Good morning, everyone. A warm welcome to the Fiscal 2025 Interim Results for Spur Corporation. Really awesome to see everyone here, a couple of people face to face here in person at Century City, and many others online. First of all, I want to welcome our Chairman, Mark Bosman, who's with us today. Mark, we're privileged to have you at the helm of the corporation. Thank you for your wisdom and guidance, and even after those robust debates, we love you. Good to have you here, Mark. To all our board members that are online today, I know many of them aren't here in person. Also to my valued executive team and COOs of the brands, who we work very closely with. Awesome to have you here, and all other team members, senior leaders, and invited guests.
I spot a couple in the audience today. I also wanted to highlight a couple of new resources that have joined the organization over the past period. It's really amazing to see how the team is starting to gel, and with new talent, how we're starting to raise the bar on a new level, because suddenly people arrive with a different skill, different expertise, and together that enhances it. I want to just call out a recent appointment, which is the CEO, COO of International, which is Estelle Radley. I don't think she's here, but she's online. Estelle, welcome. We have absolute faith in you leading the rest of Africa team. All the best to you. Also, a special welcome to Dr. Tumi Seboda, who joins us as head of brands, supporting Vuya.
We know she's already making a huge difference, to build that brand equity that we need. Then also recently, we appointed Mahen Naidu as Head of Retail, working closely with Robin Charles, our Supply Chain Executive. Mahen, wonderful to have your talent on board. There are many others too. Welcome, and awesome to have you here. For those who are here face to face today, please take some time this morning to go and visit or see our memory wall that has started, thanks to Jo Steed and her wonderful marketing team. We've started capturing the history and the essence of this amazing business over the last 58 years on the walls of our corridors. Go and have a look. The ground floor's complete. The second and third floor are underway now, definitely worth a visit.
I also wanted to acknowledge our valued franchisees. Without them, we don't have a business. This is a franchise business. Our suppliers and teams for the results that you will be seeing today. Above all, I'm truly grateful for the results because our customers have voted with their feet. I acknowledge our customers. I also want to express my deepest condolences on behalf of the board and Exco, for the loss of a dear and valued franchisee, Neil Nell, and also our beloved colleague, DJ. May they rest in peace, and our prayers are with their families. As we also enter a very spiritual period for many, I want to wish our staff and franchisees and investors a blessed Ramadan, Passover that's to come, and a blessed, blessed great Lent, which started today. I want to ask Christina later what she's decided to give up for Lent.
Anyway, let's move on. On our agenda today, it gives me great pleasure to take you through, obviously, the results, as we said. I'm gonna take you through some highlights of the trading overview. Christina, our CFO, will present the financial and segmental review. We will then talk a little bit about the way forward and then open up for questions and answers. If we look at the period at a glance, franchise restaurant turnover grew by 10% to ZAR 5.9 billion. Revenue grew by 13.8%. Earnings per share, 12.1%. Our board has approved a dividend, an interim dividend of ZAR 1.06. This represents an increase from the previous trading period of 11.6%. Really pleased to announce that.
If we move onto talking a little bit about where we're heading as an organization, we're really pleased with the results that the group has produced, considering the difficulty in the environment. There is no extra cash for the consumer. They are economically strained. There's still high unemployment in the country. Despite some of the rate cuts, which did help, we're all awaiting, obviously, the budget announcement soon. We know there was a more positive sentiment pre-elections and even post-elections when the GNU was established. However, there still is a concern that out there in the marketplace, it's a scramble for market share. When we look at the Spur Corporation business plan, we know that this has been our north star and our mantra, what has sort of kept us focused on building brands that lead the experience.
We've also realized that as a company, we have huge resilience and also great expertise at building brands. They all had a different life cycle and life stage, and it needs the expertise of our teams to develop and evolve these brands at a time when it's so difficult in the marketplace. At the core and the heart of our business sit our brands, our portfolio of 10 brands and 6 virtual kitchen brands. Our purpose of leading for the greater good has been well articulated over the past. I'm sure you're familiar with this purpose of leading for the greater good, which really embodies our commitment of building a better and more inclusive and sustainable world. However, today I want to focus on a slightly new dimension that we've added to this purpose, and it's about how everyone has a place at the table.
While we welcome thousands of people each year to take a seat in our restaurants and dine with us, a place at the table speaks to more than that. It's about ensuring that every voice is heard, every individual is valued, and everyone has an opportunity to contribute. Our teams, our customers, our franchisees, our broader communities, they all share a place at the table. As a company, we recognize that our purpose extends beyond just profit and growth. At the core of the greater good is a dedication of intentional transformation through innovation and ethical leadership. This means placing inclusivity, integrity, and empowerment at the forefront of everything we do to create a positive impact and build a meaningful legacy. The idea of a place at the table emerges for everyone, no matter your background or position, to belong, contribute, and thrive.
With this in mind, I'd like you to imagine yourself seated at a Spur table. Picture a feast of all our Spur favorites: rib steak, crispy onion rings, some veggie burgers for our plant-based friends. More important, it's not what's on the table, but who's sitting around the table. We too, as we continue to focus on building our franchisee pipeline, more recently introduced an endorsement panel, and also a growth collab to start assisting our black franchisees in particular, or early adopters to franchising, to settle into those new commitments and role. In terms of our own people, we monitor the sentiment of our own people annually by the engagement survey, and we show that each year we sharpen the sword to ensure that we are creating a better work-life harmony here at Spur Corporation.
We now employ just over 1,000 people in our head offices and company-owned stores. Our teams have collaborated, and there are new skills on board, as I mentioned. We are raising the bar, requiring a new growth mindset and solutions-driven attitude. As we create a place at the table, we need to talk about and prepare how we create a place, a their place for the table, which is our future customers. We're gonna talk a little bit about some of the initiatives that are underway and that will be underway regarding building our reach, amongst the South African and African consumer.
If we look at a lot of the work we're doing in our communities, once again, as we've mentioned before, our initiative of the Sadima Sisters, where we support young girls with their sanitary wear for their full high school period, something that started in 2023 is now in its third year cycle, creating a great impact, amongst those young girls. If we look at our Spur Foundation, and we know Spur Foundation is an important entity in the organization, and it's got a lot of the offshoots, Full Time Fund for Spur and a couple of others for the brands. What is essential is to know that we are looking at the future customer as well. What are we doing to ensure that more children are nourished and looked after so they can too excel one day in their lives?
At the moment, we're feeding about 3,200 children every day during their school days. That's close to almost a million meals annually, which includes support that we do on World Hunger Day, etc. You can see some of the other initiatives. The brands like RocoMamas are focusing more about feeding the mind, not feeding the tummy, so more about the creativity and enhancing talent and skills in South Africa. John Dory's obviously more aligned to focusing on the environment with the Zero Waste Project, and Panarottis and Doppio Zero also with their initiatives. If we go through more specifics around the trading environment, we currently, as I mentioned earlier, operate with 10 brands and 5-6 virtual brands. At the moment, we are trading in 15 countries. We did close our business and de-franchised Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, it didn't work for us.
The relationship didn't work. The market didn't work. Pleasingly, we've re-entered Tanzania. We closed our last Spur in Tanzania about two years ago, and we've re-entered with two Panarottis, which is really awesome. Our predominance is still South Africa. If you look at the international market, which is about 107 stores, that represents about 9% of our business, about 2% of our revenue, and about 5% of our profit. If we look at the restaurant brands by count, obviously, Spur still remains our most dominant. In terms of turnover contribution, it's about 64% now that we've got the Doppio collection in. What's interesting to see, just an interesting dynamic in the South African context in terms of the footprint, is that the other brands are now almost equal to the Spur number.
