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DATE
Tuesday, July 22, 2025 at 3:00 p.m. ET
CALL PARTICIPANTS
President & Chief Executive Officer — Deon Stander
Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer — Gregory S. Lovins
Vice President, Investor Relations — William Gilchrist
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RISKS
Gregory S. Lovins said, "trade policy uncertainty during the quarter impacted our results. Largely due to lower sourcing volume in apparel and general retail categories."
Apparel sales declined 6% in Q2 2025, Management expects continued low single-digit declines in the third quarter of 2025.
Deon Stander stated, "I'm not satisfied with our current growth and earning trajectory. Particularly within our IL platform." directly referencing growth challenges in the intelligent labels business during the quarter.
Lovins said, "customer feedback and sentiment remains muted." Guidance assumes continued soft apparel volumes in the third quarter.
TAKEAWAYS
Adjusted Earnings per Share (EPS)-- Adjusted earnings per share was $2.42 in Q2 2025, up 5% sequentially and roughly flat year over year.
Organic Sales-- Down 1% organically in Q2 2025 compared to the prior year, as positive volume mix was offset by deflation-related price reductions.
Adjusted EBITDA Margin-- Adjusted EBITDA margin reached 16.6% in Q2 2025, up 20 basis points versus the prior year.
Adjusted Free Cash Flow-- Adjusted free cash flow totaled nearly $190 million in Q2 2025.
Net Debt to Adjusted EBITDA Ratio-- Net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio was 2.3 at quarter end.
Shareholder Returns-- $500 million was returned in the first six months of the year through repurchases and dividends.
Dividend-- Raised by 7% to $0.94 per share for the quarterly dividend announced early in the period.
Materials Group Sales-- Sales declined 1% organically in Q2 2025, as volume growth was offset by low single-digit deflation-related price reductions.
Materials Group EBITDA Margin-- Adjusted EBITDA margin was 17.8% for Q2 2025, down slightly year over year and up slightly sequentially.
Regional Organic Volume Mix (Materials)-- North America and Asia Pacific organic volume mix increased low to mid-single digits in Q2 2025. Europe declined low to mid-single digits on an organic basis in Q2 2025. Latin America organic volume mix increased low single digits in Q2 2025.
Graphics and Reflective Sales-- Sales increased high single digits versus the prior year in Q2 2025.
Solutions Group Sales-- Down 1% organically in Q2 2025; Outside apparel and general retail, sales increased low double digits in Q2 2025.
Vescom Sales-- Sales rose roughly 10% in Q2 2025 due to program rollouts at CVS Health and other retail customers.
Embellix Sales-- Sales declined in Q2 2025, attributed to lower sourcing demand and slower orders from U.S. performance brands.
Enterprise-wide Intelligent Labels (IL) Sales-- Sales were comparable to the prior year and up mid-single digits sequentially in Q2 2025; Apparel and general retail categories declined mid-single digits in Q2 2025; Food, logistics, and other categories collectively increased mid-teens in Q2 2025.
Third Quarter EPS Guidance-- Adjusted earnings per share guidance for Q3 2025 is $2.24 to $2.40, with the midpoint comparable to the prior year.
Currency Translation Impact-- Full-year outlook changed to $7 million benefit to operating income from prior $7 million headwind projection.
Tariff Impact-- Estimated to have lowered EPS by more than $0.10 in Q2 2025; The company offset most of the cost with sourcing shifts and select surcharges in Q2 2025.
High-Value Categories (Materials)-- Over one-third of sales; outpaced base products, with particular strength in graphics and reflective solutions.
Innovation Pipeline-- New IL product launches in food and logistics delivered ROIs exceeding expectations in Q2 2025.
Kroger Collaboration-- IL food rollout at 700 stores as of midyear 2025 is proceeding as planned despite store closures.
SUMMARY
Management confirmed the ability to substantially mitigate tariff impacts in Q2 2025 through strategic sourcing adjustments and targeted pricing surcharges. Adjusted EPS remained above the midpoint of expectations in Q2 2025, with productivity and margin strength in key divisions. Food, logistics, and other categories combined increased mid-teens, offset by a mid-single-digit decline in apparel and general retail categories in Q2 2025, collectively driving mid-teens growth in those segments. Executives highlighted continued sequential gains in enterprise-wide intelligent labels during the quarter, with a focus on food and logistics customers. Guidance projects flat year-over-year adjusted EPS in the third quarter, incorporating typical seasonality and continued apparel softness. Leadership identified a $50 million restructuring savings target for the year.
Deon Stander said, "Key rollouts planned for this year remain largely on track and the performance of our recent launches and pilots particularly within food and logistics, where ROIs are exceeding expectations instills confidence in the long-term growth trajectory of this platform."
North America film category volume strength contributed to regional gains in the materials segment, while Europe experienced weaker performance in Q2 2025, attributed to last year's customer order pull-forward.
