Avery Dennison Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Avery Dennison (NYSE:AVY) reported third-quarter financial results on Thursday. The transcript from the company’s third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.

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Summary

Avery Dennison reported 4% organic sales growth and a 2% increase in adjusted EPS for Q3 2026, outperforming expectations due to a slower pace of customer destocking.

The company is focusing on high-value categories for future growth and margin expansion, with strong results in the Materials Group and ongoing inventory destocking expected to conclude by year-end.

Avery Dennison slightly raised its full-year 2026 guidance, expecting 7% adjusted EPS growth and 3.5% organic sales growth, while maintaining a strong balance sheet and robust free cash flow generation.

Intelligent Labels sales grew in low single digits, with significant growth in apparel and food markets, and logistics sales declining due to share normalization.

The company announced the appointment of Helen Sherbon as the new President of the Solutions Group, effective November 3rd, 2026.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Avery Dennison’s earnings conference call for the third quarter ended on September 30, 2026. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterward, we will conduct a Q&A session. At that time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and enter the queue. As a reminder, this webcast is being recorded and will be available for replay on the Avery Dennison Investor Relations website.

I’d now like to turn the call over to William Gilchrist, Avery Dennison’s Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

William Gilchrist (Vice President of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Chase, and welcome to Avery Dennison’s third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Please note that throughout today’s discussion we’ll be making references to non-GAAP financial measures. The non-GAAP measures that we use are defined, qualified, and reconciled from GAAP on Schedules A4 to A8 of the financial statements accompanying today’s earnings release. We remind you that we’ll make certain predictive statements that reflect our current views and estimates about our future performance and financial results.

These forward-looking statements are made subject to the Safe Harbor Statement included in today’s earnings release. On the call today are Dion Stander, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Greg Levens, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I’ll now turn the call over to Dion.

Dion Stander (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks, Gilly, and good morning, everyone. We delivered strong third quarter results, continuing to demonstrate the underlying strength and resilience of our business. Organic sales grew 4%, adjusted EPS grew 2% compared to prior year, and adjusted free cash flow generation continues to be robust at over $240 million. Considering the impact of customer inventory management as shown on slide 5, our underlying business performance remains strong with an estimated 6% organic sales growth and an estimated 8% adjusted EPS growth year over year. Reported sales growth was balanced across both high-value and base categories, with each up mid-single digits.

As we indicated in our recent Investor Showcase event, high-value categories are a key part of our growth algorithm and future margin expansion. Q3 results reinforced the value of this portfolio of solutions, which are being driven by both secular demand growth and our differentiated competitive position at an enterprise level. Our operational priorities remain clear. First, investing in innovation and service-led differentiation to drive share gains and expand opportunities across base and high-value categories. Second, executing with commercial and operational agility, combining targeted pricing actions with relentless productivity to mitigate cost inflation. And third, disciplined capital allocation supported by robust free cash flow, as we continue to invest in our business and return cash to shareholders while maintaining our strong balance sheet.

Turning to our segment results, Materials Group delivered organic sales growth of 5% with both high-value and base categories growing mid-single digits. We continue to solidify our leadership position through commercialization of innovative solutions that support industry secular trends. Sales in the quarter came in ahead of expectations due to a more gradual pace of customer inventory destocking than anticipated. While this unwind is taking longer to materialize, destocking is ongoing and we continue to expect the vast majority of the first half pre-buy inventory to unwind by the end of the fourth quarter.

While segment adjusted EBITDA margins were down versus prior year, our teams continue to execute at a high level during the quarter, successfully managing volatile cost inflation and volume destocking to drive year over year growth in segment adjusted EBITDA. In the Solutions Group, organic sales increased 1% with a low-single-digit growth in base categories and high-value categories comparable to prior year. Of note, strong growth in Embelex continued despite lapping a significant World Cup headwind. From a profitability perspective, our team executed exceptionally well, delivering adjusted EBITDA growth and strong adjusted EBITDA margin expansion. Shifting to enterprise-wide Intelligent Labels, sales were up low single digits compared to prior year, reflecting contrasting dynamics across end markets.

In apparel and general retail, sales rose approximately 10% driven by program expansions and general retail recovery. In food, adoption momentum continues to build with strong growth as we ramp up another large grocery customer, expand pilot activity, and continue to move towards commercialization with the largest U.S. grocery retailer. In logistics, sales declined double digits reflecting the normalization of outsized share gains in 2025 alongside softer overall customer demand.

