Good morning all, and welcome to the Results Call for Huhtamaki Second Quarter of 2026. My name is Kristian Tammela, VP of IR.

We will now present our development in the second quarter, starting with the presentation by President and CEO, Ralf Wunderlich; followed by our CFO, Thomas Geust. After the presentation, we have time for Q&A.

With that, let's get started and handing over to Ralf.

Thank you, Kristian. Thanks for opening the call and really good to be back here.

And today, of course, I'm very happy to report to you a very good outcome for both the quarter as well as the half for Huhtamaki, and especially in a market which is still very volatile, where we see a lot of uncertainties. And let me start with that one because most importantly is that even though there is a strong crisis in the Middle East with the war in Iran, we were able to secure the safety of our coworkers in all our factories.

And I'm also happy to say that we were able to secure raw materials and supply and deliver to our customers what they needed to ensure continuous supply of those. Now let me move to some of the outcomes.

We had seen growth in the quarter, 2% comparable sales growth, and we were able to pass on the very steep raw material cost increases. We saw volume growth in a couple of our segments, namely Flexibles and Fiber and our adjusted EBIT did increase by 1% with a strong margin of 10.3% despite a EUR 2 million negative currency impact in the quarter.

We are continuing to be very disciplined when it comes to capital allocation. Now it is very important, if you go to the next slide, to also say a few words about the situation in the Middle East.

And let me start with the facts. Facts are that we have 6 operations, 2 in Dubai, 1 in Saudi Arabia and 3 in Egypt.

We are seeing a very, very strong impact in oil price increases in general, which, of course, then has an impact on the very strong increases on resin, on films, solvents, inks, other liquids and chemicals in general. The main segment involved is Flexible Packaging, even though all segments are, of course, seeing the impact.

Availability of raw material varies by the region. And of course, there are risks of falling short.

But you will see this later when I talk about the actions, we were able to secure raw materials in all regions to ensure continuous supply. We are also seeing steep increases in energy and logistics costs.

With the Middle East crisis, there are congested logistics chains and again, increase in energy and logistics costs, which we needed to manage. Now what are the actions which we took into place.

First and foremost, as mentioned before, safety and security of our coworkers. That is our highest priority.

Also, all of our sites continue to operate throughout the crisis. And that was possible because of our close collaboration with both our suppliers and our customers.

We were able to secure the raw materials even in the regions where it was very difficult. There was a lot of hard work done to reduce the impact to our customers and to ensure that they can supply to their customers all the time, and we were able to do that.

Now the strong focus on growth and customer intimacy will continue and is absolutely needed to ensure that we can continue to deliver to our customers. At that point, I would also like to mention that the war in Europe in the Ukraine continues to go on.

And of course, safety and security of our coworkers there is as well our first priority. Let me move on with an update on the team.

I'm very happy to report that we were able to attract Thomas Morin to our management team. He is now starting -- he is now part of the executive team, and he will start with us in September.

Thomas' previous job was as President and CEO of Transcontinental, a Toronto-listed packaging company and of course, it's very, very good to have him with us on the global executive team, and he will help us to continue to drive this very important segment forward in the future. As in all our quarterly meetings, I will update you on our value drivers, which we implemented 18 months back, namely profitable growth supported by all levers; secondly, disciplined capital allocation; and thirdly, accountability with speed of execution.

If I go to the first one, profitable growth supported by all levers. What we really want to make sure is that we grow organically by being very close to our customers, both global key accounts as well as regional accounts and small accounts.

All of them are very important to us, and we want to improve our relationship and make sure that they win in their respective markets. And as previously mentioned, we also are looking -- continuously looking at inorganic growth.

We had, in April last year, the announcement of an acquisition in North America, and we are not stopping there. We are continuously looking at inorganic options, but we will do it in a very disciplined manner.

Second point on disciplined capital allocation. We are moderating our CapEx spends, but we are not jeopardizing the growth opportunities which we are having.

In fact, we are always looking at best-yielding projects, and we are allocating capital more or less equally amongst the 3 dimensions of maintenance, efficiency and growth. So think about this of 30% in each of those categories.

And we are allocating approximately 10% to what we call license to operate. So things such as safety, regulatory requirements, sustainability and so on.

