Good morning to all our guests this morning, both in person and online, local and international. A warm welcome to all our franchisees and our new franchisees, our international franchise partners, investors, business associates, and shareholders. I'd like to acknowledge our board of directors, our Spur Corp. executives, who have worked in unison to guide and inspire us to deliver the results you are going to see today. I'd like to personally thank Mark, our main board chair, who's online this morning, for his continued wisdom and direction. As I exited the building the other evening with Cristina, looking at our beautiful history wall, I paused a moment at Alan Campbell's photograph and sort of said to him, "If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't be here." We've reached a five-year milestone, and that expression goes to Mark as well.
Mark, thank you and the board members for creating the opportunity for us to be of service to this phenomenal company. It's been an incredible experience, and despite all the challenges, we only remember the good experiences because, after all, we're all about experience. I would also like to express my thanks to the executives here today and online, as well as each member of our team who've demonstrated commitment to our business and, through their passion and hard work, have worked closely with our network to deliver yet another year of great results. There have been many brand awards received, voted by customers. We have been honored to receive several leadership awards, and we've handed out a lot of awards to our teams and franchisees. All this is evidence of celebration, and after all, we're also about celebration.
Finally, I'd like to acknowledge our franchisees who create a daily experience for our customers with their restaurant teams, and invite our customers and celebrate with them. I would also like to pause to express my sincere condolences to my most valued PA, extra members, and board members who have lost loved ones during the recent weeks. We also express our condolences to our multiple Spur franchisees from Mussel Band to Kippford, who was tragically killed in July. Our thoughts and prayers are with you all. Memory eternal. If we look at our agenda this morning, it gives me great pleasure to open up the presentation of our final year results for fiscal 2025, for the period July 2024 to June 2025. Cristina, as you know, our CFO, joins me again for the fifth year to present the financial, segmentation, and review.
Once she's finished, we'll take on some questions and give you a view of the way forward. I'd like to just tell you a little bit about the year at a glance. It's really been an exciting year, and as you can see, our restaurant sales ended at R11.5 billion with a growth of 8.5%. Revenue up by 11.2% and comparable profit up by 12.6%, taking that to R402 million. The board has approved a final dividend of R1.93, which represents a total dividend for the year of R2.99, a 40% increase.
If we look at our purpose of leading for the greater good, the results that you have seen this morning published and the results that we are presenting today have been about this journey and vision that we set about five years ago, where we set a role for us to play in the marketplace and in our communities, where we create a place for everyone at the table. It was designed in that way to ensure that this brand and business is sustainable into the future. We know at the core of our business are brands that lead the experience, and this business model has what has guided us through the last five years, ensuring that we leverage on our USP. Very recently, we had the opportunity through one of our top five investors to visit the Berkshire Hathaway AGM in Omaha, Nebraska.
You can't just get tickets for this AGM. You've got to get credentials through a shareholder, so we're very blessed and privileged to have attended. Interesting, and we all know Warren Buffett being such an incredible businessman, 94 years old, running one of the top companies in the world, which is worth $1.1 trillion, which is almost 3x the size of the South African GDP. We take many learnings from a doyen like that. If we think of his moat analogy, where he talks about the medieval castle is your business or your brand, the moat is the USP that you build around you, the economic advantage, the strategic attributes that you build around your brand to protect it from competitors or attackers.
When we look at Spur Corp. , we know that our brands lead the experience and have specific attributes that have been synonymous with the business, many of them since they were launched and many that we've strengthened over the years. The core of the business is to focus on the strategic competency of Spur Corp. . We've expanded our purpose where we focus around what is it that we want to deliver around customer experience. You can see some of those important attributes: the craveable food and distinctive taste, the experiences, which is all about casual dining, our franchisee experience, important to build the resilience of the next generation and pipeline for the future, and to ensure that our brands remain profitable for our franchisees. Without our franchisees, we don't have a business.
Of course, the investor experience, not only you, our shareholders, but even any small to medium-sized enterprise, our big suppliers that invest in our business daily to deliver service to our network. Of course, our own team that are right here in front of me, our employee experience designed for well-being, the investment to develop and nurture our staff so that they, too, can have a dignified, dignified life and a good experience. This is the journey of leading for the greater good. It's a five-year map. It'll take too long for me to go through it in detail, but you can see, there were certain things that happened along this journey, and this journey involved various people. This journey doesn't, I'm not going to talk about the difficulties and the challenges in the marketplace during that time.
If we look at who was involved here, we're talking about our franchise network, where we have over 113 multiple franchisees. We have about 100 independent franchisees. They employ around 35,000 staff members. Our own team is just over 1,000 people. If you look at this journey, it involved a lot of people, and along the way, some people fell off the road. They decided, "This isn't part of me," or, "I need to go and look elsewhere." Everyone has been resilient and remained with us as we transformed the organization. I'm going to just call out one or two of the activities through each year. I also just wanted to say that perhaps it's just coincidental that this journey map looks a little bit like a share price. If we look at when the purpose was introduced in 2021, we looked at various deliverables.
We focused on our team benefits, introducing programs that went down to at least 68 people to earn executive, short and long-term incentives. We focused on continuing our bursaries, where we pay the education for our staff's children, which is a huge benefit, an investment of about ZAR 1.2 million a year. As we started adopting the journey, a lot of things happened in 2022. We started rebuilding the forums with our franchise network. We run very constructive councils, and now, with all our main brands, our franchisees are pivotal to our relationship. We co-create and collaborate with them. We'd never do it any other way. We started investing in skills development for our people. We spend between R4.5 million- R5.5 million a year. We told you about Rising Leaders last year. We've started Rising Leaders this year again, another 17 candidates, which is really awesome to see.
2022 was also an important year because that was the year we commenced looking at our brands, looking to see how we need to rejuvenate and almost reignite them so that they remain relevant and appealing to the consumer. We started with the Panarottis repositioning. When I show you the figures today in 2025 about Panarottis, you'll see how beautifully the momentum has built up, and we're realizing the benefits of that decision in 2022 is now starting to reap the benefits and the rewards. 2023 was about the greater good journey acceleration. A lot happened that year as well. Other than recognizing our team, we undertook probably one of the biggest projects in the history of Spur Corporation , and that was to reignite our foundation brand, Spur. This did not happen overnight.
It was probably a whole year's preparation, working closely with experts in our team, working closely with consumers to really understand what do I love about Spur? What can we change? What should we fix for the youth of the future who are our future families who will visit Spur? What do we need to do? You've read a lot about it, and we're going to talk a bit more about it as the presentation unfolds. That's where it started. Really awesome to see the momentum has gained and just the acceptance of such an awesome brand. In that year, we also appointed a lead Roccos team to start looking at RocoMamas. We know that RocoMamas, post-COVID, had a huge reliance on the third-party aggregators, which is not a great margin for franchisees. We've started some strategic changes to that brand and also producing phenomenal results.
Just to indicate, in that short period, we started addressing the improvement and the acceleration of three important brands. In 2024, it was all about our greater good network integration. In the latter part of 2023, as you know, we did the deal with Doppio Collection, our Doppio partners. They're fully integrated now. They've added immense value to our business, and not only because of the brands and the bespoke dining experiences they offer, but just for the individuals and the teams that they are, great partners and ones that we know that we'll grow the business with by working closely together. That year, we also introduced the Ops Cadets program. We're doing a second one this year, and we also looked at a new look and experience for John Dory's, and that momentum is starting now.
It's slow, but it's happening, taking that brand to a new level and ensuring that it can compete in this very difficult seafood category. This year, our focus was all about sustainability. What do we need to do to poise the business for future growth and future acceleration? We've taken a whole new dimension around technology and the expertise by building up the capability in our team, knowing that technology is what's going to enable innovation and has started enabling innovation. We've started really looking at our customer loyalty. I'll talk a little bit about that later. Pleasingly, in the five-year journey, you can see our black franchisee percentage shifted in 2021 at 21% and now 31.2%.
