News
Danone: "good progress, uniquely positioned"
1 Nov 2018Danone held its Investor Seminar recently in London. Chairman and CEO Emmanuel Faber and senior members of the management team presented the strategy to embrace the food revolution.
Danone held its Investor Seminar recently in London. Chairman and CEO Emmanuel Faber and senior members of the management team presented the strategy to embrace the food revolution building on the company’s 2020 objectives and 2030 strategic goals, to drive superior sustainable profitable growth and create sustainable shareholder value.
Emmanuel Faber, Chairman and CEO, said: “At the occasion of this Danone investor seminar in London, we are pleased to share with the financial community our good progress towards building a company uniquely positioned to embrace the food revolution. We are developing our unique portfolio of health-focused and purpose-led Manifesto brands, acting as a catalyst for consumer reach. Our growth strategy focuses on valorized innovations to address some of the fastest-growing trends, notably among the younger generations. We continue to make our organizational model more efficient by empowering our people and fostering engagement. Our strategic priorities remain to accelerate growth, maximize efficiencies, and allocate capital with discipline. Our progress to date gives us every confidence in our ability to navigate increasing global volatility and deliver superior sustainable profitable growth, to create and share value.” Building on what Danone describes as its balanced business model, the Investor Seminar provided updates on:+ Waters: profitable growth and circularity, and leveraging what the company claims are its unique leadership positions across the world, Danone is embedding its 100% ackaging circularity vision in its Waters brands as a catalyst for consumer engagement, to drive continued profitable growth, along with reinforced focus on valorized innovations, notably in Aquadrinks.+ Specialized Nutrition in China. After 12 months of exceptional growth in China, sales are contracting in the short term, amid changes in Infant Milk Formula market dynamics. Combining its global and local strengths, Danone said it is fundamentally ready to address in the mid-term new profitable growth opportunities, positioning its strategy towards the faster growth areas, including by seizing the growth opportunities emerging from evolving lifestyles and needs from an ageing population.+ Essential Dairy and Plant-Based (EDP). Danone plans to triple its worldwide plant-based sales from €1.7 billion to around €5 billion by 2025 notably by accelerating its core plant-based beverages and yogurt categories, expanding into adjacencies, and unlocking unique opportunities by the combination of its leadership position in dairy business with the high plant-based growth potential.+ Fit for growth and innovation. The company describes the newly formed Growth and Innovation organization as a key lever for growth acceleration, notably through re-imagining brands, optimizing consumer reach and engagement via precision marketing. Together with its purpose-led Manifesto brand strategy, Danone said it will accelerate its presence in fast-growing channels with a priority on e-business, where the objective is to double sales by 2020 to €2 billion.+ Efficiency: Danone said it is making excellent progresses towards its Protein cost saving program, targeting €1 billion savings by 2020, and is embedding efficiencies in its operating model to supportsustainable profitable growth.Danone confirmed its 2018 guidance of double-digit recurring EPS growth at constant exchangeRate.Cécile Cabanis, CFO, said: “In an increasingly volatile environment, we are very pleasedwith the enhanced resilience of our operating model, delivering good results. Given short-termheadwinds, including in our Early Life Nutrition business in China, the path to 2020 will not belinear. We continue to strengthen our business model to accelerate throughout 2019 and 2020,towards our objectives, in order to deliver consistent EPS growth and create sustainableshareholder value.”