Good morning and warm welcome to Fodelia's Half Year Webcast. CEO of Fodelia. Joining me today is our CFO, Kati Kokkonen.
Hi.
Okay, I'll begin by walking us through some highlights from January and June and go through our business development. After that, Kati will walk us through the financial development. At the end of the presentation, I will get back on the stage, so to say, to comment in a few words about our strategy and about our future. Let's get started. The group's comparable net sales increased by approximately 10% in the second quarter. Our adjusted operating profit remained roughly at the same level as the previous year. Thinking about the field where we operate, not a bad result. However, both our net sales and our operating profit fell a bit short of our targets, primarily due to the negative development in the snacks business.
I will get back to that later on in the presentation. However, Feelia net sales grew by approximately 15% and its relative profitability improved actually in the second quarter of the year. We'll get into those in more detail later on. Some highlights from the first half of the year. To begin with, as I already mentioned, Feelia business growth was some 15% in the first half of the year. Compared to the overall market development, which was actually negative, almost by 1%, we had quite a good start for the year. Also, the sales of our own snack brand Oikia increased by 20% in the first half of the year. The increase was actually 27% in the first quarter, so it was slightly less in the second quarter. Again, in July, we have been doing quite well there.
The growth of our own brand is something that is quite a delightment in the first half of the year. We have had quite a bit of changes in the first half of 2025. I started as the CEO of the group in the beginning of February, and we have started some initiatives as how to improve our processes, how to redefine roles, how to maybe reorganize the organization. If we think back a year from now, we had three CEOs in the group. Now we are operating with just one CEO at the moment, myself. To be able to actually handle the management change in the group, we have started some reorganizations. We will be recruiting two key players to Feelia to join our management team to make this change possible also in the longer run. We've been utilizing digitalization.
AI is, of course, an important issue for every company at the moment. To utilize that very well means that we can actually save some time in our processes to not do the manual work by ourselves, but to utilize AI on that is going to help us in the future quite a bit. To summarize that, our strategic intent is to build a more unified and agile organization. We plan to take even more market in the future to keep up the good work and the good growth. To do that, we need to do some investment in how we operate and how we will clarify our processes. That work has been started now in the first half of the year. A few words maybe in the longer run as to what actions we have already taken.
We clarified our strategy on the group level already last year, a bit over a year ago. We have last year divested our not so profitable businesses and concentrated on the core, and Feelia is very much on the core. Of course, we also see growth potential with our own Oikia brand and in the snack business as well. We integrated the former Marjavasu into Feelia, which means that we have now one company, Feelia, which operates with two different brands: Telemax and Feelia. We have made some IT and administrative investments, for example, on AI trainings for our personnel, on our systems, on our ERP, on our data-driven type of leading our businesses. To be able to make the future growth possible, we need to do some investments in how we operate.
We have been investing in our own brand, as mentioned already, and I will get back to that in more detail later on in the presentation. Thinking about the field where we work with the food, quality is of crucial importance for us. This is continuous work that we how we operate in quality and in responsibility. That's in the core of our business operations. It has been and it will be in the future as well. Let's dive into our business figures. First, the slide of how we reward our businesses. We have two different companies inside Fodelia: Feelia, which operates in the food service market with our two brands, Feelia and Telemax. We have Oikia, where we operate with our retail customers and with our own e-commerce, which utilizes Feelia production. We have a joint venture called Fodbar. We'll get into all these businesses later on.
The thing that I mentioned already in the beginning of the presentation, the food service market development was declining in the first half of the year, while our business was growing by some 15%. The overall picture is looking quite good for us and for our business in this field. To put it in figures, Q1 with Feelia ended up with EUR 10.7 million compared to last year's EUR 9.3 million, which was 15% growth in the second quarter of the year. Our relative operating profit actually grew from 7.9% to 8.5% in the second quarter of the year. We have excluded some one-time items regarding these organizational changes that we have had going on in the first half of the year. The overall situation for Feelia looks actually quite good. Still, we think that in the future we are able to do even better than we are doing at the moment.