What is pleasing the team, as you gave me the figures yesterday, we also have about 80 or so female franchisees, which is really awesome, and about a quarter of those are black female franchisees, which is encouraging to see how our franchisees are adopting a mindset to give opportunities to some of those great operators that they've nurtured through the years and are giving an opportunity for the future. There are many other enterprise development projects, which we've spoken about in the past to you. We're hoping, our projections are saying that we will reach level five BEE certification by September or October this year. God willing, let's see. I sort of looked at this and thought, did it take one year for every level? Let's see. It's really been an awesome journey, and unless we recognize that it's a process, it needed all our stakeholders.
We know now why this journey has resulted in the deliverables we'll tell you about today. Just on the trading overview, yes, it has been a difficult year, and we know that we've managed to get through it. It's probably been a more inconsistent year, if anything. What I'm going to try and demonstrate over the next few slides is to maybe share some of the data over the last five years, some of the five-year trends, some of the three-year trends, as well as call out some of the important deliverables in fiscal 2025. The first insight is, yes, it is still an inconsistent and unpredictable world. I remember we've all gone through, is it VUCA, is it TUNA, all these wonderful acronyms that describe this world. Yes, I think it's becoming increasingly complex, and it has been a year of geopolitical tensions. What were the U.S. tariffs?
What were the wars? Extreme weather conditions, which have impacted some of the crops, economic and political volatility on the continent, plus a recent market disruptor. We know the biggest market disruptor that we faced, because we're quite a neat, driven organization or offering to the consumer, was the crisis of the foot-and-mouth disease, which happened, obviously, with one of our biggest suppliers. In fact, just two days ago, we got a notice from another small supplier, and beef prices escalated to 25%. We mitigated this very quickly. We invested over $1.5 million to secure fillet for our specialty company-owned restaurants. A lot of our franchisees did the same. Thank goodness, we've got a solid relationship with our suppliers, and our Head of the Supply Chain immediately started securing stock. We brought in about 68 containers of product just to ensure that we're secure.
We know that this is something we've got to watch. If it's not F&B, it's avian flu. We are also thankful that on a lot of our menus, we have a section of proteins. Our teams immediately activated marketing activity to draw attention to other proteins and other product offers. We know that these are things that we are going to face, but we're well poised to tackle these challenges that occur. In terms of load shedding, in Zambia, it's probably been the most prominent, sometimes 17 hours of load shedding in that country, which has been a bit of a concern. They're almost going through what we went through in South Africa a couple of years ago. A lot of those learnings we are transferring to our franchisees, you know, about gas pizza ovens, about alternative power, ways to look at it, ways to manage your equipment.
On the political front, there was political unrest in Kenya, riots, and a bomb scare even, warning by the American embassy, and the impeachment of the Deputy Minister, Minister. This caused a bit of disruption in the market. Of course, various currency fluctuations vary per country. For example, Zimbabwe devalued by 3%. Zambia as high as 20%. In the DRC, 15%. Nigeria experienced a devaluation of 48%. Mauritius, 6%. We know to do business on the continent, you've got to be resilient. We're thankful that our franchise partners, they know how to trade successfully. On the positive side, as I mentioned, we mitigated some of the issues through the solid supply relationship, but we also delivered exceptional savings on product to our franchisees. We started that initiative about three, four years ago in collaboration with franchisees, where we looked at improvements on the supply chain.
This has been the highest in the five years, the savings that were delivered to the franchise network. We've also increased our basket in this division, and increased our franchisee participation, which is pleasing. If we look at our network at a glance, we're trading in 14 countries. We reentered Tanzania this past year, which is wonderful. We also exited some countries. I'll tell you about those shortly. Obviously, the dominance is still in South Africa with just over 600 restaurants and international 105. When we closed the year, we've opened a couple of firms. If we look at just the number of restaurants, just some observations there. Spur, obviously, our foundation brand, full of strength in the network. An unbelievable brand. I think franchisees love it simply because it delivers such a high turnover. It delivers a good return on investment.
Panarottis showing a great growth, so really exciting to see. Overall, a solid network. If we look at the revamps and relocations, we had a big focus, as you all know, on our R8 strategy. Revamps, our franchisees invested over R200 million on the South African revamps. We know that the new look Spur has already got about 51 restaurants revamped, including Africa, and that's a huge investment. What is exciting about the revamps, I looked at the list just yesterday. If we look at the number of stores that revamped since we introduced the new Spur look, I think I counted four restaurants that are either trading, one is trading below last year, and three are trading on par with last year. All the rest are double-digit increases, which is really wonderful.
Yes, I know there's a menu inflation in there, but still encouraging to see how the consumer has responded to this new look. I also believe that the second half of our trading this year was as a result of the momentum that's picked up of all the revamped restaurants, as well as the support from our loyalty club and just the loyalty and the brand equity that our portfolio has. If we look at the international performance, I think the first thing I'd like to draw your attention to is let's not even talk about India and Middle East. We've exited Saudi Arabia. This year, we exited India. Sadly, when I look at what's happening in India and the phenomenal number of international TSR brands there, unfortunately, we weren't with the right partner. We weren't in the right site.
Maybe we'll reenter, but we're out of India and Middle East. Our focus is really now Mauritius and the rest of Africa. If we look at Mauritius, it has performed beautifully. It represents 22%. I left the difference, but it represents about 22% of the business as well. Rest of Africa, we've seen a bit of a change in some of the ranking of the top performing countries in the rest of Africa. Zimbabwe's got to number two. The reason why it's moved to number two is that franchisee has recognized the potential of casual dining in Africa. We've got five RocoMamas in Zimbabwe at the moment and four Spurs performing really well and delivering a much higher monthly average turnover than a normal TSR brand, which is what they also have. Zambia, third, Kenya, also a big opportunity store for the future.
Nigeria, a lot of new stores were introduced there, and big growth opportunity for international. These are some examples of our new stores, just two of them. Botswana, we've signed a new long-term agreement. This is one of our new stores, in Turnwright site, Botswana. A Panarottis pizza. It's adjacent to other TSR brands. As we know, in Africa at the moment, Panarottis is predominantly about TSR. In Mauritius, at Saint Louis, the Silverhawk Spurs just opened in the new look, which is awesome. Good franchisees, a great team, and getting a good response from the consumers. If we hone into South Africa a little bit, and look at the turnover and number of outlets and performance, what has to be admired, obviously, Spur's solid performance.
Yes, we want higher figures than that, but for a big brand like this to produce the result that it produced at 4.8% growth, and we'll look at the like and like shortly, says that we managed to hold market share, keep our consumers with us, if we consider what's happening on the competitive environment. Panarottis, we must highlight, first time that they achieved a billion-rand turnover. Cristina and I last night were looking at how much they did in fiscal 2022 when we started the repositioning. I think it was the upper R600,000 . Just to demonstrate, R600 million, just to demonstrate how much it takes to get the momentum to reach these kind of figures. Well done to the Panarottis team and our Panarottis franchisees who bought into this repositioning from the early stages.
What is pleasing to see on the numbers is if we take the performance of The Hussar Grill combined with Doppio Zero, these two prominent specialty brands are now delivering a billion-rand turnover, which is really wonderful. We're playing seriously in the specialty category and performing, which is encouraging. I'm sure a lot of you are looking at the ones in brackets, which is John Dory's at - 5.2% and also Nikos at - 9.5%. These are smaller brands, and we're working very closely to look at how we're going to improve them. We also know a lot of that decline was a delay in new store openings. We are pleased that already, this month, July, Nikos opened. We've opened a new Nikos. It was a bit late, but it opened at least.
John Dory's, we're very pleased to say that we have signed a new site in Eastgate adjacent to our very popular Spur there. That's really awesome news, and I congratulate our team for concluding that deal. It's also with a multiple franchisee, so it gives us a lot of encouragement that in these major malls now, we have most of our brands represented. Total group turnover, I think what we really want to look at here is the like and like, one that we're all interested in.
