Keurig Dr Pepper Inc (KDP) — Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you, and good morning. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release detailing our second quarter results, which we will discuss during this conference call. An accompanying slide presentation can be viewed in real time on the live webcast. Before we get started, I'd like to remind you that our remarks will include forward-looking statements which reflect KDP's judgment, assumptions and analysis only as of today. Our actual results may differ materially from current expectations based on a number of factors affecting KDP's business. Except as required by law, we do not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements discussed today. For more information, please refer to our earnings release and the risk factors discussed in our most recent Form 10-K and the latest 10-Q, which will be filed with the SEC later today. Consistent with previous quarters, we will be discussing our Q2 performance on a non-GAAP adjusted basis, which reflects constant currency growth rates and excludes items affecting comparability. Definitions and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP metrics are included in our earnings materials. Here with us today to discuss our results are Keurig Dr Pepper's Chief Executive Officer, Tim Cofer; and Chief Financial Officer and President, International, Sudhanshu Priyadarshi. I'll now turn it over to Tim.

Thanks, Jane, and good morning, everyone. We delivered strong second quarter results, closing out a very good first half of the year. Our resilient performance is a testament to our advantaged business model, execution, and agility while operating in a dynamic environment. Looking ahead, the balance of 2025 will present challenges in the form of rising cost pressures, including from tariffs that remain highly fluid as well as continued consumer caution. Despite this, we remain on track to achieve our full year outlook, thanks to strong first half delivery and well-calibrated back half plans. While driving hard to deliver on our 2025 commitments, we continue to advance KDP's long-term value creation strategy. As a reminder, our strategic roadmap is focused on five areas. Our entire organization is galvanized around these goals with forward progress being made each quarter. Let me share some examples from Q2. Starting with consumer-obsessed brand building. In June, we published KDP's inaugural State of Beverages trend report, reinforcing our thought leadership in the beverage industry. Drawn from national surveys and our own proprietary data, this insight-rich report underscores the important role beverages play in consumers' lives and how evolving preferences are shaping demand. With consumers' ever-changing needs at the heart of everything we do, it's no surprise that this report captures many of the trends we have been actioning against. For instance, we know that nearly half of all Americans and almost three-quarters of Gen Z consumers try a new beverage every month. This year, we are satisfying their thirst and curiosity through a robust flavor-oriented innovation slate in carbonated soft drinks, which has been highly successful to date. In fact, Dr. Pepper Blackberry ranks as the number one new product in the category this year. While iconic 7UP is enjoying renewed momentum on the back of winning flavors like tropical as well as a refreshing endless summer limited-time offering. Our second pillar is reshaping our now and next portfolio, and we continue to increase our exposure to attractive white spaces. Energy is a major focus for us, and I'll speak more about our early success in that category in a moment, but we have also made exciting progress in other adjacencies. In sports hydration, electrolyte is the fastest-growing scaled brand in the category, benefiting from strong velocities, direct store delivery enabled distribution expansion and product and packaging innovation. The brand registered over 30% retail sales growth and gained more than 1.5 points of share in Q2, yet has still only scratched the surface of its potential. We're also beginning to build a presence in new categories and segments. During the second quarter, we took 100% ownership of Dilo brands, a key player in powdered drink mixes and liquid water enhancers. This small tuck-in builds on our productive multiyear partnership as a minority investor. Now with full ownership, we will leverage Dilo's know-how and capabilities to expand our presence in an attractive and growing category, including by extending more KDP brands into the space. Prebiotics carbonated soft drinks are another fast-growing area of interest, having quickly captured nearly 3% market share of the $46 billion carbonated soft drink category. In Q3, we're entering this subsegment with the launch of Bloom pop, a great tasting soda combining bold bubbly flavor with gut health benefits. This launch builds on our successful energy partnership with Bloom, which has rapidly scaled to nearly a share point in energy drinks and has strong crossover potential into prebiotic carbonated soft