We remain actively engaged across logistics providers and continue expanding pilots with new partners. Turning to our full-year 2026 outlook, reflecting our strong year-to-date execution, we are slightly raising the midpoint of our range, representing roughly 7% growth at the midpoint on full-year organic sales growth of 3.5%. Regarding Q4, operationally our business remains healthy, and we anticipate that the remaining pre-buy inventory will largely conclude by year end.

On the leadership front, I’m extremely pleased to welcome Helen Sherbon as our new President of the Solutions Group, effective November 3rd. Helen brings over two decades of global leadership, most recently serving as Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Global HP Solutions. Her proven track record in driving growth, transformation, and customer-centric innovation across solutions, and her deep operating experience, fit exceptionally well with leading the Solutions Group moving forward.

In summary, our third quarter results demonstrate improving underlying growth while reinforcing the durability, differentiation, and competitive moat of our business. We remain focused on driving our long-term strategies while executing with discipline needed to navigate near-term inventory and cost inflation dynamics. Supported by robust free cash flow generation and a strong balance sheet, we maintain the financial flexibility to invest in high-value opportunities while consistently returning capital to shareholders.

As always, I want to thank our global teams for their support, their leadership, and their agility in continuing to make possible solutions for our customers and value creation for all of our stakeholders. And with that, over to Greg.

Greg Levens (Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)

Thank you, Dion, and hello, everybody. In the third quarter, we delivered adjusted earnings per share of $2.42, up 2% compared to prior year, coming in above our expectations largely due to a more gradual pace of customer destocking in Materials Group, as well as strong operational execution. We estimate the customer inventory destocking unfavorably impacted sales by roughly 2 points and adjusted EPS by roughly $0.15, or 6 points, in the quarter, leading to underlying growth in adjusted EPS of roughly 8%.

Reported sales rose 5% year over year to $2.3 billion, with organic sales growth of 4%. This was driven by low-single-digit price realization to offset raw material cost inflation and a low-single-digit impact from volume/mix growth. Reported sales growth also benefited by more than a point from the Taylor Adhesives acquisition. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 15.8%, which was down year over year, as strong productivity initiatives were more than offset by the dilutive margin percentage effect of passing through raw-material-related pricing, the normalization of incentive compensation, and unfavorable mix.

Free cash flow generation remained very strong. We generated adjusted free cash flow of $246 million in the quarter, bringing year-to-date adjusted free cash flow to $716 million, a conversion rate well above 100% of net income, and our balance sheet remains strong with net debt to adjusted EBITDA improving to 2.2x. Capital allocation remained consistent with our disciplined framework. We continue to invest organically in our business with capital spending on a year-to-date basis up versus last year, while we also returned approximately $135 million to shareholders during the quarter through $75 million in dividends and $60 million in share repurchases.

This brings year-to-date capital return to shareholders to more than $480 million. In addition, year to date we spent approximately $80 million on venture investments, underscoring our ongoing focus on strengthening our portfolio. Turning to our segment results, Materials Group sales increased 8.5% to $1.6 billion, with organic sales up 5%. Destocking was an approximate 3-point headwind to segment organic growth. As Dion mentioned, while inventory destocking did begin in the third quarter in label materials, it proceeded more gradually than we had anticipated. High-value categories grew mid-single digits organically, led by specialty and durable labels, performance materials, and base categories also grew mid-single digits supported by end market growth, share gains, and pricing in labels.

Materials Group adjusted EBITDA dollars grew slightly, with margins at 16.4%, which was down roughly a point compared to prior year. This was driven by two primary factors: the dilutive impact on the margin percentage from pricing actions to offset cost inflation and higher employee-related costs. Together these drivers more than offset strong productivity savings. Shifting to Solutions Group, reported sales were $687 million, down 1.8%, with organic sales up 1%, slightly higher than anticipated. Base categories grew low single digits while high-value categories were comparable to the prior year. Within high-value platforms, Embelex overcame World Cup headwinds and grew mid-single digits, Vestcom rose low single digits, and Intelligent Label sales within Solutions Group declined, driven by the anticipated share normalization and softer customer demand in logistics.

