Good afternoon, everybody, welcome to our Capital Markets Day presentation on the plans of Sligro Food Group for the years up to 2030. My name is Rob van der Sluijs, CFO with the group, I will guide you through the presentation today. You can download a copy of this presentation from our website. It is available in English and in Dutch. The setup of this call is as follows. I will try to guide you through those sheets in let's say 45 minutes to 50 minutes. Afterwards, there will be plenty of time for question and answers if there are any. Please bear with me for the time being. I would like to request you to check whether you're on mute.
Once we get to the Q&A section, we will use the hands up facility in Teams to make sure that everybody gets their turn in the questions they may have. Let's make a start with this. First of all, I think it's known to most of you, an overview of the profile of the group as we have it today. I think the numbers are clear and also communicated in our annual figures update early February. We are active in two countries with our focus on the foodservice market with a clear market leadership in the Netherlands.
Although the market is highly fragmented in Belgium, we have a top three position over there, with 4%. You see our results as presented here, and of course, with our longer history in the Netherlands, that's the main part of our group's activity, and just starting in that sense in Belgium for a number of years. If we look at the way we approach the market, that has not changed compared to the previous periods. Our longer-term view is that we should combine both focus on customer and operational excellence in the two, because simply our customers are not willing to compromise on any of those elements.
We combine on the one hand, the focus on the customer, try to facilitate the customer as best as possible in their processes day to day, but also of course, keeping in mind that we need to do that very efficiently given that margins are tight overall in our type of business. Based on a culture which is clearly distinctive in the market, we believe with the core elements of that as presented at the bottom of the triangle on the left-hand side of this sheet. Looking at the group structure, we believe in a very centralized setup of the organization.
That's more or less the retail model as we see it in many companies, where we have a central distribution center and headquarters in Veghel that service the whole of the group with a clear distinctive face to the market in the geographies in which we operate. In the Dutch brand, we operate under the brands of Sligro, De Kweker, and Van Hoeckel for the care and cure market. In Belgium, under the names of Sligro and JAVA, also JAVA for the care and cure market. The processes focused on the customers, is organized country by country because of specific needs in both approach, in both product range and also pricing and setup. The rest of the business is integrated and optimized as much as possible in a central function.
Biggest part of our business is the Delivery business, which is ordered through an online platform. That platform is also integrated with the rest of our operations and similar in the Netherlands and Belgium, where all the ordering, invoicing, data and services are presented. We use a combination of partners to support us in the daily operations, varying from our Christmas hampers activities, kitchen equipment, but also fresh produce partners that we work with over a longer period of time to make sure that we get the best quality products to our customers in the market. Looking at the way we see our customer portfolio set up, and this is also an important part running through the plans of the upcoming period, is that we clearly distinct a number of customer groups within our customer portfolio.
On the left-hand side, we see the National Chains, typically big companies with a lot of outlets, but a centralized back office operation, where we make contracts and agreements on logistics efficiency and the product portfolio. On the right-hand side, the other side of the spectrum, the small and medium-sized enterprises and what we call Hobby Chefs. There's a more retail-like buying from professional customers for the private use that they do typically in the cash and carry environment. In the midsection, this is basically the sweet spot of the market, the customer groups where we add most value, and where we also have a very compelling proposition we believe.
These are the regional clusters, so owners or owner groups of a number of restaurants, let's say 10 up to 40 different type of restaurants. On the other hand, the regional food professional that have one or maybe two restaurants. This is typically the area where we can add most value to the market. It's also the core focus point of our strategy from a customer perspective going forward. I will lead you through some more of the details on that in the further explanation of our plans for the next couple of years. Before we start looking forward, also in our internal processes, we first look back on what we have and have not achieved in the period behind us.
Looking back at the plan that we had for the years 2020 to 2025. And some things have developed significantly different than we had anticipated at the start of that plan. Above all, the total market development. Of course-
Mm-hmm
we had a number of years in which COVID had a big impact on our business. Also in the years thereafter, you can see that the figures in the graph do not meet the lines that resemble the expectation. One of the more, the most impactful elements is that, of course, the combination of volume and inflation turned out differently than we had expected. Historically, we saw more or less 3.5% market share or market development divided into in terms of volume and inflation.
We've seen, especially after the COVID years, a tremendous jump in inflation, creating a total of 35% inflation over all of these years, while the total value in the market only increased by 20%, which translates in a volume and mix effect of - 15%, which has a significant impact on our business. On the other hand, inflation, specifically on the value-added items in our business model, so, personnel costs, transportation costs, have had significant price impacts, which led to quite some pressures on the cost level. As a result of that, we did not meet our financial performance targets set out in the previous number of years. Another effect that has been hampering the achievement of our financial goals is the breakdown of revenue per customer type.
As you can see in the graph on the left, we see that we had a tremendous development of what we call the National Chains. But these National Chains typically are large-sized customers which have quite significant bargaining power and a contract form in which we were not able to pass on all the inflationary pressures of the last couple of years. Of course, in that model, if this category of customers grows significantly faster than the others, but have a pressure on the earnings model from the Sligro perspective, that is a negative mix effect pressuring the results of the group as a total.
Not surprisingly, this is typically what we want to address in the next couple of years, in view of our midterm plan going forward. As a more or less summary of the targets that we have set out, of course, a clear miss. We've communicated that already before on the target. We wanted to have a 7.5% EBITDA of sales by the end of this period, and we did not achieve that. We ended up at 5.8%. Clearly a difference between the Dutch and the Belgium operations. In the Netherlands, we almost reached 7%, but in Belgium it's still a negative. In Belgium, we set out to become structurally profitable.
We'll get back on that a bit more in detail in a minute. External factors, but also for certainly internal factors have caused issues that led us quite far from the objectives that we have set out. That's something that we need to remedy going forward. Market share gains as such achieved, but of course not at the absolute levels that we desired in the Netherlands because of market developments. We did not meet the overall target, but at least compared to the rest of the market, we outgrew them, so we gained a bit of market share over that period. In Belgium, organically, our revenues dropped.
