Earnings call transcript: Huhtamaki Oyj Q3 2025 sees growth amid currency headwinds

Huhtamaki Oyj reported its Q3 2025 earnings, revealing a 2% year-to-date EPS growth despite facing significant currency headwinds. The company achieved an adjusted EBIT of $100.3 million, with the quarterly margin increasing to 10.3%. Currency fluctuations negatively impacted net sales by $44 million. Trading at €34.46, the stock shows a modest increase of 0.14% pre-market. According to InvestingPro data, the company appears slightly undervalued, with analysts setting price targets ranging from €32.60 to €50.06.

Key Takeaways

• Adjusted EBIT reached $100.3 million, with an improved margin of 10.3%.
• Currency headwinds impacted net sales and EBIT significantly.
• The company maintained a strong net debt/EBITDA ratio of 2.0x.
• New facilities in North America are ramping up, supporting future growth.
• The market environment remains soft and volatile.

Company Performance

Huhtamaki Oyj demonstrated resilience in Q3 2025, achieving a 2% increase in EPS year-to-date despite facing adverse currency impacts. The company’s strategic investments in fiber packaging and new facilities in North America are expected to bolster future growth. The market environment remains challenging, with geopolitical issues and tariff discussions affecting consumer confidence.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: Not specified for Q3, but significant currency impact noted.
• Adjusted EBIT: $100.3 million, with a margin of 10.3%.
• EPS: Grew 2% year-to-date.
• Net debt/EBITDA: 2.0x, at the lower end of the target range.

Outlook & Guidance

Huhtamaki remains optimistic about 2026, anticipating margins in North America to return to the 11-12% range. The company plans to continue its focus on profitable growth, potential M&A activities, and shareholder returns. Stronger Q4 seasonality is expected, particularly in North America.

Executive Commentary

Ralf Wunderlich, CEO, highlighted the company’s volume growth in North America, particularly in the fiber segment, stating, "We are seeing volume growth in North America in fiber, and we are actively working also in the other segments to come back to volume growth." He also noted the ongoing market softness but expressed optimism for the next year.

Risks and Challenges

• Currency fluctuations: Significant negative impact on net sales and EBIT.
• Geopolitical issues: Affecting consumer confidence and market stability.
• Tariff discussions: Creating uncertainty in market conditions.
• Soft market environment: Continued volatility and demand stabilization efforts required.
• Cost pressures: Ongoing challenges in managing costs and inventory.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts focused on pricing challenges in North America and the company’s efforts to manage cost pressures and inventory build-up. Improvements in flexible packaging and demand stabilization efforts were also discussed, with management detailing strategies to address these issues.

Full transcript - Huhtamaki Oyj (HUH1V) Q3 2025:

Kristian Tammela, VP of HR, Huhtamäki Oyj: Good morning all, and welcome to Huhtamäki Oyj’s Q3 2025 results call. My name is Kristian Tammela, VP of HR. Today we have, as usual, a presentation first by President and CEO Ralf Wunderlich, followed by our CFO, Thomas Geust. After presentations, we’ll have a lot of time for Q&As. Without further ado, let’s get started and hand over to Ralf.

Ralf Wunderlich, President and CEO, Huhtamäki Oyj: Thank you, Kristian, and good morning also from my side. Thank you for dialing in. I’m starting with an overview, a higher level of the group. Very happy to share with you today that we saw profit improvements for the group, specifically driven by three segments: flexibles, fiber, and food services in a, what we see, a still pretty volatile and soft market environment. Also happy to share that we have both in the quarter as well as here today seen strong volume growth in two of our segments, namely fiber and North America. The margin improved to now 10.3% in the quarter, and for the first time, all of our four segments delivered greater than 9% EBIT margin. Headwinds from FX, especially the U.S. dollar, persisted, impacting our top and bottom lines.

We have seen a weak quarter in North America, and we’ll further comment on this in a bit when we come to the segment presentations. I’m also proud to see that our three value drivers continue to progress very well and are showing impacts. Let me use that as a bridge then to the drivers. Driver number one is growth, and we want to use all levers which we have to drive profitable growth. First one, organic initiatives which we kicked off are very focused, and they are focused on both the JKAs, our global key accounts, as well as small and medium customers. Especially the latter one, where we have a very small share with, are in focus, and we are starting to build good relationships in all our segments.

