1%. Our consolidated EBITDA post-India was INR 113 crore or 14.6%, and this declined 9% year- on- year, 270 basis points below last year. Our consolidated FAD was negative INR 2 crore or 0.2%, and our consolidated adjusted FAD was positive at INR 6 crore or 0.7%. Let me dive into the KFC brand priorities. This is on page number 20. We drive six priorities on the KFC brand. One is to increase penetration and therefore increase the consumer base for KFC and drive frequency. We want to be known for craveable taste. Value is an important component of strategy. Operationally, how do we deliver a frictionless customer experience and operational excellence, whether it is customer service in the store or through the aggregators? Finally, how do we improve accessibility? This year, this quarter, KFC had a SSG, which was flat over last year.
However, transaction growth was positive, which is encouraging. Transaction growth was positive because gross margin also was negative. We invested behind the Epic Saver campaign. This Epic Saver campaign of abundant value, 9 for 299, has given us positive transaction growth. Our SSG still is the results on SSG are still yet to come. Apart from that, we launched the bold premium Zinger Burger range and Chicken Strips. Our kiosks are now implemented in 259 stores, and there are some pictures of the new restaurants that we have launched. For the channel mix and other financial numbers, I'll hand it over to Vijay.
I'm on slide number 24. It gives channel-wise mix. The dine-in and takeaway came at 57% and delivery at 43%. Delivery mix-wise, it was similar to the previous quarter, but if you look at year on year, there's a 300 basis points increase in delivery mix. The SSG was flat as I just pointed out. However, the same-store transition was SSG was positive, low single digit, which was very encouraging. Overall revenue grew by 11% and gross margin dropped by 90 bps. This was a result of the investment which we did behind the various value offers and promotions. From an inflation point of view, while there was some inflation, we were largely able to neutralize those inflation with the cost-saving initiatives. The entire impact on gross margin you see is because of the investment behind the value campaign and the value offer.
The drop on gross margin, along with the higher delivery mix and operational deleverage because of the flat SSG, meant that restaurant EBITDA came at 15.7%. Slide number 27, which gives you a four-year annual view and five-quarter trends. We continue to invest behind our strategy of value campaign, and we are confident that this could help us drive transactions and ultimately the SSG.
Let's go to Pizza Hut. The Pizza Hut, actually, I'm talking about slide number 29. We had given a clear path on revival of the brand, which apart from driving taste superiority, also had a component of investing significantly higher amounts of marketing monies to drive consumer behind mass media advertising to drive consumer awareness and consideration. From a numbers perspective, Pizza Hut had a - 5% overall revenue growth and a - 8% SSG. Let me try and give you some details of what happened during the quarter. First, we launched the Juicylicious Pizza range in April 2025. This has received really positive feedback from consumers who've tried it. However, the Juicylicious Pizza campaign was supported by mass media differently in Tamil Nadu, which is an exclusive Sapphire state, and the rest of the market.
In the rest of the country, including the common markets of Sapphire, we supported it largely through below-the-line advertising, which means that proximity advertising in malls or in hoardings around our stores. We know that that is suboptimal. In Tamil Nadu, however, we supported it with mass media advertising. There's a YouTube link that we have provided on our presentation that will enable you to see the ad. Yum and Sapphire put money behind creating consumer awareness. There the brand did well. In fact, there is a double-digit SSG difference between Tamil Nadu and the rest of our market. In Tamil Nadu, we delivered low positive single-digit SSG when compared to last year. If you remember, we had got a 17% sequential uplift from January, February, March 2024 to April, May, June. On top of that, April, May, June 2024, Tamil Nadu delivered a positive, a low single-digit positive SSG.
It gives us confidence that this is the strategy to revive the brand, which really is a replica, and I've said this many times, of the successful strategy that we run in Sri Lanka, where omnichannel, great product, great value, and strong advertising enables the customer to choose us versus other pizza brands. Quick look at the numbers.
Yeah, I'm on slide number 35, channel-wise mix. That has largely remained steady quarter on quarter, as well as when you compare to last year, it has remained steady. 50% being contributed by delivery and the balance 50% through dine-in and takeaway. SSG was minus 8% and overall brand DVU by 6%. Gross margin dropped by 150 basis points compared to last year. Here again, a huge amount of investment behind the value offers, promotions, and campaigns, and very small or marginal impact on account of inflation. The gross margin drop combined with the negative impact of the SSG or the operating deleverage meant that restaurant EBITDA came down to - 2.5%. As Sanjay called out previously, if we exclude the factor of additional marketing investments, which has gone into the brand, this is over and above the agreement with Yum! KFC. The brand is actually at a break-even level.
Slide 38, this gives you a four-year and five-quarter trend. We continue to work with Yum! KFC so that we can replicate the Tamil Nadu and Lanka strategy across all our markets.
On Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka continued to show robust double-digit SSG and TG. In fact, SSG came in at 12% and system growth was 15%. We have 126 stores in Sri Lanka. Now, 12% SSG typically would have translated into a positive operating leverage. However, we faced very steep employee cost inflation because of a change of minimum wages. There were two changes that happened, one in September, October of last year, and one in May, which was retrospective in effect from April 1. Both of these had a sharp impact on our restaurant EBITDA, which was 30 basis points higher than last year. Vijay, some of the numbers, please.
Slide number 42. The channel-wise mix again is for Sri Lanka business has largely remained steady. Dine-in and takeaway at 61% and delivery at 39%. SSG of 12% alongside the double-digit transaction growth and same-store transaction growth I'm calling above. From our revenue, 15% growth in LKR terms and 19% growth in Indian rupee terms. Gross margin was higher by 30 basis points over last year. Overall, restaurant EBITDA came in at 12.7%. As Sanjay called out, we couldn't really see the margin expansion because the benefit of SSG was largely offset by the increase in minimum wages with effect from April 1. Slide number 43 again gives you the four-year trend and five-quarter trends. The business continues to deliver robust performance, and we expect to mitigate this minimum wage impact.
Starting quarter two onwards, we have taken a price increase of 3%- 5% in Sri Lanka, and we expect at least quarter two, we should be able to deliver slightly better improvement of margins Q on Q at least.
Finally, on sustainability, I mean, it is part of our everyday existence. We are really happy to announce that our KFC Raya store in Punjab received an Indian Green Buildings Council Platinum award. This is the first QSR restaurant in India to receive this award and the first Yum! KFC restaurant globally also to receive this award. We're quite proud of this. With this, we conclude our commentary. We'll open it up now for questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on your touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove from your question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Tejas Shah from Avendus Park. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Sanjay, the first question pertains to KFC. What's driving this disconnect between improving ADS but contracting margins?
The improving ADS that we see in quarter one versus quarter four is a natural seasonal uplift that we see. The contracting margins, when you see 0% SSG, and now if I just look back on three years, SSG, three years ago, it was 0% in quarter one. This is, I'm talking about FY 2023, 2024, 2025, it was negative, and now 0%. It's really operating deleverage coming into play, Tejas.
Tejas, additionally, I am sure you're referring to quarter four versus quarter one comparison where we have delivered higher ADS and a similar restaurant EBITDA. The biggest impact which you see Q4 versus Q1 is the gross margin. We would have invested almost 100 basis points to enable us to drive transactions. That's the single biggest factor. There would be additional factors. Typically, in quarter one, you do wage revisions. There's a salary increment which comes in. Those are additional costs which come in. There's also marginally higher marketing which you would have done in KFC also for this quarter while we continue to invest behind the brand within the overall agreement range. During the quarter, we have chosen to invest slightly higher. It can get balanced out during the year. These are the three reasons.
Yeah. Generally, April, May, June, from a utility perspective, etc., also versus Jan-Feb March, we will see because of summer an increase in cost. Quarter four versus quarter one is, I mean, strictly not comparative.
Yeah. No, I was just looking at three-quarter also when we were at around a similar number, 115, 115. And we had 18.2. Obviously, mixed because it's a festive season, perhaps a mix changes. We, in fact, not very much long back, Sanjay, on the call, you had guided us that SSG has a lesser forecasting significance in the current environment than ADS on margins. I was just curious that is it true for the industry that the cost of ADS or cost of SSG has gone up now? What we saw, let's say, two years back, that a certain SSG or certain ADS was delivering certain margins, the cost of that ADS has gone up materially.
Yeah, we were betting on Pizza Hut, not so much on KFC. SSG finally is important, and when you see SSG in consonance with ADS improvement, that's the time when both are important, Tejas, in a sense. Yeah, both are important.
Okay. That's clear. Second, pertaining to Pizza Hut, you clearly mentioned that intervention that we have done in Tamil Nadu is definitely benefiting the brand and improving performance also. What's preventing a pan-India rollout if we are seeing benefit? At least I'm seeing benefit and you are seeing benefit of this. What's the hurdle there?
I think eventually it will happen. I'm confident of this. Right now, it is a factor of our estates being very different. I see, when you have an estate which is dine-in forward omnichannel, consumers come to the store, see the difference. Advertising also drives consumers to the store, and it gives a positive, you know, it gives a further positive reboff. Like I've said, it's not out of thin air that we believe this can work because this is our Sri Lanka template. I'm quite confident that over a period of time, we should be able to get this to work in the rest of the country also.
Okay. Okay. Lastly, on the competitive environment, if you can comment, has it improved or still remains the same?
Sorry to interrupt. May we request you to please come back for the follow-up question, as there are several participants waiting.