We've got just under 300 other brands in terms of the footprint count and 312 Spurs in South Africa. On the international front, you can see Panarottis is still the lead in terms of number of stores per brand, 45. However, Spur still represents 40% of the international business. Interesting to see the dynamic. Pleasingly, we're now on 726 restaurants if we add speciality. Speciality also looking good now, representing about 12% of South Africa's business. If we look at our ZAR 8 network development model, once again, a methodology and mantra that's been adopted by the teams, looking at 8 of the Rs. I'm not gonna talk about all of them now, but looking at obviously rise, revamp, relocate, rebrand, resize, etc. There's been a huge investment, over ZAR 150 million.
We'll talk about those individually shortly, where franchisees have invested in revamping their restaurants, relocating their restaurants, and even some who are really eager beavers, to revamp their kids' areas before it's time to revamp their entire restaurant. A huge commitment. You can see the revamp numbers there for this year, and the overall group count around the network development. A strong commitment, and I do applaud our franchisees for their continued investment. It's amazing. Some of these guys just don't even hesitate. I was just in a store, and I'm trying to work out where I was. Christina, I was with you. Where were we? We were looking, we were chatting to a franchisee, and he was talking, it was at Golden Spur. They were talking about having bought very high-quality face paints for the kids to ensure the kids don't get a rash.
They're quite expensive, these sets. Incredible, the franchisees don't even hesitate. They just buy these kits as they need them because they know the importance of the customer experience and the kids' differentiator. We do value our franchisees' investment. I want to pause for a moment just to talk about the stats, if they slide, which I think is quite pertinent. What this slide demonstrates is the performance of the QSR category versus the casual dining category. In the definitions that Stats SA clusters these restaurants, the casual dining is more seated space and weighted service. That's the green trend line. What is evident on the slide is to see that the takeaway QSR category in South Africa has tracked over the last few years. You can see the shaded part is the COVID and heavy lockdown month.
Prior to that, we were all tracking sort of on par. COVID happened, and you can see obviously a big drop in that period. Then a very good and steep, steady recovery for the QSR category, which makes sense. You know, post-COVID, economic pressures, they have bigger footprints. You can see the casual dining category lagging behind. In fact, it hasn't even reached the pre-COVID period. We saw a nice growth in 2021, 2022, and we thought that would continue as a trend line, but it almost seems to have plateaued. What that means, however, and we're very grateful, is that despite this stat and reality in the market, we know that we've managed to keep our brands going and our company growing because of the strong brand equity that our brands hold, particularly Spur.
If we look at our group monthly trend line, and I've showed you this in August, but we've built on obviously the last six months, which is the golden bar, the thicker golden bar. We did have a more pedestrian start to July, which was very disappointing. July is our second biggest trading month after December. That was a slow start, and it was difficult to claw back that shortfall in July. We also saw a slight drop in footcount. I'll show you that shortly, in October. If we look at December's performance, December, all retailers wait for December. That's the month, the big spend, big month of spending. You can see we did grow in previous year, this December, but it wasn't as robust as it was between 2022 and 2023. You can see that gap there.
However, if we look at the details of what happened and how we traded in December, it was incredible to see. We broke some amazing records. Some of our top-performing stores broke their records in RocoMamas, in RocoMamas in Menlyn, in Mall of Africa. Our highest trading location was Monti Casino, was Century City, obviously, because our top store lies there. It was amazing to see December's figures. However, it was not consistent everywhere, and that always is a concern to us. We know we came off a high base in December, but it is important that we look a bit further into what happened that month. I think the slide's gone off, but let me check a bit further. Is it back? Okay.
If we look at the data, what we did after December, when we saw the turnover that was a little bit deflated, we decided to just reach out and look at and find out exactly what was happening with the consumer. If we think of the dynamic in the market, a lot of retailers are now becoming quite specialized in food offerings, sushi counters, specialty coffee, etc. We also know that the convenience factor of the likes of the top retailers is bringing a meal solution to the consumer a lot easier. We chose to seek and find out what was the insight, what's happening to the consumer. I wanted to share some of those insights, and there are more than these.
These were some of the reasons why people continue to shop with us and enter our restaurants and dine with us, things that we know, but it was good just to confirm that, you know, giving themselves a treat, treating their families. They love the taste of our food and the uniqueness of the food. They love eating out because it's easier. Family's preference always to go out and all those other various attributes which attract people to eat out. However, we were more interested in why they're eating out less. I'd like to share some of those. You can see, many of those are reasons which are economically and financially based. I'm trying to save money. You'll remember last August, I showed you a wider consumer study that showed 62% of people cited that they were spending less on eating out and buying luxurious foods.
But you can see the financial constraints very much there, more affordable to cook at home. I hope the too crowded and waited too long are not our restaurants. I hope those are reasons of generic restaurants, but it's good to, to know. Very clearly, we're starting to understand the dynamic of the market. What does that mean? That means we've got to continue with our value proposition. We've got to build exciting consumer experiences. We've got to ensure that we continue with our known value items and our good value-added campaigns in order to keep, keep our customers close to us. If we start looking at the turnover performance, per brand, you can see obviously Spur there, a turnover growth of 2.8%. If you look at overachievers like the head of our brand, Spur, that's not good enough for her.
I think this is a big ship. We had an excellent performance over the last four years, and the market is tough. We're certainly satisfied with that result. We're working obviously on the next season. If we look at the overall performance, Panarottis and RocoMamas were definitely the stars of the last six months. Panarottis, because of the massive growth of new stores, 14% system-wide growth. RocoMamas, 8.4%. Specialty brands obviously includes about ZAR 350 million from the Doppio brands. So a 10.2% growth for the group, which is really awesome for South Africa, and a 4.4% growth if you remove the Doppio brands. We'll talk more about each brand shortly. If we look at the international market, also a lovely growth of 8.7%. If we apply a constant exchange rate, that's about 20%. If we look at just the ZAR, it's 8.7%.
That's still a good growth. The majority of our growth has come from the rest of Africa in countries such as Namibia, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, DRC, Nigeria, Kenya. Of course, Mauritius represents 23% of the international category. We're very pleased. We still believe on about the continent of Africa. We also believe there will be a transition as consumers will shift from takeaway to casual dining. We're well poised to take on a greater share in the international market. It operates with a fairly small team, and obviously our valued franchisees and partners on the continent. If we look at the total group turnover, you can see it there, 10%. South Africa was 10.5 or 10.2, and we're 10.10% up. The like-for-like growth is the one we always draw our attention to. It's the one we always talk about internally. Spur 1.6, Panarottis 2.4.
We want to increase that figure as well. John Dory's has been disappointing. It was as a result of temporary closures in two areas where we had weather problems. The one was in Secunda, the other one was in Cradlestone in West Johannesburg. We also had two closures of restaurants. RocoMamas, a great like-for-like performance. I think back, 24 months ago where we were challenged with RocoMamas because of a high incidence of takeaway and reduced margin for the franchisee. A wonderful performance. So well done to our RocoMamas team and Panarottis team. Specialty brands, you can see we've removed Doppio Zero in that figure, but you can see a formidable result from Hussar Grill, which is the foundation brand of our specialty, performing at a 5.2% like-for-like growth. Overall, the group has produced a like-for-like growth of 1.9%.
