Good day, and welcome to the Jerónimo Martins first half 2024 results conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Ana Luísa Virgínia, Chief Financial Officer of Jerónimo Martins Group. Please go ahead, madam.
Thank you, Nadia. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining this call to present our first half results. As a reminder, in our corporate website, you can find the results release, a slide presentation, and a fact sheet for the period. In line with our expectations, the operating circumstances in 2024 so far have been extremely challenging, with a sharp drop of food inflation after the exceptionally high values registered in the last two years. Significant cost inflation, mainly driven by rising salary, salaries and fierce competition. Also, in our main market, Poland, consumer behavior has been unresponsive to the real wage increases, which is somewhat surprising considering the current macroeconomic environment. In these challenging conditions, our banners continue to strengthen their competitiveness, investing strongly in price to push for sales, without neglecting the overall quality of their offer to consumers.
As a result, and despite the headwind from basket deflation, like-for-like performance was resilient, driven by strong volume growth. Throughout the period, all our banners increased their client base and gained market share. As expected, EBITDA margin went down, reflecting the negative effects of basket deflation and substantial cost inflation. Our net cash position, excluding IFRS 16, stood at EUR 394 million by the end of June, after paying in May, EUR 411.6 million in dividends. In the first six months of the year, food inflation declined significantly in all three countries, while cost inflation rose, mainly driven by wages increases. In Poland, despite the growth in household income and the improvement of consumer confidence, food retail volumes are still muted. The cautious behavior from consumers is further contributing to stir up intense competition.
In Portugal, consumers remain promotion-driven, and in Colombia, families struggled with massive pressure in face of food prices that today are on average 67% higher than in the beginning of 2022, 2021. The first half results reflect the imbalance created by the combination of low basket inflation and high cost inflation. The significant volume growth, particularly in Biedronka and Pingo Doce, was not enough to compensate for basket deflation in a way to fully allow cost dilution. Hence, EBITDA margin and EBITDA growth were affected by the operational deleverage in the period. All in all, EBITDA in EUR increased 3.5%, a decline of 3% at constant exchange rates, with a margin pressure of 54 basis points.
The evolution of the depreciation heading reflects the execution of our ambitious CapEx program, while financial charges increased due to higher average net debt and more funding in Colombian pesos at higher interest rates. Other profits and losses that were at -EUR 62 million include the initial endowment of EUR 40 million to the Jerónimo Martins Foundation. It also includes the write-offs resulting from renovation works and some restructuring costs. Net earnings per share, excluding other profits and losses of non-recurrent nature, fell by 17.6%. Besides the combined effects of the current context, Q2 P&L was unsurprisingly also impacted by the reverse of Q1 positive calendar, due to an earlier Easter season this year versus 2023. Cash flow generated in the period was -EUR 383 million. There are a few things I would like to flag here.
Firstly, while EBITDA adjusted for rent payments was slightly up, we incurred a larger interest charge from higher average net debt and increased exposure to Colombia interest rates. Secondly, the tax payments in the period were substantially higher. In Poland, the advanced tax payments we make throughout the year are calculated based on our taxable income from two years ago. In April, when we make the final tax payment, the amount is adjusted to match the actual earnings of the prior year. So in Q2 2024, we paid the remaining due, the difference in the corporate income tax of 2023 results, a very strong year of performance, versus advanced payments based on 2021 results. At the same time, we are now advancing payments on 2022 results, another very strong year.
Finally, we saw lower generation of funds from working capital, mainly reflecting diminished sales growth caused by a steep drop in inflation. We ended June with a positive cash position of EUR 394 million. Dividends in the amount of EUR 411.6 million were paid in May.... The capital expenditure in the first half of the year amounted to EUR 396 million. The investment focused on Biedronka and Ara's expansion, as well as on the refurbishment programs that will enable Biedronka to maintain its high standards, and Pingo Doce to implement the new All About Food store concept as a way to further grow their respective businesses. I will now guide you through our sales performance. Total sales grew by 12.3%, 5.5% at constant exchange rates. Group like-for-like was at 1.1%.