drinks. Consistent with our third strategic pillar, we are amplifying our route-to-market advantage, particularly in direct store delivery. This starts with investing in our existing system, including through enhanced digital tools, and continues with selected network expansion opportunities. Last year, we acquired bottling and distribution operations in Arizona, and I'm pleased with the high standard of execution that our teams have brought to this important geography. And later this year, we are capitalizing on a unique opportunity to add Dr. Pepper to our direct store delivery portfolio in critical parts of California and Nevada as well as certain areas in the Midwest. Our teams are actively preparing for this transition, which will enable us to directly influence point-of-sale trends, drive greater efficiencies across our direct store delivery network and generate halo effects that benefit our other direct store delivery brands. Our focus on generating fuel for growth is ongoing and has taken on even more importance in the current inflationary environment. We have a robust productivity program that delivered strong efficiencies in Q2, and we remain on track to achieve the high end of our 3% to 4% savings target this year. We also continue to manage overhead costs with discipline as was evident in our quarterly results. And finally, our capital allocation approach remains balanced and dynamic. During the second quarter, we generated strong free cash flow and fortified our balance sheet by refinancing a portion of our debt. Moving to Q2 results, we delivered strong enterprise growth with net sales increasing 7%. Growth included contributions from both price and volume mix reflected continued momentum in our U.S. refreshment beverages and International segments and illustrated encouraging sequential progress in coffee. We managed operating expenses with discipline, protecting our margins and helping to translate our top-line gains into double-digit EPS growth. Let's dive deeper into the segments and begin with U.S. refreshment beverages. Net sales grew almost 11% in the quarter, driven by a combination of core strength and rapid expansion in recently entered white spaces. Starting with the core, our carbonated soft drink performance was strong, and we again gained market share in a growing category led by Dr. Pepper as well as 7UP and Canada Dry. When it comes to Dr. Pepper, our multiyear momentum is underpinned by many sustainable growth drivers, some of which were apparent in Q2. These include innovation and renovation with Dr. Pepper Blackberry proving highly incremental to the franchise and our recent graphics refresh for Dr. Pepper Cherry, driving a meaningful acceleration in sales growth, velocity and buyers. Distribution and merchandising, particularly in Dr. Pepper Zero, where we drove a double-digit increase in total distribution points and enhanced display activity contributing to 35% retail sales growth in the quarter and consumer engagement, including a successful marketing tie-in with the summer blockbuster Jurassic World Rebirth, which we amplified through media and in-store activations. Other core brands are also benefiting from the same playbook. For example, marketplace growth in Mott's, our powerhouse, mom and kid-focused brand accelerated in the back half of 2024 behind product and packaging innovation and a new brand campaign. Mott's has sustained this momentum into 2025 with more exciting news on tap for the fall, including the introduction of Mott's fruit smoothie pouches in time for the back-to-school season. Beyond the core, recent portfolio evolution is beginning to more substantially move the needle at the segment level. This is most evident in energy, where we believe our multi-brand approach will be the key to winning in this attractive high-growth category. Our four complementary brands GHOST, C4, Bloom and Black Rifle now combine to represent over $1 billion in annual run rate net sales for KDP and are scaling rapidly. Each of these energy brands contributed to our Q2 results. The GHOST acquisition was a meaningful top-line driver, and brand momentum continues to build under our ownership. GHOST point-of-sale trends markedly accelerated since we took over distribution in late Q1 as evidenced by our market share gains in Q2. C4's core performance platform also continues to outpace the category, propelled by innovative new flavors like classic lemonade and healthy base velocities. Meanwhile, Bloom is scaling at an impressive rate; it has garnered nearly a full point of market share just a year after introduction and has quickly established its credentials in the female-forward energy space. Together, our brands are well-positioned to achieve our goal of a double-digit share position within the fast-growing $26 billion energy category. With 7% market share already, KDP's energy portfolio is making quick progress against this target. And for comparison, just a few years ago, our share was below 1%. A combination of strategic portfolio construction and excellent KDP execution has powered these gains including nearly 1 point