With the acquisition of Metro, in the middle of that period, that, of course added quite a lot of volume and as such, gaining market share. Yes, market share agreed, but the way it was done and the level we achieved, absolutely, of course, not in line with the initial expectation. On the more sustainability factors, on employees, on our carbon footprint, and on our product range, sustainable product range, we made quite a lot of progress in a positive sense, which also has an economic benefit, of course, in the longer run. Those were achieved, but of course the main financial targets were missed in the previous period.
From those of you who have seen or maybe have looked back onto the Capital Markets Day that we did earlier in 2023, we had a breakdown according to a number of initiatives that we targeted for the second half of that strategic period. Also there, a mixed picture. I think the most of the elements related to restructuring, to cost optimization have actually played out as we had planned. The dependency on volume development, which we didn't see in the end, and the inflationary pressures on gross margin have led to a miss on the results. These were the elements and the breakdown of what has been done over there.
Zooming in a bit further on Belgium, because of course, Belgium is not at the level that we had desired. I think a number of things happened that have led to this situation. In the end, the full integration of Belgium is now successful and completed, which means that the infrastructure is set up in the way we want it copied in light of what we do in the Netherlands. We have integrated all of the activities on the legacy systems that we used in the Netherlands before. That gives us the right level of control. On our path to get there, we have had quite some troubles, which hurt us eventually on top line as we have concluded before.
One of the triggers was the SAP integration program that we ran in the beginning of the previous strategic period. That was not a success. I think in hindsight, we attached the future of Belgium and the Belgium operation to the success of that program. That has been a troublesome combination. In the end, we decided to pause the SAP integration and to integrate everything on the legacy systems as mentioned before. I think that has given us the solid basis that we see today, a solid operational performance that our customers recognize increasingly. Of course, along the way, we have lost quite a lot of customer confidence, and that's something that we need to restore gradual and step by step going forward.
Then of course, focus on driving the revenue growth is an important element. Later on in the presentation, I will show you our current footprint in Belgium, and what is necessary to get that to a breakeven point, and the initiatives that we have set out to get there. Looking at the market as such, still, this market is highly fragmented. It's in total size, almost equal to the Dutch market. In that sense, a very attractive one. The fact that the competitive landscape is still highly fragmented gives us opportunities for further consolidation and growth. We still firmly believe in that path going forward, and decided also to focus on this in the course of the next strategic period of five years ahead of us.
As a result of revenue restoring, we also believe that we will have margin improvement with a clear target set out by the end of the period ahead of us. Going to the plans towards 2030. First of all, have a look at the context in which we believe we are about to operate. A lot of changes in the market to be expected from a demographic perspective. The aging of the population in Western Europe, especially also in Netherlands and Belgium, is ongoing. We see that we will have quite some more seniors in our population compared to the years before. Of course, from a labor market perspective, that is not a desired situation because the labor force is reducing in our regions.
On the other end, this is the part of the population that actually has money to spend, and from an historic perspective, also spends happily in leisure activities, which is again, fuel for our market. We'll see how that will play out. On the other end, the uprise of the new adult population with Gen Zs or Millennials, maybe not the ones that have most money to spend, but they do have a behavioral pattern with quite a significant amount of their income spent on out-of-home activities, which is also, we believe, a positive influence for our end markets.
The economic perspective, based on the outlooks of all kind of banks, market watchers, statistical bureaus, we've tried to bring them all together and, and get a view on the future. The average is that we see limited economic growth in our regions, both in the Netherlands and in Belgium. On the other end, we will continue to see higher labor, energy, and logistic costs. Inflation is ongoing. That's something we factor into our plans, knowing that this is the structure of the market. We should rely less on sales growth, and we should rely more on cost reduction programs in order to meet our profitability targets going forward.
Labor market will be increasingly challenging, which fuels our desire and our plans to further digitalize and mechanize operations wherever possible, being less dependent on a shrinking, an aging labor population. What is still under review in the both the Dutch and Belgian political landscape is the allowance of people outside of these geographies, but inside Europe to transfer into the countries to actually do the work. There's a lot of debate going around it. At the meantime, it means that there will be more pressure on the short term on the labor markets as a result of that discussion.
Needless to say that the global environment and everything that's going on in the world has an indirect effect on our markets because it fuels consumer confidence or non-confidence, we should say. All this uncertainty in the market has an impact on consumers, and of course, they determine their spending behavior based on the confidence that they see. That has always a very is a leading indicator for our end market development. We'll see, and we have experience that we should keep in mind that things happen all the time, and that will feed uncertainty. We'll have to see as an uncertain factor how that plays out in the next couple of years in our end markets. Last but certainly not least, technological developments.
I think on the one hand, technology and the upcoming of AI is becoming a part of daily tasks and business. In the world around us, but also certainly within Sligro. I think we have a very good and gradual approach to introducing AI into our business model. We don't believe that it will change everything overnight, but we are convinced that we should have a dedicated agenda and a roadmap going forward to make sure that we adapt to the new standards and opportunities available. We have seen many examples with the companies in our surroundings that have a very positive impact that can also be transferred into Sligro.
On the other end, the technology development increases transparency, which is on the one hand a good thing, on the other hand, it makes our customers very much aware of everything there is to offer, with us and with our competitors. Makes also pricing and comparison very easy. That means that we have to focus on setting the right price proposition, making sure that we have fitting propositions for all of the customer groups. And it's becoming more and more important because, yeah, transparency enforces us to do so. If we translate that to how it develops in our market and the challenges for our customers and what they expect of us. As said, our customers, typical restaurants, they also see that growth economically is stagnating.
They have to be more creative to run their business. We don't see a lot of bankruptcies, but we do see a number of entrepreneurs that is just ceasing operations because they simply do not believe in a very long and prosperous future in this part of the business. On the other end, that gives opportunities for others to consolidate and to grow. Simplification, reducing the number of days so that they are open and you can read the elements and effects over there. In the end, for them, for our customers, it leads to pressures on their returns.