The quality of the like-for-like is well reflected in the strong volume growth registered in Biedronka and Pingo Doce. All banners did well against the respective markets, having increased their customer base and gained share. Q2 like-for-like was impacted by the negative calendar effects of an early Easter compared with 2023. In a market still losing volumes and in the face of increased competition, Biedronka remained firm in its commitment to provide the best prices to the Polish families, having intensified its commercial action and registering substantial basket deflation in these six months. As a result of having a positioning that is well perceived and valued by consumers, our main banner strengthened its customer base, grew volumes throughout the period, and increased its market share by 0.5 percentage points in the six months. On top of higher deflation, Q2 was impacted by the expected negative calendar effect.
As a note, even including this impact, the volumes were positive in the quarter. I need to flag here that at constant prices, the best proxy for volumes, food retail sales were down close to 4% in Q2. There are also a sound contribution to top line growth from new space of 4.7 percentage points. Total sales increased 11.9%, plus 4.5% in local currency, to reach EUR 11.5 billion. Hebe delivered a solid sales performance, with sales growing by 22% in local currency, including a like-for-like of 12.4%. The good delivery reflects an improved value proposition and a consistent e-commerce development that represented around 19% of sales over the six months.
Pingo Doce grew sales by 5.9% to reach EUR 2.4 billion, including a 6.1% like-for-like without fuel, even though it faced deflation during the period. The continuous promotional campaigns and the increased contribution from the banner's strategic pillars, fresh products, private brands, and meal solutions in the All About Food stores, drove significant volume growth and allowed Pingo Doce to outperform the market. In the period, 41 stores were refurbished to the new concept that is now the standard in almost 25% of the network. Recheio delivered a solid performance, with sales increasing by 2.1% to reach EUR 645 million. The HoReCa channel in Portugal has been impacted by weak domestic out-of-home consumption.
However, and against the strong performance of previous years, Recheio grew customers in all segments of the operation and extended its partnerships in the mainstream stores, ending the period with 651 locations. Ara maintained an intense commercial activity, continuing to create relevant saving opportunities for the struggling Colombian families by combining a strong promotional dynamic with a consistent low price policy. Allow me to remind you here that in Q2, Ara faced a particularly tough comparison, as in Q2 2023, sales benefited from a massive price campaign on the occasion of its tenth anniversary in Colombia. In the six months, sales increased by 13.3% in local currency, a 32.1% growth in euros, to reach EUR 1.4 billion.
Consolidated EBITDA grew by 3.5% in euros, a reduction of 3% at constant exchange rates, reaching EUR 1 billion. The basket deflation registered in our main businesses, combined with the high cost inflation, led to operational deleverage. Group EBITDA margin fell to 6.4% from 6.9% in H1 2023. At Biedronka, the pressure on margin was mainly driven by increased weight of costs, essentially coming from high wage inflation and lower sales growth due to basket deflation. Hebe's margin improved following good sales performance. In Portugal, the margin evolution reflects the execution of the intense promotional dynamics together with cost inflation. And finally, in Colombia, Ara was able to improve EBITDA margin by 109 basis points in H1. Excluding the effect of IFRS 15, Ara's EBITDA is now back to positive ground.
In summary, in the first half, we operated in an extremely challenging context, marked by basket deflation, high cost inflation, subdued consumer demand, and more intense competition. Although we anticipated and flagged most of these challenges from the start, we acknowledge that the sharper than expected consumer demand in Poland drove heavier price investment across the industry, leading to a more competitive context in our main markets. As a group, our strategic focus has always been clear: to reinforce price positions in order to grow volumes and invest in the overall quality of our value propositions, including the execution of our CapEx program, to expand and revamp our stores also as a way to sustain growth. Our banners are therefore delivering accordingly.
