Good afternoon, everybody. Very warm welcome here to our premises in the Netherlands, in Bunnik. My name is Jonas. I'm head of Investor Relations and Communication in Royal Unibrew, and I will try and take you through the day, both for you who are here in person but also for the ones that are looking in from behind their screen. We've been looking very much forward to this day to try and tell you a bit about our business and how we see it and how we see the future, especially. We have a busy agenda, so we will be strict on time today.
In a minute, our CEO, Lars Jensen, will start by talking about our strategy, the growth framework, and the growth opportunities we see going forward. Then we will have Henriette talking about ESG, our journey to zero emissions and a lot of other interesting stuff. Michael, who's heading up our International division, will talk a little bit about what has been impacting it for the past couple of years, where we are right now, and where we are heading in the medium term. We will have Jakob and Ilco talking about their individual markets, the Norwegian and the Dutch market.
It's the 2 latest platforms we have established in Royal Unibrew. They will also talk about where we are seen from an integration perspective, the markets, how we see it, and what we expect for the future. And then we'll have Lars Vestergaard wrapping up the presentations with all the really interesting stuff, like CapEx, M&A, return requirements, and capital allocation. Again, it's gonna be a busy day. There will be breaks in between, but please, please be back in time so we can start on time. And with that, I'll just leave the stage for Lars, who will take you through the first presentation.
Thank you, Jonas. And I would also like to welcome you here. We planned actually in the beginning to do it in London, and then a lot of you complained to us why can't we come and see Vrumona and also to meet the team here. So that is the reason why we moved it to these premises. What are we going to address today, and what will I address today? I'll go on the group side of things, and I'm going to talk you a bit through what happened, I would say, since the new Royal Unibrew era was created. And some would say that that started when I became the CEO, but that's not the case the way that I look at it.
It actually started back in 2018 when we acquired the Lemon soda business in Italy, because that was a strategic change in Royal Unibrew, and we have followed that road since then. So what I'm going to talk about, I'll give you a little bit of historical perspective, and then I'm going to walk through the strategic thinking and ambition overall, of course, the growth opportunities that we have as Royal Unibrew with the platform that we have today.
If we boil down Royal Unibrew to what kind of business we were before we acquired the Hartwall business back in 2013, it was a business that basically consisted of two strong, call it, home markets, where Italy was not a home market. Italy was very dependent on the Northern European platform with Denmark as the, as the starting point. So it was Denmark, Italy, and then an International business, which was a good, solid business with very high margins, but a very opportunistic business. So it was not a very focused business.
And that is what Michael will talk you through, and that is that we have transformed International since then to a business that has five growth pillars that we are working on, on a consistent basis. Then we acquired the, the business in Finland, from Heineken, which, basically, after spending 3-4 years on cutting costs, trimming the organization, downscaling, taking out all the complexities, turning it into a more extrovert organization rather than an introvert, organization, we, we basically cemented another home market in Royal Unibrew.
With that home market, we also created, I would say, three organizations. So the Danish organization, Baltics, and Finland became organizations that could contribute to the group. So if you look at it before we acquired the Hartwall business, then projects, they were all run by Danish staff. Then over time, as we implemented our SAP suite in the Baltics, that organization also took part of the integration process. And then at the end of the day, we got, after Finland was up and running on SAP in 2015, then we also built a muscle out of Finland.
So we came out with extra muscle, both from an organizational standpoint but also from a financial standpoint because we got 60% bigger when we acquired the Finnish business. So that was a real transformation. Then we acquired the business in Italy in 2018, and that is what, when you look at the graph on the right-hand side, you would see that our turnover was relatively flat from when we acquired the business in Finland, 2014 as the first full year, and then into 2018, relatively flat business because we were focusing on trimming costs, trimming costs, trimming costs.
Then in 2018, we acquired Lemon soda. The legislation changed in Finland so we could sell Original Long Drink not only in the Alko system but in all retail outlets, and that created a distribution that came from about 300 outlets to 3,500 outlets. That made a big difference to our turnover in 2018 and also earnings. Then lastly, it was a great summer. The transformation, in my mind, that started back in 2018 when we acquired the Lemon soda business but also the Original Long Drink position that has strengthened Royal Unibrew every year since then.
What we could do, basically, and the discussion that we had three years ago is that we could do a bit of the same, squeeze more blood out of the stone. I think you've heard that expression from my predecessor. You can do that until a certain moment of time, right? Then you start to cut things that is going to help you in the future. We were not really in the camp of doing that. We were more in the camp of, if we could make a transformation of Royal Unibrew as we did in 2013, then let's try to see if we can make another transformation of Royal Unibrew.
By transformation, it is more about geographies and categories than it's about new processes and, you know, new ways of working and so on and so forth. So it's copying more of what we have already done but in new markets. So when we look at our map today, then it looks like this. We have been adding new platforms to our business. And yes, it has gone a bit fast, right? Because normally, you would say that a new platform, a new country, every two to three years. So when you can sign on, sign off that you have integrated the businesses, then you're kind of ready for the next one.
The issue with M&A and partnerships, by the way, and that is that you cannot decide on the timeline yourself. When an asset comes up for sale, you need to find out if this is something that will help you in the long run or not. If you believe it will help you in the long run, then in my mind, you participate, and then you man yourself, you staff yourself, you check your balance sheet that you have the muscle to do it, and then you should do it.
We are born to take risks, you know. You do not get a job like my job unless you take risks and calculated risks. So if you want 2%-3% return, then go somewhere else. If you wanna have a higher return, and Lars, we will also come back to that later on, then in my mind, you should look at somebody like us.
The way that we run our business is the same. So the return on invested capital requirements that we have is the same as we have had for the last 10 years when we look at CapEx and when we look at M&A. And Lars will give you the specifics around how we think about it. The same goes for margins. So when we look at the margins that we want to achieve with our own portfolio, with partnership portfolio, with trading portfolio, it's the same requirements as we have had them for the last 10 years. So the Royal Unibrew has, in that respect, not changed.
What has changed is the size of our business and the amount of markets that we work in. And when you look at this map, there's one thing, that is new to the map, and that is that Belgium is also colored. And the reason for Belgium being colored is that we have signed an agreement with PepsiCo to take over their beverage business in Belgium. That is a carve-out, so there's a number of things that needs to be sorted out, like negotiations with work councils. So that is, or Pepsi is working on that process as we speak.
We hope that those things will be cleared over the next couple of months and that we would get the keys for that business in the beginning of July. And that is a part and has been a part of the business case for Vrumona, since the first day when we started to talk to Pepsi about how can we create a muscle in the total Benelux area. So this is not a project that has come up after we acquired it. It's a project that we have worked simultaneously with Pepsi about how can we do this, to create the synergies between the countries.
That would also enhance the return on invested capital, which Lars is going to talk about, a little bit, later on. Of course, we have not been able to talk to anybody about it, although that we have known that this would likely, likely happen. But it's a little bit of the way that we think in Royal Unibrew. So remember that when, when you look at us. So what we see now, with the map that we have today is that we see a lot of opportunities, in the new countries, that we operate in. There's ample opportunities for us to grow in the markets with the portfolios that we already carry.
But we also see that there's a lot of growth opportunities coming out of building our partnerships stronger. So it's not just about having new partnerships. It's also about working better and closer with the partners that we already have. Yeah. I think that was the words on about our footprint, so to speak. Then I'll give you an example of building a partnership. And this map could be other partners. Now, this is the map of one of our biggest partners, PepsiCo, the PepsiCo system.
And with our portfolio thinking, it is important for us to create winning portfolios with must-stock brands or mega brands because those brands, they open doors and at the end of the day, help each other. Local brands and International brands will help each other in getting more airtime with the retailers, get more size so that you have bigger implementation power, etc., etc. So the history here is that with PepsiCo back in 2013, we worked together with Pepsi in one country. That was only Denmark. So in the PepsiCo system, we were relatively small.
And at that time, our market share in colas was also something different than it is today. Then if you look at the map in 2024, we are working together with PepsiCo in 10 countries. Some countries, we only do beverage. In some countries, we only do snacks. And then in some countries, we do both snacks and the beverages. And when it comes to the Belgian business, we are going to take over the Belgian business. That is what is in the agreement.
But we are also going to service PepsiCo in the field force. So we are going to have the power of one in the field force, so doing the snacks. So they will do the key account work, but we will do all of the execution on the snacks so that we make sure that we get as much muscle in the market as possible. And then we will combine it with the business that we already have in the – sorry, in Belgium today. So we have some products from Vrumona, like the vitamin water that you can find in Belgium. And we also do have Crazy Tiger from the French organization.
So all of that is going to be brought into the same, and unique muscle. So creating synergies is important for the partners. And we have other examples of partners. Now, this is just PepsiCo. Then another question here is that, you know, why do you see that there is an opportunity to do good business with Pepsi? If you look at the per capita consumption of PepsiCo beverages in some of our markets here, then in Denmark, 31 liters is the count. So every single Dane is drinking 31 liters of PepsiCo products a year. Now, we have about the same share as Coca-Cola in this market.
So that means basically that about 60 liters is about the average consumption of cola for a Danish person. And then if you look down to the more, I would call it, immature markets where PepsiCo has a lot of growth potential, like in the Netherlands, like in the Baltics, or in Belgium, then we see ample opportunities. We are probably not going to go to the Danish level, because in some of the markets, you have other categories that have a larger part of the category.
If you look at Finland as an example, the water category with flavored water and enhanced waters is a very big category and basically covers a bit of the carbonated soft drink space. But I think if we could move the Netherlands to Finland, then that would be a great exercise. And we have done it before. So it's more of the same. When it comes to our strategy, it has been the same strategy for the last 3 years. We haven't changed anything to the strategy. We believe that it works really well. Is this a unique strategy? Probably not.
I think most FMCG companies, they will put in some of the same words as we have done here: customers, consumers, people, shareholders, and so on. I think the difference that we have here is that when you look at the wording, we have words around local. So that's super important for us, and that is that we think local. So when Ilco will present how we think about the Dutch market, it's in a Dutch perspective. So it's not a Royal Unibrew portfolio of brands that we try to push down the throat of a Dutch consumer. We need to look at the customers and the consumers in a local perspective.
That is our strength. Then we have partners, International partners. They will give us the International angle that will then balance those two out. But our most important role is to be local, agile, entrepreneurial. Those are the words that we put in here that are different if you look at our big competitors. Then the last thing that Henriette is going to talk about is the future. We have built in the ESG agenda as a part of our strategy and not an add-on somewhere that you need to remember. And we use this as a checklist in basically everything that we do. It needs to fit to the strategy.
And then the other part of it is what we call expectations. And that is for all Royal Unibrew employees. What is it that we expect from each of you? I think the biggest difference between us and many of our peers is that we do things in a team play. So that is the most important thing for us. Our colleagues are the most valuable treasures that we have in and around us. We want to do things together, and we enjoy doing things together. The other one is the bravery part, with an entrepreneurial spirit, an agile mindset, and you really need to listen to your customers and consumers.
You need to do trend-breaking initiatives. So that's the thinking that we have when it comes to the bravery part. That is that we cannot just play the rules of the game. We need sometimes to change the game. Sometimes you can steal with pride. That's extremely efficient, and it works well, and we do that. But at other times, you need to find out how do you break a trend. Because if you don't break a trend, then you just follow a trend, and that's in our mind, that's not good enough.
That's not strong enough. That doesn't put us ahead of the competition. So that's the internal thinking that we have. From a model point of view, we have two models that we are basically in its extreme, trying to pursue. We have the multi-beverage strategy, which when you look at the diagram here is the market where we have a lot of different categories that we work in. And on the other side, you see how deep we work in the market. So that's more like channels and customers and type of customers that we work together with. If you look at all the Nordic countries, we want to move towards the multi-beverage.
In Denmark, Finland, the Baltics, we are clearly multi-beverage. There's hardly any categories that we could add. In some countries, there's a few categories. And when you look at the availability of our brands, you would find them everywhere. So there's no channel that we are not servicing, basically. And when you get to that point, you get a lot of scale synergies, which Lars will talk a little bit about later. And then you have the niche market. So that's one, two, three categories at a maximum. And then you can work very deep in a market, so that you get some of the same scale synergies.
But the tipping point between the two is the one that is very difficult to manage. So, because you need to get to a certain level of scale or portfolio before you can move into the multi-beverage. So at a market like the Dutch market, I think mentally we consider ourselves as multi-beverage. That's the way that we talk about the business, also because of the size. It's a it's a relatively big, big business here. But if you look at it from a total scalability point of view, then there's a lot more we can do in this market to make ourselves multi-beverage.
