Good morning. My name is Lars Jensen. I am the CEO of Royal Unibrew. With me this morning, I have CFO Lars Vestergaard. Together we will present our first half-year result for 2021. Following our presentation, there will be enough time for questions. If we now turn to slide number three. We are very happy to present the highest second quarter result ever for Royal Unibrew. Performance has been strong across the business, providing the resilience of our strategy and our business model, as well as our ability to act diligently in a changing environment. The results are realized despite COVID-19 continues to impact our business and despite significantly higher sales and marketing costs. Almost all sales channels are now open. We are working with our customers to secure supply for all consumers across our geographical footprint.
Volumes were 13% higher in the first half of 2021, putting pressure on the entire value chain. Our organization has once again delivered in a challenged circumstance, not least supported by a very flexible and adaptable supply chain. We continue to invest behind the growth opportunities we see in the market, in combination with the higher sales and marketing cost, EBIT increased by 13% in Q2 to DKK 521 million. This is 6% above the level in Q2 2019, before COVID-19. We raised our full-year outlook for EBIT from DKK 1,525 million-DKK 1,625 million to an interval of DKK 1,625 million-DKK 1.7 billion. We'll get back to the assumptions behind our outlook later in the presentation in more details. Yesterday, we also announced a new share buyback of up to DKK 250 million running to the end of the year. Please turn to slide number four.
In the first half of 2021, we generated an EBIT of DKK 750 million, which is 13% higher than first half of 2020. As stated earlier, it is also 6% higher than what we delivered in H1 2019 before COVID-19, despite negative impacts from restrictions in all markets. In fact, we feel that our business is stronger at all levels compared to before COVID-19, with proof to the resilience of our strategy and business model, as well as our ability to navigate safely through the crisis. The gross profit increased to 49.3% in H1. Despite gross profit per hectolitre declined by 1%. Both sales and marketing costs and administrative costs increased significantly in the first half, resulting in an unchanged EBIT margin of 19.2% when we compare it to H1 2020.
Growth in EBIT is driven by Western Europe and international, whereas our EBIT in the Baltic Sea decreased due to COVID-19 restrictions on the on-trade. All in all, we produce and sell more before COVID-19. We are generating higher earnings and higher cash flows in a market that is still restricted compared to before COVID-19. That is only possible because of a skilled, dedicated team, colleagues across the business, and I want to use this opportunity to thank all employees for their great efforts. We can now turn to slide number one. Sorry, five. Looking at our volume growth by category, you can see that we continue to enjoy high growth in energy drinks, which grew 36% in the first half of the year.
This growth is driven by our focused actions around benefiting from the general market growth in the category, which among other things, other includes the rollout of Lemonsoda Energy Activator in Italy, a rollout that is progressing very satisfactory. The carbonated soft drink also continued to grow significantly, which is a solid performance, as carbonated soft drink has benefited positively from the strict COVID-19 restrictions which came into place a year ago. The solid performance is created from a strengthening of our already very strong market position across geographies, focused in-store execution at all customers, and a growth in the no low sugar territory. Our malt beverages continues to grow and did so by 15% in the first half of 2021. Sell-out has been higher than sales in, which is as a result of a destocking because of priorities in deliveries.
We have a lower trade inventory than normal. Cider ready-to-drink volume grew 12% in the first half, stemming from high growth in the Nordics and in Asia. The 10% volume growth in beer in the first half has also benefited from the reopening of the on-trade channel, but also from extraordinary campaigning in Finland in the beginning of the year, which contributed significantly to the growth. Juice and water grew by single-digit percentages in the first half by 8% and 3% respectively. Growth was higher in Q2 than in Q1 as a result of the reopening of restaurants and hotels, convenience, et cetera. Wine and spirits declined by 6% in the first half of 2021, which is a result of a very restricted on-trade in Finland, which is the area where we do have a business with wine and spirits at the moment.
The business today in on-trade has been impacted by the lockdown, and is a main driver of the lower sales. Now we will turn to slide number six. It has been a busy quarter with high volumes and pressure on the entire value chain. The very high sales growth had led to some production capacity constraints, and we have also experienced and been challenged by the industry-wide lack of aluminum cans. To remain a flexible supplier with the highest service level, we will secure more capacity. For now, in the short term, production and procurement planning is more important than ever. The reopening of the on-trade, as well as the opening of the border between Denmark and Germany, has also kept us busy throughout the quarter.
Towards the end of the quarter, the event business also restarted, although at a significantly lower level than two years ago, so smaller events, not the big events. On the product innovation front, we have launched, as an example, an alcohol-free version of our iconic Original Long Drink in Finland, as well as we have launched a plant-based enhanced water under the Novelle Pro brand, with proteins. Both innovations tap into the growing demand for healthy and good-for-you products, which is a part of our strategy. In Italy, we continue to roll out our new energy drink, Lemonsoda Energy Activator, which is going according to our best wishes and reached a number three position in the energy drinks market during the last week of July, after only four months in the market, and with only about 50% of a weighted distribution potential reached.