The first half of the year looks also quite good. The growth was a bit less than 14% in the first half of the year, 13.9%. It grew from EUR 18.7 million to EUR 21.4 million. Here, the relative operating profit declined slightly from 9.4% to 9% profit in the first half of the year. This is especially something where we believe and where I believe that we can do better in the upcoming quarters and in the upcoming years. For next year, I'm quite confident that the figures will look better next year if and when we succeed in the operations that we are and in the actions that we are taking at the moment.
Let's take a look at the actions behind the figures, because that's always, of course, the important thing: what we are doing now, what we have done, and what we will be doing to improve the figures. We have had some significant personal changes, as I already described. I started as the Group CEO in February, and now I'm also acting as the CEO of Feelia since the middle of June. As I mentioned, we are recruiting two important people to join our management team in Feelia: a Production Director and a Commercial Director. That is something where we will be focusing on how to make this overall management change possible by recruiting the right people to join us in our growth story. We've been operating, of course, all the time. We are operating with our customers, and we have acquired quite a bit of new customers also in Q2.
I will get back to those later on in the upcoming slides. Operating with our current customers means continuous product development. Quite a bit of our product development is based on the discussions that we have with our customers. We have actually some new product lines under construction, so to say, at the moment, which will hopefully and quite surely bring us new revenue in the upcoming quarters. At the same time, this is something where we were maybe a bit optimistic with the timeframe in how much time it takes to be able to produce totally new products for us. That's one reasoning behind our updates last week regarding our guidance. That's something where we need to be careful how fast we are able to do new things when we start, for example, a new type of product development.
It's different than creating new recipes for the existing product lines to create something totally new. This is a big possibility for us, and we are working closely with our customers. We get good ideas from our customers as to what they are expecting. It's quite easy to know what we should be doing to be able to help our customers and grow in revenue ourselves. Another factor behind the figures is the beef availability. As we all know, especially in Finland, we've seen many in supermarkets that there hasn't been beef available as nicely as earlier, which has meant that the price has increased and which has meant that we haven't had enough beef. It's ending up with discussions with our customers as to what to use instead of beef, which has ended up in lower average price per kilo for our products.
Of course, it's a matter of agreements how fast we are able to bring the price increases into our sales prices. That has had some effect on our figures on the first half of the year. We have had a nice growth in emergency food products, those products that can be stored in room temperature. Tells something about these times that we live, that there is a big need for this type of products with our customers. This is something where we actually see also export potential in the future. It's something where we are also doing some great product development. A few words about Telemax. Our net sales grew more strongly in the second quarter compared to the first quarter. The second quarter growth was 17.5% when the first half of the year was just 7.7%. It's looking good when going towards the end of the year.
The increase was driven particularly by the juice dispenser business. Here as well, the product development has been in an important role. We have launched some fruit soups that have had some strong early sales performance, and we are looking and expecting to get more sales growth in the future with our fruit soups. Here is the slide I promised in more detail about our customers. We gained some 71 new customers in the first half of the year. The figure was 43 or 42 new customers for the first quarter, so a bit less new customers in the second quarter of the year, but bigger customers since we have more delivery locations. Those new customers have more delivery locations compared to those in the first quarter of the year.
The net sales breakdown, as a reminder from our first quarter review, almost 90% of our sales is driven by the public sector, whether it is a private operator funded some way or another by a public sector or the public sector itself. Here we see some great growth potential in the upcoming years as well. To summarize it, there is all the time less money in the society. We need to find new ways how to do things, and we have the solution for that. We will get back to that later on in the presentation. A look at Oikia. Unfortunately, the story here is not as strong as with Feelia. Our net sales decreased almost 3% in the second quarter of the year from EUR 3.1 million to EUR 3 million. Our operating profit was actually negative in the second half of the second quarter of the year.
