The Magnum Ice
Cream Company Q1
2026 Trading Update
Thursday, 30th April 2026
The Magnum Ice Cream Company Q1 2026 Trading Update
Thursday, 30th April 2026
Michele Negen
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to The Magnum Ice Cream Company's Q1 Trading Update
webcast. My name is Michèle Negen, Head of Investor Relations. I am here today with our
CEO, Peter ter Kulve, and our CFO, Abhijit Bhattacharya.
The press release and investor presentation were published on our Investor Relations website
this morning. The replay and full transcript of this webcast will be made available after the call.
Before we start, I want to draw your attention to our cautionary statement on the screen. You
will also find this statement in the presentation published on the website. In a moment, Peter
will take a few minutes to talk you through the highlights of our top line performance during
the first quarter of 2026. After that, we will open the floor for Q&A with Peter and Abhijit.
With that, Peter, over to you.
Peter ter Kulve
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our Q1 trading update. I am pleased
to share that we had an encouraging start to 2026. Before I get into the details, let me give
you the headline.
The ice cream category continues to grow. We are executing well on our strategy. And whilst
we are mindful of the heightened uncertainty in the global environment, particularly in the
Middle East, we are reaffirming our full year outlook.
In Q1, we delivered organic sales growth of 4.5% with a healthy split between volume growth
of 2.9% and price growth of 1.6%. India and Portugal were not in the perimeter and paid
royalties for the use of the TMICC brands. This was recognised in revenue, OSG and OPG.
Excluding these royalties, in Q1 2026, the underlying sales growth was 4.7% with underlying
price growth of 1.8%.
Our revenue came in at nearly €1.8 billion, down 1.2% versus Q1 2025.
entirely driven by foreign exchange.
The decline was
The strengthening of the euro created a translation
headwinds of 5.5% in the quarter.
I am especially pleased with the volume contribution. This represents the kind of quality growth
we aim for and reflects the work that we have done on innovation and execution. We are seeing
this working across the business with every region contributing to our growth.
In Europe and ANZ, we grew 4.6% organically excluding royalties, with positive price
contribution excluding royalties of 0.3%. Volumes were up 4.3%, helped by strong innovations.
Germany and the UK delivered high-single-digit growth. Italy is still a work in progress. We
are improving our distribution and point of sale execution there, and I am convinced we will get
it right.
In the Americas, we delivered 2.6% organic sales growth.
The US, our biggest market,
delivered organic sales growth of 3.2% with a positive volume growth of 1.8%, led by Yasso
and Popsicle, which both delivered double-digit organic sales growth in the quarter.
Ben & Jerry’s grew low single-digit as we launched new formats. I will come back to that. The
work we have done over the last 18 months to build a truly competitive US business is showing
up in the numbers.
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Sales in Brazil declined in the quarter. We continued to execute our turnaround plan focused
on new innovations, more targeted promotional and pricing activities, and increased
distribution.
In AMEA, we delivered our strongest regional performance at 7.9% organic sales growth, with
both volume and price contributing. Turkey and Pakistan delivered double-digit growth, while
China had a strong seasonal opening driven by innovation, including our pistachio and blue mint
Magnum stick and new Cornetto flavors such as Sorbet Amalfi Lemon with light cheese. Doesn't
this sound delicious?
Our innovations are exciting and contributing to category growth. I will come back to this to
give more colour through the lens of our brands.
Our productivity programme is on track for the full year with good progress during the quarter.
As I have said before, productivity is a core pillar of our strategy and gives us the fuel to reinvest
behind our brands. All scheduled Q1 TSA exits were concluded on time and remain on course
to finalise all remaining TSA exits by the end of 2027 as planned.
I would also like to share a brief update on the separation process and the perimeter of the
business. When we announced our full year'25 results, we said we would be incorporating India
and Portugal to the Group in '26. We expected this to happen in H1 '26, and I am pleased we
have already completed the acquisition of our India business on 30th March, and we also
acquired the business in Portugal on April 1.
These businesses will be reflected in our
consolidated results from Q2 onwards.
