Thank you very much and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining this, which is our quarter one trading update call, and that covers the 13 weeks to the 27th of June this year.

As usual, I'm joined on the call this morning by Duncan Leggett, our CFO. I'll start by giving a few headlines on our trading in the quarter, and then we'll go into a few key areas to provide a bit more detail before, as usual, passing to you for questions that you might want to ask us.

Also as a reminder, we're holding our AGM at 11:00 this morning, which, as usual, we're hosting in our offices here in St Albans. If any shareholders would like to attend and don't yet have the details, please do contact Richard Gordon in Investor Relations for details of how to attend.

On to the quarter one results then. Firstly, I am pleased to say that once again we've grown our branded sales ahead of the market, that's up 4%, and so further increased our market shares.

This was led by a particularly strong performance by our branded Sweet Treats, and with our biggest brand, Mr Kipling, delivering especially strong growth. Now, overall, our group sales increased by 2.7%, and our UK branded sales increased by 3.8%, and that was led by our strong innovation program.

The strong branded growth is partially offset there by further right-sizing of our less profitable non-branded business. I'm pleased to say that we're on track at this early stage in the year, and with our trading profit expectations for the year unchanged.

I'll take you through some of the progress we've made in the first quarter, but before I do that, I just wanted to remind you of the branded growth model, which is the core of what we do, and is the reason why we've been able to deliver such consistent, strong performance over an extended period of time now. Now, firstly, we're lucky to have a portfolio of really strong brands, which are leaders in their categories and have got very high household penetration.

Then we spend a lot of time and effort talking to and listening very carefully to our consumers, so that we can create and bring to market insightful new products which are based on common consumer needs and trends, and which include things like premiumization and better-for-you options. We then support many of our brands with emotionally engaging advertising and impactful marketing campaigns to maintain that strong awareness of our brands, and keep them contemporary and relevant.

We also use digital channels to enhance our connection with younger audiences. Finally, but very importantly, we work closely with our key retail partners to deliver category growth and deliver excellent in-store execution for our brands.

It's this branded growth model that underpins our five-pillar growth strategy, where we continue to make strong progress in all of the pillars, but I'll come back to that shortly. If I kick off with Sweet Treats first then, well, we've had another really great quarter here with branded sales up by 6.6%, and that was led by Mr Kipling, which has grown by another 9% this period.

This trend means that our branded Sweet Treats has now grown on average by 8% for the last 11 quarters, which is clearly a very consistent, strong performance. A significant part of this growth has been driven by the quality of the innovation program, which, as I said, is a major part of our branded growth model and overall strategy.

However, I should also point out that the underlying core product ranges also continue to perform very strongly as well. We talked back in May about those Sweet Treats new product ranges which we launched relatively recently.

In this quarter, we've introduced further new products, including birthday cake slices, which build on the already successful birthday cake tarts. You might remember these birthday cake tarts were inspired by a trend that we've seen in the US for birthday cake as a flavor, and these are selling really very well indeed.

We've extended the idea into our cake slices, which is, of course, our best-selling cake format. We've also launched a new range of Mr Kipling whirls, including some modern flavors like cookies and cream, which will appeal to younger consumers.

Now, these new ranges add to the product innovation we launched last year, particularly Mr Kipling tubs of cake bites, which perfect for sharing or for those wishing to control portion size, and also the Mr Kipling breakfast bakes. Now, if we move on to the grocery business then, our grocery branded sales increased by 3% compared to last year.

Similarly to the Sweet Treats business, we launched a series of new products based on current consumer trends, and this included Ambrosia custard in pouches, which were a convenient option, the perfect for lunchboxes, they contain just a 100 calories a pouch. We also introduced Loyd Grossman premium cooking sauce kits, which is the same format as The Spice Tailor, a three-step kit to bring Italian restaurant-quality meals into the home.

We've also brought to market Nissin Pan Asian meals in a pot, and these are a complete nutrition product range, which are nutrient dense. They contain over 20 grams of protein per pot, and 26 essential vitamins and minerals, and they can be particularly helpful for those using GLP-1s.