of market share growth in 2025 year-to-date and over 30% retail sales growth in Q2. Given the robust runway for further growth, we are allocating meaningful resources to support our category ambitions led by a dedicated internal organization focused solely on energy. Simply put, we are confident we have the right brands, commercial playbook and go-to-market prowess to continue to win in this important space. The Q2 results demonstrate how KDP is successfully building out a broad-based refreshment beverages portfolio beyond our core CSD stronghold. As we capitalize on the expansion opportunity for our emerging brands in categories like energy and sports hydration, we expect these areas to become increasingly important growth drivers for our U.S. refreshment beverage business and for KDP as a whole. Moving to U.S. coffee, the second quarter demonstrated sequential progress for the category and KDP. Starting with the category, both at home and single-serve sales growth accelerated from the first quarter as incremental pricing to offset inflation flowed through and volume remained resilient. The manageable category elasticity to date is encouraging, particularly as additional industry pricing actions have been announced, including our increase that will take effect during Q3. KDP's U.S. coffee business also exhibited sequentially improving trends in Q2. We made encouraging progress in pods with a better relationship between pricing and volume mix in brewers, though shipments remained pressured, point-of-sale consumption was stable. Looking to the back half, the U.S. coffee segment will need to manage through impacts from higher commodity inflation, increased tariffs and consumer uncertainty in the face of additional pricing. As a result, we expect segment performance to remain subdued for the balance of the year. Even as we navigate some quarter-to-quarter volatility, we continue to advance multiple initiatives designed to return our coffee business to consistent long-term growth. To provide a few examples, we continue to expand our premium and cold offerings into consumer-preferred subsegments. In the premium set in Q2, we began rolling out Lavazza, flavored K-Cup varieties inspired by classic Italian desserts like tiramisu. Already a best-selling premium brand, Lavazza's entry into flavored coffee extends the brand into an attractive category subsegment that over-indexes to frequent consumers. We're also seeing strong results in ready-to-drink coffee, one of our key cold initiatives. This superior Lackalone brand continues to generate triple-digit retail sales growth as it attracts new and younger consumers to the category. In brewers, we are innovating at both opening and premium price points. During Q2, we launched K-Mini Mate, our smallest brewer ever, featuring a new consumer-preferred visual identity with a more modern and colorful aesthetic, all at an affordable entry-level price point. And next month, we will introduce K-Kreme, a premium brewer with the ability to produce crematoped coffees from traditional K-Cup pods. Both brewers address unmet consumer needs and will help attract incremental households and occasions to the Keurig ecosystem. Finally, we are making great progress advancing our next-generation vision with the Keurig Ulta brewer and Karoun plastic-free aluminum-free pods. Ongoing in-home consumer beta testing is providing valuable user feedback while validating that the new system delivers a premium best-in-class at-home coffee experience. We're applying the learnings from our beta test to our commercial plans in support of a targeted launch in late 2026. These initiatives across pods, brewers and next-generation systems are all indicative of our sharp strategic focus in the U.S. coffee segment. Combined with encouraging category trends, we are confident they will help return our structurally attractive business to sustainable growth over time. In our International segment, Q2 performance remained quite solid, particularly considering tough year-ago comparisons and the softer backdrop in Mexico. Net sales increased 6%, led by pricing and operating income return to growth. We continued to drive strong relative performance across our business with market share gains in key categories, such as mineral water in Mexico and K-Cup pods in Canada. Our carbonated soft drink portfolio also remained healthy across markets, benefiting from new campaigns and franchise gains for brands like Dr. Pepper and Crush as well as high-quality execution. As we look to the back half, we expect to maintain our relative momentum in international, thanks to strong base plans, our entry into the Canadian ready-to-drink tea category with Neste and additional pricing to help offset inflation and tariffs. Overall, I'm pleased with our enterprise performance during the second quarter. We're building a track record of delivery by executing with excellence and agility while remaining focused on the strategic framework that will position KDP for sustainable multiyear growth. I'll now turn the call to Sudhanshu and I'll return at the end with some closing thoughts.

