European Staples Distilled and Packaged - Our take on the sector, Heineken, Symrise, Magnum, and Q126 Takeaways

Research evidence excerpt

European Staples Distilled and Packaged - Our take on the sector, Heineken, Symrise, Magnum, and Q126 Takeaways

J P M O R G A N Europe Equity Research

18 May 2026

European Staples

Distilled and Packaged - Our take on the sector,

Heineken, Symrise, Magnum, and Q126 Takeaways

European Staples outperformed the market this week driven by Tobacco, while other European Food Producers,

sub-sectors lagged. The Q126 staples reporting season was better than feared, with 16 Household & Personal Care

of our 22 companies beating expectations, supported by strong growth across Beer, Products, Beverages & Tobacco

Food and Beauty. We note that the beat was also supported by technical factors, while Celine Pannuti, CFA AC

visibility on FY26 remains low. We believe investor focus is now on 1) sustainability (44-20) 7134-7123

of EM growth amid risk of ME demand deterioration; 2) COGS inflation step up, with celine.pannuti@jpmorgan.com

HPC indicating ~MSD higher costs already in H2, which we see rising to HSD for Edward G Hockin AC

HPC and MSD for Brewers in FY27; and 3) speed of pricing acceleration and volume (44-20) 7742-6937

edward.hockin@jpmorgan.com

impact. We downgraded Heineken to Neutral from Overweight, as we believe the

Prem Sirisuttinunt

stock is unlikely to outperform in the near term while the market awaits the

(44-20) 3493-4568

appointment of a CEO and the subsequent unveiling of an updated strategy. sakdipong.sirisuttinunt@jpmorgan.com

This Week: Today we will be hosting Kerry Group CEO Scanlon for a fireside chat Samuel Lewis

(register here), tomorrow we will host a webinar on key takeaways from Q126 samuel.lewis@jpmorgan.com

J.P. Morgan Securities plc

reportings (register here).

• In Food/HPC, we hosted Symrise CEO Dr.