As a result, in competitive contexts, we reinforced our market positions, delivered solid volume growth and strengthened our client base, which is the best possible confirmation of effective consumer preference. This execution, in the current circumstances, pressured margins, and H1 figures reflect exactly that. Nonetheless, we do believe we are following the right path and that our banners have the competitive strength to continue outperforming their respective markets. For the year, our strategic priorities remain unchanged: make our stores the first choice of consumers and grow sales in volume. This strategy will allow us to keep our competitiveness, increase our customer bases, and reinforce market shares. Entering H2, a period of more demanding comparatives in terms of volumes, Biedronka will increase its price investments, reinforcing its competitive position and creating further saving and value opportunities for Polish consumers.
Having in mind that our main banner is expecting basket deflation to continue in H2, the execution of this strategy may even put further pressure on EBITDA margins versus the 85 basis points registered in H1. We reiterate our commitment to our CapEx program, then, that in 2024 will reach EUR 1.2 billion of investment, mostly in the expansion and revamping of our infrastructure. Finally, we continue to foresee an increased investment in working capital versus prior years, considering the deflationary scenario and the current context, that will also continue to pressure our local commercial partners, particularly in private brand and fresh categories. We are conscious that the sharp reduction in food inflation will affect the top line and our balance sheet, and that, together with the already high costs, will hamper earnings for the year.
As such, we will keep improving competitiveness and efficiency as a way to protect our business fundamentals. Thank you for your attention. Operator, I am now ready to take questions.
Thank you. Dear participants, if you wish to ask a question, please slowly press star one one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by, we'll compile the Q&A roster. This will take a few moments. Now we're going to take our first question. It comes from line of João Pinto from JB Capital. João, line is open. Please ask your question.
Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is on the number of openings in Poland. We have seen that Biedronka plans gross openings of 230 stores, and in order to reach the net openings target that you shared, we have to assume a record number of closings of between 80 and 100. My question is: do you see upside risks to the number of net openings this year? Or if not, is there any reason to expect an acceleration in the number of closings? My second question is on consumer backdrop. Do you find any explanation for volumes remaining weak despite the rising wages, also in Poland? And finally, can you give us some color on the gross margin evolution in Poland in the second quarter? Many thanks.
Thank you, João. On the expansion in Biedronka. So, what we have in our guidance is 130-150 stores to be opened, and we keep that guidance from the beginning. It's true that it was mentioned in the annual report, 330 locations, but this included an ambition and also the plots that do not represent new openings. So what we are expecting is not to do a massive closure of stores, but to keep at least 130-150 stores, net of closures and replacements, but not with...
So with a normal level of closures, particularly when the stores do not allow for a proper expansion or for a proper customer experience. On the lower volume in the markets, of course, for us, it's also a little bit surprising that we keep with a very neutral or negative volume growth at the retail sector. We don't hide that. Of course, we knew that part of the performance would depend on how things would evolve, and we flagged that in the outlook of the full year results, as you know. I think that it has to do with multiple things.
Our colleagues in Poland refer that consumers continue to be very cautious, that they are expecting that energy prices to go up with the end of the subsidies. To that, they were expecting the VAT reintroduction. Germany, in the west border, which is the main country with which Poland has its commercial relations, is not doing well, as you know. That has affected some industries in Poland. You continue with the war in the east border. So I think that's basically, the consumer is i ncreasing the savings, and it's a little bit on the wait and see mode, considering all the uncertainty that goes even with things that I believe can be or look a little bit far away, like the U.S. elections or whatever.
But the thing is that this will affect the way that the Poles see, particularly what is going to happen in their different borders and in Ukraine. So I think that the consumer remains quite cautious, and so they look for the best value for money. Of course, all the rest has to do with a very intense competition for these decreasing volumes. So the markets have decreased and the costs are increasing.
As we also mentioned in our release from the beginning, competition tends to increase under these circumstances, and that's what happened. As for the gross margins , in fact, as you know, we don't give a lot of detail on gross margins , but I can tell you that it was quite resilient, with a big effort from our teams in Poland. But that doesn't mean that we didn't do a big effort really to invest in prices. We did. And of course, unfortunately, part of this we were accompanied by our suppliers, particularly the ones that were losing volumes and that do want also to recover parts of those volumes. So a quite resilient margin.