On input costs, we expect the increase in the cost of energy across the supply chain, including
raw materials, energy, packaging and freight to be offset by tailwinds from commodities, our
mitigating actions and our productivity programme. Whilst we are mindful of the heightened
uncertainty in the global environment, particularly in the Middle East and the associated knockon effects to input costs, our regional direct exposure remains limited and we are taking
mitigating actions.
Our focus is on executing our growth strategy and productivity programme, and we are
reaffirming our full year outlook. We expect organic sales growth for '26 to be between 3% to
5% and an adjusted EBITDA margin improvement of 40 to 60 bps on a comparable parameter
basis with 2025.
The reported improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to be between 0 and 20 bps,
primarily due to the impact of the acquisition of the India business.
As communicated earlier, we expect improvements in the year to be weighted more in the
second half of '26 due to the phasing of TSAs and the benefits of cocoa pricing.
Now, let me take a moment to share with you some more colour about our brands, the
innovations that are driving our growth.
Magnum delivered mid-single-digit organic sales growth, supported by the launch of Magnum
Pistachio & Peach across the EU and Turkey. We also continued the rollout of the BonBons
format across Europe and the cone. These are fantastic examples of what we mean by taking
a premium brand into new formats to unlock occasions.
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Ben & Jerry's was overall flat in Q1. Americas delivered low-single-digit growth, while Europe
and ANZ, lapping double-digit growth in Q1 last year, declined. I mentioned earlier the launch
of new formats in the US and Europe. The new Ben & Jerry’s sandwich and bar formats have
been well received, and we expect momentum to build.
In the US, Ben & Jerry’s innovations are ranking in the top 10 SKUs, with four of the top 10
super premium, a strong signal that the brand is continuing to resonate with consumers.
Cornetto delivered low single-digit growth, supported by the launch of Pistachio MAX in Europe
and Turkey and new flavours that supported a strong seasonal opening in China.
The Heartbrand delivered high-single-digit growth, driven by Twister Freeze, the Minecraft stick,
Volcanix, the five-layer chocolate ice cream stick, and Solero Bonbons rolling out across multiple
European markets, alongside the strong performance of Grape Ice Balls in Southeast Asia.
I also want to call out Yasso pints specifically. Yasso is another great example of what we mean
by format innovation that expands the category, moving from sticks to pints, unlocking new
consumption occasions and new shelf space.
It is the kind of thinking we are applying
systematically across the portfolio. For those of you based in the US, do look out for them.
They are delicious.
Before we go to Q&A, let me close with a few thoughts that I would like you to take away from
our performance this quarter.
The ice cream category continues to grow around the world.
Consumer demand for our
category is good, and we are well placed to capture this. Our growth this quarter has been
broad-based, with a good balance of volume and price and growth across all regions.
On
execution, the investments we have made in our frontline first model are delivering results.
We are improving brand availability across our three channels: growing distribution points and
deploying more freezers in high-growth markets.
As I shared in the previous slide, innovation is driving our performance, helping us to win with
consumers. We are well set up for the summer season with better customer engagement, our
outlets activating earlier and innovation rollout, showing the frontline first model is working.
We are on track with separation and pleased to have India and Portugal as part of the total
Group.
And finally, we will remain operationally agile as we continue to watch the external environment
carefully, and we are taking mitigating actions.
In summary, an encouraging start of the year built on sound execution as we prepare for the
season ahead. We continue to execute on strategy, driving growth through innovation and
availability, delivering our productivity programme and reinvesting behind our brands.
With that, let me hand back to Michèle to take your questions. Thank you.
Michèle Negen
Thank you, Peter. As we move to questions, I would like to ask you to be mindful and ask your
questions in relation to this trading update while limiting it to one question each, so we can get
around as many of you as possible.
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With that, I hand over to the operator for instructions on how to ask your questions. Thank
you.
Operator
Thank you, Michele. As a reminder to ask your questions, please press *11 on your telephone
and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press *11 again.
