Good morning, and welcome to Royal Unibrew's Q3 webcast. I'm Lars Jensen, the CEO of Royal Unibrew. We appreciate that you have allocated time and interest in joining us this morning, and with me, I have our CFO, Lars Vestergaard. Now please turn to slide number three. Our profitability improved in the third quarter, which is a result of hard work and a strong performance in an environment that was challenging, as the weather was not helping us in July and August, as temperatures were significantly lower than normal, and the days with rainy weather significantly above the normal. This impacted especially the on-trade channel, as well as convenience and event sales in the two most important months of the year. The weather did improve in September, but September is a month which is less weather-sensitive than July and August.
In total, volumes declined organically by 8% in the third quarter compared to last year. We have now lapped some of the extraordinary inflation-driven price increases that we implemented last year, and that helps the price mix development, but impacts volume negatively. On top, we have a weakening in currencies in Norway and Sweden. In the quarter, group price mix was a satisfying level of 7% up. Despite the challenges, we succeeded in delivering the second quarter in a row with positive organic EBIT growth and the first margin expansion in more than two years. This proves that we have stabilized our business and are starting to deliver earnings growth again, and again, in spite of bad weather in most of our markets. In the quarter, there was a positive contribution from M&A, stemming from Amsterdam Brewery in Canada and Nørrebro Bryghus in Denmark.
This positive contribution corresponded to around DKK 10 million on an EBIT level. We are not fully satisfied with the free cash flow generation in the quarter. It amounted to DKK 210 million, which is DKK 94 million lower than last year, and later on this call, Lars Vestergaard will go through in details on these issues and explain the reason for the development in the free cash flow. As you have all seen, we are on track to deliver within the original EBIT guidance range that we provided in March this year, but we reduce it by DKK 50 million, as the top of the range is not within reach, and that means that the range is now DKK 1.6 billion-DKK 1.7 billion. We still expect net revenue to be approximately DKK 13.3 billion.
With that, please go to slide number four. I'm proud to tell you that our ambitious target, climate targets, has been validated by Science Based Targets initiative. They include a target to reduce absolute greenhouse gas emission by 60% for Scope 1 and 2, including logistics, by 2030, and 50% for Scope 3 by 2030, both compared to our 2019 baseline and based on our current footprint. This validation underlines our dedication to decarbonization and is a testament of our persistent efforts to mitigate our climate impact and do better every day. We are well underway with our decarbonization journey. We have finalized roadmaps to become 100% emission-free in 2025 when it comes to our Scope 1 and 2 emission, which is 10% of our total footprint.
As we have talked about on earlier occasions, beginning of this year, we started the electricity production from our own solar park here in Faxe, Denmark. It has now produced almost 10 GWh of electricity and is a predecessor for other, although smaller scale, projects in other locations. In Finland, the biogas plant, which was inaugurated in June of this year, has produced more than 2 GWh and is still ramping up to cover 100% of our heat usage through the remainder of the year. We do not only focus on CO2 emissions and renewable energy when we work on sustainability in Royal Unibrew. We also, together with our stakeholders, establish specific projects to reduce the climate and environmental impacts, including initiatives on packaging material use, such as reuse, design optimizations, reducing complexity of material, not least, increasing the content of recycled material.
Please go to slide number five. If we take a closer look into our engine room, it is with great satisfaction that we continue to gain market share in most markets. We continue to see the most solid, resilient, and stable development in our Northern European multi-beverage markets. Denmark, Finland, and the Baltic continue to prove the strength of the operating model and deliver solid results. It is these markets that, despite having the hardest headwind from poor weather condition in Q3, are the source to the second quarter in a row with organic EBIT growth, and importantly, the first quarter since Q1 2021, with EBIT margin expansion year-on-year. Our expanded partnership with PepsiCo on snacks in Norway, Sweden, and Finland, and beverages on the border between Denmark and Germany, continues to perform very well.
Since 1st of July, we have had the full spirits portfolio from Diageo in Norway, and we do start to see the first benefits from having a broader and better portfolio, especially when addressing the on-trade channel, where we are gaining new customers from a better offering. At the end of the quarter, we closed the acquisition of Vrumona in the Netherlands, and we have now started the integration of the company. As you know, Vrumona is the second-largest soft drink company in the country and will constitute a new growth platform for us in the Central European area. We are looking very much forward to get to know the organization and the people much better in the coming months. The management team of Vrumona has spent a lot of time on the divestment process, and have, for that reason, not spent enough time on the business.
What is good to see is that Vrumona is gaining share in October, which is the first month of our ownership, and they do that both in volume and in value, while the year-to-date numbers are flat on value and slightly up on volume, so improving. The potential for Vrumona is unchanged, and we expect to benefit from the supply chain changes, or the supply chain network, and the capacities in the facility already from the beginning of 2024. A week ago, we also finalized the acquisition of the brewery that has gotten the name San Giorgio di Nogaro, in Italy. This strategic step is very important in supporting our growing Italian business, as well as our growing business in international markets. At the same time, it's also important to reduce our capacity constraints, especially in Denmark.