But of course, with lower sales and higher costs, the operational leverage was unavoidable.
That's, that's very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you, João.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The next question comes through line of José Rito from CaixaBank. Please ask your question.
Yes, hi, good morning to all. So my first question on Poland. So, if you can provide a breakdown between basket inflation and volume in the quarter. I think that you mentioned volumes were positive in Poland. I'm not sure if you mentioned how much was the breakdown between the basket inflation and volumes. Then also in Poland, in terms of competition, you mentioned that this competition has been increasing. Can you compare the competition level as of today versus 10 years ago when Tesco decided to be more aggressive? And finally, in terms of working capital suppliers, in terms of days of sales, how much do you expect to invest this year? Any reference that you can provide? Thank you.
José, I will just ask you because the line was not very clear. Can you repeat the end of your second question? You said to compare the competition with, and I didn't hear it.
Versus 10 years ago.
Ah, okay, okay.
When Tesco was more aggressive in the market, is the level of competition similar to what we saw when Tesco decided to be more aggressive, or if it is not the case?
Okay, okay, okay, perfect. So thank you, José, for your questions. As for basket inflation in Biedronka, as we mentioned, was negative. And in the first half was almost 6% negative. And basically that if we infer as a proxy the growth in like-for-like versus the inflation that we registered, of course, we are talking about a level of volumes that will be more or less that, so slightly less than 6%. As for competition, I think the circumstances are different. It's true that 10 years ago we had deflation, but a different one, and it was not simultaneous with the big increase that we are having in costs.
So the deflation came from a very circumstantial situation that had to do with the Russian ban and the different macroeconomic at that time. I think that Biedronka, of course, offer was not fully adjusted to deal with deflation because we were having, as you remember, a very limited assortment, much more basic than it is today. It was also true that we were not prepared or fully prepared in our operations to deal with the big promotions that were introduced in the market. So we had to react to the market at that time. Now it's a little bit different. So we think that, first of all, Biedronka is a very it has been performing very strongly in the last years.
We were, and we didn't hide, never, that the two last years were exceptional in the sense that we had very high inflation and although costs were increasing, in fact, this deflation and the fact that Biedronka maintained its competitiveness led us to grow volumes, and to be able to dilute the costs.
Now, what we see, of course, is a cost increase that is quite significant, and at the same time, as the market is not growing, which was not the case back in 2014, I think that this tends to leverage a little bit on the other players that have to protect their margins, they have to protect also their profitability, so they have to, like us, fight for sales. As for the working capital, on the estimates, I cannot tell you, José, because in fact, this will depend on sales on one side and on the level of also inflation or deflation on our purchases, and of course, on how things evolve.
We think that we have to invest a little bit more on our working capital, particularly for the smaller suppliers. We flagged that, and this is mainly even in Portugal, where they are struggling a little bit with the interest rates and with the context, because they also have high costs and pressure on sales. But regarding that, of course, as I said, it will really depend on days of sales particularly on how the performance goes for the second half of the year.
Okay, thank you. And so just a clarification on, follow-up on the adjustments that you did 10 years ago in terms of the number of SKUs. This time, do you think that the company needs to adjust anything in terms of business model, that is not the case?
At this time, I don't think, José, that we have reasons to change the business model. So, we are not even losing customers. So we are gaining share. So I think that's, it's not a question of evolving the business model. Of course, we can do, and then as you know, we are always fine-tuning the model. But at this point, I don't think that the model has to evolve at least the way, or with the magnitude that it happened in, back in, 2014, and the years that followed.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you, José.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The question comes from line of Frederick Wild from Jefferies. Your line is open, please ask your question.
Hi. Good morning, Ana Luisa. Thank you for taking my question. But first, could I please clarify on the Biedronka basket inflation in Q2? How far below the market was it? I didn't quite get that in your previous answer. And then when I think about the food inflation outlook in Poland for the rest of the year, do you see it sort of still holding at current levels? Or is there perhaps some cost inflation which could flow through and start ticking that up? Secondly, the guidance for potentially more margin downside in half two in Poland than in half one. Where is that incremental pressure coming from? Is it from gross margin, from these extra price investments, or do you see extra challenges on the OpEx front?