They are faced with tremendous shortages in staffing, and of course, they have quite an image problem with the price levels in hospitality going up significantly the last couple of years, which again returns into pressures on volumes on their end of the business. In that complex environment, they expect convenience and predictability from their foodservice supplier. It means that we have to make sure that our basis basic operations are on the top of our game and at a high quality level. And on the other end, add relevant services for our customers to help them get through these difficult times. Pricing and pricing awareness is becoming more and more important.
We have to be at the best of our game in that end, and on the other hand, make use of digital capabilities in combination with our personal approach to make sure that we help our customer in the best way we can. As a sort of a summary, this, this overview, what is then the core of our strategy towards 2030 with a clear focus on our client, divided in four clusters. National Change, Regional Clusters, Regional Food Professionals, Small, Medium-Size Enterprises. All of these customer groups require a different approach, both from our perspective, but also from the customer perspective. We are redirecting our organization and all underlying departments to focusing their efforts according to this split up of customer- client clusters.
I will explain in a minute why we do that and what the differences are. In the end, it's also important to set very clear goals, both internally and communicate externally. These are the three strategic priorities as presented here. We should go for profitable growth through focus and sharp choices in the Netherlands. As mentioned before, we have a big representation in the National Chains and not in all areas we make the returns that we should. We should remedy that. On the other end, the growth potential is with the Regional Clusters and Regional Food Professional, where we have high added value. Our focus should be on the right categories for the right reasons. Second, very important is of course, growth and operational profitability in Belgium.
We've been active now for a bit over nine years, have not been in the position yet that we have a profitable situation. We know that it cannot last forever. It's really important that we deliver on our targets in the next five years or otherwise, we need to reconsider our position, of course, over there. We don't have a separate plan for that. At this moment, we will use the full period of five years to remedy the Belgian situation as we believe that this market for us could be and should be very attractive. We don't have second thoughts on that part, but of course, we fully understand that we need to prove it, and we use the next period to do so, and otherwise we will look at other options as well.
In the end, which will support both the Dutch and Belgian operation, we regularly benchmark ourselves with our competitive environment and without making too much of tweaks and nuance in that analysis. We believe that we are very strong on the purchasing side, but what we gain on gross margin, we to some extent lose on on the cost competitiveness. Instead of just shaving off small parts of costs, which we have done in the last couple of years, we believe that we should reduce cost more fundamentally.
In light of a scarcity in availability of people and transportation, but also high inflationary pressures, then we should really reset the cost basis on a more structural level. To help our teams guide through the priorities, we have a number of criteria that they need to meet or building blocks in the plans that they need to adhere to. Of course, as you see them here, grow, growth is important, but make sure it's healthy, so not everything for the top line. Make sure that we can actually have top-line development with a decent return as well. Invest in efficient and effective operations. That's both from the customer perspective desired, but also, of course, as a cost efficiency effect.
We are investing in our proposition, which means our services proposition towards our customers, and we have ideas to further optimize this based on a reinforced foundation in that area, typically finalizing the technology programs that we have but also making sure that our infrastructure is up to date. Responsible business, of course, we have our agenda on sustainability. I think our goals have been set out in previous years' annual report based on CSRD. We still believe in those targets, but we are really sticking to what the market trend and the market development is in that area, and do not have the intent to be a front runner on those elements.
We will do as we have set out to do in the combination of sustainability and economic benefit. No further acceleration on that end. Just make sure that we meet our target as set out for 2030. Going into that profitability in the Netherlands, if we look at the left-hand side, we see the National Chains, and the stack of coins at the bottom represents the level of profitability relatively to from one category to another. As you can see, the National Chains are basically split in two areas, where we see we have an Action portfolio, as we call it.
These are the 12, 13 biggest customers of Sligro that are in a cost-plus contract, where the combination of growth in with those customers and inflationary pressures have led to a contract situation where we make only a little money or no money at all, which is of course not a desired situation. Today, approximately EUR 400 million is on the left of that dotted line. EUR 400 million top top value hardly contributing any EBITDA to the group, which is of course not desirable if your overall target is a 7.5% EBITDA margin.
On the other end, on the right-hand side, you see that the stack of coins is significantly higher, which you can read as that in these areas of our business, we are already able to meet our midterm target profitability goals. As you can see, the ambition is different for each of those categories. For those National Chains, we are not seeking further growth. We have the contracts that we have. We will focus on improving returns within the boundaries offered our contracts and make sure that once we renew these contracts, that they will be fitting and contributing as we like it.
That also means, and that's important to take into account, that we might end up not coming to an agreement with a customer that is satisfactory for us, which might lead to them leaving us. We are willing to accept that consequence in order to make sure that we have contracts that we can actually have decent returns on. In that sense, for the Dutch business, we have not set a clear revenue target because of course you can imagine these are customers in the size somewhere between EUR 40 million and some even up to EUR 100 million. If you lose a customer like that weighs heavily on the top line.
I can assure you, if we lose such customers, that will have a positive impact on the average, relative margin that we make for the group as a whole. Only a modest growth pattern, which is mostly the development that we see with those customers organically. Our focus for growth is on the two clusters in the middle of this picture, so the Regional Clusters and the Regional Food Professionals. These are, in our view, the groups that are the winning parties in the market. They are gaining share in the overall market space. We also believe that our proposition is adding a lot of value to their business model, and we are very well-positioned. It's also an area where our partner Heineken is very strong.
On the back of that, we can gain market share in those areas. It's a clear choice for those areas, and it also means that in all the support functions within the central headquarters here in Veghel in the Netherlands, we will focus all the initiatives to optimize our proposition for those two customer groups to make sure that they are happy, that they are able to grow their business with us, and that we are able to acquire customers in this area because that will help both top-line development and of course also margin development going forward in the Netherlands.
