Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for holding and welcome to the Sligro Food Group event call. During the presentation, all participants will be in listen-only mode, and later we will conduct a question and answer session. I would like to hand over the conference to Mr. Rob van der Sluijs. Go ahead please, sir.
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our update on the annual figures 2018. I will start indeed with a short presentation, and I will use the slide deck, which you could download from our website on the annual figures. I will run through that presentation and try to keep it briefly so we have sufficient room for questions later on. I would like to start with the analysis of our net sales figures on slide number 2. We can see we had a good year with a 9.5% net sales increase. What we see continuously is that the growth is fueled by the delivery part of the business and that the cash and carry market, also a trend in the market, is slightly declining. That means in the total setup of our business that the increasing part is the delivery business.
Now almost 70% of the turnover in our food service business is online and delivery. If we move on to the next slide, we see the technical analysis of the net sales figure, because this year was characterized by a number of specific, more incidental items that also hit top line and also later on, maybe some items in the P&L. To start with the net sales, as mentioned a few times before, in the period 2016, 2017, because of all the scandals in Asia, especially on the baby powder, milk powder, a big chunk of turnover was created from the Dutch market into the Asian market. We never exported ourselves, but we had a number of customers that we had an agreement with together with a producer of these products, and we were the intermediate to facilitate these export volumes of milk powder to Asia.
That peaked around the summer of 2017. From that moment onwards, the scale down of this turnover started, and has now come to complete stop. At the peak, it was roughly EUR 30 million in turnover in the second half of 2017, already decreased by EUR 10 million and the remaining EUR 20 million is now out of our numbers by the end of 2018. From next year onwards, no effects to be expected in this area. Also we made the decision not to start up this type of business again because it significantly influences and hampers visibility on the true development of our business.
On the other end, we also had some impacts due to changes in the accounting principles, specifically IFRS 15 revenue recognition, where we saw the way we accounted for our setup with our fresh partners, but also the signing fee to our customers should have a negative impact on turnover development in total EUR 25 million. If we clean up the turnover development for these items, true development of the underlying business is visible, and that is what we call other organic. It is not an official accounting term, but we think that is the best representation and best comparable figure to the market development. That growth was a little over 3%, and with that, we were roughly in line with market development in both the Netherlands and Belgium. Of course, the non-organic growth from acquisitions.
The acquisition of Heineken, we started to consolidate Heineken from December 2017 onwards. It means 11 months remaining in 2018 were non-organic. For ISPC, that was four months, and for Tintelingen small Christmas gift enterprise, that was six months. That's the total on sales. On the sheet thereafter, you can see the geographical split to the Netherlands and Belgium. I would like to move on to sheet number 5, where we can see that we have outperformed both the market in the Netherlands and into Belgium, improving market share in both these geographical areas. If I move on to gross margin on sheet number 6, of course, all these impacts on revenue just explained also will have an impact on the mixture in gross margin profitability. Another important aspect was the dis-synergy on food service resulting from the EMTÉ disposal mid this year.
As a result of that disposal, suddenly half of the purchasing volume of EMTÉ disappeared, resulting in some dis-synergies. We didn't meet all the thresholds for bonuses and promotional campaigns with our suppliers, which were also hitting food service a little bit. We expect that that impact was somewhere between EUR 7 million-EUR 8 million in dis-synergy. In the meantime, we are renegotiating the deals for 2019 with our suppliers. We expect that we can take away at least half of that negative impact for 2019. After that, we expect these effects will be fully gone, and we will have no visible dis-synergy left on that line. On the other hand, we saw that, of course, in 2018, we've experienced a relatively high cost inflation, especially on transportation and staffing costs.
In our model, fortunately, we usually can pass on this inflation in the pricing towards our customers. The impact and the sudden increase in these costs was a bit too big to pass it on to the customers immediately. In small steps, we can pass it on, increasing gross margin that compensates increase in costs. The last thing I want to tell about the gross margin is the improvement that we create through better promotional margins as a result of our data program. It's called Sligro Insights. We sell and use the data that we have in our database at Sligro to help our suppliers create better promotional offers for our customers. It means that they can do it much more focused and much more targeted, which means they can give us better deals as Sligro and also give our customers better deals.