Company maintains "ample" balance sheet capacity, with organic investment, M&A, dividends, and share buybacks continuing according to strategy.
Management signaled confidence in returning to year-over-year adjusted EPS growth in the fourth quarter of 2025 if macro conditions remain stable.
INDUSTRY GLOSSARY
Embellix: Avery Dennison's solution platform for garment decoration, including heat transfers and digitally triggered embellishments, primarily serving team sports and performance apparel.
Enterprise-wide Intelligent Labels (IL): Suite of Avery Dennison's RFID-based products and services used for supply chain, inventory, and retail tracking across apparel, food, and logistics sectors.
Vescom: Productivity and media solutions suite for in-store shelf edge labeling and data-driven retail pricing, rolled out to customers such as CVS Health.
Full Conference Call Transcript
Deon Stander: Thanks, John, and hello, everyone. We delivered a solid second quarter with earnings above the midpoint of expectations and strong free cash flow in a dynamic environment. This result again demonstrates the strength and resilience of our franchise with multiple levers in our portfolio to deliver in a range of scenarios. As anticipated, changes in trade policy throughout the quarter had both direct and indirect impacts on our business. We successfully continue to leverage our proven playbook to mitigate the direct cost increases through strategic sourcing adjustments and select pricing surcharges, and to minimize the impact of sourcing demand reduction particularly in apparel and general retail categories in the solutions group.
The materials group delivered strong productivity and margins on modest volume growth in the quarter. Strong product mix bolstered margins, underscoring the effectiveness and importance of our strategy to continue expanding our position in high-value, more differentiated categories. High-value categories constitute over a third of our materials group sales and these products continue to outpace the base in the second quarter, with particular strength in graphics and reflective solutions. For overall volume, growth in North America was strong, particularly in film categories, while Europe was down and emerging market growth was solid. Softer growth in Europe and Asia was partly attributable to a strong second quarter last year in which customers pulled orders forward in anticipation of a price increase.
Volume in both regions was slightly below expectations particularly in paper categories including a modest impact from lower demand for U.S. exports. Solutions Group delivered solid margins in the quarter, up compared to prior year despite a decline in apparel and general retail categories. Which was partially offset by low double-digit growth in other categories resulting in a modest decrease in overall sales. Overall apparel sales were down 6% in the quarter, As you can see on slide seven, orders are down high single digits in April and improved in May and June exiting the quarter down low single digits. Despite the reduction in sourcing demand during this period, consumer demand for apparel continues to exhibit resilience to date.
Within high-value solutions, Embellix, a high-growth platform, driven by performance athletic categories and fan engagement in team sports, was down in the quarter on lower sourcing demand and slower orders from prominent U.S. performance brands. We anticipate a strengthening of Embellix's growth trajectory later this year partially driven by the 2026 World Cup. Vescom, our suite of productivity and media solutions for the retail shelf edge, was up roughly 10% in the quarter on the successful rollout of our productivity solutions at CVS Health, which was completed earlier in the quarter. Turning to enterprise-wide intelligent labels, sales were comparable to prior year and up mid-single digits sequentially.
Apparel and general retail categories were down mid-single digits, while food, logistics, and other categories were up mid-teens collectively. In apparel and general retail, customers reduced orders and inventory levels as they reevaluated their sourcing timing and strategy. We anticipate growth in these categories will normalize over time. In food, we delivered strong growth in the quarter, as our strategic collaboration with Kroger continues to ramp as expected and we continue to see strong momentum in our pipeline with other grocery customers. In logistics, we delivered strong growth compared to prior year and sequentially. Our share in this segment remains strong and we continue to actively pursue new projects with other customers.
From an overall operational perspective, this business has had to make adjustments to our global network due to shifts in trade policies. To counter this, activated initiatives to reduce network inefficiencies and associated costs. With more than 70% of our intelligent label linked to apparel and general retail categories, near-term growth is likely to be impacted by trade policy. We expect growth in these categories will normalize over the cycle and are focused on accelerating controllable growth. Key rollouts planned for this year remain largely on track and the performance of our recent launches and pilots particularly within food and logistics, where ROIs are exceeding expectations instills confidence in the long-term growth trajectory of this platform.
Shifting back to the total company, given the near-term uncertainty, we are taking a cautious approach to forward expectations. And expect third quarter earnings per share to be comparable to prior year. We are prepared for a range of scenarios and will continue to leverage our proven playbook to safeguard earnings while driving key initiatives to deliver strong profitable growth. Given the strength of the overall franchise. We are industry leaders in more than 80% of our portfolio in large, growing, and diverse markets. We are competitively advantaged, including our global scale footprint, innovation and go-to-market strategy. We have catalysts for strong growth over cycle in multiple high-value categories that provide differentiated growth potential and in emerging markets.