Solutions Group adjusted EBITDA grew year over year, with margins expanding 80 basis points to 17.8%, as our teams continue to drive significant productivity, which more than offset higher employee-related expenses. Turning to our full-year 2026 outlook, we are narrowing our adjusted EPS guidance range to $10.10 to $10.24 and slightly raising the midpoint of our guidance. The new midpoint represents roughly 7% growth year over year. We anticipate reported sales growth of approximately 5.5% for the year, including organic sales growth of approximately 3.5%, approximately 1.5 points from currency translation, roughly 1 point from the Taylor Adhesives acquisition, and approximately a 40-basis-point headwind from the calendar adjustment.

Key earnings drivers supporting our full-year outlook include incremental restructuring savings now exceeding $65 million, a net EPS benefit of approximately $0.30 from favorable currency translation and lower share count, partially offset by higher interest expense and adjusted tax rate headwinds from wage inflation and the continued normalization of 2025 temporary savings largely related to incentive compensation. And we’re forecasting stronger free cash flow, targeting conversion of greater than 100% for the year, with capital expenditures anticipated at approximately $240 million.

Regarding Q4, we expect the vast majority of the remaining balance of customer inventory destocking to conclude by the end of the fourth quarter on a year-over-year basis. Q4 earnings will also have an approximate 1.5% headwind to sales growth and modest headwind to EPS growth from the calendar shift we implemented at the beginning of 2026. In summary, we delivered strong third quarter results with organic sales up 4% and adjusted EPS of $2.42, outperforming our expectations.

Considering the impact of customer inventory management, our underlying business performance has improved with an estimated 6% organic sales growth and an estimated 8% adjusted EPS growth year over year. Our free cash flow generation continues to be very robust and our balance sheet remains strong. And we’ve continued to invest organically in the business and through portfolio-enhancing investments while returning capital to shareholders through a growing dividend and reducing our share count.

And we’re slightly raising the midpoint of our guidance for the year. So with that, we’ll now open up the call for your questions.

OPERATOR

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If your question has been answered and you would like to withdraw your question, please press the star one key again. 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, please stand by as we compile the Q&A roster.

Your first question comes from the line of George Staphos with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

George Staphos (Analyst at Bank of America)

Hi everyone. Good morning. Thanks for the details. My question is on margin trends. If you could unpack a bit of what happened in both segments. Specifically within materials, can you talk about the mix effects with the destocking? That would seem to help mix, especially with high value growing at I think you said mix was a little bit lower. And then within solutions, can you talk about the productivity benefits and how sturdy those are on a going-forward basis?

The performance here was quite good. Thank you guys.

Greg Levens (Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)

Thanks, George, for your question. Yeah, overall in Materials group, when we look at margins from a year-over-year perspective, largely in line with our expectations, but down about a point from where they were a year ago. And again, as I said in the prepared remarks, the primary driver of that was the pricing impact on the margin percentage calculation. As our focus, as you know, over an inflationary cycle is to really cover the dollars of inflation through both material re-engineering as well as pricing.

And then when we’re in the deflationary part of a cycle, margins would improve in that instance if we’re passing back inflation as well, and the margin percentage would improve. So throughout a cycle generally, even margins across the cycle of inflation. At the same time, year over year, we did have a bit of an incentive compensation headwind, as last year, obviously, as you know, we were performing below our original expectations. And then mix was just a slight impact, I think, in the quarter on a net basis.

Overall, we did have destocking which was more in the base. We also had some share gain in the base though, so overall not a major impact. And our growth in the base was also strong, just like it was in high value categories within Materials group. On Solutions group, overall we’re continuing to drive strong productivity. The majority of our restructuring benefits are in the Solutions group as well. That team has been driving a significant number of actions to grow and improve their margins. And I think we’ve said over time, even back to the 2024 Investor Day, that we see continued margin opportunities within Solutions and we’re continuing to drive towards that. So overall we do expect to continue driving those strong margins in the Solutions business.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from the line of Ghansham Punjabi with Baird. Please proceed with your question.

Ghansham Punjabi (Analyst at Baird)

Thank you and good morning everybody. You know, I understand that, you know, destocking is obviously very tricky and it can mask a lot of things in terms of the underlying dynamics in terms of growth. But what do you, how would you characterize the end markets for materials segment overall? You know, a lot of your peers are calling out incremental consumer weakness. The same is being called out at consumer staples companies on a multi-region basis.

