having an impact.

What we're focused on is making sure we're efficient, continuing to execute the strategies that we've laid out on previous calls from the genetics side, from the feed efficiency, liveability, health, all of those things that will play in. We also use a number of hedging techniques where we are able to buy corn and soybean meal contracts and sell hogs on the futures markets to help us lock in some margin where we see opportunity.

We'll use a number of hedging techniques to help us make sure we're managing the business well. Right now, as you saw in the press release, we did lay out our guidance for next year.

We think that guidance, with what we know today, is fully inclusive of any implications that we see on the horizon. [Speaks in

Zhou Xiaoming

non-English language].

Shane Smith

Xiaoming, to the second question, there are a number of bills that are making their way through Congress, and we're following all of those very closely. I think what's important for people to know is that when WH Group bought Smithfield, this was a CFIUS-approved transaction.

Smithfield has been here for 90 years. Coming back to the U.S.

stock market back in January provides an additional level of transparency to all stakeholders to let us to let them know who we are and how we operate. While we're following those closely, we're concerned from a standpoint of seeing where this goes.

I think the merits of Smithfield, how we operate, our relationship with WH Group will stand up to any scrutiny we get. I'll let you translate that, and I'll talk about a couple of other things.

[Speaks in

non-English language].

Shane Smith

Smithfield is subject to the same laws and regulations that all American businesses are. I think what's important again for people to understand is, as a company, we partner with thousands of independent American hog farmers from our facilities across 39 U.S.

communities and across 18 states. We pay, on average, about $2.2 billion in wages to over 32,000 U.S.

employees. We've made hundreds of millions of dollars hundreds of millions of dollars of philanthropic contribution to all of the local communities that we operate in.

We've recently announced an investment in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, that will be one of the largest investments in American agriculture ever. We are invested in in the U.S., and I think as that fact pattern becomes more talked about and more recognized, it really positions Smithfield well as as really contributing to the U.S.

agricultural economy. [Speaks in

Zhou Xiaoming

non-English language].

Shane Smith

Thank you, Xiaoming. [Speaks in

Operator

non-English language]. [Speaks in

Veronica Song

non-English language].

Two questions from UBS. The first one on China's hog price: What will be the outlook of hog price for 2026, given the recent unexpected sharp decline?

There is some speculation that some more capacity will exit industry, which will force the price to bottom out. What's the outlook from Shuanghui?

Secondly on Europe, as mentioned, there are a lot of uncertainties in the economy, in the commodity prices as result of the recent events. How will that impact the cost structure for the European business?

Luis, maybe will defer to you after Shuanghui has answered the first part. [Speaks in

Zhou Xiaoming

non-English language]. [Speaks in

Ma Xiangjie

non-English language]. [Speaks in

Zhou Xiaoming

non-English language]. [Speaks in

Ma Xiangjie

non-English language]. [Speaks in

Zhou Xiaoming

non-English language].

This is Shuanghui CEO, Mr. Ma.

With respect to the outlook of hog price in China, based on the information we have, we are of the view that the average price in 2026 will be lower than 2025, approximately 10% lower. We believe the price in the first half will be lower, and there will be some recovery in the second half.

We do not believe the recent sharp decline hog prices will force a lot of capacity to exit the market, because currently there are a lot of large industrialized hog producers in China. The short-term fluctuations in hog prices will not impact their overall capacity strategies.

We do not believe the hog price recovery will be very steep. Luis, maybe you want to take the second question relates to Europe cost structure.

Luis Cerdan

Thanks, Xiaoming. Related to the impact of the Iran war in our business in Europe, we already see the increase in prices in fuel, gas, and electricity.

We have some coverage for the year, but the impact in our cost will depend on the duration of the actual situation in Middle East. We can see in medium term some increase in grain cost, but we have some positions too in the grain cost.

Like we were doing in the past with energy crisis and inflation crisis after the Ukrainian war start, we have measurements to mitigate this potential inflation situation with commercial action, mix optimization, and productivity programs and efficiency programs that we were investing during the last years to try to optimize the energy use in all our manufacturing plants. Thank you.

[Speaks in

Zhou Xiaoming

non-English language]. [Speaks in

non-English language].

Two questions both related to China business. First is, given the assumption that the hog prices will continue to be depressed in 2026, how will that impact the hog production and the fresh pork business in China in 2026?

Secondly, the packaged meats profit per ton has a small decline in the fourth quarter '25, whereas the volume has been flat. The company has a good outlook for packaged meats volume in '26, and what's the latest progress in terms of the various measures have taken in terms of products and channels?

[Speaks in

Zhou Xiaoming

non-English language]. [Speaks in

Ma Xiangjie

non-English language].

With respect to hog production and fresh pork, for fresh pork, currently the China market is still very fragmented. There are more than 5,000 players, and for the top for the top players, the the market share, the combined market share is less than 10%.

In the next few years, there will be consolidation of fresh pork in China. We want to take advantage of lower hog prices to expand our market shares.

With this idea in mind, we will not be too fixed on the profit per head, and we will try to expand our scale while maintaining a moderate level of profitability. For hog production, it's still a relatively underperforming business of Shuanghui.

In 2025, it was loss-making. In 2026, we expect the raising cost will decline, but the hog price will also decline.

We will continue to it's likely we'll continue to incur loss, but the loss will narrow. In the future, we may also opportunistically expand the scale of hog production, but not in a capital-intensive way.

We'll partner with other hog producers to lock in the hog supplies to support our fresh pork and packaged business, to enhance the competitiveness of our overall business platform. [Speaks in

Zhou Xiaoming

non-English language]. [Speaks in

Cao Junsheng

non-English language]. This

the response on the packaged meats from Shuanghui Vice President, Mr. Zhao, responsible for packaged meat business.