On the right-hand side, Small and Medium-Sized customers and what we call Hobby Chef, that was for quite some time a bit shrinking part of the market, or maybe in the business with Sligro. Last year we have launched quite a huge campaign both on social media, radio, all kind of digital approaches which have really turned from a negative into a positive volume development in that area. We believe that we can continue that over the next couple of years and in a, in a bit modified way, also introduce these elements into Belgium. Clear growth path with the levels of growth in the areas where we believe we can have highest added value and highest returns.
This sheet more or less summarize what I've just explained. As you can see, how the initiatives and actions prepared are different for each of the segments, according to and in line with the ambition that we have set out for these groups. Moving on to Belgium, the second big priority. We see that from a market perspective overall, the attractiveness of the market, at least in our view, top three players in Belgium, including ourselves, have less than 15% of the overall market, and the market is still highly fragmented. That has been so for quite a while and also during the period that we were active in Belgium.
So far, we also have to be very honest in the light of our achievements in the last couple of years, the consolidation has not yet gotten up to speed as we expected it before. Speaking to all kind of competitors, but also to customers in the market, everybody is facing similar pressures. If we look to the top 10 and their profitability, hardly any of them make any profits. Most of them are loss-making as we are. There's a need for scale and a need for scale-up and consolidation in the market, both from a supplier perspective as a customer perspective. We believe that we can play a role in that game and end up as a winner in that market. Of course, with our results as they are today, that is not satisfactory.
We have to see how we can speed that process up going forward. On the right-hand side, just a glance of the competitors that are typically available in the market. It is far from complete, as we mentioned also in the footnote, but it's a highly scattered landscape with many players. We believe that in the next couple of years, consolidation will be fueled and will happen, which creates scale, and scale is what is required to be profitable. How do we translate that in our concrete goals? We target a growth of sales from the level of 2025 to over EUR 500 million in 2030. Yeah, later on I will show you a number of the initiatives that we use to get there.
We believe that once we hit that EUR 500 million mark, which is of course a significant growth path for the next couple of years, that will lead to an EBIT profitability situation in Belgium. That's the clear target for the next five years, we should be able to get that in. Why is there such an upswing in results in view of this revenue development that's shown at the bottom of this sheet? As you can see, on the left-hand side, truck utilization in the Netherlands, on average 27 roll cages in the truck, and we drive 12 km between each customer on average. In the Belgian situation, quite significant number of roll cages, less on average and a higher number of kilometers between customers.
It means that there's quite some room for improvement within the existing infrastructure. That means that growth will have, certainly in the beginning, an upswinging effect on the profitability or initially loss reduction. On the right-hand side, from the warehouse perspective, in the Dutch contents, we operate at a closely to optimized level, around 90% of average utilization of the distribution capacity. In Belgium, that's somewhere just below 60%. With the current infrastructure, there's a lot of room for growth, which we target to get into the Belgian operation. Here are some of the initiatives that we have defined in our roadmap. Of course, we want to optimize our reach into the market.
There's a number of aspects that we need to do. On the one hand, of course, scale up the sales force. We have an infrastructure and a stable operation now for 12 months-18 months. Of course, with our history, it takes quite some time to regain the confidence of the market. With the performance we have shown in the last 1.5 years, we have a very high, a very reliable service level in the market. More and more we see that our customers appreciate this and are willing to join Sligro.
On the other hand, we have to be aware that, although in the Netherlands, over 90% of the people interviewed know who Sligro is and what Sligro does, in Belgium, that's much lower. That's around 40% of brand awareness, which means that there's still a way to go to make sure that everybody in Belgium understand what Sligro is, what Sligro does, and can mean for their business. We are looking to expand the customer portfolio within the licenses. That is a bit cryptic perhaps here in in this sentence, but some of you may know that we have quite some challenges in getting the permits for our our operations in Belgium. There are strict guidance on which customer groups are allowed in our stores, yes and no.
We have been very cautious in that, we believe that we are operating now at a sustainable level and are in the phase that we can add some more customer groups to that, to that level within the boundaries of the license. We are taking a bit more risk in that sense, to make sure that we have a bigger reach in the market and create more value in these, in these outlets. Maybe to focus on the bottom. As mentioned before, the landscape is still highly fragmented. A lot of initiatives on the top end of the sheet, focused on boosting organic growth.
Of course, it would be very helpful, and therefore, we have an active strategy to reach out to potential candidates for either partnership models or M&A opportunities within the Belgium market, because fueling our infrastructure with existing turnover will speed up the process of reaching the target of EUR 500 million sales, and in return, also boost profitability. We have a clear agenda set out to try and convince others to join us or to merge. Of course, it takes two to tango in that sense, and we have to see how we can ready the market for further consolidation. The third objective to fundamentally lower the cost base. How we look at the operational improvement, but also on the central overhead.
We have a number of programs running to make sure that we reduce costs significantly, maybe starting with central overheads. On the left-hand side, as you can see, we are changing our organization to really focus on these four customer groups. That also gives us the opportunity to optimize the structure and to optimize processes. We are working on a number of digitalization and ERP transitions, for instance, our SAP project. We believe that once these are finalized and introduced, that will give us a significant efficiency gain and a reduction of full-time equivalents in return. This is on a population of, in total, around 800 FTE-900 FTEs. That is a significant reduction of activities there.
Big chunk of it is in the IT department as we are reviewing what we would like to do in-house and what we outsource, but also in different partner models. Today within Sligro, we have over 80 various partnerships and technologies that we use, and we are already in the process of introducing this into the market with some of the bigger leading players and reducing the landscape of suppliers to around 10. Simplifying it on the one hand, As you can imagine, consolidation of effort, consolidation of activities with a more limited number of partners gives a tremendous opportunity for price negotiation and cost reduction.
The targets we have set out have been calculated, and we are working together with a renowned consultancy firm to get this through and contracted as well, to make sure that within the next couple of years, we achieve those reductions we have set out to do. On the operational side, also, quite a number of opportunities, and we are highlighting the bigger chunks below. Yeah, we are introducing these new CRM activities. That's not just technology, that's also changing some of our processes and uses of data and insights. It means we're not investing in a project that will run for many years, and then at the end of the line, we will get a saving.