An excellent performance by the Italian team. We also broke ground on the new solar panel plant next to our brewery in Faxe, which would generate around 60% of our electricity needs at our Danish production sites. We have also committed to 100% recycled plastic for the PepsiCo products in Denmark by the end of 2022, and committed also in July. We expanded that to include also our Finnish business as well. In the first half of 2021, we also spent quite some resources on our strategic development on the M&A front, which was executed in the second quarter and in the beginning of the third quarter. Please turn to slide number seven. We have agreed on three acquisitions so far in 2021, where the acquisition of Solera Beverage Group is still awaiting final regulatory approval.
In the beginning of May, we acquired Fuglsang, a strong regional Danish brewery with a strong market position in the southern part of Jutland, especially within the on-trade channel on beer, craft soda, and pre-mixed cocktails. We believe that we can leverage this very interesting brand portfolio into the rest of Denmark. In 2021, we do not expect this acquisition to contribute significantly to sales or earnings. At the beginning of July, we also announced an acquisition of MC Energy in France, at an enterprise value of around DKK 610 million on a debt-free basis. MC Energy owns the energy drink called Crazy Tiger, which has a market share of around 10% in a fast-growing French energy drink market, which is equivalent to a number three position in the market.
In 2020, MC Energy had a revenue of around DKK 100 million, and we expect it to contribute by around DKK 75 million to our revenue in 2021. We believe that we can take the Crazy Tiger brand to the next level through investments in innovation, in the organization, and by evolving the brand to become a bit more premium, gaining new customers, new consumers, and occasions, and thereby, in all channels, leverage our already growing existing capabilities in France. The acquisition also marks the next step in developing our French business towards a multi-niche market instead of being a niche market. We also agreed on acquiring Solera Beverage Group in the beginning of July. Solera is a leading importer and distributor of beverages across Norway, Sweden, and Finland, with a strong portfolio of international, mainly imported beer, wine, soft drinks, and other beverages.
The acquisition provides a strong platform for Royal Unibrew to expand the sales of our wide product portfolio into Norway and Sweden, in line with the multi-beverage strategy that we are pursuing in countries like Finland, Denmark, and the three Baltic countries. It will give us a sales force covering the Nordic region and the Baltic Sea, which totaling around 30 million consumers, which is a doubling of our current footprint in the area. Solera Beverage Group is being acquired from a private equity fund, CapMan, at an enterprise value of around DKK 770 million on a debt-free basis, and has around 150 employees across geographies and generates a normalized net revenue, meaning excluding COVID-19 effects, of around DKK 1.3 billion, and a normalized EBITDA of around DKK 70 million on an annual basis.
As I stated by saying, the acquisition still awaits regulatory approval, which we expect to come through here in the third quarter. I will now pass the word on to Lars Vestergaard, who will go through the financial performance, the business segments, and the outlook before I wrap up, before we go into the Q&A.
Thank you, Lars. If you please turn to slide number eight, please. The performance in Q2 2021 has been very strong. Societies, and therefore importantly for us, the on-trade has slowly reopened and supported volumes throughout the quarter. We have still seen, and still will see restrictions in the on-trade, but less than what was the case in the last quarter. The weather was not too good in the beginning of the quarter, whereas in June it was warm and supported growth. Especially in Denmark and Finland. The warm weather coincided with Euro 2020 football tournament, and therefore also contributed to growth. On the coming slides, I'll return and go more into detail on the different top-line drivers. In total, volumes increased by 12% compared to Q2 2020.
Price mix was positive, among the other things, due to the reopening, which drives both positive channel mix, positive product mix, and premiumization. This led to an increase in net revenue of 16% in the quarter. Sales and distribution expenses increased by DKK 109 million compared to last year. Admin cost increased 39% in the quarter, driven by a normalization in the cost level compared to last year, but also cost to advisors in relation to the three acquisitions we have done so far in 2021. As a result, EBIT increased DKK 58 million, corresponding to 13% in the quarter, resulting in an EBIT margin contraction of 80 basis points to 22.6%. For the first half year, the EBIT margin was flat at 19.2%.
Free cash flow increased by 19% to DKK 785 million, which is higher than expected and caused by a change in payment terms on excise duties in Finland, as well as higher activity across the group. On a later slide, I will go into more details on the components of our free cash flow. If you turn to slide number nine, please. Cash flow before changes in net working capital increased by 11% to DKK 929 million in the first half of the year compared to the same period last year. Non-cash adjustments were almost unchanged, so the improvement in cash flow before changes in net working capital was driven by higher earnings. Cash flow from operating activities increased by DKK 183 million to DKK 885 million in the same period.
The increase is driven by a positive contribution from net working capital, which contributed positively by DKK 81 million compared to -DKK 21 million last year. Net working capital is positively impacted by the change in payment terms on excise duties in Finland. Net investments in property, plant, and equipment was DKK 202 million, which is significantly higher than last year, but in line with expectations. This means that free cash flow for the first half year reached DKK 683 million, which is 16% more than the same period last year. The free cash flow headwinds of around DKK 200 million, which we expected for 2021 at the beginning of the year, has been materialized, but the higher than expected growth across the business as well as the change in payment terms in the Finnish excise duty mitigates these headwinds on a full year basis. Please turn to slide number 10.
Before I give the word back to Lars for his final wrap-up, I will just take you through our outlook for 2021. As Lars mentioned at the beginning of our presentation, the strong set of results in the first half and the strong momentum into the third quarter has led us to upgrade our 2021 full year EBIT outlook to DKK 1.525 billion-DKK 1.625 billion to a new guidance of DKK 1.625 billion-DKK 1.700 billion. With the continued reopening and normalization of our markets, we will continue to increase our sales and marketing expenses towards more normalized level, build our brand equity further, and invest in growth opportunities as we see them across the markets.