In addition to those launches I've just outlined, we also delivered very good growth from some ranges that we introduced last year, and in particular I'll call out Oxo bone broth and Angel Delight Bubble Jelly, which were significant contributors to both sales and growth and share gains for those brands. Moving to the non-branded part of the business, in Sweet Treats non-branded sales increased by 5.3% due to some strong volumes on pies and tarts and a contract win for cake slices.

We expect our non-branded Sweet Treats to now deliver modest growth across the year. Non-branded grocery sales were £2.5 million lower in the quarter, and as I've said before, we continue to right-size this part of the business, and so have exited some further contracts which impacted the shape of the numbers in the quarter.

We do actually expect the trend in grocery to improve as we go through the year. As I've said before, whilst these non-branded contracts can be a bit lumpy, our target over the medium term is for these parts of the business to be flat or possibly deliver some modest, low single-digit growth.

Timing-wise, I'd expect this to take place in Sweet Treats before grocery, which is what we're now starting to see. Then to talk more widely at the other strategic pillars, we've continued to make some encouraging progress.

The next pillar is investment in our infrastructure, and we haven't provided an update on this today as this is just a trading update. However, we do remain on track to invest somewhere between £55 and £60 million in capex this year.

By way of a reminder, this part of our strategy enables us to drive improved efficiency and automation throughout supply chain, enhancing our gross margins, which means we can reinvest back into brand investments. Now, moving into new categories, I'm pleased to say we've continued the momentum here with sales increasing 16% compared to last year, further good progress, especially when setting against last year's comparative when sales in those new categories grew by 38%.

This quarter, I'd call out Cape Herb & Spice as a particularly strong performer, which as I've mentioned before, has become an established presence in the market. It's great for bringing flavor to liven up a wide range of dishes, poultry, fish, salads, and ribs, and also across midweek evening meals, but also the barbecue season, which helps us reduce the seasonality sensitivity of our grocery business.

Growth from new categories also included FUEL10K yogurt and granola, which we launched last year and is in the chilled aisle, and this is a pot of protein-enriched yogurt with a lid containing some of our market-leading FUEL10K granola, which you sprinkle on top or which you can mix in. If we now move on to international, as I've said before, our focus markets are Australasia, North America, and EMEA.

Within these target markets, we're currently focused on Mr Kipling, Sharwood's, and The Spice Tailor, but now also FUEL10K. In the first quarter, overseas sales at constant currency grew by 6%, and actually 7% on a reported basis.

If we take Europe first then, where we increased sales in double digits in the quarter, it's been very pleasing to see the encouraging start to the launch of FUEL10K, where we're initially in the Netherlands, Germany, and France. The Netherlands is where we've achieved the most significant distribution, with both granola and porridge pots ranges listed in Albert Heijn.

We've supported the launch with some social media, and as I say, it's off to an encouraging start. In North America, sales also grew in double digits.

Canada saw increased sales of The Spice Tailor, while in the US, we saw very strong growth compared to last year due to the new distribution for Mr Kipling slices and pies, which took place in the second half last year, as well as some more recent listings. In Australia, sales of The Spice Tailor grew over 20% as it benefited from a multi-channel marketing campaign, which actually included TV advertising in addition to an immersive retail experience in one of Australia's largest shopping centers.

We do this because we know that once people try The Spice Tailor, they do really like it, and they tend to come back and make it a regular purchase. Our focus is on increasing consumer awareness.

Then in cake in Australia, we saw sales stabilize as retailer stockholding levels begin to normalize. Then just as a reminder, our final strategic growth pillar is to look for inorganic opportunities where we can deliver further growth by leveraging the strength of our branded growth model.

As we're looking at acquiring future-focused brands which have significant further future potential to scale up and deliver high growth for many years ahead. Following that premise, all three of the brands we've acquired since we set out on this strategy, that's The Spice Tailor, FUEL10K, and Merchant Gourmet, they've all again grown sales in double digits this quarter, which we're really very pleased with.

Merchant Gourmet enjoyed widespread growth across all its range, especially from some of its new launches, including the new gourmet baked beans. FUEL10K also continued to progress very strongly as well.