We have had some struggle with our private label customers. Maybe not with the customers, but we have lost some products with our existing customers. Of course, it is continuous price negotiations. For some years, we have had good advantage operating in Finland. We have had better potato years in Finland compared to those in the middle of Europe. If the Finnish potato and Finnish production is not important for the customer, it is quite difficult for us to compete just with the price with the huge players in Central Europe. A big and important issue behind the figures is the fact that we have invested quite a bit on our own brand. I will get back to that also later on. The operating profit was unfortunately 3.5% negative in the second quarter.
The first half of the year was also that the first quarter was a lot better for us and for the snacks business, especially compared to the second quarter. It wasn't good enough to compensate the not so good second quarter, which ended up in 0.1% negative EBIT on the first half of the year. As I mentioned, we have had great growth with our own brand, and we have made some significant investments in campaigning and in marketing our own brand. July looks very good in this sense. It has taken us some money, which we can see in the EBIT figures. This is a decision that we made in the longer run to push with our own brand to be able to grow our market share with the Oikia brand. Good news regarding our e-commerce is that the first quarter was not good there.
We were investing on reorganizing the things, how we operate there. The second quarter was actually a growth quarter compared to last year. We have streamlined our operations through reorganizing how we operate, through data analysis. We have improved our customer insight, and we have pushed our marketing efforts strongly targeted on the selected segments based on the data, how we see the sales figures in the past. We are looking for some good upcoming months with Oikia e-commerce. A few words about Fodbar before Kati continues with our financial figures. Our joint venture Fodbar is experiencing some strong business growth. We gained early 2024, early this year, a quite big agreement with Oma Häme. The annual value of the agreement is approximately EUR 10 million, and EUR 1 million of that is Feelia products. We can see the effect on Feelia figures as well. Good job with Fodbar this year.
The future looks quite strong there. Kati will walk us in a more detailed way through the financials.
Thank you, Riikka.
First, let's start with the summary of the second quarter. Net sales increased by 10.4% and amounted to EUR 13.5 million. In the comparison figure, EUR 12.3 million, we have deducted the sold divested businesses that we did last year. In adjusted operating profit, the result was EUR 0.5 million, both in this year and last year. It represented 3.4% of net sales compared to 3.7% last year. Summary of the first half, January-June, the increase of net sales was exactly the same, 10.4%, and the amount of net sales was EUR 27 million compared to EUR 24.4 million. Our adjusted operating profit was EUR 1.2 million compared to EUR 1.3 million, representing 4.3% of net sales compared to last year's 4.8%. Let's go through the table in more detail.
The official net sales where we have not deducted our divested businesses, the amount of net sales in the second quarter was exactly the same as last year, 13.5%. Cumulatively in the first half, EUR 27 million compared to EUR 27.2 million. In the continuing operations, as just mentioned, the increase was 10.4%, both in the second quarter and half year. In our profitability figures, adjusted EBITDA, our amount was about EUR 1 million compared to last year as well, but the relative profitability decreased a bit. It was 7.2% of net sales this year and last year, 7.5%. In half year, 8% compared to 8.7% last year. Adjusted EBITDA is about EUR 500,000 compared to EUR 600,000 last year, 3.9% compared to 4.5%. Cumulatively, EUR 1.3 million compared to EUR 1.5 million last year. There are also some decreases in relative profitability. Adjusted EBIT, EUR 466,000 and 3.4% of net sales compared to about EUR 500,000 and 3.7%.
In adjusted figures, we have taken into account reorganization costs related to the second quarter. In the second quarter, it was EUR 0.2 million, and last year, a bit more as it was related to sold businesses. Here's a split of net sales by business segments. Feelia net sales increased by 15%, and it was EUR 10.7 million compared to last year's EUR 9.3 million. Cumulatively, first half, EUR 21.4 million compared to EUR 18.7 million. Oikia's continuing business operations was about the same level as last year, decreased by 2.7% in the second quarter and 2.1% in the first half. Divested operations brought about EUR 1.3 million in last year, and cumulatively in the first half, EUR 2.7 million. Fodelia charges other units from operations about EUR 200,000 and cumulatively EUR 400,000.