For the benefit of all the participants in today's call, please limit yourself to one question so that
everyone is given the opportunity to ask questions. As a reminder, please press *11 on your
telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Thank you.
We are now going to proceed with our first question.
The question comes from the line of David Roux from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question.
David Roux (Morgan Stanley)
Good morning, Peter and Abhijit. Well done on the updates. I just had a question around
commodity costs. I mean, you flagged a tailwind from commodity costs through the rest of the
year, notably cocoa. Perhaps could you just talk a bit about how you are thinking about dairy
and sugar inflation into the second half, and will this be a net headwind and tailwind? Can you
just remind me how much of your dairy exposure is to liquid milk versus versus milk powder?
Thank you very much!
Abhijit Bhattacharya
Hi, David. This is Abhijit. Good morning. Thanks for the question. When we did our year-end
call, we were not fully covered or hedged for the year. You do that progressively. The way the
cocoa prices have developed give us a little bit of tailwind.
Similarly, on dairy, a little bit of tailwind as well, and a little bit on palm oil as well. Overall, on
all these three elements, we have got a little bit of tailwind compared to the place we started
off the year. That is helping, of course, to partially offset the headwinds that we get from the
whole fuel situation with the crisis in the Middle East.
Operator
We are now going to proceed with our next question.
And the question comes from the line of Warren Ackerman from Barclays.
Warren Ackerman (Barclays)
Good morning. Warren here from Barclays. Hard to only ask one question, but I am going to
give it a go. Peter, can you maybe dive into a couple of the geographies in a bit more detail?
I mean, Brazil and India both being in turnaround mode. India obviously coming into perimeter.
How should we think about those two big ones in the balance of the year?
Then maybe just related on North America, does seem like things are picking up a little bit.
Can you maybe go into a little bit more detail of what you are seeing in terms of market trends,
categories, etc., brands? Thanks.
Peter ter Kulve
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Good morning, Warren. Let me start with the US. The ice cream market continues to grow
with approximately 3% latest readings. That is driven by consumers moving out of bulk ice
cream into handheld ice cream, better quality, higher price or more healthy.
As we discussed before, GLP-1 strengthens this trend. American market is solid. We look at
weekly shares, monthly shares, but when you look at the last couple of trend lines, our share
is good in these markets, driven by some really successful innovation like the Bluey paddle pop,
like the Yasso pints, which now are taking really serious share. So innovation and execution
grows in the States on the back of a good market.
When you look at India, last year we basically changed everything in India. We moved from
vegetable fat ice cream, which made us a frozen dessert, to dairy ice cream.
We are
progressively changing the portfolio, doing a major step-up of quality. We price corrected and
brought us the portfolio in line with core snacking price points. We basically built a completely
new team, and this is literally completely.
We changed our distribution approach. Unilever traditionally did not invest in cabinets nor in
distributors with cold stores. We basically brought the our classic Turkish distribution model to
India, and we started to invest behind it. We now see volume picking up, and as I said before,
India is the largest dairy market in the world. Within time, it will also be the largest ice cream
market in the world, and we will work very hard to take our fair share there.
Profitability is still not very good. We are investing behind the business, but especially need to
make a supply chain intervention, because historically we had one factory and with our current
growth rates, we need four factories and we are working on. When we do that, and we get the
growth and get the premium brands growing, Magnum is growing plus 50% at the moment. At
a certain moment, profitability will come.
Now, that is two good stories. In Brazil, we changed old management because I believed we
had an execution problem, and we did have an execution problem, but it is slightly more so.
Our pricing is not correct. We are not in line with core snacking price points, and I need to do
a portfolio adjustment which will take time, just like it took time in India. Fundamentally, Brazil
is a very good, fast-growing ice cream market.
Operator
We are now going to proceed with our next question.
And the question comes from the line of Robert Jan Vos from ABN AMRO ODDO BHF. Please
ask your question.
Robert Jan Vos (ABN AMRO-ODDO BHF)
Hi, good morning all. Thanks for taking my question. I thought that your aide-memoire had a
bit more cautious tone about trading than the solid growth that you reported this morning. Is
it fair to assume that growth accelerated in March? And related to this, did this momentum
continue in April? Thank you.