What are you seeing, Dion? And I’m getting at, you know, really the trend line going into 2027. Thank you.

Dion Stander (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, Ghansham. I think, you know, what we see right at the moment hasn’t fundamentally changed. If you look at where GDP and retail sector sales volume, they are roughly 2% and 1% respectively. And we don’t necessarily see that fundamentally changing as we move forward unless the material change in the macro. I think if I break it down by our individual customer segments, overall end customers for our Materials group being largely CPGs and then some of our industrial customers.

I still think there’s a degree of caution just given the inflationary environment. We have started to see a little bit of unit volume expansion in CPGs, but it’s still very muted, still, you know, below 1% but at least seemingly picked up from last year where it was typically flat, and mostly really what we’re talking, we’re seeing it both in HPC and food as well. Majority of our converting customers around the world say that they’re not necessarily seeing any signs of significant growth from CPGs at the moment.

That could change as we move forward, but most of them are managing with the constraints of where they are at the moment. If I turn to, and I’ll just address this now, if I turn to our customers more on the Solutions side of the business, our retailers, I think generally retailers overall still remain cautiously focused on what the consumer is going to do in this next six months. Given again the high inflation, I know in our apparel customers, and we’ve talked to them, they’ve had as expected back-to-schools not too bad, most of it relatively price-driven. And the outlook for holiday is also pretty cautious.

But they’re expecting some growth, again largely on price. What we’re hearing is clear signs of bifurcation of consumer behavior. That’s not surprising given where the inflationary pressures are at the moment and, of course, we remain vigilant looking at how inflation and price dynamics will play out consistently between this quarter as we go into next year as well. I think the biggest watch-out that we’re continuing to look at is just how does both the broader geopolitical situation unfold as well as the subsequent impacts on inflationary and including bond yields as well.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from the line of John McNulty with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

John McNulty (Analyst at BMO Capital Markets)

Yeah, thanks for taking my question. Maybe one on Intelligent Labels. By the sound of the Walmart ramp, etc., it looked like 4Q you should have a decent inflection. I guess as you’re looking out a little bit farther to 2027, can you speak to some of the pros and cons that you’re seeing at least at this point, maybe annualizing some of the logistics headwinds or at least difficult comps, the ramp in food, and it sounds like you’ve got some increased pilots in logistics as well as maybe a new grocer in terms of a new expanse.

I guess can you unpack that a little bit for us as well? Thanks very much.

Dion Stander (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Sure, John. Let me actually deal with Walmart right up front because it’s a key part of our growth algorithm as we move forward. You know, we remain highly confident in the opportunity around Fresh and actually strong progress across all of our customer pipeline regarding the Walmart Fresh program. Our confidence there has always been based in our experience that they have with RFID in driving material change to their business. The ROI for them is very strong.

They see that across the categories they’ve implemented already and they continue to believe that’s the case when they roll out Fresh overall. I actually recently met with their leadership team where this commitment to the technology was reaffirmed as well. You know, as is typical with sort of large-scale deployments, these timelines can sometimes vary quarter to quarter and in this case the start dates for this program have moved past the second half.

We’re expecting nearly the commercial ramp as we go through ’27. And we’re continuing to work right now very closely with the deployment team on what are the key commercialization milestones as we look forward. I will say in addition to that, we’re also seeing significant traction, as you highlighted, within the food category. I’m very pleased that we have a third large grocer now in the early stages, commercial rollout. And we expect that to accelerate as we go through the fourth quarter into next year as well. And it really, to me, reinforces my conviction in the long-term opportunity of this end-market segment. We have more pilots, more trials happening in food overall, largely focused on Fresh, largely focused on the benefits that get driven from lower inventory, higher fresh product, less markdowns, greater labor productivity in stores.

If I look at the other segments overall, you know, we touched on the fact that we’re going through that period where particularly in logistics, particularly with our largest customer, we’re seeing double-digit declines largely on the share normalization that we talked about earlier during the year, which started somewhat in the end part of the first quarter and as we get through the end of the year will be largely mitigated. We continue to see an increase in pilots in logistics overall and, again, timing of those which are highly independent, specifically to each logistics company, depending on whether they look at first mile or last mile, will still play a key part in our thinking as we look into next year. Overall, I’d say more generally if I took a step back, apparel, retail and general merchandise continues to be positive. That’s largely on new customers that we’ve driven early in the year, some customers also in the later part of this year.

