A2 Milk (NZX:ATM) Q4 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today. My name is David Bortolucci, I'm the Managing Director and CEO of The A2 Milk Company. Today I'm joined on the call by our CFO, Dave Muskett and our business unit leaders, Lee Xiao, Johan Seneratna, Jaram McVicar and Kevin Bush. The team and I will present the results and outlook and there'll be time at the end for questions. During the presentation, we'll focus on continuing operations excluding NBM, which we divested in the first half and occasionally refer to underlying results, which excludes both NBM and A2 Pocono. We've excluded A2 Pocono from the underlying results given that the site is currently underutilized and incurring manufacturing losses and transformation costs, which are short term in nature. Starting on Slide four, we delivered FY 2026 results in line with or slightly ahead of our updated April guidance with double digit revenue growth.

0:53 Infant milk formula or IMF grew 5% in a flat China market supported by strong English label growth with China label sales significantly impacted by temporary supply chain disruption in the fourth quarter. Supply chain disruption had a material impact on China IMF product availability, performance and supply chain costs, which impacted our second half group sales and earnings. As you would expect, we have a comprehensive recovery plan in place and we commenced execution, which I'll come back to later in the presentation. Other Nutritionals grew significantly by 42% through innovation in kids, seniors, UHD and supplements. In liquid milk, growth was well above market at 22% in Australia and The US. Our commitment to innovation has resulted in the launch of a series of new products over recent years, which are making meaningful contributions to our growth.

1:44 These new products accounted for more than 50% of our sales growth in FY 2026 with further launches planned in the first half of twenty twenty seven. We also advanced our supply chain transformation through the divestment of NBM and the acquisition of A2 Copenote with the transformation program on track or ahead of plan. Finally, regulatory approval of our two new China label registrations, we declared a AUD300 million special dividend and today announced an increase in our full year ordinary dividends with improved payout ratio. In combination, we have declared a total of AUD453 million of ordinary and special dividends in FY 'twenty six. Turning to our financial summary on Slide five. Revenue was up 12.4% to AUD 1,950,000,000.

2:31 Reported EBITDA was down 2.5% to AUD $284,000,000, which was impacted by supply chain disruption and A2 Pocono losses. On an underlying basis, excluding A2 Pocono, EBITDA was up 5.4% and underlying EBITDA margin was 15.6%. From an earnings perspective, underlying net profit after tax and underlying EPS were up approximately 7%. Slide six shows that our growth was broad based across all of our geographic markets and product categories. China and other Asia grew 11%, ANZ 10% and The U. S. Over 28%. By product category, IMF was up around 5%, liquid milk up 22% and other nutritionals up 42% excluding A2 coconut sales.

3:23 Moving to Slide seven, the China IMF market was relatively flat with premiumisation offsetting a low single digit volume decline. The China label IMF market stabilised and English label growth slowed significantly in the second half due to the impacts of industry recalls. Pleasingly, the A2 type protein and ultra premium segments continued to grow ahead of the category which plays to our strengths. Slide eight addresses the supply chain disruption experienced in the fourth quarter. As outlined in our market announcements in April and July, product availability was materially impacted by a number of factors including strong demand in the preceding quarter, freight challenges, a production backlog at Sinlay, extended product release timeframes and additional customs and testing requirements.

4:11 These factors have been resolved and availability has significantly improved. However, the in market product availability issues necessitated a large proportion of our existing users to switch to alternative brands, which as you can see significantly impacted our China label market share during the fourth quarter. The rate of recovery will depend on our ability to regain past users, new user recruitment momentum and the performance of our new China label IMF products. Slide nine sets out our recovery plan, built around rebuilding trust, driving past and new user recruitment, supporting our distributor and retailer ecosystem and launching new products. There's been positive early progress against our plan. Our new traceability tool has been very well received by consumers, brand sentiment is recovering and user recruitment conversion rates are back to or above historical levels.

5:04 Moving to Slide 10. The first wave of marketing behind our China IMF recovery is focused on reassuring consumers that A2 products are of the highest quality. This includes a market leading traceability tool with batch by batch testing, an endorsement campaign from China's state media Xinhua Mu with a leading food safety expert and independent validation by a leading quality assurance influencer, Daddy Lo. Together these initiatives are rebuilding confidence in quality and supply and driving positive sentiment. The next slide measures how our social media and PR activity is helping rebuild confidence in the A2 brand. Brand sentiment has recovered quickly towards prior levels with the ratio of positive to negative sentiment improving significantly in July. Search interest in the A2 brand, A2 Jirtue and A2 Platinum on the major e commerce platforms has been recovering each week, reaching around 80% of December to January peak levels by the end of July.

6:04 From mid August, our new user education and recruitment programs will ramp up followed by a broader A2 brand superiority campaign in October. Turning to our outlook statement on Slide 12, we expect revenue and EBITDA to grow in FY 2027 supported by innovation and new markets, continued momentum in other nutritionals and liquid milk and improved profitability at A2 Pocono. IMS sales are expected to be impacted by the flow on effects of supply chain disruption in the fourth quarter with a gradual recovery over the course of the year, supported by an increase in marketing investment, particularly in the first half. As a result, group revenue and EBITDA are expected to be materially weighted to the second half. Overall, we currently expect mid single digit revenue growth in FY 2027 with first half revenue broadly in line with last year.

6:56 EBITDA margin is expected to be approximately 15% with the first half materially down on PCP before improving in the second half. Our full outlook statement including key risks is set out in our results commentary released today. Slide 13 outlines our strategy, which is unchanged and enduring. We remain focused on capturing the full potential in China IMF, ramping up product innovation, entering new markets and transforming our supply chain, all underpinned by our brand strength and science and innovation capability. As Slide 14 shows, we continue to track well against our medium term financial and non financial goals and remain on track deliver the majority of our targets despite the temporary supply chain disruption during the fourth quarter.

7:44 Turning to the next slide, we've just fell short of achieving our medium term revenue ambition of $2,000,000,000 this year, but will do so in FY 2027. Our market and category growth drivers remain on track except for China label IMF, which has been impacted by supply chain disruption and is a key focus and work in progress currently. Moving to the next page and beyond our FY twenty twenty seven goals, we have significant growth opportunities to capture in our core business, adjacent categories and new markets over the years ahead. We've been addressing these opportunities over time and thought it would be helpful to lay out the markets and categories we are focused on, the estimated size of these markets of retail, the addressable component, our current share and how our portfolio through innovation and new markets has evolved from FY21 to where we expect to be by the end of FY27.