As I mentioned before, we have seen volume growth both in the quarter and year to date in fiber in North America, and of course, that’s in a volatile and soft market, very encouraging. On the inorganic side, we are proud to say that the integration of Zellwin Farms is tracking very well, and it’s delivering both top line as well as bottom line as by promise. We are also managing our pipeline actively. It’s a long pipeline, and as you know, we are focused on small bolt-ons, so that will take some time, and we will do that in a very disciplined way. Second point and second driver is capital discipline. After significant investments over the last years, and with very disappointing growth after those investments, we have started to be much more disciplined already at the back end of last year.

We continue to be very disciplined, and we are going ahead with the guideline of $80 million/$80 million/$80 million/$10 million, which is $80 million approximately for growth, $80 million for productivity, $80 million for maintenance, and $10 million for what we call license to operate. That context will continue. We are ahead of our target, and we might end this year at a lower number, as you can see from the Q3 track which we have. The third driver for value for us is accountability. We have changed to now empower our segments. We will have faster decision-making and faster speed of execution. We have also decided that tax and treasury will remain in the center, and now procurement is also handled directly from the center for all our segments. The reason for that is that we will see direct bottom line impact by those three functions.

All other functions are supporting the segments and are guiding, are reporting, are coordinating, are controlling, and ensuring that at Huhtamäki we have one language. Let me swiftly go to the business performance, and let’s start with net sales. As mentioned, similar market conditions in Q3 as we had in H1, pretty volatile and very soft demand. With the FX impact now accelerating in the quarter, and now over 4% or $44 million in the quarter alone, we have a very, very negative impact just from FX alone. You see the acceleration by comparing quarterly numbers to year-to-date numbers, where year to date we are at approximately 2%, but in the quarter it was more than 4%, as mentioned just a second ago. Our organic growth continues to be impacted and stands now at -0.9%, just under 1% year to date.

Again, we’d like to stress that we are seeing volume growth in North America in fiber, and we are actively working also in the other segments to come back to volume growth. Good to see that Zellwin Farms, and that’s what we call the acquisition line here, is delivering on the top line, as I mentioned before, also on the bottom line. Now looking at the profits, we see that the adjusted EBIT was standing at the quarter at $100.3 million. If we add the $4 million FX impact, then we would be in fact 2% above last year quarter and spot on year to date if again including the FX impact, which for year to date is over $5 million.

Our quarterly margin increased now to 10.3%, and even year to date we are double digit at 10.1%, which is again slightly ahead of year to date last year’s margin. We’re very proud to see our EPS growing 2% year to date. On a side note, if we would adjust the quarterly EPS by the currency, we would also have a 3% EPS growth in the quarter. Capital discipline is allowing us to have a very strong support from capital expenditure, which of course is positively impacting our cash flow. You see that we are 26% down quarter over quarter on capital expenditure and 18% down year over year. Now going to the segments specifically, and as always, let’s start with foodservice. The demand in foodservice remained unchanged versus H1.

On the comparable FX, we are spot on last year, and I want to stress that because it’s after eight quarters of decline. It’s the first quarter that we are now back on being spot on with the prior. The increase in net sales came especially from Western Europe and Middle East Africa, supported by price and mix improvements. Adjusted EBIT is above 9% margin again, both in the quarter and year to date. This is of course also driven by cost focus, cost management, and margin management, and that will remain key. Our adjusted EBIT is 5% ahead of prior in the quarter, adjusted at minus 2% year to date, and foodservice continues to focus on cash flow. Again here, capital discipline is supporting a very strong operating cash flow delivery. Now North America.

North America had another strong volume quarter, and I want to stress that even though the North American numbers are disappointing, the volume was strong in North America, and that was driven by a mix, by pricing, and by volume. The mix impact in the quarter was negative, as the price impact was negative. Volume positive and price mix negative. The total comparable growth in the quarter stands at minus 3%. Year to date net sales stands at minus 1%. The disappointing EBIT was impacted by, as I mentioned before, price, mix, and cost headwinds, specifically operating cost increases, transport, energy cost increases. I encourage you to look at the full year margin as the quarter was impacted by those very high impacts on the transport, energy, and other operational cost increases.