If we look at a few South African brand facts, a regional contribution looks similar to what you've seen before with obviously the dominance in Gauteng. Western Cape, performing well. In fact, Western Cape and Gauteng both delivered for the group double-digit performance, mainly because we've also added Doppio Zero, which are predominant in Gauteng. Eastern Cape and KZN have also performed in they've increased, but only about 2-3%. A lot more conservative. And Eastern Cape obviously being the worst region, and we know why. Day part, pleasingly, we have kept our market share on all day parts, which is really wonderful. If I look at the breakfast numbers for the group, we're still up on previous year, lunch and dinner. That does not mean we stop. We want more of it.
We know that one of our major competitors is after their share of that breakfast day part. As you can see, lunch remains the dominant day part category. In terms of our takeaways, alternative ways to get the product to you, 13% of total revenue, a whole new focus, with the enhancement of our technology department and the appointment of our CIO, Paul Castrin. A lot of great work is happening, a lot of testing around delivery, a lot of growth strategies around e-commerce. We are starting to report it separately. E-commerce is now 3%. It looks small, but it will grow. That is all business to business, business to consumer, vouchering, business partnerships, a big strategy and a new channel for the future. You can see obviously our third-party aggregator is still important to us.
They might be expensive to use, but that's where the consumer goes. We have to be there. If we look at our virtual kitchen brands, we have 392 stores participating. I personally think there should be more, but franchisees obviously focus on the core business, which is casual dining. We have six brands now because we have our newly formed partnership with Doppio, and they have Mac and Rib, which is produced in the Pizzavino arena. What is wonderful to see about this virtual kitchen segment is if you consider we are in the fifth year from COVID, and we have held market share on this category. It says that there is a consumer out there who is looking for a different bespoke type product at the right price, something that resonates with them. I believe we can double this segment.
If we look at customer count monthly, and this is an interesting one. We watch this very carefully. We watch it by brand. We obviously know that our role and our responsibility to our franchisees working with our marketing experts is to get the feet through the door, and then it's the franchisee's responsibility to give them a great experience. Footcount was down in July. It was disappointing. You can see where that red bar is sitting relative to the last few July's. Look at that wonderful growth. Don't be misled by the 2021. That was the KZN unrest. That's why that huge leap. Disappointing. We also saw a drop in footcount in October again. I think we experienced it in the country. December was sort of on par. One that we're monitoring very carefully.
Obviously, footcount is just directly related to the top line. When we talk about our active, loyal members, and there's 2.7 million, I wanted to just highlight that we have recognized, and we've always known that this is probably one of the most valuable assets that the corporation holds and the franchisees own, because they're their customers. We have placed a whole new emphasis and strategy on the loyalty club members. Our IT teams, led by Paul, are busy looking at Power Apps. Our marketing strategists, led by Vuo, are working on a whole new strategy, which is how we're going to enhance and build this property and this asset. We also know from a much deeper dive on the data that a lot of our customers are cross-pollinating between the brands.
We're finding that our loyalists and champions, let's say of Spur, are shopping at Panarottis and RocoMamas about 56%. 56% of them are cross-shopping across the brands. In a way, we're starting to build a bit of a microcosm of consumers across this wonderful brand portfolio. There is a huge opportunity in that thinking that we want to leverage. You can see voucher redemption rate is high, 75% for Spur, even a bit higher, which is indicative of a pattern we've seen the last period where consumers are wanting to cash in on any opportunity to get something at a lower price or better or free.
I also want to applaud Earl and the team and the marketing team and the operators and the stores and all our Spur people, for the Spur Family Club being awarded the best loyalty program in the restaurant industry for three years in a row. Well done. Look out for this channel. There's a lot happening behind the scenes, and we don't want to share too much because maybe our competitors are listening in. Right. I'm going to go into just one or two specifics on the brands. We spoke about opening 21 new stores and 12 in international, 21 in South Africa. I'm not going to show you 33 slides, but I'm going to show you about 10. Just some highlights. For Spur, it's definitely been the new refreshed brand, what we call internally the Pegasus, the concept.
The investment for the Spur franchisees has been in excess of ZAR 100 million, and that's just this past period. We're probably on store number 36 or 37 in terms of the new look, and that's new and revamped restaurants. What is encouraging about the revamps is they're delivering double-digit increases. Maybe two or three stores are delivering a single-digit increase, but the rest are some phenomenal numbers. I'm talking about a high-volume store delivering a 14% growth and already a great performance. Some stores 35%, some 47%. Really awesome. I know that's always honeymoon period. It balances out. We are really thrilled that we're getting a return on investment. Our franchisees are getting a return on investment, and that's encouraging more of them to revamp sooner, putting our development team under pressure, but we can cope with it. Spur has also continued impressively with its menu innovation.
Some incredible products. I haven't shown them to you this time around, but you saw them last year. Innovation around chicken, innovation around pork, innovation around desserts, summer coolers. Just wonderful work that the team are doing, collaborating with our franchisees who many come up with these ideas. The media and marketing dominance continues. Spur is everywhere, literally like our old commercial. Of course, let's not underestimate the impact that our franchisees are making with regular community events that are impacting other markets. People that want to get a taste of life and a taste of Spur, really creating a huge impact. There isn't a day that we don't have something on the community chat showing us what franchisees have done. And they're doing that all willingly. They don't have to do that, supporting for it, paying for it.
I thank our ops teams who help them run those. What we've also done at Spur is increase the contact with our franchisees for the group. We've also run a franchisee engagement survey to check how our franchisees rate us. Like any survey, there are one or two areas of improvement. We take these things quite seriously. We want to hear. We want to improve our franchisees. We know probably the biggest challenge franchisees have is the return on investment in these difficult times. Whilst the top line has been a little bit subdued, we know that in some instances, franchisees have cited the fact that they're still delivering a good profit because they don't have the energy costs, even though we know that intermittent load shedding has started again.
We also conducted another CEO road trip, with the Head of Brand, CIO of Spur, Amanda, and some of her team. Was really awesome. We visited 117 restaurants. We engaged with 47 franchisees, and we visited 54 towns. A wonderful experience to interact with our people, but more importantly, make contact with our franchisees and also visit those isolated distant sites that we don't, we can't visit easily. Just wanted to mention a key item, and it's one that we're very passionate about, the importance of creating consistency of product quality throughout the territories we trade in. This is something that we are passionate about, and we're going to drive very heavily going forward. We know that global brands, top brands are built by consistency. When you open those Omar rusks in any town, they're the same. When you put on the Levi jeans, they're the same.
We want every rib served to be the same. We want every coffee served to be the same standard. We want every chicken experience to be succulent and crispy as it should be. That can only happen by us enhancing our supply chain and ensuring we have the highest standards. We've started with ribs. It is a process. We're still in the process of building that central supply chain, but we did enjoy a growth of 63% on the rib supplied centrally, which is awesome. We will continue with this. I also want to thank some of our investors, in particular one, who often gives me feedback about the rib experience. We hear you. We're constantly improving because that is what makes the difference. The customer is spending her strained money, her limited household income, and we want to ensure that there is consistency.
This applies not only to Spur, but to the other brands, but we've started with Spur. I wanted to highlight a couple of revamps and new stores, particularly because they are of a strategic nature. This is in a TotalEnergies on the N2 in Mossel Bay. We opened the store adjacent to another petroleum brand with a competitor brand. I must just tell you, at the moment, we are in 12 petroleum sites with Spur. Spur traditionally has not been well positioned for petroleum sites because it's a big store. It's weighted service, expensive to set up, often no space in these forecourts. This has proven to us, starting with the conversion we did about three years ago of the Grill and Go's to a standard Spur, just to report that all of those are performing well.