8:34 Interestingly, our portfolio of products and markets has expanded from eight in FY twenty twenty one to a planned 36 by the end of this year, which is an indication of the focus on innovation and market expansion. In summary, we have a low share of a large TAM with plenty of growth opportunities to pursue over the long term. Over recent years we have focused on expanding our product portfolio supported by investment in innovation and product development capability, A2 Pocono and building a network of strategic manufacturing partners. Slide 17 highlights the many new innovations coming to market in FY 2027 and beyond. In the first half of twenty twenty seven we'll launch two new China label products that will expand our China label portfolio from one to three, significant updates to A2 Platinum and A2 Genesis, alongside continued expansion in other nutritionals which Chow and Johan will cover later.

9:30 Moving to slide 18 which speaks to the science that underpins our A2 brand proposition and innovation. We have continued to invest in research for more than twenty five years building scientific evidence around milk that is A1 protein free. A highlight this year was a US Growth Monitoring Study, a key clinical requirement for the FDA infant formula approval process. The study showed that infants consuming formula made with A2 Milk demonstrated appropriate growth and had a comparable safety profile for infants consuming conventional formula which is the primary purpose of the study. However, secondary analysis of the data showed a six percent greater length and weight gain versus conventional infant formula. These findings were presented at the American Society for Nutrition Annual Meeting in July and attracted significant interest.

10:19 Slides nineteen and twenty cover our supply chain transformation. During the year we completed the acquisition of A2 Pocono, a world class nutritional facility and the divestment of MVM. Since acquisition we've more than doubled our Pocono team, delivered the first stage of our multi year capital investment program on time and on budget and secured registration amendments for the two new China labelled products. The site is on track for an EBITDA breakeven result in FY 2027 as we in sourced A2 Platinum and captured vertical margin benefits. As for Slide 20, all of our key milestones with respect to English label transition, China level registrations and facility upgrades for FY 2026 are all complete with our FY 2027 metrics on track with production and financials in line with plan.

11:09 Finally on Slide 21 we continue to make good progress on sustainability including commencing work to convert the A2 Pocono gas fired boiler to an electrode boiler to progress towards our Scope one and two net zero target by 2030. We also established real on time data collection approaches to increase the accuracy of our Scope three emissions reporting and awarded 27 new projects through our Farm Sustainability Fund. I'll now hand over to Dave to take you through the financials in more detail. Thanks David and good morning everyone. Starting on Slide 23 with our group P and L. Net sales revenue was up 12.4% to AUD 1,972,000,000 with growth across all product categories and segments. Gross margin was 47.7, down 3.4 percentage points reflecting A2 Pocono losses, which were in line with expectations, a lower share of China level sales, one time costs related to the previously mentioned supply chain disruption and higher COGS due to higher milk and other ingredients prices, particularly in the second half.

12:11 Distribution costs were marginally higher as a percentage of net sales revenue at 3.5% due to higher freight rates primarily related to the liquid milk businesses. Marketing investment of £325,000,000 was higher in support of the China growth strategy, innovation and user recruitment. SG and A was also higher this year mainly reflecting investment in capability to support China growth and supply chain transformation including planned A2 Pocono operating and transformation costs. However, if you exclude FX losses caused by the New Zealand dollar devaluation, SG and A as a percentage of sales was lower than last year. Reported EBITDA was CAD284.4 million with margin in line with our previous guidance. On an underlying basis excluding A2 Pocono losses and transformation costs, EBITDA increased to $307,600,000 reflecting growth in the underlying business.

13:06 Our effective tax rate improved to 30% supported by improved profitability in New Zealand and partial utilisation of our group tax losses. NPAT from continuing operations was $2.00 £8,000,000 or £235,800,000 on an underlying basis. Also declared a final dividend of $0.95 per share representing a payout ratio of around 74%. The dividend will be fully franked and unimputed and will be paid on the October 2. Slides twenty four and twenty five set out our segment and product performance. On slide 24 China and other Asia revenue grew by 11.2% with segment revenue and EBITDA impacted by A2 Poconut losses and the fourth quarter supply chain disruption.

13:51 AMZ and USA both achieved double digit revenue growth with USA EBITDA improving materially. Flight advice shows revenue growth across all product categories at group level with liquid milk and other nutritionals growth partially offsetting China label IMF decline. Moving on to Slide '26. Operating cash flow was $133,100,000 with cash conversion of 68% in line with our updated guidance. This reflects the planned inventory build associated with the A2 Pocono ramp up and normalisation of China label IMF inventory, plus some timing impacts related to the fourth quarter supply chain disruption. Investing cash flows included net cash net supply chain transaction outflows of around 165,000,000 associated with the A2 Pocono acquisition and MVN divestment with other investing activities including a reduction in our term deposits and CapEx additions relating to our A2 Pocono capital upgrades.

14:49 Our closing cash balance at the end of the period was CAD784.5 million down CAD276.7 million reflecting the previously mentioned supply chain transactions, A2 Pocono capital investment program and dividends paid throughout the period. Turning to Slide 27. Our balance sheet remains strong with cash and term deposits of CAD784.5 million and no external debt. Inventory as previously mentioned increased and intangibles rose with the goodwill from the ACOPYO acquisition. The balance sheet gives us capacity to support our growth strategy while balancing risk and maintaining flexibility for future investment. That concludes the financial overview. I'll now hand over to Zhao to take you through the performance of our China label business.

15:40 Thank you Dave. Starting on Slide 29. China label MS revenue declined 14% to $544,000,000 for the year. This was very much a story of two halves, with revenue up 6.5% in the first half and down 33% in the second half as a result of the fourth quarter supply chain disruption. As previously mentioned, the contributing factors are now resolved. MS availability has improved significantly. While it is too early to be conclusive, we are encouraged by some of the early data rates with brand sentiment significantly improved since June and the conversion rate of new user recruitment activities is back to historical level.

16:30 However, to be clear, the recovery is expected to be gradual in FY 2027. Turning to the next slide and looking at market share. On an MAT basis, China label share increased to March before declining to 5.2% by year end. However, on a quarterly basis, MBS and the DAO both declined significantly impacted by the fourth quarter supply chain disruption. As for levels has now significantly improved, we are focusing on our China IMF recovery and regaining past users and accelerating new user recruitment. Moving to Slide thirty one, which produced over two new China label products that are due to launch in the first half of FY twenty twenty seven, Both of which will be manufactured at A2 Poknu.

17:22 The first A2 Zhiqi Ren targets the ultra premium segment and share gains in lower tier cities. The second, A2 Zhijun, is a dual certificate organic product that is expected to build over brand in higher tier cities. Both products have innovative packaging, including scoop in lid, and provides consumers with confidence in the safety and quality of their purchase. We have already launched traceability APP. Together, these new IMF products expand our China label range and support our growth strategy in the China IMF market. Our retailers, distributors and brand ambassadors are excited to welcome our new A2 Milk babies to the market very soon.