Thanks, Tim, and good morning, everyone. We delivered strong second-quarter results, capping off a very healthy first half in a fluid operating environment. Robust commercial plans, coupled with sharp execution are driving our business momentum and we continue to target an unchanged full-year outlook. Second quarter net sales increased 7.2% in constant currency. Our top-line momentum was broad-based with double-digit gains in U.S. refreshment beverages, solid mid-single-digit growth in international and encouraging sequential improvement in U.S. coffee. Net sales growth was supported by multiple drivers. Net price increased 2.2% with positive contributions across all three segments. Pricing reflected the continued impact of actions taken to combat rising inflation, particularly in U.S. coffee and international. Volume mix grew 5% in the quarter. We experienced growth across our core liquid refreshment beverages portfolio and the GHOST acquisition also added 4 percentage points to the top line. Gross margin contracted 110 basis points versus the prior year due to inflationary pressures that more than offset pricing and productivity savings. Strong SG&A leverage served as a counterbalance to the gross margin compression reflecting disciplined expense management across the organization. All in, our top-line gains translated into 7% operating income growth as operating margins held steady with the prior year. EPS grew double digits in the second quarter, bringing first-half growth to nearly 10% consistent with our expectation of a front half weighted year. Moving to the segments, U.S. Refreshment Beverages delivered another good quarter with net sales growing 10.5%. Volume mix was the primary driver, increasing 9.5% including a 6.6 percentage point contribution from GHOST. Net price realization also added 1% to the top line. Our base business trends remained solid with positive momentum in Dr. Pepper and 7UP in CSDs, electrolyte in sports hydration and across our energy portfolio. We are gaining market share within overall liquid refreshment beverages and have compelling back half commercial plans to sustain our strong relative performance. Segment operating income increased a healthy 8%, fueled by top line growth and productivity savings, which were partially offset by cost pressures. In the U.S. coffee segment, net sales declined modestly down 0.2% in the second quarter. Our top line demonstrated notable sequential improvement from the first quarter underpinned by the encouraging category trends that Tim discussed earlier. Net price realization has strengthened to 3.6%. This primarily reflected a building contribution from the early 2025 price increase across our owned and licensed portfolio, which was taken in response to escalating green coffee costs. We expect a further step-up in net price realization in the back half as additional already announced pricing actions flow through in the market. Segment volume mix declined 3.8%. Trends in parts improved sequentially, reflecting manageable category elasticity and effective commercial programming. On the other hand, tighter inventory management by retailers weighed on brewer results, pressuring shipments despite stable consumer sell-through. Segment operating income grew 2%, building net pricing benefits and continued strong productivity helped to offset commodity inflation, though operating income also benefited from some cost phasing. With tariffs and higher cost coffee hedges due to play a larger role in the coming quarters and given uncertain future category elasticity, we continue to expect some segment operating income pressure in the remainder of 2025. In International, net sales grew 5.7%. This was driven by net price realization, up 5.3% and a volume mix increase of 0.4% with the latter against a very difficult year-ago comparison. The macro backdrop was challenging in the quarter, particularly in Mexico, where unfavorable weather was also a factor. Despite this, our international portfolio as a whole maintained good relative market momentum supported by innovation and activation, strong in-market execution and ongoing investments in route to market. Segment operating income increased 2.6%, reflecting an improving balance between pricing, productivity and higher costs. On a go-forward basis, while we aren't immune to marketplace realities, we have well constructed plans for the back half and expect to deliver healthy international top and bottom line growth. Moving to cash flow and capital allocation. We generated $325 million in free cash flow in the second quarter, which sequentially strengthened from the first quarter. We expect cash flow to accelerate further in the second half and we remain on track for healthy cash generation for the full year. Our capital allocation priorities are unchanged. Organic and inorganic investments to further our growth, continuing to strengthen our balance sheet and returning cash to shareholders through a steadily growing dividend and we are opportunistic share buybacks. Improving cash flow generation enables us to dynamically act against these priorities based on the most compelling opportunities we see. Our current balance sheet also provides ample near-term flexibility, with today's leverage at a comfortable 3.3x, though we remain committed to our long-term goal of 2.5x or lower over time. Shifting now to our 2025 guidance. Our constant currency outlook is unchanged. We continue to expect mid-single-digit net sales growth with a bias towards the high end of the range and high single-digit earnings per share growth. Based on current rates, we now anticipate that FX will represent approximately 0.5 percentage point headwind to the top and bottom line for the full year, which equates to about a $0.01 impact to EPS. Below the line, our guidance now reflects the following assumptions: interest expense of approximately $700 million and effective tax rate of approximately 23% and approximately 1.36 billion diluted weighted average shares outstanding. Taking a step back, the operating backdrop continues to actively evolve and certain external factors, most notably trade policy remain uncertain and outside of our control. We are actively evaluating proposed future tariffs, potential mitigation steps and implementation timelines for those strategies all oriented around delivering solid full year performance. Specific to the balance of the year, our guidance assumes our top line momentum sustains, but cost pressures mount. As a result, we continue to expect some margin pressure in the back half, which should contribute to a moderating EPS growth rate relative to the first half. In closing, we are pleased with how our teams translated robust plan into strong execution and results in the first half of the year. Our focus remains on delivering the full year while building a foundation for attractive long-term performance. With that, I will turn the call back to Tim for closing remarks.