Peter ter Kulve
It is the beginning of the year and we stand firm with the guidance that we have given last
year, the 3% to 5% growth, the 40 to 60 bps underlying margin improvement. What is really
pleasing, that operational rigour is improving in this business. That was the core problem,
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whether that was channel and customer execution, marketing and innovation execution, our
demand creation programmes. We also seem to have more grip on cost and productivity. That
is basically driving the results.
Operator
We are now going to proceed with our next question.
And the question comes from the line of David Hayes from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
David Hayes (Jefferies)
Thank you. Morning all. My question is just on the Asia risk, in terms of out-of-home behaviours
changing and I guess in terms of energy usage, freezer usage, some of these markets in
Southeast Asia, they cannot use air conditioning.
We are thinking is that a risk for using
freezers in store outlets? Just wondering, A, is that a dynamic that you are seeing markets like
the Philippines, Indonesia, and what the percentage of sales exposure would be to those
markets that kind of dynamic? Thank you.
Peter ter Kulve
Thank you, David. As you know, some Asian markets have subsidised energy markets like
Indonesia. They do not have that in Philippines. We see a little bit the same as we saw during
COVID. It has not happened yet, but it could happen.
When consumers go under stress, they go less on trips. They do not take the car anymore, but
stay around their houses, which tends to be a good thing for us because we have very fine
meshed distribution. You literally find us at arm’s lengths of desire in Asia. Maybe you cannot
afford to go to a restaurant anymore, but you can still afford to have a nice ice cream after
your nasi rames.
In general, we do not see anything yet, but when people stay more around their houses, that
tends to be a tailwind instead of working against us.
Operator
We are now going to proceed with our next question.
And the question comes from the line of Celine Pannuti from JP Morgan. Please ask your
question.
Celine Pannuti (JP Morgan)
Thank you. Good Morning! My question is on the growth and the balance of the year. Basically,
you started very strong Q1 with the growth at the top end of your 3% to 5% range. Obviously,
we know there is a timing of Easter, which we have seen in other companies, like the segment
like soft drinks and beer, for instance. Would you agree? Can you quantify to which extent
that has helped? Obviously, we are mindful that there is a tough comp in the second quarter.
So if you could give us a bit of colour on that.
I presume, the other one on Q2 is the impact on Middle East in Turkey, which is one of your
big markets. Are you expecting a low incidence of tourism to have an impact? I know it is a
broad market share you have there, so it is not just tourists. If you could give us a bit of an
overview of your thinking around that big and profitable market?
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Peter ter Kulve
Okay. Yes, let me start with Turkey. Turkey had a very strong start of the year. Approximately
5% of our sales goes to tourists, so it is not a big impact, because one of you guys wrote an
article on tourism in Turkey. But assume that 20% of the tourists are down. That is 20% of
5%, not assuming that the cheap routes would not go to Turkish tourists. This is not going to
have a really big impact on the business.
When I go to Q1, our most important festival this quarter is actually Ramadan. Because as we
know, as part of our occasion-based growth model, we activate all these festivals. We had a
really good Ramadan this year, Indonesia, Pakistan. We had a good Chinese New Year, which
is a large one as well. Easter was a little bit earlier in April than last year, that will have a
marginal impact on our Q1 sales. Just a little bit, nothing meaningful.
Operator
We are now going to proceed with our next question.
And the question comes from the line of Jeff Stent from BNP Paribas. Please ask your question.
Jeff Stent (BNP Paribas)
Hi, good morning. Just a point of clarification on the commodities. You said compared with
where you were at the start of the year, dairy and palm oil are now more of a tailwind. Yet
when I look at any price index for dairy powders or palm oil, they have increased quite
markedly. If you could just elaborate why those are now more of a tailwind, and that is so
much at odds with what has happened to market prices.