In that way, everybody profits from this way of working based on good data and data analysis. That is already for the second year in a row, supporting gross margin improvement for the group. If we then look at the other operating income for two years in a row, relatively high number of other operating income, sheet number 7. Last year, we had the one-off book profit on the sale of Beer Insider to Heineken as part of the total deal with them. This year, the operating income has EUR 8 million of revenue from the consortium of Jumbo and Coop. During the year that they are transitioning and pay into their own formats, we agreed that we would support them from the Sligro headquarters for the remaining EMTÉ stores. For these services, we get these fees. That is EUR 8 million in total.
Our total deal will end ultimately in June of this year, we will have some revenue from that stream, afterwards it will be gone. If we then move on to the costs or to the expenses, if we look at the expenses, that is in the total of expenses, depreciation, and amortization, we see an increase of EUR 113 million. Of course, that is consolidation effect of the Heineken business on the one hand. On the other hand, we also see underlying price trends increasing significantly, especially in transportation and staffing in the warehousing, we have seen significant cost increases. It took us a little while during the year to either pass that on in the pricing to customers or find new ways to improve efficiency in our operations to cover those costs. That is still an ongoing process going into 2019.
If we now look at the exceptional items in the cost lines, two, I wanted to note explicitly. One is, of course, the non-recurring cost for the separation of EMTÉ and the dis-synergy. It says here the total of EUR 12 million, but that includes the gross margin part of EUR 7 million- EUR 8 million. It means we have EUR 5 million in costs as dis-synergy or non-recurring, also there we expect to fade that out in 2019. By 2020, that will be gone to the larger extent. In relation to that, it also means downscaling the operation in our central headquarters. We already announced a reorganization program. The total cost of the program are estimated to be EUR 17 million. They are all accounted for in the year 2018, although execution of the program still runs in 2019.
There is no profit and loss hit expected from this program because all the costs are incurred in 2018. If we then take a closer look at depreciation and amortization on sheet number 9, if we look to the amortization part, we see that the customer contracts is from EUR 6 million to zero. That is in relation to the IFRS change I mentioned under the net revenue or net sales figure as well. These upfront customer bonuses are no longer accounted for as an investment in the contract, but they are accounted for as prepaid bonuses and thereby now charged to the net sales instead of amortization. They are now completely gone as an amortization item. The customer store locations, that is the effect of the customer portfolio we acquired for Heineken.
We chose to account for acquisitions as much as possible in terms of value of customer portfolio or locations. We amortize that over a period of, in the case of Heineken, 15 years. That means we have an additional EUR 5 million charge as amortization in the P&L, but there is no recurring CapEx related to that amortization, of course. If we then go to the lower part of this sheet on the tax, we see a significant lower number. That's one, because the incidental items mentioned before depress the net profit number, so less taxes to be paid.
On the other end, the Dutch government decided to approve the corporate income tax rate in the Netherlands, which will be decreased to a lower level over the next three years. That means that the deferred tax liability was reduced, giving a one-off relief in the tax payable in this year, roughly EUR 4 million in size. That's why we had much lower taxes. If we then look to the EBIT number, I would like to explain it based on the table on sheet number 11, where we see the same numbers as we recognize from the P&L. We have three main items, one in 2017 and two in 2018, that are regarded by us as non-operational, being the book profit on the Heineken turnover in 2017 and the carve-out of EMTÉ and the synergies and the cost of the reorganizations in 2018.
If we compensate for that, we see that underlying operating profit is at EUR 82 million year-on-year. In a year where we changed so much, we are not that dissatisfied with this outcome. On the other hand, we've grown our top line with EUR 200 million. In relation to that, of course, this is a bit of a meager number. All in all, with the EUR 82 million bottom line, well, it's okay-ish for us. Of course, 2019 is all about doing that a little bit better again. Graphically, it is shown on page number 12, but it's the same as I told before. Moving on to sheet number 13. The profit for the continued operations is EUR 46 million. Of course, the total profit from the business that we disposed of, the EMTÉ business this year, including the transaction result, is EUR 230 million.