Towards the end of the quarter, we noted the first signs of weakening consumer trends. Consumers seem to go less out and spend less when they go out. We believe this is a result of a generally higher living cost and uncertainty about the future, and it has the biggest impact on the on-trade, whereas in off-trade, we continue to see consumers be more on the hunt for good offers. In Norway and Sweden, we have not seen an improvement in the currency development, which has impacted net revenue negatively by around DKK 65 million in Q3, and we consider that organic development. We implemented some price increases in Norway and Sweden in September, and we are planning further price increases in the beginning of 2024 to mitigate this currency-related inflation. With this, I will turn the words over to Lars.
Thank you, Lars, and also a good morning to all from me. As Lars has already mentioned a couple of times, the poor weather in July and August had a negative impact on volumes, which declined by 7% in Q3, to 3.5 million hectoliters. The organic volume decline in the quarter was 8%. Year-to-date volumes declined by 1% in the first three quarters, to 10.1 million hectoliters. In the third quarter, net revenue declined by 1% compared to last year, whereas the reported growth was 1%. The difference is explained by acquisitional impact from Amsterdam Brewery and Nørrebro Bryghus. Year- to- date, revenue grew by 9%, positively impacted by the price increases implemented during the past year.
Organically, EBIT increased by 2% to DKK 507 million, resulting in an EBIT margin expansion of 30 basis points to 15.2%. The improvement is driven by an improvement in the gross profit margin from 42.1% last year to 43.8% in Q3 this year. Operating expenses are higher than last year, despite a decline in marketing spend, meaning that EBIT increased by DKK 39 million to DKK 651 million. Free cash flow was DKK 210 million in quarter three, resulting in a free cash flow of DKK 755 million in the first three quarters of the year. That is 23%, or DKK 141 million higher than last year. If you turn to slide number seven, please. On this slide, we show the third quarter development in the business segments.
In Northern Europe, which is 80% of volume in the quarter, volumes declined organically by 6% to 2.8 million hectoliters, whereas net revenue was flat. Volumes throughout the Nordics was negatively impacted by the poor weather in the quarter. In Denmark, volumes increased as a result of the extended partnership with PepsiCo on the border between Denmark and Germany. In the Baltics, the weather impact was reinforced by high inflation, leading to high price increases and thereby pressure on volumes. Adjusting for the Norwegian and Swedish currency impact, net revenue in the Northern Europe increased by 3% instead of being flat, underlining the importance of further price increases in Norway and Sweden. In Western Europe, which is 12% of volume in the quarter, volumes declined organically by 11% in the quarter.
The comparative figures from last year was positively impacted by very strong growth in especially the Italian CSD market. For six months in a row, we have now registered a balance between sell-in and sell-out in our Italian on-trade wholesale beer channel, and we thereby do not see it as a high priority issue anymore. Of course, we'll continue to monitor the situation, and comparative figures will continue to be distorted in the coming quarters as well. Net revenue declined organically by 1%, meaning that the price mix effect was a positive 10%. Western Europe profitability developed satisfactory throughout the quarter. In West, in international, which constitute 8% of total volumes in the quarter, volumes declined organically by 17%. We saw a stabilization in most of our African markets towards the end of the quarter.
This stabilization continues into Q3. Negative volume development is driven by phasing and under prioritization of the African business due to our current capacity constraints in Denmark. The production transition to Amsterdam Brewery in Canada is also impacting volumes negatively in the quarter. The positive price mix of 7% is driven by country and product mix, as well as price increases implemented during the last year. If we turn to slide number eight, please. As you can see from the slide, net revenue grew from DKK 3,296 million in Q3 last year to DKK 3,336 million this year. And that is the organic development corresponding to around -1%, whereas the M&A impact from Amsterdam Brewery and Nørrebro Bryghus amounted to a positive impact of around 2%.
In total, reported revenue thereby increased by 1%. In Q3, EBIT was DKK 490 million. That grew by 3% in Q3 this year to DKK 507 million. Of the DKK 7 million was organic growth, whereas Amsterdam and Nørrebro contributed by DKK 10 million. If we go to slide nine, please. And here we see the cash flow. Our cash flow before changes in working capital increased by DKK 82 million to DKK 1,639 million, which was driven by higher non-cash adjustments than last year. Changes in working capital was a negative contribution of DKK 89 million, which is a positive change of DKK 201 million compared to last year.
This means that despite investment and leases increased by DKK 51 million, our free cash flow before M&A and financing activities increased by DKK 141 million from DKK 614 million to DKK 755 million in Q3. Please turn to slide 10. Net debt to EBITDA reached 3.1x towards the end of at the end of Q3, as the payment for Vrumona was included in our net debt, while Vrumona did not contribute to any earnings in the quarter. Including 12 months pro forma EBITDA from Vrumona in the equation, net debt to EBITDA was 2.9x at the end of Q3. Our leverage has increased further with the acquisition of Birrificio San Giorgio in November. In August, we sold treasury shares to maintain our financial muscle, and we have a very strong focus on cash flow generation.