We have increasing raw material and freight cost in the market as we speak, and we have increased the headwind from DKK 50 million to DKK 75 million in our guidance, and these added costs are included in our new guidance for the year. We expect a positive contribution from MC Energy in the second half of 2021 and potentially also from Solera Beverage Group. The biggest risk on earnings expectations short to medium term remains COVID-19 restrictions and potential reintroduction of stricter restrictions or lockdowns more than we have seen today. Our main scenario is that the restrictions will impact our business a lot less in the coming quarters compared to what they have done in the last six quarters. The low end of the guidance includes the risk of such negative development in COVID-19 related restrictions, whereas the top end includes a continued reopening of societies throughout the year.
The top end of the guidance also includes a quick approval of the Solera Beverage acquisition, as well as no further deterioration in raw material prices. When it comes to raw material prices, the low end of the guidance do include scenarios with higher prices than what we currently see in the market. With that, I will give the word back to you, Lars.
Thank you, Lars. Now please turn to slide number 11. I'd like to conclude this presentation by outlining that this is our key points that we are focusing on in the coming period. Clearly, it is very important to us that we integrate Fuglsang and Crazy Tiger as quickly as possible so that we can execute on the business plans we have set forward for these investments. It is business plans which includes significant investments into brands, innovations, and the organizations. In case of Fuglsang, we want to invest into a much wider distribution in Denmark, thereby growing the market position significantly. With regards to Crazy Tiger, it's about investing behind the brand and the organization and the spread of the brand in France. Our strategic focus remains set out on our six growth drivers that we went through in details at the capital market session back in May.
The very high activity level across the group has led to some capacity constraints. We have also experienced and seen challenges in the industry-wide lack of aluminum cans, as well as a global shortage of transportation capacity. The pressure on our production, procurement, and logistic operation to secure the flow of products around the world is significant. It's therefore important for us that we spend enough time and align as much as we can and with everybody around the whole value chain, from procurement to production and so on. Related to these challenges, it is a need for us to secure additional production capacity to remain the preferred partner for customers and consumers, and to stay flexible for the future. We also need to continue to manage the CapEx requirements that are tied up to our CSR ambitions.
We have ambitious targets in that area, and we'll be able to reach that. For us to be able to reach that, we need to do a number of dedicated investments. With that, I would like to turn back to the operator, and we are ready to take your questions. Thank you.
Thank you. If you do wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing zero two to cancel. Our first question comes from the line of Jemima Benstead from Citi. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you both for the presentation. Two questions from me, please. Firstly, I'd love to hear a little bit more about how confident you are in managing the input cost headwinds, particularly those higher in 2022. Can you talk us through the levers that you have to pass these pressures through to consumer? Basically, how confident are you in your pricing power? Then the second question, you saw margin pressure, particularly in Finland and the Baltics due to those high commercial investments. I'm interested to hear a bit more about which categories this investment was focused on, particularly given your market shares were unchanged in the period. Are you getting the return that you want from this commercial investment? Thank you.
Thank you, Jemima. I think if we start with the input cost, because I think that's a topic that we have also seen in the words that you have all written so far is one of the biggest pillars. I think if you look at it from a helicopter point of view, I think we have proven throughout the last many years that we are, I would say, pretty capable in the whole area of working with price pack strategies together with our customers, finding the right package for the right moment at the right price to the consumer. Thereby, over time, I would say maximize the opportunities to create value for everybody in the chain, even the consumers in that respect. That will continue unchanged. Undoubtedly, I would say that this is a new situation.
The last time where we have experienced, call it, significant inflation is back before the financial crisis, 2008, 2009. What does that mean? That means that consumers need to learn about new price points. We probably need to introduce even new pack sizes. We need to work on the different priorities that we have between the different type of products that we have. Now I'm mostly for all talking about the multi-beverage markets, to a less extent the niche markets where it's more individual products. I think we are confident that there is an open-minded attitude towards this in the market. When we talk to retailers, they know, they acknowledge that price adjustments needs to be made.
What we, of course, do not know is if we hit price points where the consumer starts to say, "Hmm, that looks too expensive, so I would rather do something else." There's a number of learnings that we'll have to go through during the period where the prices will be adjusted. I think we have the toolbox. I think we have the right mindset, I would say, to deal with it in the broader sense. Yeah, I don't know if you have anything to add to that question, Lars.
No, I think we are targeting to ensure that we mitigate the pressure by all the tools that Lars just mentioned. If we look at our hedges, a lot of the hedges that we have been using this year have not been extended into next year at the same attractive prices as we've had this year. There will be a step up on prices. Of course, as Lars mentioned, the confidence we have in managing next year's profitability, of course, also relies on what competition is doing. Our ambition is, of course, that we mitigate the entire input cost pressure by all the tools that Lars mentioned. If we take the question on the Baltics, I think we are actually pretty confident in the development in the Baltic area.