Thank you, Sudhanshu. With our strong first half results in the books, we remain on track to deliver our 2025 outlook even in a highly dynamic operating landscape. At the same time, we continue to advance our long-term value creation strategy with steady progress year-to-date across each of our strategic pillars. In an environment that places a premium on operational excellence, we're proud of our team's ability to balance near-term executional rigor with long-term-oriented thinking. We strongly believe that operating with this sort of discipline should support consistent and compelling results for KDP over time. With that, we're now happy to take your questions.

I wanted to ask about the U.S. refreshment portfolio with the split between kind of partner assets and core. Regarding the partner side, or which I would actually include cost in this bucket, can you just talk about how you see the evolution or the relative contribution of these businesses a bit more medium term, say, over the next 12 to 18 months? And where you're most excited about incremental contribution? You're talking about electrolyte doing over 30% growth. You've got Bloom pop coming. Bloom is still scaling, GHOST POS is accelerating. So can you just give us a sense of where we are in the journey of these parts of the portfolio and where they could go? And just connected on the base business with Dr. Pepper, you've been so successful with share gains on the base and also innovation. Do you think that the brand is starting to see any healing? Or do you still see some runway for incremental LTO or permanent innovation, you got to move on DSD? So just where you see kind of the runway on the base Dr. Pepper business. So thanks for the split of the U.S. refreshment portfolio along those lines.

Thanks, Chris. Overall, our Q2 results in U.S. Refreshment Beverage were strong. Breaking it down, we had solid contributions from both the base business and new partner additions, including the GHOST acquisition. There is broad-based momentum. Starting with carbonated soft drinks, we continued to see robust growth in Q2, driven by market share gains from our flagship brand, Dr. Pepper. This year, we are on track for our ninth consecutive year of market share growth with Dr. Pepper, and we also saw share growth with 7UP due to new innovations and gains in Canada Dry. We have a healthy base that we expect to continue. Next, energy continues to expand rapidly. As I mentioned earlier, this has been a key example of our portfolio transformation. Just a few years ago, we held less than 1% market share, and now, as of Q2, it's at 7%. Our portfolio of energy brands, including GHOST, C4 Bloom, and Black Rifle, is a strong combination that we believe will contribute significantly to U.S. refreshment beverage growth moving forward. Another highlight is electrolyte beverages, which grew 30% in the second quarter as a new partner addition. In the dynamic sports hydration subsegment, we are gaining market share through our excellence in direct store delivery, expanded distribution, strong innovation, and increasing total distribution points. Q2 was very strong, and these are the key components to note. Looking ahead, while the operating environment will remain dynamic, we expect robust growth in the U.S. refreshment beverage segment. In the second half, we anticipate a balance of solid base business growth alongside new partner growth, particularly with contributions from GHOST and the energy portfolio. All of this will help support a mid-single-digit contribution from U.S. refreshment beverages to our long-term goals.

I was hoping to get some perspective on coffee. There has been solid sequential progress and the best organic performance in a couple of years. When looking at the second quarter, how did it compare to your expectations? Additionally, as we think about the rest of the year, Tim, you mentioned a subdued performance. Could you clarify what that means for the top line? I believe the previous expectation was for sequential improvement in the segment as we progress through the year, so I'm curious if that remains the case for sales growth.