18:14 I'll now hand over to Johan to take you through the English label and other nutritionals. Thanks, Joe, and good morning, everyone. Starting on Slide 32. Our English label IMF revenue grew 23% to $788,000,000 driven by our strong growth in our CVEC and OTOY channels with a growing contribution from A2 Genesis, which now represents 6% of the total English level sales and rapid expansion in new markets, particularly Vietnam. Third quarter A2 Platin sales were strong following industry recalls. However, off take momentum slowed in the fourth quarter, indirectly impacted by The USA label IMF recall announced in May 2026, net of some modest switching benefits from China label.

19:03 In ANZ, our English label IMF sales declined due to lower diode channel sales, while A2 Gentle Gold continues to drive growth in Australian retail channels. Moving to Slide 33 and looking at market share. From a market perspective, English label now represents 20% of the total China IMF market. However, market growth slowed significantly in the second half following industry recalls. A2MC was the leading share gainer on CVIC, driven by A2 Platinum and A2 Genesis performance. A2 Genesis has now achieved a 1.8% share on CVEC, with over 60% of offtake coming from early stage products. More recently, following The USA label IMF recall, off take momentum has been indirectly impacted.

19:56 However, we are focused on rebuilding momentum in the first half. Slide 34 previews updates to our A2 Platinum and A2 Genesis formulations. A2 Platinum will receive its first major update since 2022 with an enhanced advanced nutrition formulation, premium packaging and traceability. A2 Genesis will be upgraded with additional HMOs and a change to the probiotics to strengthen its super premium positioning. Both of these products will be manufactured at our A2 Percono facility with the insourcing of A2 Platinum significantly increasing production volumes and bringing vertical margin capture benefits to the group. Continuing to the next slide.

20:42 Our new market strategy continues to advance with Vietnam starting to scale. Distribution has expanded to more than 3,005 stores and English label sales grew strongly during the year. We are also continuing to assess and progress further opportunities across Southeast Asia and The Middle East. Turning now to other nutritionals on Slide 36. Sales grew nearly 60% to two sixteen million dollars led by our Kids and Seniors Fortified Milk Powders. Our Kids range continues to grow strongly with the product also responding as a substitute for Stage three and Stage four China label IMF users during the fourth quarter supply chain disruption. Our seniors and adult ranges hold leading category positions, and our new site support Kids UHD has resonated well with consumers since launch.

21:36 And we saw strong growth in emerging markets for our macromilk brands. Turning to Slide 37 and taking a look at some of our individual products more closely. As previously mentioned, our channel label Kids Milk Cater is growing rapidly with half on half sales up around 80% and retaining the number one ranking amongst international brands in MBS stores. We continue to build brand awareness and user recruitment for our broader kids portfolio through our Octonauts 2.0 campaign, including a customized episode featuring the A2 brand, character integration on pack, and a full suite of co branded gift boxes across the A2 Kids portfolio. Looking ahead, we will continue to innovate our kids milk powder range with new functional formulations to address areas of strong consumer interest.

22:28 Continuing on to the next slide, we entered a new category through the launch of our China label pediatric supplements range during the second half. The range is focused on immunity, gut health, brain and eye health and anti allergy. Early consumer response has been encouraging, supported by professional endorsement, and we see significant potential to expand the platform over time, including expanding into English label. Now turning now to Slide 39, which previews our English label pediatric supplements range due to launch in the first half of FY 'twenty seven. Our English label supplements range is manufactured in Australia to TGA standards and will be available for sale in Australia, New Zealand and China CVEC. We'll be first to market with Australian main liquid calcium sachets, one of the largest and fastest growing categories, and we intend to launch the range into Vietnam subject to achieving registration.

23:25 And with that, I'll now hand over to Jaren to take you through ANZ. Thank you, Johan, and good morning, everyone. For those I haven't met, I'm Jaren MacVicar. While I've been with A2 for some time, this is my first results presentation since stepping into the ANZ leadership role in April and it is my pleasure to take you through the ANZ results today. Turning to Slide 40. Our Australian liquid milk business delivered another strong year with net sales revenue up 17% to $245,000,000 driven by growth in both our A2 Milk Core and A2 Milk Lactose Free ranges. We outperformed the category growing overall share to 11.7% and lactose free reached a record share of 22.6%.

24:12 We were also proud to be the first national lactose free brand with the launch of A2 Milk Lactose Free in Coles WA. We delivered premium brand exposure across our priority markets through our exclusive Australian Open partnership as the first dairy milk partner of The Australian Open in its one hundred and twenty year history with our bespoke co branded trepeze becoming viral sensations on social media driving exceptional visibility and brand engagement including through mass sampling. Moving to Slide 41. Slide 41 highlights the lactose free opportunity, which has been a major driver of category growth. A2 Milk Lactose Free is the only product in the Australian market that is both A1 protein free and lactose free.

25:01 Lactose free's retail sales value has grown over 6% in the last year and is approaching 10% of the total dairy milk category. The A2 Milk Company continues to gain share in this fast growing category and is the number two brand in the segment. This gives us confidence in the broader opportunity for A1 protein free and lactose free milk including in markets such as The USA. On that note, I'll hand over to Kevin to take you through The USA results. Thanks, Jarron. Turning now to Slide 42. The USAA had an excellent year with net sales revenue up 29% to $179,000,000 and importantly achieved EBITDA breakeven in the second half for the first time.

25:48 Growth was underpinned by double digit gains across our core and grasshead ranges, increased household penetration and distribution, and A2 Milk is now a top 10 U. S. Liquid milk brand and is the fastest growing. From an IMF perspective, we managed a small voluntary recall of discontinued USA label IMF batches as announced in May this year. This recall was isolated to The USA market and is completed and closed with immaterial impacts on USA financials. Our long term FDA approval for IMF continues to progress with a final factory inspection completed recently. Moving to Slide 43. We continue to strengthen the brand in The U. A, with awareness and Net Promoter Score both improving and a new foodservice partnership with State and Shake.