Yes, when we look at menu inflation, and we look at like and like, we know it has been a tough trading period, but we must recognize that relative to the market, relative to the fact that consumers don't have additional disposable income, we've seen an increase in competitive activity around meal solutions through the retailers, not only the delivery and the convenience, but also the wonderful home meal replacement that is available these days from the supermarket chains. So 2.5% like and like growth for the year. We trended out the five-year pattern just to look at it. I'm hoping that when we get to 10 years, I can show you a beautiful graphic. We know that July always starts relative to how the school holidays fall and the number of weekends, because Spur drives a lot of our turnover performance. We are a weekend brand.
People love to celebrate, bring their kids to play, and enjoy a meal with their families. You can see the dynamic of July. When we meet on a one-on-one, I'll give you a view of how this July started. A difficult trading period and inconsistent, but really positive to see that from April, we saw a lovely increase. We believe a lot of this was the momentum that had been created and particularly the investment in marketing. We added new value-added campaigns. We promoted the loyalty club. Every brand had activity to ensure that we could mitigate this current difficulty in the marketplace and give consumers some value and some added value in order to visit and join our restaurants.
If we look at the regional split, you can see that obviously our thing is still important, but if you add all the coastal areas, we've got a nice split between inland and coastal. As the media also projected, the increase has come from Gauteng and the Western Cape. We've seen a growth of 9% in Gauteng, not on all brands. The reason why that's a nice figure for the group is because we had almost a 16% growth in Panarottis in Gauteng, so that's influenced the figures. On COVID end, we opened a new Doppio Zero, so that helped us in KwaZulu-Natal. In the Western Cape, we've delivered a 10% growth. It's about 9.8% growth, which is really pleasing. Once again, also as a result of the performance of this region, but also because of brands that have produced a better result this year.
If we look at the brand count, and I think you're all familiar with this, Spur represents 48% of our count. I know Amanda doesn't like to see that percentage going down, but it went down when we added new brands. It's still prominent at 347 stores on the continent. Panarottis is impressive internationally with 47, also reaching a nice figure. We have run saturation models for our brands. We have a lot of headroom still for these brands, particularly in Africa, where we know casual dining will become the next place that you shop after you've experienced TSR and you want to feed your family and move up to a different economic level. If you look at those numbers, I think they're all familiar to you. RocoMamas is also looking good, 88 at the moment in South Africa with 24 internationally.
As we mentioned before, very accepted on the continent. People love it. We recently converted, and I'll show you the photo, but we recently converted a John Dory's in Zevenwacht to RocoMamas. Unbelievable what that store is doing and has not impacted at all on our turnover of a very good Spur just adjacent to it and a very good Panarottis. Really awesome brand, RocoMamas. Specialty now reaching 80 restaurants. Really exciting. Yes, we've got some smaller players. We're working on strategies to try and build those, obviously driven by the two big brands. Our brands aren't just brands. This is our portfolio of brands. On the top line, you can see our casual dining and fast casual brands. Under that are specialty brands. Of course, not to forget our virtual kitchen brands. We've believed in those brands. They were introduced because of need during COVID. We started with 12.
We had six that survived, five that survived, and then we got involved with Doppio Collection. They've got Mac & Ryb, which is a part of their Pizza Villa offering. I mentioned, I think, on the report that we are launching at the end of this month that I think has been titled already. We're launching another virtual kitchen brand, Spice System. Such an awesome name, to really try and leverage takeaway sales for all the wonderful curries and Indian cuisine that we sell at Modern Tailors. That's really awesome, and we believe this future for dark kitchens remains as our young consumer seeks something different, more bespoke, and well-priced. Our brands aren't just brands. They're about connections, relationships, celebrations, and experiences. When we look at a consumer insight that says customers are looking for in-store experiences, this is a Euromonitor study, The Voice of the Consumer, South Africa-based.
We look at the three experiential priorities that consumers talk about. They're looking for value, real-world experiences. They only want to shop at stores that create engaging experiences. I think a lot of us are similar, and they want curated experiences that are tailored to taste. When I read research like this, local and international, we realize the strategic advantage that our brands have because we're all about the experience. We know we started when we repositioned the Spur to create a new environment, a place where you can dine on your own if you're just a couple, a place where kids could play freely, a place where you can hang around and take some selfies.
To create the experience, the experience is created by our franchisees and their partners to offer consumers the taste of for life, holding onto the heritage of the business, but also moving it forward and introducing strategy to propel it forward. This new look is creating a great experience. This is one of our new revamps in Chelmsford, also looking beautiful. Emerald Bay in Salt Rock Bonito also recently opened, beautiful to be in that holiday node, trading really well. The exciting one for us recently has been the Four Peaks Spur in Fourways Mall. We know the Fourways Mall went through a bit of difficulty, but with new landlords and developers, it has been revamped and restructured. It is now the biggest shopping mall in South Africa. It is phenomenal. We do have Panarottis there already, and we've just opened Four Peaks with a multiple franchisee.
We've also signed a deal to open a RocoMamas, and we're hoping when their bespoke restaurant corner opens, we'll probably go in there as well. Just to tell you that this store has just been amazing. It's been so welcomed by the market in that area and really performing well. In terms of creating experiences, our marketing team have made it their effort to look at alliances and partnerships and strategic relationships with brands and programs that bring experiences to our market. Shaka iLembe is a second series of a great program, which really focuses on the history of a well-known, iconic figure in South Africa's history, Shaka and his most respected mother. It's a program that has been really produced in a quality way with incredible costumes and a program that has very high viewership. It airs on Mzansi Magic on a Sunday evening at 8:00 P.M.
They tell me that the viewership has peaked at 11 million viewers, which is bigger than even the Rugby World Cup. Our marketing team have built an alliance with them, which is a lovely collaboration between a chief of Africa and a chief of Spur, but more about our warrior. Our warrior combo is one of our top combos, so we've leveraged that association by doing the sponsorship and also creating activations in some of our restaurants like Augusta Spur in Gateway, and this was the one at the Fourways Mall. Really an incredible response from consumers when they have the opportunity to meet these local actors and local talent. Obviously, another thing that's added value to our business is the fact that we're a proud sponsor of the Springboks.
This relationship started in 1990, but it was really taken to a new level four years ago when we signed the first agreement. We've just signed another four-year agreement, so we've renewed our partnership. I think my accolade and my respect goes to our president, Nelson Mandela Madiba, who had the vision that sport and particularly rugby would unite the people of South Africa. I think what this partnership does so well, it unites families and friends of two well-known homegrown South African brands, Spur and the Springboks. Really awesome to see. This year, there's been a whole new dimension where we've done collabs with other sponsors. We also broadcast live on Matchday from SuperSport.
We cross over twice into the restaurants that are hosting a Matchday, and then every Friday or whenever there's a Matchday, just to see our staff dressed in the green and gold, welcoming consumers, a lot of consumers hanging out at the restaurants to view the games. Just phenomenal work. We've even had, as you can see from some of the sings and the adverts, the rugby players in our restaurants, which has been awesome. On that note, I also want to wish the Bokke all the best for the game. See you at DHL Stadium this Saturday. Just to move onto some examples of smaller stores before we get into Panarottis who's driving the smaller store strategy. This is Fern Valley, Komatipoort first. So nice to see us entering these smaller towns with Spur as well, which is really awesome, and also in the new look Spur.
The Red Hill Spur, which has also opened in Falls Crest, and Fumilanga, also a beautiful-looking store, small town. It's a smaller footprint, but really encouraging to see that Spur itself, which obviously needs the space because of the play areas and because of the seating and the family environment, is also able to expand the footprint to these new markets. Panarottis, as we said earlier, was we started the repositioning in 2022. Panarottis' strategy of small town has expanded. We've also created a beautiful environment with a store experience. We know from recent research that 74% of brand equity is built through the experience at the restaurant. It's built at the point where you intersect the customer most often. Panarottis have managed to do that.
Our vision for this brand was that we know people would love to share a pizza outside of a box and to eat a pizza and share it at a table. As we've said before, we thank our TSR players for teaching South Africans to eat pizza. We're now inviting them to come and sit at our table and enjoy one with their friends. Beautiful-looking stores. That's just the ambience of the new look, as you see. We've now recently opened in Hudson Buzz with an existing franchisee, exciting restaurant. It's got a lovely view of the tennis courts. It's got a lovely outdoor seating. We're really hoping to do a lot of good business there. Our smaller towns for Panarottis in smaller formats, which is around a 220-square-meter restaurant, about a R4 million investment. We've got about 13 locations at the moment.