We've now introduced a smaller footprint Spur in this TotalEnergies. It's actually in, as you walk into the convenience store, it's on the right. We took the space of a previous competitor. And Amanda, if I'm correct, we've doubled the turnover of the previous competitor. This is the beginning of a new channel for Spur. We're certainly encouraged by it, TotalEnergies. Obviously, they run it as a group, are also impressed with the offering. Just the brand equity as the consumer drives through to fill up is a big attraction in sites like this. Well done to the teams. This is just a small store, but I thought it looked so beautiful. This is in Hilton, the Misty Mountain Spur, also in the new look Pegasus. I wanted to talk a little bit about some of our relocations. We've had some successful relocations.
This is one where our Spur in Paarl moved to this new Upton Horst village center. A beautiful store, also in the Pegasus look, a wonderful play area. You can see it. They're themed beautifully, great branding. This is actually a franchisee who always wins the Green Feather Awards because of his commitment. And Tony Burter, I wanted to show you how proud he is of the memory wall. This is his memory wall where he's kept, I think, every menu that he's had for the last 30 years. So really awesome, worth a visit. A beautiful store, just amazing what it does to build the brand equity. This is another relocation. This moved from a center that was a disaster for all brands, which was Forest Hill. It's basically a couple of meters down on the R55.
It's a multiple owner that's opened the store, but also a great performance. I think I looked at this number yesterday. I think it's about 47% growth, which is amazing. It's incredible, the site selection and the foot traffic that you can create if you're in the right mall. Comanche Spur, one of my favorites. I visited this often with my team in Mokopani. Beautiful store. You can see the strong branding, great experience. Also, franchisees that are committed to transformation, believe in this brand, invest in this brand, a really beautiful store. Of course, on the kids' experience, we continue to keep the lead. Our marketing teams, with our ops teams, are driving the differentiators around kids. We've got a big project underway behind the scenes. As I mentioned, a lot of franchisees have revamped their kids' areas.
I wanted to show you some of them in Upington, also a beautiful kids' area. Some of our kids' areas also have teen zones. Secunda, a very successful store, looking gorgeous. This is the top floor, which is just the kids' area. Just a dynamic store, a multiple franchisee. He owns about 22-23 stores. I asked him the other day, how are you finding the new store, the revamp? He says, "Flip, I can't believe it's increased so well," which is awesome. I think it's about 12-14% increase, which is awesome. Also just a reminder to our investors and audience, that we do have almost 99% tagging system for the protection of our young customers. At Panarottis, we've started, we've got about 40% of the Panarottis have also got the tagging system. A key element, ensuring that we look after our little guests.
This is Matana Spur, Potchefstroom, also a revamp. You know, when you go to these huge malls, it's important to keep up to date. There are so many competitors trading there. It's the only way you keep consumers there. One of the highlights, and this was an innovation that actually was introduced to us by our franchisees, but Amanda doesn't care where the idea comes. She just runs with it when she gets it. In over 100 restaurants, we've already got these next games. They're interactive. A lot of the stores have got two units. Some have got double-sided units. It's been amazing. It's definitely been the big attraction for December, and we know it will continue because many franchisees are investing in installing these. It's these kind of innovations that we will continue to surprise the market with.
We've also reintroduced trampolines with a much enhanced safety, facilities. We will continue to own and drive and differentiate on the kids' experience. Last year at Lone Creek Spur in about October, Lone Creek Spur is one of our top three stores in the Mall of Africa. It also went through a revamp. It's looking beautiful. Also a high performer post the revamp. Because birthdays are synonymous with Spur, we wanted to give the opportunity to underprivileged children, obviously sponsored by our franchisees, supported by our marketing and PR teams. We hosted 200 children for a lovely day. The Mzanzi Youth Choir also created a great vibe and we got a lot of exposure, but more importantly, added value to 200 kids that day. I wanted to talk about two international Spurs since we're on Spur. This was also a relocation.
You can see it's a bit more of a heritage site, so we couldn't change the front. Amazing response and massive growth in this Swakopmund store. We've got 11 restaurants in Namibia, of which 7 are Spurs, so really beautiful to see. This was one of the first three Pegasus looks on the continent. The other one is Running Buffalo in Greenfields. Greenfields is a $20 million-dollar investment that's been invested by Terrace Africa. They are quite a prominent landlord in Zimbabwe, and they've developed a new development in the center of Harare. In fact, it was where the showgrounds were before. They've got a massive KFC, a massive Spur, a Spar, and they've got a Spur and a RocoMamas. I'll show you the RocoMamas shortly. Our Buffalo, Bulawayo store is also still trading exceptionally well in Bulawayo.
This now is our fourth Spur in Zimbabwe. Really encouraged. We know the difficult economic pressures there, but really wonderful to see how consumers are gravitating to these casual dining places in countries like Zim. If we move on to Panarottis, yes, Panarottis is the star of the show, even though I know that Panarottis are vying for position with RocoMamas. The rebranding of Panarottis and the repositioning, which started well over two years ago, has definitely gained momentum. Franchisees have invested over ZAR 42 million. They are getting high power scores on our tracking, which is showing that the awareness and trial levels are good and healthy. Their system-wide sales growth was 14%, which you saw. They have a very strong positioning, which is sharing and togetherness. We know pizza is the most amazing product. It is unintimidating.
You can walk in, buy a Monsterita pizza, share it, and you do not feel like you were put under pressure to buy something or arrive at a fancy restaurant. Really important, a brand that is looking awesome everywhere where it has been revamped. A great future for this brand. We see huge growth, not only in South Africa, but on the continent. We continue still to take away the product. Panarottis, about a third of their sales are takeaway. The Monsterita, I wanted to show you this because they have just launched a new billboard campaign. I love the concept of this huge pizza eaten in small towns. You will remember, about a year ago, about 18 months ago, we shared with you our strategy to infiltrate smaller towns. It has happened. In this last period, we are in 11 small towns with Panarottis.
We're in towns that were traditionally the home of a major competitor, and some of them are still there, but our brand is looking awesome and trading well in these little stores and these little towns. The stores are on average about 220 sq m. Their turnover, funny enough, varies from anything from ZAR 650,000 right up to ZAR 850,000 a month. Really producing a great result, looking beautiful and confirming that our strategy of entering these smaller towns works. I know that Spur is also looking at some smaller footprints in small towns. I wanted to share this with you. I actually only found this last night, and I loved it. I wanted to just tell you about Bergview. Okay, we all know the famous Harry Smith destination. I think it's always been everyone, every holiday maker's stop on the way to Durban.
We already have a Spur there that trades very well. As you know, every competitor is on that site. This store has opened. It has produced such amazing results without impacting Spur. That means we have taken market share from someone else. We also know that there is another pizza player. In fact, there might be two on that site, and yet performing well. The response from customers has been phenomenal. I mean, just read some of those quotes. Really awesome. Do you have an intention to phone Marinus to say thank you because this is what we want to hear from our customers. Really pleasing. Here in our hometown, in Cape Town, Kenilworth, we all know Kenilworth Center. This Panarottis was looking really tired as you entered the store. Adjacent to it was a beautiful RocoMamas, further in a lovely Spur.
Panarottis, look at it, a whole new transformation. Really amazing. Zirvunvakt, also a very busy mall for us. One of our top, Spurs is just across the road, also looking beautiful and also performing well. Just indicative of what happens when you start enhancing and making your brands look healthy and relevant for the consumer. Couple of international updates. This is Flak in Mauritius, a new store. As we know, they are more QSR brands. In Mauritius, we have 16 restaurants, of which 14 are Panarottis. Our highest volume Panarottis is in Mauritius too. Matsapa Lifestyle Center, this is a new center in Matsapa. We have three brands in it. Panarottis Pizza is one of them. We have two Panarottis in Eswatini. As we said, we entered Mikocheni. We have entered in on petroleum forecourts, with Engen and Puma. We have opened two already, Upanga and Mikocheni.