So that will continue, and we are very disciplined when it comes to our capital allocation. Also when it comes to working capital, so it's not just about CapEx, it's also about working capital and especially important in times like now where we have an extreme increase in raw material costs.

So we, of course, see that on the inventory side, and on the receivables side. So it's even more important now to be very diligent and very disciplined.

Last point, how are we enabling those? We are enabling it with accountability and speed of execution.

So we are empowering the segments. We are empowering the teams within the segments very, very clearly to drive their performance to be close to customers, markets and the regions they are operating in.

And from a group perspective, we are the center of expertise, we govern, we coordinate, we support value creation. So whatever the segments need, we will provide to the segments.

Now today, I would like to give you a bit more taste of what that really means. So if you go to the left side of the slide, and what I really would like to talk about is how are we going to help the segments.

First of all, of course, we are -- when it comes to business as usual, we are following up on their performance. We are supporting their performance whenever they need that support.

We are also looking at acceleration. How can we increase scrutiny, how can we set targets which are really ambitious for them.

And then, of course, and you have seen this last year, when we had a couple of turnarounds, one in India and one in Turkey where we openly talked about, we are also having a playbook on how to improve performance when it is needed. And then we implemented with task forces existing from external teams and internal teams.

So we combine those and then we go with our task force to support turnarounds. Now also important is the M&A side.

So the inorganic growth side. Whenever there is a project which we like and which is in our pipeline, we will make sure that it is in businesses where we have strong teams, in regions where we have already a good presence, with products and technologies, which we know and we understand.

And of course, with management teams that fit our culture, and we always want to make sure that we have a clear synergy plan and clear synergy opportunities and they must be financially sound. Then we accelerate them, and then we go after them.

Let me remind you of our value creation model and the way we are thinking about capital allocation and the priorities. So first and foremost, of course, we are running a business and we want to grow our business, which we have profitably.

So we have announced that we have an ambition, and we understand we are not yet there, but we have an ambition to have a strong annual growth. And we also have an ambition to be between 10% and 12% adjusted EBIT margin, which we are already now since a couple of years.

That business will require CapEx to continue to grow organically. And it will need also CapEx and capital for bolt-on acquisitions for inorganic growth or any other acquisition type.

That money will then provide us solid cash flows. That solid cash flow will be used again to invest into the business, as described before, or it will be used to be returned to our shareholders.

We will aim to continue to pay dividends in the range of 40% to 50% payout ratio. As a reminder, we have increased our dividends in 17 years in a row or we will find other ways of returning money to shareholders if we do not find better means to invest the money back into growing our business profitably.

All of that is underpinned by our leverage and we want to stay between 2 to 3x net debt. As you know, we are currently at the lower end of that leverage range.

Sustainability is very important to Huhtamaki and I'm very, very happy to report that we continue to make very good progress in advancing our ambition. You have seen those 6 different metrics as before, and I'm very happy to report today that we have made good progress in all 6 of those.

So recycled fiber. We are now over 99% already at recycled fiber, which is certified.

We are making good progress also on renewable electricity. We are now over 61%.

We are at almost 84% on nonhazardous waste. We are making good progress on greenhouse gas.

And here, we are looking at Scope 1 and 2 as well as reducing our overall total waste to landfill where we are now at 3.6% and we are getting closer to our ambition there as well. So in all dimensions, we are making good progress.

So very proud of what we are doing here. Let me move on to business performance.

And of course, as mentioned before, if we start at net sales, then I'm really, really happy to say that we were able to grow our business in the quarter. And if you look at our comparable sales, we did grow it by almost 2%.

That's very, very exciting for us as a business. It's also exciting to see that we did grow comparably in the half.

So it's a 1% growth in the half 1 of this year. As you can also see on that slide is that the currency impact is getting lower, so whereas there was a very strong almost EUR 80 million impact for the half, in the quarter itself, we only had EUR 15 million impact.

Let's move to some more details. So as mentioned before, we saw growth in the quarter on the top line, but we also saw growth on the adjusted EBIT line.

And that is even before we take the impact of the currency into account here. So we were at a margin of 10.3%, which is stronger than at the same period last year, where we had a margin of 10.2%.

