Hello, and welcome to this webcast. I'm Konstantinos Sarmadakis, Kri-Kri CFO. In this session, we will discuss in detail our performance for the full year 2025, and I will give you an update on the business for the current year 2026. 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 continue to show strong growth with an increase of 28.2%, exceeding EUR 328 million. Most of this growth is attributed to higher selling quantities, while the price effect is estimated of about 2%. Gross profit margin was 27%, which is 2.7 percentage points lower than that of 2024. EBITDA was increased by 13.4% and reached EUR 48.3 million, with a margin of 14.7%. EBIT saw similar increase of 13% at EUR 42.1 million with a margin of 12.8%.
It should be noted that profit after tax had the benefit of EUR 1.4 million that relates to a tax relief as a state subsidy for completed CapEx projects. For the previous period, the tax relief was much higher at EUR 5.3 million, and this explains why the profit after tax figure is marginally reduced. We have applied to be certified for completed state subsidized CapEx projects. Following the successful completion of audits, we will be given the right for tax exemption in future periods, totaling EUR 6.7 million. Now, compared to targets, actual sales figure well exceeded the revised estimate of above EUR 300 million. We achieved the EBIT figure target of EUR 42 million even marginally, but we missed the EBIT margin target by about one percentage point. This difference is translated to about EUR 3 million less at the bottom line.
In the yogurt segment, our gross margin improved in the second half of 2025, broadly in line with our estimates and after our price adjusting initiatives. However, we had some cost overruns, as shown on the table on the right-hand side of the page. Firstly, about EUR 1.1 million relates to increased cost of raw materials for ice cream. Prices of key raw materials such as cocoa, chocolate, and vegetable fats remained at high levels during the last quarter of 2025, when we proceed to mass purchases for the next season. In 2026, these prices have dropped significantly. A second element is the increased waste in yogurt production. This comes from the shortage of available capacity that made our factory to operate well above the optimal utilization rate to cover the demand. Also, we had increased transportation cost because of the change in sales mix regarding geography.
Sales in distant markets like U.K. have grown at higher pace. Finally, in 2025, we upgraded our SAP ERP system and moved to the cloud version. We expect this upgrade to support our digital transformation initiatives and facilitate the introduction of AI to more areas of the business. Unfortunately, the project went a little over budget. Moving on to input costs. The graph shows the evolution of raw milk prices. The blue line shows the price of Greek milk, which consist of basic raw material. You can see that it stubbornly stands at high level, a little above EUR 55. On the other hand, with the green color, you can see that the price of EU milk has dropped significantly in Q4 and continues in 2026 at even lower levels. This is explained by the abundance of raw milk supply.
This development has a direct positive impact to our costing base as it relates to dairy commodities that we mostly import, such as butter and proteins. Also, it might drive the Greek milk price lower, as buyers of Greek milk may replace some quantities with imported milk. Now, about the impact of the Middle East conflict. It is very difficult to estimate the impact, both the financial and the operational, to our business, especially if the conflict lasts for long. Given the effects are temporal and energy markets will soon return back, the estimated total surcharge to our costing base is about EUR 5.5 million. The most part of it currently offset by lower dairy commodity prices, and also we are preparing for price adjustments if the effects to our costing base escalate. Moving on to segment review.
Yogurt export sales saw a strong double-digit growth of 45.7%, exceeding EUR 188 million. It is worth mentioning that yogurt export sales make up about 70% of total yogurt sales. The boost in our sales mostly comes from the major markets of U.K. and Italy. You can see on the graphs that the size of Greek yogurt market in these two countries is growing very rapidly. By the currently available information, we expect this growth at high pace to continue. Moving on. In the domestic market, it seems that the market has entered a growth phase. In 2025, it showed an increase of +10% in value and +7% in volume, and this positive trend seems to continue during the first month of 2026. Our sales in 2025 have followed the growth of the market.
In general, consumer preference for private label yogurt continues, primarily driven by the significant price gap compared to branded yogurts. Although we overall benefit from this development, it exercises pressure to our branded yogurt market share. In the ice cream segment in the domestic market, our sales saw an increase of +8% in value. The prevailing inflationary environment has primarily affected the traditional sales channel, leading consumers to shift towards supermarkets and private label products. This also means higher discounts and pressure to margins. In response, our growth strategy focuses on expanding our sales network and promoting our Greek Frozen Yogurt range of products, particularly in touristic areas. In exports, the U.S. case is going according to the plan. However, it seems that it will take some time until sales there reach a material level. In addition, there are efforts to tap into new markets.