I've heard this. Let me just.
What do you mean?
Yeah, since Tejas has got his question in, I'll just answer it. From a competitive environment, I don't think anything has materially changed, Tejas. There's nothing that has materially changed, not over the quarter, I would say over the year also.
Thanks, thanks and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Gaurav Jogani from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity, sir. Sir, we are seeing, as you also highlighted, that despite very low basis, we are still struggling to even catch mid-single-digit SSGs. If you can break this problem into two parts, one is the overall macro factor that is impacting this. The other would be any other thing that you can highlight that is halting the growth even on a low basis?
Yeah. The macro factor is undoubtedly present, as we can see in the results that almost every consumer company has. However, it is impossible for any of us to predict when these macro conditions will change. You've heard us say repeatedly, we are trying to do everything possible within these macroeconomic conditions to change our trajectory. I'm quite confident on KFC that we should be able to start changing this soon. What are we focusing on? We are focusing on really, I'm at a consumer level. There are two consumers. We believe that the biggest opportunity for KFC is in increasing the consuming base for KFC. The ability to do that will be to focus on our core product and on value.
We are seeing one expression of value, which is the “9 for 299.” You will see a lot more of these expressions coming in, you know, in the future. We also need to have advertising that appeals to that first-time user of KFC. That will also happen shortly. To drive greater frequency of consumption, we've got innovation like the premium Zinger Burger range. During summer, we launched a new range of drinks. Our late-night delivery is quite strong now. We have got a very initial pilot for breakfast and coffee. If we look at consumers from two lenses, increased frequency, increased penetration, I think it takes time to turn around inertia from a flat SSG to positive SSG. Once it turns around, I'm quite confident that this will give us good results.
Apart from everything else that we are doing from an operational perspective, we continue to lead in terms of our operational metrics, whether it's at a customer satisfaction level, our ratings, etc. We're quite happy on how we are executing on store. The consumer part we have to get right, and it is taking time. We are not going to, we're going to double down and get execution right more than anything else.
Thank you for the detailed answer, sir. I think the last question is with regards to the overall margins across the three formats.
Sorry, go ahead.
Sir, overall, the margins across the three formats, given the constraints that we are operating into, at least we can say at the current levels, the margins have bottomed out, if not accelerating, but at least they would have bottomed out at current levels.
They would have bottomed out except for the seasonal impacts, right? Typically, for example, quarter two for KFC is lower than quarter one in terms of the various vegetarian days which quarter two encounters. Quarter three can be again higher. I would say at these SSG levels, which are flat SSG levels, there should only be now seasonal impacts which should play out. Any improvement in SSG should probably help us get margins back.
Yeah, I'm just tying this back to the question that Tejas asked. It's a combination of SSG and ADS. Typically, quarter two shows a lower ADS, and that impacts profitability. Whatever is the SSG, if the absolute ADS levels are lower, that will have an impact. It's a combination of SSG and ADS that impacts the final restaurant margins.
Yeah, my question was more on the annual and not on the quarter basis, but more on the annual for.
Yeah, I think there's no point in giving longer-term guidance. I think we'll see the.
Sure. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from Saurabh Kundan from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Thank you. My question is also around the margins. Vijay, you just mentioned that you've done slightly higher marketing spends in KFC. When you said that at flat SSG, only the seasonal quarterly changes in margins will be seen, are you adjusting for that ad spend? Because the one-Q has a much higher margin than what you reported.
When I called out the overall impacts from Q4 to Q1, and this is what I was answering Tejas' question, I was just trying to give a bridge in terms of gross margin impacts, which was the bigger one, delivery mix impact, which is a smaller one, the utility cost. There was a marginal impact of marketing. I would not call it material to say that I need to adjust for the future margins. I would not call it that way.
Okay. The 67% gross margin that we have now, is it the baseline now? Like Sanjay just mentioned, we are seeing just the starting of value initiatives. We'll see more in such expression. Does that mean that we could, we'll be okay?
I would not use the word baseline. I would say that whatever is required to now get the transactions in SSG going, we are prepared to do that. This entire Epic Saver campaign, which we ran starting May onwards, is already part of the impact we are seeing in quarter one, but it may not be full impact. The positive part is we have seen transaction growth for the first time, SSG for the first time after, I would say, 12 consecutive quarters. I think we would be more flexible on those gross margin numbers if it can eventually result in higher transaction growth and higher SSG. I would not tie down my strategy that I don't want to move away from this baseline number. We would be flexible, and we'll take a call as we move forward.
Got it. Interesting. Last question. On Pizza Hut, you have shown that marketing does change the performance a little bit, quite a lot, actually. You mentioned double-digit differences there. If you can share with us then, what is the future of this format, pan-India then? I mean, when will Yum! KFC take a call on how to go forward on the brand overall in India?