We had a strong development during the quarter where the restrictions was pretty tough on the Baltic business in the beginning of the quarter, but as we exited the second quarter, the impact was actually a lot less. We do not see any warning signs in the Baltics at all. It is a question of a lot of restrictions being in place this year. A lot of them have been lifted. The run rate is higher. We have seen a small reintroduction of some restrictions in on-trade in Finland. In the big picture, our business in Finland and the Baltic countries is back to normal levels. This is what you can say, just comparison figures and higher investments behind the innovations that we've done. No warning signs in Baltics at all.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Richard Withagen from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you. Good morning, all. Thanks for the questions. I have three questions, please. First of all, you mentioned your production and your packaging lines. What are the long-term implications from higher capacity utilization on your packaging lines? Is it simply investing more, or do you need to increase the flexibility of your production setup? That's the first question. Second question is, coming back on sales and marketing spending, how does it compare in the first half of 2021 to the first half of 2019? I guess it's still lower. What is the outlook? Should we expect as a percentage of sales for it to be back to 2019 levels in 2022? The last question I have is indeed coming back to the input cost environment. You're mentioning DKK 75 million impact in 2021, and a significantly higher impact in 2022. Can you quantify that?
Is it going to be double the impact next year, or are we even looking at a bigger impact?
Thank you, Richard. If we look at the overall setup of our geographical footprint with the production lines, et cetera, we have actually already this year, I would say, been able to create a lot of flexibility between the sites. We have had certain lines and brewhouses and so on and so forth. We have had ample capacity like in Italy. We have also had ample capacity for certain packaging types in Finland, as an example. Both of these areas have helped out on producing more for the entire group. That's, call it the first year in 10 years where we have utilized our platform more cross-border than we have ever done before.
That has created a lot of learnings in terms of how we can, call it, optimize our footprint, and also create, in reality, a better return on the CapEx when we then do them, because then that means that when we buy a new line, then we can reallocate volumes and thereby save a lot of logistic costs, and at the end of the day, makes it a better investment faster. I think overall, if you look at our footprint, we have two relatively large sites today. Our Lahti site in Finland and the Faxe site in Denmark, and they are ultimately the center of our capacity expansions. There's a limit to what we can do to a number of the other sites because they are located in city centers, where it's difficult to expand significantly.
By nature, you would see that most of what we do would be in these areas. When it comes to Italy and France, we have a lot of flexibility still. This is more in the Nordic space that we are focusing our expansions, so to speak. When it comes to the marketing costs, and of course, there's a difference in this respect between the sales cost and the marketing cost, because when you look at the marketing costs, they're more consumer-oriented, if not 100% consumer-oriented, whereas the sales cost is more channel-oriented. Given that we have had restrictions in on-trade as an example, we have had convenience where you have had less traffic and so on and so forth. By nature, you would see that sales costs and the activities that we conduct there deviates compared to the restrictions, right?
That's the comparison that you should do. When it comes to the marketing costs, I would say we are probably all in all around the same level as we were in 2019, but we are about 30% higher in H1 than we were in 2020. That's in spite of the fact that the savings only came in from about mid-May, end May, because we had to do the marketing that was already booked. We had to conduct that. April, in spite of the restrictions, was a full month, and then it faded out during May. We are spending significantly more, which is one thing. The other one is, of course, the effect of what we do. I think we can praise our marketing teams on the effectiveness of what we do. That's the other piece of comparing to 2019 versus 2021.
It's also how much do we get out of it? I think net, we are getting more for the money that we spend.
Regarding your question on the input cost. Maybe just to give you the full picture, there is a shortage of a number of the categories that we are using for our products. The key priority for us is actually to ensure that we actually get the supplies. There is a shortage of cans, there is a shortage of sugar, of dextrose, of many different categories. The first priority for our teams is actually to secure that we can get the raw materials, and so far the team have done a good job in this. It is a very unusual supply market we have, and it's not a market that is in equilibrium in any way.
In terms of the prices that we are paying to our suppliers, they will increase as we move through the year. The comparison figures for the rest of the year will be impacted more by higher input costs than what we've seen in the first parts of the month. When we exit the year, we will be paying more or less market prices on most commodities. The way we are managing is, of course, that we have a very active dialogue with our sales organization about when do we go out and manage the price increases. Most of them will be done with the annual negotiations with the big retailers. Of course, there we will see how much we can compensate by price increases, but we will also be working on efficiencies and mix changes.
There'll be many different tools that we can use to ensure that we can mitigate the pressure from input costs next year.
All right. Thanks, guys.
The next question comes from the line of Fredrik Ivarsson from ABG. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning, all. First question on volumes. If we look at the organic volume growth in Q2, I think it was 5% versus Q2 2019, and the same number in Q1 was 11%. I guess a bit of a slowdown. I'm curious to hear whether that's a good run rate to expect for the coming quarters, or do you expect that to accelerate in H2? Thank you.
I think the movable parts are relatively big here given COVID's in and out. I think when you look at our run rate in a 12 months perspective, we are high single digit or something like that. There might be some individual swings between quarters. That it's also the reason why that we talk about capacity constraints. We have never seen such a high growth so fast. A part of it is, of course, deriving like in the beginning of the year from the Finnish beer campaign, but it's also driven by the market share gains and so on and so forth. We are not so volume driven. Of course, it's important to create efficiencies in some parts of the supply chain, but we are more focusing on what kind of a revenue that we generate out of it.