A very strong adjusted EPS number of EUR 0.64 in the quarter, again, outperforming same period last year by 2%. If you look at capital expenditure and free cash flow together and you see the delta there and that delta which you see is explained by if you go back to the quarter 2 last year by a contractual compensation, which we got in Q2 last year, which is explaining most of the difference which you have here.

The rest is explained by what I mentioned in the very early stage of my presentation by the higher raw materials and hence, the higher inventory and receivables, which we have seen. So a very strong quarter performance for Huhtamaki.

And also, if you go to the right side of the slide, a very strong performance in the half. So also here from a comparable perspective, as mentioned before, excluding the FX, we have growth in the quarter of 1%.

Really important to see also the EBIT line increasing in the quarter if you take back the impact of the ForEx. In the quarter, as mentioned as well, where we had a stronger margin, we also have it for the half year.

So we are now over 10% also for the half, which is very encouraging. Very similar on adjusted EPS, EUR 1.20 to the EUR 1.21, so flat on the EPS line.

And then as explained before in the quarter, the same picture is true also for the half that the delta between this half and last year's half is explained by the contractual compensation, which we got last year in Q2. So a strong message also for you is that we have had now 5 quarters in a row with positive cash flow, which we are very proud of.

So our focus on very disciplined capital allocation is clearly showing the benefits already. Let me now go to the 4 segments in more detail.

First, I would like to start with Foodservice. Foodservice in the quarter has seen a negative growth of 1% in a still very challenging market and, of course, with an impact from the Middle East.

They were still able to deliver strong margin with 8.6% due to their continuous strong work on taking costs out of the system. And we are very proud to see them delivering very strong operating cash flow, in fact, slightly ahead of last year's performance, which already was a very strong performance.

A very similar picture for the half. Also in the half, we are seeing negative growth of 4% for Foodservice.

We are seeing a similar margin of 8.3% in the quarter, where we had 8.6% and also on the cash flow side, we see a similar picture where they are outperforming same period last year by EUR 13 million, achieving EUR 53 million of operating cash flow. Let me go over to our North American segment.

And I think it's important to think about North America because of its very strong seasonality more with regard to the full half. So let me actually start with the half in making my comments.

And they are very true for the quarter then as well. We were able, in the half, to see volume growth in our North American business.

So you see comparable growth looks flattish, but in fact, it has some positive volume effects here. We were able to deliver double-digit margin in North America, both in the half as well as in the quarter.

And it's important to point out, as we did already last quarter, that we are seeing still operational challenges, which we are working on. They are focused on a few of our plants which, again, we have a task force to support the North American business to get those under control.

But they are also focused on some of the cost increases like distribution and energy costs, which we need to work with the teams on for the overall North American segment. Let me move from North America to our Flexible Packaging segment.

Flexible Packaging saw in the quarter volume growth, very strong cost management and continuous good progress on its turnarounds, which we have focused on last year. So in the quarter, we saw comparable growth of 14%.

Of course, a lot of that is driven by the raw material pass on. But I would like to highlight again that we also saw volume growth in the quarter in Flexible Packaging.

They ended up with a very strong margin of almost 11% and also delivered very strong operating cash flow, more than double of what they delivered the same period last year. A similar picture also for the half.

Also in the half, we saw comparable growth of 5%. We saw a strong adjusted EBIT improvement, both in absolute as well as in relative terms.

And also here, we see a very, very strong operating cash flow delivery. So very happy with the performance of our Flexible Packaging segment during the quarter and, in fact, the half.

Now let's move to our Fiber Packaging segment. In Fiber, we see the first time in a quarter more than EUR 100 million of sales.

That's a comparable growth of a very strong 7% coming from both volume, price and mix. Adjusted EBIT did grow to EUR 15.4 million, so a strong improvement versus same period last year and a very strong margin of over 15% for the quarter with a strong operating cash flow delivery in the quarter.

Very similar picture also for the half. Here, almost EUR 200 million net sales with comparable growth of 6%, strong margin for the half of over 15%, very strong operating cash flow as well, double of what we have delivered last year with still a lot of capital expenditure because we want to, of course, invest as we have capital allocation in a very disciplined way behind our Fiber Packaging segment.

With that, I would like to hand it over for the financial review to our CFO, Thomas Geust.