We are running at a margin of 11.4% year to date, which, as anticipated already earlier in the year, is clearly driven by pricing, which we were holding on for two years after the spike of raw material prices in 2022. This is now the more normalized EBIT percentage which we are seeing. Moving on to flexible packaging, where we have a much stronger story to tell. Even though the volume side continues to be soft, we continue to focus on price, mix, and turning around our underperforming units. We are seeing in the quarter and year to date encouraging results on all of those elements. We have had unfavorable FX, but again strong price and margin management. We were able to increase the EBIT in the quarter versus last year by 28%, with a very strong double-digit margin for flexibles in the quarter.

However, here the EBIT absolute and relative was impacted by raw material decreases, which we will need to pass on in Q4. Hence, here I would encourage you to look at the year-to-date EBIT margin, which is more what we see our business currently traveling at. Even that one is two points ahead of what we have seen last year. We are now at 8.8% margin. Flexibles also delivered very strong cash flow, and we also were very disciplined on the capital expenditure side. Let me move on to fiber packaging now. Fiber packaging continues to show very strong performances, as they have done in the two quarters prior to that. Net sales were driven by volume, price, and mix, and resulted in a strong quarter with 9% growth, and year to date even a double-digit 10% growth.

Net sales growth combined with cost management drove also a very strong EBIT improvement, again both in the quarter and year to date. Our margin stands now at 12.6% for the quarter, and similar at 12.4% year to date. As fiber is performing very well, we continue to invest. In fact, fiber is the only segment where we have seen growth in capital expenditure. This is again totally in line with our capital discipline, where we want to invest behind those segments which are performing very well. Thomas, I would like to pass on to you to give us an update on the financials.

Thomas Geust, CFO, Huhtamäki Oyj: Thank you, Ralf. I’m starting off with the main topic actually for the quarter, and that is the currency. Currency and its negative translation impact to our results is visible clearly in both top line and in EBIT. You can see that accelerating to $44 million net sales impact in the quarter, $4 million in EBIT, and year to date $66 million and $5 million on EBIT. I would like to remind you here that our P&L is valued at average rates, while the balance sheet is valued at closing rates. We see the impact immediately in the balance sheet while we come with a lag into the P&L. Of course, the biggest currency impact will come from the USD. There we have a drop now of the USD to a 1.12 average rate, while in the closing rate we already see the 1.17.

Looking at the currency yesterday and today, we are roughly at 1.16. USD obviously being a very important currency, but you can see that we are trending negatively on basically all currencies in the closing rates, and only Thai Baht and British Pound are positive in the average rates. I would like to remind you also that in our top 10 country revenues, we have only Germany and Spain denominated in euros. Currencies are and will remain one of the core topics when it comes to translation of profits. The main impact is in North America, but also in flexibles, you will see significant negative currency impacts. Moving on to the more detailed P&L and adding on top of what Ralf said, we are still seeing tailwind in value add.

Otherwise, I would say the core of our continued positive profit development operationally really comes from the activities we have done ourselves. You will find that on personnel cost, we are still up year to date, but actually in the quarter, we were trending already positively compared to prior year, just as one example. The EBITDA is progressing ahead of EBIT, indicating that we are seeing a strong operational performance in our profitability, but also showing that we still have assets available for delivery. Other items in the P&L to address are the net financial items, where we had a few one-offs last year, partly explaining the significantly lower finance cost. However, we are also moving downwards on finance cost from a structural point of view. The tax rate remains at roughly previous year’s level, so we are at 23.4% tax rate. Also there, a consistent delivery.

If you look at the EPS, I would claim that despite the hit from the currency, we have made a good job at maintaining the EPS at roughly previous year’s level on the quarter and actually improving year to date on EPS. Moving to the cash flow, progress since the low Q1 has been good. You will also find in this bridge that the sort of abnormal or non-operational items, proceeds from selling assets, and the CapEx part are balancing each other off. One could say that the cash flow development comes purely from the operative activities as well as from lower taxes. Progress on cash flow is good. We are anticipating quarter four to be a positive cash flow quarter. Good development based on our capital discipline also on the cash flow side. Net debt/EBITDA, you recall that we got an upgrade from S&P on our rating.