I am not going to guide you, Fredrik, on if this is 5% or 6% or 7% or 3%. I think it ties up to the ambitions that we want to grow, we want to gain a little bit of share, and we want to be smart on our price pack strategy. That at the end of the day derives a number of X. Just to give you a little bit of a view on this is, if we grow at the magnitude that we do now, we need to add another production line every nine months. On one hand side, of course, volume generates more business. On the other hand, it also generates an enormous pressure on the organization to secure that there's available capacity. We are more net revenue focused than we are volume focused.
Thank you. One more question from my side. The implicit guidance for H2 is a quite steep earnings increase in contrast to H1. Can you elaborate a bit on the key drivers for the implicitly, I guess, stronger margin expansion than we saw during the first half of the year?
Yeah.
Is it more the same in terms of channel and product mix, or what should we expect in that sense?
Yeah, I think one thing we should really remember is how last year actually happened. If you remember third quarter last year, actually most channels were trading at a fairly good level. On-trade was open. We hardly spent any money on commercial investments like all competitors did. We had a quarter with good revenue, low investment, so a very strong quarter three last year. If you look at the comparison between last year and this year in quarter three, you should not expect a significant step-up this year. When it comes to quarter four, there was a very strong lockdown in more or less all on-trade segments throughout our markets. Actually also the restrictions were so tight that they impacted off-trade in the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter is easier comps compared to the third quarter.
That's one thing you have to really bear in mind when you think about the year to go number for our business. The full year guidance also includes what we have delivered up until mid-August. Remember that the weather was very, very nice in both Denmark, Finland, Italy, and the Baltic countries. We only had France in our footprint where we had some bad weather, and that's a small market for us. We had good weather in July, and quarter four is hopefully not impacted by the same restrictions as we saw last year.
Right. Yeah, sorry, I was a bit unclear. I was actually referring to 2021 versus 2019 earnings, which implicitly is quite astonishing if you're delivering on your guidance here. I guess the answer will be the same, so I'll leave the queue for other guys. Thank you.
I think just maybe concluding on this topic, there is so many movable parts, and you get more and more every day kind of. It gets more and more difficult to really, by element, make a comparison to 2019. That is also why Lars is talking about it the way that he's talking about it. Some things you can compare to 2020, other things you can compare to 2019. I think the ultimate piece here is that we are growing our business in principle in all our geographies. We have a good momentum. As we have shown you on the volume slide in the deck that we went through, we are growing in the categories that is growing. We feel that we are well-placed.
We are investing ahead of the curve, and when we are talking about investing ahead of the curve, you always measure that on a share of voice basis. It's not always dollar to dollar, but it's also relatively to how your competitors spend in the market. That's the formula that we pursue. There might be some changes between quarters, but it's the 12-month kind of horizon that you should put on these things on a rolling basis.
Thank you. That's helpful.
The next question comes from the line of Søren Samsøe from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, guys. Firstly, I have a question on Baltic Sea, the EBIT margin, which was down, I think 340 basis points in Q2. How much of those basis points was due to the launch of Novelle Pro and the energy drink Original in Finland? Should we expect a similar amount of marketing cost in Q3 and Q4 in Baltic Sea?
I think, Søren, the margin discussion in the Baltic Sea is purely because of restrictions. When we talk about marketing spendings, it is that we have not cut down on our marketing spendings while we have seen the restrictions because we believe in the innovations. Also, as a starting point, these innovations are more retail driven. Novelle Pro is more convenience driven. Even though the people are traveling less in Finland and buying less products in convenience, we have not postponed the launch. We have not cut down on the spending in the launch phase because this is for the long run. You can say that on-trade is down both in Finland and in the Baltics. We haven't changed our innovation plans and have kept spending at the right level for the future earnings.
We have in the future, you said that, how does that look going into the second half? We have the exact same view. That was also if you go back to how we treated second half last year, that was with exactly the same view. In spite of the fact that on-trade closed down in most geographies in November, December last year, we kept spending the marketing money to make sure or to increase the likelihood that our flight attitude going into 2021 would be either the same or enhanced. Now it has been enhanced, I think we came through it successfully in terms of what we did last year. We have the same philosophy around what we do this year. That's not only in the Baltic Sea. This is something that we basically do across all geographies.
Okay. I'm not sure that is completely clear to me. Is it fair to assume a margin decline in second half in Baltic Sea?
We're not going to guide you on specific segments and margins. I think what is important here is that overall, as a totality, Royal Unibrew is growing. There are some countries where the governments are a little bit more harsh on the restrictions. Even though that that's the situation, as it looks right now, we're not going to change our plans in terms of how we execute in the market. Because we do believe that it is the long term that matters and not the short-term optimization of a quarter.
Okay.
That might lead to that there will be a small margin decline in one of the segments due to that, which in our mind is okay because we are not, as I said, optimizing the specific quarter, but looking at how we are creating a flight attitude of the business going into the next years.
I think maybe just to explain it in a slightly different way, but with the same meaning. Our target is not to, what you can say, deliver profit by quarter, it is to ensure that the business grows as much as possible in the medium term. As Lars mentioned, the commercial pot of money we have, we allocate them to the best growth opportunities we have. The growth opportunities we had in Finland were actually pretty good and have delivered as expected.