On the right-hand side, you can see the total profit for the group was EUR 276 million this year. It made no sense to give the split up in our dividends on the regular part and the variable part as a result of all these incidental elements in the result. We decided to keep the dividend stable and comparable to the level of last year at EUR 1.40 per share, of which we already passed on an interim dividend earlier in 2018 of EUR 0.55 per share. EUR 0.85 still to be paid in 2019 to complete the dividend. Of course, that is besides the non-recurring special dividend that we already paid out in 2018 in relation to the EMTÉ deal of EUR 7.57 per share, which we did in August of 2018.
If we look at the cash flow statement, there's a lot of special items also here, of course. This is the cash flow statement for the group as a whole, which means that the total deal and EMTÉ related cash flows are also part of this transaction. There we see the disposal of operating activities of EUR 348 million, which is, on the one hand, the EUR 275 million which we got for the EMTÉ business, but also EUR 74 million compensation for the working capital that remained at Sligro. There we see more or less a change because the operating activities cash flow shows really low. In fact, the EUR 74 million compensation that we got in investing activities is to compensate for that decrease.
All in all, still a relatively strong free cash flow, as you can see at the bottom of over EUR 100 million again in 2018. The net capital expenditure is also relatively low as we look here, so the CapEx. That is a result, of course, also of the disposal of the EMTÉ property on the one hand, but also we are investing in our delivery network in the Netherlands to be able to integrate Heineken. That doesn't mean we will keep all the distribution centers on our books. We dispose of this special distribution center to a real estate party and got a 15-year lease in return under favorable conditions. If the conditions are favorable, we do not necessarily want to hold on to the real estate, and we will find alternative solutions, then freeing up, of course, cash for either further investment in the business.
Maybe looking a little bit ahead already based on slide number 15, because we explained that 2018 was impacted by changes under IFRS 15, especially on the net sales. In 2016, of course, the lease accounting standard will come into effect, and that will have a significant impact on a number of lines in our P&L. All in all, net profit, we will see hardly any effect. Of course, on EBIT lines and also in the balance sheet, we will have a big impact. The capitalization of the lease assets and the related liabilities will increase the balance sheet with roughly EUR 170 million, EUR 175 million on either side.
On the other hand, as operating lease payments are now going to be transferred into amortization and interest payments on the other hand, we will have significant impact on EBITDA and also a little bit on EBIT, as explained here in the sheet. Of course, from a cash flow perspective, nothing changes to the situation today. Also from a risk profile, nothing changes to the company from the situation today. We still have the lease contracts. We have to do monthly or quarterly lease payments, but they are accounted for differently in both the balance sheet and the P&L of the group. So that's an early warning. There's a more elaborate story about this in our annual reports, which we will publish on February 5th. These are the main impacts of this new accounting standard.
We then look to sheet 17, a few sheets further, there we can see the summary of the total discontinued operations, so the EMTÉ business in this year, which had a EUR 4 million profit in the first half of 2018 when it was still under ownership of Sligro. After that, of course, we had a transaction with the consortium of Jumbo and Coop, totaling to a total of EUR 230 million from discontinued operation as expressed before. If we then look at some of the market developments on sheet 19, we can see the development of the market in the Netherlands. This is the market measured by the Foodservice Instituut Nederland. It is accounted for in consumer sales, and we have to derive the wholesale value from that perspective.
Based on our insights provided partly by Foodservice Instituut Nederland, but also Statistics Netherlands, we estimate that our markets, the wholesale market, has increased somewhere between 2.5%-3%. With our underlying growth of 3.1%, it means that we more or less were in line with market development. Of course, through the acquisition of Heineken, we outperformed the market as a whole and took market share. If we then move on to sheet 21, we see a similar picture for the Belgian market. There it's Food Service Alliance that provides the information with the wholesale market growing at 3.8% and our performance of 3.5%. We were very much in line with market development in Belgium.