A recent case is China, where we have a scheduled launch of Greek frozen yogurt with Sam's Club, a subsidiary of Walmart. Let me now move on to our estimates for 2026. We expect sales growth to continue at high pace. Our estimate for 2026 is a figure of above EUR 390 million. Our EBIT figure is expected to be around EUR 60 million, provided that current geopolitical developments will not have a material impact on our cost base. The financial performance in the first quarter of 2026 supports these estimates. Specifically, sales are showing an increase of over +30%, while profitability margins have improved. Finally, the shareholder structure. Tsinavos family controls about 70% of the share capital. Institutionals abroad have 14%, domestic institutionals about 10%, and retail about 6%. Thank you all for attending this meeting. Please post any questions you may have at the chat tool.
I will return in a little and try to answer them. Thank you.
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Thank you all for posting your questions. There are many questions, but I will try to answer as many as possible. Let me start from the beginning. A question about the energy consumption. Energy was about EUR 7 million in 2025. We are not a very heavy energy consumer. I think this accounts for about 3% of the cost. A comment on the U.S. market. We expect to see some good figures in the U.S. market coming from 2026. We have launched our branded products in a large supermarket chain, mostly in Texas state, and also we have a contract for private label with a large American retailer. A question about how we see profit margin in 2026. Overall, we see an improvement to the profit margins.
This comes both from lower level of raw material prices along with initiatives of price adjustments that took place in the second half of 2025. A question about our plan to buy new trucks for distribution. We don't own trucks. All the transportation is done by third parties. A question about how sustainable is the growth of our sales. Of course, it is very challenging to keep up growing at such pace. In many cases, we are running out of capacity, especially in periods where demand is peaking. This is why we are having heavy CapEx projects in order to build up our capacity and be able to fulfill the rising demand. A question about if there are plans to further expand our production capacity after Greek Yogurt Dynamo project. This project is expected to be completed by the end of 2027.
If we see that we need further expansion, I think we will have a plan. We set a plan for further CapEx as well. Question about the tax relief. With the recent application for certification for completion of our CapEx project, we will have about EUR 6.5 million tax relief for the next year. I think four of these will be available for use in 2026 and the rest in 2027. A question about how much of COGS is Greek raw milk and EU raw milk. Our imports of raw milk is very limited. We mostly use Greek milk, but we import some dairy commodities such as butter and proteins. A question about the U.K. market size. What we are seeing is that the U.K. market is growing at a very high pace and very aggressively.
If this trend continues, we might see it surpassing the market of Italy in a couple of years. Question about a contract with Walmart in U.S. No, we don't have a contract with Walmart. We have with Kroger for private label product. A question about China market. I'm not sure I understand the point here, but the general idea is that we try to sell where we find opportunities. If China can offer such, we will tap into this market as well. A question about how the U.S. market is going. I said that overall it is going according to the plan. We will see some good figures coming out from there in the current year. We might have cultivated some greater prospects, but what it seems that it will take some time for material sales to come from there. Question about the CapEx.
Most of the CapEx is going to be in the yogurt factory in order to increase capacity. A question about the EBIT margin. I think I answered this. A question about the German market. I think we stopped delivering yogurts there. We were delisted at least from some supermarket after a slight price increase that we tried. Sales there were not significant. A question about the Q1 performance. It is a little early to have more details on this. You need to wait a couple of weeks until our first quarter financial statements are released. A question if our guidance includes the $5.5 million effect of the war. Yes, this is incorporated and as I said, much part of this is offset by lower prices of dairy commodities. A question about price adjustments.
Last year we had some price adjustment that were effective mostly from August 2025. We try to increase to expand our sales network for ice cream. We now have more than 20,000 points of sale, and each year we try to add about 1,000 new points of sale to our network. Question of why U.K. market is growing that fast. I think it have incorporated most trends of healthy diet that comes along with Greek yogurt and also the consumption behavior is different there. Yogurt, the British mostly consume plain yogurt as food ingredient, whereas Italians, they prefer flavored yogurt and consume it as dessert. Expected CapEx for 2026, I think we have this here. It is about EUR 26 million-EUR 30 million.