There are restrictions in Finland in the same quarter, which means that the EBIT margin in Finland is not as high as it was previously, but that's not for us a warning sign at all because it's, what you can say, the lack of top line is driven by restrictions. The growth in the new innovations we've had are actually pretty solid. When you look at it with the long-term view, it is exactly where we would like it to be. Again, no red signs in the Baltic Sea. When you look at from the beginning of the quarter to the end of the quarter, the performance was pretty strong when we exited the second quarter.
Okay. My second question is on the group level, on the gross margin, I think it's up around 170 basis points in Q2. How much of that is due to opening of on-trade?
I think if you compare the markets, not market last year versus this year, it is a completely different environment. Last year people were afraid of losing their jobs. You saw huge volume in off-trade. You saw a movement to big packs, this year you've seen in many places a fairly normal consumption with on-trade opened and with some level of convenience, albeit not back to old levels. I would say it's a lot about channel mix that drives the improvement in margins in the second quarter.
Okay, great. Thank you.
If you look at it market by market, there's no structural change in the specific market.
Understood. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Fintan Ryan from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Lars. Lars, two questions from me, please. Firstly, and I guess sort of following on from that last question, given now that in your markets, the off-trades and the on-trade channels are sort of getting back to pre-pandemic levels, are you starting to get the sense that maybe some of the consumption trends that have helped your brands over the last 18 months might reverse? I'm thinking like maybe people, particularly if the raw material inflation environment is picking up again, should we expect to see private label coming back in and share? What sense are you getting from your retail customers about how they would sort of be playing their own sort of promotional strategy and mix?
Then secondly, just with regards to the MC Energy acquisition in France as well as the energy launch in Italy, wondering if you could share any early learnings that you've got from the businesses there. Appreciate it's still very early days, but has there anything there changed your approach to thinking about how you'll go to market in the French market and leveraging the Crazy Tiger brand with the Lorina brand in particular in France? Thank you.
If I try answering the first question, there was a number of questions, I think, in the question. I think the most important one is the topic around how will consumers behave on, sorry, private label discount, low end, low mainstream versus branded and premium. I think the general rule here or the general observation that we have is that when you have a relatively low unemployment rate, consumers are less interested in buying into low-end propositions. There might be differences between markets, but in a couple of our big markets, we have clearly seen a correlation between the unemployment rate, call it slash the consumer spending power, and the likelihood that they will take a branded beverage product instead of a low-end product.
If you looked through how, call it all of the Nordic markets that they look right now, the consumers are generally in a healthy position. That also means that our key hypothesis, back to Jemima's first question, around how do we feel about passing on to the consumers. I think if you look at it from a consumer perspective, you probably do not find consumers in a better state in the Nordic countries to take different price points. If you look at Italy, then it might be slightly different, the same in France. That's a different type of business because it's a niche business where you do not have the same benchmarking versus competitors. It's a totally different mechanism.
In terms of the percentage of price increase that you need, given that this is premium price products, your need to increase prices just from a pure mathematical point of view will of course be less. We believe that if you look at it relatively seen, it will probably be the toughest for the low-end producers and the private label producers, given the relative impact that they will see on their business compared to guys like us operating in the branded business.
Regarding MC Energy, I think we've had a pretty good start to taking over the business. We've had it for a couple of months. It's been in the middle of the high seasons. It's been in the period where the French team have been on holiday. Of course, what we've been focusing on is to secure that they continue to grow at the pace that they've been growing at in the past. The hypothesis on this acquisition is the same as when we took it over. It is to, what you can say, integrate the business into the Lorina organization, have more salespeople out in the field, make certain we have more salespeople that put our products on the shelves, and thereby both increase the sales of Crazy Tiger, but also of Lorina.
I think the case regarding MC ENERGY is the same as when we took it over, and it's looking very interesting.
A comment on Italy and the Lemonsoda Energy Activator. I think we have been confirmed that consumers generally would like to have a local alternative on the shelf. The trade has embraced us, and the consumers have embraced us. That means that when we are benchmarking our flavors to, call it the top performers in the market, we are getting very close to the same level of rotation at the distribution points that we have achieved. The traders have taken generally the expansion of energy drink on shelf very positively. They are shrinking the space for sports drinks, and then they're increasing the shelf for energy drinks, which is slightly different than what we have seen in the Nordic region, where they have been squeezing more the CSD space to give energy drinks more space.
I think all in all, a very positive journey, as you would know, this is the first time that we take Lemonsoda outside of its core space in terms of product proposition. We also, in that respect, of course, take a number of learnings which could be beneficial for the future. We are pretty optimistic still, as we talked about in May, on the energy drinks category. We are pretty optimistic about that. Generally, we are optimistic about our own ability to perform in the category.
Great. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from the line of Frans Hoyer from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you very much. Question around Western Europe in the second quarter. Big volume growth, very little happening on the revenue per unit. I guess the inclusion of Fuglsang has something to do with that. Could you outline the organic growth rates for Western Europe volumes, revenues, and EBIT in the second quarter, please?
There was a very low impact from Fuglsang in the second quarter. We got the keys late in the quarter, and it's a very on-trade heavy business, so you can hardly see the impact in the numbers for the second quarter. That actually does not really impact. I think the value of the Fuglsang acquisition sits more in the portfolio and the position in Southern Jutland. It's all about making certain we take that portfolio to the rest of Denmark, where craft and specialty have a strong importance as well as we take all the rest of the Royal Unibrew portfolio down to the customers that Fuglsang have in Southern Jutland and increase our total sales in Southern Jutland. It's a little bit of a longer-term play at the Fuglsang acquisition, and it's rather small compared to Royal Unibrew.