Then we have created a growth framework, because in beverages in Europe, the market is basically flat. That's the way that we see it. So people are not drinking more. They're not drinking less either, but they drink differently. And, and our job is to try to nail down the differently. And these are the six categories that we have identified where we see that there's growth opportunities, so real volume growth opportunities. Now, in beer as an example, there's no volume growth opportunities unless that you're in premium or you're in no-low alcohol.
In any other category, if you're in mainstream beer, you're up for a decline over the next 10 years. So this is our guiding model in all markets. We are challenging ourselves on each of these categories. That is what we do when we have business reviews. Then we do deep dives on what is going on in each of the categories, how we're going to address it, what is our role in that specific category. In some of the categories, take Norway as an example. In energy, we are a challenger. So, we cannot change the rule of the game. We are a little bit too small, even though that we are building up steadily.
But if you take the RTD category, we are market leader. And then we need to play a game of taking responsibility of how the market is developing. So in each of the markets, we need to play out our portfolio to the maximum. And in reality, I don't care if we sell beer or RTD or we sell water, as long as we get the right profitability out of it. So in that respect, we are more category-driven, the way that we run our business, than some of the bigger guys that we compete against that are more brand-driven and that's where their success is measured on how much they sell of a specific brand.
We are more in the category thinking in Royal Unibrew. When we look at the categories, most of the categories that you had on the previous slide, that's categories where we're where the general picture is that the earnings per liter is higher than it is on an average portfolio. So when we talk about premium, we talk about RTD, we talk about energy drinks as an example, then that is categories where we earn more money. So the thinking around categories and profit pool and what we get out of it should overall deliver a higher profitability as a part of our growth formula.
One of the things that, again, makes Royal Unibrew different to some of the other players in the market, that is what we call in-outlet value creation. And this is about being super, super sharp in the outlet, no matter if this is an on-trade outlet, if this is a convenience outlet, or if this is a retail outlet. And the way that we do it, and you consider this as a circular thinking, we start with data, a lot of inside data. We want to understand the shoppers in each of the outlets. How do we then combine that with our brands? We build a plan.
We start to discuss with our customers in terms of how can we maximize this so that we get a value creation not only for us but also for the outlet. We make sure that we create a customer experience, that we create visibility in the outlet so that the consumers, they get attracted to the category as a first. Then secondly, of course, that they get attracted into our brands. A part of that is also the price/pack that we talk a lot about, that we need to make sure that we have the right pack for the right occasion. Then finally, with all of the merchandising and so on, then we evaluate at the end.
Then this is a continuous circle. This is not only on a key account level. This is something that we discuss on an outlet level. So each of the supermarkets, we need to have this mindset. So we talk to the local person in the supermarket, "Who are your consumers? What can we do to maximize and get the most out of it?" And at the end of the day, you know, examples of this is what we want to see. Now, this is just a few ones, where we combine brands and when we have new launches and so on and so forth. The growth formula that we have, it remains the same. You have been listening to this for seven years or so.
So what has changed is the opportunities to grow. So premiumization, that remains the same in our thinking around how much value we can create out of that. And that is also right price/pack. Volume growth, we have increased the ambition here because that we have new growth platforms based on the acquisitions that we have made. Operational efficiency, we have spent a lot of time during COVID on managing scarcity. And then we have been spending two years on managing inflation. We have not worked as intensive on efficiencies as you would normally do.
So we believe that there's more to come on the efficiency agenda. And Lars will, will talk about that. So what are the key, the key takeaways, our strategy and growth framework that remains unchanged, and it has been the same for many years. We don't see any reasons why we should change it. The toolbox that we use when we get new markets in is the same toolbox as you would recognize from the more mature markets where we have been operating, for, for many years.
There's higher growth because that we have a different platform. So there's more growth to come from our own portfolio, but also the opportunities that sit with the partners. And then finally, in our mind, we are stronger than ever. So that's the message that I want to convey, right now. And then I would welcome Henriette on the floor.
Thank you so much, Lars. Yeah. Hi. My name is Henriette. I've been with Royal Unibrew for the past five years, and I've been working with ESG, sustainability, CSR, pollution for many years. I don't want to allude to how many, if that's okay with you today. I've been looking really forward to see you all today. And, hopefully, you get some really good questions at the end. I just want to give you a flavor of where we are on the ESG journey, our performance, and the next steps, the next challenges that we foresee. Yes. And as Lars said already, we are fully integrated.
So sustainability ESG is fully integrated in the company strategy. And I think that's actually what's setting us a little bit apart from the ones that you normally would compare ourselves to. And that means that not only are we integrated in the strategy, but we also use exactly the same governance models. We use exactly the same operating models. So we actually also provide and enable the company in producing results, not only from, let's say, the hard position, but actually also hardcore financials, efficiencies, optimizations, supply security, resilience. It's just a couple of headlines for that. And is it new to us?
Lars talked about that our strategy is approximately, let's say, 3 years old. But actually, we have been working with sustainability ESG for many, many years. It's been a huge focus, and still is, on efficiencies and optimizations, historically. And then in 2018 was one of the important points. It was decided to actually sit down in a more structured fashion and look at what are the material issues for Royal Unibrew. And we identified at that time 42 issues, which is quite a few.
It's aligning totally with what we see to do with the new legal framework of CSRD, which is fewer altogether items or topics, which is 10, but it fits right in there. Then in 2020, we sat down and said, "Okay, let's also formulate some longer-term targets." Because as you know, climate is not done in two years. We need to have an outlook a little bit further. And that was the KPI setting. And now we are kind of transforming into having, I wouldn't say solved everything inside defense, but at least we need to change our focus to outside defense where actually the biggest part of our environmental footprint is.
We set out with huge ambitions. You know the company. You know we are really ambitious, and we actually also achieve it. So we want to be amongst the leaders globally within sustainability in our sector. So that's kind of a small, a small piece of thing that we want to do. And I, I get extremely proud and energized when I think about this. This is really a great place to be if you are that ambitious. And of course, it needs to be in a balance between people and planet, but also the profit. So profit. So we need to, to keep on realizing our strong financial performance and also being local.
So we keep the local focus while we improve in this area. And we are not the only ones that believe that we actually are doing quite a good job. So, a couple of years ago, we started an in-depth analysis together with Morningstar, Sustainalytics, to see what is actually their view on our profile, measuring 400 different items in 70 different dimensions on ESG. And as you can see, we started out from a, let's say, an average, or a little bit below average, point of view. A low number is good, you probably know this already. So a low number, low risk. So that's good. And then we actually moved quite fast.
And in 2023, we became the number one in our sector, which is beer, wine, and spirits. And we were extremely proud of that. And then you can say, "Okay, but how could they do that, that fast? It doesn't make sense." And I guess, the, the main, word here is disclosure. So I guess being a Northern European, Scandinavian country where we do everything the right way and by the book, you don't normally tell or you don't necessarily tell anyone all the things that you're doing that are going well because that's just the norm. But when you start telling what you're actually doing, then you actually score better points.
And then you might ask, "Okay, yeah, but that was 2023. We are already in 2024, so a year after. How is it going now?" And what we can see is that we are not only number one in the beer, wine, and spirits, but we're actually also number one, at least today, as of today, in the beverage, in general. So that's an extremely good result. But of course, we also know it's a moving target, and we need to improve year on year.
So, I mean, we just need to keep and do more of the good stuff. And the reason why we don't have the official SBTi assessment this year is that they have changed their methodology, so we cannot get rated until Q3 or Q4. So, the in-depth rating will be there. Very ambitious targets and addressing, of course, health and nutrition being in our sector. We really need to do that and enable our customers, consumers, in order to make better choices, for the environment for themselves. Our products, of course, climate is a big piece of it, and I will get back to that. And then, of course, packaging material.
You will see that in a minute. It's a huge part of our footprint. And not the least, our people, which is the daily enabler and makes sure that we get there. As you can see in the numbers, we are tracking quite well. Then you can ask yourself, like Lars asked the question, "Well, how does that set us apart with the, the competition or our peers?" Not really. I mean, it's pretty much the same KPIs that they are operating with. But I think the big difference is the speed of implementation. So we are way ahead of the curve in terms of when we want this job done.
And second of all, you could ask yourself, "Yeah, but is that realistic? Because if the others are spending five, 10, 15 more years than you, can you do that?" And I would say what sets us apart there is, again, back to our way we operate, how we are organized. We can make really fast decisions. So if we realize that something is not going in the right direction, we can change it.
And we can do that more or less, overnight. So that also sets us apart. And then again, a proven track record. I mean, this is not new results. It is something that we do year on year, creating better results. And here, I would like to take you around the world.
We have made significant progress on our ESG agenda the past years, reaffirming our commitment to decarbonizing our operations so we. The home of Hansa Borg and Solera Beverage Group. Here, we're already running two of four sites using electrical boilers, bringing us a step closer to our company climate targets. Up next is Hartwall in Finland, where we focus on circular economy. Here, we are running on a large biogas plant, so our site runs 100% without fossil fuels.
This means our plant does not generate any CO2 emissions or waste, and up to 2,000 tons of mash can be driven into our reactors monthly. After biogas utilization, the residual is used as fertilizer, and from the barley grown in those fields, we make beer. This is circular economy at its finest. Next stop is Kalnapilis Brewery in Lithuania to visit one of our most impressive rooftops. Here, we have a total of 1,234 solar modules with a capacity of almost 500 megawatt-hour. Off to our next destination, Crodo, situated in the northwest of Italy.
Here, we are also embracing solar energy as part of our commitment to becoming carbon emission-free in our production. Back in June 2023, we installed 2,000 solar panels on the roof of the Crodo facility. The solar panels are expected to produce 825 megawatt-hour electricity annually, covering approximately 15% of the site's annual consumption, which is equivalent to 300 households. From Italy, we continue to Toronto, Canada, and Amsterdam Brewery. Here, we have been able to offer locally produced Faxe Premium beer to our Canadian customers.
By moving production closer to the consumer, we reduce our transportation needs. This entails a significant reduction of our CO2 footprint. Actually, the project's potential corresponds to an expected 8% reduction of CO2 emissions from our total transportation. Going forward, Royal Unibrew will continue to: Optimize our energy consumption by investing in processes and technology such as heat pumps, clean-in-place systems, and low-pressure compressors.
Invest in reduction of CO2 emissions by utilizing renewable energy sources such as biomass, biogas, and electricity. Lastly, we continue to strengthen stakeholder collaborations for further innovations. Thank you for joining our guided ESG tour.
Yeah. I'm sorry we went kind of abruptly into this, but this was just a bragging journey around the globe, from a CO2 point of view. And I just would like to add that, of course, we don't stop here. And we also mentioned the heat pump here in the video. And actually, we already have that one running in Faxe. And it reduces our energy consumption of natural gas by 30%. So it removes the natural gas consumption. So that's the money down, let's say, the bottom line. And it's also making sure that we are in a good place if we should see gas shortages in the future. And Lars would love this.
It's 1.5 years we'd pay back on that one. So it's kind of a no-brainer. So, we can also work with the clever investments in this area. And then, last but not least, where are we going now? So, as I said before, we are now starting the journey of looking much more outside our own production sites. And here, we use the carbon footprint as an example of what we do. 90% of our carbon footprint is outside our own premises. So that is at our suppliers, at our customers, at the end of life of our products. So it's a huge task, as you can imagine, to take care of that. And we have done that.
Again, historically, of course, packaging material has been a big part of our business. And it's also, as you can see, almost half of the carbon footprint. So that means we have been looking and downgrading, simplifying our packaging systems to make them enable recycling and reuse for many years. On the right-hand side, you can see what achievements we have had historically. So I guess today, I would like to emphasize what is the next step? What is it we need to do more of now? So first of all, we need to look much more into our agriculture-based raw materials.
And I just want to add, again, a little bit of a bragging thing. We just got our final targets for net zero in 2040 and including FLAG targets approved by Science Based Targets initiative, which we are extremely proud of. And I can say with that we are the third brewery in the world to get the FLAG targets approved. So we are kind of, you know, thinking we're in a good position of our ambition of being amongst the global leaders in this space. But looking at the raw materials, of course, we have been working on recipe changes.
And just for your info, so if you remove sugar from CSD, an average of 70% reduction in the carbon footprint right there. So it's healthy for you, but it's also actually reducing the climate footprint right there. Of course, we look at optimizing production processes, and that is something we just continue to do. But I think, very importantly, that we are also stepping up on our collaboration with parties outside our facilities. So it could be a local farmer, for instance. Again, going back to being local, we have some huge farms in the vicinity of our production sites in Finland and in Denmark.
We have direct cooperation on the ag, so on the brew barley and on the malted barley, where they have production methods that are more sustainable than, let's say, the conventional type. And that means not only can you reduce the carbon footprint, you can actually also make it more water-resilient and, third and not last, improve the biodiversity in those areas. So we are really extremely excited about that. But, of course, it's also important to if you think about it, and the ag commodities, of course, malt is a small fragment or small slice of the totality in the food sector, obviously.