We are nowadays a BBB- company. That is really driven from the discipline we have seen on deleveraging our net debt. We are at 2 at the end of the quarter, so similar level as previous year and staying very focused on this key parameter. Gearing is at 0.65, and as you can see, we have sufficient cash and cash equivalents available at the amount of €328 million at the end of the quarter. On top of that, we obviously have our revolving credit facility available. Another element which we have been focusing on in order to be a predictable company is working around our loan maturity structure. We have highlighted on this page the key events we have been going through this year. In June, we signed a €150 million Schuldschein.

You recall that we entered the EMTN program for a bond issuance program, and under that one, we issued our first bond in the quarter. In connection to that one, we also set out a voluntary tender offer for repurchase of some of the outstanding bonds. A disciplined approach in order for us to have a predictable maturity available in our loan facilities. Moving over to the balance sheet, in the balance sheet, the translation impact of currencies has a significant impact. You can see that alone in the equity line, we have a €232 million negative impact. I would also highlight that on the working capital, we are up roughly €67 million. With that one, I would highlight that core items come from, for instance, receivables. Working through this balance sheet towards the end of the year will be core, including delivery of the inventory.

Looking at then the return on investments, you remember me highlighting that this comes with a significant lag. We are slowly but surely moving towards our long-term ambition, which is a 13 to 15% ambition on return on investments, adjusted return on investments. Beyond that one, we are continuing now in the threshold of the 10 to 12% on adjusted EBIT. We are in line with our net debt/EBITDA ambition. As you recall, we have paid the dividend this year in line with our ambition as well. The only part we are really still lagging is the comparable growth. With the comparable growth, we would also see a positive development into our return on investments. Our outlook and short-term risks remain unchanged. With that one, I will then open up for Q&A.

Moderator/Operator: If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Lewis Merrick from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Morning, Ralf. Morning, Thomas. Thank you for taking my questions. Just starting with North America, as you went through a somewhat disappointing quarter for profitability, you mentioned pricing and costs. Can you just explain those various parts in a tad more detail? Equally, what gives you confidence in the margin bouncing back to the year-to-date levels as you spoke of? I’ve got one more to follow up.

Ralf Wunderlich, President and CEO, Huhtamäki Oyj: Yeah, very relevant question, Lewis. Thanks for asking that. Let me start on the pricing side. You will recall that in 2022, the raw material prices spiked, and then we saw reductions of those over the last few years. We were able to hold on to those advantages, those pricings for quite a while. With now a softer market, that was just not possible anymore. We had to go back and pass on those benefits back to customers. We anticipated this the whole year. That happened. As you can also see, and I mentioned that, we benefited from getting more volume, not just maintaining, but growing volume in North America, which is a soft market currently. We are very convinced that that was the right move for us to do going forward. That’s now at the level which it should be. I’m confident on the pricing side going forward.

On the second point, on cost, there are a few points I’d like to mention which might give you some comfort. Number one is there were some costs, energy costs, transport costs, which did hit us in the quarter quite a bit, but we see those getting more in line in Q4 and then going forward, number one. Number two, we did pre-build quite a lot of inventory in the quarter for the seasonality. Seasonality is now again much stronger in North America. We saw it Easter already when we had the Easter seasonality, and we are seeing this with the order intake now also for North America Q4 already. Seasonality is strong. We had to build inventory, which increased our cost as well. Part of that was, of course, also building inventory for our news or our two startups, which I mentioned, Paris and Hammond.

The additional volumes, which is great news, unfortunately came with increased costs. As we are ramping it up, we had to increase our costs to make sure that we are ramping it up correctly, those two. Those were costs which, again, we will manage going forward, which gives me also confidence. Lastly, again, with the seasonality, I think the way to look at this really is if either you look at the year-to-date margins or you, in fact, you say it’s H1 and H2, where Easter can vary between two quarters’ impact and the same, then, of course, Q3, Q4 with a very strong Thanksgiving seasonality, which can or cannot impact the end of Q3 strongly or the beginning of Q4 strongly, depending on when you start building your inventory. In other words, when our customers are then ordering from us.