As we expect increasing profitability in Q3 and into 2024, our rolling 12 months rolling EBITDA will increase. Furthermore, the strong cash flow generation nature of our business will delever quite fast. Our target is to be at a net debt to EBITDA below 2.5x is unchanged, and the same goes for our aim to, in the long term, be around 1.5x net debt to EBITDA. We have no plans of starting share buybacks in the near future and are very comfortable with our plans on regaining our financial flexibility over the coming quarters. Needless to say, there are no plans of capital increases, which was a rumor in the market yesterday. And now turn to slide number 11, please.
Before I hand the word back to Lars, I will take you through the outlook for 2023 and some of the thoughts and assumptions behind it. We are maintaining our full year net revenue outlook of around DKK 13.3 billion, whereas we adjust the EBIT outlook range to DKK 1.6 billion-DKK 1.7 billion, from previously DKK 1.6 billion-DKK 1.75 billion. In other words, we will lower the top end of the guided range by DKK 50 million. We did see the first signs of a weakening consumer environment towards the end of the third quarter, and we expect that to continue throughout the remainder of the year and as well as into 2024. This has removed some of the most optimistic scenario from our previous outlook.
At the same time, some input prices remain high, and some, like sugar, labor costs, oil, and so on, are even increasing, and we therefore expect costs to remain high for the remainder of the year and into 2024. For 2024, we expect costs to increase slightly per hectoliter, and that includes wages and so on. So we do not expect to see a falling cost per liter into 2024. We will continue to invest in growth opportunities and behind our brands to secure a solid continued solid market share development, which is a combination of our ongoing integration efforts, means that the total cost base is not expected to decline meaningfully in 2024.
Net financial expenses, including currency-related losses and gains, are now expected to be around DKK 220 million, which is DKK 20 million higher than previously expected and a result of higher interest rates. There are no changes to our expectations of an effective tax rate of 21%, and we expect a CapEx of 5%-6% of revenue. Finally, for your modeling 2024, Vrumona is expected to contribute with around DKK 20 million in EBITDA. This is on par with the past 12-month trailing result as a result of a lower normalized EBITDA, as Vrumona did not pass on price increases during the last 12 months, where they have been focusing on the sales process and without push from the owners.
For the San Giorgio acquisition, we expect a net revenue of around DKK 300 million in 2024, whereas the impact on EBIT is expected to be neutral. The benefits of this acquisition is primarily to free up capacity in our production network and to reduce logistics cost. We will do investments in Italy in 2024, which will neutralize the underlying earnings of the business. The benefits which will materialize in both Italy and its international is not expected to impact EBIT until 2025. With that, I'll give the word back to you, Lars.
Thank you. Now please move to slide number 12. And before we will take your questions, I'd like to highlight and give a little bit of insight into our current priorities. With the first sign of consumers going less out and spending less when they go out, and being more on the hunt for offers in off-trade, we need to closely monitor the development in the consumer behaviors and market developments. We expect the premium market in off-trade to continue to lose slightly share to the private label and discount segment, which means that we need to be on our tiptoes and make use of the entire toolbox of price mix, price packs, and other value management tools, and in particular, in the mainstream area, to avoid leakage from that category down to discount and private label.
In an environment like this, we also need to be very focused on striking the right balance between investing behind growth opportunities and being cost-conscious. It is also important that we invest behind our brands and in growth opportunities to continue to future-proof our business, but we need to remain very focused on getting a satisfactory return on the investments that we make. With the latest acquisitions, our financial leverage is on the high end of what we find prudent, with a relatively high interest level. We will therefore increase our focus on bringing down the leverage to a lower level in accordance with our targets, and that's to make sure that we regain the financial flexibility to pursue the growth opportunities we still see. We expect to divest the old CB brewery site in Kristiansand in November, which will help our cash flow generation in Q4.
In relation to the opportunities, we have a high level of focus on integration of the acquired businesses. San Giorgio has been integrated into our local Italian business already, and as the brewery is already up and running on our IT system, the integration is expected to be relatively smooth. Integration of Norway is expected to be finalized toward the end of 2024, where Hansa Borg and Solera is planned to be transferred to our IT platform and thereby be fully integrated. The integration of Vrumona was started immediately after closing, and several integration streams are up and running, most of all, the disengagement from Heineken. Vrumona has a strong organization and good IT system, which means that we have a good level of granularity of the business.
As Lars, Lars, was just mentioning, we do not expect the total cost base to decline in 2024, which means that we need to manage the continued high cost pressure and make sure that we are mitigating increasing costs as fast as possible through price increases. Finally, we have an urgent and valuable job in optimizing our new production footprint. We fully utilized our capacity in Q3, and with spare capacity at Vrumona and the new brewery in Italy, we expect to be able to serve market needs better in 2024. This helps us to support and supply international with more products, but also the Danish market, where we have not been able to fully supply the market demand.
On top of this, we are adding capacity via CapEx, with new canning lines for Italy and the Netherlands, as well as a PET line in Denmark, that all together will give us about 2 million hectoliters of extra capacity with implementation during 2025. This will give us even more flexibility in our production network, and over time, we will extract cost synergies and commercial improvements. With these words, I'll send it back to the operator, and we are now ready to take the questions.
Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star one and one slowly on your telephone keypad to be prompted into the Q&A queue. Your name will be announced when it is your turn to ask your question. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. We will now go to our first question. One moment, please. And your first question comes from the line of Andrea Pistacchi from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, Lars, and Lars. I have three, if I may, please. First, if you could elaborate a bit on the comments you made on the deteriorating consumer environment in Europe, which you seem to have called out a bit more clearly than some of your peers. So are you seeing in Europe, I mean, is it a gradual deterioration that you've been seeing since a few months, or are you really seeing a bit of a step change since the end of September? And, by market, is it, are you seeing it across all your markets, or are there some geographical differences?
Second question, in part connected to this, is that, so in this sort of consumer environment, and also given your comments on your cost base, where you don't see much of a decline or a meaningful decline on costs, how are you seeing, how are you thinking of your top-line growth in 2024, of volume and price mix, hence potential leverage over that cost base? And the third question, please, on Vrumona, you said that they haven't taken pricing this year. Looks like a situation like, a bit like you saw in Norway. Will you be able to or are you planning to compensate to take price at Vrumona? Thank you.
Thank you, Andrea. If I start at the bottom, Vrumona is a very solid business. It's a very strong organization, highly skilled and well-trained people with solid experience. There's been a period of time, you know, nine-12 months, where the organization has been super focused on preparing material, answering questions, and also preparing them for the, I would say, to for a situation where a new owner will come in. And that's sucked out a lot of, I would say, operational time from the organization. And then at the same time, the seller was not on the tiptoes of, I would say, being close enough to the business and making sure that they took the right pricing decisions at the end of the day.
So we are pretty confident because we can already see by now that when they move their 100% usage of time on developing the business instead of entertaining discussions with buyers, that makes a change. And if you look at the market in general, we have seen price increases from peers that are higher than the price increases that Vrumona has chosen to take. So we are pretty confident that we will get back on the pricing that sustains the COGS level and the COGS increases that occurred for Vrumona, primarily through 2023. So our view is that there's...
The quality of the asset is still super high, but there's a short-term thing on pricing that needs to be dealt with. The level of pricing compared to Norway is a smaller challenge than the one that we took over in Norway. So those two are incomparable. When we look at the consumers - Any follow-ups on that?
No, no. Good. Thank you.
Okay. On the consumer environment, I think it's, I think we see two things. So, I think it's a very volatile environment that we see. So from a performance point of view, September, across countries, was not a good month, for, I think, any FMCG companies, is what we detect out there. And then when we look at October, it was actually a good month, where we are building on top of last year, and it's very, very difficult to detect what are the reasons why that September is lower and October is higher.
What we just highlight here is that this kind of environment is more uncertain, and we need to be more on our tiptoes, and we need to be ready to act even more agile and faster on what we see. That also means that we need to be more cost conscious and make sure that the investments that we do have the proper return. There's nothing that has changed significantly, but the swings between a good and a bad month has increased, and that is what we are highlighting, maybe a little bit more specific than the peers. That's correct.
That's also our reading, but I think this is to give you transparency on how we look at it.
I think, just to finalize the comment on the consumer behavior, this is not something that is Royal Unibrew specific. I think this goes for the whole market. I think if our competitors have a more nuanced view on this, that would be something you have to look at. So it's not Royal Unibrew specific. If we look at the cost base, I think the reason why we mentioned this in the presentation is, of course, that there is a lot of people who look at individual commodity cost and say, we're having falling cost in 2024.
But I think it's important to notice that, and there is a lot, a lot of customers that also are asking for, for price reductions. When we look at the total cost base that we have, of course, there have been awarded higher salary increases to everybody across Europe, in particular, over the last 12 months. We see certain categories, such as sugar, is increasing quite a bit in cost. And there are other categories that are not coming down in price. So at a total level, it's a fairly flattish development in terms of cost per hectoliter.
And it's important to stress, because there is a lot of a lot of people who talk about that inflation is coming down, that means we need to to take price reductions, which is not going to happen. So so cost is at a at a flattish development into 2024. In terms of the impact on on revenue for for 2024, what we should see is that we will get the full year effects of some of the price increases that we have taken during 2023. So a positive from that, and we do expect to see more price increases being implemented over the next the next quarters. And in particular, in Norway and Sweden, we are implementing price increases as we speak.
So if you look at Royal Unibrew as a group, there should be some positive price mix into next year, because there are pockets where we have we are behind. So I think we are not seeing a year in 2024 with significant price mix like we've had in 2023, but it should be a positive development into next year with a flattish cost per liter development.
And when we look at the volume potential for the top line, I think the current volume development in most of the markets where we work is relatively flat to slightly declining because of the price increases that have been taking over the last one and a half year. I don't think you should change that. There should be a lot of differences to that flat attitude going into 2024.