No, we will gradually build up towards a total saving, in the meantime, improving our proposition towards our customers. To give a few examples, for all of the questions that our customers have, we refer them to call our customer support department. Of course, many of those questions can be handled digitally, like, "Where is my truck? At what time will it be delivered?" Or, "I have a question regarding my invoice." Typically, if you have those type of questions to Sligro today, you will get a customer service employee on the line. We believe that we can take out quite a number of those activities and digitalize and optimize processes. Also reducing from over 200 employees that have a daily job in there to more or less half of that.
Big reduction as a result of CRM, in the meantime, also improving customer satisfaction in those areas. Second big chunk is our order picking strategy as we use it in our distribution environment. We have a self-developed technology actively there, which has helped us tremendously in the past. We're going to the next generation. First implementation is already done. That was in November, December of last year. That system runs well. We are now going to expand to all of our distribution service outlets, optimizing operations, further increasing efficiency, which will give us an overall reduction of 100 full-time equivalents as well. We firmly believe that we can do that, and yeah, the implementation speed is increasing as we speak.
We finalize this at the first half of the strategic period ahead of us. On the right-hand side, the final one in this area that we want to highlight is our slow mover distribution center. We have a number of flows to provide a full range of products to our customers on a day-to-day basis. We have decided to concentrate all these activities in the central warehouse in Veghel. We can combine logistics flows, give the customers the service that they are used to, but in a much more simplified and lower cost model. And that will give us, we believe a firm boost on our service levels. Customers that are more happy about the service they perceive.
On the other end, again, reducing quite a number of full-time equivalents in the overall picture. On the right-hand side of this improvement, with the reduction of the FTEs, we don't expect a lot of restructuring costs because both on the CRM side, on the strategy in the warehouses, we have quite of a flexible layer in the operational setup of our employees. The turnover rate of employees in the CRM environment is quite high. We believe as we do this over time that we can achieve those reductions without major restructuring costs. That might be a bit different on the left-hand side where in the central overhead, we are reducing. Although also there we are of course preparing this as of Q4 2025.
We do have a turnover rate also in these functions. Everywhere where we have the opportunity, we are already in advance replacing fixed positions with temporary positions to reduce as much as possible in terms of restructuring costs. In the end, we do not believe that it is an amount worth highlighting specifically as part of our plans going forward. We can do that within the boundaries of the normal levels of expenditure on that end, we believe. In the end, the overall goal, as you can see on the top of this graph, is to reduce the costs as 1.5% of sales.
That's the biggest chunk of the gap that we need to close towards our profitability ambition in the end of the year. It's less dependent that improvement on top-line development. A big chunk out of this is in cost-controlled initiatives. Here you have a total overview of the major initiatives that we have identified today. Of course, in the end, it's not about the initiatives, it's about reaching the goals. We believe that these elements, these 12 components, can really add to improving the business and getting towards our targets. Of course, we will evaluate each six months whether we are on track to achieve the end result and not just reaching the individual goals of these 12 projects. In the end, it's the end result that counts.
There may be some more detail, but I will go through this more quickly on some of these initiatives. CRM, I already explained. On the top right-hand side, the two round graphs that you see. What we basically are meaning to say is that we won't wait until everything is finalized in 2030 before we see some revenues of that. We will start out small as of 2026, improving using AI, using data, using the SAP setup to gain wherever we can. Then gradually building this towards a full suite of CRM processes and systems towards 2030 to have the full benefit. But it's not like, for instance, a big SAP project that we invest for four or five years and then finally see results. We will build as we go.
On that ERP, some further details. Of course, finalizing, at the top end, the SAP transformation program. On the other end, introducing a more standardized model and using data and AI to further optimize operations. We believe that we can reduce the overall spend of our IT efforts by at least 25%, ending up at some 2.4% of revenue, which is clearly the benchmark for our type of business. Today, we are higher. Of course, we run a legacy system in parallel with parts of the new introduced SAP environment. We aim to finalize the program in the next couple of years, so we can really start removing all the legacy elements and reducing costs significantly, as explained in the sheet before.
For those who are curious on what the SAP program that we are running now has as an overall spend, it is in the highlighted in the beam below. We did a lot of preparation and evaluation on the previous attempt. We really started up the program in the second half of 2025, spending EUR 5 million in total in 2025 on this business. We will spend in the next couple of year for the full rollout of all the headquarters and cash and carry activities, another EUR 22 million. That's quite a significant investment once again, but in a much more controlled environment with a clear defined scope with the help of SAP.
We believe that the second attempt will give us the success that we are aiming for. For those who also are interested in the accounting of all of these elements. There is a discussion ongoing whether we should amortize these costs over time or whether we should expense them immediately in operational expenses. That is an ongoing discussion today with our auditor, which has not yet given a clear view. I will get back to that in later communication around our figures. In the end, it's all about what do we spend in cash. In cash, we spent EUR 27 million, and whether that's through CapEx or OpEx in the end doesn't make any difference. Of course, in representing the figures going forward in the next couple of years, that will have some impact.
As soon as there is any clarity, I will get back to the market on how that is put through our P&L and balance sheet. The further financial update. We have translated this 2030 ambition into a number of clear targets. For the Dutch part, we do believe that we have to get, of course, to the overall margin target of 7.5%, at least on that level. We do not have a clear revenue target on this because in the end, the way we are going to approach this action portfolio of bigger customers, it could mean that in that process, we lose one or two of the major elements, and that will of course have quite an impact on the top line.
On the other end, that will have a positive impact on the relative performance of the group. That will help in that sense. Not based on a revenue target, but on a profitability target. In Belgium, it's the combination of the two which is very clear. We need more than EUR 500 million revenue by the end of 2030. That will give us, we believe, a structurally positive EBIT number and a further access to the market and growth and improvement going forward. Overall target for the group remains as is.