And then finally, just for clarity, what could you identify the VAT impact on margins in Q2, please? Thank you.
Thank you, Fred. So on Biedronka, the gap for the market continues to be quite significant. But the way that we see it, at least from the technical point of view, and I think I refer that, we struggle a little bit because we know that part of the prices that are computed, at least for the food inflation, do not account for the full promotions that are given in the apps or in the loyalty programs of the consumers, because these are not universal, let's say, for the markets. So you can have, and particularly some vouchers that can be even personalized. So this is not really taken into consideration for the inflation.
So I struggle a little bit to have a full comparison. Nonetheless, I think that Biedronka, of course, keeps a significant and is striving for its leadership position in the market. So I think it continues to have a quite significant gap. As for the operational deleverage, so, as I mentioned, in Q2, price investments were significant and followed. Of course, in Q2, you didn't have also the calendar effect, and this, together with the increasing costs that we had already done, particularly on wages and on labor related costs, which, excluding our cost of goods sold, is basically the big part of our cost structure.
Of course, this didn't allow, and the operational deleverage was much more than in Q1. But this follows the path of sales, basically. So it's not that we have increased our OpEx in percentage terms versus the Q1. It's really the fact that we have lower sales, and that reflects then on the margin investment. On the VAT, it's true that we have that impact. Of course, as all other players, we announced that we would not be passing the VAT.
Of course, with the deflation that we are having, as you can imagine, these are, this is, in fact, overall and on average, it's, it's. I think that the consumer is not feeling, in the case that they shop in Biedronka, they are not feeling the change in, in VAT, in fact.
Just if I could do a very quick follow-up to the second answer, please. So the dynamics on margin in Q2 with more obviously leverage from the, you know, calendar impact of like, like, you see a similar sort of thing carrying through into half two, where the output of the margin will really be determined by the progress of that like-for-like and the leverage over the OpEx rather than any big shifts on gross margin. Is that a fair way to characterize it?
Okay, Fred. So for the quarter, as I mentioned, basically, when you look just at the numbers, the main pressure, of course, on the deleverage was coming from the increasing costs, much more than from the gross margin that as I said previously, was quite resilient. What we think is that for the second half of the year, as you may remember, volumes were quite significant, so the comps in the second half of the year are much more challenging, and we are not seeing a pickup in the market.
We are currently even in July, which the month has already passed, and this is the only thing that I can tell you about the current trading, but we are not seeing a pickup in terms of the prices and not a pickup also in terms of consumption. So we are operating with deflation. We expect to operate under deflation in the second half now, which is the novelty. We flagged that very clearly for the first half, but we now think that this will continue for the second half. Of course, if you are operating in deflation and you continue, you have the cost increases that are already on your PNL, you will not decrease the wages, you will not adjust that.
So what we think is that this will be or bring further pressure, probably at that point, coming from, of course, the different moving parts. So we have the costs increasing more than sales, probably, because it will be difficult to have volumes to compensate for the deflation. So even if we have to invest more in price, of course, this we'll see how resilient the margin is, but that's why we think that we risk to have a higher pressure.
That's super helpful. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Just give us a moment. The next question comes from the line of Borja Olcese from JP Morgan. Your line is open, please ask your question.
Hi, thank you. Still a little bit unclear here. So simply put, how do we square flat gross margins with your comments of incremental price investments or incremental internal deflation at the inaudible? I, the gross margin should have been down, no?
Borja, of course, you have to consider all the different-- even the difference in mix that we had from one quarter to the other. So the fact is that if you are able, on your cost of goods sold, to compensate for the price investments that we do, which were relevant, I can assure you, and, of course, then we can, of course, compensate on the margin in percentage terms as for the gross margin, and that's what happened, in fact.
Okay, so you can price it, but the problem was the higher costs.
Apologies, I didn't hear you.
