Morning, everyone. Welcome to the investor call following the announcement this morning of the 2025 annual results of Lotus Bakeries.

I'm Jan Boone, and joining me today is our CFO, Mike Cuvelier, and we are both here in Lembeke. We will start with a presentation providing an overview of the performance and also the milestones of '25 and, later on, deep dive into the financials.

Of course, following the presentation, we are open for questions from your side. In total, we have foreseen 50 minutes for this call in total.

First slide. I'm proud to report another year of strong and double-digit top-line growth.

The reported sales in '25 amounted to €1.35 billion, and that represents an increase of 10%. This evolution is driven by continued strong volume growth in the second semester for both Lotus Biscoff and Lotus Natural Foods.

At constant currencies, growth was even stronger, given the negative currency evolutions of the dollar and the pound in the second half of the year. Profitability improved further, with underlying EBITDA on sales exceeding 20%, and this is an increase of 12% compared to prior year.

Also, the net profit increased, and the net profit increased with 13%. A strong reduction of net financial debt led to a historic low multiple of 0.25 times underlying EBITDA.

Besides a strong operational cash flow delivery, we also realized a successful exit in FF 2032 with the sale of our participation in The Good Crisp Company. A dividend of €90 per share is proposed, and that's an increase of €14 per share compared to the 76 of last year.

Similar amount to prior year, we invested €120 million in capital expenditures, and that's mainly in the plant in Thailand. The successful startup of the first lines in Chonburi is for us as a company a huge milestone.

The operations teams deserve full credit for delivering this greenfield ahead of schedule and within budget. Last but not least, the partnerships with Mondelēz advance strongly, and they contribute positively to the results.

Lotus Bakeries is a growth company, and has been for the last 20 years, delivering a compounded annual growth rate of 11%. Looking at the three strategic pillars, we see that Lotus Biscoff achieved a growth of 13% in '25.

To reflect the discontinuation of Lotus Bakeries' own Biscoff ice cream sales following the new license agreement with Froneri, €11.6 million of second-semester revenue was excluded from the reported top-line sales. This primarily volume growth of Lotus Biscoff demonstrates continued strong demand for Biscoff cookies and spreads.

The Biscoff cookie once again ranks as the fastest grower in the global cookie brands ranking, further reinforcing its position within the top five. Lotus Natural Foods is the fastest-growing strategic pillar in '25, with a growth of 17%.

After a strong performance in the first semester of '25, Lotus Natural Foods continued on the same positive path. TREK is the fastest-growing brand, and BEAR is the biggest contributor to growth.

After sales remained flat in the first half of '25, the local heroes delivered again growth in the latter half of the year. Annas Pepparkakor even realized more than 10% growth and had its best holiday season ever in Sweden.

The gingerbread sales in the Netherlands stabilized on a full-year basis. Growth in continental Europe of 9% is outstanding, certainly given the full allocation of the local heroes portfolio to this region.

Belgium and the Netherlands are good examples of home countries that carry a broad assortment of the three strategic pillars and generate good growth in '25. The reported growth in the UK was 2%.

Currency evolution of the pound has a negative impact on the reported sales in the second half of the year. The defocus on the own Biscoff chocolate business and the exclusion of Biscoff ice cream sales in the second half of the year further tempered the growth.

On the contrary, the Natural Foods brands performed strong in the UK. As an example, TREK was the fastest-growing brand in the bar category in the UK.

In the US, Biscoff was the fastest-growing brand in both the cookies and spreads category. Household penetration for the Biscoff cookie has steadily expanded in recent years and now stands at 9%.

Significant growth was also realized again in US with BEAR. Our largest consumer markets continue to increase in importance.

You can see this in the overview here on this slide, an overview that shows the revenue distribution by country. The UK remains our largest market, closely followed by the US.

Other major consumer markets, including many European markets, China, and Canada, are also gaining share. Within the remaining 19%, several smaller but high-potential markets are emerging.