Our strong franchise and agile global team provides us multiple levers to deliver in a broad range of scenarios. Materials group has demonstrated strong resilience through and across cycles and has limited direct tariff exposure due to the regional nature of the business. Solutions Group is less cyclical than it was historically evident by the second quarter results. Lastly, we have a strong balance sheet with ample capacity and a disciplined approach to capital allocation that provides significant inflexibility including organic and M&A investments, to accelerate our strategic objectives. And expand EVA over cycles. Taken together, these elements will enable us to navigate the dynamic environment and deliver superior earnings growth over the cycle.
While I'm confident our long-term earnings progression, I'm not satisfied with our current growth and earning trajectory. Particularly within our IL platform. Here, we are taking action to improve network efficiency as well as expand innovation to help accelerate growth. I want to thank our entire team for their continued resilience focus on excellence, and commitment to addressing the unique challenges at hand. Over to you, Greg.
Gregory Lovins: Thanks, Deon, and hello, everybody. In the second quarter, we delivered adjusted earnings per share of $2.42. Up 5% sequentially and comparable to prior year. As productivity offset lower volume in apparel and the net impact of pricing and raw material costs. As Deon mentioned, trade policy uncertainty during the quarter impacted our results. Largely due to lower sourcing volume in apparel and general retail categories. We estimate the indirect effect of tariffs lowered our earnings per share by more than $0.1 in the quarter. Compared to prior year, sales were down 1% on an organic basis. As positive volume mix was more than offset by deflation-related price reductions.
Adjusted EBITDA margin was strong at 16.6% in the quarter, up 20 basis points compared to prior year. And we generated strong adjusted free cash flow of nearly $190 million in the quarter. Our balance sheet remains strong with a net debt to adjust EBITDA ratio at quarter end of 2.3. We continue to execute our disciplined capital allocation strategy. Including returning cash to shareholders. In the first six months of the year, we returned roughly $500 million to shareholders, through the combination of share repurchases and dividends. Early in the quarter, we announced a 7% increase to the company's quarterly dividend, up to 94¢ per share a dividend we've consistently grown annually for more than a decade.
Turning to segment results for the quarter. Materials group sales were down 1% on an organic basis. As modest volume mix growth was more than offset by low single-digit deflation-related price reductions. Organically, high-value categories were up low single digits. And the base business was down low single digits. Looking at regional label materials, organic volume mix trends versus prior year in the quarter, North America was up low to mid-single digits Europe was down low to mid-single digits. As we lapped a strong prior year that included customer pull forward ahead of price increases. Asia Pacific was up low to mid-single digits, in Latin America. Was up low single digits.
Compared to prior year, graphics and reflective sales were up high single digits, and performance tapes and medical were up low single digits organically. Materials group continued to deliver strong margins. With an adjusted EBITDA margin of 17.8% in the quarter. Down just slightly compared to prior year and up slightly sequentially. Regarding raw material cost, excluding the direct impact of tariffs, we experienced modest sequential global raw material cost deflation in the second quarter. As expected. However, higher tariffs primarily between The US and Europe, began affecting us in the middle of Q2. We substantially mitigated the increased cost through strategic sourcing adjustments and the implementation of select pricing surcharges.
Overall, including our tariffs, our outlook sequentially in Q3 for low single-digit inflation versus prior year. Shifting to solutions group, Sales were down 1% organically. Outside of apparel and general retail categories, sales were up low double digits. With overall high-value categories up low single digits, and base solutions down mid-single digits. Within high-value categories, Vescom was up roughly 10%. Driven by new program rollouts, and Embellix was down in the quarter as Deon noted. Enterprise-wide intelligent label sales were comparable to prior year. And up mid-single digits sequentially in the second quarter. Food, logistics, and other categories combined were up mid-teens. Offset by mid-single-digit decline in apparel, general retail categories.
Solutions Group achieved a solid adjusted EBITDA margin of 17.1%. Up 30 basis points compared to prior year as benefits from productivity were partially offset by lower volume in apparel and growth investments. Now shifting to our outlook. For the third quarter, we expect adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.24 to $2.40. Comparable to prior year at the midpoint, as benefits from productivity, and sales growth in the majority of our businesses are offset by typical wage inflation and a top-line decline in apparel and general retail categories. Sequentially, historical seasonality trends have resulted in a mid-single-digit decrease in EPS. Primarily attributable to the August holiday period in Europe and the seasonal nature of the apparel business.
Our guidance for Q3 assumes this typical seasonality as well as a slight sequential benefit from currency translation. While we've seen some signs of apparel industry improvement exiting Q2, the outlook remains uncertain and customer feedback and sentiment remains muted. And we're assuming a continuation of soft apparel volumes in the third quarter. We've also outlined some contributing factors to our full-year results on slide 14 of our supplemental presentation materials. To highlight a few of the key drivers, we now anticipate a $7 million current translation benefit to operating income compared to our previous projection, of a $7 million headwind.