Abhijit Bhattacharya
Hi, Jeff. We actually covered pretty early in the year, and basically the prices that we have
covered for, for the full year are better than the prices that we had assumed. The assumptions
that were there were slightly higher. That gives us too, in our model, a bit of a tailwind to
partly offset the headwinds that we talked about as well.
Operator
We are now going to proceed with our next question.
And the question comes from the line of Antoine Prevot from Bank of America. Please ask your
question.
Anotine Prevot (Bank of America)
Thank you. Hi Peter, Abhijit, and Michele. My question. Wanted to dive a bit more on the Europe
and Australia. Very good volume mix there. Could you unpack a bit the drivers here? Especially
what I see is it is significantly better than what I can see on this kind of data. Anything to flag
here? And could you quantify, I mean, you said Easter is not big, but I guess it is some benefit
into Europe? So any quantification on the impact for this year on Q1? Thank you!
Peter ter Kulve
What we said when we presented ice cream for the first time last year is that what the business
really needs is operational rigour, and our operational rigour is improving. We were earlier with
our innovation this year. They were ready in time. We were earlier with activation of outlets.
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We have better customer programmes. That is in Europe because in Australia, we are obviously
in core summer. That is basically driving this extra little bit of growth. That is why we are also
confident to reaffirm our guidance for the year.
The impact of Easter 10 days earlier in April, as I said to Celine, is really marginal, does not
have a really big impact.
Our business in Australia, we do not often discuss Australia, had been struggling for a number
of years, but our Minto factory performance has really come back after many years of struggle,
which helps. We have supply. Our innovation programmes are good. Generally, we have a
good run in Australia with good shares for the first time in many years.
Operator
We are now going to proceed with our next question.
And the question comes from the line of Bingqing Zhu from the Rothschild & Co Redburn. Please
ask your question.
Bingqing Zhu (Rothschild & Co Redburn)
Hi Peter, Abhijit, and Michele. Thank you for taking my question. In the Capital Markets Day,
you have outlined the target to grow the cabinet freezer number by 2% per year over the next
five years.
Can you share the progress on which regions or market we will see the most
addition? Of course, the freezer number is not just about numbers. Can you also talk about
what you are doing to enhance the freezer deployment or maybe raise the return on investment
on your existing freezers, just getting ready ahead of the summer season?
Peter ter Kulve
Bingqing, this is a very good question. When I talk about operational rigour, obviously the
cabinet system is really important. It is not just buying the cabinets, but having the distributors,
the IT systems, the replenishment, the maintenance in order. It is very operationally intense,
and we make really good progress. Hence, we can start outlets earlier.
When I look at India, I believe in India we have placed 50,000 cabinets and activated them
over a two-month period. We really develop a muscle to do this really well.
When you have a portfolio that rotates with brands that are at attractive price points, you
relatively quickly get volume going through these assets. As we have said before, in two, three
years' time, you have your payback on a new cabinet. It is all about operational rigour and it
is not perfect yet. It is never perfect, I suppose, as a CEO, but we are getting better.
Operator
We are now going to proceed with the next question.
The question comes from the line of Karel Zoete from Kepler Cheuvreux.
Please ask your
question.
Karel Zoete (Kepler Cheuvreux)
Yes, good morning all. Thanks for taking the question. I have a question on the Americas. In
the US market, you do 2% volumes, even better on top line growth. Americas in total is down.
Can you speak a bit about the other markets, for example, Mexico, Latin? Related to that, what
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can we expect around World Cup activation? Is that going to be potentially a trigger for the
category as well? Thank you.
Peter ter Kulve
Good morning, Karel. Yes, World Cup activation. Events are for us an opportunity to draw
people to the cabinets and to the retailer shelves. In different countries, we have activations,
whether that is special ice creams or promotions. There is one just like America 250, is one of
these occasions that you can make the category relevant, especially when lots of people come
together in their houses, ice cream is a fantastic way to celebrate.
Going back to your first question. Yes, the United States had a very strong start of the year on
the back of a strong ice cream market. Volume-wise, South America was weaker. Main culprit,
Brazil, where we had declining volumes as we have not got the core price positioning of the
category right. We are working on that, but it always takes time before you have relaunched
most of your portfolio at different price points with different executions.