Thank you, Ralf, and I will try to bring some more flavor to the financial numbers, starting with the slide on the currency, which still continues to burden our P&L result, however, moderating versus what we saw in the first quarter. What that in reality means is that our impact in the second quarter is EUR 15 million on -- roughly on net sales, EUR 1.6 million on EBIT.

However, if you look at the year-to-date numbers, it's as high as roughly EUR 78 million on top line and EUR 6.4 million on EBIT. The story remains very much the same as communicated in earlier quarters.

The U.S. dollar is the currency impacting the most, also the Indian rupee impacting our results.

But if you look on the average rate, you can conclude that versus first half 2025, it's only 3 currencies trending favorably for us. However, when you are looking at the closing rate which is the one measuring the balance sheet, then we see already an improving trend on many of the currencies.

So if we maintain this level, we hopefully will see in the second half of the year an improving trend also on the currency side. With that one, I will move onwards to the financial result and a bit of more detailing here.

Here, I would really say that the accountability of our businesses are taking now is turning into strong results. The challenges or the opportunities are slightly different in each of the businesses and all of them are adapting to the reality, be it then higher raw material costs, be it operational challenges or be it then challenges with the volume.

Thanks to that one, we are actually able to deliver a strong EPS. So the result really flowing through to the bottom line.

EUR 0.64 is the strongest Q2 in history, according to my understanding or at least the recent history, and that we are, of course, very satisfied with. If you are looking at the net financial items, we have a small tailwind there with mainly lower net debt levels helping us.

And then tax rate being slightly lower compared to previous year. If we turn to the next slide, we come to the cash flow, which has already been described quite in detail by Ralf.

So really on the profitability side, the onetime gain we received last year helping us with the cash flow in 2025. So on a comparison basis, we are actually operationally on quite the same level as previous year.

The working capital where cost is coming through on inventory and payables is obviously a drag for us and then the timing of receivables also burdening the working capital. Still, when looking at the other parameters, capital expenditures lower than previous year.

And then taxes mainly a timing thing as well as for the net financial items. So I would say, operationally doing quite well on the cash flow with the discipline we have now introduced to our business performances.

With that one, we are improving on all the important balance sheet ratios and starting here with the net debt side. On the net debt side, we are now down to flat 2.

And as you can see, we are decreasing our net debt by EUR 87 million versus previous year same period. So we have continued the strong deleveraging story that we have started on and continued already for a few years.

If you look at the gearing level, we are down to 0.62. So also improving on that one from 0.71 in previous year, and also from a cash and cash equivalent point of view, we have a good situation.

And maybe on that note, moving to the loan maturities. We did a renewal of our bonds.

So we issued a EUR 300 million bond during the quarter under our EMTN program with an interest rate of 3.875%. At the same time, we set out a voluntary offer for the repayment of EUR 250 million bond maturing in 2027.

And with that one, we have managed to prolong, with an efficient finance rate, our loan maturity to 4.1 years, while it was 2.9 years previous year same period. So well positioned also when it comes to the loan maturity structure.

With that one, we come to the financial position. On the working capital, it's really the raw material and all the things we have been discussing here earlier, impacting the situation.

Net debt, as said, strong -- improved versus previous year. And then as Ralf already alluded to, going over 12% on return on investment, something to be proud about.

With that one, turning to the long-term ambitions. Here, we are seeing a positive comparable net sales growth in the first half.

Happy with that one, although being far below our long-term ambition, but at least the trend is the right one, looking at the adjusted EBIT margin, maintaining above 10% level is where we want to be and then the return on investments creeping closer and closer to the lower level of the ambition level, which is 13% to 15%. So now passing the 12%, I said here earlier, and net debt to EBITDA being on the lower end of the corridor.

Dividend payout for 2025, 46%, so also that one matching the dividend ratio. Looking forward, on the outlook side, we have maintained our outlook on previous communicated level as well as the short-term risks and uncertainties.

And with that one, I would open up for Q&A.

The first one is on North America. How do you see the segment evolving over the second half?

And is -- what specifically caused operational challenges? And when do you expect the recovery to be?

Is that going to be second half or more into next year? That's my first question.

Thanks for the question. So we have started talking about our North American operational issues over the last couple of quarters.