When you say future of the format, this is the format which Sapphire now runs across all its markets. I think the complication is that there is an overlap on the territory between us and the other franchisees. The other franchisee operates a delivery format in our territory. That creates a confusion in terms of how do we go about the strategy. Having said that, it's nothing new. For the last seven years of Sapphire existence, this problem existed, and we were able to navigate through it. It's only that the other franchisees haven't seen the same kind of results the way we have seen. Hence, this slight difference of opinion which we're experiencing over the last two quarters.
Now that we have again seen a positive result in the way we have gone about it, I'm sure it's only a matter of a quarter or two before all the three parties are on the same page and they can execute uniformly pan-India.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Devanshu Bansal from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, there is a growth divergence between channels for us, right? For KFC specifically, dine-in growth is 5%. Delivery is doing well at around 20% right? We have been trying to improve this growth with, as you mentioned, Epic Saver campaign, where these are dine-in specific campaigns that we're doing. That has so far not led to improvement in dine-in growth, right? I wanted to better understand the reason behind slower growth for this channel specifically. A follow-up to this is you've also mentioned that delivery mix increase has some impact on your margins as well. Do you foresee a structural margin reset as well because of higher delivery?
Devanshu, while I'm not clear about the numbers you quoted on the dine-in and the delivery, how you arrived at those numbers, having said that, I've understood your question in principle that your dine-in is still not performing to the level your delivery is, and that's a fair comment. The Epic Saver and the promotions and those campaigns definitely have helped us reduce the gap between the dine-in performance and delivery performance. That's for certain and sure, but not to the extent we would have liked it. That's also reflected in the overall SSG being flat. That's the endeavor that will continue to go down this route of investing behind the brand in form of value offers and campaigns. Even in the next quarter, you will see us double down on these value offers.
Right now, 9 for 299, you're seeing maybe in H2, you will see even more aggressive campaigns on sub ₹100 as well. The plans are there in place through which we believe we can get back dine-in and takeaway. At the same time, the delivery can grow at its own pace. The second part of the question, which was, is there a structural shift you are seeing and the delivery mix has increased? The delivery mix has increased compared to the last year, quarter one. If you look at the quarter four of last year and current quarter, the delivery mix is largely remaining stable. If I want to predict the rest of the year, we would say that it should largely be range-bound in terms of the delivery mix.
Understood. Vijay, I was trying to understand, as in, say, in FY 2023, when your margins or even in FY 2024, when your margins were, say, 19%- 20% in KFC, and that was at a certain delivery mix of 36%- 38%, right?
Yeah.
At the current level of delivery mix, does that imply that we may structurally be lower at, say, 40%- 50% delivery mix, that we may not be able to do that kind of a margin? That was the broader question.
Understood. If you're trying to compare with 2023, 2024, or prior to that, the 37, 38 going to 43 and 5% impact would roughly impact my overall profitability by 80 bps. That is the structural impact. A 20 can be read as still 19, 19.5. Coming down to 15.7 is a function of the SSG not coming through rather than a structural shift on delivery. That's the only clarification. Delivery certainly will impact, but the structural impact is 73 of 5 to 80 bps only.
Okay. Very clear, Vijay. Second question that I wanted to understand, for Sri Lanka, the LC growth is 15% and INR growth is about 19%. Can we expect this 4 to 5% currency benefit to accrue for full-year FY 2026 as well? Allied to this is on margins as well. You have indicated there is some minimum wage hike, but you have taken some price hikes as well. What is the level of margins that we can sort of look for Sri Lanka business in FY 2026?
On the first part of your question on how the forex will play out, I would not comment on that because there are a lot of factors which go into how a forex would perform for the rest of the year. At least the past one year shows that the foreign currency has been quite steady. We should not, we don't foresee any reason why it should be playing out any differently for the rest of the year. I would avoid commenting in specific. Coming to the second part of the question in terms of margin, I think we would like to deliver an improvement in margin over last year. Sri Lanka delivered an X amount last year. We would love to have a few basis points improvement at least over that last year's margin.
Fair enough.
Which did not happen in quarter one because of the wage impact, but because of the price increase and other mitigation, I think we should still be able to deliver some margin improvement for the rest of the year.
Okay. This is for the rest of the year, but okay. I got it, Vijay. Yeah. Thanks.
Thank you so much. Thank you, everybody, for joining the conference. Parit, we don't have any more questions.
Yeah.
Do we close the conference now?
Okay. As there are no further questions, I hand over the conference to Mr. Sanjay Purohit for closing comments.
Thank you so much, everybody, for joining the quarter one financial highlights presentation. We will see you in another three months for our quarter two and first half results presentation. Have a good rest of the day. Bye.
On behalf of Sapphire Foods India Ltd, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.