Hello and welcome to this webcast. I'm Konstantinos Sarmadakis, Kri-Kri Milk Industry S.A. CFO. In this session, we will discuss in detail our performance for the first half of 2025, and I will give you an update on the business for the current year. After a short presentation, Q&A will follow. You can post your questions using the chat tool. Now, let's have a look at our P&L statement. Sales show an increase of 23.7%, reaching €162 million. Almost all of this increase is attributed to higher selling quantities, higher volumes. Gross profit margin dropped to 27.5% versus 34.6% last year. I will explain about this on the next slides. EBIT was €23.1 million with a margin of 14.3%. Finally, EBITDA stood at €26.1 million with a margin of 16.1%. Moving on to segment review, yogurt export sales continue to grow at a very high pace, nearly 40% year-on-year.
Key drivers on this growth are our major markets of the UK and Italy. Demand for Greek yogurt is very strong and drives production volumes at high levels that make us, in some cases, hard to respond and deliver in full. As we expect this increasing demand to continue to the next years as well, first and foremost, we need to quickly add capacity as soon as possible. In this respect, the Greek Yogurt Dynamo investment project is critical. When completed, it is estimated that we will be able to produce double the yogurt quantities of 2024. Also, we should delay aggressive business development to new customers for some months because it is not good to start a new contract and cannot respond to orders properly. Moving on, in the domestic market, yogurt sales show a moderate increase of 4.4%.
The environment in the market continues to be challenging because the strong shift of consumers to private label is still on. This applies pressure to branded yogurt's market share. Overall, we have a benefit from increased private label volumes as we are the leading supplier in the domestic market, but this situation is a challenge for our branded yogurt series where we need to adjust our strategy and win in the marketplace. In the ice cream segment in the domestic market, our sales show an increase of 6%. Key driver of this result was the expansion of our sales network with focus on the touristic areas and islands of Greece. Of course, the introduction of new ice creams to our portfolio and good tourist inflows in Greece contribute also. For the remaining of the season, ice cream sales followed a similar growth rate.
Moving on to ice cream export segments, sales show a significant increase. That growth was driven by Greek frozen yogurt and new private label contracts. In the U.S. market, our sales of Greek frozen yogurts were low as this first year of introduction served as a pilot. Additionally, due to the uncertainty stemming from discussions regarding the potential imposition of tariffs on European imports, we pursued a cautious commercial strategy, not to engage in fixed deals that might prove loss-making. Finally, the level of import tariff set is not affected us at all. For the next season, we have a stronger plan to expand our sales network and presence in the U.S. market and also run supportive marketing campaigns. Also, we expect some good news on the front of private label very soon. Moving on, this slide concludes the development of sales.
In value terms, sales increased by €31 million, and almost all of this amount is coming from higher volumes. Now, let's move to costs. Sorry for these busy graphs. On the left-hand side of the page, there is a graph that shows the history of Greek raw milk price, the raw material with a higher contribution to our cost. In the middle of the page, there is a similar graph that shows the EU raw milk price that relates to the price of some milk-related commodities such as butter and proteins that we buy. What I'm trying to show is that starting from July 2024, raw material prices have been climbing quickly. For the first half of 2025, they are standing at a high level. Greek raw milk price is up by 4.9%, and EU raw milk price is 15.2% higher.
This situation, along with some higher manufacturing costs, explains the contraction of our gross margin. For the full year, comparables of raw milk prices are more favorable. Even if the prices do not fall, the full-year difference for the Greek raw milk price will be 3.4% against 4.9% in the first half. In addition, there are clear signs of de-escalation in prices that can be seen in the future price of commodities, milk commodities, butter commodities, and so on. A slight de-escalation of raw milk prices is probable in the fourth quarter of this year. Finally, we had some targeted price adjustments that came into effect from the second half of 2025. All these compose a picture of better margins going forward. Moving on, these slides conclude the development of gross profit.
Increased sales quantity added €10.7 million to gross profit, but almost all of this disappeared from higher input prices. Let me now move on to our revised estimates for 2025. For the remaining of the year, we expect that the strong growth of our sales will continue. We expect our sales to well exceed our initial estimate of €300 million. Also, we are optimistic that we can achieve an EBIT margin of 14%, although this might not be so easy. CAPEX overall is expected between €21 million to €25 million. Finally, the shareholder structure. The Synagos family holds something below 70%. Institutionals abroad about 11%. Institutionals domestic about 13%, and individuals retail about 6%. I will leave you some time to post your questions using the chat tool, and I will come back to answering as many as I can. Thank you. Thank you all for posting your questions.
I'll try to answer as much as possible. First question about the growing percentage of total sales abroad and the effect of the EBIT margins in the long term. We think that this is something positive, also because we face less competition, so we have more pricing power abroad. Also, as a way of risk mitigation, we have less exposure to an economy, the domestic economy that has proven fragile in the past. Question about the input cost not being reflected in selling prices. In general, we have the risk of fluctuation in the input cost that it is hard to pass to selling prices in a timely manner. Almost in all cases, we have managed, we have achieved to pass increased cost in prices, but this had a time lag.
This happened also in 2022 with very low margins in the yogurt segment, but margins were returned to normal levels in the next year. About the terms of private label contracts, most private label contracts are with fixed prices, with the exception of some contracts with large UK supermarkets that we have embedded a formula that automatically adjusts yogurt prices related with raw milk price. A question about continued pressure on input cost. This is what happens in the market. As I said, we expect some de-escalation to start from Q4 2025. We expected this to happen sooner, but this is our estimate for the next month. Pricing actions for the second half. Yes, I mentioned that we had some targeted adjustments. This, we expect to have a positive effect in our gross margin for the second half of the year. A question about private label price competition domestically.