No, no. That's okay. That's okay. And then the second one is on the outlook. I'm still not very clear as to why there should be incremental OpEx deleverage in the second half if you are targeting positive volumes and the technical effects wash out.
Borja, in fact, so it's true that our second half is usually stronger in terms of sales. But what we are flagging is that the costs are already computed for, so it's not that we expect to increase much the costs versus what has been happening. What we are flagging now is really, first of all, that we probably have to invest more in price, and that will also affect the gross, the gross margin. And in terms of comparables, it's going to be more hard to grow volumes versus last year. So in fact, this will depend a little bit on the sales growth in value, and on the level of price investments that we have to do.
The pressure that we'll have now to add to our gross margin.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.
Thank you, Borja.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The question comes through the line of António Seladas from AS Independent Research. António, your line is open. Please ask your question.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. There is just one. It's related to the gross margin. You already mentioned the gross margin evolution, and you already just explained it. Nevertheless, it seems that your costs, your inputs, prices are coming down, so should we expect more? The prices continue to come down and in some way to protect your gross margin or not? Thank you very much.
António, you are mentioning the purchase prices?
Yes, exactly.
Okay, okay. So it's true that we are seeing. So the PPI, at least the one that we mentioned, and particularly in Poland, is going down. Of course, this will depend also on the evolution, and there are... Let's say, we don't hide, there is a lot of uncertainty here also. So it's not just the crops and the parts, particularly for the fresh, but also how things are going to evolve in the supply chain under some uncertain circumstances. So we are counting a little bit on that also.
We believe that if things continue the way that they are, and there is no major disruption, there may be some decrease in the purchase prices, as we are seeing from the macroeconomic numbers. But it really will also depend on the evolution of the supply chains and of the market.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you, António.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The question comes from the line of William Woods from Bernstein. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking the questions. Firstly, in Poland, are your pricing actions being forced by competitors, or are you leading the market down to give good value to customers? I'm trying to understand why you say you have to invest it more in price in the second half. The second one is obviously when you talk about more pressure in H2 than in H1, obviously, that sounds now like that's your base case assumption. What do we need to see to see less pressure in H2? What are you looking for to make that happen? Thank you very much.
Hi, William. So in fact, I think it has really to do with the market dynamic. Biedronka, as you know, in its value propositions, is and has a very good perception with the Polish markets on its leadership in price, and we want to keep that to happen. So we don't want to. We know that the Polish consumer is very rational, that he really looks for the value for money and for price. And so we know that price is a must, and if we don't have price, we will lose the consumer. And if we lose the consumer, from our lessons in the past, we know that we have to invest tons of money to get him back.
So the fact is, we think that all the dynamic in the market, and you have seen enough of the competition in the market, and that really has to do with if you see the consumer continue to be cautious, if you have your costs increasing, and most of your costs, with the exception of cost of goods sold, is fixed, you really have to strive for sales to be able to cope with not only the cost increase, but also to protect your margin for the future. And so what you are seeing really is, of course, a much more aggressive competition. So sometimes we'll have even to react, and we do it.
But others, of course, is us making sure that we provide, if we have the opportunity, the best opportunities to the Polish consumer. On the, on the second half, so this, this is how we are seeing at this point. Of course, we also mention in our outlook that if the market for some reason, and if the consumer, which has more available income, and if there is any chance for the consumer to start to trade up or to pick up in terms of volumes, I think that this will put or ease a little bit the market. As of course, it doesn't mean that it takes all the pressure, because of course, as I said, there were big increases in the costs of all foods, retail players.
This leads to a much more pressure on the competition. But I think that of course, a market that is more consumption-driven and that changes a little bit in terms of the caution than we and picks up the volumes, will affect, I think, everybody's performance in the market, and particularly Biedronka-
Right.
Which is the best value proposition.
Great, thanks. Just a quick follow-up. Are you seeing the same level of deflation then as Lidl in the market, do you think?