We now expect restructuring savings net of transition cost of approximately $50 million as we continue to ramp up our productivity efforts. And while we're not giving guidance for the full year, we do anticipate returning to earnings growth compared to prior year in the fourth quarter. Assuming no significant shift in the macro. We continue to expect strong free cash flow across a wide range of scenarios. Targeting roughly 100% conversion for the year. In summary, we delivered a solid second quarter with EPS above the midpoint of our expectations, through a dynamic environment.
We're well prepared for a variety of macro scenarios and well positioned to continue to deliver exceptional value to our stakeholders through our strategies for long-term profitable growth and disciplined capital allocation. And now we'll open up the call for your questions.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to register a question, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. You will hear confirmation of your request. If your question has been answered, you would like to withdraw your question, please press the pound key. To accommodate all participants, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and then return to the queue if you have additional questions. One moment, please. For the first question. Our first question comes from the line of John McNulty from BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.
John McNulty: Yeah. Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. So I wanted to dig into solutions a little bit. You know, I understand the tariff stuff created some noise. It does look like maybe the trends were improving. But I guess, admittedly, back to school doesn't change. Holiday season doesn't necessarily change all that much. So I guess can you speak to whether you see pent-up demand, where we may see you know, some kind of quicker turnarounds going forward in as we get into the second half. And how the profitability of that might flow through.
And then I guess the other question I had on solutions was just you know, you sound optimistic about in particular, some of the excitement around the food and grocery channel, at this point. Is that something where you think we could see a conversion of new business or a new account before the end of the year?
Deon Stander: Thanks, John, for the question. Let me just deal with the first one. What we've seen really in the macro environment John, if you take a step back is continued kind of retail sales volume softness in Europe. There's and retail sales in The United States is still only projected to grow sort of above 1%. I think the apparel industry specifically itself has hadn't been impacted by the whole tariff uncertainty, not just the tariff rate itself, but also when and where they get applied and when they become more certain. Those two things that when you add them together have certainly had an impact on the way our customers have been thinking about their sourcing strategy.
So in the early days, remember, Paul, we said, we saw some orders being held as apparel retailers and brands trying to determine where they were going to source and how they were going to price those when they landed in The United States. Particularly. That has slowly improved as we gone through the second quarter. But the sentiment from our customers still remains fairly muted and the discussions that we have with them They're still saying, they're waiting for more clarity to really understand exactly when they're going to be able to do that. Now, overall apparel consumption remains relatively robust to date.
What I think we're going to see is move forward at least anecdotally, what I hear from customers is that they're going to continue to watch how inflationary pressures impact the consumer demand particularly impact in apparel because likely we're going to see inflationary pricing in the apparel industry as we move forward in the second half. They're trying to judge how much sourcing volume they then anchor themselves on relative to support that demand. And those ranges that we get from customers tend to vary as well, John. So taking an approach we say that we're assuming in the third quarter continued sort of low single-digit demand in our business for apparel and general retail overall.
To your second question around food and grocery, I am very optimistic because while the impact that we seen on the apparel and general retail has been to have sort of mid-single-digit clients in the second quarter, Outside of that food logistics and other categories grown mid-teens and really good strong growth in food and logistics as well in both of those specific categories. And what we do know and what we believe at the moment is that outside of the impact that tariffs have had largely on apparel and general retail, The rest of our business is largely on track where we originally assumed.
And in particular, the rollouts that we had assumed as we went through this year are on track. Some of those rollouts in food and logistics, particularly in food, include also new customers as they go from pilot stage to roll out as well. And the results that we're seeing particularly in food, from an ROI perspective, are exceeding both the existing customers and some of our pilot customers' expectation. This gives us confidence in the fact that we're going to continue to see adoption as we go through the second half of the year into the start of 'twenty five. '26. Apologies.
Gregory Lovins: Yeah, John. If I could just add one thing to Deon's comment So we had in the second quarter, as we talked about, impacts in apparel down about 6%. Our assumptions for Q3 is our apparel business overall be down low single digits versus prior year. We assume a little bit better based on that The graph you see and how we were exiting Q2. Assuming we stay roughly on the trajectory that we exited Q2 at.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Ghansham Panjabi with Baird. Please proceed with your question.
Ghansham Panjabi: Yeah. Hey, guys. Just following up on the last question in your comments, Greg. You know, just in terms of the apparel improvement in 3Q, what are you baking in for RFID specifically in terms of volumes for the back half of the year? And then second, your confidence underpinning the expected improvement in earnings on a year-over-year basis. What are some of the drivers we should consider as it relates to that, assumption?
Deon Stander: Doctor. Pai, let me deal with the first question. Let me just reiterate in the we continue to see the impact of apparel and general merchandise, those two categories through the tariff environment. And as I said, outside of those, our business is largely on track in the way we thought it would be We have two things that are going to happen in the second half of this year. I anticipate all things being equal, there's no further deterioration. We should see growth in IL in the third quarter. Then in the fourth quarter, expect to see some of those new programs or the rollout that we're seeing take traction in the fourth quarter as well.