And that means that our potential volume increase that should come from some share gain and servicing the market better by having a total supply chain footprint, which is stronger than the one that we have had the last couple of years, where we have not been able to service the market to the extent that it has been needed. So those would be the areas where there would be some volume gain on the underlying business. And then, of course, we have destocking in Italy this year, so that should help us both from a top line and volume and profitability point of view next year. And we are also migrating, as we speak, the Canadian volume.
So we have had a destock in international, because all of the products that is on sea will not be on sea anymore because they'll be delivered from the brewery in Toronto. So there will be a slight normalization in international on that piece as well. So that is where the volume-
Thank-
development should come from.
One very quick follow-up, if I may, Lars, Lars, CFO, sorry. On the comments on the input cost situation. Has anything changed there since we last spoke, mid or around the 20th of August, where you were saying similar? Have things got a little worse on the cost, or is it sort of the same? I think it's a similar message, right?
Yeah, it is. Now, I'll take this, the beginning, and then I'll hand over to Lars. I think one of the things that has changed is that there is, there's a second war that has started in Europe. And there are certain cost categories that hasn't continued its decline because of that. And that is also one of the reasons why that we take the top off the span this year. So that needs to be taken into consideration, that there's an uncertainty around some cost categories because of that.
Yeah, and then, answering your specific question, Andrea, there's no change in terms of what we are expecting compared to last time we spoke.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. We will now go to our next question. One moment, please. Your next question comes from the line of Richard Withagen from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, Lars and Lars. Three from me as well, please. First of all, you paint quite a bleak picture for 2024. So I'm interested to hear what you're doing to maintain the competitiveness of your brands over the next few quarters, and just get some more specifics there. Second question is on Vrumona. How should we think about the retailer negotiations for the 2024 commercial programs for the Vrumona business? So, in about, because I guess they are going on for the next couple of months. Is this going to be more, you know, a Royal Unibrew style negotiation, or is it still too early for that?
And then the third question is on Norway, where your revenues declined by 8% on an underlying basis, despite the extension of the Diageo portfolio. So what are the factors behind the decline in Norway? Are you, you know, losing distribution contracts or what's going on there?
Yeah. So if we, if we start with the competitiveness of our brand, I think actually we are, we are extremely focused on making certain that the, the key brands we have are well invested and that we, we, we gain market share on the key brands that we have. So I would say, there's nothing that indicates that we are not keeping our share of voice in terms of, of marketing spend on our brands. And also, I, I think when we look at, the bigger brands, they are actually gaining share in most markets. So I would say the underlying performance of our brands is, is solid. So, I think on that we are, we are quite comfortable in terms of being competitive, on our brands and investing, sufficiently, behind them.
And I think, if you look, and I've seen some comments from some, some of the analysts, about a surprising, higher cost on sales and distribution lines. I think, what we have... So we are spending roughly in the quarter, we are spending roughly the same amount of marketing money as we did last year, so no big changes to that. And as Lars is saying, our best assessment is that our share of voice is where it should be, so it has not deteriorated. Where we are putting more money is on the executional side.
So we are investing and have been putting over, even over the last, I would say two years, when we came out of COVID, we are putting more money into being closer to the customers and, and, improving our, our execution at the point of consumption or the point of sale. So we have more salespeople out there, and we are spending more money on, making sure that the execution is second to none, as most decisions from consumers are taking at the point of consumption or the point of purchase... and that is one of the reasons why that we have been able to grow our business.
If you look at it in a two years perspective, our price mix compared to peers is the strongest of any, and I think that is the combination of keep investing in the brands, but also making sure that when it gets into the store, that it is in the eye height, it is executed at the right point in the store, and that we help the store owners to maximize their profitability. That is what is helping us in improving our profitability now for the second quarter in a row in a relatively tough environment and with a weather situation that has not helped us. If I may follow up on the Vrumona question, I think what you should expect, or what we are already in reality, is a Royal Unibrew style.
I think by nature, I think actually, the Vrumona style, it's a slightly different style than the Heineken style. And since we have a new general manager in place in the Netherlands that used to work for Royal Unibrew since the 1st October, he is already, you know, giving the Royal Unibrew input, not only because of us visiting on and off, but on an every day basis. And Ilco used to work for Heineken for many years, then he worked for Royal Unibrew in the Danish organization, and then he has, for the last six years, worked in Cargill.
So he's Dutch of origin, he understands the Heineken system, and he understands the Royal Unibrew way of thinking, and he is on deck and has been on deck from closing. So that is the Royal Unibrew style that we are starting to see in Holland.
And I think one key observation is that very few salespeople like to take price increases, and the Vrumona team have been in a sales process since the beginning of this year. So that has been distracting them quite a bit. And I would say if I look across all the entities we have, nobody takes price increases from the sales force without a big push from management. And it's clear that the Vrumona team have not had the push from the owners during the sales process, as well as they have been extremely busy executing the sales process. And it's a little bit the same we saw in Norway when we acquired Hansa.
If you are in the middle of a sales process, you do not take the tough decisions and go out and fight for price increases. So I would say, we've discussed this in great detail with the Dutch team, and I think they understand, and they are willing to implement price increases in a style that fits the Dutch market. And I think if you look at the competitive situation in Holland, the main competitors have been taking price increases. So with the right focus and the right push, I think our view is clearly that that should be possible to get implemented in the foreseeable future.