We also have an exciting new taste item. It's here in Cape Town CBD. It's at the Salt Food Market. It's a 20-square-meter little Panarottis pizza. It's launched really well by one of our multiple franchisees. We're hoping that this could be a future model here in South Africa. For those who live locally, please do pop in to visit it. A great expansion to smaller towns for this brand. In terms of building on our experience, I mentioned a John Dory's. We have three revamped John Dory's at the moment. The first one was in Cavendish Square. The second one's a revamp in Pavilion. This is a revamp, it actually says new, but it's actually a revamp, but it's a new look. It's one of our multiple franchisees who's always loved John Dory's. The example of the future of John Dory's is indicative in the site.
George has recently seen the development of a new center with a Super Spar and many newcomers. It's a very competitive environment, but we are really excited that this new look in George is representing the future of the John Dory's brand. If we move on to another insight, which is the normalization of AI. I think a few years ago, we all started hearing about AI, and we all thought, AI's about robots and AI's about these funny things that we're not going to engage in. We know that we're moving into a period now where AI is becoming integrated in everyday life and every decision-making opportunity. I think our consumers are going to be wanting seamless experiences that are going to be driven by AI. The digital and physical worlds will blend. As an organization, we've been upskilling ourselves, myself included, on the understanding of AI.
Our CIO, Paul Casarin, has introduced AI bootcamps for us. We're attending a data science program as the Senior Leadership, to start developing our skill set and enabling our innovation through AI and technology. What is exciting in the recent months, through AI, it's the first time that we've been able to really do a deep data dive to understand our customer loyalty base, so that we have the ability to build algorithms and predictive modeling so that we communicate to our consumers in a personal and customized fashion. At Spur, we have 2.2 million active loyal members. About 78% of those champions in the champion segment have children, which is wonderful, because those children have to come and have their birthdays and entertain. If we look at our segment of champions and loyalists, they represent 28% of the base, which delivers just on close to 70% of our turnover.
This demonstrates that the data's starting to show the importance of this very loyal consumer that probably shops us almost every month, but at least 9x a year. These are consumers that visit at least three different Spurs, and these are people that will vote for us in anything that we choose to do. This voice of the consumer is critical to us, and we have many other segments that we're exploring. We understand now through AI what these people are wanting to eat, where they enjoy shopping, what they like to buy, and how they spend. It's really incredible to see how much knowledge we're gaining through the technology. In terms of the children's experience, these are some of the play areas. We have six themes. This is the one example from Silver Spur in the Silver Star Casino.
This is the other one from Four Peaks, Fourways, also a beautiful play area, which is quite unique. This is one in Little Cradock, which is also a beautiful Skyworld theme, but giving children the opportunity to want to visit various Spurs to experience the different play areas. If we look at customer count, if we look at that graph up there, you can see the peaks are always December, which is critical to our business, but essentially, a fairly flat line. In fact, fiscal 2025 we were just short of it, it was about -0.3%, so a flat performance in terms of customer foot count, but up in average spend. Pleasingly, Panarottis is the one brand that did show a growth in customer count over the last three years. We all want to see an upward trend, RD2.
I think considering the market, we're pleased that we've managed to retain market share and deliver the results. Another insight is more than just low prices. Rising costs, reduced household spend is a reality, but actually, the desire for social connection is what's driving the trend of shareables by the value-seeking consumer. Consumers aren't just looking for prime, they're looking for the added value, they're looking for the care, and they're looking for the experiences. We see this in every study that is offered. Our teams were cognizant of this trend and put together programs that responded to the consumer's call. Panarottis Monsterita, over 20% of the Monsterita is the pizza category, a wonderful shareable large pizza. You can see the billboards, and these are some examples of what activity our brands did.
Shareable pans at RocoMamas, and their whole thing was, you don't have to choose if you can have it all at RocoMamas. We also have a franchisee currently here in the local markets even testing a shareable breakfast pan at RocoMamas. This is really saying to the consumer who's seeking value but also seeking the social engagement, come in, enjoy the meal, and you can share the cost, which is really awesome. Obviously, for Panarottis, for John Dory's , we've always had the seafood platters. They represent almost 14% of our mix, but also encouraging to see that this brand offers that shareable value-added occasion. More recently, for Panarottis, we're known for the duo pizza, but we've expanded that to the quattro pizza. That's four toppings, not always easily operationally to deliver, especially during school holidays, but offers variety and value.
Then, of course, our teams looked at specials and value-added campaigns. Our specialty restaurants ensured that we attracted more lunchtime diners by offering two and three-course meals. Spur ran various value-added campaigns. The Big Three combo was probably one of our most successful campaigns in the second half of the year. That is why we also believe we saw that lovely upturn. Really wonderful work by the team and support from the franchisees. Of course, RocoMamas has started building a brand called Triple Treat and another one called Two- Way Treat. These things become synonymous with their business and have delivered a major contribution to the growth of their portfolio. On our menus as well, we don't forget the vegan and vegetarian need. We know that these categories are no longer niche. They've become part of our core category. This is the Doppio Zero vegan pantry.
We know each brand has a vegan offering. The smash burger, which is the handmade, chickpea-based smash at RocoMamas, is a superb product, doing well. Interesting enough, and I've used a customer's photo of the fresh, home-style vegetables that get served at Spur. If I had asked you to guess which is the highest seller of any plant-based item in our whole group, it's this simple, home-style, cooked-on-the-day vegetables for consumers at Spur. Awesome to see that customers are gravitating to us because they can have a freshly grilled steak with home-cooked vegetables, and then for the vegans, just the veg if you need it. If you look at some of RocoMamas sites, this is our new site in Long Street, also owned by a multiple owner who creates a great vibe. This is where we're testing the shareable breakfast. Awesome restaurant doing well already. Zevenwacht I spoke about.
That was the rebrand of the John Dory's site. Jean Crossing, also a revamped site, looking really awesome, just in the Centurion area in Pretoria. A new baby in Clearwater Mall. Clearwater Mall is also a very prominent site on the western side of Johannesburg, where we have a very strong Spur, a very successful Panarottis, and now RocoMamas in the mix, which is really awesome. Just wonderful graphics, that really not normal experience that this brand is all about. If we look at leveraging every day part, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we are blessed that as a brand, the mix of our portfolio spans across these day parts, and we certainly look to leverage them. We know that if we study the trend line of those day parts in the last five years, we know post-COVID, we saw a bit of a decline in dinner, which was understandable.
You remember we had shortened trading hours, and people were scared to go out and started going home earlier. It's pleasing to see that there's been a wonderful increase in dinner. Lunch is still our most prominent segment, and breakfast has held its own and even shown an increase over the last year. This is the contribution to sales for the group. You can see lunch represents 51% of our sales. We are really eager, but we want more than just those three day parts, and we're trying to do that with some of our brands. If we look at our two prominent specialty brands, The Hussar Grill now with 26 restaurants represents obviously our night trade dominance in specialty, and Doppio with 32 restaurants the day part. In some notes, Doppio also does a very good evening trade.
The right-hand side, the Doppio Zero is actually a new look restaurant that's opened in Greenstone Centre. This is the second Doppio Zero to open with a Spur franchisee. We have a third Doppio Zero opening in Cape Town shortly with another Spur franchisee. It's really wonderful to see the symbiotic relationship happening and our franchisees starting to take on this new brand that we've brought to the portfolio. The Hussar Grill image is actually a concept. That is the new look The Hussar Grill, and our new company-owned store in Cape Town will be revamped later this year. It's really awesome to see. The Doppio Collection, as you know, Pizza Villa, we've got a store in Fourways, which is Living Frog. That's the new look, and we're hoping that will become the representation of the future of this brand, a really awesome-looking restaurant. Modern Tailors, we've got two now.