Gregory Lovins: Sorry, Ghansham. I didn't get the second question. Didn't come through clearly.
Ghansham Panjabi: As it relates to the four q earnings year over year,
Gregory Lovins: Oh, four q. Yeah. I think when we look at you know, you see our guidance for the third quarter at the midpoint of about two thirty-two or so. When we look into the fourth quarter, and think about the trajectory going forward, typically, as we talked about in Q3, we have some unfavorable seasonality from Q2. We typically see some favorable seasonality from Q3 to Q4. Somewhere in the low single-digit range from an earnings perspective. So that picks us up a nickel or so from that perspective. We're continuing to drive productivity actions as we've talked about as well, and we're increasing our restructuring as well as driving other ongoing productivity across the business.
So that gives us a bit of a pickup from Q3 to Q4. So when I look at sequentially, at least, those two items alone put us at or above prior year. From an earnings perspective. That's assuming really no improvement in an apparel or other parts of the portfolio we're really, you know, expecting, as Deon talked about, to continue driving growth in outside of apparel and IL. Continue driving growth in BestCom versus prior year, etcetera. So know, those things altogether give us confidence that we'll see earnings growth in the fourth quarter.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of George Staphos from Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.
George Staphos: Hi, everyone. Good morning. Thanks for the details. I just want and welcome, Gip. I guess I the I wanted to piggyback on IL. As well. So did you see any kind of pickup specific to the sort of setting of tariffs in Vietnam. And that being established and then return orders coming because customer at least knew what the what their sourcing and cost would be out of the out of that country.
And just looking at the chart and trying to put your commentary together, are you still down year on year in apparel orders into July, where you actually now up modestly I know you're saying down low single digits in the quarter, but July, where were you?
Deon Stander: Thanks, George. As it relates to the question specifically on Vietnam, we did see during the quarter, as expected, some volume was being moved from China to other regions, notably particularly Vietnam, and South Asia as well. This is before this is during the time of the 10% tariff rate around the rest of the world, George. And so there was a slight pickup in Vietnam IL orders relative to slight decrease in China But that all was contained within the overall Q2 performance of apparel and general merchandise being more muted because of the broader tariff impact.
I will say though that as we've seen some of the other tariff rates begin to begin set or at least indicated the magnitude where they're gonna be We continue to see customers, the apparel side, calibrate what they're gonna do from a sourcing perspective moving forward. And, of course, for our advantage, George, as you know, we have manufacturing facilities and support facilities in each one of these countries. So as customers choose to move volume, we have the ability to help them in that regard, move the volume, but core products, base products and IL as needed. From an overall apparel perspective, our current apparel volumes and orders are roughly flat to prior year, year to date.
That's the way I characterize it.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Matt Roberts from Raymond James. Please proceed with your question.
Matt Roberts: Hey. Good morning, everybody. Yeah. I'll I'll shift gears just a little bit here. Maybe we're probably your share repurchases to date are near record annual levels. You spoke training at evaluation. You got first the S and P. So may how should we think about free cash flow in 'twenty five and potential further repurchases? And should growth in IL or rollouts continue to be slower than expected, at what point do you think you would need to inorganic growth? It seems like kind of call that out earlier. So at what point would you need to pivot there to start seeing greater margin contribution from other high-value categories?
Gregory Lovins: Yeah. Thanks, Matt. So I think as we talked about last quarter, you know, we're continuing to execute our capital allocation strategy, continuing with the way we've approached in the past. We talked about you know, we ramped up share buybacks in Q1. I think I mentioned a quarter ago, that we'd continue doing that, likely not at the same pace we had in Q1, we were gonna continue to do that while the share price was where it was compared to our expected intrinsic value. So something we continue to do, in the second quarter. Again, a slower pace in Q1, but continue to do that. And we'll continue to execute that capital allocation strategy.
We feel good about the balance sheet. It gives us capacity to invest organically in the business. Capacity to continue returning cash through an increasing dividend as we did last quarter, as well as continue to do share buyback. And then we have capacity for M&A as well. So we feel good about that. And that's an area we're continuing to drive opportunities of course, not just in IL, but across our high-value categories, looking at M&A opportunities to continue to expand our portion of the portfolio that's in high-value categories.
Deon Stander: And, Matt, let me just add to Greg's comment. We been very deliberate in managing our capital allocation consistently over a very long period. In a very disciplined way as well. Our leverage ratio is at around 2.3 at the moment and we see that management leading us to have an ability if we need to lean forward when we see market dislocations or asset dislocations in terms of prices. Always focused on how we think about executing a strategy. Our M&A pipeline remains very robust. When we see the opportunities, they're aligned with our strategy, we'll continue to execute on them.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Zekauskas from JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.