Therefore, we need to work in consortia with our colleagues for feed and food and say, "Okay, let's set the standard for, for these, types of operations going forward." For packaging material, we have been doing a lot over the years already, and we need to continue that. One of the challenges here is actually to find the sweet spot between the cost, the fit for purpose, and also, the environment. We do not want to go for a huge environmental benefit, huge cost, and not really fit for purpose.
We see that with some of the recycled materials today, that they actually, have a problem in terms of, new, transportation damages, et cetera, because they are not strong enough, simply. Then, if we turn into distribution, we already saw that in the video. So the thing about moving closer to the market takes our transportation totally. And even though we don't fly things around in the world, even though we sail it and do it in a good way, we still can cut a lot on our footprint by moving closer. We have the example in the video with Canada. But we also, as you know, we have bought San Giorgio in Italy.
And that's also going to move a lot or remove a lot of the distribution that we see today from Denmark to Italy. So it makes sense, again, from a cost but also from a CO2 perspective. I would also like to say that transportation is probably one of the areas where we are challenged, because we don't see a lot of innovations in this area yet. So we really need to push hard on our providers in order to get some alternatives. We are looking at, of course, introducing more circular, let's say, milk runs between suppliers, ourselves, and our distribution hubs.
And also, we are looking at, of course, EV and testing a lot of things out. So there's nothing new there. But it's just to let you know we don't see a lot of solutions yet. But this very, very powerful tool to move closer to the market is something we are going to continue on. So I would say that you should sit back and think. They are well underway. Scope 1 and 2, not done but almost done, with a patchwork of different technological solutions. And Scope 3 is the new frontier.
We have firm roadmaps and initiatives to get ourselves to the target of 50% reduction already in 2030, five years ago, six years ahead of now. I also hope you sit back with the, let's say, the knowledge that ESG is not just driven by compliance. Of course, compliance is a big piece, but it's also driven very much by the people that are there but also the responsible sourcing and those pieces that are not directly linked to efficiency. We already mentioned CO2 reductions is a big challenge. And actually, when we look at scarcity, electricity is probably going to be quite a scarce resource.
So what we foresee is actually that there might be some challenges down the road where the infrastructure simply is not built out fast enough for the use that we actually would like to have. Because we would like to electrify as much as possible. So change from, let's say, gas-driven heat to electrified heat. That can actually be a true challenge. And then, of course, we need our, our customers' sorry, our suppliers' commitment to get there. And then, we want to continue on co-development and cooperation together with our suppliers. You saw 90% of our footprint is outside our fence.
That means our suppliers is a very, very big piece of our success. And I think when we can create a win-win situation where we have many examples, then we are actually in a good place, and we will get there. But we need to step even further up on that. And then, last but not least, we are still number one, at least when it comes to the assessment of Morningstar's analytics. Thank you very much.
Thank you. I'll present myself a little bit. My name is Michael Nørgaard Jensen. I'm a 30+-year veteran in the beverage industry. I have worked for several companies. Carlsberg managed quite a lot of the countries in the Carlsberg portfolio in Asia. I've worked for Coke abroad as well. Half of my life, I've lived and worked abroad. And I'm now back again for the second time in Royal Unibrew. And that's super exciting. I'm heading up what we call the International business. And that business is defined as everything outside of Scandinavia, the Baltics, Holland, France, and Italy.
So basically, the rest of the world, which is pretty big, but super exciting as well. What I'm going to talk to you about is basically how we conduct our business in the International arena, what we focus on, how the latest development has been, and where we're heading in the future as well. So basically, we operate in five geographical areas, as you can see. We operate in Europe, Canada, the Americas, Latin America, Caribbean, in Africa, and Asia, rather specifically in China.
We work through a setup of partners, through partners, with partners, which is basically carrying the majority of our work and workload in the individual countries. That means that we are ultra-asset light. We don't spend much resources except for overseeing the distributors and our partners. We develop we spend quite a lot of resources in identifying the partners and training the partners abroad as well. The local partners are basically the ones who are taking our product through to the consumer.
That also means that we are insulated, isolated, or whatever you would call it, for local fluctuations because we operate, we sell in the same area as we operate, et cetera. As said, we're super-asset light. We utilize the capacities and group functions, and take them basically abroad in a very defined strategy. So our business model is we do things very simple. We do them very targeted. We are very niche-oriented. Where there is an interesting profit pool, we can operate. And that's basically it.
That's the whole idea of International that we are very, very focused and that we operate in a controllable, stable profit pool abroad. And that's where we pursue our growth. We don't have an aim of being a mass market brand provider internationally but a very targeted, niche-oriented brand provider. We are utilizing the resources that we have from the group perspective, wherever we travel. This is an overview of the brands that we actually operate with. We have a beer portfolio, which is strong, both from partners and from our own beer brands.
We are having a very, very strong malt position in Africa, Caribbean, and the Americas. We have a strong cider position in China and with other brands like Nohrlund, et cetera. And then we are in CSD and energy, water and a little bit in Wine and Spirits in Canada. Within the recent years after or basically from COVID and throughout the COVID era, we have been suffering a little bit from increasing COGS, especially also increasing shipping costs, which has hit us quite significantly internationally, at least in the short period of time.
We've also had a little, so to say, capacity constraint, which has actually put a damper or a lid over the growth opportunities that we actually have internationally. I'm happy to say that that picture has been changed significantly. As an example, our organic net revenue growth has jumped 47% in the first quarter of this year, a development that we expect to continue, as well as our EBIT is now back to a solid interesting level, as where it should be.
Our business model has been that we would like to reorient the way we operate away from Faxe being the sole supplier and sourcing point to spreading out the sourcing and localizing it. As an example, with what we've done in Canada by buying Amsterdam Brewery, we've moved the entire Faxe production to Canada. We are working in the Caribbean. We have through licensed partners and other partners set up, as an example, in Trinidad, where we are localizing as well. So we are avoiding transporting water throughout the world. But it also has a different opportunity for us.
And that is that we are far closer to the market. We're far closer in adjusting to market needs and tastes and developments as well. So our reaction time has reduced, has been reduced significantly while we're reducing, so to say, our carbon footprint, as well. And you saw that in Henriette's presentation. Recently, we have also localized our production in China, as well. So the China example is an interesting example. And that's basically what we see replayed everywhere else where we begin to localize. And that is that we are eliminating some of the import barriers.
Some countries have some pretty nasty import duties, et cetera, by localizing. We avoid them. Then, we exchange a European or a local COGS environment with a domestic COGS environment, which sometimes looks pretty different to the ones that we're coming from. As an example, a European COGS is slightly different than a Chinese COGS, et cetera. And then, we also get in tune to the local taste. Most importantly as well, we're reducing our shipping costs significantly and, therefore, also shortening our value chain to the local markets.
So in, in the journey of the acquisitions that we've made and in the journey of, of redoing or relooking at, so to say, the way we produce and, and, and how we source, we're actually freeing up capacity for new growth within, the International, market area. So the key midterm initiatives is that we will continue to look at optimizing the route to market, everywhere in the Caribbean, Latin America, in, in Africa. We have done some significant inroads in optimizing our, our, route to market, and especially our value chain to the market.
We will, in Canada, look at expanding our market position centered around Toronto and Ontario because that's where the biggest profit pool is in Canada. In Asia, or rather in China, we will expand Tempt, the cider. And we will do that very controlled, city by city by city. So we can chew the animal, which is China. It's a very big country. Trust me, I've been in Asia for many, many years. I know that. Malt, we will expand our category leadership, and we will bring new life to that category as well. Wherever we operate, there are some interesting opportunities there in the future.
And for CSD, we'll keep accelerating the growth in key markets area, for us. Of course, the Danish border is huge, and we will keep pushing for CSD but also for Lemons oda in Central Europe as well, where we see a lot of good and solid growth opportunities as well. So the key takeaway that I would like to leave you guys with is that, yes, we have been negatively impacted. Yes, it has taken a little bit of the growth out of our business short term. We are back on track. We are seeing some very healthy numbers for the future. We have reorganized our route to market.
We are in a better, more solid position for the future as well. And, from a sourcing perspective, we actually expect that we will have full access to the sourcing and the capacity that we need. That's also helping that, I'm also managing the Danish supply chain, so that's within my own area of expertise, so that's fine. Our net revenue is jumping up, and we're looking at some very healthy, solid EBIT numbers for the future. And we will be looking at a good, solid International business going forward. So, thank you for that.
And, thank you, Michael. You can stay.
Yeah, I will stay.
Please. And I also like to invite Lars and Henriette back on stage because now we will have the first Q&A session for today. Just start by reminding all the analysts that they have one question at a time. There will be a microphone being carried by Pernille. And let's start up here, Pernille, with the first question. And you can, of course, present yourself and tell us who you are.
Hi. It's Andrea Pistacchi from Bank of America. I had a question on partnerships, which you've clearly highlighted as a big opportunity with a platform. Do you have a specific ambition of sort of how much sales, say, on a 3-5-year view, partnerships could add, or how much partnerships could contribute to your sales growth? And is there an optimal sort of balance within the group of partnerships versus own brands, a level maybe beyond which you go, you lose a bit of focus on your own brands?
I think the history has shown that, we first of all, I would say that we deal with partner brands as it was our own brands. And we are not a wholesaler. So when we work together with partners, we control the brands in the countries where we work together with the partners. I think, we look at it as a totality. So this is a category thinking. And if we can grow our share in a total category, then, we should end up in a situation where we basically grow both our own part and we also grow our partner brands.
I think in the country where we have seen that kind of a journey is in the Danish market, where we have been working together with Pepsi for decades. The launch of Pepsi Max is about 25 years ago or so. I think it is by now. It came from nothing. And then, that was helped by the Faxe Kondi brand. So Faxe Kondi is a must-stock brand. And then, over time, you know, by adding the Pepsi portfolio next to the Kondi portfolio, then, we have been able to build up Pepsi Max. And today, from a volume point of view, Pepsi Max is actually bigger than Faxe Kondi.
But the two brands are still helping each other, as we grow. So I would not say that it's one or the other. In other categories, we do not necessarily earn less money because if it's more premium brands, then, in reality, we can end up in a situation where we earn as much money on partnership brands as we do on our own brands. In mainstream, yes, we need to share profit. But if you look at niche positions, you should not consider it as a given that it is always something that is diluted to the totality. I think the general is, yes, it will be diluted because you need to share the profit.
So we see it as an integrated part of our business. I think with the acquisition of Vrumona, the Belgian business, the Pepsi business on the border trade, and the snacks that we have incorporated, the Diageo portfolio in Norway, et cetera, there's a lot of growth opportunities within the partner, partner area for the next couple of years. But the aim is that that would help our own portfolio as well.
And then, there was André also on the first row over here.
Thank you. So I'm André from, Danske Bank, André Thormann. I have a question to Michael. And that's, related to the profitability, of the International business. So, you, you showed the, the, the wrong direction on, on the slide. So what is the normalized profitability, level of, of this business? And can you get back to the 2020 profitability in the International business?
I would be tempted to say that we are more or less back. Okay.
Why? Yeah. Okay. You were only tempted. Yeah. Tempted. Now, I think it is a progression, of course. And then, there's a market mix that you need to take into consideration. But I think what Michael is saying is the ambition to go to something that is where we came from is intact.
Yeah. Yeah.
Then, it's Søren.
Hi. Søren Samsøe from SEB. Just on your slide 21, you showed sort of the numbers on your growth model. And in your 6%-8% EBIT growth, you included 2%-4% volume growth. Those 2%-4%, does that assume that you grow in line with the markets you are in? Or does it assume you gain market share? And if yes to that question, then which markets do you assume that you will gain market share?
We expect to gain share throughout. Right. So in Europe, people are not drinking more. They drink about the same amount of liters overall. So in the total market, then, that means that we need to gain some market share. I think the Dutch market is a market where there's a lot of growth opportunities. Norway is a market with a lot of growth opportunities. We have very solid numbers both in the Baltics, in Denmark, on the border trade, in International, and we are growing also in Italy in all of our three categories. So we see a lot of opportunities to grow our business by volume. But it's not just about volume.
It's also about getting the right mix out of the volume, which is the other part of it. Right. So at the end of the day, you need to see the two in conjunction. Good. And two rows behind in the white shirt.
Yeah. I just wanted to ask another question on this, slide 21. I reckon it was around the growth targets and the composition of growth targets. I find those targets very relatable. 1.5%-2% premium organization volume growth, operational efficiencies. And then, on top, you have the buybacks and the M&A. But I mean, in a shorter perspective, let's say 2-3 years, in my mind, there are three more bubbles that are not on this slide. First, the one that you just pointed to, normalization of the International business.