Our new President, Sara Engber, is absolutely on the issues. And as you know, we have established already last year with our turnarounds in Flexibles, a standard procedure on how to address those.

So between our North American operational team and our global team, we have formed teams -- task force teams to address the operational issues, which are mainly, not only but mainly coming from our start-ups in Hammond and Paris. They are addressed.

We have taken year-over-year now 140 employees out. So there's going to be significant cost savings on that side.

So making progress, but as you know, Hai, these things always take time. We'd like them to come quickly, but we are realistic and we know how it works.

We will fix it. But I'm not expecting this to be fixed very quickly.

So working on it. Sara is on it.

We are supporting her and her team will be done as we did it in Flexibles. So -- but bear with us, it will take a bit of time.

Understood. My second question on Flexibles.

So could you give us an idea of how much contribution on the comp sales growth and also the margin improvement come from the pricing pass-through? And how much is the underlying progress?

Yes. So look, we were able to pass on the increases which we got.

And the team did an outstanding job in being on this very early on. And I have to say, we worked very closely together with both suppliers and customers with the #1 objective really to ensure continuous supply and making sure that our customers can support the consumer.

That was #1 target. #2, because of this very steep increase, you remember pre-war, the barrel oil was somewhere around, call it, $60 per barrel and it went up to a high of $112.

So it was a very steep increase in a very short period of time. So everybody in the market understood that price pass-through needed to happen very quickly to sustain operations.

So that happened. There's no benefit on that side for us, but it was just a pure pass on the increased cost.

The Flexibles improvement, which we have seen over the last couple of years now is really due to the fact that they are working really hard on getting the portfolio right, making sure that they deliver and serve what they can do best, number one. Number two, working on their cost position, taking costs out of the system being much more efficient, working on the turnarounds.

We talked India and Turkey quite a bit. But now we see volume and I think that's really important.

But we have talked about last year when we were some of us together in Turkey to see the factory, and we have also talked here on the call about a few of the contracts, which were coming our direction. So the work they did on supplying and serving big accounts, regional accounts and small accounts is now taking fruit and is showing benefits.

So the volume growth is, of course, helping the Flexible team on top of the cost -- good cost management quite a bit. So the margin range, which we have given for Flexibles, which is somewhere between 9% and 11%, we have now delivered 3x in 3 quarters on that range.

And I think that is the right range to think about when you talk Flexible Packaging high.

My third one is on demand exiting Q2 versus the first half average. Are you seeing improvements in any markets?

Look, we see and we are, of course, super proud and happy that we see volume growth in the quarter in Fiber and Flexibles. For the half, we even see volume growth in North America.

I think that's also really important. You asked about North American operations before, but I think it's important to realize that over the half, North America was able to grow its volume.

So that's, of course, encouraging. And we all know that there is a huge impact of seasonality there.

So you will see a big discrepancy between the quarters, depending on how the festive season falls. But overall, we are starting to see that our efforts on organic growth are going in the right direction.

So we are really happy to see what we are doing internally. Now there is an internal side and there's an external side.

So internally, we are doing all we can. And yes, we would like to see it faster and more, but we are proud of what we are seeing.

Externally, the market is very dynamic. It's -- geopolitical issues are still there.

You have 2 wars happening as we speak. And of course, consumer confidence is at a low point.

So that part is, I think, something we can't influence. But we know that our customers are doing quite a bit.

And our customers are doing promotions. Our customers are trying to get their volume growth through as well.

So being close to them ensuring that they win in their markets will help us to win as well. So look, I look at demand internal perspective, I'm confident that we are doing the right thing.

And I'm looking at the external market, and here, I count on our customers that they are doing the right thing as well. And then let's hope for all of us that geopolitically, things will calm down, hopefully.

This is Maria Wikstrom from SEB. I had few questions.

I wanted to touch upon the Flexible, the volume growth that you saw over the Q2. That more broadly, like from which product -- which client segments or products, I mean this volume growth is coming from as, I mean, alluding to the big FMCG volume, what they reported during the Q1, we didn't really see much volume growth.

So has this really changed the whole story now or during the Q2 that I mean we're actually seeing volumes coming back again? Or is this more like a company-specific that you are currently seeing?

Yes. Thank you, Maria.