As we increased sales with the acquisition of ISPC, at least for a period of four months, we had a growth of more than 14% and clearly outperformed market there. Again, increased market share in Belgium as well. If we then look at more trends in the markets amongst our customers on the next slide 22, we see that there are increasing shortages of labor in the markets. When we talked about our cost development, I explained a little bit that scarcity on drivers and warehouse personnel has increased costs for us. We see similar patterns among our customers. Especially among the cooks in the restaurant, there's a big shortage in that, which increases the need for more convenience and more service from the food service suppliers, which creates, of course, an opportunity for us to assist our customers in those areas as well.
It is becoming more difficult and more challenging for our customers in the market, and that's where we have to step up and find solutions for them. In Belgium, we see more or less the similar pattern as in the Netherlands. We see that the pressure on the market amongst our customers is leading to reconsidering opening times and changing perspective in terms of the offering from them to the market. That's, of course, where we can step in as a food service supplier and help them. The trend that has been going on for already a number of years is that we see that the boundaries between food service and food retail, both from a customer but also from a supplier perspective, are blurring, and new entrants are coming into the market. Our customer behavior is, in that sense, volatile.
They continuously shift from out of home and at home spending, which fuels the further blurring of the market as such. If we then look at our own developments on slide number 24, in the Netherlands, most important, already mentioned the sales performance and the developments in our markets. Maybe to highlight the cash and carry here, we see that it's slightly under pressure, roughly -1% top line development. We still see that the cash and carry is a very relevant place to visit for our customers, also if they are mainly delivery customers. A big part of them still actively visits our cash and carry store.
Looking at a landscape where the market is already in decline, and we think that will continue for a number of years on the cash and carry side, we are, of course, looking how to redevelop our Sligro 3.0 format to withstand these changes over time. That means making it more relevant for our customer, adding different services, but also looking at the cost structure and the network size of the stores in the Netherlands and Belgium going forward. To make sure that we can still have the combination, we call that clicks and bricks, or we could call it omni-channel approach, whatever name you want to put on it. We really believe that the combination of cash and carry and delivery is one of the things that makes us unique. So we want to have it, but of course, it needs to be at a cost-efficient way.
That's what we're going to work on, also in the next couple of years in the Sligro 3.0 format. If we look at the delivery side on the next slide, we saw a strong growth already for many years. Out of the deal with EMTÉ , we also got the contract for the La Place restaurants, which are in the ownership of Jumbo. We also started that business halfway the year, which added some EUR 15 million in sales, which was very positive from both sides. We are happy to have such a nice customer in our portfolio. We do, however, see there was a lot of pressure last year and a lot of effort on the deal with Heineken, which overall was a successful first year, but it took a lot of effort.
Of course, in an environment where pressure is on logistics, it is a very special year in that sense, with a lot of pressure on operations. I think overall we managed quite well, and we also get that appreciation from our customers in return. Looking a little bit deeper into the Heineken perspective, the first part of the year was all about taking over operations and safeguarding our relationship with our new customers. That also put some pressure on customer acquisition in new areas, because our sales force was very much dedicated to talking to our customers that were new from Heineken and keeping them in, and we've managed to do so. I think the churn is extremely low. I think it's less than 3% after the deal, where usually we factor in a 5%-10% customer loss after an acquisition.
In this case, we held on to almost all our customers, which is, I think, a very good performance. We did have some problems in the summer period when there's a big seasonality in the drinks business, which we had no experience with, and especially in the customer ordering behavior. The Heineken customers still, to a large extent, order via phone, where in our situation, more than 95% of our customers orders via our online portal. That means if things really get busy, then the number of calls explodes, and our systems are not equipped to take on these kind of volumes.