26:42 Looking ahead and building on the strong momentum we have seen in lactose free in Australia, we see an opportunity to bring the same differentiated proposition to The USA. In the first half of FY twenty twenty seven, we will launch a 2% lactose free product with selected retail partners. In addition, we are also considering opportunities to enter the high growth protein segments of the market with products currently under development. I will now hand back to David. Thanks, Kev. That concludes today's presentation. I'll now hand back to the operator for the Q and A. Thank Your first question comes from Peter Marks from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

27:37 Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if we can break down the EBITDA margin guidance a bit further. Is there anything in there that we should be thinking about gross margins? And what thinking are in terms of marketing and then the other cost line as well, I think that'd be really helpful. Thanks. Yeah. No. No problem. I'll ask Dave to give you some color on that. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Hi, Peter. Yeah. There's lot of noise in the FY '26 results, so probably the best way to think about it is to start with the FY 'twenty five EBITDA margin, the 16.6%, which doesn't have any poking out in it, which is I suppose in line with the breakeven result we're expecting in FY 'twenty seven. So it's probably the best cleanest starting point.

28:23 If you think about that 16.6%, we're guiding in FY 'twenty seven to approximately 15%. So you're talking 1.6 percentage points. One thing that's very important to factor in is that most of the vast majority of that decline will actually be gross margin. I'll come back to marketing in a second. It will mostly be gross margin and driven by probably two factors mainly. So one is mix. So if you think about the fact that we've called IMF to be broadly flat for next year and strong growth in the other nutritionals and liquid milk, there's quite a reasonable amount of mix dilution coming through. It'll improve through the year, but on average through the year there'll be mixed dilution. Also there are some COGS pressures coming through milk, through lactose and a little bit sort of whey as well. So that'll be the two sort of headwinds. Against that we'll have some probably some FX tailwinds and recycling a little bit of air freight, but most of that 1.6 call it gross margin.

29:25 Marketing will be up in terms of reinvestment rate, but it's more of a probably more of a phasing story in terms of the first half being up by quite a lot and probably from a full year perspective it probably normalized, but it'll be up as probably more slightly than gross margin sorry, or COGS, sorry. And then we'll a little bit leverage on SG and A. So that's probably the way to think about the shape of the EBITDA for next year. And then probably I might as well cut it off now because I'm sure I'll get the question later is for next year and we've talked about obviously, we've mentioned the 4% to 15% approximate EBITDA percentage for next year with second half weighting. Probably the two call outs, If I'm thinking about the average where you get to from an average for the full year, our marketing will probably be around probably two percentage points reinvestment rate higher than you get for the average for the full year.

30:31 And our gross margin is probably going to be a percent worse than we get to from a full year perspective. So hopefully those building blocks give you enough to be able to sort of build build out your names for next year. That's very helpful. Thanks. Can I just follow-up, you know, with the COGS pressures and, you know, everything that's going on with the business at the moment, how are you thinking about pricing? Like, do you think you can offset some of those with with price increases, or is it there's just too much going on? Or does the so the new products and the formulation refreshes and the packaging refreshes actually allow you to take a bit of price? I'm just interested in how you think about that. We are taking price effectively in some of the categories in markets, overall it's not necessarily mitigating margins. So for example, in our China label product we've increased price a little bit, but a lot of that's going back to the trade support margins and activation.

31:31 In our platinum product as we transition, in effect pricing will be similar but there will be slightly smaller pack size, so price per kilogram, if you like, will go up a little bit. And then in milk we've taken a bit of price as well that's reflecting the increases in time gate milk prices as well. So we are taking price, but it's not necessarily being accretive to margin overall. Very helpful, thanks. Thank you. Your next question comes from Sam Tiga from Citi. Please go ahead. Good morning guys, thank you. What was your China label market share in July for the month across all stages? And when do you think you'll get it all by the sorry. By the time of the AGM, do think you'll get back to where you were were previous supply shortages?

32:25 Sam, we're not guiding the China level share data for July. We necessarily have that at moment. Suffice to say it's down quite a bit. We would probably estimate that our offtake at the moment sort of in the order of probably about 40% of what it might have been if you take the last reported results through to December, so it's come off quite a lot. But it's rebuilding back now. We're not providing guidance specifically again for the AGM. We expect a gradual recovery over the course of the year. Probably get back to roughly the same run rate by the end of the year that it was sort of pre the supply chain disruption, if that helps you. So progressively from where we are now back to sort of 100% of that run rate and then from a reported sales point of view that would then mean that it wouldn't be until the first half of FY twenty eight that we'd be at the same level of total sales that we were pre crisis.

33:24 Makes sense. That's helpful. Then which of the It could be better than worse, that's just sort of our expectations, what we're planning for at the moment. Okay. No, that's great. Thanks. And which of the user reacquisition initiatives that you have in place now in China have you found to be most impactful? And are you planning any tweaks to them going forward? Yeah. Shao, do wanna talk about our past and use reactivation or recruitment initiatives we have at the So we have a pretty good track record to recruit new users like what happened in the past year, first quarter, and then we quickly turned around the new user recruitment in the second quarter.

34:16 So the most effective activation makes for new user recruitment start with what we call the monocast targeting pregnant women, which we are executing in thousands of activations per year as the number one priority. Then the second one, if you look at we have several thousand promotion groups, but the ambassador in the store, they are also the key driver to get new users in the MBS store. And certainly we also have other acquisition like mean, I mean, partially contribute to the new user recruitment. I mean across all the grade stage and late stage. Plus, I mean, last but not the least, we have a medical marketing team who are targeting at, I mean, a special channel, I mean, maternity center or the hospital, I mean, all the learning station user recruitment.

35:22 Right. I think you and other markets picked up the results, I think I keep with the trust benefits of returning to the brand and also enhanced loyalty program. So overall, at the moment, our user recruitment conversion rates and activities we have in place at the moment are at or above historic levels in terms of the conversion of the activity. Not necessarily in aggregate, but at the conversion rates So really encouraging at the moment. Excellent. And last question, what are the biggest learnings from the supply chain challenges? And I appreciate that quite a number of the factors were outside your control, but what tweaks might we make to the operating model going forward to avoid this happening again? Thank you.

36:09 Sandy, you're right. I mean a lot of this was outside our control in terms of the industry factors that led to recalls, new standards, testing methodologies and all that at both in the New Zealand side as well as the China side. But the underlying thing that we need to address is having more consistent level of inventory throughout the supply chain at the right stages of the supply chain. And we've struggled with that, mainly due to some challenges we've had with Synlait supply over time. However, having said that, Synlait has recovered well in recent months and we have no real concerns about supply going forward, but we must work together with Synlait to ensure that we have more consistent supply going forward. And indeed from our Pocono facility going forward as our English label product and our new China label products hopefully become more material over time, we need to do the same ourselves. So we're not saying we're perfect, but we've got to ensure that we have more consistency in our production and inventory management throughout the system.