We're hoping that this will be the start of new business in Tanzania. If I move on to John Dory's, John Dory's has delivered a profit of ZAR 5.9 million. We've had obviously these unfortunate incidents with the two stores that were temporarily affected, and we did have two closures as well. It's also impacted when you look at the research. A lot of consumers know about it, but they can't reach it. They can't access it because the footprint is still small. This brand is on special project status, but we are positive that with the resources we're putting behind it, it should get the positive traction and growth. As you know, we've shown you the concept last year of the new look, John Dory's. We showed you the concept. It's now built and operating really well.
Our first halal store in Cavendish Square, delivering a consistent performance, which is awesome. We also revamped the Pavilion KZN, our franchisee's investment, also doing very well in that very busy mall. In the Matsapa Lifestyle Center, we've got the John Dory's Fish and Sushi, just like we've got in Grand West Casino. If we move on to RocoMamas, RocoMamas, star performance, you can see the footprint there is over 100. It represents 10% of turnover for South Africa and 27% of the international turnover. You can see the takeaway percentage, even though the pie's grown, so it doesn't mean that takeaway's reduced essentially, but it's 33%. RocoMamas being a smash burger category is so relevant in the takeaway market as well as sit down.
It is our intention to make sure it is present everywhere where the consumer wants a smash burger. We have also seen a lot of smaller competitors popping up in the smash burger category, so it is one that we intend protecting and growing. They certainly have been innovators of the team and the group, not only on their menu, but also with their customer experience. Triple Treat, which is a property that we have established for RocoMamas, something that was trialed by franchisees, in fact, and we loved it and it has performed well. The team have now evolved that concept from a Triple Treat, so three menu items, to a Two-Way Treat, which is two items, but you can go this way or that way and add another one and make it a Triple Treat. Really amazing, great marketing. We have got new marketing heads on this brand.
Just some amazing work and beautifully presented, the Ditch Basic, those shareable pans. I shared that with you. I share a shareable with you. Share all the pans. About 12 months ago, they've now reached the top 20 menu items. In fact, the one in value is top three because it is a higher ticket item, but amazing work and a round of applause for this brand for just an amazing performance. A couple of stores, Rondebosch here, in our town, Cape Town, Rondebosch, just close by to the new Golden Spur. Shelly Beach, also we revamped the Spur in Shelly Beach, doing phenomenally well. Just before December, opened a new RocoMamas, beautiful store, well received by the holiday makers and the locals. Then the Greenfields development I spoke about in Harare.
We've got five RocoMamas in Zimbabwe at the moment, performing well. We're excited about that market. DRC, Kolwezi, we've got two RocoMamas already, and we're opening one in Bunga, I think it's called, another town in DRC. The RocoMamas I spoke about in this lifestyle center, we've got Panarottis and the John Dory's Fish Grill Sushi in the food court at the bottom. This is on the top floor of the lifestyle center. There are two RocoMamas in Eswatini. Drawing to a close, for this section, I wanted to just talk about the speciality portfolio. Obviously, we've got six brands in our portfolio. The Doppio Collection partnership is going well. We're working very closely with our partners. Great collaboration, great co-creation, and it has gained traction. They've opened five new restaurants in this last reporting period.
We know that the speciality category is primarily these two main brands, Doppio Zero and Hussar Grill. The four smaller brands are supported by the same team. It is not like they have a dedicated team. We are currently working out what their growth path is. Each of those smaller brands are quite specific. Some are not positioned to be big chains. Others are positioned to be individual, sort of speciality restaurants in certain towns. We are busy working on the ultimate path. I also wanted to congratulate our Hussar team, because the brand turned 60 years old. We only acquired it in 2014. In fact, someone is in the room today that helped us acquire it. Thank you. I think of my husband, he turned 60. It is a great brand, doing well, producing the right results.
Obviously, we've got to keep at it, keep it differentiated, as our competitors try to also gain that space of a more upmarket grill house experience. If we look at Doppio Zero alongside Hussar Grill, and this is a check that we have just to ensure our strategy of acquiring it is clear and we're monitoring the performance. We know that we acquired Doppio for its day trade dominance. I wanted to show you the measures of how that's tracking. You can see that wonderful balance. 68% of Hussar's business is done in the evening. Breakfast and lunch trade for Doppio is 71%. Doppio do have a higher average turnover only because they enjoy three day parts versus Hussar that enjoys two. You can see the contribution of these two important brands in speciality is 77%.
If we look at this grid where we've ranked the average turnover of all of these restaurants, the Doppios in the red and Hussar Grills in the golden line, the band, what you can see there, the dotted frame and the little houses represents the company-owned stores. This demonstrates that our company-owned stores sit in the top echelon, the top performers of this portfolio, which is really encouraging. At the moment, we've got 15 company-owned restaurants, of which four are Hussar Grill and seven are Doppio Zero, and the rest, you're aware of. Really encouraging to look at not only the average turnovers of these speciality brands, but to see that the company-owned are performing well. We are looking to still franchise some of the company-owned. There are some discussions underway. We're hoping, in the next reporting period, we can update you on that.
These are just some. For those who might know the Erasmuskloof, Pretoria area, there was a café, a coffee shop on this site that had been there for probably 30 years, owned by various owners opposite an Engen garage. We've occupied the site, built this beautiful Erasmuskloof Doppio Zero. It's owned by one of the multiple owners of the Doppio group, a Doppio franchisee who owns three stores in total. An amazing store, looks beautiful, is busy all the time, producing great results. What's wonderful to see is the franchise owner present in the store almost daily. Really an awesome store. We've also opened in the well-known Hazelwood Village. A lot of you might know it. It's almost like the Parkhurst of Pretoria. There are many bespoke restaurants. It's a busy node. It's full of the youth and young adults.
We've opened up this beautiful Doppio Zero, also performing really well. It's got an upstairs area that you can use for entertainment or small events, and also just creating great awareness in this big node. Our first Doppio Zero halal was opened in Florida Road very successfully by one of our RocoMamas and Spur franchisees and multiple owner. This store is awesome. It looks beautiful. It's in an old heritage building or site. Really amazing, attracted the right market, continues to do well. They're also baking on the premises, so they have a beautiful display of fresh baked goods and breads and patisserie. Really awesome and building the brand. We just need to enhance our Schlunder store in that area. And then Pizza Vino, I wanted to share this with you. We're trying to reposition Pizza Vino to make it more accessible.
This is the new look, Pizza Vino that's opened in the Leaping Frog center in Fourways. For those who know Leaping Frog, the entire development has been reestablished with a great anchor tenant, one of the supermarket chains. This is the new look. It's performing well. We would like to try and transfer that now to the other Pizza Vino experiences, but really an awesome looking store. Another company-owned store is Modern Tailors. You all heard about this when we acquired the Doppio Collection brands. Modern Tailors started, it's an Indian-inspired cuisine restaurant in Rosebank. This is the second one, which is just above the Doppio Zero in Hurlingham. This one opened first upstairs. Doppio opened later.