Last year, if we look at the packaged meats volume by quarter, the first quarter was weak, the second quarter and third quarter stabilized, and in fourth quarter we recorded moderate or small growth. In 2026, our outlook is that the growth will be more meaningful for the following five reasons.

Number one, we have seen sequential improvement quarter by quarter in 2025 because we have made a lot of reforms, for example, in professionalize or specialize our sales force, and the effect of these reforms are being realized gradually over time. Secondly, we are encouraged by the strong growth in the new channels, which has achieved more than 30% year-over-year growth in 2025 with 25% share of our overall mix.

Its performance was also improving quarter-over-quarter in '25. Thirdly, in light of the K-shaped consumption pattern in the market, we have launched value-for-money products, which has exhibited strong growth momentum in 2025.

Number four, we are also increasing our efforts in digitalizing our marketing, and which will help us to have a more precise marketing strategy executions, and to have a better effect in the overall marketing. Thirdly, we have also a lot of innovations in our channels.

We have launched some pilot programs, which have achieved encouraging results, and we will continue to have a very accurate and a forceful support of different markets based on their local conditions. With all these factors considered, we are confident in a meaningful growth in packaged meats volumes in 2026.

We hope that will also be reflected in the quarterly results that will be announced in a couple of weeks. [Speaks in non-English language].

[Speaks in

non-English language]. Shane, Mark,

two questions from CICC on the U.S. business.

First relates to the U.S. hog production.

We have noticed a significant decline in the volumes compared to 2024, which was consistent with our hog production capacity rationalization. What's the latest progress in the capacity rationalization, and what's the kind of target or plans going forward for hog production capacity?

Secondly, relates to the U.S. packaged meats, we noticed the decline in profit per metric tons in '25, primarily driven by the high raw material cost.

What's the latest outlook for packaged meats in '26, both profit and volume?

Shane Smith

Xiaoming. I'll take the first one, and then Mark can take the second one.

As it relates to hog production, in 2025, we produced 11.1 million hogs internally. That's down from about 17.6 million at the high of 2019, and down from the 14.6 million that we produced in 2024.

That all was part of our overall rationalization process. We do expect, as we look at 2026, that we'll be up slightly above that 11.1, really due to two things.

One is productivity increases. As we've invested in genetics and health, we're seeing some productivity growth.

Then second, keep in mind there's, for us in our fiscal year, there's a 53rd week in 2026. I would tell you, over the medium term, we're still targeting a reduction in our overall hog production capacity to 10 million hogs, roughly 10 million hogs, and that would be about 30% of what fresh pork needs.

Again, we think that this is the optimal balance to keep that assured supply coming into the plants, but also balancing that with the overall cost risk, commodity management, or commodity side risk management. We'll continue over the medium term to work toward that 10 million and 30%.

Again, as we sit today looking at 2026, we do expect it to be up slightly again due to those productivity increases that are coming from our current internal production, and from that 53rd week that we'll see in 2026. Xiaoming, I'll let you translate, and then I'll hand it to Mark to talk through the packaged meats question.

[Speaks in

non-English language].

Mark Hall

On the packaged meats question, you're correct, we did experience significantly higher raw material markets in 2025 to the tune of about $525 million, which we were able to successfully offset a portion of through pricing and mix improvements, but certainly had an impact in terms of pressuring our margins per metric ton. We do anticipate some relief in the raw material markets as we move into 2026, but we're still faced with a very cautious consumer with high rates of inflation in the U.S., and so what we saw in 2025 is expected to continue as we start 2026 with that cautious consumer trading down across the branded portfolio, and in some cases into private label.

Again, that really speaks to the strength of Smithfield's brands with brands that meet that consumer where they are within their pricing constraints. Then we do have about 40% of our business in retail in private label, if they are trading out of branded and into private label, they're likely picking up a product that is produced by Smithfield.

We'll continue to focus on improving our mix and moving away from that more commoditized offering, think of the seasonal ham business, and into everyday use occasions of our packaged meats business at a higher margin. I'd say the long-term algorithm is still intact for the packaged meats business, which includes continuing to improve that mix and improving the profitability in total and on a per metric ton basis.

It's just really attributed to that cautious consumer right now. [Speaks in

Zhou Xiaoming

non-English language]. [Speaks in

non-English language]. [Speaks in non-English language].

The question from J.P. Morgan on the European business: In the last couple of years, European business, where Morliny has made a couple of acquisitions to expand the footprints, and are trying to build a platform as scalable as Shuanghui or Smithfield, but obviously still relatively small.

Apart from these acquisitions, what's the organic growth in Morliny, and what's the constraints for the organic growth in European markets? Also what's the group's overall strategy going forward for Europe?

Luis, you may want to take a first stab.

Luis Cerdan

Yes. Thank you for the question.

The organic growth the last year, we were growing 5% in our fresh pork business and 7% in our poultry business in volume, yeah. In our packaged meat business, we have a small decline of volumes, and inorganic growth was giving us a total growth of 3%.

That still we are growing, like Chairman was mentioning in our strategy, in our poultry business. In our packaged meat business, we are growing too organically through investing in some of the categories that we believe are future categories for us, like ready meals, convenience food.

Through M&As in the future, and it was mentioned in the last calls, our main strategy still is packaged meat business in Europe, poultry business, and some areas like pet food that we have some acquisitions that still we have some possibilities to grow within the European market. Thank you.

[Speaks in

Zhou Xiaoming

non-English language]. [Speaks in non-English language].

Thank you.