We've mentioned before that we have the number one granola product in the UK market with our flagship chocolate granola, well, that continues to be the case, and in fact, we've strengthened that further and taken more market share in the granola category, another very strong performance from the brand. Then in terms of The Spice Tailor, the core Indian kits range performed particularly strongly, and the brand also then growing sales in the teens percentages in quarter one.

As we've said before, we will continue to explore further inorganic opportunities and where we believe we can add value by applying our branded growth model. We're looking for high-growth, future-focused brands.

Of course, we do now have some greater flexibility in terms of the size of opportunities we can consider given the strength of our balance sheet. However, and also as we've said before, we are quite picky, and we'll update you when we've got anything more we can share on that.

Look, in summary, we're on track, and our trading profit expectations for the financial year are unchanged. It's particularly pleasing to see the good progress across the pillars of the growth strategy, and in particular the role that our recently acquired brands are playing in accelerating overall group growth.

As we look forward to the rest of the year, we'll continue to drive performance across all of those five pillars of our strategy and to leverage the strength of our branded growth model. As usual, of course, we'll be continuing to support our brands as well as bringing a number of new products to market in the UK, and also building our brands overseas.

Over the medium term, we expect to continue to build the business by making strong progress against that five-pillar strategic growth strategy. Look, thank you very much again for your time today.

I'll now pass back to the operator, and we'd be very happy to take any questions.

Morning, Alex. Morning, Duncan.

Can I just ask on Ireland, what was the impact in the quarter from that change from a distributor to direct retail? Was it just in that quarter?

Presumably, it doesn't affect ongoing sales. Just give a bit more color around that, that would be great, please.

Sure. Thanks, Charles.

What we've done is we've had a historic relationship with one of the retailers in Ireland, a significant one as well, where we've gone through a distributor, which isn't particularly efficient. We've now moved that to a direct delivery relationship, which obviously is more efficient, saves us some money, and gives a bit more control.

There is a one-off impact as we run down the stocks that were in the distributor's warehouse, if you think about it that way, because they own that stock. You're absolutely right, it's a one-off.

It only affects the first quarter of this year. I think from an impact point of view, think about it as a couple of million or so of sales.

That would be grocery branded sales to be fair.

Yep, got it. Perfect.

Then one other, can you just give an update on input costs and pricing? I think when we last talked about it, a little bit higher, but not looking to change pricing.

Has that changed at all?

Similar picture, although obviously we're very aware of what's happening. When we thought we got a ceasefire, that seems to have dissipated on us.

We'll keep very close to that. If we need to take some action, then we'll do so, but at the moment, doesn't look like we need to.

Perfect. Thanks very much.

Thanks, Charles.

Hello there. A couple of questions from me.

First one on innovation and new product development. Just sort of interested to see the cadence of it seems to have stepped up or intensified.

I don't know whether that's just a perception thing or I'm perceiving it or you're sort of explaining it in more detail, but it really seems like there's been some quite big wins there on the product development and innovation side. Is that you putting a bit more into it or is that just sort of it's the way it's always been?

If it's step-change, can we sort of see that continue at the same level? That's the first one.

Morning, Andy. Good question actually, and quite observant as well, because yes, there is a subtle change here that was something we've been working on for a few years, because it takes a little while for these things to filter through.

Whilst we might not have more NPD in absolute terms, in fact, there might even be a little bit less, what we've been focusing on is coming up with ideas which have got overall greater scale-up possibility. When you think of things like Oxo bone broth, that's something that we expect to be able to scale and be worth several million pounds of turnover as opposed to doing lots of little things.

Similarly with the innovation that we've talked about on Sweet Treats, like the breakfast bakes, which target a different time of the day, they're very specifically intended to be entirely incremental to the rest of the Mr Kipling business, which is generally eaten lunchtime onwards. There is a subtle change there, and it's really about scale.

Interesting. Thanks very much.

Then the second one I was going to ask, on the non-branded grocery side of things, that was obviously a bit light of, well, certainly what I'd expected, and I think perhaps others as well. Obviously not too much of a concern given it's sort of not a strategic priority, and it was relatively low margin.

I'm sort of interested as to you're obviously still very happy with consensus trading profit expectations. Is it just that sort of that revenue is such low margin it doesn't have much impact, or are you sort of slightly outtrading elsewhere?