After a few months of starter problems in that area, we managed to stabilize and processes are well under control, and we were very happy with the recent outcome of an investigation among 5,000 of the former Heineken customers, which rated on all the important KPIs between eight and nine and a half out of 10 on the service of Sligro. I think we can safely say that we are fully in control in that business and doing a good performance now. Which is, of course, a basis for further development and growth of these customers. On sheet number 27, we see the development of the market share as a result of the growth and the acquisition. Of course, our market share increased again compared to the competitors.
We see one specific line all the way at the bottom, which is called Other, and that's a category that Foodservice Instituut has added the last couple of years. Unfortunately, they have not adapted the comparable figures of 2017 and 2016 accordingly. It seems there is a huge growth in the category Others, but it's simply a changing definition of the market. In 2019, Foodservice Instituut has announced that they will come with a complete redefinition of the market and the market shares. From that moment onwards, of course, we will adhere to their new definition, and see how our market share develops. It's important that it's done in a comparable way to the historical numbers. We are very happy that they are going to do so because we think that the market is wider than just the specific wholesalers active in the market.
Indeed, parts of retail and retail suppliers and specialists are, of course, also part of the foodservice market, and they should be included. We are very happy that FSIN is going in that direction. It makes things more transparent. If we look at sheet number 28, the customer appreciation, we use NPS score, Net Promoter Score, to measure the customer satisfaction. We see that on the cash and carry side, we are on a very high level already and managed to improve even a little bit. We see that on the delivery side, and we measured it right after the summer. The challenges and difficulties in the delivery performance as a result of the shortages in transportation and warehouse personnel have really hit the performance in the eyes of our customers.
On a technical note, in 96.5 out of 100 times, we were on time and in full for our customers, but they were used to an over 99% delivery performance. It was not good enough in the eyes of our customers and also not good enough for us. The one thing which is important to stress is this was visible all over the market. Not just with Sligro, but also with all our competitors. That is translated in the customer rating on another element, which is the loyalty. The strange thing to see is that we were hit severely in the customer satisfaction at almost half our score.
On the other hand, the loyalty, so the willingness to stay with us as a customer increased with our customers, which means that they are very much aware that this is a market-wide problem during the summer and not just with Sligro. We're happy about that and of course, keen on improving our performance and the scoring of our customers on the delivery side of the business. What was very good is last year we had to tell everybody that our customers were not that satisfied yet with our new online delivery system, which we switched two years ago. Last year, we spent a lot of efforts on improving the stability and the performance and the speed of our online platform.
Although the load increased by 90%, so almost we doubled the number of customers using the platform, the speed increased by 30%, and we get the appreciation of our customers on those elements, which we feel very happy to see. Of course, we are continuously improving the website to make it even more attractive for our customers. If we look at the developments in Belgium, for those of you who have seen all the press releases in the Belgian newspaper and gossip magazines, we've been really struggling to finally get the permit for our new venue in Antwerp, we already had the permit in place, and once we were up for opening the store, then the permit was suddenly rejected. That didn't stop us from opening up the store.
In the meantime, all the running procedures of our competitors to try and stop us have been completed and to our advantage. At this moment, we have all the permits in place. From November onwards, when we opened that store, we are still open now. It doesn't mean that we're out of harm's way because the Belgian law gives still opportunities to make further protest, but it becomes increasingly difficult, and the judges and representative of the local government have also told the ones that are complaining that they have no grounds to complain, which means that it becomes increasingly difficult for them to file a suit once again. Still, it is possible.
Given that fact and the fact that we really want to grow in Belgium, we have a change of course in our approach, where we initially said we want to go step by step and city by city. We've decided to speed up the process of location acquiring and permit acquiring. We will start up simultaneously in 6-8 cities in Belgium, the process of getting locations and the permits in place. We know that on average, it will take us one to one and a half years to get the permits, and wherever we get it first, we will start to build the next Sligro outlet. Eventually, of course, we want to be active in all these major cities in Antwerp and, sorry, in Flanders and around Brussels. We'll continue to push on in Belgium to obtain a market share there.