So Flexibles, it's really paying out that we are focusing on both FMCG. So the big global accounts, the regional accounts and the small accounts.

So that change of track, which we did a year ago is showing, and it's showing in all of their regions. So that's not a single region for Flexibles, which is going in the wrong direction.

So we see that internal work that being very close and supporting the customer is showing clear benefits. That's number one.

Number two, Maria, as I mentioned also to Hai before, we had successfully concluded a couple of nice contracts with customers, which are now showing also its benefits. So that one is also helping us on the volume side.

And that is also helping us in what we call blueloop in going into new specifications, which are recyclable. So only PE structure.

So that's also helping us to now starting to see some gains on that side. So Flexibles, all regions, all customers really doing well.

And especially happy I have to say on how strong Turkey and India was. So India especially had a very strong start into the year on the volume side.

After, frankly, years of negative volume growth, they were able to have significant volume growth in the first half and in the second quarter, specifically. So very happy with what we see in Turkey, India, but all over in all regions in Flexible, Maria.

Perfect. And then my second question is currently the free capacity or is there a free capacity in Fiber Packaging, given that you were first time exceeding EUR 100 million revenue during Q2.

So do you really have -- do you have more free capacity going forward? Or would it need more investments in the near term?

Yes. Yes.

So like -- I'm glad you have noted the EUR 100 million. So first time ever to break the EUR 100 million, which, of course, is, for us, a really important mark.

We are, in Fiber, very, very close to max capacity. We are investing heavily in Fiber and you have seen also last year, but this year will be a similar picture that that's really the segment as it is our most profitable segment, where we are putting most of our CapEx in with our very strong capital discipline approach in investing into the highest value driving projects.

So currently not a lot, but we are, of course, taking all the actions which we can to give them more capacity and also to internally see whether we can find other ways of increasing productivity, which will give us then some more capacity.

And then my final question is on North America and maybe we should now look at the first half on the volume development. But if you could give a little bit more color on the different customer segments?

I mean, how they are currently performing in North America when it comes to volumes?

Yes. So look, overall, as I mentioned, we have seen volume growth in the first half and thanks for looking at the half.

That makes a lot of sense. So what we are seeing is that we are having a really good growth in consumer goods.

We are seeing growth in Retail. We don't see growth in Foodservice.

So for the half, Foodservice is slightly down, but the 2 other segments improving with consumer goods being the best performer here. Retail also slightly up.

So that gives maybe some color. Look, of course, driven by, again, very strong seasonality.

Even now in June, we were surprised at the end of the quarter in June, how strong actually our retail business and our foodservice business did at the very end of the quarter with, of course, 4th of July, 250 years U.S. and World Cup, both helping us at the very end of the quarter quite nicely.

So -- which brings the half then to a positive volume growth.

This is Pasi from Nordea. And congrats regarding the very good second quarter earnings.

And maybe I'll start with the North America and -- I mean the segment was quite weak. So what is actually the root cause here in the segment?

Because you have been in North America for decades and this ramp-up should actually not come as a surprise for you? And maybe secondly, could you also kind of indicate that with these good volumes in Flexible segment, so whether related to rising price environment or the plastic prices.

So could it be possible that customers were buying a bit extra in the second quarter, and these volumes cannot be repeated in the second half of this year? And maybe lastly, also when looking at the kind of the price-related growth and volume growth on the group level, could you actually share some info regarding the outlook for the second half on a group level?

Thanks, Pasi. Thanks also for your nice comment about our performance in Q2.

So let me address one by one. North America, if you remember when I came in 1.5 years ago, I already, very early on, commented on the margin of overall, which was, from my perspective, artificially high at the 14% by a couple of percentage points, really driven by after-COVID pricing.

So that one, I think, was to me, at least pretty obvious. So the range in our ambition for North America is between 10% and 12%.

That one is our ambition. We stick to that one.

And I think there's no reason to believe it shouldn't be in that range. We are in that range.

Yes, we are at the lower point of that range, but we are in that range, even though we are clearly having operational issues. So I think that's a starting point.

Next one is we know where we have the operational issues. We have identified them.

We know exactly what we need to do about them and we are on it. Sara Engber, our new President, with her team are clearly on it.