We have included in 2024 figures both Feelia and Marjavasu, as Marjavasu was merged into Feelia at the end of last year. Here is the development by quarter. You can see that the first and second quarter were exactly the same, but much more than last year at the same time. We have been able to increase our net sales the way that net sales rose from around EUR 12 million to EUR 13.5 million. You can see the share of discontinued divested operations there in gray color. Here is the development of Feelia business split by ready meals and choices. In gray color, we have Telemax, choices, and pures. The ready meals business is there in a much bigger share. Net sales from ready meals grew by 14.6% compared to last year, first and second quarter.
The net sales of choices increased by 17.5% compared to the second quarter last year, and it increased compared to the first quarter this year. Here is the development of net sales in Oikia business. You can see here this share of discontinuing operations. It's decreasing during the year. In continuing operations, that means snacks and oikia-ruoka.fi webshop, the net sales is about at the first quarter level, but slightly down from the second quarter last year. Here are operating profit by business segments. Totally, in the official Fodelia group level, we have been doing much better than last year, as there was this one-off items last year. In business-wise, Feelia operating profit was much better in the second quarter than last year. In the first half, it also increased by 8.1%. Oikia's continuing operations went down pretty much, and that affected mainly our group's result.
Riikka already told about some background there behind. Fodelia cost was a bit less than last year in this second quarter, but cumulatively some more. In one-off items, there was EUR 179,000 in this quarter, and last year, EUR 1.2 million almost. Here is operating profit by segment development by quarter. You can see that Feelia operating profit increased significantly compared to last year's same period, 24% increase. Oikia's operating profit was clearly down from last year and the first quarter as well. In Fodelia's results, there are unallocated corporate costs that were a bit less than the first quarter and also a bit less than last year in the first quarter. Here are some factors affecting our operating profit development. We see that there is room for improvement, even if that profitability remains very solid.
We have some efficiency improvements actually going on at the moment, and we need to improve our profitability in quite many small things. The factors affecting operating profit during this first half are causes for several items. In raw material costs, the availability and pricing of beef affected our raw material prices and our profitability as a whole in Feelia. Even more in the snacks category, profitability was further affected by the rising price of key raw materials such as potatoes and oils. We have not been able to fully reflect those in sales prices. Also, price competition in private label contracts is quite heavy, and that affected our sales prices. There were higher production costs during this first half, quite a lot of absences and some challenges in processes, and we need to compensate that with temporary labor. There are marketing costs, different kinds of exhibition, promotional campaigns.
These are mainly from Oikia, but also some from Feelia point of view. In group level development, we really need to do some investments there. We see that it's critical for future growth, but it, of course, causes some costs and effects on our profitability. There was sustainability reporting, some environment reporting, implementation of more unified and more secure IT environments. These group leadership changes affected our results in the first half. There was one-off items, but also some indirect additional expenses that were affecting our results. Here's a table for other key figures. Our adjusted profit for the period increased by 200,000%. Big increase there, but figures are quite small. Our equity ratio remained quite high, 54%. Our net carrying went a bit up, and the networking capital affected there.
Our adjusted return on equity in the second half was 5.3% compared to 1.8%, and there is a similar change than in adjusted profit for the period. Adjusted return on investment was 9.2% compared to 9.1%, so actually quite the same level as last year's second quarter. Our balance sheet total went a bit down, EUR 22.2 million compared to EUR 24.6 million. Our average number of personnel increased by 8.7%. Riikka will continue strategy and future. Thank you.