Second, the synergies from the acquisition here in the Netherlands and, in particular, around Norway that are yet to set in. And then, third, normalization of the COGS and the gross profits from the, yeah, very volatile period of input prices. So there's actually three more parts that add to earnings growth, I would expect. So, could you maybe now or in the course of this presentation, maybe touch on those three again?
Last, last we'll touch what you think about those. No, last we'll touch about it a little bit later. But I think, in general, we agree that the positive list is pretty long. But, but we also know that that's something that will not work out as we expect it to work out. So, this is this is what we believe is achievable in a year where we would see that there's ups and downs, and not everything will materialize in all markets at the same time.
I think on the COGS side, we have not included, you know, a heavy reduction of COGS in the scenario. So what we have included in the scenario is that we are going to work on optimization also on the procurement side, as we would normally do. But if suddenly the gas price gets down from EUR 35 to EUR 7, where it was before, then that is not a part of the scenario. So that's the thinking that we have. And yes, we are also very optimistic about International as an example.
But we also know that with a sequence of two years or whatever, then there will be some new coups that might bring our business into, you know, half a year of instability and these kind of things. And we of course need to manage that in ambitions, like we have put forward here. So I think what you should think about here is that it's the same as you have seen before. But we have added 2% because the opportunities are bigger than they have been in the past.
Then, Richard just behind. And then, Thomas, afterwards.
Yeah. Richard Withagen, Kepler Cheuvreux. Back to Belgium, Lars. I mean, in terms of capabilities, what can Belgium provide for other group companies? And the other way around, what can other group companies provide for Belgium?
I think, short term, Belgium cannot help a lot, you know, in the group as such. I think they will get help from the group. It's the same topics that we are discussing with Ilco here in, in Holland, on how to become a challenger, a real challenger in the market. It's a lot to do with implementation in outlet, at the first stance. And then, the price/pack discussion that we have also talked about on Holland is exactly the same for the Belgium market. I think the new thing about Belgium in that respect is that we'll build our own portfolio next to it.
So you know, the way that we are used to it is that we have a strong base by ourselves with our own brands. And then, we add partnership to that. Now, it's actually going to be the partner piece that is the biggest of the business as a beginning. So that will be slightly different. We have built an integration team that is ready to start whenever we can start working on it.
And that is a team where Belgium will get help from France and Holland and from the Danish organization, our headquarters functions. So that's kind of like a multi-organization from a language point of view that we are putting together so that we tailor for each of the needs that we see in Belgium.
Hi. Thomas from Nordea. A question also on the growth formula or long-term EBIT margin. Adding the numbers together, then it's 6%-10%. But back three months ago, you announced the new long-term EBIT growth margin of 6%-8%. So what is the missing 2% here? What is the risk here? And why not say 6%-10%?
It's a little bit back to the answer that I gave before. Of course, you can always add the one in the bottom, or you can add the one in the top. The thing that reality is that it will be midpoint mix of all of the points in reality. Yes, our lists that we have in our mind, it is longer, and it is more optimistic. But we also need to put the realism piece into it, that not everything will go as expected. We are not going to stop if we hit the ceiling of the 8%. I promise you that we are not going to stop. We will continue.
Mitch. Thank you.
It's Mitch Collett from Deutsche Bank. One from Henriette, please. Yes. Is there any tension between the sort of growth drivers that Lars outlined, you know, sort of energy and other categories and, and the sort of ESG side of things? You know, I'm thinking about smaller pack sizes, occasionally products with higher sugar or, or even alcohol content. I know you talked about low and no sugar being lower environmental footprint. But do you ever get tension between those growth opportunities and the ESG side of it?
I think it's a very good question. But and I think our main focus is actually on the health and nutrition piece, which can be obtained by either removing sugar as an example or removing alcohol, but also looking at portion sizes. So that is also part of what we are looking at, for sure. But it's also maybe coming up with completely new innovations with other functionalities, like the vitamin drinks or stuff like that. So I don't see any kind of clashes between. But I guess we are in the party business, so that's part of who we are. But we have an obligation.
And when we're putting portfolios together, our view is that we cannot just service what is no/low alcohol or no/ low sugar. So we need to have a portfolio. But we will leave a choice for the consumers to choose if they want to have it with sugar or without sugar, or they want to have it with alcohol or without alcohol. I think that's the key mindset that we have. We are a party company. It's, you know, most of the beverages are consumed when you have social gatherings or, you know, you've been out doing sports, and you need to re-energize. And so it's a positive consumption area.
And we need to just deliver the choice for the individual consumers about what they want to have in that specific area. And I think, on the container side, I totally agree with you that that's one of the ones that, you know, as we are downsizing, we use more material. And the way that we talk about it internally, and we also act upon it with the brewers' associations or drinks associations or the return systems that we have, that is, everything needs to be returned. And then, we can reuse it.
Because if we do that, then we immediately cut off, in most instances, more than 50% of the CO2 just by making it recyclable. And, of course, if we can then be reusable, then it's even better from a CO2 perspective. And I think locally we are in almost all countries by now, apart from Italy and France. But all other countries have some kind of deposit schemes. So that helps us quite a lot or will help us quite a lot on our journey on reducing the pack and yeah the packing area, which is 42% of the total CO2.
Thank you.
Then Søren has a follow-up.
Yes. Thanks. It was just on the International segment. You had some capacity constraints at some point. Are they completely solved now? If you continue to see these growth rates you saw in Q1, will you be able to sort of keep up with supplying?
We're actually freeing quite a lot of capacity up by localizing, as said, moving Faxe to Canada, moving Tempt to China, etc., etc. The new acquisitions has given us a additional new capacity. So we actually are looking into a very different perspective of capacity and access to growth in the future, also for International.
Yeah. So, yeah, just adding on that. So we have a number of capacity expansion projects in its making. We are putting up a new canning line in Italy. We are putting up a new canning line here in Vrumona. We are rebuilding the glass line. So that will also both have better capability but also capacity. We're putting up a new PET line in Denmark. So that's if you start to do the math on how many liters that is, then that's quite a lot. Yeah. So we're trying to get back to a scenario where we free up, or have about 85% of capacity utilization, not more than that.
Because if you get beyond 85%, you start to run your assets down, and the average cost per unit goes up. And this is where we have been for the last couple of years. And the one of the reasons why that we see that we can get more efficiencies out of Royal Unibrew. And that is because that we are ramping up on the CapEx side so that we can get down to a variable cost level, which is more reasonable than what it has been the last couple of years.
And then, a last question before the break from André.
Yes. Thank you. André from Danske Bank. I just have a question regarding the slide number 14 on the growth categories, because it seems that, at least compared to when you did the CMD in 2021, then, the profit contribution per hectoliter has declined a bit compared to what you presented back then. So is it a little less profitable now, today, to, for example, produce energy drinks or CSD than it was back in, in 2021, as the slide indicated? No.
We have reestablished the per liter profitability with the price increases that we have made. We have a margin dilution in percentage. Yeah, so that is where we are right now. So there's very, very small changes. And if any changes, then that will more be countries. So if one country grows faster than the other, and there's the profitability difference between the countries. But the underlying profit margins on each of the categories are give and take the same. Yeah.
Thank you, Henriette, Lars, and Michael. And we will now go into a break and be back here at 2:00 P.M.
Thank you.
[Foreign language]
And you're still going doing good on the timing, so please keep up the good job. With me on stage here, next speaker is Jakob Simmelsgaard, who heads up our Norwegian business and will tell a lot more about that now. So Jakob, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Jonas. Since there are some of you who are a little interested in hearing about our integration in Norway, so that I will do. My name is Jakob Simmelsgaard. I have been part of Royal Unibrew for the last 13 years, now moved from Denmark and staying with my family in Norway. So good to be here, and good to meet all of you. So the key topics I will go through today is Hansa Solera, short and brief, who are we, what are our market position, and our footprints in Norway. Secondly, a status of our key developments areas.
We have identified during the acquisition process of Solera and the remaining part of Hansa Borg to gain all the synergies and become one company in Norway. Thirdly, we have a very strong starting point already in Norway. We have still identified further growth opportunities, which I will go through and share with you all later in the presentation here as well. So looking a little bit back, we have a long-term knowledge of the Norwegian market through the 25% of the minority share we have had since 2002 in Hansa Borg.
Moving into 2021, we acquired 100% of the shares in Solera Beverage Group, a leading importer and distributor of International brands within mainly Wine and Spirits, but also other beverages like beer, soft drinks, etc. Solera Beverage Group, which during that time covers across Norway, Sweden, and Finland. In 2022, we acquired the remaining parts of Hansa Borg, 75% of the remaining shares, Hansa Borg being the second biggest brewery in Norway with four production plants and a water facility plant as well. Today, I join Multi Beverage Engine in Norway.
I would say the three most important priorities for the organization in Norway and for me is to leverage on our good starting points, which I will share with you in a moment, and then fix the integration, meaning the four key development areas I will share with you, and then thirdly, growing the business going forwards. As you see here, we have a good starting point here. A strong position in all channels, off-trades, on-trades, and the monopoly, supported by local production, a strong route to markets, a great sales force, and today a great organization and a great team.
Looking at the off-trades channel here, we have a quite dominant position within the cider and RTD, a category that are growing, these years going forward as well. We are the second biggest player within the beer category in Norway in the off-trade, and then we have just entering the non-alc category. In the monopoly here, we also have a dominant position, 17% market share in spirits, a good position in beer and wine as well. I will share the overview of the local and International brands we have in the full portfolio.
In the on-trades, we have the opportunity to sell in the full portfolio, and we have a good position in all main categories of the beverages area: beer, cider and RTD, wine, spirits, and also here we have entering the non-alc category here. We have four production plants including the water facility in Olden, and then we have our own logistic company, Cuveco. Cuveco is a leading logistics provider serving both ourselves but also other importers with full service concepts in Norway. This is the overview of our portfolio we have. This is a super strong starting point. This is quite unique.
We cover all categories within the beverage areas: beer, cider RTD, energy, Wine and Spirits, other beverages, coffee, tea, snacks, water, and now starting to entering also the CSD here. We cover all main categories with strong local and International brands. This is a unique portfolio where we can drive value, we can drive traffic together with our customers and become their preferred choice. That is what we are aiming for.
So looking into the four key areas for further developments that are part of the integration process, this is the four areas, to gain all the synergies from the acquisition of both Solera and the remaining part of Hansa Borg to become one company and gain the synergies. I will go through what we are calling the performance model, the route to markets, the operational effectiveness, and how to improve that going forward, and also how to make sure that we through the full organization have a winning mindset and how to win in the future.
Looking at the performance model, to become one company, the key challenge we have seen until now has been lack of transparency and also limited fact-based approach and data-driven decision-making. So what we have delivered throughout the last year is one common IT infrastructure that is now covering the entire company. We have adapted implementing Royal Unibrew policies and HR tools. Also, we have one common infrastructure for the finance and accounting part.
This leads to much data quality improvements, much better and faster data decisions, and in the end, we have finalized a pre-study for upcoming SAP implementation. So looking on what is in scope going forward, that is to implement not only the standard SAP from Royal Unibrew Group, but we see this as a total IT program, IT program consisting of SAP as an ERP, but also all local applications. This also means new ways of working for the organization.
A nd as a consequence of the IT program, we will harvest all the system transparency from the Royal Unibrew Group, which will lead us once again to much faster, much better data-driven decisions in the future. Looking at the route to markets, the route to markets, and the key challenges we have identified through the acquisition process is an inefficient supply chain setup to bridge the full potential of synergies by being one company. So here we have delivered now an integrated sales force into each of the channels that we have in Norway.
We have in Solera, respectively Hansa Borg, used different external third-party logistics providers that we have now consolidated into one. We have closed down one of our breweries in Kristiansand, and we have, within the end of last year, sold the production sites. All this has also left us with increased efficiency throughout the supply chain already now. As a consequence of the SAP implementation and the IT program as an overall frame, we will end up with one front-end invoicing in Norway.
We will, as a consequence of that, have a joint logistics with improved efficiencies, and at the end, we will be able to sell, especially on-trade, the full portfolio and by that gain all the synergies from the cross-selling parts of the integration. This will. What will be the positive impact of the IT program implementation here. Looking on the operational effectiveness, we have been really good in the past in zooming in, but we have lacked the long-term horizons of what we do. We have, of being one company, have inefficient processes, and that is what we have worked with throughout the last year.
So we have merged the local procurement organization into group procurement and by that harvest all the synergies in relation to that. We have implemented the last year's sales and operation planning, not only focusing long short-term, but especially the long-term horizons is a big part of this. Performance management as a tool throughout the Norwegian organization, and then we have been through a year with organizational changes. We have set a new leadership structure throughout the organization and one management team, for the Royal Unibrew Norway going forward.