We are supporting her from a group perspective. We have done that before.

We will succeed in getting these operational issues right again. And that's really what we are on.

As I mentioned to Hai, I don't expect this to happen quickly, but I'm very confident that we'll get the operational issues right. Look, of course, another dimension is that it is important in an environment where overall the market in North America isn't growing a lot that we need to stay close to the customers, make sure that they win in their market and we choose the right customers.

So having volume growth in the first half to us is clearly an indicator that we are doing the right thing. And of course, it would help us if the market would grow faster and we would get the leverage of the volume growth as well.

But again, I think we have now found the right customer base, the right pricing points for the market, and we are on the operational performance. So North America, within the communicated range, no reason to believe that we shouldn't be in that range.

Second question was on Flexibles, if I remember correctly. Flexibles volume is -- the good news is driven by volume growth in all our regions.

It's not one specific, of course, the 2 turnarounds and especially India but also Turkey are the star performers. But the nice thing is that all our regions are growing.

And all our regions are taking cost out and all our regions are improving their margins. So it's not driven by one, but it's driven by all because management is doing a really nice job in making sure that they get the operational efficiency right.

They are close to customers, and they are driving their business in an environment. Which is very dynamic as well as it is globally, of course.

So the price pass-through, which we did is purely on the increase in raw material prices, which we have seen. And I talked about this, everything related to oil for us, resin, for us, films, solvents, inks, frankly, all liquids, all chemicals, but also then transport and logistics very affected by that and that pass-through, which happens so steeply and so quickly, also from an internal work, the team was on immediately and got together with suppliers and customers, a clear understanding that this needed to be done.

So that's really important. And of course, it was essential for us to make sure that we are not waiting too long, and we are losing a quarter or longer by waiting.

So that's the work they did. And of course, volatility is still there.

Just looked up this morning before the call, oil is now back to $97. It was at a high at $112.

It went back to mid-$60s, but now it's going up steeply again. So again, $96.88, almost $97.

And unfortunately, that will drive pricing of raw materials again in the wrong direction. So that work is not stopping here.

We need to do this together with customers and suppliers. Third question was -- remind me, Pasi, it was around cash flow?

Yes. And just to specify the second question.

So were customers buying extra in the second quarter into Flexibles due to price increases and this extra volumes cannot be repeated in the second half?

No, not for the quarter. So maybe we have seen a bit of that, Pasi, what you are talking about in April straight after the war started.

But then over the quarter, that is not the case that they know our inventories. We are, of course, very transparent with what we are holding on inventories for our customers.

We are -- we have bespoken products, so we produce our prints and flexibles for customers very specifically. So they know what we have in inventory.

So that over the quarter is not impacting.

Okay. I hear you.

And the last one was related to kind of the price-related growth and volume growth on the group level, could you actually share some info regarding the outlook for the second half on a group level?

Yes. So look, for the second half, we believe that -- as I mentioned before, that our internal work will continue to help us being close to the customers, looking at all customer levels, the local, the regional, the global players being close to them, executing on our promises, our contracts will help us.

So the internal work, I feel good about our customers' activities in the market and their promotions and all their efforts to grow volume. So I feel good about that.

What I don't know and I guess no one really knows what's happening geopolitically and whether the world will be calmer and there will be consumer confidence coming back. Clearly, and Pasi, you know this, if there is no consumer confidence, people buy as little as they can and at the lowest price they can.

So from a mix perspective, that potentially is not helpful, but that's something to be seen. What we can influence, we are influencing and our customers are doing the same.

Yes. I fully understand.

But by assuming kind of a 1% volume growth and a 3% price-related growth for the second half, then the kind of organic growth could be 4% to 5%. Would that be kind of a bit too positive or negative estimate for the second half?

Yes. So look, first answer, Pasi, you know we are not giving any guidance on volume nor on pricing for any period ahead of us.

So I'm giving you our current view on what we are doing internally and what we are seeing from our customers. So that's number one.

I think what is important with the increase in oil and hence also the increase in raw material, which we are expecting, of course, we would continue to pass this on to our customers. That's pretty obvious.

So that work will not stop. But it would go the other direction.

The moment, of course, prices are going down, we would, of course, also give this back to customers. This is for us a game which from an absolute perspective, has no impact whatsoever.