And what we should see is the aggregated benefit of those rollouts as we go into next year. You will recall that in our Investor Day event, I did make the point that we’re anticipating, you know, sort of double-digit growth over the next couple of years in order to get to our growth algorithm as we laid out.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from the line of Josh Spector with UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Josh Spector (Analyst at UBS)

Yeah, hi, good morning. I’d just be curious on the material side, going back to margins, where are you kind of on the price/cost journey, I guess. How much was that a positive or negative in 3Q? What’s baked in the fourth quarter and are we at the point where you’re more than covering it or is there still some catch-up you’d expect that carries into 2027? Thank you.

Greg Levens (Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, I think when we look sequentially from Q2 to Q3, we continue to see a bit of deflation sequentially, particularly in paper, I think that is probably low single digit—or inflation, I should say. Sorry. From Q2 to Q3 largely from paper. And we had some sequential pricing that impacted Q2 to Q3 as well. I think overall when we look at the combination of material cost re-engineering and pricing, still largely on a dollar basis covering the impacts of the inflation.

Percentage basis, it’s a little bit different, as I talked about earlier, but on a dollar basis looking to cover that. And we feel good about the progress we’ve made on that. And, you know, while we expect a relatively stable raw material basket right now from Q3 to Q4, there’s still a lot of uncertainty there. So we continue to track that and we’ll evolve from a pricing perspective as we see how those markets move as we go through the fourth quarter.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Zukauskas with J.P. Morgan. Your line is open. Please proceed with your question.

Jeff Zukauskas (Analyst at J.P. Morgan)

Thanks very much. A two-part question. How fast do you expect your food and logistics intelligent labels business to grow next year? And do you think the growth will be even through the four quarters? That is, it will start strongly in the first quarter and continue? Or is there a different cadence? And then for Greg, cost of goods sold is rising faster than your sales now and propylene values are up. You talked about paper costs going up sequentially. Are your prices also moving up sequentially in the fourth quarter? And do you see more cost inflation and more price inflation? Thank you.

Dion Stander (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks, Jeff. I’ll deal with the first and Greg can deal with the second. Just on our IL food growth specifically, we’re expecting robust growth as we go through next year. And given the timing of some of the rollouts — some we’re already seeing now, some will start as we go through the beginning part of next year — I’d say generally the phasing, and we’ll still confirm this as we get into January when we have our next discussion, is likely to still be a general ramp as we go through the year.

Overall, I think the thing that stands out for me in food overall is you have three large grocers now actively engaged in this with multiple small pilots and trials happening. In addition, that’s also geographically spread across the world — not just in the United States, it’s in Europe as well. We’re seeing a lot more action and activity, so I feel very good in terms of the opportunity ahead of us. Just a reminder, this is still a 200 billion unit at least market space and we are at the start of this adoption curve.

And so I think while timing of this can always move around, particularly in the early stages of adoption, the secular growth drivers support really a significant growth opportunity as we move forward. You know, the whole concept that freshness drives consumer engagement in-store and that the availability of fresher products makes a material difference to consumers I think is a key piece that retailers are increasingly picking up on.

Greg Levens (Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)

Jeff, on cost of sales, as I mentioned a minute ago, we did continue to see inflation sequentially Q2 to Q3. From a year-over-year perspective, we’re looking at mid or mid- to high-single-digit inflation in the third quarter versus where we were a year ago. And we’ve got, on an overall company basis, a couple points of price to go with that to help offset that inflation, in addition to material cost re-engineering that I talked about earlier. So I think overall from a material cost/price perspective, we’re managing that very well. As I mentioned a second ago to Josh’s question, we are seeing obviously incremental merit-based wage inflation year over year, as we talked about a quarter ago as well, and we’re managing that by driving productivity to help offset that. We do have some incentive comps; some of that goes into manufacturing expense as well that impacts us year over year also.

But I think overall our teams are focused on driving gross profits. When we look at gross profit percentage year over year, it’s down a bit, again largely based on the pricing math that we see in Materials Group, but continuing to make progress on the Solutions side from a gross margin perspective.