Just interested in the dynamics around that. Thanks.

Sure. It's no change from what we've talked about before, Andy, really, because what we've been doing is deliberately unwinding some of these contracts where we're not really making any or very little money.

What you're seeing is relatively hollow revenue that we're getting out of, therefore no impact on trading profit. If you look at the journey we've been on that, particularly on grocery, we've now got a smaller non-branded business, but a significantly more profitable one, which is exactly what we were trying to achieve.

Now, from that base, that's something that we can now move forward on and start to, as you've seen on Sweet Treats, actually getting a bit of modest growth out of it, because we're kind of happy where we've got to. It's just going to take a little bit longer to sort of finish the journey on grocery, but yeah, I'd expect that to start to flatten out, and eventually maybe get into a little bit of modest growth as we are on Sweet Treats.

Great stuff. Very clear.

Thanks, Alex.

Thank you. Morning, everyone.

First question is just on the impact of timing of Easter. I don't think you mentioned it in the statement, but I'm casting my mind back to the full-year results, I think you'd said that some sales had been sort of dragged into Q4 '26 out of this quarter due to the early Easter.

I just wondered whether I remembered that correctly and if so, I know it's very difficult to quantify, but was that enough to move the needle in the quarter, I suppose, is my question. That's question one.

Thanks, Mat. Morning.

You're absolutely right. Remembered.

Yes, in Q4 we did say that Q4 had benefited from that changing in Easter timing. Because deliveries tend to go out a few weeks before Easter, obviously to make sure they've got time to get through warehouses and get onto shelves and get put onto displays, it meant that Q4 benefited in Q4, but obviously that's at the expense of Q1.

We've not particularly mentioned it in the announcement today, but you're absolutely right, Q1 particularly, sort of branded grocery and Sweet Treats would have been stronger if it had been a like-for-like timing of Easter for the quarter. Obviously, we've seen that benefit in Q4.

Got it. Then second question on international.

The parts of international that you mentioned are all performing strongly, Europe, North America, and The Spice Tailor in Australia. The overall growth was only 6% up against a relatively weak comp as well, I think.

Presumably the Australia cake was weak. Could you just remind me what's going on there and maybe sort of update on where we are in that part of the business, please?

Your analysis is spot on. Double-digit growth in Europe and North America, good growth of The Spice Tailor in Australia as well, but overall Australia was pretty flat, and that is that sort of continuation of getting the stock levels right in Australia.

The outcome here was better than we expected actually, because I expected to see more stock come out of the system in Australia cake than it did, because I think we're now getting to the right levels. Therefore you end up with 6% growth even though you've got double-digit growth out of Europe and North America, because Australia is so much bigger for us and is so much more an established market than either Europe or North America.

There's a relative size impact going on there. Actually feeling pretty good about that stabilization of stock in Australia.

You might remember we said we've put a logistics person from the UK into our Australian team on the ground to get very close to the retailers and their logistics teams to work through what's the right amount of stock, what should the right frequency of ordering be, and we've made quite a lot of progress on that, I'm feeling a bit more comfortable with it.

Also to follow up on that, if you take the sort of stocking issue out of it, what do you think the underlying performance of the Australian cake business has been looking like in the quarter?

It's a really good question. Someone asked me that yesterday and I don't have the analysis, unfortunately.

I know that, as we went through last year, we were seeing really strong growth, and I know we've got a nice plan this year for the Australian cake business, including a lot of new products and continued marketing support. I'm not worried about the health, if you like, of that business, although I think it's fair to say it's becoming a more mature business like in the UK, but yeah, I'm not concerned about that, really.

Understood. That's all from me.

Thanks very much.

Thanks.

Thanks very much. Thanks for your questions, everybody.

Look, I think, obviously quarter one is not our biggest quarter. We know that that comes later in the year when the weather gets chilly, but nevertheless we're off to a good start, really pleased with the branded growth that we've delivered, and also pleased with the points across the pillars actually, but good to see the international business picking back up again, which is obviously what we expect to see.

Overall, we're in a good position, no change to outlook for the year. Thanks very much.