Focus and what is in scope in the next period of time is to implement supply chain tools, drive optimization, and efficiencies. It is, as a consequence of the IT program, to have better data and more streamlined processes as well, and also implementation of commercial tools in order to leverage already the starting point we have with the full portfolio we have available now. A winning mindset, that is part of the Royal Unibrew's DNA.
We have had different companies in terms of Solera, we have Cuveco, we have Hansa Borg, so also this means different cultures, different ways of talking to each other, different ways of working. There have been a conservative mindset and a lack of ambitions, meaning we want to push more a winning mindset throughout the organization. So here we have been implementing the leadership expectations Lars was referring to as well, which is coming from the Royal Unibrew overall frame, but with the organization in Norway to define the values and how we live the leadership expectations here.
We have been implementing common policies, and aligning employment contracts and also implementing HR tools. We have worked a lot throughout the last year in removing silos, become one company, and then we have also implemented performance-based bonuses for our employees in order to drive a winning mindset and growing the ambition level. For the future, we are going to implement the Royal Unibrew growth framework, as part of growing the portfolio even more and then increase the profit focus in general.
Looking at the growth opportunities, like mentioned, we have a super good starting point. We have the most interesting portfolio in Norway at all. Besides that, we have still identified several growth opportunities going forward. We have a dominant position in cider, in RTD, which is a growing category. We still believe in growth in cider and RTD, so what we have on the agenda is to drive the cider and RTD through expansion in on-trade even more and accelerate growth in the overall total markets with cider and RTD.
Looking on beer, we want to maintain the volume scale while focusing on increasing the value through our innovation pipeline going forward. We have a super strong partnership with existing partners. We want to utilize that even more going forward as well, strengthening the partnerships we have, but also look into potential new partnerships. As I have shared with you, the portfolio is really the uniqueness of what we have in Norway. So win in on-trade by succeeding with the cross-selling strategy and with the ability to sell in the entire portfolio in on-trade. And then increase market shares in Wine and Spirits.
That is also part of the full portfolio we have available for the on-trade, but also to the monopoly. Finally, but not least, the non-alc is a huge category in, in Norway. So establishing a strong footprint in non-alc beverages is a key focus for us going forward. So if somehow I should summarize this, our starting point is good. We have a good position, a strong asset. We have come a long way the last year.
We need to finalize the remaining part of the integrations, meaning the four development areas, the performance model, the route to market, improvement of the effectiveness, and a winning mindset. And then capture the growing opportunities going forward. That's all. Thank you. Ilco.
Thank you, Jakob. Good afternoon, everybody. And for those here present, still welcome also on behalf of Vrumona here in Bunnik. It's really a joy to have you all here on site and later on have also you walk, most of you, on the premises. I would like to start with a very short introduction of who I am. I have a few years under my belt in the beverage industry and as Michael also, he is a returning employee of Royal Unibrew, so am I. I have been working for 75% of my career in drinks. I actually like numbers, 25% of that roughly in other countries than the Netherlands.
The last few years I've been working for a company called Cargill, but I have been with between 2015 and 2017, I was the marketing director in Denmark for Royal Unibrew. And then obviously when my previous employer, Heineken, sells something back to Royal Unibrew, it really starts to become very interesting to see if there's an opportunity to assist and support the growth ambition that we have here. So those two elements brought me here and yeah, it's a very exciting journey to be on.
I would like to take you a bit through the business that we have here in the Netherlands, with first a very brief and short overview of who Vrumona actually is and what Vrumona is, how we currently look at the growth opportunities here, but also how we're aiming to grow the momentum in terms of the earnings that we also need to improve as well as on the side of the efficiencies. So starting with where we are here in Bunnik, really at the center, I think it's 30-35 kilometers away from the central point of the Netherlands, so very nicely positioned in order to serve the entire country here.
It has created a bit like Royal Unibrew, coming from a large group of suppliers that is united in order to make sure that they are better off to fight competition. So since 1945, it has been the basis here in Bunnik. And as you also can see, much like Royal Unibrew, we also have a very long-standing partnership already with PepsiCo that started in 1949. And even that one lasted longer than the previous ownership and collaboration with Heineken. So also here we have a very strong and long heritage in nurturing and working together with partners.
We have a long-term partnership with PepsiCo as well as we do one with Rivella, the Swiss company and brand. Then in 1968, officially it became part of Heineken and that period ended last year when Royal Unibrew took over Vrumona. And I think that is really a key mark for Vrumona in order to make a step change towards the future. It has been a relatively stable company when it comes down to the volumes that were coming out.
B ut also it has been very stable in terms of investments that weren't necessarily coming through as they should have in order to be able to be better compatible in the market. Vrumona has been focused also very much on the sustainability part. On the left side of this chart, so this is the picture from 2023, we're updating it as we speak, but on the left side is very much one of the key focus areas, which is the no/low sugar agenda that has been driving Vrumona for the last few years.
We are a, you will see it later, we are the number two in size and the number two in footprint, but that is only because we compare ourselves also to a water company that is in this space, but obviously we are leading in the no and low sugar category from a sustainability point of view. The majority of our new launches are all on no sugar. We have a focus on our communication and our point of sale where we push the no/low sugar agenda significantly, so 85% of our ATL and BTL expenses are driven towards that part of our portfolio.
And then the other side is which is an area mostly on the Scope 1, 2, and 3 of our footprint where we make significant steps as well and where the partnership with Royal Unibrew has even generated more attention and a faster implementation of those types of measurements. This was an agenda that was set out with Heineken to be ending somewhere in 2030. Well, you've seen just now the presentations, it's 2025 for Royal Unibrew. That is a bit too soon for Vrumona to keep pace, but we're definitely catching up and bringing that deadline a few years forward.
Then here the picture as you've seen it before, so Vrumona very much centered in the Netherlands, very closely connected also to the new addition that is currently under discussion with PepsiCo for Belgium. With that, I think we are building a significant platform in which we can serve not only the Dutch market, but also very well the Belgian market after a certain period of time once that is established. In terms of our position in the market, I think overall we're number two. I think that is typically something that we need to address better here internally.
We need to have that number two mentality, that challenger mentality, and by the time that we are number one, we still should keep that mentality of being the challenger. And that is something that might have been lost a bit over time because of the investments that haven't come. You need to also be able to equip your team in order to fight and win in the market with the tools that are there.
So that's what we're currently working on in 2024 here in Vrumona, to make sure that the investments that are being done on the plan side, the investments that we do on the commercial side, are also enabling the entire team in order to win and really drive that forward and start looking at opportunities that we can capture that before that we're not really in scope. So we're the number two in the overall soft drinks market. We're also the number two, as said, in the low no sugar segment.
That is only because water is probably less sugar containing than any other category, but our footprint is very, very much on this side. I think we're about 60%-65% of our portfolio is sold in low no sugar from that perspective. We are the number one in the adult soft drinks. That's a segment that we have defined around the mixers, Royal Club with the gin tonics, the bitter lemons, a bit more the acquired taste, I would say. Mainstream CSD, which contains cola, orange, lemon, lime, we're the second player.
In lemon lime, we're still number one with 7UP, if you define it, if you define your own market, you're always market leader. Functional waters, number two. And then in energy drinks, we're number five. That is still a category in which we're late in the game and we're supporting the Rockstar brand in order to grow, which is growing fast, but that is definitely an area where we need to step up and we are working towards that with our partner, PepsiCo. This is the portfolio that we have, as you see, very clearly driven by Pepsi and 7UP as the license brands. We have our own orange brand here, SiSi.
The largest portion of SiSi in the orange segment is the no bubbles, which is actually a category that was driven here, so a significant contributor to this brand. A low cal, but full flavor opportunity with Crystal Clear. It's both also in still and in carbonated. Then Rivella as our brand also for the adult soft drink market. Royal Club, our lead brand for it, and then we have a partnership with Lipton, which we do co-fill here for them for the retail market as well, that we also work together with them in the on-trade. Rockstar for energy. We have our local heroes, Sourcy, of which the well is actually on site.
And a very good addition, and I think you've been able to taste a few of those samples here as well, with Vitaminwater in which we're also doing a lot of innovation. So in the coming few weeks, you will see something new entering into the market where we enter much more into the functional benefits areas of this segment. We are well known for our mixers. We work together with a small company called Double Dutch for the premium segment in the on-trade, and then obviously for the larger part of that, we do that with our Royal Club brand.
A recent new brand that has joined Vrumona also last year, just before the acquisition, is the Butcha, which is in the Kombucha area. A small brand that is now just being launched in retail as relatively successful in there, but obviously a small niche area, and then some lemonades with Russell & Co. as well as Ranja, which is a syrup. We already start looking a little bit beyond and in adjacent categories, and for us, there is a logic step next to mixers, which is also in the RTD, where also the rest of the group has its expertise. So that is exactly the model that I think we should be applying here.
We should see what works well, what is close to our areas, what can we sell at customers that we already visit, and from there take the expansion and grow. So in terms of what we need to do here, there's a very clear first step, which is the separation from Heineken and the integration into Royal Unibrew. I think if I look at where we stand today, we have had a massive step done in the beginning of April, which was literally the unplugging of the systems from Heineken and bringing it back into Royal Unibrew. Everybody has switched their laptops. We have changed the systems also in the factory.
So I think we're more or less 80% done with that part of the integration. We have only our HR systems that are still running on the Heineken side of things, and that is going to be completed by October. So we're very much on plan with integration. No massive hiccups. Obviously, you have a few areas where you need to dive into a little bit deeper, but the teams have been able to solve every single issue that came up. Then obviously the change of focus during the retailer negotiation and really become a challenger, I think that is one of those areas that we still need to further work on.
We have already a good position now in order to start building with those retailers. We are expanding with the number of distribution points also with the larger retailers in the Netherlands. They have incorporated all the innovations that we're bringing to the market. So also there, I'm quite confident that we're able to make the steps towards the future. And then another thing that is keeping us busy every day is the capacity and capability expansion on the other side of this parking lot, which is very much the investments that we're doing in the new canning line, the capabilities on the glass line, the Euro pallets.
So we're able now also to serve the network from here with Michael's area in the border. So the production of Pepsi is happening here, in which we also serve the network further for Royal Unibrew, and that has started end of last year and is now really fully on stream from Bunnik. So this is basically what comes down to what we need to do, right? So it's the unlocking of the capabilities that we actually have here.
We have a fantastic site that aces every single opportunity when we need to do audits from our partners. But I think what we can do is really elevate that still one more level. We are increasing the capacity in order to serve the market in a better way and also be able to address it with the right type of pack, which is something that we're currently still missing. Glass line is for premiumization, so we can be better in terms of separating different bottles. We can handle more than one bottle type from that moment onwards. And obviously, the better distribution and the in-store execution.
We're really forming a strong team in the market, visiting the accounts. And today, some of you will also visit the markets, but the execution in-store is really something that we can, from day one, make a difference on. I think that is definitely a model that in today's world will help us grow. Then the next addition, obviously, once the works council in Belgium has given their approval to Pepsi, then we start immediately with the integration of Belgium and Luxembourg into the system. How do we foresee that we are able to manage the profitability also for Vrumona? That is very much on the mix.
We see that we can drive higher margin products like a vitamin water, and we should put significantly more efforts into cold availability. This is not a market in which the retail has fully embraced cold availability yet, and it's our task and our objective in order to make sure that they understand that that is actually something that is helping both them and us.
We're driving a better mix through data and opportunities from updated production capabilities, but also from a sales and commercial perspective. So we're driving very much cross-sale opportunities that are being generated by the system simply by matching a few data points that we already have on our site. And then efficiency clearly comes from the CapEx investments. It comes from the carve-out of Heineken that is already starting to yield success and further a growth platform that will help us to also work more efficiently.
So the runs that we do for the border are definitely helping in our efficiency on our supply chain side. I think the conclusion here that we have, so these are the elements that we are working on and that have partially been completed already, is on the carve-out. We're very much on plan. We might even be slightly ahead of plan because on our IT systems, the majority of it is done. On finance, we have brought in already the majority of the work that needed to be done except for the payroll. The people are being hired.
Procurement has been moved into group function, and HR is the only lasting element that was already planned to be last in line. So they're very much on plan. I think the commercial potential is on plan as we are progressing throughout the year. Our results are on plan, but I think we still have a long way to go when it comes down to the implementation of the price/pack architecture where we definitely have something to win. Field sales, they're starting in two weeks from now, so also they're very good momentum.
On the supply chain side, the new canning line is on its way. The bottle sorting is on its way. Euro pallets has already been, as a capability, implemented in our factory. And then obviously, the sustainability agenda will definitely be geared up and be driven faster. On the people side, we've started with the whole cultural change to become a real challenger in the market, and that's not something that you just push the button and we'll start, but we are on our way, and Belgium is to start. I think that's the fair part.