Dion Stander (President and Chief Executive Officer)

And Jeff, the only thing I’d add on top of that is, in terms of how the actions the team are taking in terms of matching price and cost overall across the cycle, it’s also worth noting that since last year we’ve generally gained share in our Materials business across most regions. And I think that’s because some of the drivers we’re seeing out in the market in terms of secular drivers around sustainability, as customers and end customers are needing to get to adherence on things like the PPWR and extended producer responsibility requirements coming up in the next couple of years.

We’re seeing a significant drive towards more filmic products where we have an advantage — we’re more vertically integrated — and we’re also seeing much more emphasis on how we’re able to help both our converting customers as well as our end customers. I also think I called that in the last time: part of our share gain has also come from typically when things get more uncertain, and where there is more material pricing inflation that you see out in the markets, we tend to see a natural orientation towards ourselves — the largest player with the most global reach and the most consistent service and quality.

And that typically also supports a case for our customers reaching out to us as well.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from the line of John Dunnigan with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

John Dunnigan (Analyst at Jefferies)

Thank you very much. Appreciate all the details, Dion and Greg, and congrats on the quarter. I want to start off with the destocking. One of your label peers called out very large industry declines quarter over quarter in the European market, which looks like it’s giving back more than the Q2 gains the market had. Just wondering if this is what you’re seeing, how that compares to your portfolio, and maybe if you’ve seen more destocking there — if it’s maybe destocking that you expect in North America to catch up more so here in the fourth quarter.

Dion Stander (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, thanks for the question, John. So overall, the stocking/destocking cycle that we’ve seen has largely been in Europe as well as parts of Asia. And when we look at Asia, we saw some stock build in Q2. We think we’re mostly through that destocking by the end of the third quarter, for the most part. In Europe, we saw stock building in Q2, some of that coming out in the third quarter — not to the same extent as the stocking we saw in Q2, though.

And that’s where largely we expect the remaining destocking in the fourth quarter to come out of Europe. So I would say that when you look at the chart we included in our slides, you can see that the impact in the second quarter is about double the impact that we saw coming out in the third quarter. So overall, we expect the back half to kind of offset the first-half destocking for the most part. So certainly a bigger impact on stock build in Q2 than we saw destocking happening in the third quarter.

Greg Levens (Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)

And John, just the only thing I’d add to that is, in that third quarter, what we saw really was destocking in Europe starting to happen a little bit in August, but really accelerating in September, and we continue to see that in October, giving us large confidence that most of it will be done by the time we get to the end of the fourth quarter.

OPERATOR

Our next question comes from the line of Mike Roxlin with Truist Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Mike Roxlin (Analyst at Truist Securities)

Thank you, Dion, Greg, for taking my question. Dion, just wanted to follow up. In terms of intelligent labels, one of your chip suppliers mentioned that there could be another leg of growth with a large retailer through beauty, personal care, and over-the-counter meds right now, which have low penetration. So realizing that food is still your largest end market with most growth potential, we’d love to get your thoughts around that potential expansion and expanding the collaboration with that particular retailer.

Dion Stander (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, Mike, one of — you know, we don’t often talk about some of the adjacent segments to general retail overall in specific detail because the other segments are so large in terms of logistics, food, and apparel, and general retail we lump together. We do have a number of pilots underway with specific beauty providers as well, where we’re really focused on trying to understand how we can get to the same outcomes in retail that we typically see in apparel, which is really availability on shelf of items.

And there’s a separate case that sits behind that for even loss visibility as well. You know, as we continue to see some traction there, we’ll continue to provide information on the opportunity — we currently see it in all of a general retail, general merchandise opportunity. And if there are specific retailers that are that way orientated, we’re going to continue to work with them to make sure that we can bring some of the solutions that we’ve clearly seen in apparel and make them available in the beauty segment as well.

OPERATOR

Our next question comes from the line of Matt Roberts with Raymond James. Please proceed with your question.

Matt Roberts (Analyst at Raymond James)

Dion, Greg, good morning. Total apparel was up mid-single digits. How did intelligent labels apparel specifically compare to that? How much of the variance, if there was one, was due to new programs versus maybe higher growth or share gains from certain customers? Given the implied double-digit IL growth in 27–28, what are your assumptions for apparel markets, or what are you seeing given, you know, some caution around holidays? So what gives you confidence on the apparel side of that?

Thanks for taking the question.