Let's now go into more details about Biscoff. Biscoff realizes a 10-year average growth of 15%, the most important growth engine of Lotus Bakeries in absolute value of the last decennia.

We have reached with Biscoff, again, a lot of milestones, and we will go into more detail on some of those in the following slides. The launch of spreads was almost 20 years ago, namely in 2008.

You can see the interesting evolution of our pack design over the years. In '23, the brand name Biscoff became prominent on the pack.

Now, we take the next step, and we will move from a generic-shaped jar to our own design. After 17 years, it is time for a makeover.

Something more unique, with more standout, and more branding. Meet our new jar.

Highlighting we are Biscoff in a jar. Strong branding via label orientation.

Improved standout via contoured shape. Rest assured, new jar, same taste.

The new jar makes the perfect reference to our Biscoff cookie, with the embossment linking it to our iconic cookie. You can see the new Biscoff spreads lined up next to other global spread brands.

Now it's our goal to make this Biscoff jar also iconic. Here you can see our Biscoff brand identity over the years.

In 2018, we created the red banner on the packaging design. In '23, we placed Biscoff front and center on the packaging as part of a shift towards a unified global brand identity.

We are ready to take the final step. In '25, we introduced the Biscoff engraving on the cookies, replacing the long-standing Lotus engraving.

This change completes more than a decade of brand evolution and ensures us one consistent visual identity and tone of voice. The letter font on the cookie is aligned to our Biscoff logo, also connecting the Fs to ensure readability.

The new engraving will be introduced across the entire range, including the original cookie and the sandwich cookie, as you can see here. Implementation began late '25 in the US and India, followed by a global rollout in '26.

Now, an update on the partnerships. One of the highlights of '25 is for sure the launch of Biscoff cookie in India.

Towards the end of '25, an unprecedented nationwide launch campaign was rolled out, rapidly building distribution in more than 300,000 stores in less than four weeks. Sales conferences were organized across 15 key cities to inform and energize the Mondelēz sales teams across the country.

This allowed us to reach 10,000 sales people in all parts of the country. A wide range of impactful marketing initiatives was deployed across the country.

The main focus was on the unique product taste.

Oh my, what a feeling. Oh my, what a feeling.

Oh my, what a feeling. Oh my, what a feeling.

Oh, what a feeling, I can't just stop, can't seem to get enough. You're mine, you're one of a kind.

For me, you're good enough. This feeling knows no full stop.

Oh my, what a feeling. Oh my, what a feeling.

Oh my, what a feeling. Oh my, what a feeling.

Caramelized crunchy, and irresistibly tasty. The all-new Biscoff.

Welcome to the Biscoff feeling.

Painting the towns red with Biscoff billboards across top cities. Social and influencer buzz delivering more than 150 million views.

Also, a nationwide and broadly covered press conference was organized. Of course, impactful in-market activation in all channels, both modern trade and traditional trade.

Traditional trade include thousands of small shops, as you can see on the slide. In '25, we successfully launched Biscoff with Cadbury, Milka, and Côte d'Or.

Mondelēz is working on some more exciting innovations that will come soon on the market. The Froneri-led Biscoff ice cream launches will start in '26, this year, in the UK, and later on, in European countries, following extensive work throughout '25 to define the new assortment and develop new product innovations.

This slide shows the different concepts that have been developed. You can see the sticks, the pints, and the new sandwich concept.

The sandwich concept is ice cream in between two original Biscoff cookies. In recent years, Lotus Bakeries has invested in a new greenfield production facility in Chonburi in Thailand to support its growth ambitions in the Asia-Pacific region.

We have now four Biscoff plants, including India, on three continents. By the end of '25, the first cookies produced in Chonburi have been delivered to the customers.

Plant is expected to be fully completed and operational by the end of the first semester in '26 at the latest, including capability of spread production and in-house bottling of spread jars. You can see here a drone picture of the current Chonburi plant.