On the next slide, we see the building activities that we've done in 2018 and the plans we have for 2019. I will not go into detail. The same we see for the delivery network on the next slide and in Belgium and our central headquarters and distribution center in Veghel. I'll not go into the details there. On slide number 33, a few words about the IT project. As you all probably know, we are going to migrate to SAP as a company to be better prepared for further international expansion in a number of years. It means that we have to switch first. We've spent 2017 and 2018 in preparation of the program. Two weeks ago, we pushed the start button and are now really in the process of designing, completing, building, and testing our new international ERP landscape.
We aim to complete the building and testing phase in 2019 and to start implementation in Belgium in 2020, at the beginning of the year. We start in Belgium because the landscape in Belgium is still fragmented in terms of systems landscape. We acquired a number of companies. We started up our own business, so it means that we have four different systems there, and we want to integrate it on one platform, so the need to integrate is highest in Belgium. On the other hand, from a risk perspective, Belgium is still relatively a smaller part of our business, so it's a little bit easier to control the implementation of such a project instead of doing it in the Netherlands, where, of course, the core of the business is present.
We do a stepwise approach, both from the necessity of the business, but on the other hand, also from a risk perspective. If we look at the next sheet, number 34, that's a change in the organization structure. With the disposal of EMTÉ, we have to change our organization structure also in view of a future international ambition. That means that we will have what we call an international board, in which we set out strategy for the group, and we have all the shared activities represented. The shared activities are IT, supply chain, HR, and purchasing. Of course, to represent the business, the director of the biggest country, the Netherlands in this case, is also part of that international board.
Below that board, we have country teams, country boards, which have within the boundaries set out by the international board, the opportunity to optimize things in the country. That is a setup which, of course, can be extended to other countries in the future. We don't expect to do that before 2020 because we first have to set up this organization in a good way. We have to make sure that the ERP system is in place. It's not that we are going to look for other opportunities in 2019. That will be a little bit further down the road. All preparations are, of course, based on the vision that we will do so in the next couple of years. This setup, we think can facilitate that further growth in the future.
If we look at the outlook for 2019 and a little bit further, of course, we will go into the next phase of the Heineken integration. The first year was all about retaining customers and taking over the operation in the as-is situation. We are now preparing for the next, and that's a really important phase for us, the integration phase, physical integration of the operation. We close down all the Heineken distribution centers and move them into the Sligro distribution centers. We are building and expanding current locations for that, but also on the IT side, there is a significant impact, which we expect to finalize in the second quarter of this year. From that moment onwards, we can do a stepwise integration, physical integration of the Heineken deal, Heineken distribution centers.
If that is in place, we can start to benefit on the expected supply chain efficiencies and also the upsell can start to the customers of Heineken, and that's when the advantages of the Heineken business case will come in. As a net effect, I don't expect big influences in the 2019 figures of that. There will not be significant improvements from that harmonization, because we start the integration in the second half. We have to do a lot of moving around. From 2020 onwards, gradually we will get the effect in, and we are still confident that we meet the integration deadline that we have set of 3-4 years to do the full integration of this business. We will further set out cash and carry of the future.
As I said, we still believe in the combination cash and carry and delivery, cash and carry has to change towards the future. We will further build the market position in Belgium and optimize the international organization structure. After a year with so many moving parts as we've seen in 2018, we've set out a new slogan for next year in the company, back to business, and really focus on the core of cash and carry and delivery again and optimize there. If we look at the more economic outlook on sheet number 37, we think there still is a relatively favorable economic climate in the Netherlands and Belgium. We do see some early signs of consumer confidence decreasing, but employment is still good in both companies. We have a close watch on consumer confidence because it's a predictor for the way our markets are developing.
In the Netherlands, in the last five months of 2018, we've seen a significant decrease in consumer confidence. That might bode for a slowdown in economic development in the Netherlands and Belgium. For 2019, we do still expect that our markets will develop in similar ways in 2018. For the period thereafter, it becomes a little bit less certain. We think that we will grow in the market. We think that we can also outperform the market again in both regions. On the other end, we see that there will be an increase still in the cost structure. Transportation, wage cost, and energy costs are increasing. Of course, that affects our figures also on the short term.