Then the question on Norway, so the market in Norway has weakened because of the weather, so that's an element. And then on top of that, that there's always in and out flow on the wine and on the wine side, and some of these exchanges of partnerships can be pretty high on the top line, and then it doesn't really change anything in the bottom line, et cetera. Because so that we need to expect that the trading portfolio will be more volatile than I would say the soft drink beer business, cider business, et cetera. If we look at the underlying performance of the Norwegian team, we lose a little bit of share in beer.
This is mostly in the area of specialty beers because of the consumer sentiment in Norway, so they are shopping down. Hansa has a relatively strong lineup with Hansa Spesial, so we are not helped by the consumer sentiment. I think on the positive note, when we look at the RTD cider category, which is one of our biggest opportunities in the Norwegian market and where we are a clear market leader, we keep gaining share in that segment, and that is this year, innovation driven, mostly by the launch of Hansa Hard Seltzer and the takeover of the Smirnoff Ice portfolio. So that's an excellent performance in market, excellent performance by the team.
And then on a positive note, and this is also one of the things that we highlighted when we acquired the business, that we would like to enter new categories. And when we look at what the Norwegian organization have been able to achieve in the energy drinks category, they have done an excellent job. When we look at the last four weeks, and that is, of course, you know, building up over time, we launched CULT about a year ago. And we are now in energy drinks up to a 3.3% market share in that category, and that means that we have overtaken already by now three other players, three other smaller players.
So that's an excellent job, and I think it provides a comfort for the future that the organization will be capable of putting even further categories into play in Norway. So we have a challenge in Norway on price increases, and now mostly due to the FX, that will be fixed, and then we are comfortable that the team that we have in place in Norway will be able to deliver on the original plans, but a little bit delayed.
... That's the situation around Norway.
Very clear. Thanks, thanks a lot.
Thank you. We will now go to our next question. One moment, please. Your next question comes from the line of Søren Samsøe from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. First, if you can talk a little bit more on which segments are declining in volumes. And also, if you will see this decline continuing to Q4 or whether it was mostly weather related in Q3. And then, the second question is more on 2024, when we should start to see sort of the easy comparable starting in terms of weather, cost, and currency? Thank you.
If we start by the volume declines, I think it would be unfair to look at segments. If you look at really what happens in our business, then of course we have the weather, which impacts volume quite significantly. And some of the analysts are presenting what is the weather compared to history, and I think it's clear that our geographies have had the worst weather for a long period of time. So one thing is weather. The other thing is that in Q2 we had a very strong May and June due to good weather. Which means that we enter into the high season with lower stock of key brands.
And that means that we, even though that the weather is poor, we are unable to capture all the volumes we could have sold. And that is why we have started, or are in the process of implementing a number of capacity expansions, as well as we will get more capacity from both Vrumona and the Italian acquisition. So there's a capacity-related challenge for us, and that's the weather-related question. So I would say if... I don't think we can call out any specific segments that are underperforming. So I would say it is weather, and it is capacity that is challenging us on the volume side.
And will the capacity also be a challenge in Q4?
That will be a smaller challenge in Q4 on some formats. But that has been the case for quite a while. So I would say, I think we will, during next year, we will free up some capacity when we start to ramp up production in Italy and start to move some production to that side. But, of course, we need to implement some minor CapEx projects in Italy to be able to produce the products that's planned to be moved there. Holland will add production capacity from the beginning of next year to release the pressure a little bit on the Danish supply chain. So there should be more capacity from the beginning of next year.
Then the question on 2024, easy comps?
Yeah, I think, I think, there's a lot of movable parts. So I think, Søren, I think we, we, we would need to take it from, you know, at a, at a later stage, from a quarter-to-quarter expectation. So I think that would be, that would be the answer right now.
Okay, but then I have a third question just on Norway. Just the 18% decline, how much was currency? Can you say that?
Norway and Sweden together, DKK 65 million. I don't have the split between the two, in front of me.
Okay. Okay, thanks. I assume most of that is Norway.
Take that with Jonas. He will be able to give you that number, very specifically.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. We will now go to the next question. Your next question comes from the line of Edward Mundy from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Morning, Lars and Lars. So a couple from me, please. The first question is, look, I appreciate it's probably a little bit too early to be giving guidance, but just trying to pull together some of the commentary from this call. I think you're sort of indicating that from a volume standpoint, maybe, you know, flat to up, depending on your share performance. Certainly less pricing, you know, relative to last couple of years. And then, you know, the overall cost base, sort of, flattish. So I mean, to me, that sort of smells like mid-single-digit EBIT.
And then if you add on top of that, maybe DKK 100 million-DKK 110 million of EBIT from the Vrumona acquisition, you're sort of getting yourself to a range, depending on where you finish, for 2023 of, I don't know, closer to DKK 1.8 billion-DKK 1.9 billion of EBIT. I was wondering whether you were able to comment on that in the broadest terms at this stage. The second question is, you know, one of your large competitors, where there has been a change of management, is talking about potentially stepping up investment. I was wondering if you could provide some early thoughts on what that might mean from your investment levels.
