Ramon Laguarta: Yeah. Listen, I’ll step back a little bit. I would say our customer negotiations have been good and completed all over the world and especially Europe took a bit longer, but it’s a very positive impact to our overall, I would say, European business and other parts of the world are less impacted by this type of negotiations — are good. We feel good, including the US. To your specific question on space gains, I think it’s going to be a good reset time for us across snacks and beverages. It’s not completed yet. It’s way normally I would say, probably another six weeks or so. We’re feeling good about where we’ve seen already reset the performance improvement in the business. So that’s good, well done by the commercial teams. So yeah, we feel good overall, and that’s why we are reaffirming our guidance to grow at least over 4% in our net revenue for this year.
Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Chris Carey with Wells Fargo Securities.
Chris Carey: Hi, everyone. So one question on APAC division. Ramon, I think you were a bit more cautious or balanced on the Chinese consumer and yet double-digit growth in the quarter in China. I just wonder how APAC came in relative to your own expectations that whether there’s any timing dynamic here or whether you see these results as perhaps a bit more durable going forward? And if I could just sneak in from the at-home versus away-from-home consumption globally, as you see some of the weaker trends from the lower income consumer, are you seeing any acceleration in that shift, which might be helping your business on a global basis as well? Thanks.
Ramon Laguarta: Two things, thanks. Good questions. I think the APAC performance is a little bit impacted by the timing of Chinese New Year. So there is a bit of benefit in our Q1 numbers versus Q2. It was a bit earlier this year. But the reality is that the APAC region is improving, I would say, outside of China. China still, as I mentioned earlier, I think the consumer is cautious and the consumer is saving a lot. And it might not impact so much the low price, let’s say, products as ours. It might probably impact some other categories a bit harder than ours. The truth is that in China, as I said earlier, our team is not only this year, but already consistently for the last four, five years, been gaining share and creating a very capable and profitable business in China, we’re very proud of.
Now, to your other question on away-from-home, in-home, we’re seeing mobility obviously, going back to pre-pandemic times anything we all forgot COVID anymore. And we’re seeing, obviously, that impact in the consumption of food between home and away-from-home, especially in the U.S., I would say, it’s probably the country that is having more impact. So, yes, away-from-home is growing faster than in-home for us and we’re pivoting resources to away-from-home both in our food business and our beverage business, and we’re trying to capture as much as possible that consumption that is moving to away-from-home. Internationally as well, I would say that is a huge wide space for growth for our business, both in trying to improve the availability of our current products and also creating new solutions that are more targeting meals and meal replacement as consumers buy more food away-from-home.
And I think our brands belong in some of those occasions and as I mentioned at CAGNY, we’re building both innovation and business models that can help us capture this meal location away-from-home with some of our large brands like Lays, Doritos, Tostidos, some of our well-known global brands.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Steve Powers with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
Steve Powers: Hey thanks and good morning. Ramon, maybe it ties to the pressures you mentioned earlier on the lower-income consumers in the U.S. or maybe even your comments just now on at home versus away-from-home. But if I think back over the last six-plus months, we’ve seen arguably unexpected slowing across many categories, but really in many immediate consumption categories where I think it was most unexpected across savory snacks, sweet snacks, arguably a number of beverage categories as well. Do you agree with that kind of unexpected slowing comments? And if so, how do you see the drivers? How do you stack up the drivers? Where do you think we are in that cycle? And how does that factor into your expectations on momentum recovery across your North American beverages — sorry, North American businesses? I think the easing comps are obvious. I’m just — I’m curious about sort of the — your expectations on demand itself sequentially improving?
Ramon Laguarta: That’s great. Now, this is a great question and I think we need to step back and look at the bigger numbers. Obviously, there was huge inflation in our categories driven by input inflation over the last couple of years and operating cost inflation. Now, what makes us feel optimistic is a couple of data. Number one, I think wages are growing above inflation, and we see that not only in the U.S., but across the world. And we see our consumer packaged food inflation below, I would say, total CPI. So, those two numbers make us feel comfortable that the consumers will start coming back to our categories at the frequency and with the same level of — or higher frequency than in the past. So those are two big numbers.
Obviously, each one of us with our commercial programs, our innovation, our channel strategy is trying to accelerate that pivot back. But we feel good about the price volume mix that we see in our business, and that’s how we think that we will continue to sequentially improve over the balance of the year into further years. Our North Star remains the same, is to make sure that, as I said earlier, we have innovation and consumer programs and channel programs that continue to drive savory snacks, ahead of micro snacks, ahead of food and the same with LRB, ahead of overall liquid consumption and ahead of food and beverages. So that drives value for our business and that drives value for our customers and that’s how we think about driving the company long-term.
Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Brett Cooper with Consumer Edge Research. Your line is open.