So also here, a bit like what Jakob also had mentioned as a strong starting point for us, we're on plan, we're on target, we're confident about the future, we're looking very much forward to all the growth opportunities and capturing those. We will focus on the in-store execution. We will focus on the large CapEx projects that we have on the production side and also start leveraging the network and doing the integration for the Belgium and Luxembourg markets.
So. Thank you, Ilco. Thank you. Very interesting if you ask me, if you didn't. And then if Jakob will come back on stage and also for the first time today, Lars Vestergaard, our CFO, and then we'll do a Q&A now. I think we have a very good time. So if you come with some very good questions, we will try and answer them. André up here.
André, is it? Oh, it is turned on. Thank you. So André from Danske Bank, a question to Jakob regarding the profitability potential because one of the focuses in the winning mindset is increased profit focus, as I read it. So what is, I mean, profitability has been lower than what we know from Royal Unibrew in Hansa Borg for many years, and it's obviously also much lower in Solera. So can you maybe talk a bit about what's the profitability potential on the longer term for when you combine Hansa and Solera?
I think Jakob, you can start, and then I'll join whenever you get too close.
No, I think, like mentioned in the presentation as well, so the starting point is divided into, you can say, the portfolio coming from Hansa and the portfolio from Solera with the Wine and Spirits, where we see the biggest growth potential here is actually within, especially with cider and RTD, where we're looking at the profits in general here on cider and RTD. That is profits that are higher than the average we have seen.
So that is also why it's one of our key building blocks that is to continuing growing and driving cider and RTD. So leverage on the portfolio, and then we have the synergies we will cover during the next year that will also enable us to increase profits in general.
Actually, Thomas, first here.
Hi, Thomas from Nordea. Also a question for you, Jakob. On one of your slides, you have growth opportunities is maintaining volume scale in the beer category. So just is that the ambition for beer in Norway? Is that maintaining volumes, or how should we understand beer in Norway?
Yeah. Like Lars was mentioning, the overall consumption is more or less flat. In Norway, the beer is going a little bit down while cider and RTD is growing. So if we can keep momentum on the beer on volume part, we will grow shares, while the key focus for us is to drive the value parts on-trade, but also through the innovation pipeline. And then Pernille, just to keep you in good shape, Richard down in the back.
Richard, good afternoon. Kepler here. Yeah, sorry, Ilco, but Jakob again, I'm afraid. Yeah, Jakob, I mean, I'd be interested here, as you go with your multi-beverage portfolio to your customers, what is the feedback from customers on what you have to offer them? What do they value the most, the two, three things? And what do they tell you they still miss from you?
Within the last year, since I moved to Norway, I've been out and met several of our customers, especially within the on-trade, where we have the full portfolio available. So where they see the value is to have a partner which actually are able to offer the full portfolio of categories to their bar or nightclub or restaurant. In general, the on-trade market also suffering with getting in employees, having enough time, driving traffic, all that we can help them with.
All that we can support them. So having one partnership with Hansa Borg and Solera will free up time for them. We can drive traffic, we can drive growth together. And that is also the focus from them when I'm out and talking with the customers.
Hi, Mandeep Sangha from Barclays. I do actually have a question for Ilco. Just referring to slide 74, where we look at sort of the category strength that you do have across the Netherlands, one area of weakness is the energy drink where you said you were number five player.
You do have Rockstar in your portfolio. Obviously, Rockstar has been challenged in a few other markets as well. Do you think there's an opportunity to leverage the energy drink brands that Royal Unibrew has in other countries like Crazy Tiger and the like to maybe come to the Netherlands, or do you think Rockstar is the right brand to drive growth? And probably linked to that, is there any other categories you think you can leverage Royal Unibrew's portfolio to drive growth, both in the on- or off-trade in the Netherlands?
Well, thank you for that question. I think for us at the moment, Rockstar is the key driver that we will be pushing, particularly also because we have several other areas where we believe that we need to put our attention and our resources behind it, so otherwise we would be spreading it too thin. Will it remain the only brand forever in the Netherlands in the energy drink? I can't tell you that at the moment. Maybe there are other opportunities as well within our portfolio, but that's just speculating at the moment.
In terms of the other categories, as I highlighted on that slide as well, is that to me, it is the most logical opportunity for us to go a bit broader into ready-to-drink, very closely connected already to the mixers that we have. We have launched a range of mocktails. I mean, there is only about time that we open up our vision a little bit beyond that into the categories that we already know as a group as well. Also, we are likely able to make those here.
Thomas?
Maybe a question for both of you. How do you see price increases going forward in your countries? Will it be more a focus on value management and mix, and then you give away some of the price increases, and instead you get more shelf space, or yeah, how do you see that?
I think from a Norwegian perspective, last year we have worked with devaluing currency, with the cost inflation, and have worked a lot with general price increases. But also going forward, it is the right product mix, channel mix, and how to improve that going forward as well.
Yeah, and I think here in the Netherlands, I mean, the challenge on prices is very obvious. We have a very concentrated retail market here. At the same time, we're hit with the soft drink tax that is not a sugar-dependent one. We do aim to, and we leverage then the price increases based on the strength of our brands.
And in that, we find a mix also with complementing that with growth opportunities that we align together with the retailer in order to see where we can push it further. So it is literally a P times Q equation for which both elements are relevant.
Let's take Andrea before we take Søren. Søren, Andrea?
Yes, a question on the Netherlands. So you talk about wanting to have a real sort of number two challenger mentality, which sort of positions you sort of against Coke. But private label also has a large, I think, market share here in the Netherlands. So what do you see as the opportunity of gaining share from private label? And are there sort of price gaps versus private label any different here from sort of the other main markets in Europe?
Well, I would say that currently, that's probably where the tax has played a little bit into our benefit because the low price point of private label is now significantly higher, and they have received a percentage that is significantly more than the branded part on their end. So that gap has declined. So from that perspective, the sourcing becomes more logical from that area. Our distribution is also in hard discounted areas, has expanded, and is still expanding. So we're also bringing some innovations into that area. So that market is definitely in sight for us to grow our business.
I think it will also help if we are able to innovate in the right areas and work together with the retailers in the right areas so that there is a logic to give us that space and that role on the shelf so that they don't necessarily need to fulfill it themselves. So I think it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we do our best and if we do it better, then obviously, the dependency for them on a second player that they create themselves will be less.
Søren, and then A ndré ?
Yes, Søren from SEB. Just a question from Ilco. We saw a slide earlier showing how the consumption of Pepsi in Holland and Belgium was much lower than in Denmark and Finland, for example. And of course, you can make a very nice conclusion, and that gives a huge upside.
But maybe could you give a little bit of color? What is the explanation for that? And why will that change? I mean, and also give some more color on about the general consumption of CSD in Holland. How is that different from the Nordics?
The difference between those markets is a good question that I don't really have right here. So let me start with the position of Pepsi. So I think the way that they have been marketing Pepsi was very much as a single brand opportunity and not necessarily leveraging the rest of the portfolio. I think that's one area that we see. Our market share in on-trade is significantly higher than it is on the retail side, where we already started to play that game of portfolio. I think that's something that we need to start working for us.
I think the investments that are currently being done by PepsiCo in the Pepsi brand itself is helping us significantly step up in terms of the visibility. And then what we will do on our side is leveraging the occasions for which we currently do not cater. Our key SKUs on Pepsi, on a large brand like that, are also our key SKUs that we need to use in promotion, for example. So I think that leveraging of a broader pack type availability will help us grow in the future. We have started already here working with retailers on the cola segment as such, where we have what we call the Pepsi meter.
That is going to further expand also this year, in which we have agreed with all stores that are big enough to have one to have that also installed. That actually elevates our share as well as the entire category.
Thank you. André from Danske Bank. So a question for Ilco. Just to be completely sure, I mean, if you wanted to flag out just one key growth priority, is it then to grow Pepsi? That's it, or yeah? If you just chose one.
I would say if you want to win in the soft drink market, you need to make sure that your stability in cola is better than what it is today. So yes.
Mitch?
Thanks. It's Mitch Collett from Deutsche Bank again. For Ilco, closing the gap to Coke, you said you need some different pack sizes. Can you talk about what pack sizes you're missing? And is there a need for a price differential on a like-for-like product between you and Coke for you to be able to win? Do you have to be at a discount, and what is the right discount to have?
Well, I think currently, on our pricing level, we are on shelf where we more or less should be when it comes down to the different price/pack. I think the leverage that others have that we currently lack is the multi-pack opportunities in order to serve and cater for the right level, but also the small sizes. So we are relatively strongly present in the large packs, the 1.5 liter. And I think the single serve is for us a key area of focus where we want to expand a little bit more in the future.
Good. Now you're also starting to sneak in two questions at a time, but that's fine. We had the time this turn. So now, thank you to Ilco, and thank you to Jakob. And then Lars, if you remain on stage, because then it's you now.
Yeah. Yes, so we're going to put it all together now. I think you've seen a lot of good examples of how we were thinking about growing the business, how we are building in the different areas. So now we're going to turn to the numbers that comes out of all this. Here's a chart of what has happened to the business over the last 10 years. What's clear is that revenue have grown very strongly. Invested capital have grown very strongly. And of course, EBIT has slowed down in recent years in terms of growth, although the guidance for this year is a return to growth.
And return on capital employed have gone down. And the last one is, of course, the one we need to address. If you look at the EBIT chart, what's clear is that we've had a few difficult years with COVID and inflation, and that has impacted our profitability. But what you see is that we have that behind us, and you will start to see that EBIT will come back strongly in the coming years. Lars showed this. We've been through premiumization. We've been through what we're doing to grow volume growth.
What we'll talk about now is operational efficiency and what we do in terms of what we have in criteria when we look at the M&A and CapEx. As Lars mentioned, we have increased the target that we believe we can get out of operational efficiency. So if you look at the last couple of years, a lot of the team have been focusing more or less all their attention on price increases, on making sure that we could get the products from suppliers. And now we have a lot more time on our hands to manage efficiencies, and a lot of suppliers have more capacity.
So there's a lot more to do in terms of efficiency, and we have more, what do you say, power to do it now. So just to repeat something that has been explained many times, but really makes Royal Unibrew unique, it is our operating model. And again, it's the local ownership that's the key takeaway in all this. So what does local ownership really mean? It means that if you look at Jakob and Ilco, all the people in the Netherlands, they report to Ilco.
All the people in Norway, they report to Jakob. That means we have one person, one team that is responsible for the people, for the business, for the P&L, and for working capital. And that, of course, means that it's a very agile way of working where if we are falling behind, it's one team that needs to manage it. You don't need to sit in committee meetings if you have matrix organizations about how to fix it, but it's really one team that has the sole responsibility for this. It also means that the brands we have, they need to work in the market that we have.
So Ilco and the team is setting the portfolio for the Netherlands. We do not need to launch Faxe Kondi in the Netherlands because it's a big brand in Denmark or anything like this. So you can really tailor the business to the local markets. I think that's one thing that sets us apart from most other beverage companies, that is that if a brand is good in one market, we're happy. It doesn't need to be able to travel.
I think that gives us quite a lot of opportunities because there are assets that only we are interested in because the people who consolidate businesses, a lot of them, they want global brands and not local brands. The way we manage the business, it's through a monthly business review cycle where the local teams, we go through how is the performance in each market. Basically, we align on all priorities in these monthly meetings.
But on top of that, we have a very, very strong data model in Royal Unibrew where we have dashboards that show product profitability, SKU profitability, customer profitability, you name it, everything. Once the companies are in the Royal Unibrew on the Unibrew platform, we can basically see daily performance. And that means that if Finland is off track in the middle of a month, we can give Kalle a call and ask what is going on, and then we can course-correct in the middle of the month. And that is a super powerful tool.
And I don't think we have bought one company yet that has had the same understanding of where you make money as Royal Unibrew have. I remember when we started looking at Norway, we were always discussing how many liters we could sell to customers. We never talked about profit. That has changed completely.
And of course, that drives a completely different way of running the business. And then, of course, we have our five-year plans where we align priorities around categories, about what are we doing on efficiencies, what is the footprint we want to have, what are the main investments we want to do, and so on. So it's all based on five-year plans, and then we have a monthly rhythm where we follow up with all entities. Then on IT, we have so the only people in the Netherlands that doesn't report to Ilco, the IT people, they are now part of Group IT. So we have one IT team, one procurement team.
That's the two places where we see biggest synergies in being global. And if you then look at our incentive model, all our incentives are tailored around three main KPIs. It's EBIT, it's free cash flow, and it's ESG. So we do not have revenue in our targets. So when we look at the Netherlands, it's all about how much profit you can make, and it's all about how much cash flow can we generate, as well as what we do on the ESG front. So we have a very clear segregation of responsibilities. Yeah. So efficiency. There are five areas that we are really focusing on at this point in time.