The commercial strategy that we follow is to defend our business in private label. In every case, we try to respond and not risk losing business, of course, without keeping any loss-making contracts. A question about frozen yogurt sales in the U.S. Overall, this season, we expect low sales in the U.S., as I mentioned. This will be of about €1 million. Question about the UK. Yes, the demand coming from UK customers of Greek yogurt is impressive. Last year, if I remember correctly, the growth of this segment of the market was more than 40%, and this year continues with up by 60% more. Forecasts from our customers expect this to continue at a high pace, also at least in the coming year.
We expect that we can defend our market share there because we serve almost all the major retailers with private label, and we have the capacities to continue working with them in the future. A question about raw milk price. It is difficult to explain the dynamics of raw milk price in Greece. It is the local competition that spurs demand and drives prices higher. There is also the prices of imported milk that affect the domestic milk price overall. The question is if we'll be unable to deal with high demands from the U.S. or UK. This is something that we try to avoid, and this is why we proceed on so high investing on building the necessary capacity. A question about working capital, receivables, inventory. The receivables increase is similar to the increase of sales. There is no change in receivables days, the trade receivables, I mean.
There is another element of other receivables that is mostly VAT from the Greek state, but this is irrelevant to our business. Inventory levels follow the increase of the cost of materials. On that item, there is no change, no substantial change in inventory days. Question about how large a U.S. private label contract will be. I can't tell more at this time. Just keep that we expect some good news soon. Question about if sales and marketing efforts in the UK might have a material negative impact on EBIT margins. No, we don't expect that to happen. All these campaigns are included in our business plan, and the U.S. project has a higher margin than our currently ice cream margins. What accounts for the growth in intangible assets in the second quarter? This is mostly related to we have a project to upgrade our ERP system.
Currently, we use the older version of SAP, and we are now running a project to upgrade to SAP S/4 HANA. Question about increased operational costs and labor cost. Yes, personnel costs rose by 27%. Most of this is coming from increased headcount, but also from increased salaries. Question about strategic mix. In our case, it has proven that private label, at least in exports, is not a lower margin and very cash incentive. We think that it doesn't present these features that are typical to other private label businesses. Question about French market strategy. Yes, we entered France. We have two contracts in place that continue. As I mentioned also in my presentation, we try to delay new business development and new contracts because we wish first to build up spare capacity in order to be able to respond properly to new orders.
Question about the EBIT margin for this year. Yes. As I mentioned, we expect on the margin front a better picture in the second half of the year against the first half. Question about what will be, I think this was incorporated in our guidance for 2025. We expect more than €300 million. Question about the project Greek Yogurt Dynamo. We had an announcement with more details on this project. Its total budget is about €52 million. It stays subsidized, and it is expected to complete in three years' time. After that, we will be eligible for about €23 million in tax relief as a state subsidy. Question about an animal disease. This disease does not affect our case because it is a disease of sheep and not cows. We buy only cow milk. Question about why we haven't passed increased raw milk prices.
In general, it is hard to do this, but in the first half, we had many fixed-price contracts, especially in private label. Also, there was a law, a legislation effective domestically that was making it even harder to increase prices. This was a law with the scope to control high inflationary pressure from the past years. The CAPEX €13 million is the CAPEX that was invoiced. The cash flow statement shows the investment flows. This means that the money that we paid for investment reasons. This means that we have €4 million that we will pay in the coming months. Question about renewable energy. Yes, we have a biogas plant that produces electricity. In our financial statement, this can be seen on the segment note under the other revenue line. It was about €800,000 for the first half. It is a profitable business.
Question about margin difference of private label and branded products. Yes, at the gross profit level, there is a difference. Private label products have generally much lower gross margins than branded. Because there is no charge of selling, marketing expenses, and other overheads, at an EBIT level, the margins are very similar. Current dairy shortage. Yes, in general, Greece has a deficit of cow's raw milk. Much of the raw milk that we use is imported, and this affects the prices and the local market. Question about pass-through clauses in the contracts with supermarkets. I think I answered that. This is the case only with some supermarkets in the UK. An incentive program to increase milk supply. Yes, this is currently running. We also try to strengthen it by giving more incentives to our farmers to increase production.
In that respect, to have a good quality milk supply, and also not to disturb the market and drive the prices higher by trying to offer higher prices and get new suppliers. The time lag to increase raw material prices, to pass increased raw material prices. On average, we have about four to six months before we can pass increased cost to prices. A question about what percentage of our sales has increased. I don't have the data right now. How much private label represents? Domestically, because of the high market share of private label, it is now about 50/50. Most of our exports in yogurt represent private label. This is more than 80%. We expect a slower growth in search into lack of capacity. We feel that we can cope with increasing demands, and this is why we try to be quick on adding new capacity.
When do you expect to have more capacity to grow your volumes? This is a project that is already implemented. We add capacity by when we have new production lines delivered. Question about working capital. We don't expect any material differences in working capital movements for the second half. Question from Tibomazin. No, I don't have the data right now. When we expect new production lines, this is a plan that we have recently installed one new production line last July, and we expect the next to come within the first half of 2026. Question about the margins. We feel that sustainable EBIT margins are at about 15%. Personally, I believe that we can do a little better by introducing cost controls and by putting more effort on higher profitability initiatives. An 18% EBIT level will not be easy to achieve, at least in the near term.
How much volume in % will the new production line add? This is very complicated to answer. In general, the Greek Yogurt Dynamo project will double the capacity, and we will be able to produce double the capacity of yogurt of what we produce in 2024. I think we finished now. Thanks again all for joining this webcast. Have a nice day. Goodbye.