37:08 Thank you. Your next question comes from Tom Keerith from Barringelli. Please go ahead. Yeah. Good morning, guys. Just a follow on from Pete's question then just on marketing. So you're saying it'll be a lot higher in the first half at two percentage points. You maybe just give us some color on how much of that relates to the Pocono products? And just how should we think about, I guess, the marketing spend in relation to those that launch that you're doing this half? Tom, the support for new products coming to market, not only the China label products, appropriate, but relatively modest compared to the total investment that we have in brand acquisition overall for both the Jeju China label product and A2 Platinum. I mean obviously A2 Platinum is combination of both. We're phasing out A2 Platinum and bringing in a new upgrade.

38:01 But don't I mean we have a baseline level of investment in always on digital and everything else. We've got significant investment in early stage new user recruitment and then we cycle in and out of new innovation coming to market, of which we have a fair amount coming to market in the next quarter, which we wanted to highlight to our investors. So there's an appropriate amount, but don't think that it is by any means the sort of majority of our investment on the new products and ignoring the base business. And and it is can you maybe just talk through the incrementality of of the Pocono products? And and how we should think about maybe market share when we're talking about share in in twelve months time? Like, where where should we be in share then maybe versus now if the plan is going to play out? So back a year ago, we sort of mapped out in connection with the acquisition what we expected the new China label products to contribute in sales and also gave some earnings sort of margin perspective as well. But it was over $100,000,000 of incremental sales over the next few years, close to our average China segment EBITDA margins.

39:14 Where we are at the moment is our thinking is that with the launch which is slightly ahead of plan, like being able to launch these products in October, having just commenced the manufacturing of that which is great to be in market earlier. We're hoping that they might contribute if you look at the phasing there, I think there's a phasing chart in the earlier presentation twelve months ago. I think hopefully they'll make a stronger contribution earlier. I won't be specific about it. And one of the reasons I say that, Tom, is that through the supply chain disruption that we've experienced in our recovery programme, we've deliberately constrained the distribution or the way to distribution of our Dirtue product. So we're at about twothree of what we were pre supply chain disruption, which actually opens up a bit more sort of available distribution for one of those products which will play a more discreet or incremental role. So if you put that all together, think earlier launch has a little bit more white space in distribution.

40:14 I think we are hopeful that we'll get a greater contribution earlier, but we won't provide any specific guidance on that at the moment. Okay, great. Thanks, David. Thank you. Your next question comes from Craig Wolford from MSG Marquee. Please go ahead. Good morning, team. Just firstly, just want to clarify what your guidance in thirds about the second half and if that's an indication of more normal margins. If I've interpreted your commentary right, it is more like a 12% EBITDA margin in the first half and I guess by inference closer to 18% in the second half of 27%. Is that second half relatively clean? Is that a guide of how margins look once all the supply chain noise settles down?

41:08 Craig, I won't comment on your percentages you called out, what I will say is just be wary of the marketing because we're basically saying that the first half will be reasonably up from in terms of percentage points, sort of implies second half will be probably down relative to the normal run rate. So there's probably a little bit to come back on that margin from a marketing perspective. But, you know, I think I think the second half should be a better indication of what we'll see in the future. Directionally. Directionally. Directionally. Right. Yeah. K. Can I with the English label performance in FY twenty six, is there any way to tease out sure I see very difficult? Anyway, it takes out underlying performance versus some of the customers that might have shifted to that channel, the CVEC channel because of the shortages.

42:15 From the from China label, Craig, going across to English label. Is that what you're saying? Like, you you've gone from I think it was 19.1%. Yeah. Yeah. Think five. Is that organic or switch? In terms of switching, we did mention in our update to the market there was some switching from jet fuel to platinum. There was some, but I think perhaps that's been amplified by the market. So I think there's been probably expectation that's greater than what it was. So in essence it was relatively small, the switching from China level to platinum. Most of the users unfortunately have gone to other brands which some have retained with us and our job is to get them back.

43:08 I don't know if that helps. Well I guess the natural follow on is it's quite a good result on English label because it was fairly static over the last eighteen months at 19.1 and up to 19.5. So what would you attribute that to? Yeah. So I think yeah. So market share growth is, I guess, two factors. One is, of course, investment in A2 platinum and in particular in user recruitment. So we've seen particularly over the last twelve months improvement in our stage one stage two share. And the second thing is the introduction of Genesis as well. So that adds a greater addressable market for us because it gives us exposure to the faster growing HMO segment within English label, and we've been able to capture on an MAT basis in CVEC now a 1.8% share.

44:03 So those two together then, you know, if you look at it over an eighteen month period, it contributed to the EL share gains. Right. Thanks, Sarah. Thank you. Your next question comes from Richard Barwick from CLSA. Please go ahead. Good morning all. David, just want to talk specifically about winning back some of the lost China label share. How much can you target or can you identify those A2 customers that have switched away? And I was also curious to of think through, is there a point when it's too late to get them to switch back? And then the other sort of dimension to that question is, does the transition from stage one to two and two to three, does that present opportunities to win those customers back?

44:57 I'd just like to sort of talk through those points if you could please. Yes, sure Rich. So in terms of targeting those users that may have lapsed, so we can do that in certain areas but by no means do we have a comprehensive CRM tool that tracks everything across all channels. Just because of the nature of the China market as consumers buy offline and online through different platforms and things, it's hard to capture a lot of that information. So we'd say for example in offline in the national key accounts and some of the regional key accounts, we have our promotional ambassadors in store who keep quite close contact with our consumers that regularly purchase from those stores through WeChat channels and everything else. We have good line of sight over that.

45:47 Through our loyalty program overall, there's a portion of consumers that do subscribe to our total loyalty program. Then within the e commerce platforms, there are loyalty programs there as well. So we have some line of sight over our users that we can target and retarget. Your second part of that was is it too late? So some of our Is it too late? Yeah, just in terms of the timing, so for early stage users, if they have switched to another brand, most mothers with a young infant would be generally not inclined to switch back unless they've had problems with the new product that they are using.

46:34 Some will, some may wait to the next stage of transition which is the second part of your question which is when you transition from one to two to three, that provides another opportunity to regain those consumers. And of course as those consumers did change to other brands, the competition couldn't help but offer them attractive deals on full case or one or two cases which means that they've got significant some of them have significant pantry inventory to consume as well before they would contemplate switching back to us. So that's why there's several of the reasons why it's gonna take some time for those consumers to come back to us and we're also refocused on ramping up the momentum of our new user recruitment. And then for later stage users, I'll just highlight that Stage three users, the infant or toddler is obviously more robust and consumers have got greater flexibility in modifying feeding patterns or potentially using alternative nutrition or other products and then switching back is much more convenient for the consumer.