And then, third of all, just coming back to capacity utilization, you know, clearly quite a lot having taken place, both on the inorganic side and then the organic side still to come. Could you talk to what capacity, capacity utilization is currently and where it should be, you know, within a couple of years?
Yeah, if I take the last one first, I think we have since COVID, and I think the background of this is that we could not have people in our facilities during COVID. We, you know, we could not get most of the people that install these things, they are not foreigners, and couldn't get into the country or couldn't get into our site. And then at the end of the day, when we came out of COVID, the delivery time got up from about six months to one and a half year or so.
In the meantime, our volume has gone significantly up, and that means that we came from a situation where we were operating with, you know, a 15% free capacity, and that means that, you know, good weather could be absorbed. A customer that wanted to do, you know, a promotion could be absorbed. And then we have had two years in a row now where that has not been the case. So we are operating on the most busy lines, we're operating with a 100% utilization in reality, and we're also taking SKUs out, smaller SKUs. We're deprioritizing SKUs so that we try to get more and more pieces or items out of the lines. That said, we have added capacity already. We have added a PET line in Finland.
We have added a glass line in Finland, and we have, as we said early on, we have a number of lines getting into play. And, given that our business has been performing from a volume standpoint well over the last many years, we should aim to get to kind of like this 85% utilization at a maximum, because if not, you simply lose too many profit opportunities from good weather or short-term demands that come. So, that is what we try to build up. Of course, Vrumona is helping us on the soft drink side, which is great.
We need to get the facility up and running, you know, with small details like that the production only handles Dutch pallets and not Euro pallets and these kind of things. So there's a little bit of massaging that needs to be done from a capability point of view, and also by adding Italy, we're adding a 1 million hectoliters brewery. And that, of course, is a great support to the growth that we see in Italy, but also in the international segment that has not been serviced well for the last couple of years. So I think we have a strong pipeline of projects.
I think, it's not, I would say, generally, it's not money well spent when you build new brewing capacity in Europe, because, there's an overcapacity in Europe, in reality, in the brewing side. So where most of our investment, you will see that they will go, that will be in filling capabilities, a different pack size, capacity, but new pack sizes, new format sizes, et cetera, et cetera. That is where we would, we would put the money. And then, thanks for asking about our guidance for 2024, which, I think, I will not surprise you when I say we're not going to give that at this call.
I think when you hear some of our comments around the more big picture general trends, such as cost per liter and price increases, these of course goes for the established parts of our markets. But if you look at what are the moving parts from this year into next year, there is, of course, a lot more, so we've been through a period of destocking in Italy, which of course we do not expect to repeat in next year. We have underserviced some parts of the market, and we're adding more capacity to the whole network, and that could be further market share gains and so on.
I'll just say there's a lot of moving parts, and I think there's a few moving parts missing in the number that you just presented.
Thank you. And just my final question around, you know, one of your competitors, potentially talking about stepping up investment. What does that mean for you? Does that mean more investment for you as well?
I think what we do is that we, as I tried to explain early on, you know, we've tried to monitor the share of voice, you know, is... Are we spending above or below, or are we on par? So that's one thing. The other thing is what you get out of your money, and I think I need to praise our organization in general, and that is that we get much more effect out of the money that we spend. So for us, it is both. It is the amount of money that you spend, but it's also the return on investment that you do.
And if you take a couple of our markets, if you take our Italian market as an example, we have actually spent less money on marketing, but our brands are solidly building up. When you look at all the brand parameters, that is building up positively because of the investments that we do. So the team in Italy have put the investment into more efficient marketing and get more for less. And that's a bit of, I would say, the Royal Unibrew thinking in general, and that is that we need to increase our efficiencies throughout the business. So it's not just about throwing money out there, but it is to do it in the right way.
We have talked about war on the floor for quite some time, so that's the second element of it. I think for us, we have decided that we wanted to put more money towards helping our customers to sell more out. And how do you do that? You do that by having people in the street. You do that by having tools available that can help in selling better in selling better out in the outlet at the point of consumption. So this is where we put our money right now. And of course, this is something we evaluate all the time.
If the consumer sentiment changes and people are more open-minded towards innovations and premium products and whatever it is, I think that will change a bit again, and then we'll probably move more money into marketing. But it is a pendulum that swings over time in terms of how we spend our money. But we do not see a big need for stepping up investments in is the general picture in our markets. And we really try to calibrate between sales costs, which is the cost that we spend with the customers, so in-outlet execution, how many people are we? What kind of tools do they have? How efficient are they? How much are they helping the customers? And finally, how much money do we put behind the brands?
The art is to strike the right balance between those three.
Great. Thank you. Thank you. We will now go to our next question. One moment, please. Your next question comes from the line of André Thormann from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, everyone, and thanks for taking my question. The first question I have is in terms of Vrumona and whether you still think it's realistic, that this will be EPS accretive in the first year with this, Adjusted EBITDA that, that you give? And the second, that's just a general question. I mean, overall, when you look at the many acquisitions you have done since 2020, do you overall consider them a success or not, and, and why? That's it.