On the left of the current building, you can see that the plot of land still allows for significant future expansion. Mid '25, a new investment in spread production and bottling was also commissioned at the plant in Mebane, US.

Local sourcing and production of Biscoff spread in the US will reduce our ecological impact, lower import duties, and accelerate our logistical flow. Our ambition with Natural Foods is clear.

We want to become a global leader in better-for-you snacking segment. In '25, we have made great steps again.

Lotus Natural Foods was the fastest-growing pillar of the group with 17% and is now a €300 million business. This is not a one-off, because since we entered the better-for-you snacking segment in 2015, our 10-year average growth has been that same 17%.

With Natural Foods, we reached several milestones in '25, and we will go more into detail on some of those in the following slides. An important driver of growth in recent years for Lotus Natural Foods is the successful development and introduction of innovations.

Under the BEAR brand, the Fruit Splits are a perfect example of an innovation that was introduced in recent years. The Fruit Splits are performing very strongly next to the original BEAR Fruit Rolls.

In both key markets for BEAR, the UK and the US, the Splits rotates in the top quartile at most retailers. Seasonal activations strengthen brand visibility and consumer engagement.

Alongside BEAR's strong overall performance, the brand successfully launched a nationwide Halloween edition featuring a single-wrapped strawberry Fruit Roll and themed cards with the BEAR mascot. Also under the TREK brand, we launched one of the most impactful innovation of recent years, the TREK Protein Flapjack with Biscoff.

This TREK Protein Flapjack with Biscoff is a vegan protein bar layered with smooth Biscoff spread. This innovation created a strong halo effect.

Back consumers were introduced to the iconic Biscoff taste, while the Biscoff brand encouraged trial and visibility for TREK, strengthening relevance and appeal for both brands. In '25, Lotus Bakeries entered into partnerships with RunThrough in the UK and with Golazo in Belgium, the Netherlands, and France.

We will be a key partner at running events, reaching over 900,000 runners annually and offering a strong opportunity to further build the visibility and relevance of TREK and nākd brands. This concludes my part of the presentation, and now I will hand over to Mike, who will present the financials.

Thank you, Jan. On the financials.

In '25, we delivered another strong set of annual results, powered by an in-sync flywheel of sales, profitability, cash flow, and continued reductions in net debt. You see that revenue is up by 10%, underlying EBITDA is up by 12%, free cash flow before expansion CapEx is up by 20%, all of which make it possible to invest €240 million in the past two years and at the same time reduce the net financial debt further to 0.25 times underlying EBITDA.

The strong performance of '25 is also reflected in a proposed increase of the dividend with €14 per share. This slide shows the yearly volume growth in percentage on the left, and in millions of euro over the past years on the right.

The reported revenue growth of 10% in '25 is primarily driven by continued robust volume growth of 9.5% or more than €150 million. This is the darker bar in the graph.

Before exclusion of the Biscoff ice cream sales of the second semester, normalized volume growth is actually higher at 10.4% or close to €130 million. This is the bar on the right of the graph.

You can see that this volume in '25 was outstanding and comes on top of a record volume growth already realized in 2024 of 14% and €150 million. Over the past five years, underlying EBITDA has grown faster than sales.

In 2025, underlying EBITDA reached again the 20% of sales level, matching the profitability level we delivered also in 2021. Our partnerships with Mondelēz further enhance the group's margin profile.

Underlying EBIT and underlying EBITDA grew by more than 12%. As you can see, outperforming the top-line growth of 10%, this demonstrates the solid underlying quality of earnings.

Strong volume growth combined with disciplined pricing and margin management continue to support the expansion of profitability and cash flow. Our Biscoff plants in Lembeke and Mebane, together with the BEAR factory in Wolseley, operated at high occupancy levels throughout the year.

Towards the end of 2025, our new plant in Thailand became operational. The annualized depreciation in '26 for Thailand is expected to add around 0.5% on sales.