That gives me the confidence that I see Q3, Q4 together, and I see the year-to-date numbers, that we will get the cost back under control, especially in Paris and Hammond, the two startups, that we have the pricing now at a level which we think is the new level going forward, and that we will manage, again, the demand of the seasonality better.

Thank you. Very clear. On flexible packaging, clearly great to see the improvements in profitability in that division. My math puts that at least part of that down to improvements in the Indian entity. We’ve seen there are improvements elsewhere also. I know you mentioned cost tailwinds, which will need to be passed on in the next quarter. Can you just give us a bit of extra color on what drove the improvements there this quarter and also equally on the sustainability of that going forward?

Yeah. Also, that’s a very relevant question, Lewis. I think on flexible, there are a number of points. Really, it’s not just India or Turkey, the turnarounds, which are, of course, helping us, especially if you compare this to, frankly, the years before, not just prior. That’s helping us, and we are seeing this now in every quarter. Q1, we saw a bit. Q2, we saw more. Q3, we see that. That’s helpful. We are seeing also the same in other units. Flexibles, because of soft demand, started cost all programs early in the year everywhere, not just in those two where we have the turnaround teams, but in every unit. That’s now giving us the benefit on the cost side on flexibles. They are very stringent on managing margin. They don’t take any more negative margin orders.

They are very stringent and diligent and disciplined, I should say, on the management of their margins. That’s really great to see. As I mentioned, we had in the quarter specifically a very positive impact from raw material where we saw a decline. You know that flexible is, in fact, the segment where we have to pass on most with automatic clauses. We will see that impact now reversing in Q4. We think, again, it’s the other direction than North America, but we think the way to look at flexible is more like the year-to-date margin, which we are super proud of because it’s a two-point ahead of what we have seen in prior year.

Thank you. I’ll turn it over.

Moderator/Operator: The next question comes from Samu Wilhelmsen from Nordea Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you for the presentation. Maybe only one question for me, given now that the inflation is now, of course, weighing on in-demand for branded products. According to my understanding, customers for you are mostly big brand companies. I was wondering, could you comment on either your willingness or your ability to try to gain these smaller local customers to combat these kind of problems arising from?

Ralf Wunderlich, President and CEO, Huhtamäki Oyj: Yeah, that’s great. Thanks for that question. On the smaller and medium-sized customers, which are under focus, we have lots of activities kicked off, and we see good discussions. I got to be transparent that those discussions will take time before we see the benefits. This is not and never going to be a quick win. We just needed to start it knowing that they are, of course, supported by competitors since here. We know it’s a starting point, and we know that those discussions will end up in better relationships, and eventually we will get our chances. We have started that knowing that we will not get a small or a short-term impact, knowing it will be relatively small this year, and we will see this ramping up over the next year. It was important to start. Yes, you are right with the global key accounts.

Of course, they are seeing, and you have seen their numbers, and you will see more reports coming out shortly. They are having similar issues on relatively soft demand as well, which is then what we are seeing as with most of them, we have long-term contracts. A quick share win is always going to be, again, difficult. We are supporting them. We believe that they will come back, and we are sure that demand will come back, but we don’t see it coming back at short term.

All right. Thank you very much. No other questions from my side.

Moderator/Operator: The next question comes from Maria Wikstrom from SEB. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Maria Wikstrom. Thank you for taking my question. I wanted to touch upon North America, given that I think the kind of soft guidance earlier has been that the margins on North America are around 12% level, and now we were a bit above 10% in Q3. How should we see this? If we talk about annual EBIT margins in the coming years, is this still valid or has something changed in the profitability of North America?

Ralf Wunderlich, President and CEO, Huhtamäki Oyj: Yeah, thanks, Maria. I think we are very consistent to how we guided after the capital markets there a few years back, the North American profitability, which was between 11% and 12%. We are at 11.5% now. We think, if you take, which will be seasonality-driven, a strong Q4, that we will be in that range of 11% to 12%. That’s the way we are thinking about North America going forward. The 13.9%, which we have seen last year as the highest, was clearly impacted by a pricing which we were holding on after the raw material spikes a few years back. The 11% to 12% guidance, which we have given some time back, is how we see this, and we are very confident that we will deliver on that.

Okay, thank you. I wanted to touch upon, given that North America is kind of like three different businesses. If you could talk about the volume development, I mean, in the retail table where I’m a foodservice and then the retail packaging, please.