This one isn't performing as well as Rosebank, but we're trying to create the awareness, because it doesn't have the high traffic node there, but it's starting to establish itself as a destination restaurant in that node. Just to start bringing it to a close, I wanted to highlight, as our teams develop our menus, we do continue to focus on healthier options. It's not our intention to acquire any health-type chains. We believe we've got to bring health and wellness to our current menus. The teams have been amazing at re-engineering the menus and those categories of producing some amazing results. Doppio Zero have also launched a specific menu called Gut Instincts. It's great tasting healthy food, which is awesome and a nice way to differentiate the brand. Surprisingly, our mainstream brands have also won some awards on the Pro Veg Awards category.
Panarottis, for three years running, has been cited as number three or has received the third highest award, after quite specialized brands. So well done to Panarottis. Spur even fifth, which is fantastic. Even RocoMamas appeared on the ranking this year, which is awesome amongst many, many competitors that we operate in. We are well poised to offer that more bespoke and healthy option that is required. I won't read out all the awards, but I think this is just testament that the brands are healthy. They receive the votes from the consumers. We love it when we see this. Obviously, it is competitive, but we know that it does add value. I'm going to tell you more about where we're heading. Overall, we are really thrilled and very grateful for the results that we've achieved.
We believe that in this difficult economy, a highly competitive arena, consumers that are strapped for cash, our brands through our franchisees have produced good results. We look forward to the next period as we enter the second busiest seasonal period, which is the Easter season. I'm now going to hand over to Christina to take you through the financial and segmental review. Are you ready, Nana?
Thank you, Val. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We'll start with an overview of the income statement. As Val highlighted, there was a 10% increase in sales, which then has translated top right to a 13.8% increase in revenue. This uptick was largely driven by the addition of new company-owned stores following the Doppio Collection acquisition, as well as a 9.2% increase in sales to franchisees through our outsourced distributor. Gross margin is sitting at 31.8% versus 30.1% in the prior period.
Other expenses have risen by 21%, driven by a combination of factors that require a more detailed breakdown to fully understand. I'll unpack them quickly. The value is ZAR 435 million, and it consists of a few categories. One, marketing expense of ZAR 165 million. That's largely unchanged from the prior year. We add retail company store expenses, so not food costs or cost of sales, but below-the-line expenses of ZAR 71 million. This cost has more than doubled over the prior year, but that's really only due to the fact that we've now included six months' costs in this period versus one month in the prior period relating to these stores from Doppio Collection because that effective date was only the 1st of December last year.
We have operating expenses of ZAR 76 million, again impacted by the inclusion of six months this year and one month in the prior year. If we took that out and looked just at the underlying Spur costs on those expenses, that increased by 7%. The last is the administration expenses of ZAR 125 million, which then adds up to the ZAR 435 million. That increased by 13%, and we'll unpack that later in the presentation. Pleasingly then, when we look at the operating profit margin for the period, it's 10.1% versus 9.9% in the prior period.
Net interest income, sorry, has decreased relative to the prior period, really due to the lower prevailing interest rates, as well as the fact that there was cash flow of ZAR 74 million that moved out the bank account in December 2023 relating to the Doppio Zero acquisition. Small equity accounts at investment, just for those who hadn't noticed it there before, it's profits on an associate, which is a company-owned store in Doppio Zero. We have a tax rate of 29%, and that gives us then profit of ZAR 153 million, which is a 12.4% increase over the prior period, and then translates to similar increase in EPS, earnings per share, of 12.1%, closing at 178.84 cents.
This next slide is a rather busy slide, but it's meant to consolidate the contribution to group revenue, the growth in revenue and profits, profits year on year, as well as the margins per segment. This will either be unpacked rather when as we go through each segment slide in the slides that follow. The key message to take away from the slide is manufacturing and distribution contribute 67% to group revenue, again due to the inclusion of the sales to franchisees via our outsourced distributor. The Spur brand remains represents at least 66% of the franchise revenue, and Panarottis and RocoMamas 10% each. Let's discuss the performance of each segment now. We'll start with Spur, and the franchise revenue overall. As Val mentioned, total restaurant sales increased by 10% over the prior year.
If we exclude the contribution of Doppio Collection, it's an increase of 4.8%, which then, as you see on the slide top left, translated to a franchise revenue increase of 10.4%. The Spur brand remains our main contributor to franchise revenue and profits. The increase of sales of 2.8% over the prior period translated into a revenue increase of 3.3% that you can see on the top left as well. Pleasingly, it delivered ZAR 149 million worth of profit for the six months. Thank you, Spur brand. This brand also continues to generate the best operating margin of all the brands at 87%. The Spur brand is responsible for 50% of all of our franchise stores in South Africa, as Val actually mentioned. I didn't realize she had done the same cod. You know, 50% concentration into the Spur brand.
If we then look at the other brands in our group, excluding Spur, as Val described earlier, both Panarottis and RocoMamas report solid revenue growth and double-digit profit growth, indicating that the repositioning of Panarottis continues to gain momentum and that the marketing and product innovation strategy applied to RocoMamas is yielding good results. Both brands have improved their net operating margins over the prior comparable period. John Dory's reports a negative growth in sales. What we see on these slides is that from a revenue perspective, it maintains its revenue delivery of circa ZAR 9 million-ZAR 10 million for every six months and a profit of ZAR 6 million for every six months. Growth and expansion in this brand category has remained challenging.
The significant increase in revenue, in the speciality segment is as a result of the inclusion of Doppio Collection brands following the inclusion by the group. The speciality segment of the Hussar Grill, Casa Bella, Nikos, so what we call sort of the original Spur Corporation speciality brand, grew revenue by 4.8%, mainly as a result of growth, from the Hussar Grill brand. The speciality profit increased by 40% or 39.8%. Excluding Doppio Collection, profit increased by 2.3%. That's all in the footnotes. If we look at the company-owned stores, the group now has 15 company-owned stores, four Hussar Grill and 11 stores in the Doppio Collection portfolio. This excluding that one store that I mentioned, is reported as an associate. It is not in this segment disclosure.
In the period, one Pizza Vino and one Modern Tailors company-owned was opened, and you saw some pictures of that on Val's screen just now. The material increase in revenue at 130% is obviously because of the six-month trade for Doo collection in revenue this period versus one month the previous period. If we look at just the underlying Hussar Grill stores, they represent, or at least delivered, a 4.3% increase in revenue over the prior period. Profit is an increase of 17%, as you see on screen, mainly the contribution from Hussar Grill and Doppio Zero, which generate the most material portion of revenue and profit in the segment. If you look at the manufacturing and distribution segment, we'll see revenue up 9.9% following increased sales to franchisees via our outsourced distributor partner, and profit is up by 19%.
Now here, the Doppio Collection contribution to the segment is, is marginal. It's positive, but it's marginal. You can see the impact, as disclosed in the footnote to the slide. The most material contributors to profit remain profit on procured items, also complemented with profit on manufacturing sources that we sell to our restaurants. The retail segment continues to focus on expanding its product range, and reach. We currently have 31 SKUs, so stock keeping units consisting of sauces and seasonings. During the period, we introduced two new SKUs, as you see the picture on screen. They're the 200 ml and 400 ml sized pour-on sauce of our very, very popular Cheddar Malt sauce, which has been well received, as customers now enjoy their firm favorites now at home too.
As Val mentioned, the group has placed a strategic focus in this channel and has bolstered the division with the addition of a key resource to drive growth. If we look at the marketing funds just quickly, we see a 5.3% increase in revenue over the prior period, slightly higher than the increased restaurant sales. We see a contribution of ZAR 3.7 million profit, reversing the loss in the prior period. Notably, we confirm, and most importantly, we confirm that each marketing fund ended the period fully funded with a total of ZAR 33 million on hand, shown in restricted cash, which means that each brand started the second half with cash on hand before even collection that can be used to enable customer-focused marketing activities.