Operator
We are now going to proceed with our next question.
And the question comes from the line of Sam Darbyshire from Glodman Sachs. Please ask your
question.
Sam Darbyshire (Goldman Sachs)
Good morning, thank you! My question is more around the mechanics of how you actually sell
in your products in Q1. I am just thinking about this because in Q4, you brought back some
stock from the freezer cabinets. As we come into Q1, does that impact selling back in? Do you
have any retailer buy-in ahead of the weather getting better? Not just thinking about Easter,
but do you have any material impact there? Just trying to understand because we are not quite
as familiar with the mechanics of how this business works yet. Thank you.
Peter ter Kulve
Good question, Sam.
We have in-home channels, grocery channel, and we have cabinets
channel. In grocery, retailers have winter assortments and summer assortments. Our job is
to get as large a possible share of the shelf and then later share of promotion. This year we
were across the world very successful with our shelf programmes, which will definitely have
helped in Q1.
Then when it comes to cabinets, cabinets get activated at the beginning of the seasons.
Sometimes retailers do not have a lot of stock in their cabinets anymore. Then you basically
replenish these cabinets to be ready for when the sun is there. You place new cabinets or you
reallocate cabinets from poor locations to better location. That is the work that happens in Q1
and still also in Q2.
Abhijit Bhattacharya
Maybe just to clarify, Sam, you mentioned about taking cabinets back in Q4. I just want to
clarify that that was nothing out of the ordinary. In the Q4 call, Peter was just explaining that
is how normal business works. We take cabinets back, refurbish them, and put them out in the
trade. There is no impact of taking stock back and then giving it back in the Q1 numbers.
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Sam Darbyshire
Very clear. Thank you.
Peter ter Kulve
We really run, and this is our deep belief. We run the business on fundamentals and operational
rigour. In the complexity of an ice cream business, that is the only sensible thing to do.
Operator
We are now going to proceed with our next question.
And the question is from Maxime Stranart from ING bank . Please ask your question.
Maxime Stranart (ING Bank)
Hi, good morning. I hope you can hear me this time. One question on my end. We have talked
a lot about innovation in this quarter. Could you maybe elaborate on the contribution of those
new products you have launched over the last 12 months on top line growth and how the older
portfolio has performed as well? That would be all for me. Thank you.
Peter ter Kulve
It is still early days to see what is going to be the big winner of our innovation. We have, as
presented also at the CMD, changed our innovation strategy. Historically, this business did a
lot of flavour rotation innovation, and although that is important to activate the brands, it does
not tend to drive growth. When you really structurally want to drive growth, you need to make
your brands relevant in different occasions.
Moving from a Ben & Jerry's's pint to a Ben & Jerry's's sandwich is a really good example of
that. It is very difficult to eat a Ben & Jerry's pint when you are driving a car. The sandwich is
made for on-the-go consumption. It is, by the way, also incredibly addictive and delicious.
Our innovation is shifting to occasions and formats, and I believe next to the operational rigour
in execution in sales, that will also help to drive category growth. When you are the one who
drives category growth, it tends also to be good for your shares.
Operator
We are now going to proceed with our next question.
And the question comes from the line of Andre Condrea from UBS. Please ask your question.
Andrei Condrea (UBS)
Thank you. Good morning, Peter, Abhijit, and Michele. One for me, please, on your margin
guidance. Obviously, you already spoken about your costs increasing as a result of the crisis
in the Middle East, with one of the offsets being commodity tailwinds from cocoa, dairy and
palm oil. However, could we see your gross margins essentially expand less over the full year
as a result of these, with SG&A being used more as a source of savings? Within that, will you
still seek to grow you’re A&P this year versus last?
Abhijit Bhattacharya
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Hi, Andrei. Let me give you some color on that. As you know, the situation with the inflation
of especially related to oil is quite fluid. We work a number of scenarios to see what mitigating
actions we trigger at what point of time.