The first question, yes, we still consider Vrumona to be EPS accretive next year, so that's a simple answer to that one. I think what you—I think in general, I would consider the M&A activity and partnership expansions that we have been doing, I think I would consider those overall as being something that Royal Unibrew benefits from. I think there's a, and there's a difference in terms of the different acquisitions that we have made. So the smaller ones in markets where we already have a presence and where we have a strong local organization, those are very fast up and running. They are very fast integrated, and we also see financial benefits of those within a very fast time period.
And, you can take Nørrebro Bryghus in Denmark as one of them, which we acquired at the end of last year. It is fully up and running after a few months in terms of the commercial execution. We haven't lost customers. On the contrary, we have gained customers, and it's a part of our operation in the Danish business today, and it's not something that any I would say leaders are spending time on. It is embedded in the local organization. And then you take the more complex ones, Solera and Hansa as an example, which is the most complex set of acquisitions that we have made.
I think if you look at where the organization is today, as I explained earlier on, I think the in-market performance, I think the organization, they do a lot of good things. We have been able to attract Diageo as a partner, both on the spirits side and on the RTD side. We have been able to put in energy drinks in the market. We continue to gain market share in RTD and cider with own brands. So from a commercial point of view, I think we would count it as a good place. I think when you look at the intensity of management from previous owners, that is where you get the negative surprises.
I think that was where, in particular, the Hansa business came in with a softer management style and implementation or firm implementation of commercial priorities. So yes, if you rank them up, I would say that where we are mostly disappointed, that would be on Norway as a total, but in particular on Hansa, and we have taken a lot of measures to correct that, and I think we see improvements month by month, so we are comfortable that we are on the right journey.
And then you can take the most positive ones, which is some of the smaller ones, as I mentioned, Nørrebro, as an example, where we have very, very fast, excellent execution by the local teams and where we earn our money back very, very fast. So that would be the span between them. But there's nothing that we regret that we have bought or partnerships that we have made at this point in time. And for some of them, of course, it's too early. It is too early to judge Norway, if Norway is going to be a good investment. We need to look a couple of years down the road before we will be able to draw that conclusion.
I think one thing we have learned is that buying businesses in the middle of an extremely volatile period in terms of commodities and currencies, adds a different layer of complexity that can hit you in the short run, because in the transition period from old owners to new owners, price increase discipline is not strong. But that doesn't mean that the acquisitions are-
... are bad, it just means it hits you, when you're not covering cost increases because of lack of, what you can say, pressure in the transition period. But that doesn't mean that the acquisitions are not the right ones, and it doesn't mean that the profitability will not be recovered once market stabilize a little bit. So I think there's different elements in this evaluation than just first year's performance.
All right. Thank you so much.
Thank you. We will now take our final question for today. Your final question comes from the line of Mandeep Sangha from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you for taking a couple of questions from me, please. I guess the first one is just coming back to a comment you made earlier in the call on customers pushing for price decreases. Is there any particular market that you'd call out, in particular, where these pressures are most significant? And I guess, how are those discussions going? And if the conversation is, "Look, you won't take pricing down," is there increased pressure to offset that by increased promotions into next year? And my second question is just on the comment around the CB Brewery and the divestment in Norway. Could you help maybe quantify the impact that you're expecting in 4Q, please? Thank you.
Yeah.
Yeah. So on the price development, if I take that first, and then Lars can comment on the CB sales. I think we have also mentioned that early on. I think the market where, in terms of, you know, we have smaller markets as well, but if you look at our platform markets, France is the country where there is the toughest environment in terms of, I would say, negotiations, as a whole, not only about pricing, but also about listing, innovation, and so on and so forth. And it's also a country where you see even politicians, making points about what they think about price increases in the market, and what is caused by retailers and what is caused by brand owners.
So this is where you need to be nimble, agile, and being selective in terms of what you do. And I think our style is not confrontational. Our style, in general, and I think we got the question earlier on from Richard about negotiation with customers, with the, you know, is it our style? And we try to, in every market, we try to do it the Royal Unibrew style. And the Royal Unibrew style, that is to create win-win situations. So situations where we are adding value to the retailer or to the on-trade outlet, so there's more profit that can be shared among each other. So that is the style that we are entering into with all our customers. It is about we're creating these winning propositions.
So, France, I would call out. I think the rest of the markets, I think, nothing specific to mention. I think, I think everybody understands our, our agenda and have benefited from our agenda through many, many years. So I would call that as a, as a, as a positive right now.
Yeah. On the CB Brewery, it is expected to be sold in the next month or so. It has a minor, positive impact on EBIT. I think the most important thing is that it gives us a good cash in of slightly less than DKK 100 million. So it's just in terms of the capital structure piece that that is relevant.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. I will now hand the call back for closing remarks.
Thank you for participating in this call, and with a lot of good and solid questions. You know where we are if you need any additional... But thank you very much, and enjoy the day.