Dion Stander (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Sure, Matt. I think overall our apparel growth in the third quarter was robust, largely on some of the new programs that we’ve been rolling out, and we’re going to anticipate seeing that also continue in the fourth quarter and roll over into next year as well. There’s at least one of the world’s largest value retailers involved in one of those programs, as well as a couple of other customers. That’s both on the rollout of RFID, and then we continue to see additional traction on some of our loss visibility solution that we’ve used historically with somebody like Inditex.

We’ve seen more traction with other customers, though. So overall my view is apparel is going to continue to be a growth driver for us as we go through 27, and we should see continued momentum during that time as well.

Greg Levens (Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)

The only thing I would add to that, Matt, is that when we look at apparel in the third quarter, intelligent labels were up roughly double digits, our Embelex was up roughly mid-single digits, and apparel base was up low single digits. So that’s the composition within the overall apparel growth in the quarter.

OPERATOR

Our next question comes from the line of Anthony Pettinari with Citigroup. Please proceed with your question.

Anthony Pettinari (Analyst at Citigroup)

Good morning. I was wondering, you raised your restructuring savings target to over 65 million and I think you started out the year at 50. Is there any way we should think about maybe rollover or kind of like further momentum on restructuring savings into 27, or maybe like incremental cash costs as that target has gone higher? And just any kind of comments on just sort of the activities that you’re undertaking and where you are in that process?

Greg Levens (Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, thanks, Anthony. I think, as you said, we raised that number slightly here for the year, and we’ve delivered a pretty strong amount of savings already through the third quarter. So most of the cost that goes with that savings that we’re talking about will be in this year, of course, or some of that may be the end of last year with the carryover. But overall we feel good about the projects that the teams are driving and the progress we’re making there.

And both groups are continuing to find ways to drive productivity, especially in what’s been a pretty uncertain environment as we’ve gone through this year, and our teams have accelerated the pace of their actions. When we look at next year, certainly there’ll be some carryover related to the actions that we’re driving this year. I would say that carryover is in the 20% or $0.20 or so impact when we look year over year into 2027.

OPERATOR

Our next question comes from the line of Hilary Kakanondo with Deutsche Bank Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Hilary Kakanondo (Analyst at Deutsche Bank Securities)

Hi, thanks for taking my question. So at the HVC showcase last month you had said the Food RFID pipeline was up about 40% year over year. So, you know, with a new third large grocer now moving into the early stages of commercialization, where does the pipeline stand today? And are you continuing to see similar growth as opportunities convert into commercial programs?

Dion Stander (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks for the question, Hilary. Yes, in our pipeline measurement mechanism, once somebody moves to commercialization, the dollar denomination for that whole program moves out of the pipeline into rollout. That’s the way we measure it, which means that the dollar denomination for the rest of the pipeline that is not there yet—clearly if it’s a very big one—goes down slightly. But the number of customers that we have in pipeline has actually gone up since that time as well.

OPERATOR

Our next question comes from the line of George Staphos with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

George Staphos (Analyst at Bank of America)

Hi everyone, thanks for taking the follow on. I just wanted to confirm with Intelligent Labels that the large retail customer that you were piloting the largest, that the rollout is now, as you put it, is taking maybe a little bit more time and going into 27, but nonetheless you still feel affirmed that the growth year on year in IL will be roughly double digits and also along the lines of intelligent value added, high value added within solutions.

Can you talk about how important some of the programs that retailers are trialing in terms of specific individual pricing strategies are to Vescom’s growth longer term and what you’re seeing in terms of, you know, retailer willingness to pursue these programs or maybe some hesitancy that’s been coming out in some of the trade press recently. Thanks guys and good luck in the quarter. Thanks.

Dion Stander (President and Chief Executive Officer)

George. Yes is the short answer to your question on the Walmart account specifically. We’ve seen the timing move just slightly and we’re going to see the ramp really starting in 2027. And the teams are working very closely on kind of what those commercialization milestones look like, which, supported by the additional third growth that we have and the amount of pilots and trials, I feel very confident in what we’re going to see come through from Food next year to support that double digit growth that we talked about as well.

George, as it relates to kind of Vescom specifically, I think if you recall at the investor showcase day that we did recently, one of the growth drivers that we’re seeing for Vescom at the moment has been the lean forward that we’ve been able to get out of our new software solution that we have with them. And in that regard, the Stalling software which, as you recall, basically takes all sorts of data through a data composition engine and basically puts it out to either an ESL or an analog label overall.