The first one, operating leverage, is an absolute cornerstone to understand in our business. I'll talk a little bit more about that in the next page. But that is basically when you grow, make certain that your fixed cost grows a little bit slower than your top line. We'll get into how we do that. Procurement is when we look back at historic acquisitions, when we look at what have created value in Royal Unibrew over the last many years, procurement is a key enabler for what we do, and we've had a very good track record in that area. Then local efficiencies.
So we also have a tracking tool where we measure all markets on how many initiatives do they have locally to drive efficiency out in all areas of the business so that we ensure that it's always on the agenda. How can we take out efficiencies? And it's not always to save costs. A lot of the times, it's actually to make certain we have enough money to reinvest in the places where we need to fuel growth. So if we want to have a stable cost base, we need to take cost out in certain places and reinvest them in other places. Then we have a fairly big bucket this, which is in inefficiencies.
So as we've been capacity-constrained in Denmark for quite a number of years, we have been running at too high utilizations. That means that we have been replanning, and we have lost sales, and we've had too many changeovers and too high inventory because of high utilization of the assets. We'll talk a little bit more about that, but that is a place that have really generated some inefficiencies. And then, of course, we have efficiencies coming out of the acquisitions that we have done. So these are the areas where we are working on efficiencies.
So we've looked at what is it that generates efficiency when we grow the business. What we've tried to show on this is if you look at a standard cost structure in Royal Unibrew, that's the one to the left-hand side. When you establish a business, you need to put in an IT system. You need to establish many functions. When you grow the business, you don't need to repeat that level of investments. If we grow the business in the Netherlands, as an example, the IT platform, the finance team, we have the HR team, does not need to grow as fast as the rest of it.
That means that the incremental growth that we get here comes with a lot less cost than what we have existing at this point in time. The fixed cost percentage of our business goes down when we grow. In particular, when we make small bolt-on acquisitions, this is really where you get a lot of the synergies from. A lot of the smaller companies we've bought in the Nordic assets, they have come with very strong synergies because we could basically take out all the overhead cost. In particular, in admin and depreciation and secondary distribution, we've seen big upsides when we grow.
This is a key thing in our business. You also see a very clear correlation between the in-market market share and the EBIT margin. Where we have a big market share in a market, we also have a high EBIT margin. I think that's pretty consistent among most beverage companies that you need to be big in the markets where you operate. This is a key enabler of efficiency. Then invested capital have grown quite a bit over recent years. There are three areas that impact invested capital in our business. It's mergers and acquisitions.
So what we've tried to do here is to show the development of invested capital and then show the amount of M&A we've done next to it. And if you look at the increase in invested capital, you can see it more or less correlates with what we have used in acquisitions. And that, of course, means that if we want to manage invested capital in our business, it's all about what are the criteria we have when we do acquisitions. Of course, if we have a CapEx that's vastly different from depreciation, that can impact.
But that is not something that will make a meaningful difference in terms of the development of invested capital. And working capital is fairly stable in our business. Of course, it can have a big impact on the yearly cash flow, but over time, we do not see big changing trends in terms of the ratios we have in working capital. So invested capital, for us, it's really all about what we do in terms of acquisitions. If we start with CapEx, we have three buckets. Of course, we have recurring CapEx where we need to keep the lights on and replace the things that are broken and invest in coolers and other stuff like that.
We have efficiency investments that we've done quite a few of in recent years. These are investments where if you replace something with new kit and you basically have an extremely short payback period. And then we have strategic CapEx, which is when we build a new canning line or a new bottling line or make a solar park in Faxe. This is where it can really change the absolute level of CapEx we have. We've guided for a little bit higher CapEx this year than what we've had in the past.
And we expect that that will continue for a few years because we have quite a number of bigger CapEx projects that we need to get through. They have been mentioned by Lars earlier on. But if we really look at the core problem that we have been addressing, it is the high utilization of the Danish supply chain. We have been looking at solutions to the Danish supply chain for quite a while because quite a sizable part of what is produced in Denmark is actually sold either in Africa or in Italy or in America. And it doesn't make sense to build a lot of new capacity in Denmark for servicing places outside in the world.
That is why we bought Amsterdam, San Giorgio, and why we are sending production to China to avoid investing in Denmark for consumption in other places. But this is not enough, so we are still investing in Denmark in PET lines, and we also have some other investments going on in Denmark to mitigate that. And then, of course, we have, which we knew at the time of acquisitions, that we needed to make bigger investments in this side. So in the next couple of years, we will have more CapEx than normal.
The good news is that these investments come with very attractive paybacks, and it will also reduce inventory as today, the lines in Denmark, as an example, are running full speed all year round. And that means that we build inventory outside the season, for the season, and we carry a lot more inventory than we needed to do if we had a supply chain that was sized for the markets that we service. So it is investments that come with pretty good paybacks, the ones we have. Yeah. And we have some criteria up here that for strategic CapEx, it's a maximum of 6-10 years.
10 years is if you need to put in a building that can actually have more lines in it. So it's very seldom that we make these kind of paybacks. If we have the building available when we make a new filling line, it's normally with much shorter paybacks than the six years. Yeah. And just to sum up, if you look on CapEx as a % of revenue, we had for a while been running at around 5% CapEx to net revenue. This year, we are guiding a little bit higher than that, and we also expect that for the coming years to be slightly higher than the historical average.
In terms of acquisitions, we categorize them as four different types of acquisitions. If you start with the most difficult one to calculate, that's the platform acquisitions. That's a place like Vrumona here where you basically buy a full business in a market where we're not present in the beginning. It establishes a footprint that has a solid organization, a manufacturing footprint. It has a strong local portfolio. These kind of acquisitions are the first entry into a market, and they do not come with a lot of upfront synergies, but it gives you a platform that you can grow on for many years to come.
The hurdle rate we have for these kind of acquisitions is that the cash ROIC needs to be higher than 10% in the first three years of acquisitions. We'll show you the roadmap for Vrumona and the Norwegian assets in the coming slides. But this is really the hurdle rate we have. And when we do the calculations, it is not based on a lot of commercial upside. So when you see the numbers, it's not with, what you can say, an optimistic forecast of volume growth, which we hope will happen, but that will be on top when we get to that. Then we have the other types of acquisitions.
If we take the bolt-on acquisitions, if we buy assets in a market in Denmark, we bought quite a few assets in recent years where we've basically taken out most of the administration function initially. We've cross-sold our existing portfolio into the customers that was serviced by these. And then basically, we've made the full national distribution of these products. And there, we normally operate with 2-3 years payback. So super attractive when we can do these bolt-on acquisitions. So those are some of the avenues that we've opened up in both Norway and Netherlands. That is, we can now start to do bolt-on acquisitions.
So platform acquisitions opens up for opportunities, and it is when we do the other acquisitions in a market where we really create a lot of value from acquisitions. Of course, the most important thing we can do is that we can do organic growth from the platform acquisitions that we do. We've had quite a long discussion with you guys about ROIC versus EBIT margin over the last couple of months. We've just tried to depict what is the framework we see on different types of brands.
If you take trading brands, as an example, we are working with Diageo where we are not producing any of the Diageo spirits on our own. That basically means that we buy the products from Diageo, and we sell it. So the only capital employed we actually get is the inventory we have of Diageo. But when we go out to an on-trade outlet and we have the full Diageo spirits portfolio, that actually opens doors for selling the rest of our portfolio.
So of course, it gives a margin on the San Giorgio portfolio, but it also strengthens our sales of own brands. So it should be seen as something that cross-fertilizes each other, that by having a strong portfolio of partner brands, you actually sell more of your own brands. So partner brands, they come with high ROIC because it's very little invested capital. But the EBIT margin is a lot lower because we do not invest in assets. And of course, the brand owner does most of the marketing on the traded brands.
Then we have licensed brands, which would be the likes of PepsiCo, where the margin is lower than our own portfolio, and the ROIC is medium. But of course, the totality of this gives a lot of operating leverage. So when we can grow partner brands, we do not need to increase our fixed cost base. So all of it adds to the totality. The bigger we can be in each market, the more absolute profit we make and the more attractive we become to customers. But of course, this means that getting to 20% margin like we've been before becomes more difficult as we add more trading or licensed brands.
But it gives us opportunity to make a lot more absolute profit without investing a lot of capital. So we believe that's quite an attractive route to take. Then if we take the Netherlands, these are the building blocks to get to more than 10% cash ROIC. As Ilco has been mentioning, the capabilities and capacity we have in the factory over here does not service the market in the right way. So the can line and the bottle line gives us an upside.
We are freeing up capacity in Denmark that we can use for other things by producing the bigger volume here. And then, of course, there's a big chunk that has not been known to everybody before today. That's the Benelux piece that is the bigger piece. And then we put in a small piece on commercial synergies and carve-out benefits. This is not assuming that we get a massive breakthrough in in-store execution that we hope to do. So this is, what you can say, a relatively conservative commercial scenario, we believe. But this will all lead to a higher cash ROIC than 10% in 2026.
And then if we take Norway, we've built up the bridge in a slightly different way. Norway had a difficult year last year. As Jakob mentioned, we were hit by inflation and FX in Norway. What the team have done really well this year and what you actually see as the 2024 cash ROIC target is the budget for this year. They are on plan, so that's what we are building in. Margin management, that basically means that we are adjusting prices to the new cost level we have and mitigating all the FX and inflation that we've seen in recent years.
Then it's efficiencies that we've taken out over the last year in terms of merging management structures and other initiatives. Then from where we expect to be this year, we will get another layer of synergy once we put the two companies on a joint IT platform. We have duplication today, and there's a lot of things we can optimize when we put them on one system. Then we have commercial synergies, which is joint invoicing.
It is joint deliveries once we put Hansa and Solera on the same platform. That gets us to more than 10% ROIC in 2025. What you, of course, don't see in the numbers in Norway is that a pretty profitable piece of the Solera business was actually sitting in Finland. That was taken out with very strong results and is still yielding a lot of benefits in Finland, where we have the whole wine portfolio is now located in Lahti, where we have the big warehouse that is distributed together with all the other Hartwall products that we got at the same time.
So a pretty solid case in Finland on the Solera piece. Capital allocation, not a fun slide to show because it's basically unchanged from the past. If you look at dividend and share buybacks, the key takeaway from the left-hand chart is that we've been pretty consistent in terms of paying out dividends and doing share buybacks in recent years. If you look at the mandate we have to pay out dividends in the second half of the year, it would increase the dividend a little bit or the same per share as last year. And it is our intention to pay out the dividend, assuming that the deleveraging goes according to plan.
And even with the dividend, we should be below 2.5 at year-end. So that is the expectations. But a pretty consistent picture in terms of distributing money to shareholders. Yeah. So how is it we think about value creating in Royal Unibrew? This is, in its simplest form, the way to present how we think about value creating. So we changed our long-term target to organic EBIT growth because that is basically the starting point for value creation. And here you have the last 10 years' organic EBIT growth in the company. 2014 was the first year of the Hartwall acquisition.
And then came a few years where cost was taken out. As last mentioned earlier, in 2018, we had the first outlier. That was when the market for RTD was liberalized in Hartwall. So suddenly, you could sorry, in Finland, and you could suddenly buy Original in a lot more places. That gave us a huge boost of, what you say, unnormal profit in 2018. Then we've had a number of years where it has been a little bit more muted.
So if you look at 2022, that was when we had the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, which hits us in the worst possible way because it basically hit us right after all annual price negotiations were finalized with retailers, and our hedge positions were not very strong at that point in time. So 2022 was a difficult year for us, so was 2023. And it was all because of the inflation that really hit us. We are now on the other side of the difficult years, and now we are guiding 9%-19% organic EBIT growth. So we are on the other side of a few years where we've had a headwind from inflation, and we are going forward.
We believe we can grow these 6%-8% organically. And there's a lot of good areas where this growth can come from. So what we'll do from here on to drive value, it is to drive growth. It is to drive efficiency. Historically, we've always had a very strong cash conversion. Working capital will not be a big move in any directions in the coming year. We should get some tailwind from lower inventories as we get our capacity in order. CapEx will be slightly higher in a couple of years, but then we will return to normal levels. This basically boils into that we will generate quite good cash flows in the coming years.
In M&A, I think we've had a pretty strong track record on buying companies, integrating them, and generating value from that, combined with a strong capital allocation principle that should deliver value to shareholders going forward. And there's not a lot of new stuff in this because it's all doing more of what we have done successfully in the Nordics. Now we have a bigger footprint. We have more opportunities to drive out efficiencies. So that is the agenda in the coming years. So the key takeaways: no change to the operating model, lots of good organic growth opportunities.