The volume growth and operating leverage is being reinvested in strengthening our commercial organizations, expanding marketing initiatives to build brand awareness and penetration, and further increasing production capacity. The non-underlying items of €4.8 million relate mainly to the startup cash costs for the plant in Thailand before production commercially goes live.

The financial result of €2.4 million consists of interest expenses net of cash deposit income, bank charges, and a negative exchange rate impact from the revaluation of balance sheet positions in foreign currencies. The tax expense amounts to almost €53 million and remains as a percentage profit before tax in line with prior year at 23.5%.

Underlying net result amounts to €177 million or 13.1% on revenue. On this slide, you can see our investment program over the last five years.

We invested more than €500 million since 2021 in total CapEx and more than €430 million in expansion CapEx alone. In 2025, we invested €120 million, similar to the 2024 number, and the majority of this budget goes to the plant in Thailand.

Maintenance expense remains well under control and also remains below 1.5% of sales in 2025. The CapEx forecast for '26 and '27 combined stands at €250 million and is slightly above the €240 million of the last two years, '24 and '25.

Cash flow delivery was once again very strong in the second half of the year. With cash conversion before expansion CapEx well above 90%, we were able to absorb more than €100 million of expansion CapEx and still reduce net financial debt further.

Supporting drivers of cash conversion remain control on working capital and maintenance CapEx. Net financial debt is historically low at 0.25 times underlying EBITDA.

The sustained strong cash flow delivery over the recent years and the successful exit by FF 2032 of the participation in The Good Crisp Company are the drivers in 2025. I have to repeat myself, this balance sheet again is stronger than ever.

Increased long-term investments reaching the €1 billion mark alongside increased equity. Net working capital remains stable, and reported net financial debt further reduces.

On this slide, the reported net financial debt of €89 million includes €21 million of debt to be expressed by applying the IFRS 16 standard about leases. The evolution of underlying earnings per share shows a CAGR of 17.1% over the recent five years and is actually outpacing the underlying EBITDA evolution we saw in one of the previous slides.

Then, to end the presentation with another highlight of 2025, Lotus Bakeries has reached the status of Dividend Aristocrat with 25 consecutive years of dividend growth and proposing a dividend this year of €90 per share. This concludes the presentations.

We will now open the call for questions. We have a first question of Alexander Craeymeersch of Kepler Cheuvreux.

Hello, can you hear me?

We hear you, yes.

Thank you. Yes, I will ask two questions, and congratulations on the good set of results first.

The first question would be, you mentioned, at the beginning of the year, that you could have only a max volume growth of 10% over the full year 2025 in Biscoff, and you mentioned also that there was going to be a high base in H2. Of course, at the H1, you already mentioned that there was the new plant in Thailand opening.

Now, we show in Biscoff 15% growth half-on-half. If you compare it, because in the first half of the year it was only 1% growth half-on-half, I was just wondering, now, can we also expect that 15% growth to also be present in H1 next year?

Because, of course, there was little room for growth supposedly, but now apparently that was well-overshot. That was the first question.

The second question that I would have would be on CapEx. I was just wondering why CapEx landed a bit on the lower end in H2 and how much capacity would be coming free in 2026?

That would be my two questions.

Thank you, Alexander, for the questions and also for the congratulations, thank you. Regarding your first question, indeed in '25 we gave some guidance with respect of capacity related to Biscoff.

In '26, there is not. The demand will be leading, and we had indeed a very good, a very strong second semester, and the 15% growth of Biscoff is a bit exaggerated.

It's more like-for-like, almost 13% in the second semester that we grew with Biscoff. The demand will be leading in '26.

We have been investing in increased capacity, mainly through our plant in Thailand. That plant will be producing for Asia and Australia and New Zealand.

The capacity is there to grow Biscoff in '26. In relation to the CapEx number, we have shown an outlook for '26, '27.

About €250 million will be reserved for increasing the capacity in our different factories that includes our Biscoff factories, but also our factory in South Africa for Natural Foods products. Sometimes there is between H1 and H2 a difference in cash-out.