On that, William, we don't have any. As you know, we are quite transparent in our operation, and we give a lot of details, but we don't have any visibility on Lidl's performance in terms of deflation. We know that they have been very vocal on their communication and striving for sales, but we don't have any information on their performance.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The next question comes from the line of Izabel Dobreva from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Hello, good morning. I have three questions. My first one is just a technical question on the breakdown of the like-for-like between the basket inflation and the volumes. Apologies if I missed it. I think earlier in your comments, you talked about volumes down 4%, but then I think at one other point there was a different number. So could you just clarify, what was the basket deflation in the quarter, and what was the volume performance for Biedronka in the quarter? Then my second question is, what level of basket deflation are you assuming for the back half? Because if we step back a little bit, it appears that the reasons that the volumes are not picking up are not really driven by your relative price position. It sounds like it's external factors, so things like the war, the German production figures.
So why is stepping up price investments the answer to activate the volumes, given the consumer is not really reacting so far? And then my third question is, could you talk a little bit about what self-help drivers you have at your disposal? Are you doing anything to accelerate savings? And if you are, have we seen any of the results in the first half numbers, or maybe there's some self-help actions yet to come through the margin?
Okay, thank you, Izabel. So for the volumes, so the -4 that I mentioned was on the market. So for Q2 in the markets. The like-for-like for Biedronka in terms of basket deflation, as I mentioned, was slightly below 6%, and the volumes in the second quarter were up around 1.5%, if we also include all the different mix effects. On the first half, as I mentioned, was also slightly below the 6%. On the price, and I think that we will want to continue to lead in price. And this for us, and we expect to continue to lead in price, that we will do further investment in price, and for the second half.
So for us, it's really very important to keep the consumer with us and to defend our price positioning. So we will keep leading in price, and that will put further pressure, and that's why we expect deflation. The level of deflation, of course, it will depend. As I mentioned, we think that the market will continue to be even with a pickup in consumption. We think that the market will continue to be very competitive because of the level of cost increases that all operators have following these two exceptional, very exceptional years in terms of inflation. That translated on wages and/or all the other costs and even in interest rates. And on the savings, so we have to acknowledge one thing here.
Jerónimo Martins doesn't have its costs out of control. We increased the wages. It was a deliberate. We knew that we would have that pressure. We flagged that pressure in our full year results. But in terms of our consumption, so we continue to do a lot of initiatives to save on the parts, not of the price, let's say, on the cost price, but to save on all fronts. So we are talking about the energy and the, which of course is benefiting from the photovoltaic panels and for some is in the energy price. So it's not. It doesn't have to do with out of control.
What we are doing really is basically saving on consumption to compensate partly for the increase in the cost prices.
Thank you very much. I just had one small follow-up. At one point during your remarks, you talked about volumes being unable to compensate for deflation. So just to clarify, do you expect the like-for-like to remain negative in the second half at Biedronka?
On that, Izabel, so we, we've... What I mentioned really was, in fact, that the volume growth was not enough to compensate, to dilute the costs, the way that we want it. So the pressure on the margin, EBITDA margin, reflects that. So it's not, in fact, the like-for-like was basically flat if we take out the calendar effect when we look at the first half. So I think that, it's true that we will continue to see a lot of pressure. As we said, we will operate in deflation, and it will be difficult also to grow on volumes because the base is very strong. So it's not an impossible scenario, but we'll fight, of course, to have the best performance possible.
Of course, if you tell me, will we have a very high single digit or even a quite significant mid-single digit? I think it's very unlikely or even unreasonable to think about that, considering the current context of the market. So it's the negative like-for-like, it's possible to happen. We will be working for that not to happen, in fact.
Thank you.
Thank you. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. Now we're going to take our next question. The question comes from the line of Elena Jouronova from JP Morgan. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Hello. Thank you very much. I have a few questions. First and foremost, how do you expect the removal of the household Energy Shield to impact consumer demand and volumes in Poland?
On that, Elena, of course, I think it's part of the cautious, let's say, behavior of the consumer, is that he is already anticipating that he will have to pay more for energy. And so they tend to save a little bit more. This, I think, of course, I don't have the total. We are performing a market research to try to understand the levels of consumption and of the consumer behavior. But this, of course, is something that I think that they are already incorporating and making them more cautious.