Jeffrey Zekauskas: Thanks very much. Your graphics and reflective volumes has been up high single digits for the first February of the year. Do you expect a continuation in that trend and what do you see as behind it? And then secondly, your SG&A expense, you know, has been lower. Year over year for the first February. And sort of nicely lower in second quarter. When I look at your 10-Ks, it doesn't seem that your overall employee levels are so different. What's behind the decrease in SG&A? You could answer those two questions.
Deon Stander: Thanks, Jeff. Yeah. We're pleased with our graphics and reflector combined growth overall being sort of mid to high single digits across the two quarters. It's largely driven actually on our graphics business with particular strength in Asia and North America. We're continuing to see some new customer acquisition in Asia where we were getting more traction with what we call our paint protection films overall. And similarly, in North America where our what we call our cast color change films are having stronger attraction. As the auto market moves into more and more customization of colors and so forth as they look forward. And we expect largely this trend to continue through the remaining part of this year.
In line with our expectations that our high-value category, particularly materials group and also solutions group will continue to deliver a greater share of our portfolio in time to come.
Gregory Lovins: Yes, Jeff. And on your second question on SG&A, when we look at versus last year, of course, we've got continued restructuring actions. That are benefiting both SG&A and cost of sales. But it's a it's a mix between the two. So there is some benefit there, probably more so on the SG&A side from a headcount perspective proportionally. And then we're off to obviously, given the volume environment particularly in apparel, general retails, we talked about We're continuing to do discretionary cost reductions. Things like travel, etcetera, but continuing to manage very well. We look from a year-over-year perspective in the first half, last year, the first half, our performance was above our original target.
So we had higher than average, incentive compensation accruals. This year, we're performing a little bit below given our results below our original expectations. So a little bit below our normal level of incentive comp accrual. So there's an impact across those three buckets versus last year.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Anthony Pettinari from Citi. Please proceed with your question.
Anthony Pettinari: Good morning. Dion, in your prepared remarks, you talked about not being satisfied with the growth trajectory in IL. And I think you talked about efforts to improve network efficiency and expand innovation. And I'm wondering if you could give a little bit more detail about sort of what activities you're pursuing there. And then just generally in terms of IL, maybe competitive intensity, I mean, do you feel that you're you know, missing opportunities or growth is industry-wide is slowed? If you could just give us some kind of context for those comments and the activities that you're pursuing.
Deon Stander: Sure, Anthony. Let me let me reiterate. I'm not satisfied where we are with our IL platform overall in terms of its growth. And actually, our earnings trajectory as it stands at the moment, and that's the reason we're so focused on executing against our strategies and particularly driving our innovation as well. As I specifically focus on the IL, I made the point that when we were moved when the initial tariff environment starts to emerge and there was initially tariffs that were set in Mexico, relative to other countries and that changed.
We were moving using our network to try and move around our app, not our app but our actual manufacturing volume to make sure that we're taking advantage whichever was the most tariff-friendly place at that time. Now, of course, that switched quite dramatically during that period as well. And while we have a very resilient network, we can move things around. There are always associated costs. We've learned a lot out of that, Anthony. We move forward, we're taking some additional steps to make sure we're at the macro level We're improving the resilience of how we use that network.
Also thinking through how we use working capital to also make sure we continue to deliver superior service and meet the opportunities that are there. The second part of that is specifically innovation. For me, innovation is always gonna drive differentiating us in the market relative to competition. That's where our focus has been. And we have accelerated our innovation outcomes not just at the product level, but at the social solution level as well. I'll give you a couple of examples that at the product level, as we look forward to what is going to be the bigger categories, which is largely food, and then logistics. We continue to really innovate.
Recall, we were the first people in food to bring out a microwavable tag as an example. Something that's needed when you get to stuff that is effectively frozen. But we've also recently launched the first APR, Association of Plastic Recyclers, recyclable which is important when you get to perishable items that are contained in plastic containers. Then the third element is we look forward for innovation.
We're going be launching in the second half of this year some really strong new proprietary IP to do with the category expansion in food as you go beyond bakery into some of the other categories like protein and vegetables, they will need more specific technology innovation I think we're gonna be able to really differentiate ourselves in that regard. I think on your second point around competitive intensity, I don't see a change in competitive intensity overall. This is a space that continues to track capital and we see balanced competition all around the world, but we remain in that regard the market leader We have the majority share.
And I'm anticipating actually this year for our share to slightly increase as we not only roll out, for example, in apparel a loss detection mechanism. We've spoken openly about that within the text that will actually gain us share as we move forward. Also some of the new rollouts that are coming that I spoke about will also be largely where we are the significant majority of providers. I might dissipate in our share overall will continue to expand as we go to the second half of this year. At a broader level in the industry, I think the industry given that the industry like us is still anchored in 70% general merchandise, general retail, and apparel.
