Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC (NASDAQ:CCEP) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Sanjeet Aujla: Got it. That’s very clear. And just a quick follow-up on commodities. When you look at spot commodities today, are they below where you’ve hedged for ’23? Or any color you can give us there would be really helpful.

Nik Jhangiani: So it will vary, obviously, depending on the commodity and those move up and down. So for instance, we were well covered on something like sugar, and I don’t think that pricing has actually moved against us. It’s been well positioned. Aluminum, we were obviously layering on. So if you look at an average price, it’s probably there or thereabouts. We’ll continue to see how the rest of the year plays out, where we still have an opportunity because we’ve kept about 20% open depending on the commodity type, right? Because we’re about 85% hedged. I think we’ve done a good job locking in on gas and power on the direct spend side, which was obviously the biggest concern. Now the element that’s residual is really around that conversion cost element and the supplier pass through.

So when you really look at the COGS unit case, and I’m just giving you literally a broad perspective right now, we’ve guided to that circa 8% overall on COGS per case. You could be looking at a point up or down depending on how things trend and we’ll continue to update you on those. But more importantly to your question, I think we’re looking beyond ’23 as well. And what do we do for ’24 and ’25 and that’s where I think you’ll start seeing some of that bigger benefit starting to come through.

Operator: We will take our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Mitch Collett from Deutsche Bank.

Mitch Collett: Damian. I’d also like to ask about commodities. Your hedge coverage for ’23, 85% is quite a lot above where you were this time last year when I think you were 57% covered. And I think you also said, Nik, that the coverage for ’24 is 45%. So I guess, first, can you just comment on why the coverage is higher. I appreciate it would be through a period of unprecedented volatility and although I know it’s early to talk about ’24, given that you’re 45% covered, I wondered if you’d be able to make any comment at all on the likely headwind or tailwind for ’24 from commodities?

Nik Jhangiani: Yes. So I mean, to your question around why we covered more, I think we saw leaving things open for as long as it was and the fact that it was rising and there continues to be uncertainty where we saw opportunities, and we’ve always talked about the fact that we’ve put in triggers in place and don’t just try and take our number up from, let’s say, 40% to 80% in one go. So I feel good about our approach. It’s been measured. It’s been looked at carefully across each of the commodity types. Looking at — is there backwardation? Is there a contango effect? Should we lock in some now? Or should we wait? And I think it puts us in a much better position in terms of what we control to be able to understand then how we need to be thinking about, obviously, pricing and back to Damian’s point, over a multiyear period again, right?

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