When you look at the numbers, Frans, volume on the beverage side is up by 21%. Beverage revenue is up by 25%, and bottom line is up by 37%. Of course, that also reflects a bit of the on-trade discussion both around the Danish consumers but also in Italy.
Right. Okay. I'm just a little puzzled that the revenue per unit is up so little given the importance of channel mix improvement as well.
You also have the border trade as an example that was in full closure last year until, what was it? End May, beginning of June. There's a couple of months of on-trade revenue, which by unit is lower because we don't have the same level of sales force and OPEX around it. It's a different kind of setup. You operate with a lower net revenue per volume, but you also operate with lower cost. That's why it drives the, call it the average revenue down. There's a number again of movable parts. If you look at it individually, if you look at the different elements of what makes the Western Europe, France, Italy, Denmark, there's no structural changes within the three segments. It's more the mix between them.
Yes. Got it. Question on Baltic Sea. I understand your point about continuing to spend and volumes not quite keeping up. With regard to share of voice and with regard to competitive pressure, generally speaking, in Finland, how would you describe the situation there now?
I think that the market in Finland is not very different from what we have seen in the past. I would say no changes, and there's no big changes in share of voices either. I think there's a difference between where we spend the money. I think if you look at it in totality, I don't think there's, with the knowledge that we have, is that there's not a lot of changes to share voice, but there will be changes to share voice in the different categories. That you would see, but not apart from that.
Finally, a question on the CapEx side of things. It does sound like CapEx was up in the first half. Do you have a number for us on full-year CapEx 2021 and maybe an idea of the trend going forward in the next few years?
Yeah. I think last year we had a number of projects that were a little bit back-end loaded because we stopped a lot of the projects, while corona was really hitting. There was a little bit of phasing between the end of last year and this year. I think our guidance of a CapEx level of around 5% is still holding for this year. Of course, it's very important for us to ensure that we have enough capacity and we deliver on the CSR journey. Of course, there is a lot of investments to be done, but we'll stick with the old guidance of around 5% for the year.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from the line.
Please go on.
The next question comes from the line of André Thormann from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I know you have been speaking of it already, just to be sure, in terms of this input cost inflation, for 2021, we have four months left for 2021. It usually hits 6-12 months. Shouldn't the negative potential remaining here be very limited for 2021 then? That's the first question.
I think we also have a fairly narrow guidance. I would say, there is, of course, a potential that it could be DKK 10 million-DKK 20 million in either direction, but I think that can be kept within the guidance. The volatility is, of course, more around how much impact will we have for 2022. Yes, there is a limit to how much it can impact the full year of 2021.
Okay. Thanks. Then in terms of these normalization you meant on the administration cost, just to be sure, what are the exact, and are there still normalizations to be done in the second half?
I'll give you an example. Last year, we asked people to do a lot of holiday. We asked them to, if they had anything accrued for overtime and so on and so forth, we asked them to go home, and then we could reverse that from the balance sheet. There's a number of these, call it 1x adjustments that happened predominantly in Q2, but a bit also in Q3. Whereas Q4 was more normal. That's one thing. Another thing is that, we didn't hire any people. When somebody left us or went on retirement, whatever, we didn't really fill up again. During the Q2 here and into Q3, we are putting some people back also as channels open. That also goes hand in hand with the business opportunity. That's a bit of the thinking.
When it comes to just another example of maintenance, Lars just talked about CapEx. There was also a number of maintenance projects that we postponed because we use external suppliers to help us out. We wouldn't allow them into the facility, and thereby we postponed the maintenance. There will be some more normalizations to be observed during Q3 and Q4. When we get into Q1 comparison, 2021 versus 2022, they'll probably be a bit smaller, I would say.
That's very clear. Just my last question, in terms of these capacity constraints that you have had, when will you start to do of capacity and which expansions are we talking about? Are there potentials for a brewery or is it more like line extension?
Yes, line extensions.
Yeah.
If you had been physically in Faxe, you would've seen that the machines are already standing on the other side, and have started to dig. There is investments ongoing to make certain we're ready for the season next year.
The largest consequence of all of this when we're talking about capacity constraints, is that the level of inventory that we have in totality together with our customers has been lowered. We have had some out of stocks, which I think is at the same level of competition when we look at the core numbers that we can get from Nielsen and other sources. The trade inventory level has been lower. The weather has been great, and when the weather is great, then certain categories, they increase quite dramatically. There have been some stock-outs of water in Finland, but that has been for a very short period of time. I think in general, our supply chain has again delivered on a very, very high service level, but we would have liked to have a higher trade inventory, than what we see.
Thanks a lot. That's my question.
The next question comes from the line of Tristan van Strien from Redburn Partners. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys. Just two for me. The first one, just a short-term question, just to follow up on input cost. Do you still have a bit of a natural hedge as the channels return, as people drink more draft beer, et cetera, or is that kind of worked through the system at the moment?