47:39 And on Stage four in particular, whilst we're out of stock in Stage four for a long period of time due to in low supply, we did have our Kid Nutrition Kids Advanced product that we referred to which has been incredibly successful and also supported some of those consumers that were using or users that were using Stage three and four products as a substitute product. So it's complicated, we don't have full line of sight over everything at the moment. The plan that Chow and the team have put in place is being executed well and there's some encouraging signs, but it's too early to be quite definitive. We'll give updates to the market as we go next at the AGM and again at the half year or in between if we need to. And just timing wise though, David, is it sort of to win these back, the sooner the better and so therefore the AGM update, that will give you the best insight?

48:38 That seems like it's unlikely to be a second half weighted winning Chinese label customers back, that's going be a first half story? Yes, there'll be some well, we're hoping that there'll be a significant proportion that will come back and some have already come back because we're largely out of stock Richard and so a great proportion of had left. And so even be at 40% off take at the moment or thereabouts, that's already a significant return on the brand and that's improving every week. So we'll see where we're at at the AGM. We'll certainly provide an update then. If If it's materially different up or down, we'll obviously let the market know if that's critical. But overall at the moment we're expecting as I said earlier, like if we're around 40% now to be back to 100% or thereabouts run rate by the end of the financial year, so progressive recovery throughout the year. So we're to be very we're very careful about how we're going about this. So the number one priority for us is to ensure that we maintain our really strong brand health that we have for the A2 brand and the last thing we want to do is to rush into this and not preserve that, the distribution and the great sort of trade support that we have in the market as well as looking after our consumers.

49:53 And that's why we have constrained our distribution at the moment and we're progressively going to expand that over time. And we're not discounting product and pushing it into consumers or expanding our distribution rapidly, which could run the risk of ending up in a lot of slow moving inventory in the trade and create freshness issues and pricing and impact the whole ecosystem which is really important to the A2 business model. So in essence we're going about this in a really measured careful way, mindful of what our consumers need and the health of the A2 brand for the interest of the long term. Yep, okay, that all makes sense. Thanks David. Thank you. Your next question comes from Adrian Alban from Jarden. Please go ahead. Good morning, team.

50:41 I was just keen to understand, like, when you talk about constraining, if you like, the distribution for Zetra in particular, Is that like when you provided your sort of July update and you're sort of thereabouts at target inventories, is that against the constrained construct? I'm just trying to sort of reconcile where we might have been forecasting to where you're sort of at now with a new view on the distribution in terms of releasing it slowly as you've got confidence. Yeah, that's correct Adrian. So it's against a constrained distribution that we're at target. And obviously we factor in a certain number of weeks cover and obviously the and that's a forward looking month cover or week cover measure that we have and obviously the offtake was uncertain at that point. But generally you're correct that we were referring to us being at roughly a target inventory on a constrained basis for the offline channels. Obviously, that's not relevant for online.

51:40 Okay. And then as you sort of I think as you talked about sort of 40% offtake to 100, would you expect that that distribution would go back to where it is? Like I know you talked about possibly saving some of the constrained people with the new products initially, but is that a reasonable assumption as well? Yeah, think that we'll head back towards in the order of sort of 25,000 to 30,000 bills that we had previously. I can't be specific on exactly when that's going to happen, but I think we'll head towards that by the end of the year. So if you sort of factor in that there will be a little bit of trade inventory level expansion as we move from wider distribution of around twothree now to closer to 100% over time if that's where you're coming from. Yep. Okay. No. That's fine. Just in terms of what the English label seem to slow quite a bit in the second half as you sort of talked about the market commentary.

52:35 And and I guess your market share dipped a little bit in that fourth quarter relative to the Kenta stuff if you sort of indicated we look at the SmartPath. Can you sort of talk a little bit more about what's happening right now relative to that exit rate? Yes, I might hand over to Yo. We did definitely see a decline in offtake following the U. Recall announcement. So I mean, again, that product is a different product. There's no physical issue with the product. It was just the, obviously, unfortunate, the similar name, etcetera, and then picked up in China. So anyway, I'll hand over to Yeo. Yeah. So as David said, if we look at the second half, the third quarter was growing strongly. It was a continuation of the trend in the first half.

53:21 Where I guess the biggest challenge was in May and June when The US label recalling came out, there was an indirect impact. And yes, you can see in the fourth quarter, probably SmartPath is the best indicator of the impact, where you can see it's effectively 10% down for May and June. What we expect is, of course, that to rebuild in the first half. But you can see on the data on Slide 33, fourth quarter twenty six is 17.9% versus the MAT of 19.6 Okay. And so so the expectation is that that would be that date would be sorted over the first half. So you're of saying you're you're already saying progress. So that's that's coming. Yeah. Correct. Correct. Yeah. So that.

54:13 Just just a final question for me. Just in terms of like the whole. Obviously the whole serialized and testing was a big priority for the company over last the took took out of the period since you reported the February result. Can you just sort of update us on like where you're at with that? Is it sort of back to normal now against the new testing regimes that are required or is there any outstandings required on that with program? Adrian, so I think the testing methodologies and levels have been reasonably well established internationally. However, I do note that New Zealand is really the only country that has introduced very definitive standards and requirements at some of the tightest levels, which is great. We have no problem with that at all. It's just that it did evolve a lot quickly over time for both regulators and company participants. So we have gone through testing of all of our product.

55:18 We've made adjustments to our supply chain, there is no concern around the safety of our product in relation to say they're right, I can't as an infant company you can't promise there's never going be any quality or safety issues. But we have really solid certificates of analysis from suppliers. We do testing on cellulite throughout the supply chain as part of our release processes. We make those test results available to our consumers. I mentioned earlier in the call about the batch by batch testing results. You can see Mill Detect on all of our products every batch. So it's a very thorough process that we have in place now, so no concerns whatsoever. And most of the industry has adapted rapidly as well, but we're being very transparent about that.

56:07 Your next question comes from Marcus Curley from UBS. Good morning, team. I just wondered if we could revert back to the high level of the guidance. Is it right in assuming that in terms of the infant formula guide that you're talking about growth in English label and a decline in China label at a high level? We haven't been explicit about that, Marcus. I mean certainly in the first half that would be the case. Over the full year, it's probably it remains to be seen. It's probably closer than you may expect. We'll just have to wait and see how that plays out.