And part of that new software-as-a-service role is actually now commencing with a very significant U.S. grocery retailer as well. So we feel good about that. Typically the margins that we see in those business are at a premium and they’re more software related, and they’re able to resolve significant issues. At the moment I don’t hear, George, that there are retailers considering any programs that are driving automation and efficiency in-store to be reduced.

What we’ve seen actually is the opposite of that. We’ve seen more interest in how some of the solutions that we provide or other solutions in the market are going to be able to be accelerated just given where the macro environment is at the moment as well.

OPERATOR

Our next question comes from the line of John Dunnigan with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

John Dunnigan (Analyst at Jefferies)

Thank you guys, appreciate you taking the follow up. I just wanted to go back to one of your major chip suppliers and some of their comments. They talked about maybe having some shipping constraints and backlogs for some of their customers that have extended into 1Q27. Just wondering if you’ve seen any kind of bottlenecking issues and maybe that’s what’s caused some of the push out in IL. And then if you could just talk briefly on the lowered CAPEX guide, what drove that and if that delta is being pushed into 2027.

Dion Stander (President and Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you, John. I’m not going to comment on an individual partner supplier’s outlook, but what I will say is we’re not seeing any bottlenecks. One of the great strengths that we have as a business, being the majority provider in the world, is that we’re able to balance supply and demand in a very effective way. It’s the reason why many of the programs have historically started with us as well. And we continue to invest ourselves in our capital efficiency of our assets as well.

We’re continuing to see more productive output and part of that is to make sure that when there are surges that not only do we have availability of raw materials, which we have, but also that we’re able to meet those shorter-term demands. And we’re going to continue to do that because we believe that as leaders in activating these new segments we have to be prepared should they move at any one point in time.

Greg Levens (Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, John, on your second question, I wouldn’t say there’s any one big reason CapEx is a bit lower. I think it’s really just largely timing of projects. And when we look at this year, we’ve had quite a bit of, because of the stocking cycle that happened in the first half—particularly Q2—and destocking that we’re seeing now, our teams have been pretty focused on managing those swings in volumes. So when we look at the Materials group from Q2 to Q3, roughly 10-point swing in volumes from one quarter to the next.

So our teams have been focused on managing those swings within the supply chain, and that’s likely pushed some of the timing of projects back a little bit. But no major changes in our ongoing views on CapEx and where we’re making our investments, and we’re going to continue to invest for growth and continue to invest for productivity.

OPERATOR

Our last question comes from the line of John McNulty with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

John McNulty (Analyst at BMO Capital Markets)

Yeah, thanks for taking my follow up and just wanted to drill down into the free cash generation just maybe a little bit more. It looks like year to date you’re actually above last year’s total and I know normally your 4Q tends to be one of, if not the biggest, cash generating quarters. So I guess anything odd about the cadence this year, the strength that you saw in the 3Q results, or should we just assume that you’re executing well, you’re tightening things up, and the cash flow should continue to kind of come in at the normal, normal kind of cadence?

Greg Levens (Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah. Thanks, John. So to your point, I mean I think we are executing well across the business. We’ve talked, I think a few quarters ago, about our focus on getting working capital productivity, and our teams have been doing a good job there. Particular inventory turns have improved as we move throughout the year. So we are driving and delivering on that working capital productivity we were targeting, and that’s one big driver of it. I would say from a year-to-date perspective one of the shifts is that, you know, I’ve talked about the headwind we have from a cost perspective on incentive compensation year over year. We also then had less cash payouts in the first quarter of this year from an incentive compensation perspective—so from a cash flow perspective in this year related to last year’s incentive comp accruals. So I think that’s one timing factor. But otherwise we would expect to continue to deliver by 100% conversion for 2026 here.

OPERATOR

Mr. Gilchrist, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to you for any closing remarks.

William Gilchrist (Vice President of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Chase. On behalf of everyone at Avery Dennison I want to thank you for joining today’s call and for your continued interest in our company. As always, we’re happy to address any follow up questions you may have. Thank you again.

OPERATOR

And this concludes today’s conference call, ladies and gentlemen. That does conclude the conference call for today. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your line.

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