We're seeing some of that impact that we're seeing probably across the rest of the industry as well. That said, I still think the industry has significant growth opportunities Our conviction in our growth trajectory remains undemned We still see this as a 300 billion units or put differently $8 billion opportunity right there and thereabouts. As we move forward. And we are seeing what we need to do, see for from an adoption process. We've had the first food customer go. We have a very, very strong pipeline for grocery retail coming up on that. But the first logistics customer go, we're an active pilot, expanded pilots with logistics customers.
And so while that growth over years, as I've said consistently, maybe a little episodic, I still have strong conviction, our ability to grow that platform significantly as we move forward over the next decade.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Mike Roxland from Truist Securities. Please proceed with your question.
Mike Roxland: Thank you, Dion, Greg, John and Gilly for taking my questions, and congrats on a good performance despite the backdrop. Thanks, Mike. My question is just wanted to follow-up quickly on the growth in food. And you mentioned, Dion, obviously, the significant growth in food, you have a strong pipeline. With respect to Kroger, though, the company did announce plans in late June to close 60 stores over the next eighteen months. So can you just give a sense of what that means for your IL deployments in baked goods and ultimately for any protein deployment, with Kroger? Thank you.
Deon Stander: Yeah. Mike, I'm I'm not necessarily comment on specifically the reasons why some of our customers do what they do. I think for me, that's just a normalization of the way they look at their real estate footprint. What I will say is our rollout with Kroger continues to be as expected. They're up to round about 700 stores now. Midpoint of the year in terms of rollout. And recall, I think we said that it would take probably about a year or two sorry, year and a half or so to sort of get to full rollout. That was just on the bakery item.
So a smaller number of stores will have no real impact on that at all overall. We're actually in the process discussion with that customer specifically around given the returns that they've seen as being as strong as they are, the ROI how do we accelerate into some of the other categories we historically plan to including things like proteins and so forth as we move forward.
Operator: Next question comes from the line of John Donegan from Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.
John Donegan: Thanks for taking my question, and congratulations as well on a good quarter in a tough environment.
Deon Stander: Thanks, John. I want I want to switch to
John Donegan: Embellix and Investcom. Embellix know, I'm I'm a little bit less familiar with the business. It does seem like you do have some good visibility on tech doing well in the back half of the year ahead of, I think, was the twenty six World Cup. But is this the type of business that will be pretty reliant on these larger maybe global types of sporting events. You know, it's been a bit of a rough first half, which maybe just because of consumer discretionary spending. So maybe you could spend a little time you know, kinda walking us through your expectations for growth in that business.
And then with Vethcom, maybe just an update on how the rollout is going with CVS. Anything you've kind of learned or been surprised about either positively or negatively with that with that program?
Deon Stander: Sure. Thanks for the question, John. Let touch on Embellix first. You're right. Our performance this first half of the year hasn't been where we had hoped it to be, but in reflection of kind of where the apparel overall apparel market is that we also see an impact of that as it's come through. Maybe if I break the Embellix business apart, recall, this is a business in which we provide decoration to garments largely in team sports. That's one area.
And increasingly in stadium customization where we actually run the hardware and the software for when you go to a stadium in professional sports in The United States and you wanna embellish your customize the garment of your name, we're actually the backbone of pretty much all of that. There's a second area where we continue to take the same technology, which is largely heat transfers, embroidered batches, batches and patches, and we actually provide those to the large performance brands around the world as they also do their own activity. Think about two largest performance brands in the world and one in Europe and United States.
And then the third one is we also provide that to ad hoc events where there's either team sports happening or they're trying to drive fan engagement increasing in that piece. We're actually adding digital triggers to those embellishments so that you can get greater fan engagement directly with the brand or with your favorite player. And we have multiple examples of that where that's in flight at the moment. I'd say when I look at that overall, the biggest driver is actually our kind of what I call our large performance brand piece, which is still there.
Some of those performance brands, I'm sure, you know, haven't necessarily performed recently to their expectations as well, and that certainly had an impact on our volume. Part of that is also related then to the whole apparel tariff changes that we've seen as well. As I look forward, I think we're going to continue to see these three buckets one bucket will be around how do our performance brands do. What I call the legacy part of our business. How do team sports continue?
In fact, we have a high degree of confidence just largely because we continue to see customization, personalization being such a key driver we anticipate the whole segment to be growing into the kind of high single digits over a long period. And then the final one is what we call these episodic events like the World Cup. They bring a unique sort of coalescing of volume and opportunity for us to leverage our technology when international teams or national teams are trying to do something in a specific sporting event. Let just turn to VESCOM, John. We're very pleased with the rollout of our with that we've been doing with CVS.
Recall InvestCom while we deliver analog price shelf edge pricing and media solutions is largely a data composition engine. We take a lot of data in pricing data, planogram data, promotional data, and we ingest that and effectively then in a proprietary fashion, put that out into shelf edge labeling. Most of our growth in the second quarter was down to do with CVS. You also know in the macro environment that one of the other drugstore companies went to into chapter 11, so that had a small impact negatively.