If we look at this slide, which is now unpacking other and shared services, on the left, you see the operating performance for, excuse me, the departments whose activities are directly supporting franchisees. As you see on the bottom, it says the Decor Department, the Training Department, Export and Call Center. Our Decor and Export Department played a key role in the first half, providing vital support for new store openings and refurbishments, including the 33 new stores that Val mentioned and the 36 revamped locations. Our Training Department underwent a significant transformation this last year to better align with the evolving needs of the cust, of at least the franchisees, and our customers, and is yielding good results. It does, however, remain a cost center to the group. On the right, we reflect the costs associated with the Support Department, as we call it, shared services.
Revenue and income in line with, with, expectation and, interest slightly lower, as described earlier in when I was discussing the income statement. More relevant is the overhead line, which is reported at ZAR 100 million, and reflects an 8.3% increase over the prior period. We will unpack that in the next slide. If we look at that ZAR 100 million, and we back out just for the purposes of, of sort of clarity and, and, compar-comparability, if we exclude some of those specific costs, which are listed there, you see legal costs, IVS costs, and we also spent nearly ZAR 2 million on supporting a strategic site, a strategic, Pegasus site. We invested some money there. If we exclude those costs, then the group, sorry, sorry.
The group reports comparable shared overheads at ZAR 92.6 million, which is then a 9.5% increase. We unpack that ZAR 92 million and 84 by departments, in the appendix four. It mainly, the increase mainly relates to ZAR 2 million increase in IVS charge for long-term incentives, which are non-cash. Excluding this increase, then overheads will be up by 7%. As Val mentioned, we focused on enhancing our information technology department. We brought in specialized resources to help and spend money on projects for a sharpened focus on supporting multiple channels at least, and partnering with our marketing department in delivering customer-centric solutions. We believe that that investment is key and core for a forward-looking organization, and we look forward to see the growth that will be generated from that investment.
On international, the international business is performing well, a 23% increase in revenue and a 19% increase in profits. As mentioned, the international team worked incredibly hard to support our franchisees to open 12 new restaurants in the period. It was an incredibly active December. I think more than 50% of those stores were opened in December, in order to capture the December season. Our highlight was also the implementation of the new Spur branding with Namibia welcoming its first revamp, Spur, and Botswana being home to the first newly built Spur featuring the updated look and feel. We mentioned the three restaurants were closed, and Val mentioned the fact that the two Saudi stores were closed, and we've exited that underperforming region. The global macroeconomic environment obviously does continue to place pressure on the economies in Africa, in which the group trades.
Our franchisees have seen some significant currency devaluations against the, I suppose, ultimately the rand, but more the euro, and specifically in areas like Zambia and Ghana and Nigeria. In our profit number of ZAR 12 million that we disclosed on the right there, it includes a ZAR 1.6 million loss on foreign exchange. Costs continue to be well controlled, and on a constant exchange basis, costs increased by 4%. The balance sheet structure remains unchanged. The net increase of ZAR 2 million in profit on equipment is the addition of some CapEx, ZAR 9 million, and then ZAR 7 million in depreciation, so not a material change. The right of use asset that you see at ZAR 61 million is offset by the lease liabilities relating to the IFRS 16 impact on company-owned stores, leases, and rented properties.
The group's most material asset is obviously its intangible assets and goodwill. It only changed by only ZAR 500,000 since year-end with the amortization charge that was put through. Other non-current assets are small. There's a footnote that explains ZAR 3 million, the associate, and ZAR 3 million, different tax asset, but all relating to 10P differences, no assessed losses raised. I'll cover the movement of working capital, and the cash flow statement. It might be easier to expand it there. Contract liabilities, looking at the non-current liabilities and current liabilities, total ZAR 69 million. Basically half of that is that marketing fund surplus that I said we have available, as well as the balance is ZAR 35 million on initial license fees received, which are accounted for on the balance sheet and taken through to the income statement over the period of the franchise agreement.
It's recognized over a period of time. Those are the key items of the balance sheet. There's an update to the legal dispute with GPS. As you all are aware, the matter was referred to arbitration, which commenced in October 2023. Following a number of sessions, closing arguments were concluded on the 9th of December 2024. The parties are currently waiting the outcome of the arbitration, so we wait to hear. The claim continues to be disclosed as a contingent liability, and no amount has therefore been raised on this balance sheet or charged against earning, consistent with the reporting that we've done in previous periods on this matter.
If we look at the cash flow statement, we, you know, from the income statement that we reported profit for tax of ZAR 216 million, and that pleasingly increased by ZAR 14 million to increase to a figure of ZAR 230 million with the net add-back of non-cash items. Working capital changes reflect an IVS of ZAR 51 million, which is lower than the prior period of ZAR 75 million, as you can see on screen, and was constituted by an unchanged trade and other payables position. Inventory did increase by ZAR 12 million. ZAR 7 million of that is an increase in inventory carried by our outsource distribution partner, and the rest some, some working, some inventories at our central kitchens.
Our trade and other receivables of ZAR 14 million is due to the seasonal nature of the group's business, where trade receivables are generally higher at December due to the volume of December that gets traded, and is less than the ZAR 85 million outflow of the previous year. This resulted in a healthy cash generation from operations of ZAR 179 million, which, as you can see on screen, is ZAR 79 million higher than the prior year. I think this may be my last slide, but continuing with the cash flow. We've spoken about the net interest received. You can see tax paid and dividends paid, tax paid and dividends paid, yes, going through. We have cash flow from operations of ZAR 30 million. The cash flow from investing activities of ZAR 9 million, we spoke of.
That was the CapEx on company-owned stores and some improvements to our head office. The cash flow from financing activities being really repayments of loans, lease liabilities, and ZAR 25 million spent on buying back shares. That then leaves the group with a net outflow of ZAR 14 million for the period. Now that ZAR 14 million is directly related to a decrease in restrictive cash, so the utilization of marketing funds, and the redemption of gift vouchers. The actual underlying, unrestricted cash for the group has increased slightly. The allocation of cash and capital obviously remains a key focus area for the executive directors, and of course of the board.
The board considers all contingent liabilities, capital for expansion, other activities which we think could be core for enhancing value for shareholders in the consideration of dividends distribution, and any other distribution to shareholders. As you know, the company will now also be distributing ZAR 96 million of this cash within this month on the 31st of March as a dividend being declared through to shareholders. I will now hand back over to Val to continue the presentation.
Thank you, Christina.
Great.
We're going to talk a little bit about the way forward, and then we'll open up for questions. As I mentioned, the company's going through quite a big transition in terms of exploring new markets, new regions, new opportunities. That's the only way we're going to get the quantum growth. I wanted to just share some good news with you.
The first one is that our Doppio Zero team have won a tender with the MediClinic Group, and they've won the tender to open up a Café Doppio at the MediClinic in Sandton. A round of applause for the team there. Really awesome to see. We know it's a captive audience. We also know that there's a whole fraternity of doctors and nurses that are regular users. There are about 44 MediClinics in South Africa, so a whole new opportunity. We also, a lot of you will know the traditional Spur that's at Sea Point at the Protea Hotel, which is now owned by Marriott. We seem to have concluded a deal to open up a Doppio Zero in that site by one of our multiple franchisees, and we're relocating the Spur. Also a great new avenue for us.