So I can't give you any guidance on H2 on volume also. And I know you understand that, Pasi.

Yes. I truly fully understand.

Morayo here on behalf of Pallav Mittal. So we just had a question.

Flexible Packaging comparable sales were around 14% in Q2. Is that going to be recurring?

Or was there sort of a prebuying and temporary price cost boost? And if so, how sustainable do you see that being?

Yes. Thanks, Morayo.

It's very similar to what I was talking to Pasi about. So we have seen, if at all, then immediately after the war in the Middle East started in Iran, so call it maybe April, we have seen a little bit of that effect of people being super nervous and maybe prebuying a bit.

That for the quarter is not impacting our results for the quarter. The volume growth in Flexibles, which we have seen, which we are really proud of is not due to the fact of any prebuying or stocking up.

So that one, I can ensure you is not impacting the quarter.

I have got 2, please. The first was on Foodservice.

Just in terms of -- if you could provide any color in terms of the backdrop you see there, I guess in terms of demand profile, what people might be thinking of for Q3 and Q4. At this point, given you mentioned geopolitical issues and just given the sort of delivery in first half, any sort of thoughts there on how that might develop into Q3 would be good.

And then I guess, overall, in terms of your kind of stable outlook, I just wondered if you could -- this is for the full year, I guess, is there any color you can put on that in terms of -- you've obviously had sort of a strong pricing action. You've had a quarter that probably sort of did better than we all expected.

But your outlook is stable for the full year. Just if you could put any thoughts in terms of what that stable outlook actually means would be very good.

And if there's any sort of self-help potential in the second half of the year to drive that?

Yes. Thanks, Kevin.

So let me try to give you some more color on Foodservice. So Foodservice, you will have seen that we have had a very disappointing volume in Q1.

Q2, even though it's slightly negative, it is significantly better than what we have seen in the first quarter. So that's message number one.

Message number 2 is, of course, Foodservice was also impacted by the Middle East war as well. There's a bit of an echo in the line.

I hope it's getting better now. So Middle East had an impact into Foodservice in the quarter as well.

Generally speaking, we are getting good traction with our big global accounts on Foodservice. So I think that's really encouraging to see that relationship and that work together is helping us to follow them and support them and make them win in the market.

We are not -- and that's opposite to what we are seeing in Flexibles. We are not yet seeing the traction with the smaller and regional accounts.

So that's a work which we have started. And as I mentioned in previous calls, those customers we have to convince and we have to win back those customers as we weren't close to them at all.

So that's something where we were clearly hoping that we would get that trust and that chance back much quicker, which we are currently not yet getting. So we have to continue to work on that, continue to convince them with good service, good delivery, delivery in full, in spec all the time, helping them on innovation to get that trust and that chance.

So we are working on that currently. We are not at this point.

So that's not helping us in our Foodservice business. And we are convinced that we will get there eventually.

So team is working hard on that side. I can link this also to then your last question on self-help and then I'll give you a bit of overview on Q3 and Q4.

On the self-help side, that continues and you have seen that even with weak top line, Foodservice specifically, but frankly, everybody is benefiting. We have started after our cost-out program, which we concluded Q2 last year.

We have not stopped there. We are continuously working on cost out.

It's part of who we are. We are doing this all the time to take cost out and making sure that we stay efficient and we have a chance to cover inflation.

So that will continue. It's not just Q3, Q4.

It is there all the time and especially even more so in Foodservice when you have volume decline. Of course, even more so, it is important to adjust your cost base to that one.

Q3, Q4, rest of the year, I mentioned a few times before. We are seeing benefits from a lot of the work which we are doing coming through.

On the one side, we are seeing a lot of work from our customers as well. And we are also seeing geopolitical issues, and we are seeing very dynamic outlook in the market.

So hence, it is a relatively stable market. It's a relatively stable industry.

We are in an industry which is super resilient even if there is a global crisis. People still eat, people still drink and that's very important for us and for you, I think, as well to realize that we are not cyclical.

We are in a resilient environment. We are a resilient company and we are working on this, not for the short benefit but for the long run.

All right. That was all the questions we had for today.

Thank you for all the questions and interest. And with that, we wish you a great day.

Thank you.