Thank you, Kati. I wanted to say a few words about our strategy and about Feelia's concept. This is actually the same slide as in Q1 info, with a new picture, but the content otherwise is the same. Even though we redefined our guidance for this year, the core concept of Feelia is there. It hasn't changed.
When I look at the news in Finland, especially at the moment, this is even more important than ever. Looking at the missing growth in Finland, we are, of course, trying to do our share of that, of actually growing the business. Looking at the lack of money in society at the moment, our Minister of Finance came back from holidays yesterday telling that we need to get EUR 1 billion cuts on the budget still. I think, or I don't think, but I know that we have a concept which will help the society to save in the food service sector. The core of Feelia's concept is to do things differently compared to how they are traditionally done by central kitchens. This is something where we need to have the courage to do things differently compared to how they have previously been done.
I very much believe that if we continue doing things the same way we did and trying to save some money on the budget, it will end up in a lower level of services. Instead, we need to think things differently to change the way how we operate. Here, Feelia has a concept which will help to actually save money, lower the waste, to actually have a solution as to how to do things in a more cost-efficient way. If there is less money needed for the food service, that money can be used, for example, taking care of the elderly, taking care of the kids, teaching the kids. The food can be produced centrally in one place. Very good tasting, healthy food, and also the logistics can be done in a very sustainable way compared to the traditional way how to do things.
The savings can be used in other parts of the budget or saving the money on the budget. The core concept of Feelia is still there. If we think about the social and healthcare reform, about the municipal budget pressures, population aging, the global uncertainty, the climate change, there is Feelia's concept that is actually answering all of these trends. This hasn't changed. This is something where we very much believe and where we are working on to actually be able to change things in the future, which will help us to save some time and money on our customer side and also then helping us to grow with our businesses. This is the core of what we do. Of course, we see growth potential with the snacks and with Oikia, but Feelia is the truly game-changing concept that we have for the market.
Then we come to the last slide about our guidance for this year. Unfortunately, we have many issues behind why we ended up in chasing the guidance for this year. Oikia, of course, is a big part of this. That business area has declined significantly due to rising cost levels and pricing changes in private label products, also losses of some products with our customers. At the same time, the net sales growth has been more modest than expected. When we think about the private label, what we can affect there is the pricing and then how good we are at producing the snacks. What we cannot affect is the way our customers operate with their own private label products, how they, for example, push with brand products or with their own private labels. That's not the sales side, it's not in our hands.
In our hands is also the pricing negotiations, normally once per year. At the same time, Oikia brand sales has grown. This is something that we are working on with potential new customers all the time, with product development to be gaining more customers. The fact is that the first half of the year was more difficult for us than we expected. At the same time, Feelia net sales has continued to grow and the profitability remains at a good level. However, we were expecting maybe even bigger figures here. As I said earlier, we have some product developments going on all the time, also with totally new product lines. Where we were maybe a bit too optimistic was the timeframe in which we are able to produce the new product lines. All these factors affecting at the same time ended up as us giving the redefining of our guidance.
However, our figures for the upcoming years, our targets for the upcoming years remain the same. We still target at the EUR 1 million per year by 2028, with the operating profit over 10%. The return on invested capital should be more than 10% and net debt to EBITDA ratio should be below 3. We still aim to distribute at least 35% of our annual profit as dividends to our shareholders. These remain the same based on the strong concept that we have with Feelia and also, of course, potential with Oikia. I think it is time for some questions if we have those.
We have one question here. Considering that Feelia already is the majority of turnover and profits, and Feelia is growing fast, what is our long-term view plan for Oikia? Do we see that as a strategic holding, or have we considered to divest?
We see the future as growing our own brand. As I said before, we are, of course, planning to grow as a private label producer as well, but we are pushing and investing on our own brand. We wouldn't be doing that if we didn't see a good future for Oikia brand.
Thank you. I think this is all the questions, so it's time to thank.
Thank you and have a great day.
Thanks, bye.