We don’t give specific volume guidance, but I give you a flavor. The flavor is that from a volume perspective, we are doing well in all our different segments, which we are driving in North America, specifically well in foodservice. Again, also on the retail side, we are pretty happy with positive volumes, and we are seeing seasonality. The next quarter is the big quarter as a reminder. We don’t have huge variations. We have volume growth year to date, and in the quarter in North America, I’m pretty proud of that.

All right. My final question on CapEx, which was down year over year in Q3, is this kind of the quarterly run rate we should expect for Q4 as well, or is there something specifically why the CapEx figure was lower in Q3?

No, you should always expect in packaging that the last quarter is the highest quarter with regards to CapEx. There is always a ramp-up over the year on CapEx projects coming, and then, of course, also being paid to our suppliers. You should expect a stronger Q4. I think our overall capital discipline is showing clear improvements year over year. That would be the flavor I would give you.

Significantly down towards previous year, though.

Thank you so much. I had no further questions.

Moderator/Operator: The next question comes from Hai Huynh from UBS. Please go ahead.

Hi, I have a couple of questions, please. On foodservice, are you seeing any early signs of demand stabilization within Q4 in the UK and Northeastern Europe? On fiber packaging, how sustainable do you think the strong volume growth in egg and fruit packaging is?

Ralf Wunderlich, President and CEO, Huhtamäki Oyj: Yeah, thank you, Hai. We see early signs that, take our largest customer, the promotional activities are showing impacts. How sustainable that one is, the next quarters will show, but we see that, again, who is doing promotions sees traffic coming back and sees there an uptake. We have clearly seen that in the quarter, specifically in the two markets you mentioned, and there specifically in Western Europe, but also in the UK, promotions are showing first results, with Western Europe even stronger. It’s a quarter we are super proud of, the quarter being flat versus prior. As I mentioned, eight quarters in a row negative, but it’s too early to tell that this is going to continue. I would say we think it’s still going to be relatively soft before demand really comes back, but we also see that promotions are increasing and increasing.

Towards the end of the year, we are hopeful that our customers will do their promotions, and of course, we will support those. On fiber, the strong growth, which is really driven by all three elements, by volume, by price, and by mix, we see this now not happening in one quarter, but we see this now happening for the whole year, quarter after quarter, in fact, month after month. We are very confident that our segment is strong, well prepared, very close to their customers. They are working, as a reminder, not with global key accounts. They are working pretty much with local small accounts. They know how to build relationships with those. They know how to serve them well. That’s clearly showing the benefit now. I mentioned also that we are investing behind fiber. We are confident of the fiber performance.

That’s what I wanted to mention on fiber as well, that it wasn’t a big impact, but we had a fire in one of our three South African plants at the end of the quarter. This is going to be back in Q4, that plant. It’s not material, but just as a factual update for you on the fiber side, as you are asking, Hai.

Thank you. Sorry, I forgot one last question, if you don’t mind. Net debt/EBITDA is now two times at the bottom end of the range, and you mentioned capital discipline. Are you planning to deleverage further then, or are there other spending or returns that you’re considering?

Thank you again for that one. You might remember, Hai, we presented our model on how we are thinking about allocating capital to shareholders. We have a number of things we are considering. Number one, where we think we have the biggest impact is how can we invest the capital back into the business to continue to grow profitably in our business. The second one, and we have now opened again up the lever of M&A. We are actively looking at M&A. We did one in April this year, but we are continuing to look at other opportunities. We will be very disciplined. It’s super difficult to predict if and when something will happen, but we are prepared if it does. We are considering, of course, returning money to shareholders via dividends, which we always did.

We are very proud of our long track record of increasing dividends year over year. That’s extremely important for us. We are not excluding other means, which are up to the board to discuss, but we are not excluding anything here. The target is not to be at lower than two times. We are now at that very bottom end. The target is to be between two and three times, and we are considering all levers. Thomas, anything you want to add from your side?

Thomas Geust, CFO, Huhtamäki Oyj: No, I think you covered it all. Organically, we are still moving towards a continued deleveraging. We want to use the capital wisely.

Thank you very much.