We also saw growth in some of our other customers that we have in this environment, both in our grocery and dollar store customers as well, next to a sort of 10% growth And as we look forward, we can continue to see, I think, solid growth as we go to the back end this year. And I do think this is a business for us that has brought a lot of resilience to our solutions group. When things are cyclically challenged, in ultimately in retail, you either see two things happen. One, see pricing changes which benefits our business.
Or you see promotional changes, which again, because we're leveraging that same real estate we're able to sell more media solutions on the back of it.
Operator: Our next question comes from Josh Spector from UBS. Please proceed with your question.
Josh Spector: Hi. Good morning. I had a question on the tariff cost impact within 2Q and implied in 3Q. You made some comments about how you're taking some strategic pricing and also reallocating some of your sourcing to offset that. But I'd be curious if this know if you think you're offsetting that cost within the quarter or within 2Q and 3Q, if there's a lag to that you would potentially make up later in the year or maybe into next year?
Gregory Lovins: Yeah. So, you know, the inflationary impacts from the tariffs really started impacting us kind of midway through the second quarter. Given that we had inventory on hand and things when the tariffs first went effect. I would say overall, that was about a low or very low single-digit impact from an inflationary perspective in Q2. And overall, we largely offset that in the quarter. With tariff-related surcharges. As well as some sourcing shifts. So we did both of those things, and, obviously, we started that as soon as we found out about the tariffs on the sourcing shift piece. And that allowed us to offset that within the quarter.
We will see some sequential further Inflation just given we'll have a full quarter of the tariff impact in Q3. Versus about a half a quarter in the third or in the second quarter But, again, we'd expect to offset that with surcharges and sourcing shifts. That's still waiting to see what happens in the next couple weeks with areas like Europe, Malaysia, etcetera, where we have some open tariff items guess, for August 1. So we'll see what happens with those. And if there's something further we need to do to manage that.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of George Staphos from Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.
George Staphos: Thanks very much for taking the follow on. Hi, guys. A couple of things. And sequence here. Number one, what were the exit rates if you can talk to this, in your materials businesses into the third quarter? Second question you gave us a bit more detail in terms of what's happened within Embelex When should we expect the volumes there to improve? The narrative this year has been we should expect at some point to pick up as we get into '26 ahead of World Cup When will we actually see that Do you expect that to be a positive in fourth quarter? Really, do we have to wait until '26?
And then lastly, you know, you talked about all the innovation, Dion. That's happening in food. Logistics, and so on in IL. However, the 70% of your business that remains relatively stuck right now in general retail and apparel. What are you doing there? From an innovation standpoint that will ultimately get you growth or you just sort of right now at the sort of the stuck because of tariffs and where they're at and you uncertainty. Thank you, guys. Good luck in the quarter.
Deon Stander: Thanks, George. I'll go over in reverse order. Let me just talk about innovation in apparel specifically for We are continuing to really lean forward in innovation area there, George. And I think the most visible one we actually did was really building on our loss detection suite of products which we have brought to the market in a proprietary fashion with largely with Inditex, but there's a lot of interest from other apparel customers The second area we continue to look at it is just the efficacy of how we can improve using our inlay design capability.
How do you improve overall variable read rates as you go through a more dense store do you use more how do you use less parts to be able to read more activity in the store as well? And all these things come together ultimately to then center around how do we help apparel retailers further drive towards if they are interested in, for example, self-checkout. We've done already for customers like fast retailing, which is Uniqlo. And as you know, it and also the Decathlon in Europe. So our innovation efforts have not stopped in apparel and I think given our market leadership position over there, the one area we continue to sort of lean forward in.
That's at the customer level. We also continue to drive innovation what we call our operating level largely in how do we make sure that we maintain our low-cost leadership position. Better assets, faster assets, different processes. And we also have a number of proprietary innovations that will be coming out in the next couple years around how do we actually improve and accelerate that speed in that regard. On Embellix, I would say we're I know we're gonna be expecting a growth really in the fourth quarter. That's when we'll see most of the growth start to come through from the Embellix perspective.
My assumption that George is still anchored on, if we don't see any significant deterioration in the broader apparel piece because apparel as a result of tariffs, also has an impact in Bellix as I think I explained earlier to John overall. In terms of the exit rates for our materials group, we started off slightly slower in April in the second quarter. We went anticipated and was slightly better in June. And our exit rates, as we go through into July, are looking similar to where we were in June, which is relatively flat overall.
Operator: Mister Gilchrist, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to you for any closing remarks.
William Gilchrist: Thank you, Tiffany. To recap, we delivered a solid quarter in a dynamic environment. We are well prepared for a variety of macro scenarios, and well positioned to deliver superior value through the cycle. On a personal note, I look forward to working closely with all of you in the Avery Dennison Corporation investment community in the months and years ahead. Thank you for joining today. This now concludes our call.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude the conference call for today. We thank you for your and ask that you please disconnect your line.