56:55 We haven't provided specific guidance for that. But yes, certainly in the first half, it's English label where I perform China label on a on a reported sales basis. Yeah. Okay. Like, I I suppose and then just on English label. So are you anticipating growth English label for the year? Yeah. I mean, at this stage, we would expect that English if anything, English label is likely to be ahead of China label. But it depends on how the new products perform and everything. It's early in the year but yes that would be our sort of expectation at the moment. But the difference between the two, like if you're expecting English label to way up form China label, given what's happened to China label, that's not necessarily going be the case. It's probably a bit more nuanced than that.

57:50 Yes. I suppose when you think about English label, I appreciate the comments around your market share in the fourth quarter. You don't necessarily see that in the second half revenue performance. And so you obviously got Vietnam going well. You've got new products coming. Well, you're getting back in the stock on new products. So just sort of trying to gauge what I'm missing in terms of the English label performance potentially in the next twelve months. Well, second maybe not in the next twelve months, but when you're looking at there's a little bit of movement in trade inventory as well that you might want to factor in as well in the second half because we finished the year we finished the December half slightly low in English label trade inventory and then at the end of the year slightly higher because of the late fourth quarter drop off in offtake.

58:46 So that explains a little bit of the higher if you're trying to sort of understand the high the relativity of the reported sales growth versus the market share numbers, that explains a little bit of that. Right. Okay. So that drop off But you have underlying growth, you've got new emerging markets and then you get a little bit of trade inventory level movement as well. Okay. Thank you. And then it looks like the two new trial label products are both in the ultra premium category. Is that different to what you were initially thinking? And maybe you can just give us a little bit more color in terms of maybe the price points of those two products and how you plan to roll them out from a store perspective?

59:44 So both of the products is positioned as ultra premium products because A2Z2's heritage is both perceived by the consumer and the retailer as the ultra premium product and we also represent the ultra premium segment. So for the digestion, it's going to be the lower tier CT expansion because this patent NLCT plus OPO plus full nutrition benefit really appeals to the lower tier mom who wants basically everything.

1:00:34 And also, if you can see from the market, even in the lower tier cities, there are still 40% above ultra premium contribution in the lower tier cities, with mom is there to buy the best product for their baby. So I mean, this product going to the lower tier cities with ultra premium positioning, digestion, food nutrition benefits, and plus higher treatment margin, which is also very effective in the lower tier cities. Because typically in the lower tier cities we rely more on the retailers' recommendation. Then the A2 H1, which is A2 organic, are serving as auto premium product. Typically, is a very unique segment in China market, only appealing to certain consumers in the higher tier cities. So this product has to be a higher price and also represented the best source of milk.

1:01:38 A2 New Zealand probably that's the best, most valuable, precious source of milk to meet this product. So it's going to distribute the lung tissue in the higher tier city, a top tier count, hopefully generates incremental volume appealing to this segment. So you're right, Marcus. A year ago, as we were developing our plans, we thought this would rather play in the super premium sort of ultra premium space and we have leaned towards the ultra premium as we've done more work on our go to market strategy, taking into account distributor and trade feedback on it as well. So we think this is the right positioning and the full nutrition formulation that TUROM product has we think supports that as well.

1:02:26 If it doesn't hold that price point, we can always bind that back a little bit, but it's very difficult as you know to take a product out after you've launched for a certain price point. So both products price at a premium to the existing product? The organic product will be at a premium to Jet Shu, but we're not being specific about the Chiron product pricing relative to Jet Shoe at this stage. Okay. It'll be close. I'm just not saying it's going to be above or below, but it'll be close in the ultra premium segment. Thank you.

1:03:16 Your next question comes from Phil Kimber from E and P Capital. Please go ahead. Hi, guys. I just had a question on the market growth you expect. I think you've given the total China infant formula market grew at point seven, but that was over the whole year. And at the half, It grew 3.6 for just the first twenty five or twenty six weeks. So it looks like it's, you know, gone backwards about 3% now and, you know, China label and English label looks like maybe flat and China label down. What's your expectation for the market to grow or decline in FY twenty seven? And and when you look at the various stages, I mean, should we anticipate that that momentum, you know, increases as it it it declines faster, or am I sort of missing something in that?

1:04:15 No. That's it's always hard to think about the Chinese market but we think at the moment our thinking is that the number of newborns will probably be up supported by the marriage rate which increased last year. So you've got the impact of the Dragon year still working its way through the system in the later stages. And then you've got a birth rate that obviously declined a lot last year but will probably be up marginally this year. So overall we would expect Phil, we'd expect the market to be down low single digits, only down slightly next year, single digits, probably early stage and reasonably robust, sort of flat to marginally up, and later stage should be down because of the the tail end of the Dragon year working its way through the system, if that makes sense.

1:05:09 Yeah. And he thought when you say the he's talking fiscal twenty seven there or calendar twenty seven? Yeah. By '27. Yeah. But the birth the birth newborn numbers are I'm referring to calendar year because that's the basis which they reported. Yep. And then my second question, just around Xingray and, you know, you mentioned having to work with them to improve supply. In in terms of, you know, the only I mean, there's been rumors on the wires around, you know, ownership changes there. I I don't know if there's anything you can talk to on that or, you know, where you think that might end up, that business. Think there's been every six months, there seems to be rumors about us in something in relation to Synlaid. But look, I won't comment on speculation.

1:05:58 All I'll tell you is that we've had a long and strong relationship with Bright and Synlay despite some of the supply challenges that we've had. We work day to day really closely with Synlay. The Virtu Chainlink registration is very strategically important to us. We intend to partner with them in the long term. And the only other thing I'd say is that the acquisition of Pocono and the hundreds of millions of dollars that we've invested in that and the upgrade is probably indicative of our supply chain strategy. Nothing more to say on that, Phil. Cool. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Steven Ridgewell from Craigs Investment Partners. Please go ahead. Afternoon. David, first question for me is just on the new China label products.

1:06:47 Just wondering if you could please give us a broad indication as to the revenue contribution that's baked into the guidance of flat overall sales from those new products? And then just related to that, would you be expecting the new products to have a positive contribution at the end of the day in FY 'twenty seven? Or given launch cost is that perhaps more of an expectation for FY '28 please? I'll come back to the comments I made earlier in the call, Stephen, the Q and A session. Figured it was too. But last year, if you have a look, when we announced the acquisition, we said that the two labels will contribute incremental over $100,000,000 of sales, and there's a chart in there which shows the sort of expected ramp up of that.

1:07:35 For the reasons I said before, I'd expect that to be great like earlier than what that chart would indicate. We definitely I mean the chart would indicate we'd probably expect $10,000,000 or less this year, which is not quite right. So it'll be more than that, but it's certainly not going to be the majority. So it'll be a reasonable number, but we're not providing specific guidance on that. In terms of the contribution, probably dilutive in the second quarter when they launched, but accretive in the second half. Cool. Thank you. And then just going back to the broad brush sort of recovery plan for channel label sales, I guess at a high level, just given we're seeing social media sentiment improve, the value provided, search rates are improving and stock is broadly available for China label, guess a high level, why are we not seeing a stronger pickup in sales already? I mean, I think the down 60% does seem pretty steep.