Yes. Thanks, Peter. Look, I am pleased with the sequential improvement you see in U.S. coffee in the second quarter, and that performance was really underpinned by a strengthening pod category that translated to improving pod revenue and pod shipment trends as well as healthy cost efficiencies. While I'm encouraged by the progress in U.S. coffee in the second quarter, there's no doubt as we roll into the back half of the segment we'll face some challenges. And some of it's ongoing, some of it's incremental. Commodity inflation will build as we roll into the back half and we roll into our higher cost hedges on green coffee. The tariff impacts will become prominent. And we all know that, that tariff situation is a bit fluid. We have included all tariffs as implemented as of today. And we know that those tariff impacts will be more prominent and put some additional pressure. I also think our retail partners will likely continue to manage their inventory levels tightly, in particular on brewers. And then finally, you know we did a round of pricing at the beginning of the year. We've announced another round of pricing that will take effect next month, and we'll need to closely monitor how that elasticity evolves. We feel good about the elasticity response we've seen so far. But rolling into the back half, we'll keep a close eye on that. So I think we have good plans in place to manage through these dynamics, but we still expect some impact. And that's why we are planning for some segment operating income pressure in the second half. And at the same time, of course, that is captured as part of our enterprise guidance. I think overall, the business is on the right track. The path may not be completely linear, but we feel good and confident that over a long time horizon, we'll get U.S. coffee back to its rightful role as a low-single-digit contributor.

I had a question on your outlook for top line growth. Once you lap the GHOST acquisition, which was another nice boost to your net sales in the quarter. I guess, how should we think about the levers and maybe confidence you have to continue to hit your mid-single-digit long-term growth algorithm without another acquisition? And then despite the strong top line growth, in the quarter, you're still seeing a fair amount of operating deleverage or just not much leverage. So how should we think about that in the back half of the year? And then maybe what initiatives or cost savings you have or could realize to mitigate some of these pressures.

Bonnie, this is Sudhanshu. Our long-term outlook remains focused on mid-single-digit sales growth and high-single-digit EPS, which we achieved last year and expect to maintain in 2025 as well. We're looking at mid-single-digit growth for U.S. refreshment beverages and U.S. coffee, even though we're a bit behind schedule. Internationally, we're aiming for high-single-digit sales growth. Over the past few years, these businesses have consistently delivered in line with these expectations. To support EPS growth, our operating income must outpace top-line growth, and we see potential for margin expansion across all segments by focusing on pricing, productivity, mix, and managing overhead. We're performing at the higher end of our productivity targets, while also addressing SG&A and overhead costs to maintain our objectives of mid-single-digit sales and high-single-digit EPS. Regarding the second half and margins, while gross margins contracted in Q2 as price realizations and productivity did not fully counter inflation, we did see gross profit dollars grow. We're managing costs carefully, which is supporting healthy operating income growth and a stable margin. I mentioned that while we anticipate some operating margin pressure in the second half, profit dollars will still increase. We face some additional cost pressures like commodity inflation, and tariffs are also impacting results more noticeably now. Last year's gains in Q3 and Q4 will not recur, but we expect pricing adjustments and strong productivity in the latter half of the year, which should help bolster profit dollar growth.

Congratulations on the picking up of the Dr. Pepper brand in California and some other places. Can you maybe just talk about the infrastructure within your existing direct store delivery network? Do you have as much infrastructure as is necessary to be able to take on a brand of that size? And is it the beginning of perhaps the turning over of the Dr. Pepper brand to more and more regions over time?