We are busy negotiating with a multiple franchisee to open a third Modern Tailors in a very prominent Johannesburg mall. We're really excited about that opportunity, and we hope we'll announce it at the next results. There's more happening with Doppio Collection. Not only are we attracting consumers for day part and evening part, we're extending the brand to a new format to attract a different catchment area. Doppio Cafe is being launched. It's currently in build. We've secured, as we told you at the last results, a site in Mediclinic, Fenton Mediclinic. We're opening in a hotel here in Cape Town. It's in build at the moment, and we've also secured a site in a well-known lifestyle nursery location in northern Johannesburg. Really exciting, and we're hoping to also open in a shopping mall. This new Doppio Cafe has a much smaller footprint.
It's got a more refined menu, but it still has a wonderful ambiance for any time-of-day experience. Some of our smaller brands, exciting news that Casa Bella's opened here in Century City. There's still a little bit of a building site happening around it, but a beautiful-looking restaurant. It's owned by one of our respected multiple franchisees. We thank him for his investment, and we know that this brand will fly in this market. Really excited about that opening that happened in July. I think I told you about the Silvers tar Casino and Nikos. On that precinct, I just wanted to mention the dominance that we have in some of these markets. We've got a wonderful Spur that's been revamped by one of our multiple owners, a magnificent-looking Pegasus store. We've got a very successful Hussar Grill.
Last year, on this precinct, we converted a competitor brand to Casa Bella. It's performing really well. Our maker of the franchisee recently teased at the results. This was also a conversion of a competitor store to Nikos. Awesome to see. Talking about the casino market, right now as we speak, we have our multiple owner revamping all the stores in Monte Casino. I think they're all going to be open by the end of this month, the revamps. Really wonderful, and we acknowledge the investment of franchisees of this nature that revamp to ensure the brands remain attractive and relevant and healthy to the markets they serve. I've got two more insights, just to talk about convenience reigning supreme. I think we've read a lot about it. We've seen it. We know that spending on takeout and restaurant meals jumped by 12%.
We know that grocery spend growth was 8%. We know that, because of food inflation, people are looking for convenience. They're looking for other alternatives. We know they're still dining out, but we know that they're ordering more frequently, and when they're shopping, they may be also shopping with lower average spend. This was a Visa Discovery Bank report. Really interesting to see what's happening. If we look at how we perform on convenience, we must remember we're about table dining. The majority of our business is about wait-to-service. If we look at South Africa's stats, sit down still represents 87% of our business and 13% is takeaway. The growth has come from takeaways. Uber has almost overtaken Mr. D, but I haven't showed the split here, but we know that when we look at our stats. This is still a market that we will continue to drive.
It's what our consumers are asking for. It represents over R1 billion sales, so we're not going to ignore this category. In fact, we've got quite a few tests happening with our app, e-commerce, and various activities, and this is also a future channel for our group. Our virtual kitchen brands, these are ranked in terms of value. Pizza Pug still keeping the lead. Rib Shack taking number two this past year, Just Wings, an important category. Bento's Burger, you know, a part of the RocoMamas table. Real Sushi is still an attractive one for people who prefer a seafood solution. Bringing it to a close, we know that strong brand community builds loyalty. We saw this trend many years ago. We never really believed it, that consumers were looking for purpose in life.
They were looking to be associated with brands that they consume that made a difference in communities. They don't just buy. They belong. Brands that create these communities, not just customers, will build unshakable loyalty. Customers need to be made to feel like insiders and not just buyers. I think here at Spur Corp., we've been successful in trying to do that, to do that with all the community activity, with our franchisees' commitment, with our mission of leading for the greater good. If we just at a glimpse look at this, and a lot of you will see this in the presentation pack later, we continue with our focus on ensuring that we feed more customers and children. We started with a target this year to feed 3,200 ECD children every single day. We're on 3,526, and then additional meals we also did through the World Hunger Day.
This is as a result of our franchisees committing to give R1, through the customer, to every burger sold or every item sold in some of the other brands. In November this year, we're going to be increasing to another menu item. We thank our franchisees for making a difference to these children. I won't go through all the details of these activities. The one I want to draw attention to is that little thing in the corner that says shadow shift. This has become a new trend in the Spur restaurants where schools are attracted to come and run a shadow shift where they work with waiters. The actual pupils come and work in the restaurant, and their teachers and families and friends come as customers.
They pay, and the kids serve them, and then the franchisee gives a percentage to the school, normally about 10%. It is really exciting to see how these activities are just creating a huge difference. There were so many pictures and stories I could share, but really what's happening out there in the community by our franchisees is unbelievable. If it's not supporting orphanages, it's taking food to the aged. If it's not supporting school sports events, it's bringing kids into the school. It's celebrating birthdays for the underprivileged. It's unbelievable. It's in excess of about 5,000 activities a year. I applaud our franchisees for ensuring that we're building brands that are building communities. On that positive note, I'm going to hand over to Cristina for the financial review. Cristina, over to you. I think I'm relaxed.
Thank you, Val. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, everyone that's come to see us in person, and then obviously those online as well. As usual, we'll start with an overview of the income statement. Val highlighted an 8.3% sales increase in terms of turnover, which then has translated into an 11.2% increase in revenue for us. This uptick was largely driven by the additional new company-owned stores following the Doppio Collection acquisition, as well as a 10.4% increase in sales to franchised sales to franchisees through our outsource distributor, complementing the underlying 8% growth from the supermarket sales. The gross margin for the year is at 32.6% versus 32% in the prior year, so that shows a slight uptick of this grade. Other expenses have increased, as you see on screen, by 10.5%. That is driven by a combination of factors that requires a more detailed breakdown to fully understand.
We explain it as follows. The R885 million consists of marketing expenses of R347 million. That's largely unchanged from the prior year. It also includes retail company store expenses, i.e., the non-food costs or cost of sales, of R144 million. This cost is higher than the R99 million in the prior year only due to the inclusion of 12 months' cost in this year versus seven months in the prior year with the inclusion of Doppio Collection. Operation expenses of R162 million also are up due to the inclusion of Doppio for 12 months. Administration expenses are R246 million. That increased by 7.8%, and it's unpacked later in this presentation. The operating profit margin, if you look at the operating profit before net finance income, is 9.7% if you calculate it, versus 8.9% in the prior year, which again is a nice uplift for us to see.
Moving on to the net finance income line, the net interest income has decreased relative to the prior year a bit. That was really due to the lower prevailing interest rates because definitely we have cash on hand, so it's our cash income that's decreased. The share of profit of equity accounted investee, small number, it's a profit from an associate of a company-owned Doppio Zero restaurant. Our tax rate is consistent. It's at 28.6%. That translates into a profit of R287 million, and as you can see on screen, it's 17.2% higher than the prior year. EPS, earnings per share, increased similarly by 17.2%, closing at R3.37. We're now going to unpack the sub-main stores by what is the results for by this segment.
The third slide shows the total South African franchise revenue at the top in the black and in the Spur just beneath it because it is a major segment. What we see is that the total South African restaurant sales increased by 8.2% over the prior year, and then that translated into franchise revenue increase of 8.8%, the top left-hand number, 8.8% South African franchise revenue. The Spur brand remains our main contributor to the franchise revenue and profit, and then the increased sales of 4.8% over the prior year translated into a revenue increase of 5.1% for Spur and, pleasingly, a profit increase of 5.5%, delivering R 289 million in profit for the year, the Spur brand alone. This brand continues to generate the best operating margin, margin at least, of all the brands, consistently reporting at 87%, as you can see on the bottom right.
Val mentioned the Spur brand is responsible for 50% of all of our franchise stores within the group's house of brands, and as you see at the bottom, represents 66% or 65.9% of the South African franchise revenue. Absolutely, a formidable brand within our house of brands. We then jot down a very busy slide and very colorful, actually, a very busy slide that shows all the other brands that are on a consolidated base. It's the remaining brands in the group. What you'll see with the green and the orange, that's Panarottis in the green, RocoMamas in the orange, they report solid revenue and profit growth, as you can see from those numbers. We feel that that's indicative of the repositioning of the Panarottis brand continuing to gain momentum, and also the marketing and product innovation strategy that Val mentioned that's been applied to the RocoMamas, yielding good results.
