Consumer demand for baking continues to stabilize, Novonesis CEO says

So let’s talk about baking. From Steve’s victorious sponges to my strawberry muffins this week, I see baking delivered a solid start to the year. What trends are you picking up on from one side the consumer demand continuing to be maybe stabilizing and and for sure the level of this stocking that we saw that last year is that moving back into a stable levels. But then the underlying drivers of the sustainable long growth demand that continue to be true. We can. We see a strong momentum and pull from the innovation on solutions that enable not only freshness but also cleaner label, lower sugar added. And that continues to be true in domestic geographies, but also good momentum and penetration of our solutions in emerging geographies. And that’s as simple as bringing existing solutions, but then Tyler making them for the other needs of consumers with flat breads, with breads in Middle East, with breads in India and using existing solutions but but for the regional markets. So demand from consumers, clean label, freshness, low additives, lower sugar added and then penetration in emerging geographies. Esther, I want to get into some of the macro trends because we’ve been talking about higher for longer on rates that inflation is proving sticky at the start of this year. We know that some of these trends have caught up with with food businesses and also around even the household care part of the business. What are you witnessing Is any of the pressure valve getting released at this point? Well, we delivered 15% growth in Household Care this quarter, which was a little bit higher than the original expectations. We knew we would grow that was a little bit stronger than what we expected. And here we’re seeing several things. We see that first, the consumer demand, particularly in Europe is stabilizing, so consumers going back to the historical levels and then we see the impact of innovation. We see the pool and the need for and the value that our solutions bring to wash at lower temperatures, but also green clean freshness and the the, the performance that the consumers are seeking for. And again I’m repeating myself that we continue to see penetration in emerging geographies which is a strong continue strong driver of the growth. So I want to ask you about North America. I don’t mind if I can ask you a second question off the first one because in the agriculture section in North America I noticed the continued destocking which which is is creating a few issues. You want to talk us through that one. We have seen the same and with with ACC was maybe the the the softest area in in the group with with the this talking in as the main driver. And here we have seen a slow down on the momentum. I’m confident on the underlying drivers of the long term growth, but it’s true that the volatility in the market and particularly high level of this talking across the whole value chain, we feel that also in our results. So I fully, fully see the same that you’re saying Steve, I’m going to ask you a question which is not about Novo nieces but it’s about the food we create and it’s about agriculture as well. And I just want to get your reaction to a headline which is hitting in the FT Today. US cattle prices drop as traders fear bird flu outbreak could knock demand. The Agriculture Department has banned infected cattle from crossing state borders. Esther, are we still not learning the lesson about how we bring food to market? That’s a very broad question of we, we, I have full trust on the way that we are protecting the consumers and on the way that we are analyzing our food. It is true that we live in a very volatile environment. But at the same time that gives me a lot of comfort of the solutions that we bring in for chicken, for cattle, probiotic solutions that can enable and lead to healthier animals with maybe less need of probably antibiotics and maybe less need of preventive solutions. So we all collectively the solutions there to bring a healthier cattle and also more sustainable protein from animals are in place Regulation as we told before maybe it’s an area of how to accelerate and also bring Fast forward the answers of the future and then embrace that. We’re living in a volatile world and we need to be very, very diligent on how we taking care of something which is very precious, which is the nutrients that we eat.