Thanks for the question. Look, you've heard me say this many times. I'm a big believer in the power of direct store delivery. I think direct store delivery is such a critical and really scarce asset in beverages. And I believe as we strengthen it, it provides our business with a sustainable competitive advantage. And accordingly, we prioritize investments in our direct store delivery to further strengthen our network, build our capabilities, and really improve how we serve our customers and our consumers. And you see that and what we've done over these last few years. We're building capabilities. We're investing in digital tools to drive greater efficiency and improve our in-store effectiveness. We're broadening our geographic footprint, and I'll speak specifically to the example you gave. But you've seen us over the last many years expand our network through opportunistic expansions of geographic territories. Last year, we did that in Arizona, picking up that acquisition. And now we've got our trucks rolling, and we've got manufacturing and warehousing in that key growth state. And then the other thing to keep in mind is as we enhance our portfolio, as we bring in the electrolytes, sports hydration, ready-to-drink coffee, the GHOST and C4s in energy, we are increasing our scale by adding high-quality, high-velocity volume to our portfolio. This allows us to make that economic flywheel and that virtuous cycle of growth turn even faster because that scale allows us to then have greater drop sizes, greater store frequency, improve the efficiency and economics of the fixed costs associated with direct store delivery. Now to the specific case that you referenced, we are on a new opportunity. And that opportunity is to add the distribution of Dr. Pepper in critical parts of California, Nevada, and certain areas in the Midwest. I will say this is a unique opportunity. And in this case, we certainly believe it was right for us to pursue. It gave us an opportunity to build on a scale that we already had in that region. We had existing operations there, and this added more scale to that direct store delivery operation. Obviously, adding flagship Dr. Pepper is a unique opportunity for us to build out that scale. And in this case, it was a unique contract structure that gave us the option to repatriate or not. So in this case, a lot of work is underway to ensure a successful transition. Our teams are energized to do this right. Distribution transitions like this do come generally with some short-term disruption and clearly, some initial investment, but we're prepared for all of that, as you'd expect us to be, and we've captured that in the outlook. And we're confident long term, you'll see us continue to unlock substantial commercial and financial outcomes as it relates to direct store delivery expansion.

I was just wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about the pricing dynamics in the U.S. on liquid refreshment beverages. I get a sense from the results that some products are probably up a lot, others may be down, so maybe a little bit of a better understanding there. And then how you're seeing the consumer, we've heard from other companies that affordability is becoming more important, maybe how you're pulling on various revenue growth management levers to address that.

So the U.S. refreshment beverages, first of all, as Tim said, we are very happy with the first half performance for U.S. refreshment beverages; it was strong and high-quality. Our growth reflected a combination of GHOST, base business of volume mix, and net price realization. In the back half, we also expect the segment performance to remain robust with contributions from those same factors. Specific to net price, we have seen positive contributions year-to-date primarily driven by carbonated soft drinks. We also announced a typical carbonated soft drink price increase that took effect in Q1, which should continue to flow through to our results for the entire year. There is where you will see some quarterly variability in actual net price realization in our P&L, but you should look at a more first half, second half basis. We feel good about where we are in the second half. Tim, do you want to talk about the consumer?

Consumer, sure. Yes, Rob, I'll take the consumer part of the question. I mean, we put the consumer at the center of everything we do as you'd imagine, we monitor their health closely, and that's everything from the public data you would see to our own proprietary data. And then the other thing that, to Kaumil's question, is we have a real-time feedback loop in the form of direct store delivery where every day, we get a good sense of in-store shopping behavior and trends in real time. I would say for us, we're seeing a fairly resilient consumer even in this backdrop of an inflationary and somewhat uncertain environment. At the same time, there is some caution out there. And our consumers are being selective in how and where they shop. I think this is particularly true for the lower income consumer where that purchasing power is most constrained. And you see this manifest in a couple of different ways. First is there are some pullbacks in certain more discretionary channels, quick-service restaurants, and our Away-From-Home fountain business are a little softer. Similarly, convenience is slightly softer, especially in the first part of the year. Toward the end of Q2, you're seeing that come back a bit. So you see consumers instead gravitating towards those more value-based channels, right? The dollar value channels, clubs, big mass EDLP formats, and a little bit around deal periods and promotional periods. I think for us, we feel good. I think we have many advantages where we have shown time and time again that in an environment like this we can continue to deliver strong growth. Our categories remain durable. These are essential categories for consumers, and we think less sensitive to macro changes. Our beverages continue to offer great value for our consumers and a simple indulgent pleasure of a carbonated soft drink or health and wellness-oriented beverages from energy to sports hydration. So I think our portfolio is demonstrating strong momentum. Innovation is a big part of it and despite some areas of concern on the macro environment, we feel good overall about our portfolio and our ability to continue to deliver on that mid-single-digit sales growth.