We believe this is a achievable and healthy ambition, and we will gradually get to that level, of course, based on the right customer satisfaction, all employees' efforts, and of course, not losing, the view on the sustainability targets that we have set out, earlier. In this graph, you will see the gradual development of this target towards the 7.5%. As you can see in the early years, a gradual stepwise improvement. From 2028 onward, depending a little bit on market developments and some of the more uncertain elements, we should be getting towards that range of that 7.5%. Clearly, somewhere between 2028 and 2030, we will achieve that target, based on the plans we have set out, in this, in this plan.
Of course, the profitability targets are one, but in the end, of course, it needs to convert into cash flow, and that cash flow needs to be put to use in a good way. Some words on our capital allocation. In the end, we use the cash of our operations to invest in our business, strengthening the fundament on one end, and on the other end, invest in opportunities to further grow and develop the business. We have a dividend policy which remains unchanged. About roughly 60% of post-tax profits will be distributed as dividends. Of course, if there are opportunities in the market to further grow the business in a sensible way, then M&A is clearly on the agenda, both in the Netherlands and certainly also in Belgium.
We have to make sure that we have the right targets, that we can integrate them in the way we want them and really get results out. We won't go for everything which is available in the market. We have a clear list of criteria that we need to meet. We have introduced at the beginning of this year the share buyback program to approach to 5% of the outstanding shares of EUR 26 million. The first time we used that mechanism to return excess cash. We clearly have this on the agenda to see whether this could also be an option in the future going forward. That will require some further permits on the AGM, which we have scheduled for May in this year.
Assuming that our or anticipating that our shareholders are happy to do so, we will make this a more clear choice in our arsenal of items that we can put forward. We target a midterm leverage of 1.5x to 2x EBITDA. As you have seen in our annual figures, at the end of 2025, we were at 0.2x EBITDA. One of the reasons to distribute more cash, of course. If we correct for our customer securitization program, then we are around 1.0x, but still clearly under the target level of leverage. That reflects clearly in a strong balance sheet and also sufficient firepower in case of M&A opportunities to act on those.
If we wrap it up in our key takeaways, we are and remain the leading company in the Dutch market and on our way with the ambition to become that one in Belgium as well. We have clearly reflected on the lessons learned in recent years, both on SAP but also on the execution and the elements of our strategic program. We have incorporated all these lessons into the 2030 priorities and setup of execution of these in the next couple of years. Three clear priorities. Midterm target on profitability that remains.
In the end, the balanced capital organization, which balances reinvesting into our business for a longer-term view, but also making sure that through dividend or opportunities of excess cash returns, we also work towards our shareholder returns. I think that summarizes the presentation. I will now switch off the presentation and give you the opportunity to ask questions. In order to make that a bit more structured, I would like to ask you to use the Hands, Raise Hands facility in Teams, so we can give everybody the opportunity that would like to ask a question. Please go ahead. Yes, Maxime , please go ahead. Ask your question.
Hiya, Rob. Good morning to on my side, if I may. First of all, just doing the quick math on basically the growth you expect in the Netherlands and in Belgium, basically implying 3%-4% in the Netherlands, 5%+ in Belgium. Is it the correct way, I would say, to look at this, over 2025-2030? Zooming in on Belgium, obviously you have struggled a bit over the last couple of years. At the same time, we've seen quite some growth at Solucious, clearly outperforming your exposure to Belgium. Colruyt being quite aggressive in terms of opening new stores for professional as well. How do you feel the market environment has evolved in Belgium? That would be all for me. Thank you.
Yes. Okay. Start with your first question. Indeed, in the Netherlands, we have on average a 3%-4% growth, but that assumes already that we might lose some of the accounts on the left-hand side of the graph, so the bigger national chains. I think in the areas where we have most added value and can make better margins, the growth potential is higher. We would like to gain share in those areas. If we look towards Belgium, the average is more closer to a 10% year-over-year growth level, or even a little bit higher than that. That's what we need to get towards that EUR 500 million mark.
Of course, we believe that it is best if we combine organic growth with acquisitions there. Again, very clear on the type of acquisitions to fuel that. Indeed, the combination of organic growth and acquisition in Belgium should get us to that target. On your second question, we believe that when we acquired the Metro locations in Belgium, Colruyt has benefited most from that intermediate period and the transition period and has gained most of the customers from that transition from Metro to us. They have done a number of smaller acquisitions in the last couple of years, which clearly gives them the outperformance to our outperformance. On the other hand, we also see that they are not profitable today, so they are also struggling and lacking scale.
That means we are up for a competitive environment. On the other hand, there's a very big landscape of many players, which gives us more than sufficient opportunities. We believe that we have a good proposition, that we have a high customer rating now for our efforts and our ability to do so, and that from an operational perspective, as a purchasing power perspective, we have an advantage over many of those competitors and have a good chance to play an important role in that further consolidation. I hope that answers your question to that extent. Otherwise, please let me know. Any other questions from anyone? James, please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much, and thank you for the presentation. My question's around with your results, you talked about the fact that a large company that sort of has a purchasing alliance in the Netherlands has gone out of business, and that gives you some big opportunities to either gain market share or to make acquisitions.
Yes.
That seems to be a sort of quite an important strategic factor for you over the next few years, if it's large. Could you give us some idea of the scale of how important they were and how important it is that they've left? I just don't know whether it's interesting or very important in terms of your future.
Yes. Thank you for your question. Indeed, that is a very important development. What I believe you are referring to is, there was a... If we look at the foodservice market in the Netherlands, Sligro is basically independent in their sourcing. Of course, from our retail history, we have a partnership within Superunie as a buying collective. Most other players in the market joined forces in terms of purchasing in the purchasing organization called Maxxam. This Maxxam organization consisted of the number two and three and most of the smaller players in the market. That meant context, Hanos, but also many of the smaller players combined their purchasing together in that purchasing collective, Maxxam, and that purchasing collective ceased to exist as of January 1st, 2026.