You can be assured in H2, we did work quite hard to get the plant up and running in Thailand. We are extremely happy with how our operations team performed in Thailand.

We did not have any significant setbacks, and that's why we made a clear statement in our press release that at the latest by end of the first semester, we will be up and running with all our lines.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Next question Kris Kippers, Degroof Petercam. Kris?

Yes. Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning, Kris.

It works? Perfect.

Indeed also on my side, excellent second half, congrats on that. My question is more on the comments made in the press release and the first page also on the profile of the group.

Looking forward and looking at your cost base, which remained indeed well under control in the second half, given the fact that you have some scale increase as a group, you have indeed Mondelēz, which is helping. On the other hand, there is of course the effect of Thailand, which might not be as profitable as the Belgian plants or even Mebane in the short term.

What seems to be a realistic margin assumption going forward? Because indeed, it could be that 21% in a couple of years is feasible.

Or would it imply again, what you've done in the past, that you aim for, let's say, more marketing effect in order to focus on the long-term growth? It would be helpful to give some insight on that, because it does seem indeed that your margin uptake in second half could be structural.

That's my main question, actually. Thank you.

Thank you, Kris. Yes, indeed, we are happy that the EBITDA margin was higher than the 20%, we are now at 20.2%.

There are a couple of elements that affected that percentage. The ice cream business, we took out in the non-underlying line, not only the top line, but the whole P&L of the ice cream business in the second half is not included in the underlying results.

As our ice cream business was not the most profitable one, so that helps to increase that profitability percentage. Looking into the future, a couple of elements will play.

We will have the Thailand plant as from the 1st of January fully consolidated into the results, which also means full overhead will be in the costs. It's clear that a new factory being integrated in the profit and loss has its overhead costs, and once it's fully in the P&L and you add lines, it's more profitable.

If we add lines in Lembeke, the profitability level of these additional lines is higher than implementing in your P&L a full plant. That's effect we will see in '26.

Also, depreciation will be a bit higher, about 0.5% impact on our depreciation. On the other hand, the Mondelēz partnership will play positively on the EBITDA in percentages, as well India as the cooperation on ice cream and chocolate will play on a positive side percentage-wise.

To summarize it, we think for '26 the EBIT and EBITDA percentages will be more or less in line of what we have communicated today in relation to '25.

Very clear. Just one follow-up, coming back on the CapEx program at €250 million, somewhat north of what we anticipated, I presume.

To what extent is this ample, and what kind of capacity expansion would this provide you? Could you share more details on what it entails?

Thank you.

As said, it's linked to our Biscoff factories and also our factory in South Africa. The calculation made is of course based on what we expect relation to demand the coming years.

We don't like to build empty factories. We're not going to invest already for 30%, 40% additional capacity.

We like to be quite close to the market, and the factories, the three Biscoff factories then specifically, they are close to, and always very close to, the full capacity. '26 will give us room for growth, but we're not going to be overinvesting in capacity.

The €250 million will not give us 30% to 40% additional capacity. Also that gives an idea.

An idea.

Indeed. Thank you.

Thank you, Kris. Next question, Maxime Stranart from ING Bank.

Good morning. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Perfect. Thank you for that.

Looking at organic growth, coming back on that, if I may, excluding the ice cream impact would imply that the organic growth is above 14% in H2 with volume growth of almost 13% if I look at the number you just communicated. Just want to cross-check with you that's basically the correct assumption to take, and is it a level you see sustainable in H1?

That would be the first question on my side. Then secondly, digging deeper into India, could you elaborate a bit on what are your view on what the growth could be into 2026?

That would be all for me, thank you.

Okay. No, thank you, Maxime.

Indeed, in the second half of the year, we increased like-for-like, and that means the FX like-for-like, also the ice cream, was indeed 14% of organic growth, which is exceptional. We were delighted with the 14%, and if you see in the history of the last 5 to 10 years, 14% of organic growth for the group is exceptional.

What do we expect H1 '26? We are confident to further grow.