Both brands hold solid net operating margins, as you can see on the right-hand side, at 72% and 77%, respectively. Panarottis and RocoMamas also represent 10% each of the South African franchise revenue. I mention that because the two CROs are highly competitive, and I think if I do a complete comparable on every indicator, they will work to outshoot and outplay each other. John Dory's in the blue does report, as you know, a negative growth on sales, but it is maintaining its sort of delivery of circa R 19 million revenue per year, and then converting that to sort of ZAR 19 million profit per year. They're similar, like, online, and then, as we know, growth in this brand category does remain challenging.
The significant increase in the revenue in the specialty segment, as you see there, 41.4%, is as a result of the inclusion of the Doppio brand following their acquisition, 12 months in the current year, seven months in the prior year. If we looked at the results of the underlying specialty segment excluding Doppio, so the original Hussar Grill, Casa Bella, and Nikos, that revenue grew by 3.8%. As Val mentioned, it's mainly due to a contribution from Hussar Grill because of the larger number of stores that exist. Specialty profit increased by 29%. The underlying Spur brands increased by 12.6%. We only mention that because it is non-comparable periods, seven months, as we say, trading for Doppio, seven months last year, 12 months this year. From 1 July onwards, fully integrated as Val said, 12 months.
We'll stop trying to confuse you with the multiple percentages of inclusions and exclusions, but it's relevant for this financial year. If we look at the retail company stores, the group now has 14 company-owned stores, you know, the four original Hussar Grills that we had, and now 10 stores. We've listed the breakdown per brand, but 10 stores from the Doppio Collection portfolio. Then there's that additional store that is the equity accounted associate that gets added 'cause it's not included in this segment results. The 12-month trade of the Doppio.
Source of the year, those are seven months, results in that large increase of 46%. If we looked at the underlying Hafal growth, it would be a 4% increase in revenue over the prior year. Profit on the rise: 53.8% increase. The underlying, well, we know that Hafal growth and Doppio Zero generate the most material portion of the revenue and profits in the segment. If we look at manufacturing and distribution, we'll see when you look at the segmental results, it was, we feel, a great contribution by our supply chain executive and his team, in contributing to our results for the year. We see revenue increase up by 10.1%. That is increased sales to our franchisees via our outsourced distributor, and then the profits before tax up 26%. That isn't impacted materially by Doppio Collection because that's a very marginal contribution into the results.
That's really coming from our underlying Spur Corp. team. The most material contributors to profits in that sort of 36% increase is profit on procured items, also complemented with profit on our manufactured sauces that we sell through to our restaurants. Our retail segment continues to focus on expanding its product range, and it has increased contribution to both the segments both in revenue and in profit. I think I mentioned it half a year and can confirm we still have 31 SKUs in that portfolio within our retail sauce segment. We did introduce, I mentioned, the two SKUs earlier in the year, which was our very popular cheddar milk sauce, which we monitor and track for to see how popular it was or customers wanting to take it home. The group has placed a strategic focus on these retail channels, and we would focus on driving that for growth.
Now, a little bit about the SA marketing funds. The first thing we see: a 1.4% increase in revenue over the prior year. It's lower than the increase in restaurant sales, and you may wonder why that would be. Really, it's just the impact of accounting for this segment with revenue over a period of time in terms of our face-to-face as opposed to an appointing time, which is what we do for ourselves, on customer sales, which then translates into revenue. Pleasingly, we see a profit of 3.8% in the current year, reversing the loss of 3.6% in the prior year. Most notably, we confirm, and I think that's important for all franchisees, we confirm that each marketing fund, end of the year fully funded, and there's a carry-forward balance of R20 million on hand, which we will utilize. It's reflected in restricted cash.
It's on our balance sheet, and we will use that to further enable activation policies, activation of consumer-focused marketing activities. A little bit of detail. We look on the left at what we call SA other. When you look on the segment and you see SA other, what does that include? It's the details here on the left. It describes the operating performance for the departments who directly support the franchisees, in terms of, for example, the decor department, the training department, the export department, and the call centers. You see, notice now I've listed it at the bottom left. Our decor team and our export team were obviously very busy this year, supporting the franchisees and have been very instrumental in the store openings and the revamps, and that included the 44 new and the 57 revamped stores in the year.
I think you'll remember we invested in a CNC machine last year in order to be able to manage costs down for the franchisees on the decor. That picture there where it says the taste of life, that is actually manufactured by our CNC machine, and we keep track closely of whether we are able to and we do pass on the same to our franchisees in how we create that shape language. I think a good benefit for us as well as for our franchisees. Last year, we also transformed our training departments to better align with the needs of our franchisees and of our customers, and it is delivering good results. It obviously does remain a cost center to the group, but certainly one that we can support, and a very efficient team leading the charge on that for our training initiatives.
On the right-hand side, we reflect the cost associated with shared services. You look at the segment reported, you'll see the line items, shared services, revenue in material, obviously, intergroup revenue in lemonade. Unpacking the figure that you see of R151 on the segmental report for operating loss, you'll see it's made up of a number of items. I think the most important note is the other net interest income of R13 million. You'll see it's largely in line, and then shared overhead is really our overhead spend within that operating loss. You'll see that it is R199 million, which shows as a 5.2% increase over the prior year. We'll unpack it now on the next slide. You saw the R199 million on the previous slide of shared overheads. We've just broken and taken out a few line items for added disclosure to show you the comparable shared overheads.
I suppose notable is our legal costs, R4.6 million incurred in the year in order to support defending the GPS as a matter. There's been some RRS 9 reversals. I think we mentioned in H1, we did support a strategic fight when they pegged us as investment at a figure of R2 million. The actual head office cost spend is R194 million, which is 9.9% higher than prior year. If you look at the annexure of the presentation, you'll see the breakdown of that per department. I can confirm that it includes a R3 million increase in the RRS 2 charge for long-term incentives, which are non-cash. Excluding that, the increase is still high at 9.2% as opposed to 9.9%. This is mainly due to us bolstering our information technology department with additional resources and investment.
The aim is to support investment into multiple channels and to closely partner with our marketing department to develop consumer-centric solutions. I think you heard last week about the AI and the data depth that we have now and the learnings that come from that in order to better support our consumers. We are comfortable with that investment within IT. Our international segments are performing well, 25% increase in revenue and a 10% increase in profit over the prior year. This international team has worked hard to support our franchisees and open 15 new restaurants in the year. As I'll mention, the highlight was also implementing the new Spur branding in Namibia, which is the first revamped Spur, and the Botswana outlet as well upgraded to the new look and feel. Now we've also had a new store in Zimbabwe, as I was mentioning, home to the new store look.
The two RocoMamas in Saudi Arabia were closed in the first half, and the three stores in India were closed in the second half. We exited those regions as we felt that they were underperforming, certainly India currently, but that may change. As I've mentioned as well, the global macroeconomic environment does continue to place pressure on the economies, on the African countries. There are some currency devaluations against the South African rand included in our R 25 million profits. Yes, there is a R 4.4 million loss on exchange. Costs continue to be well controlled. On a constant exchange rate basis, costs actually decreased by 1.4%. Another profit analysis: we explained to you the reconciliation from the 17.5% profit before income tax increase to the 12.6% increase on comparable profit that Val had on her opening slide.
Function is really, we always exclude marketing because marketing is actually not for the benefit of the company. That adjustment takes it from 17.5%- 15.2%. Of course, our reported numbers need to include marketing, so the official number is the 17.5%. In essence, we've had less once-or-never negative numbers in the current year than in the prior year, and that closes the gap and results in a 12.6% increase. You'll see the legal costs are similar. Obviously, we had the foreign exchange that I mentioned earlier. I didn't mention this, but we're going to cover it on the balance sheet. We did have a reversal of a trade lock of R 2 million that was processed in the results. You'll also see there's been an impairment of PPE and loss of use assets of R 6.9 million. We will cover that on the balance sheet.
