Ahead of Associated British Foods PLC (LSE:ABF) releasing a trading update on Monday, the Primark owner's shares have been on the front foot as they recover from last autumn's near-decade low.
Analysts and investors will be keen to hear about the click-and-collect trial across 25 stores in the UK, as the budget-fashion chain dips its toe into online retailing.
It should expect to benefit from improving trading momentum as previous headwinds "turn into tailwinds", according to analysts at Shore Capital.
Primark has been trading well recently, leading to raised margin guidance in the interim results in April, even though first-half profits were flattened as strong sales were offset by inflationary pressures.
For the full year, ABF management guided to Primark adjusted operating profit "broadly in line with the previous financial year" and modestly ahead of last year for its Food businesses.
Clive Black, Shore Cap's head of consumer research, said he would be surprised to see guidance upped for Primark albeit he noted warm weather in the British Isles may have made for good seasonal sales in Primark's core market and maybe more varied in Europe.
"There is a spring in Primark's step helped, of course, by better trading but also the return of the store versus the brick wall that pureplay apparrel has hit, especially fast fashion that is also competing with Shein."
In the grocery business, Black said price recovery has been the "key economic dynamic," with revenues driven by inflation but at some challenge to volumes.
"We shall be interested to see if anticipated margin improvement is on track in H2," he said, adding that "longtime stars of the show" Twinings and Ovaltine have recently recorded more mixed trading momentum, the latter in Asia.
"In the UK, we shall be interested to see if Allied Bakeries has sustained the muted improvement in trading from H1. The grocery activities of ABF in the USA have been performing well, and we would expect this to continue in H2, orbit forming tough comparatives for FY24."
Ingredients and agriculture are much smaller arms, but Sugar is a larger business.
However, Black said he did not anticipate significant new news on ABF's sugar activities, "where there are always a lot of moving parts with the stars rarely all being aligned, noting a poor recent UK beet crop but better volumes from Illlovo in Africa".
Overall, sugar markets have been "more balanced" of late, "but ABF is not immune from the impact of elevated energy costs in this sector".
This update FY23 results, we shall be keen to see if ABF reiterates its earnings expectation of broadly flat year on year.”
Shore Capi estimates point to full-year profit before tax of £1.39bn converting to earnings per share of 131.7p.