Yeah, that's clear. Then a follow-up to Izabel's questions, actually, on like-for-like. So as I think about the trajectory of like-for-like from here and about Q3 expectations, is the logic right, that basically you don't have the kind of the negative calendar effect of Q3? So just mathematically, your like-for-like in Q3 should really rebound from the Q2 levels. Is that logic correct, at least taking the calendar effect into account?
So if we take into account the seasonality of the market, you are right, because, of course, usually it's higher sales. We have some calendar effects of one or a couple of days, particularly in Poland. And that of course will also affect the performance. But I think a positive one. So I've already, as I already mentioned, what we see really is that the market is with the consumer maintaining quite cautious and with the level of cost inflation, now that the market will continue to be very competitive and very difficult to get the same level of volumes that we had last year. So we think that we will have to operate with deflation.
At this point, we don't have visibility on the level of that. But operating in deflation and having to invest further in price to lead the market, we think adds further pressure on the P&L also.
That's clear, and that actually leads me to one of the final questions. So what you say feels like that the problem you really have is competition. And when you also mention that if you don't have the lowest price, you don't have the customer, this feels a bit worrisome, because that is, like, the only reason to shop in the store, and there's no other competitive advantage. I know that's not the case, but this is just how it sounds. And in business models like that, when price is center, you really need to be very much focused on bringing down operating costs. So maybe you can talk a bit more about what you are doing strategically to be bringing down OpEx in the stores. Because as I see it, Poland is not gonna get less competitive.
A related question to that is: why should we even expect that operating margins ever recover from where they are right now? If the real answer is that competitive backdrop has really intensified, become more complex. In that environment, margins don't go up.
No, thank you, Elena. So it's, it's of course, competition, and it's the market and also the inflection point from, let's say, a certain rebates. Because, as, as we have to, acknowledge, the double digits like-for-like, of the past was not really business as usual in a certain way. So the, the, the last, years in terms of performance for all the players in the market was somehow, eased by, you know, an exceptional level of, of inflation. So we are somehow, also rebating on that. Of course, you are right, that competition has, become, more intense as, as everybody's fighting for the consumer to have the sales to dilute the costs, the extra costs. I think that Biedronka has a business model also to outperform on that.
And we are not—we know that the price is a must, but we are also not neglecting, as we mentioned, in the release, we are not neglecting the other drivers that leads the consumers to a store. So, we think that we'll have, of course, to do, and we are doing our homework in terms of OpEx, as I mentioned, and try to, in terms of the different layers to do our homework. Of course, if you are having a mature market, this makes it more challenging to dilute the costs. But, so it doesn't mean that the margins cannot pick up, but for the moment, of course, what we are saying is that until the year end, that definitely will not happen.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's very clear. Do you think that you are the cost leader in the market at the moment in Poland, if you think of the cost per square meter?
I, as I said, we don't have any visibility, with the exception, of course, of the peers that are listed. We don't have visibility on private companies that do not even deposit the accounts. But from what we... the few that we know, I think that probably we are one of the most efficient, I would say.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Sorry, final technical question. Just to be clear, the like-for-like sales growth you report, this is on net basis, so you exclude any VAT impacts in it?
Yes. Yes. Yes, Elena.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Dear participant, as a last reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. That are all for the questions. I would now like to hand the conference over to our speaker, Ana Luísa Virgínia, for any closing remarks.
Thank you, Nadia. These have been extremely challenging six months. Only the capabilities and the hard work of our teams allowed us to deliver what we consider a very good underlying performance. Although we lack visibility on how consumer behavior will evolve, we know that any improvement to the current muted context will positively impact the evolution of the market and our performance. For our part, we will keep fighting for continuous price leadership to guarantee that our consumers keep choosing our stores. We consider this to be the best way to preserve growth for the future. Thank you for your questions and for attending this conference call. I wish you all a nice day.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.