You can imagine that's less of a problem for Hanos and Bidfood, each having 11%, 12% market share in the overall market. For the smaller players, on the short term or mid-term, that will be problematic because having sufficient purchase power in this competitive market is, of course, very important. It means that we believe that all these smaller players are now seeking solutions to get access to stronger purchasing position which may trigger further consolidation in Dutch market. Of course, we are well-known in the Dutch market with these competitors. You won't be surprised that we've been speaking already to most of them, and we believe there could be further consolidation, acquisition opportunities, going forward in Dutch market. Indeed it is significant.
Whether it will lead to M&A or further consolidation through organic growth, that's still to be seen. We are very disciplined because there are opportunities to do crazy things at this moment that we won't do. Yeah, we are of course, on high alert to either acquire parties that are now in that position or to make sure that we fuel organic growth, now there is unclarity in the market. It is an important factor in the Dutch context indeed.
Thank you very much. Just to follow up, I mean, what sort of size of the market do you think that this company was supplying? I mean, it would have been very small for some of the larger players and very large-.
Mm-hmm
...for some of the smaller players. You know, would it be, you know, the same size as you in terms of the. The second one is what sort of benefit do you think they were supplying in terms of in terms of pricing that's disappeared in terms of is it a small benefit to these smaller players?
Yeah
...or is it a huge benefit?
To the smaller players, that was a huge benefit. The total purchase value was bigger. It might be twice the size of Sligro. Of course it was, it contained both Hanos and Bidfood and all of their purchasing, but also the rest of the top, the top five, six players in the market. I think in size they altogether they were bigger, maybe close to one and a half to two times the size of Sligro Food Group. Of course, the smaller players. The one immediately after Hanos and Bidfood was in total EUR 450 million in total sales value. In purchase value, let's say around EUR 300 million. That then being part of such a collective is significant.
For instance, also the smaller player, GEPU, that we acquired in the course of 2025 with only EUR 15 million top line and a purchase value of, let's say EUR 10 million. Yeah, you can imagine the dependency of those size players on such a big outlet. Not having access to such an outlet for these smaller players has a huge impact. For the bigger players, has less impact. Even the number three with EUR 350 million purchase value, that already over time will become troublesome. Yeah, we really believe that is a significant impact going forward.
Okay. would you say that your small competitors had no real disadvantage to you in terms of food purchasing before this, bankruptcy?
We were in the opportunity to compare with a player like GEPU. We have a considerable gap because of course, being one single player with a high volume has an advantage over being a collective of a quite a number of smaller players. These typical purchasing collectives focus on primary purchasing conditions, which means the daily average price and maybe a small volume bonus for the collective. In the end, it's of course also about promotion funds which typically go to the bigger players and the stronger players in the market. From that perspective, there is a significant gap in purchasing already. Now these players have lost also access to these basic purchasing conditions.
That gap will normally increase, giving us of course a great opportunity to further create a gap between our position and theirs. There was already quite a gap even in the situation where the Maxxam was altogether, and we believe that will increase going forward.
Okay. Thank you very much. Then just quickly if I may, just on Belgium. My understanding is that market's been pretty unprofitable for a long period of time, unlike the Netherlands. What gives you the confidence that that's going to change? You know, could it keep being a tough market for a long, long time where everyone continues to break even or lose a bit of money?
Yeah.
Do you think there's something that's happening that you can sense that's showing that there is a change happening here?
Yes. We have been speaking to many of the customers and many of the competitors and suppliers in this market over the last couple of months and year. We believe that inflationary pressures that we have experienced, of course, in the Netherlands and Belgium ourselves have really pushed even further on the profitability of these smaller players in the market. In the end, a model in which each hospitality outlet has a wide array of suppliers, each of them driving their own trucks, each of them having their own supply chain and low volumes in this competitive market is not sustainable at all. Truthfully, we had expected that this consolidation would be triggered earlier, already somewhere in the last couple of years during the previous period.
Pressure is increasing further and further, and we hear that everybody is facing the same struggles in terms of lack of scale and as such, not able to cope with inflationary pressures. We believe that that combination will have a breakthrough point. We had expected it would have already triggered before, but we believe that that will happen. It's difficult to predict whether that will be this year or next year, but it can't last for a lot longer because if we review and there's quite a lot of data available on the competition as well. If we review the top 10-15 players in the Belgian market, well, exceptions that are profitable and the rest is losing money.
Yeah, something has gotta give, and we hope to be able to speed that up, that process.
Okay. Thank you very much. Just a final thing is, given your scale in the Netherlands, do you feel you're using your scale to support the Belgium operations, or is there more synergies you could get from your, you know, really large purchasing in the Netherlands?
Yeah, we've been, we have been consolidating volumes over the last couple of years significantly. I think, of course we can do more. In the end, also in Belgium, there are distinct brands and distinct preferences, we have to make sure of that. Of course, on a supplier level, that consolidates. We are using that, we can do more. We will use that more and more in the next couple of years. Also from a logistics performance, we have been transferring direct deliveries in Belgium towards our central distribution facility in Veghel. Also there further consolidating logistic flows and reducing costs in that sense.
Also from a technology development perspective, Belgium is benefiting from all the technology and efforts and services that we have developed in the Netherlands. Of course, they require translation to customize them towards the Belgian preferences. Yeah, we believe that Belgium can benefit a lot from what we are doing on group level to further support and strengthen the proposition there.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Any other questions at this time? Yes, Maxime. Please go on.
Hi, Rob. Just one quick follow-up on my side. You have been talking a lot in the presentation in terms of, yeah, how do you expect a adjusted EBITDA margin to improve, sales growth and so on, but I don't see anything on free cash flow. How do you expect this to expand going forward? I understand that, like, yeah, you have that EUR 22 million investment plan for 2026, 2027. Any other thing out of the other we should be aware of? I also understand back from the results that you had a quite a positive working capital flow in 2025 based on one-off. Just want to clarify, how do you see the trajectory in terms of free cash flow going forward?