Balance sheet on the left, obviously, the assets of the company. You'll see non-found assets totaling R 667 million. Sorry, I just want to get my notes up. Sorry, please watch it a little further forward. I just want you to click to the next slide, please. Next slide. There we go. Now we've got the last slide up. Thank you. The net decrease of R 5 million PPE is due to CapEx of R 14 million with a matching depreciation charge of R 13 million on owned assets, as well as the write-off of leasehold improvements of R 4.4 million that I just mentioned. That was leasehold improvements that was in paid for PPE. The write-off use assets that you see on the balance sheet are offset with the lease liabilities, and they relate to the IFRS 16 impacts of leases on company-owned stores and venture properties.
The group's material asset is obviously its intangibles and goodwill. It's largely unchanged. It decreased by R 850,000 with the amortization charge on licenses, and it was offset with the reversal of a previous impairment of trademarks of R 2 million. You saw that on the previous slide relating to net costs. Other non-current assets, as for the footnote that you'll see at the bottom of the slide, that's our investment in associates and the first tax assets, all relating to temporary differences. No assessed loss raised. I'll cover the movement in working capital and cash in the cash flow statement.
If we then move on to the liability side, contract liabilities, if you take non-current and current together, total R56 million, and that's constructed for the unspent marketing money, the R20 million I mentioned earlier, as well as R36 million, which is the license fees paid by franchisees on contribution of franchise agreements where revenue is recorded over the period of the franchise agreement. Those are the two balances. Just a quick update on the legal disputes with GPS Foods. As shareholders are aware, the matter was referred to arbitration, which commenced on 23rd of October 2023. Following a number of sessions, closing arguments were concluded on 9th of December 2024. All parties currently await the outcome of the arbitration. The claim continues to be disclosed as a contingent liability, and no liability has accordingly been raised on the balance sheet at the reporting day regarding this matter.
If I look at our cash flow statement, the reported profits before tax of R402 million that we've discussed a bit earlier pleasingly increased by R40 million- R442 million, to end in an operating profit before working capital of R442 million. With the net add-back of the non-cash items, that they include, add-back of non-cash items of depreciation and also the equity settlement cash-based payment expense of R24 million. Working capital reflects a net inflow of R21 million and was constituted by a change in trade payables, a positive that you see of R52 million on the slide. R23 million of this is increased due to additional inventory carried by the group's outsourced distributor and a corresponding liability due to the distributor raised. A further R23 million increase being payables to our retail source agent.
R10 million was general increase in payables and a R6 million increase in unredeemed debt assets. Inventory outflow of R26 million, R25 million carried by the group's outsourced distributor, R10 million being carried by our retail source agents. There's been largely unchanged trade receivable position. This has resulted in a healthy cash generation from operations of R463 million, which is R133 million higher over the prior year. Continuing with the cash flow statements, net interest income decreased, whereas with the prior period that we discussed. We have paid off R300 million to stakeholders, including the receiver of revenue of R117 million and shareholders of R189 million. The investing activities are small at R13 million, 50% spent on company-owned store CapEx and 50% spent to improvements to our head office and related operations.
The financing activity of R59 million, as we've reflected on the footnote, R39 million was allocated to buy and back shares, both as treasury shares as well as for our long-term incentive scheme. The balance of R20 million is on settlement of lease liabilities. The group then reports a net inflow of R109 million in cash, translating to an increase in unrestricted cash of R477 million and a closing cash of R537 million. The allocation of cash and capital is a key focus area of the Executive Directors and of the Board, regularly and rigorously chatted about at each Board meeting, and we do consider all our contingent liabilities in the determination of free cash. Also, whatever capital we need for expansion, as well as other activities that we think will be value-enhancing for our shareholders.
In closing, the company will also be distributing R176 million of this cash as dividends to shareholders this month or next month on the 15th of September. I'll now hand over back to Val to continue the presentation.
Thanks, Cristina. I won't be bothered with the time as you're still.
Good. Where are we? The way forward. Yeah. Thank you, Cristina. Always good to understand where the business is heading, and congratulations to our franchisees and teams for delivering these results. We hope, to our shareholders, a good return on your investment. The way forward, and yes, an exciting topic for me personally, who helps drive the strategic direction of the business together with our expert team. Our way forward is going to be about value creation. It's a strategy we've adopted as a team. Our business plans for the forthcoming year are aimed around value creation. We have also, as an executive team, and in fact, involved our board members at the initial stages, embarked on a lot of scenario planning to try and predict what does this market look like and what does our business look like, not in 10 years, but perhaps in the next 30 years.
That's been an exciting project to try and look at what we need to do to ensure that this business remains sustainable for the future. We know how important this network is, not only the restaurants that the franchisees have invested in, the people that are employed at the restaurants, the value chain, the people in the support areas, in the regions. All of those people are probably supporting another family member or friends, of about four to eight people. We know the sustainability of this business is critical to the success in the economy of South Africa. Value creation is about the future, and we're looking to see how we can create better value, how we can look at all the value we create and just improve on it and enhance it.
We're looking at which are the areas where we can create more value, bring new things of the things we do so well, do more of it, because we know it's been sustainable in the past. Of course, new value. We all know the thinking around building a business. You need to stay core to your business, ensure that the base and the fundamentals are right. In order to propel it forward, we need innovation. We need strategies to stimulate progress. That will be all about new value. In short, what we're looking at for better value is to ensure that we are enhancing the experience of our franchisees, the profitability of our franchisees, ensuring that our employees are looked after and retained and developed for their future, and of course, to create the customer experiences that keep our customers revisiting our brands.
In terms of more value, to just be absolutely clear of the positioning of the brands relative to competitor activity, and expand the brand's USPs, but also support with all the services that we offer and introduce some new ones too. On new ones, new value, as I mentioned before, using technology and innovation to propel us forward, to ensure that we, as a business, keep the lead. We have got some strong deliverables for the year ahead. This does include opening another 42 restaurants in South Africa and another 14, so 14 or 15, in the international market. We have a lot of hope about the continent. We believe that there's new opportunities there. We're exploring them, and we're working with our franchise partners to not only grow the business in South Africa, but expand into the rest of the continent.
I wanted to close with this frame before we open up to questions. Just to say, we'll see you in CPoint shortly. We all know that there's been quite a lot of publicity about the Seven Spur, which did stop trading this last Sunday. It was the second Spur Steak Ranches restaurant in South Africa, so it has a lot of legacy and a lot of emotional association to the local market. I think it is important to announce that this store wasn't closed because it wasn't performing. This store was closed because the site which it operated in, which is a Protea Hotel now owned by Marriott, is going through a new development. They looked at the site. They wanted to create more of a bespoke offering, and we tried our best. We tried even in recent weeks.
I personally got involved to see whether we could retain our Spur and revamp it and keep it in that site. Unfortunately, they've got other plans. They have taken another brand, which is one of ours, and they've introduced an independent brand. The important thing to note, and I think it was an interesting activity, an interesting thing to see, was just the incredible loyalty of a local market that frequents Spur. That store probably had about 80% of the public visiting, and the rest were hotel guests. Really incredible to see the support. For those who frequented the store, for customers out there, for our valued franchisee who owns the store, we thank you for your loyalty, but we know that we will be back in CPoint. Just to thank you all for your support in that site. We're going to open up for questions and answers.
Graeme, our Investor Relations Head, is going to help us direct the questions.
Thanks, Val. Our first set of questions come from Tim Olls from Laurium Capital, and he says to Val and Cristina, congrats on another strong set of results. He has a couple of questions, and I'll go through them one by one.
Okay.
What percentage of the Spur stores are revamped, and how quickly can the remaining stores be revamped?
Okay. I'm going to give a few numbers, not in a percentage. We've got about 316 stores, about 18 already. So 51, locally, it's about 49 that have been revamped already. We do envisage it's going to take a cycle, the proper revamp cycle. By franchisees, it's normally five years. We envisage it's probably going to be around that, if not a bit longer. It will take a while. To give you an example, Panarottis, where we started a repositioning in 2022, in a three-year cycle, we've revamped 50% of the network. We're hoping that we'll get to that in a similar pace. Remember, you can't force a franchisee to revamp. They revamp as per investment. They revamp in a cycle of about five years. We've seen a wonderful increase in the pace of revamps and the request to revamp.