We have a couple of other tenders in the pipeline as well, which is really awesome. I wanted to conclude by just talking a little bit about the way forward. We know that the brand strategies that we developed, and the initiatives that we announced at financial year end, are still underway. We look forward to seeing how all those come to fruition when we report results in August. That remains intact. It is also our intention to keep to our targets of opening 47 new restaurants in fiscal 2025. We have already done 21, so we have a bit of a way to go, and 13 in the international market. The future for us is going to be around value creation.
It's going to be how we embrace the change and look at how we create a new value for our stakeholders, how we create a better value, and how we create more value of the things that we're doing well. That's going to happen across various angles, across our consumers, across our restaurant experience, our franchisee network, our employee experience. I wanted to, though, highlight certain growth levers that we've adopted in the business, which I thought would be of interest to you. The first one is around the customer base, just protecting that asset, protecting the people that support us, endorse us, ensuring that we're adding value, ensuring that we're rewarding them correctly, ensuring that we're attracting the next generation of loyal members. The next lever of growth is definitely to re-leverage our formats, introduce new formats if we have to.
We've seen the success that we've enjoyed through Panarottis formats. Looking at new alternative channels, we've started seeing some emerging channels happening. We're investing in resources to grow those channels, and we will be exploring markets and new territories in the year ahead. In terms of growth lever three, just the importance of ensuring a consistent and quality supply chain, only because we know that we've got to protect our franchisees' investment, improve their profitability, but yet bring an exciting and quality product experience to our consumers. Future for technology is a key. We believe in some areas we were lagging behind, and we're starting to play catch-up.
Our technology initiatives are going to be around enhancing the customer experience, creating that restaurant of the future, and then on particular systems to look at how we enhance and improve and refine processes so that we can be slicker in our decision-making and move quicker in our reporting. Finally, how are we going to leverage our skills, around our leadership skills? How are we going to bring up the next tier of rising leaders so that we can embark and continue the leading for the greater good journey, building the employee experience, creating impact in society, and also enhancing and ensuring that we remain environmentally sustainable? That sort of encompasses the future. There's a lot behind that. I think our business planning and business strategy is well articulated. We've got strong teams. We've got a committed team.
We've got the resources to make it happen. We're super excited about the next period. I don't think it's going to be easy. We'll wait for the budget speech next week. Hopefully it's positive. There is a lot of talk. I know they announced the GDP of 0.6% growth, but there's a lot of positivity in the country. We're hoping that we can leverage that as well, and our consumers can be on a better path to grow their families and visit us more regularly. I want to thank you for your commitment. Thank you for your investment in our business. Thank you to my wonderful team. Could never do it without you. Love you guys. You're a great support. I respect your talent, and I thank you for being part of this journey.
We're now going to hand over to Graham to open up for some questions from our audience.
Thanks, Val. The first question we have is from Corbuseliers at All Weather Capital, and he says, "Well done on a good set of results." His question relates to the store openings for 2025. The 47 new stores in South Africa, is this net openings for SA and does it include the 21 in H1?
The 47 does include—Hi, Corbus. Nice to hear from you. The 47 does include the 21. So it's, and it's not net. No, that's new stores.
Next questions are from Aheesh Singh from MP9 Asset Management. Congrats on the results. You noted in the results of John Dory's that some key shifts need to occur. If you're able to elaborate, what are those shifts?
Okay. Yeah, so that's a tough one.
You know, John Dory's is a very important brand in our portfolio because it specializes in seafood, and we know the seafood category has been under strain in South Africa, even though we know from FMCG reports that tinfish is growing, and that's also indicative of what's happening with the economy. John Dory's remains important for us. It offers a very quality product, and we're going to leverage that. However, in order to get the brand into its next level of growth, it's going to mean expanding the sites. It's going to mean exposing the product to more consumers. It's going to mean introducing people to categories that they probably don't eat all the time, which are prawns and sushi, etc. We have put together a SWAT team that are going to be working on it over the next period.
I think if the brand had an issue with its product, I would be concerned, but I don't. We have a committed franchise network. We have strong leadership on that brand, and I'm sure that, in time, it will start delivering the results we want to see. It has been a bit slower, and unfortunately with some of the closures this past period, it hasn't been ideal. We believe that there is a future, and the seafood category is evolving. We know that South African consumers will respond well. We've got to reach out to them correctly.
Thanks, Val. A second question from Aheesh: how does the business plan to mitigate the Forex risk in the African operations? Yes.
Some of the, the, sort of factors and controls we put in place, from our perspective, we ensure, so there's a franchisor element, and there's a franchisee element, right? Obviously the impact on franchisee translates into franchisor in the context of, you know, potential their, their credit risk, or their ability to trade. From a franchisor perspective, we obviously work with, selected strategic partners that we, alliance with. These are generally largest, entities. From an invoicing perspective, we ensure that we, as far as possible, invoice in hard currency so that the risk is, effectively not directly onto the franchisor. We are able to ensure that the currency devaluation in the context of local countries, insofar as it impacts our benefit and income statement is limited.
Of course, where we have countries like Zambia, for example, in the current year and the like, our franchisee becomes under pressure in the context of, they have, let's say, US dollar denominated rentals, but they are now selling in local currency through to their consumers. That, of course, is a concern because that will then decrease their turnover, their profitability, and ultimately ours. What we then do is our operational team members actually assist with menu re-engineering, pricing, and the like to have a fit-for-purpose offering through to the consumers such that we can increase volume, and sort of not at the expense of decreasing foot count. Those are maybe the key areas of focus such that we address both franchisee and franchisor.
Thanks, Christina. A question from Cornelius Macquarie from Metal Bridge Capital.
Why is July your second busiest month after December?
It's probably because it's, and it's not ours. I think it's the industry's. I think it's probably because of school holidays. You know, if you look at the peak holiday periods for schools and families, it's 1st December, and then it's July. That's the main reason, yeah. Easter trading season is probably the next one.
Thank you. All right. We have two questions from Charles Bowles from Titanium Capital. Can you tell me what the typical payback period is for your key brands in terms of franchises? Trying, I'm trying to understand how attractive it is for future franchisees to establish an outlet.
Okay. Thank you for that question. A very good question and one that we look at very closely. Our brands have got different investment requirements.
A more specialized store could be a setup cost of ZAR 8 million. A Spur could be about ZAR 6 million or ZAR 7 million. And some of the smaller brands, smaller footprints could be about ZAR 2.5 million or ZAR 3 million. In fact, they're a little higher. We know that the payback period that we look at when we do the DCF, we look at 4-5 years. Five years, we say, is definite, but we know that they sometimes can pay back within 3 or 4 years. When we prepare the numbers, we want to make sure that the feasibility of that store is at least a 5-year payback period.
Thanks, Val. A follow-up and related question from Charles. He says, does the Doo collection, specifically Modern Tailors, lend itself to a franchise operation as the outlets seem to be quite bespoke? Oh, yes.
I think it's a good observation. We are talking about Modern Tailors, and we think it probably will for now remain company-owned, and probably will be about a 5-6 store chain. Yes, it is bespoke and probably not franchisable on, and able to scale as much as the others.
Okay. A question, another question from Corbuseliers. Congrats on the MediClinic contract. How will the process of getting franchisees be done? Can the current Coffee Couture franchisees try and bid for these franchises?
I can't comment on what's going to happen at all the MediClinics because they've got various players. I can only comment on the one that we've won. There we are engaging with the current operators because they run a very good business, to ensure that we obviously are protecting people's jobs and they've got the expertise of the hospital group.
It will be franchised, yes.
Okay. No further questions on the webcast. Okay. Good.
Awesome. Good.