A question about cocoa prices. Yes, we have seen that cocoa prices and chocolate prices have dropped significantly in the first months of 2026, and this will have a positive effect on our ice cream margin. A question if developments in Middle East can affect milk price, potentially increasing cost. Yes, this is a risk. This happened also in 2022, but the energy crisis back then started in June 2021, and it took about nine months after affecting milk prices. Currently, the case seems different because also raw milk supply is very high all across Europe. A question about new factory. The project Greek Yogurt Dynamo relates to expanding our current facilities and not building a new factory. As I said, all new production lines are expected to be operational by the end of 2027. These new lines will add to production gradually.
Question about percentage of supermarket contracts that have a cost pass-through clauses. This mostly consists of contracts with U.K. retailers, and I think they now consist more than 60% of sales there. A question about the hypothesis, the assumption of Greek yogurt market. We are seeing that the market is entering a growth phase, but competition is still very hard domestically, and I think this pressure over prices will continue. We need to have very elegant commercial moves with our branded yogurts. Question about EUR 3 million variable compensation. A part of this consists of increases in salaries, and this will be all along the current year, 2026. This will be split evenly, and a part of this will be variable compensation bonus that will affect the last quarter. Question about the trends, I think I answered this.
The assumptions taken for the margin guidance, as I said, the assumption was that the conflict will end soon. It will not take more than the next three or four months, and energy market will return in the coming months as well. The effect will be of about six to seven months in time. Our budgeted sales for U.S. in 2026 are about EUR 5 million. A question about percentage of sales. We have many retailers that we work with. Only two customers exceed the 10% threshold. One is a U.K. retailer and the second is our customer, the importer that serves the Italian market. Question about the launch in China. As I said, we have scheduled a launch with Greek Frozen Yogurt. The shipment is on the way, and it is expected on the shelves in the coming months. These questions I think I answered.
Question about the trend of private label. Currently, domestically, the price gap between branded yogurt and private label is very high. It's about 50%. Normal price gap is about 30%. If relative prices remain the same, we expect that private label will continue gaining market share. Question about our strategy in the national market. I think the opportunity lies with international market, and our strategy is to capture as much as of this growth we can. Question about assumptions for our guidance. There are some underlying assumptions that we expect to happen, but these are relatively according to current market prices. We don't have any hedging contracts because our raw materials are not reflected to financial instruments, at least directly. A question about our capacity. With the Greek Yogurt Dynamo project, we expect to double our capacity compared to 2024.
A question about the growth for the U.K. market, looking in the first quarter. The U.K. market continues to grow at a very high pace. I think it is more than 45% or 50%. A question about our presence in France. In France, we have a small presence, but our focus is on a much higher growing market in order to be able to supply our current customers and, in this way, we delay any business development in other markets. A question about the legal protection of Greek yogurt against Greek style. According to the EU legislation, yogurt that is produced in Greece can be called Greek yogurt, otherwise, it should be called Greek style. However, in our view, this is not an element of protection, but we believe that the actual protection comes from high quality and consumer's perception of buying an original product.
On dividend, the proposed dividend is EUR 0.45. It is increased by about 12% against last year. We have many needs for CapEx, and we expect dividend to increase according to profitability in the coming years. A question if it makes sense to build production abroad. At this point, it is not on the table because, as I explained, in order to call yogurt Greek yogurt, you need to produce it in Greece. By building factory production unit abroad, we will lose this benefit. A question about marketing for ice cream. It is not easy to answer, but we try with our commercial strategy to increase our sales in ice cream, and I think we are effective in that way. The contract with Kroger is not exclusive, but I think it will be important to see the actual appeal that has to U.S. consumers.
I believe that if this is successful, other retailers might follow. Synergies and cooperation in ice cream. Yes, we do have synergies with ION, for example, a chocolate maker in Greece. We have co-branded products, and these are very successful. A question about productivity gains. This is a very good question. I believe that there are opportunities to increase our productivity because, as I said, all these years, our focus is to try to meet the rising demand, so some areas like cost control, waste control, are left a little behind. There are opportunities that can improve our margins as well. A question about acquisitions. No, currently, we don't consider any acquisitions. As we see organic growth, it is very high. I think this was the last question. Thank you all for joining this session. Have a nice day.