As said, 14% is exceptional, and we also have the headwinds of the foreign exchange effect based on the currencies of today, pound-wise, dollar-wise. We have to start with -2.5%.

Things can change in a good way or in a worse way, you never know, but we start with -2.5%. If we purely look at like-for-like growth, 14 is extremely high, and that's why both Mike and I are sitting here with a big smile because of the fantastic results in the second half.

Then in respect of India, and then I have to quote my CEO colleague of Mondelēz, he said, "Okay, I want to have at least $100 million sales in five years in India." For us, it's clearly strategically a very good partnership.

We have been in India for 20 years, even more, and we could never realize a substantial sales, and we could never become a real brand in India. I think through this partnership, we will be.

If we see the resources that Mondelēz have used now to launch, the marketing efforts, and especially also the way they operate and the fast way they can get the Biscoff products in all these stores, more than 300,000 stores, that's really truly impressive. I'm sure they will create a brand.

They will create Biscoff as a brand also for the Indian population. That's our ultimate goal.

I want to become a global brand, and if you cannot become a brand in India, you cannot say generally we are a global brand. I'm happy that we can work together with Mondelēz on realizing that.

Thank you, Maxime. Next question is Guy Sips from KBC Securities.

Yes. Hello.

I have two questions. First question is on the raw mat and the packaging cost evolution.

We see some easing in raw mat. Can you give us some color if that could give some tailwinds from that side going forward?

The second is coming back on the CapEx, do you intend to allocate some additional CapEx to the healthy snacking activities?

Thank you, Guy. In respect of packaging raw materials and other costs, what we do is we have a whole budget around, and also calculating the cost prices and the different cost elements of our products.

That's an exercise we do very meticulously. That gives us the ability to communicate also our prices to our customers before year-end.

We also try to hedge as much as possible of these costs, we have a cash flow predictability. For '26, price increases will be moderate.

If you look at the growth of next year, hopefully the growth of next year, it will be based on volume. Price effects will be very limited.

In respect of capital expenditures for healthy snacking, indeed, BEAR is doing really well, we're going to invest in our South African plant and also for nākd that we also produce in the same plant. We will add capacity over there.

Partly is allocated for the plant in Wolseley.

Thank you, Guy.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next question, Jeremy Kincaid from Van Lanschot Kempen.

Jeremy, you need to unmute yourself.

Here we go. Can you hear me now?

Yes, perfect.

Apologies. Thanks for taking the questions.

One more for me on CapEx. Are you able to split out how much of the CapEx guidance will be to the Biscoff brand and to the Natural Foods brand?

Then my second question is just on your balance sheet. Obviously, you called out it's very strong.

Does that mean going forward we could expect higher cash distributions to shareholders? Or do you have a target leverage ratio that you're working towards?

Then just finally, on the Good Chip Company or Crisp Company, are you able to disclose how much you sold that for? I'm sorry if you said that at the beginning of the call.

I was having technical audio issues.

Okay. No, thank you, Jeremy.

In respect of CapEx, the majority should be allocated to Biscoff. The exact number we will not disclose, but it's the majority to Biscoff.

We do have a strong balance sheet. We have increased the dividend payout slightly.

I think if you look at the underlying net profit of last year and our payout ratio, which was a bit below 40% and now it's a bit above 40%, because we have indeed a very strong balance sheet with low leveraging. Happy to be Dividend Aristocrats, we're official aristocrats.

That does not mean that we're going to stop working. The view on our dividend has not changed.

I think the dividend payout, we have no plans to really dramatically change the payout ratio. The balance sheet enables us to invest in capacity.

We will invest a quarter of a billion euros the next two years, and that helps if you have a strong balance sheet. We do look at M&A.

We do look at external growth, but it's not something that we really need today. As you can see, our organic growth is very strong as well for Natural Foods as for Biscoff.

The organization is also built and organized to really focus on Biscoff, focus on Natural Foods and also the local heroes. An external growth and acquisition could be interesting, and we have the balance sheet for it.