Operating leverage is a key thing for us in the coming years, in particular in Norway and Vrumona, as we start to get growth in these places. No change to the capital allocation and a growth algorithm that we believe is stronger than it's been before. There are more growth opportunities, and there's more efficiency opportunities than we've had before. So that looks good. So if we just repeat, where are we in terms of current trading?
We had a strong start to the year, 6% organic growth, which, of course, is on a little bit of an easy background because last year, we had destocking in Italy, and we had some parts of Africa that was tough in the beginning of the year. But strong organic net revenue growth and EBIT growth that was pretty solid despite the inventory revaluations. And the outlook for the full year is not changed today. So no changes in that. Thank you. And then we are back to.
Thank you, Lars. Then I'll try to wrap up. Hopefully, I think we have shared some details about our thinking, in particular, in the three deep dive areas like International, Norway, and the Dutch business. So yeah, so hopefully, that has given you some extra knowledge that you can digest afterwards. When we look at Royal Unibrew, I call it that we are stronger than ever. I think we are in an excellent position right now. We have a larger platform. That means that we can unlock a lot of opportunities commercially, efficiency-wise, and thereby drive the business even stronger.
We are world-class in ESG, and we have an ambition to continue to be that. And as Henriette alluded to, it's not because the others have different ambitions, but we have it more speedy than most others. We want to do it faster, and we can see that this is something that we can also optimize our business from. So we actually see it as a part of our business. So it hangs together with generating profitability to work strongly with the ESG agenda. International business unit, say back on track.
I think you sensed Michael being very energized and optimistic about reestablishing the margins while, at the same time, keeping the momentum and making the business bigger. This is, of course, a changeable world. So it might be that something unexpected will happen, but the mindset of rebuilding it and doing it is really, really strong, and Q1 is supporting that. And then when it comes to Norway and the Netherlands, I think what you saw today is that we are on track. So I think that's the word that you have heard again and again.
So the plans that we have built in terms of when do we want to do something, when do we want to carve out, as an example from Heineken, that is all delivering according to plan. That is also what we have highlighted in our Q1 statement, and that is that we are following the plan that we have made. Lars gave some insight on how do we build this up to more than 10% cash ROIC so that this also generates the return that we all expect from it. That is, in our mind, without a very optimistic commercial scenario.
When we look at some of the best M&A activities that we have done, even large-scale or mid-size, we are delivering return on invested capital after 3-4 years, which is more than 20%. Of course, this is where we want to go. But of course, we need to build a plan that at least brings us to the threshold, and then we can start to move upwards from there.
And lastly, when we look at the efficiency agenda, this is an agenda where we have not spent a lot of time over the last four years, so to speak. I remember all the calls that we had during COVID. We have scarcity of this, scarcity of that. We decided to buy cans in India because we were out of cans, and then it took half a year to get the cans, and then we couldn't get them from our normal suppliers at that time. That was what we discussed. And we didn't really discuss about how efficiently can we run the business. And then as we moved out of COVID, then the war started in Ukraine, and we got a hammer of inflation.
When we're looking at a mountain of price increases that we needed to take of DKK 1.5 billion, which is basically equal to, at that time, our EBIT, it was not about discussing if we can do things a little bit more efficient in production or a little bit more efficient in IT. It's just about price, price, price. So 80% of the time that we have discussed with the commercial teams, it's about what price have you taken? What is the next price increase? What can you do with price/pack to get back to where we came from on a profitability per liter?
As we reestablish that around mid-last year, if we take aside the FX challenges in Norway and Sweden, but everywhere else, we have started to rebuild, I would say, the efficiency mindset and the tracker of making sure that everybody in Royal Unibrew thinks about efficiency. And then with the CapEx on top of that, with the capacity that we get out of Vrumona, San Giorgio, etc., we believe that there is a lot of efficiency gains that we can create, let's say, over the next 18-24 months.
And that's also the reason why that in our growth algorithm, that you would see that our ambition has been increased compared to what you have heard from us before. So at the end of the day, I would say pretty happy about where we are. We delivered a strong Q1, which was according to plan, but we could also see that we took out some of the risks that we had in our guidance in March.
We can see that the likelihood of those risks materializing is smaller, and that's the core reason why that we upgraded the earnings interval in mid of April. So strong momentum in the business, and I would say a strong agenda for the period to come. And then I would invite Jonas and Lars back for a final round of questions.
Thank you, Lars. And Pernille, stop because Mitch is ready with one right there.
Thank you, Mitch, from Deutsche Bank again. Question for Lars Vestergaard. I think you said on your slide that your KPIs are aligned with your incentives. Sorry, incentives are aligned with your KPIs, but it's notable that you don't have any return on capital measures listed amongst the incentives. So how do you make sure that the capital allocation decisions, both organically and inorganically, are able to target an appropriate return on capital? And I guess it's interesting in the context of the return on capital measure being perhaps the one that you said hasn't been as good as it might have been.
So I think what I showed was that if you look at invested capital, the one thing that determines whether it goes up or down is M&A. And there is no M&A discussion that happens without being in the board of the company. So it has a lot of strict criteria and will be scrutinized from many different angles. So invested capital is, what do you say, the main driver of that is managed through the M&A framework that we operate. So that's the one piece of that. In terms of CapEx, that's also going through a centralized process where everything is approved, basically, by us.
So it goes through group supply chain, and then it goes to us. So there are strict processes around that. That means if you go to an operating entity and you want to do anything that impacts your invested capital, that is the working capital piece, and that's part of free cash flow in the entities. So we capture the one thing that is not captured by the CapEx and the M&A process through the free cash flow KPI we have.
Thanks. I would just like to ask something around the return on invested capital targets. So these are cash and net profit after taxes. So I mean, if I calculate that back with the enterprise value that you spend on those acquisitions, we can come up with a bottom threshold, what kind of earnings you would expect in 2026. And I just have to add back taxes and a little bit of interest to come up with an EBIT.
So you would tell us, basically, that Vrumona would be earning north of 14%-15% EBIT margin if I calculate that correctly. It depends on how the balance will be between top-line growth, margin enhancement, and so on and so forth. That's true. I mean, it depends on top-line, but.
And if you noticed, there was also the Belgium piece in there, which comes with revenue too, so.
Yeah. I mean, sure. But okay, we can leave aside EBIT margin. But I mean, you spend DKK 2.1 billion on it. So adding taxes would mean it has to be something like DKK 260 million in EBIT.
I think if you look at Vrumona as a case, I think if we can choose if we want to earn more money on driving volume or price, I would choose volume.
Yeah, sure.
Right. So I think on the margin, are we hitting 14? Probably not. I think if I can hit 10 and get to the same, then I would rather do that because this is about creating momentum in the business. By the momentum, the snowball will roll itself bigger over time. So that would be the core ambition.
Thanks.
I think André was first.
Thank you, André from Danske Bank. So just a question on the ROIC on Vrumona. Just to be sure, if you didn't add the Benelux part to this ROIC bridge that you did, would the cash ROIC then be below 10%?
It would be marginally below 10%.
But again, we knew when we did the deal, we had a clear ambition together with PepsiCo, and that is then the next step. And then we had spent six months, Kasper, on negotiating and finding a way on how to integrate the business and also to make sure that the snacks and the beverages, that would end up playing each other positive. And this is natural. This is how it goes. So we knew. And I think with a partner like PepsiCo and the same with the Heinekens and the Diageos and so on and so forth, it's not just something that they get a good idea, and then you do it on a Saturday morning.
This is something that is well thought through. And especially when they move out of own operation and into franchise, then that is something where even the top, top, top people that they need to decide on if this is a good idea or not.
Søren?
Thanks. Søren from SEB. So just to follow up on the incentive program sent out this morning, you had four factors: EBIT growth, cash flow, CSR, and share price. Could you elaborate on how you weigh those four factors in deciding the incentive? Can you remember that, Lars?
I think it's EBIT 45%, free cash flow 25%, CSR 15%, and then the rest is share price. Share price.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks. And then does. On the long term. On the long term, yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll just sneak in a second one, which is on the share price. Is that from today, or is it from? It's from. When the report was sent out, or?
From year-end. So for the last couple of years, it's been year-end and then the share price at year-end three years out.
So 2024 year-end, would you say?
Yeah.
Okay. Great. Thanks.
20. Then it's 3. 2023. Yeah. 2023 year-end. You said 2024. 2023. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So the share price is already up 20%. Yeah. Some years, it goes the other way, I can tell you.
Andrea Pistacchi, Bank of America. At the last CMD, there was quite some focus on increasing marketing spend and, as you saw, a lot of growth opportunities. And you were saying that you'd accept sort of longer payback, 24, 36 months. You haven't really addressed sort of marketing spend in this CMD, but clearly, you're seeing growth opportunities. So yeah, could you talk about that, about reinvestment?
Yeah. I call it cost to serve when we spend money in the market. Sometimes you spend money on marketing. At other times, you need to build a stronger route to market. And sometimes you need to build merchandising field force. So striking the right balance between those three is what we discuss quite a lot. So if you take the Vrumona case here as an example, as Ilco talked about, then the short term is not about increasing the health of the brands because the brands are actually pretty healthy when we look at all the dimensions around the brands.
But the implementation in outlet is not very strong. So that is where we put the money. So I think we have changed a bit the way that we talk about money in that respect. In each of the markets, it's about striking the right balance between the three, so to speak.
Generally, is there a slight shift towards the execution part?
I think we have that depends on the market. So in some markets, we are moving a little bit more towards the execution model. I call it also war on the floor. And in other markets, we're actually moving slightly to the opposite because the organizations have been a bit too commercially driven, and we need to up the game in terms of building the brands also for the longer term. And then we have some markets like in Italy. Italy is the market where we relatively seen spend the most amount of marketing cost because it's not a push market. It's more like a pull market.
So we would always relatively seen, as long as our business is a niche business, multi-niche business in Italy, we would always spend more resources on marketing than we would do on sales force and other parameters. So it really depends on the market. But I think it's fair to say that we have an overweight on execution muscle and have had that for a couple of years if you look at Royal Unibrew overall.
Thomas?
Thomas from Nordea. Can you please talk a bit about your appetite for M&A? Now, your gearing is at the end of the year below 2.5 times, and you're saying that the very good short payback period for bolt-ons, and you're in a lot of new markets. So yeah.
I think I'll repeat what I've said the last quarters. We have a lot on our plate.
I think if you look at the Ilco's agenda and Jakob's agenda, there's still a lot of things that need to be done, and we would like to see that we get the returns out of the initiatives that we take. San Giorgio is more or less integrated, I would say. We have had production up and running on our Danish brand already in April. So this is a little bit about how fast we can ramp up on production further, get extra shifts, and so on and so forth. But that is in the hands of the local organizations. When it comes to M&A right now, I would still say that interesting if something would come to play in Sweden.
We are super strong with what Jakob presented on Norway. We have a very, very strong pillar in Denmark, Finland, and the three Baltic countries. So Sweden is a little bit of an island in terms of the portfolio. Again, it's family-owned businesses, and nothing might not happen the next many, many years. And then if our partners like PepsiCo or Diageo, as an example, the very strong partners that enhances our portfolio significantly, if they would like to do any projects with us, of course, we need to entertain those kind of discussions.
But apart from that, we keep our focus on executing what we already have in our portfolio. And then there's time for one last question. It's going to be André.
André from Danske Bank. So just another question on profitability for Norway. I also tried to ask Jakob before. But you built this bridge on cash ROIC. And first thing is, what is this 2024 cash ROIC target? Is that 10%, or what is it? How does this translate into EBIT margin improvements?
I think what you can see from that chart is that in 2025, we are above 10% cash ROIC. That's what you can see from the chart. We see quite a solid profit improvement because it's basically profit that improves it in 2024. We have not set target for EBIT margins for the Norwegian business because it's absolute EBIT that we use as a turning point for the business.
There's many good opportunities to improve efficiencies in Norway, and there are good ways where we can get operating leverage once we start to grow after we have the two companies fully merged. We think there's pretty good opportunities in the medium term to grow Norway even beyond the 10% that we expect to deliver in 2025.
We need to have SAP up and running before we can harvest the synergies. We have had to postpone it because we acquired San Giorgio. We had to do that first and then put Norway on hold because if you look at the value gain that we can get out of San Giorgio, it is more valuable than what we would be able to get out having SAP in Norway. That was a very clear priority for us to do that. So sorry, Jakob, but that was how it went. We need to have that up and running before we can get to the above 10%.
Thank you, Lars and Lars.
Thank you, Jonas.
We are out of time. We are out of time. Out of time. The first part. I didn't hear what you said. No. The first part of the day is now done with all these formal presentations. That also means that we will say goodbye to the virtual audience or whatever it's called. We will now start on the second part of the day, which is the virtual,
No, not virtual. The physical.
The physical site tour.