On the other end, we think that we are very efficient compared to some of our competitors, and, of course, they are relatively hurt more by these price increases. Furthermore, we have a lot of projects running, which we already started in 2018 to compensate these cost increases by increased efficiency. We think we can absorb most of the prices, and of course we can pass on some of it to the pricing of our customers as well. The regulatory changes, I talked a little bit about IFRS 16 already, but also in the Netherlands, the VAT on food has increased in the beginning of January. We expect that our customers will pass it on to their end customers, which are the consumers, so that it will not hurt the volumes for our part of the business.
Given the fact that we expect a more stable and less incidents in the next year, we refrain from making further firm forecasts, which we did last year when there were a lot of specials and one-offs. We would like to focus again on developing the business and growth, and as a result, of course, improve the underlying margins. That concludes my presentation, and I'm happy to take your questions if there are any.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will start the question and answer session now. To be registered for the question and answer queue, please press star one on your telephone. That's star one. For your questions, go ahead, please. That's star one. For your questions, go ahead, please. There's a question from Mr. Ralf Strohmayer, Allianz. Go ahead, please.
Yes. Hello. On your comment on consumer confidence, if consumer confidence is turning more negative, why do you think it hits you only in 2020 and not this year?
Yeah. We typically see a period of 9- 12 months delay. If you look at it in a historic perspective, we see that the impact on the food service market, there's a delay of 9- 12 months between that and the consumer confidence. Consumer confidence is still positive. Although it has declined, it is still positive in the Netherlands. We think it will take a while, if at all, it will go sub-zero. We don't know that yet, of course. We expect if this is indeed the new trend and the next downward cycle, then still the bulk of 2019 will be still relatively favorable, but then the effects will be visible in 2020. We are anxiously looking towards the development of this consumer confidence in the next 4-5 years. That will be telling, we expect.
Okay.
For now, we think 2019 will be okay.
Okay, thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, if there are any additional questions, please press star one. There's a follow-up question from Mr. Ralf Strohmayer. Go ahead please, sir.
Yes. On Belgium, has your outlook changed at all due to the difficulties in getting planning permissions there, opening stores?
No. If we look at our case for Belgium, of course there's delay. We are still confident that we eventually will get a good position in Belgium, and that's why we changed the approach a little bit because we have bought already a location in Bruges, in Belgium, in 2018, and we've started up the permit process. We see that the same competitors that have been fighting our location in Antwerp are now doing the same in Bruges. We think it's best if we spread the field and take on more locations at the same time, then i t will become more difficult for them to make objections in all these areas. Of course, we expect to have a faster roll in Belgium than the original planning.
Yeah, today there is delay, but we are not discouraged, and we think that it's only a matter of delay, but they can't withstand us, of course, in Belgium. On the other end, we have already, of course, an active location now in Antwerp, in Liège, in Ghent, as a result of the ISPC acquisition and a delivery center in Leuven and Rotselaar. We are already present and of course, also focusing on growing that business in the next years. Eventually, we still think that we will be active in, let's say, 10- 12 locations in Flanders and Brussels in the next years.
Okay, thanks.
I hope that answers your question.
Yeah, sure. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, for any additional questions, please press star one. There are no further questions at the moment, sir.
Okay. Thank you. I would like to thank all of you for dialing into this call. I hope I've been able to answer the questions in the course of the presentation. Should you have any follow-on questions, feel free to send me an email or give me a call at a later stage, and I'll be happy to answer your questions. On April 18, we will publish our quarter one trading update, and on July 18, our half year figures. The full annual report will be available on our website on February 5th, with a lot more background and details on the developments of this year and the outlook towards next year. For now, thank you very much, and I hope to get you all online next time. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the Sligro Food Group event call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect your line. Have a nice day.