Again, a good question. Thank you for that. We had some one-offs indeed in the last year, which will of course not reoccur. Underlying level around EUR 50 million, between EUR 50 million and EUR 60 million in the last year. The CapEx program going forward is not distinct from the levels that we have seen in the last couple of years. We have a longer-term average of roughly 2.5% of sales in CapEx. We can achieve the plans as we have just presented them to you within those boundaries. No additional, excessive CapEx efforts. You were referring to the ERP implementation that is included in that longer term, 2.5%, that does not require an additional.
That means that with the restoration of profitability, also cash flow will further improve. As a result, we are able to distribute also more cash towards the shareholders or bank on M&A opportunities if they arise. Other questions for now? Okay. I would like to thank you very much for listening in to this call. James, sorry, I see you have one further question. Go ahead, please. James, you can go ahead. You're still on mute.
Yeah. Sorry. Thank you.
No worries.
I'm just interested in why the consolidation levels in the Netherlands are quite high and are so low in Belgium. Is there anything specific about Belgium? You know, do they have higher service level requirements or higher sort of food quality? You know, better restaurants? I don't know. It's quite a specialist market. What would be the reason for the market preferring this sort of wide range of suppliers rather than price maybe?
Yes. Well, there's a number of elements to your question. I will try to answer as good as possible. I believe that the structure in the market is a difference in historical development. We have seen this type of market structure in the Netherlands, but that's basically a gap of around 20 years. It is basically the setup of the business where Hospitality sector prefers to have a wide array of suppliers that has to do on the one hand with quality or quality perception that buying directly at a source or buying directly at a specialist gives a higher quality of product.
In some areas of the market, it also has to do with fiscal compliance because going into business with a full-service one-stop supplier makes for everything to be completely fiscally compliant. We have seen also in the Dutch context and also in the Belgian context that of course, if you do business with a lot of small-scale suppliers, it's easier to have some more wiggle room in that. That's disappearing rapidly out of the Belgian market today. It's moving more towards an efficient market. I think that historically has created the fact that there's not a lot of consolidation yet in the Belgian market, but that is changing also through government intervention.
Fully compliant cash register systems on the one hand, recent addition is European legislation on Peppol. That means that all invoicing has to be electronically as well and not on paper. That will put the pressure on efficient and transparent business operations going forward. In that setting, typically the proposition of Sligro with full stop shop and all the services combined, and a lot of technology is very useful and helpful. That's why we believe that is part of the structure. It's partly cultural, which is of course difficult to change, but also pragmatical and from an operational perspective. There we believe there are opportunities in this market in the next couple of years.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome. Hank, you had a question. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks Rob for taking my questions, and thanks for the good presentation, a clear presentation. Rob, you were mentioning that in Belgium, licenses determine what clients you can serve and what you can't serve. You also said, "We've been coloring in between the lines," to put it in those phrases in the past few years, and we're going to be a little bit more out of the box in the, in that respect. Can you give some examples what you can't serve or what you don't serve right now and what-
Yeah
... what it adds to your potential sales growth?
Yes. Maybe to clarify myself, yes, we have been coloring very well within the lines. We are moving more towards the lines, but we're not intending to cross it. Let me be very clear about that. To give you an example, overall, when we acquired the former Metro locations, the licenses that they have and the permits that they have is to sell to restaurant holders and owners of catering companies, which is a very strict, a very strict distinction in the market. It means if you are a hotel, which has a primary activity of renting out rooms, but you also have a breakfast service that they are not allowed to buy at Sligro-M locations. We simply do not have the permits for that.
That's considered more retail like buying. With all the issues that we had in the starting years in Belgium and all eyes on us in terms of how we use the permits, we decided to be very strict in applying that definition in all of our outlets. If we look closely in some of our outlets, our permits are a bit wider and have some more opportunities to allow other types of customers as well. For instance, sports canteens, or these hotels or other types of services that have a primary other activity, but also require food. It's in four of the nine locations that we now operate under the M brand. We have the opportunity to expand that part of the business.
I don't have exact numbers on the size of it, but to give you an example, today in the Belgian landscape, if we look at what we call small, medium-sized enterprises, only 15% of the total turnover in cash and carry is towards those groups of Small, Medium-Sized enterprises. In the Netherlands, that's 50%-60% of the total value in the cash and carry is towards those Small, Medium-Sized Enterprises. There's quite a lot of potential because of course, also in Belgium there are a lot of sports, canteens, a lot of bed and breakfast, et cetera, that can also do business.
In these specific areas around those cash and carry locations where we do have some wider permits, we're now opening up part of the market with very targeted and regional approach, of course. Yeah, if you go nationwide and approximately half of your locations were not allowed to those businesses to enter our stores, then we might have a problem. We have to be careful about it. That's what we mean when we wanna take some more risk, but a calculated risk within the boundaries of the permits that we have in those locations.
Okay. Thank you. Just for the clarity, the 15% and the 50%-60%, that relates to your stores in Belgium, huh?
Yes. 15% in the stores in Belgium in the cash-and-carry area.
Yeah.
In the Netherlands, that 60% is our stores in the Netherlands.
Okay
... overall.
Okay.
There's quite a lot of potential in food spend, in other types of businesses that we can't address in Belgium or we did not address in Belgium before, and we're looking for ways to address it. Of course, we are reviewing whether there's an option for us to extend licenses. We know once we trigger those processes that we will have a lot of pushback from our competitors. In those areas, we are maneuvering. Yep.
Okay. Thank you very much.
You're welcome. Okay. Well, if there are no further question at this time, then, again, I would like to thank you for joining in on this call. I hope it was useful to you. Of course, if there are any follow-on questions at a later stage, feel free to reach out to us, and we will answer them to the best of our ability. Next touchpoint towards the market will be our Q1 sales update, which we will present in April. You can find all the details and also the copies of this presentation on our website. I hope to speak to you somewhere in the near future. Thanks for now, see you again. Bye-bye.