Let me give you three big buckets. The first one is on revenue growth management, where we
look at our discounts, etc., so that we expect to recover about one fourth of our headwinds
through better and more rigorous revenue growth management.
About a quarter of the
headwinds will be mitigated through what I spoke about earlier, the tailwinds that we have on
commodities compared to the start of the year. The remaining half will come through certain
acceleration of productivity measures that were in the pipeline, but we have quickly
underpinned them and made the investments necessary to get them.
Now regarding advertising and promotion, we continue to spend what we need to on
advertising. We are not going to cut advertising to make the targets. Having said that, and
Peter mentioned in our Q4 call, we have shifted agencies. We are moving to much more digital
content creation, and some of those productivity measures will come.
In terms of working media and what is visible to our consumers, we will continue to invest what
we need to, and no cuts there.
Operator
We are now going to proceed with our next question.
And the question comes from the line of Tom Sykes from Deutsche Bank. Please ask your
question.
Tom Sykes (Deutsche Bank)
It is just to follow-up on this sell-in commentary that you have given.
I mean, you have
historically made 70% of your EBIT in H1. Just to clarify some of the things you said, did you
say you started a little bit earlier? Does that mean that there is a bit of extra sell-in, if you like,
ahead of consumption rates? Is the actual cabinet square footage higher, and do you expect
therefore the sell-in ahead of the season in the Northern Hemisphere to be higher?
Given your cost commentary, is not that all largely H2? I mean, your costs must be covered
and largely sorted for H1. Maybe there is a bit of inflation. Does not that mean you will largely
know your EBIT for H1, which is your highest semester?
Peter ter Kulve
Thank you, Tom. Yes, as we said in our last call, we were largely covered for H1 with most of
our costs, including energy, you are right. That bought us a little bit of time to do all the
mitigating actions for H2.
Last year we had 380 basis points cost inflation, which was, of course, quite a shock to the
system. We developed a real muscle to develop with cost shocks. That was the advantage of
this unfortunate cocoa spike. We built a muscle to deal with shocks.
Then coming to cabinets. We have said at the Capital Markets Day that growing our cabinet
fleet and distribution versus declining what happened in the Unilever days, actually will give
0.5% to 1% of additional growth. That is coming through.
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The Magnum Ice Cream Company Q1 2026 Trading Update
Thursday, 30th April 2026
Activation of the fleet always happens in Q1 and early Q2. Maybe we do it now with a little bit
more discipline, but that is not the big change. We are actually growing distribution, whether
that is shelf positions in grocery or whether that is out-of-home. You are right, that is helping
to drive growth in line with plan, I have to say. Also no surprises there.
Operator
We are now going to proceed with our next question.
And the question comes from the line of Jeremy Kincaid from VLK. Please ask your question.
Jeremy Kincaid (Van Lanscot Kempen)
Hi, good morning. My question is on the Ben & Jerry's brand. Growth there slowed in the first
quarter. It was flat overall and declined in Europe and ANZ. I am just curious about how we
should think about the trajectory for that brand for the rest of '26, and if you are seeing any
impact from ongoing brand reputation concerns in certain markets?
Peter ter Kulve
Brand health of Ben & Jerry's is really solid. You could even argue more noise is good for the
brand. Momentum of the brand, shares of the brands are very solid. Last year we had 14%
growth in Europe and ANZ in the first quarter.
Was very difficult to beat that.
We had a
different trading strategy for this year.
The real big news is that we take Ben & Jerry's now very forcefully and rigorously out of the
pints in other formats that unlock new occasions. I am convinced Ben & Jerry's will have a very
good growth trajectory in 2026 on the back of innovation and strong demand creation
programmes.
Operator
We have no further questions showing. I will now handover to Michele to close the call.
Michèle Negen
Yes, thanks Razia
Thanks everyone for joining the call today. Much appreciated. Any follow-up questions, do not
hesitate to reach out to us. Have a nice day for now.
Peter ter Kulve
Bye-bye.
Abhijit Bhattacharya
Bye.
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