It really has to be a perfect match, and it's not something that we really need in the short term. We love the organic growth.

It's the most profitable way to grow, and we are not nervous by the fact that we have almost no debt anymore. In respect of the fund, FF 2032, what we've seen is that the most targets are in the US.

We invest in scale-up companies, not in seed. We're not in seed money, but more in scale-up companies.

We like companies that we think that in the mid-long term they can reach €75 to €100 million. We've seen also out of experience that most of these targets are in the US.

We have our team now in San Francisco, mostly looking at US targets. The Good Crisp Company, very nice company in the sense that they have very good products.

They did grow significantly the last years. PearlRock, private equity company, did acquire, and we agreed not to disclose any detailed information.

We did create some surplus value for the fund.

Great. Thanks very much.

Thank you. We have time for one more question, follow-up question from Maxime Stranart of ING.

Yes. Cross-check on FF 2032, you mentioned that you're still looking at US target.

Also for Lotus as a group looking at M&A, any missing element in the portfolio that you would add? Any category you feel would be a great fit for Lotus as a group that you'd want to add?

I think I more or less understood your question, because the line is not perfect. I understood that your question is, do we want to invest in other categories?

I think looking at M&A, preferably it will be either in the healthy snacking Natural Foods fields. I think that's what we focus on in our search.

On the other hand, also in traditional biscuits and bakery could be interesting, certainly in respect of getting more scale in certain countries. Today, we're not eagerly seeking in other categories than the categories we are in today.

Thank you, Maxime. Just one last question, Antoine Prévot from Bank of America.

Go ahead, Antoine.

Hi, Mike. Can you hear me?

Yes, yeah. Yep.

Perfect. Thank you.

No, two quick questions. First one on the US.

So 9% household penetration, super good development there. A bit of a update of what's your target a bit there in the US for household penetration over the midterm?

Just a very quick one on India. Strong launch, as you said and point it out, in terms of spending on A&P and so on, how is it split between you and Mondelēz?

Is it them taking care of everything, or do you also need to contribute a bit? Thank you.

Thank you for your question. Indeed, the US has been evolving very positively.

We are now at 9% of household penetration, and our distribution on store level is 80% more or less. Evolving really positively.

What are our ambitions? Of course, we would like to cross the bridge of the 10% household penetration in the short term in the US.

Today, the US consumers are not that positive. We have not seen that in our figures for '25, and hopefully we will not see that in our figures in '26.

Today, there are no indications that the sales would be less good. We still have a positive vibe coming from the US.

It's yeah, maybe our most strategic markets for Biscoff. We have been investing quite a lot in the US in relation to marketing.

Above-the-line investments have been started in '24, evaluated positively, we are extending it in '25 and also probably in '26. We keep on spending, supporting our brand through marketing.

I think another important aspect is we have our factory in the US producing for the US. Now also, we have added the spread line.

The good news is that we had the vision to buy enough land in North Carolina on that site, we can still extend capacity on the same site. Because it takes quite some time to create know-how in a factory.

Now in the US, quality of the cookies are very good, are fully on par with the Lembeke ones. It's good that we can extend on the same spot in Mebane, North Carolina.

We are ready in the US to grow. Fantastic year '25.

In general, consumers are a bit more hesitant, but today we don't see that in our figures. India, indeed a great start, and our contribution is of course that we look at the quality of the cookie.

We decide on the marketing program together, and we do have a contribution also in the marketing support. The majority of the investments are being done by Mondelēz, but we also contribute a bit to the marketing efforts.

Like I said, it looks very positive, but we're only there for two months now. The start has been very promising, and very proud to see our products in so many stores, and to see the positive vibe in India.

Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you, Antoine.

Thank you, Antoine.

Okay. Thank you for your good questions, interesting questions.

Yes, also from my side, thank you. We will close the call here, but of course if you have any follow-up questions, you know where to also find me or find us in the next few days and weeks.

Thank you very much.