That's really encouraging, also because we've seen a wonderful response to revamps, with a good response on return on investment and turnover.
Thanks, Val. His next question picks up on that point. With Spur turnover at 5% and most revamped stores up double digits, this implies that the old-look stores are growing at low single digits. Is this a fair assumption?
No, because you've got some prominent high-volume sites that are still producing high results. No, we'd have to do a bit more analysis to look at the real picture there. No, we're definitely still performing well in a lot of catchment areas. The good news is, one of our top three stores here in Cape Town is being revamped currently, which is Santa Ana at the Waterfront. We're looking forward to seeing what happens with that one.
Great. His next question, what percentage of group revenue is from dark kitchens, and do you have a target percentage for that?
It's a small percentage. It's under R50 million what we generate from the virtual kitchens. It's a business that, had we not had those brands, it wouldn't exist. More importantly, the rationale of having virtual kitchen brands is for the franchisee to leverage their capacity. They're busy topping a pizza, they top up another pizza for the Pizza Pug brand. They're busy preparing sushi, they prepare the real sushi. It's about getting economies of scale and capacity usage at restaurant level and yet generating turnover in a new segment.
Right. For my add-on, if that's okay, the question asks revenue. That's $50 million in gross usage and wide sales, and then we would apply percentage on that to determine our revenue. Just for clarity, I'm not sure if our investor was asking on turnover revenue.
Tim's final question was for an update on GPS, but I think that's been well covered by Cristina. The next question is from Gari Chigwedere from Rezco Asset Management . He asks for specialty brands and company-owned store employee expenses. Can we expect a more normalized run rate going into FY2026, or would there be another relatively large increase in employee expenses? He says, "I'm trying to figure out around when the outsourced restaurant operation costs ceased, as we still have some in FY2025.
Right. The answer is yes, costs will normalize. As we said, it's really just a function of trading periods. We will definitely see restaurant operating costs normalize. The outsourced distributor stays with us, right, because the outsourced distributor relates to the supply of products through from our, as we source it through to our restaurants. There is an outsource, or there's either a restaurant operating agreement. I'm not sure if that's what he's referring to, and that will cease soon as well. Outsourced distributor, yes, as I said, part of our structure and strategy and what helps complement the profitability in our supply chain. Employee costs normalized, or at least restaurant costs normalized, and restaurant operating agreement will filter out as we complete that agreement or do that arrangement.
A question from Heinz Schenk at Netwerk 24. Hi, Val and Cristina. Congrats on a solid set of results. Thank you for the insight specifically on the FMD challenges. I kindly wanted to ask for elaboration on how Spur Corp. foresees the impact on beef prices on menu price inflation. Is there the risk of higher price increases for consumers simply due to the nature of an external shock like FMD?
Okay. That's a very good question. Thank you. Yes, we've already taken action on it. We couldn't be at risk of impacting on such a high increase and impacting our franchisees' margins. The only sections of our menus were relooked at immediately. In fact, a lot of them went live end of June and early July. We did it with caution. Absolutely, there's no way ever with product inflation that we can just transfer it all to the menu. We did take some marginal increases on the Spur menu. We took some on the Hussar Grill menu and also some at Doppio Zero. Yes, that's already happened. Obviously, we have a November menu cycle, so we'll see how the market looks at that stage. We were very cognizant to still keep some of the entry levels and some of the known value items well priced. We've already taken action.
A final question here comes from Zakhele Zondi at Bateleur Capital . Congratulations on the result. Just to clarify, are the 42 SA stores and 14 international stores targeted to open in FY2026?
Yes, that's the question. Yes. They are, and they split over half one and half two. What happens every year, we've got the stragglers that never got to open in time for fiscal 2025. That's why we've had a wonderful start to the year already, and that momentum builds with new stores. Yes, they're all targeted for fiscal 2026, but you know, you aim for a target.
Thanks. A question is just coming from Cobus Cilliers from Value Capital Partners. Hi, Val and Cristina. Well done again. On the closure of India and the Middle East, are there any future costs for Spur's account? Can you highlight the difference with the Australia closure a few years ago, which was a lot more expensive?
Cobus, you appear everywhere. It's such a...
I don't know.
We can talk about the quality export to the...
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. To answer your question, no, no costs to come for Spur Corp. at all for India and the Middle East. Australia, I think, so certainly in Australia, what we do is we have a legal entity there. We have a director there, and the like. The cost of exiting Australia was higher than exiting India and the Middle East. Val just reminded me now that for Saudi Arabia, a few years back, and I think it was actually 2019, we did have an export order. We sent products from South Africa through to Saudi, and our franchisee achieved a later pay. We provided for that many years ago, and there was a cost to exit. It's certainly not a cost to exit in the current year. No. As I said, the only difference between Australia is I think the structure was probably a bit bigger.
It was a bit more of a complex operation that we inherited, and we were able to exit Saudi and India a little bit more elegantly.
I love it. I love it. Thank you for that. There have been some later questions coming in now, one from Lebeko Shai from Abax. Thanks for the presentation and congrats on a great set of results. You mentioned low footfall in some catchment areas. Is there a common theme among these? Secondly, can we please have some more color on the salary recovery number under other income? Is it a one-off?
I can answer that. Yeah. Just on the customer foot count, we measure customer foot count by man meals served. We are going to be evolving that measure of how we actually measure physical foot count. Obviously, we use a lot of our landlords to look at shopping center foot count to try and assess the movement in the market. The reality in the market and with our group, overall, the foot count had been flat except for some of those brands I showed you. It does vary by catchment areas. We rely a lot on the shopping malls to create great experiences and a great set of tenants that attract consumers to the shopping nodes and to our restaurants. Overall, there is evidence that there is a flat foot count, but an increased frequency and an increased spend.
Okay.
The one question, the second part of the question.
Sure.
The answer to the salary recovery income is insofar as the associate that we mentioned on our interpersonal and balance sheet, which is a Doppio Zero, RocoMamas outside or Doppio Zero store, continues to be an associate, yes, the salary recovery line will be there. The reason for it is the employees are employees of Doppio Collection, our entity. Their payroll runs through the payroll line, but then we are able to recover some of those costs by charging it through to the associate. That income is the recovery side.
I'd like to mention something which I think is quite pertinent. When we did the Doppio deal, our intention was to commence the process of franchising as many stores as we could. That is the plan. Even these ones where we've got a joint partnership, we're looking to eventually sell it to the franchisee. Pleasingly enough, this July, we've just concluded our first franchise deal since the partnership. We franchised the Blue Hills, Doppio Zero to a new franchisee, which is wonderful, and a black franchisee. We welcome him to our network. That's an example of one store that's already been franchised. Thank you.
Thanks, Val. There's a final, final question here from John Brandon Black at PSG Wealth. Hi, Val. Fantastic results. Well done. How sustainable is your dividend?
How can you answer a question?
Okay. Cristina, this is a great topic. Maybe we can just talk briefly about it. Thank you for the question. How sustainable is it? We believe that the Spur Group have continually and sustainably distributed a material portion of our headline earnings on an annual basis and a biannual basis. We would look to continue a dividend distribution. Our dividend distribution this period was slightly higher than what we would have paid out normally. It was only because, as we sat as a board and looked at our cash flow projections, looked at our cash on balance sheet, this determined where we were going to allocate our capital. We felt that it would be appropriate to give some of that back to our shareholders because we do not have imminent plans for distribution of that capital in sole services. Is this sustainable?
I'd like to say that, all things being equal in terms of the prospects that we've set out, an ongoing dividend is the group's intent to distribute to shareholders. Its value will be determined at a point in time, depending on what other activities or depending on the best allocation of capital opportunities, which we look at at the board before we declare the dividend.
Great. Thanks. No further questions on the record.
Thank you. Thank you, Val.
Thank you.
Thank you.