1:08:33 There's quite a big mountain to climb to get back to 100% of pre crisis levels. I mean, when you look at the recovery plan, in the detail you'll be looking at it, do you sort of assume a large number of those customers have gone for good and that you're really relying on over indexing market share gains for new mothers to get back to that pre crisis level of sales. And if that's the case, I'm just wondering if you're able to share more data points with us to provide comfort on that recovery plan. Thank you. Being able to start most of the fourth quarter, as I said, has had a pretty significant impact on our user base, particularly early stage. Now at about 40% off take run rate, we've lost the majority of our early stage customers through forced product switching to other brands, and we've probably maintained the majority of our later stage users.

1:09:34 As I said before, it's challenging to get those early stage users back quickly, but there will be opportunities as they consume the pantry stock that they have and as they change stage going forward into stage two and stage three. There'll be other opportunities to acquire them. Overall, I guess by definition, given what we're saying, we are assuming that we will over index in terms of our new user acquisition going forward. And in terms of data point, the best thing I can offer you is that the conversion rates on the activity we have in place at the moment by the different channels and mechanisms that we go about are either at or above where we were pre supply chain disruption. And we're investing more in marketing this year.

1:10:20 In absolute terms, if you run the math on it, it's a significant increase in marketing weighted to the first half as well. And we have full support of our retailers as well and distributors. So for example, some of these types of things, one of the most critical things in the trade is to hang on to the shelf space that you have. We've got the same, if not greater shelf space as buy being with our product for a considerable period of time. Some of our retailers have actually given us an extra bay as well, which is incredible support. Anyway, Xiao the team are doing a terrific job in China to one, manage the fourth quarter, but now in executing our recovery program and so far so good. But it's early days. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Julia Dostoek from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

1:11:13 Hi, everyone. Just wanted to come back to your comments around the outlook for the English label category into FY 'twenty seven, given you noted in the release around kind of competitor recall impacts in the second half. Given they seem to be normalizing now, could you just speak to maybe in more detail your outlook for the next kind of twelve months on both the competition side and therefore prospects for customer acquisition as well? Yeah. So I think, obviously, if we look at the English label market overall and you look at the first half it was growing strongly. Obviously the second half was impacted by the competitive recalls around. So although English label now makes up 20% of the total China IMF market, obviously the second half has been impacted by all that.

1:12:08 So of course, you know, the major brands within the EL segment have had challenges in this space. You know, ourselves, of course, May, June, you know, we had our own challenges. What we observe from competitors is that it does take a few months for that to rebuild. And so we would expect the same from ourselves. So I guess if we look at the English label market, you know, the underlying demand for the product coming from overseas is still there, notwithstanding the challenges that the sector has had with those recalls. And, you know, we would expect that Horizon and Genesis throughout Platinum and Genesis will support our growth and rebuild into FY 2027.

1:13:03 Got it. And then just on the reformulation of the Genesis product, I think you mentioned earlier that it was to kind of reinforce the premium positioning of the product, maybe not in those specific words. But could you just speak to kind of why the upgrade of that product now and what you're seeing in the market that might potentially be a catalyst for improving that kind of premium positioning? Yes. So if we look at platinum, the product has been in market for a number of years, but we haven't really upgraded the formulation meaningfully since 2022. And of course, consumer expectations along ingredient profiles such as HMO have changed in that period. So what we want to do is make sure that we improve the formulation of the product, plus also improve the usability of the product. So a good example of that is the new platinum product has the scoop in the lid. But historically we have had the scoop in the powder which we know can be a bit annoying for consumers.

1:14:05 So we've improved both the formulation and the usability first, keeping in line with consumer expectations. And then also on the Gensys product we've upgraded the formulation to have six HMOs. We know consumers are looking for a variety of HMOs within their formulation. And of course once we launched we had three HMOs and we've upgraded to six HMOs plus upgraded the probiotic itself to a human resident bacteria. So that also improves the positioning of the product. So in English, both the upgrades for the English label products are to keep in line with consumer expectations. Thanks.

1:14:53 Thank you. Your next question comes from Will Twiss from Forces Bar. Please go ahead. Morning, guys. If you look at kind of the initial recovery campaign that's underway, a lot of it is quite heavily focused on product quality and testing. Is that actually in response to anything you're seeing from consumers in terms of being concerned about the quality of the product and not just the product availability over the fourth quarter? Well, no, not specifically for our product, but there has been a lot of concern amongst Chinese consumers in the infant and toddler category, given what's happened in the market in the first quarter of this year and also in other categories like nappies or diapers have had issues as well. And there's been another recent sort of infant formula with another brand I won't comment on specifically, but another concern recently as well.

1:15:44 So I think generally Chinese consumers, mothers are very conscious about the importance of quality in our category and they're very sensitive to it. We're just doubling down on that and making sure they've got 100% confidence in our brand in the category. And the other part of the confidence is not the quality, it's it's the the supply, is the main issue that we had, is we didn't have product in market. So we're giving them confidence around the availability of product and the distribution of retail and being back in all the national key accounts with in some accounts with additional shelf space is really positive, and we'll be refreshing our point of sale and everything going forward. There's a lot of work around that, just providing consumers with trust on quality and supply, which is the most important thing in our category.

1:16:35 Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. And then if we think about supply chain costs, we know there were some additional costs kind of embedded in the cost base for FY 2026. Can you just talk through or provide some more color around how much cost is in there relative to a normal baseline and then what the outlook is for some of those items in FY 'twenty seven? Hi Will, it's Dave. We're not really getting into the ins and outs of the second half supply chain costs, gross margin. There's significant additional costs. There's some mitigating factors and some going the other way. I think the best way to think about it, like I said before, is start with your FY start with a clean year, which is FY '25, and build it from there. Like, sort of gave you the building blocks a little bit earlier.

1:17:30 Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to David Bortolucci for closing remarks. Thanks everyone for joining the call. Before I finish I'd like to thank our A2 team for their incredible effort and impact during the year. It's been a challenging end to the year and I think our teams, particularly our China team and supply chain team have done a wonderful job mitigating that impact and now focus on our recovery plan going forward and all the other growth opportunities we have in the business. Thank you to our team and to our investors and analysts. We look forward to catching up with you shortly over the next week or two. Thanks for joining the call. Cheers. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.