Tim, you made some changes recently on the marketing side with the new CMO appointed last year, including a heightened digital focus. I just was hoping you could give us a review of the biggest changes you put in place. How you think that might drive demand and impact ROI going forward? And if you're seeing any fruits from those efforts so far that's more going forward from here.

Yes. Thanks, Dara. You guys know our first strategy here at KDP is to be consumer-obsessed brand builders. Marketing excellence will be foundational to the growth model and remains a top priority. And there, we talked a few weeks ago when we were together. We did make a change on the Chief Marketing Officer and feel very good, early days about what we're seeing in terms of a bit of a marketing transformation here at KDP. It is one where we are putting data, technology, and digital at the center of the marketing flywheel. And that's really to enable more powerful real-time insights, create more precise consumer segmentation, consumer targeting, and generate more effective sometimes AI-enabled marketing content. I think you'll begin to see this show up as early as Q3 and Q4. A place to start seeing some of that show up will be brand Dr. Pepper. We're about to embark on our eighth season of Fansville, and this year, not only is the work great. I saw the work just a couple of weeks ago; I'm really excited about the new season of Fansville. But you're going to also see it materialize in a more personalized digitally-enabled consumer engagement. You'll also see it on the coffee side. You'll see us leveraging the new digital approaches and marketing to identify and target higher-value households, both existing Keurig users and new high-value households, to really drive that lifetime value and get the most out of new Keurig household placements. So I'm optimistic overall, Dara, on what we're going to see from marketing as we take this next step. And I think what you should expect is higher ROIs and more impactful spending.

Tim, I wanted to get your perspective just on the protein beverage space. You talked in the past as an area of opportunity. Maybe give us context in terms of how you're planning to play in the category and also, given the context of the Dial brand, tuck-in acquisition, how that fits into your strategy.

Absolutely. So two parts, first around wellness and protein and then around the Dilo brand. One of the great things about beverage is the way consumer preferences are ever-changing. And by the way, I'll do a plug here. We issued our state of beverages report back in June last month, and it really underscored this health and wellness mega-trend and how it's impacting consumer behavior and beverages. I think it's the single most significant consumer trend impacting beverages. Consumers are really looking to beverages to provide a wide array of health and wellness benefits, and it ranges from your question on protein to fiber and gut health, hydration, zero sugar, energy, and alertness. So we're all over this, as you would expect, as consumer-obsessed brand builders. I think what you've seen from us is we've done a good job responding to these health and wellness trends broadly in beverages. We will continue to evaluate those places which are more white spaces. I believe protein is one of those. No doubt consumers are looking for more functional attributes in their beverages, and protein is part of that trend. We think that KDP can and will participate in that over time. As we have done in other spaces, we will evaluate that through a buy-build-partner lens; is this something we can extend to organically from our own shop here in KDP, potentially leveraging our own brands? Is this something we want to partner with someone else, or is this something we want to do an acquisition, full ownership or minority? Nothing to announce today, but you can bet that we're looking at all these health-focused spaces, including protein. On your second question regarding the Dilo brand, this acquisition was really an opportunistic tuck-in. It allowed us to penetrate an attractive category of $4 billion drink mix and liquid water enhancer category and do it with a relatively modest financial outlay. This is a business that's had a double-digit growth CAGR for the last many years. Previously, we were a partner, a minority investor in Dilo, and we thought now was the right time to go ahead and do the full acquisition. We like this team, we like the capabilities, and we like the R&D here. By the way, back to the health and wellness point, 60% of that portfolio is functional around ingredients and great claims around hydration, energy, immunity, et cetera. So we took advantage of this opportunity. We can leverage Dilo's know-how and extend additional KDP brands. We think it's a nice small tuck-in transaction. It's unlikely to move the needle on enterprise trends, but we're excited to welcome our new friends from Dilo, a talented team there, to partner closely to further expand our beverage industry leadership.

Thank you, Michael, and thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning. We appreciate your interest and your support. Please reach out to the Investor Relations team with any questions, and we wish you a great day.