Moderator/Operator: The next question comes from Calle Loikkanen from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. I have a couple of questions. Firstly, it sounds like you’re not expecting any major improvements or major changes in demand in Q4, but what are you kind of seeing for 2026 in terms of demand? Are you kind of optimistic for next year, or what kind of discussions do you have with your customers and so on?

Ralf Wunderlich, President and CEO, Huhtamäki Oyj: Yeah, Carla, thanks for looking ahead. Yes, we, of course, see the market being soft on the one side, the market being volatile on the other side. We are seeing that the geopolitical issues didn’t all go away. That’s still, of course, impacting everybody. We are seeing that the tariff discussions, even though they don’t impact us directly in the U.S., are not improving consumer confidence at all yet. We are seeing those headwinds, and until the world is changing, we don’t see those really helping us. On the other side, we see that our three value drivers are starting to help us. I made the point about in a soft market, we are having two of our segments improving volume, growing. That’s really important.

We see the other two, of course, working really hard on making sure that they get closer to customers, new customers, which, of course, this year was always going to be a difficult one to have an impact. We are super optimistic that this will start showing an impact going forward. We have started, you know, and I mentioned that over the year, to really kickstart our investments in the U.S., Hammond and Paris, which is now already showing impacts on the volume side, unfortunately, with increased costs in the quarter. We are seeing those volumes going to help us going forward into 2026. We have invested, Carla, as you know, in lots of blue-loop investments where we still have capacity, and we are actively out in the market selling them. We have a couple of multinationals which gave us already contracts where we see increased volumes for next year.

Yes, are we optimistic for next year? We are. On the other side, just to make sure I don’t lose that point, we are seeing still a market which is soft, and we are still seeing geopolitical issues in many places which aren’t helpful at all.

Thank you. That’s very helpful. My second question was actually on the capacity ramp-up in the U.S. I was wondering if there are any kind of numbers or anything that you can provide in terms of what sort of help you’ve got from the new capacity in Q3. Anything on the impacts in Q4 and perhaps onwards as well? Any kind of additional numbers or anything on that would be helpful.

Yeah, Carla, we are not giving numbers on those specifically. As mentioned over the year, and I continue to make sure I mention that we started at a very low point early this year. We are nicely ramping this up, and we are, of course, getting quite a bit of help. Hammond is now contributing in the quarter. Paris will start contributing next quarter onwards.

Okay, thank you. That’s clear. That’s all for me. Thank you.

Moderator/Operator: The next question comes from Morayo Adesina from Barclays. Please go ahead. Morayo Adesina, your line is now unmuted. Please go ahead.

Morayo Adesina, Analyst, Barclays: Hi, can you hear me?

Yeah.

Sorry, some technical difficulties there. Yeah, Morayo here on behalf of Grow Jane. Just two questions to clarify some things on North America. You mentioned the seasonality in Q4 that is upcoming. Does that mean that you’re then expecting an uptick in volume performance in Q4 in North America versus the volumes that are already improving in Q3? I just wanted to touch upon the unfavorable sales mix that you highlighted in the report in North America. Could you just clarify which of the subsegments are making up this unfavorable sales mix?

Ralf Wunderlich, President and CEO, Huhtamäki Oyj: Yeah, thanks, Morayo. Happy to answer those two. Let me start with the first one. Clearly for us, Easter, number one, and Thanksgiving, even more so, are the two very big seasonalities in North America. Thanksgiving is going to drive retail sales specifically in North America in Q4, as it does in every year. We have no reason to believe that it wouldn’t in Q4 this year. We are optimistic on that side. There’s no doubt about that. On the mix side, I think it’s important to see that retail is our largest segment in North America. As retail is also a high margin business, that is, of course, with being the largest with regards to volume and the highest margin with regards to the margin side, it will impact positively the mix in Q4 for our North American business.

The focus on branded products also will help us because also there we see higher margin. Both of those questions, I think we can give you some comfort.

Morayo Adesina, Analyst, Barclays: Great. Thank you so much.

Ralf Wunderlich, President and CEO, Huhtamäki Oyj: Thank you for attending this event. There seem to be no further questions. As always, we remind you that if you have any follow-up questions, feel free to reach out to the IR team. With that, we hope you have a great day, and thank you from our side.

Thank you.

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