I think you should not consider that we have a big natural hedge between the channels that covers up for input cost. I think back to the point about that you should price as the market can bear. You have healthy consumers, in terms of money in the hand. If there's opportunities to take price increases, to do smart price pack initiatives, even in channels where you would not see that the input cost increases are as significant, we would use that and have that as a tool in the toolbox anyway.
Okay, great. Got it. It's very clear. Just the second question, you've done really three very different acquisitions in different geographies and different areas. I guess my question is a bit more about management stretch there. How are you managing the risk of not being able to integrate these businesses properly?
If we start with the first acquisition we did, which is Fuglsang, that is a purely Danish acquisition that, if you measure it in percentage of our Danish business, is very small. The majority of the business has been rolled onto our IT system and is already being delivered by our trucks and sold by our salespeople. That one is more or less already integrated by the Danish team. We have the energy business in France, which is of course, what you can say, a slightly different one, and it's not too dissimilar to the size of the business we have in France in terms of profitability. There you have a merger of two businesses, which will be done by group resources, but also done locally where we have now two organizations that we need to put together and build a stronger combined business.
Then you have the last one, which is platform acquisitions, in particular in Norway and Sweden, and then the Finnish team will integrate the Finnish piece. That, of course, will take a lot of resources from the group to ensure that we build businesses in Norway and Sweden that build on the strength of Solera but also operates in the way we would like Royal Unibrew to develop. Solera will be the one that really requires a lot of resources for us.
Tristan van Strien, now instead of being a gang of two with Hans and I, we have now the senior leadership team, where we have a group of six people. That means that we have more brain and more hands, also to get into these activities. We have over the last year, added a number of resources to the organization to strengthen some specific areas that also relates to the M&A area or like Jonas Guldborg Hansen that has joined us on the investor relations side. We still have a number of open positions that we are filling up, as we speak. We are very conscious about what it takes to keep the project list rolling. If you look at it in a 6-9 months perspective, of course there's a lot to do.
That doesn't mean that we do not have ambitions still in the territory of doing M&A, strengthening our partnerships, and so on and so forth.
Okay. Thank you. That's very clear. Can I just follow up on the Solera and maybe the deal, and maybe you've already covered this when you did your presentation in June. I guess one of the things that you said at the time that I think it was positively impacted by COVID-19. Is it possible for me to unpack that? I guess what I'm trying to understand is how dependent is this business on the on-premise, or is it more of an off-premise business?
Difference between the countries, and because of the fact that it's not approved by the Finnish authorities yet, and I cannot go into too many details. I think what we detected during the due diligence is that the staycation has had a relatively high positive impact on the business, and that is predominantly in Norway, where the border trade between Sweden and Norway has been closed down, and they have not traveled abroad for vacation, and so on and so forth. If you look at what they would be reporting externally, the revenue is higher and the bottom line is higher. Adjusting and looking at what happened in 2019, then it is at the level of what we have announced. The question is, of course, what sticks, what doesn't stick.
If you look at the relative on-trade strengths, Norway is by far the area where they are the strongest in on-trade. I think if you look at their website, I think they would claim there that they are the biggest one in the market in on-trade, in terms of volume in wine.
Great. Thank you.
It's more fragmented that you would see in beer or soft drink.
Yeah. Thank you very much.
We will go to the last question from Andrea.
Please go ahead, Andrea.
Yeah. Thanks. Yes, a couple from me, please. The 1st one on the production constraints, can you say what categories are these constraints impacting you most on? Partly connected to this, the international business is clearly an area which has been held back by these constraints. Underlying, is it fair to assume that your growth would have been probably similar to what we've seen in the past couple of quarters? When would you expect to catch up with the sell-out? My second question, please, just a slightly more technical one, the impact on the working capital of the change in the tax payment terms in Finland, if you could quantify that, and when should we expect this to wash out? Thank you.
I take the first one, in terms of constraints and sell in, sell out. You look at the Q2 in international, sell out is higher than sell in. We're ramping down stocks. Of course, you would say that over time, sell out, sell in should be at the same level, and that's also the reason why that we have always talked with you about that you need to look at it in a 12-month perspective because there can be big deviations between the quarters. I think we still need to see after the pandemic, how much has been of the growth that we have been able to accelerate over the last 12 months, how much of that will stick, because the nature of our business in international is more retail-driven and thereby also supported by the pandemic.
I think that's the only thing that we are following closely. In the beginning of the year, the constraints on our side was mostly on cans, then it became an issue from the supply, and then as Italy opened up, Denmark opened up in on-trade, and the growth in international keep growing, that turned in to also become a challenge on delivering enough glass. We have seen a little bit of everything during the quarters.
Regarding the working capital impact, it is a duty change that happened in the beginning of the year in Finland where basically instead of paying duties before month end, it was moved into the middle of the following month. It was a small delay for when we pay the duties in Finland. That impact is fully in our numbers at this point in time. There'll be no more positive impact. Of course, the size of the impact varies with how much duty we owe at a certain point in time. During the high season, it's a big number, and of course, lower when it's in other parts of the season. It's a three-digit number for the group throughout the year, at least. I'm sorry, it's a three-digit group in all months.
Very clear. Thank you.
With that, we will have to conclude on the Q&A session, which became long this time. Great questions and involvement from all of you in the call here. I will urge you to reach out to any of us if you have any questions beyond what we have been able to answer right now. Please reach out. Then we wish you all a great day. Thank you.