It's early in the morning, and I guess that's not all of you have had time to have breakfast. So I'm happy to offer you this breakfast bar from Nutrilet. It's a great product, high on fiber, high on protein, low on sugar. So please try it. But actually, this is also a very good example of what we talked about cross country initiatives.
This is launched in Norway and Finland, and it will be launched in Sweden and Denmark in the beginning of next year. But this is also a good example of closer customer cooperation. This is launched exclusively in consumer cooperative in Norway, but of course, it will be available for the rest of the market next year. Overall, I'm quite satisfied with the results in Q3. As we communicated at Capital Markets Day, we will have focus on operations, focus on growing top line and margin improvement, meaning taking out cost, especially in the supply chain.
This is the 6th quarter in a row with increased organic growth, growth of approximately 2.3%. Also, our EBIT growth is according to the targets we communicated in London some weeks ago of 6% to 9% increase. EBIT adjusted for the group increased by 13%. Branded Consumer Goods increased EBIT adjusted by 15% despite a weak Norwegian currency, which is really challenging for us. We had some substantial negative transaction effects due to currency, but we also, of course, had translate positive translation effects.
Jens will come back to the details later in his presentation. I'm also very happy to see that the largest associated companies, Jotun and Sapa, also delivered very nice profit development. Actually, Jotun, they had record high both top and bottom line results in the 1st 8 months of the year. And also, Sapa had significant underlying improvement in the EBIT, more than doubling from Q3 last year. During the quarter, the Seadroat acquisition was approved by competition authorities and the integration has started.
And we will, of course, report on that in the coming quarters. In the Baltics, the integration of NP Foods is at full speed. And in the Baltics, we have also reorganized our operations, moved some parts into confectionery snacks, some food parts from confectionery snacks into the foods business to have more clean and focused business areas in the Baltics. And this is, of course, to improve our competitiveness in the market. As mentioned, we report now for the 6 time organic growth of 2.3%.
And what is also nice to see as this is not only price, it's also volume and mix improvement, which we'll also see now for the last quarters. However, as you can see from the right side, there is a mixed picture. Orkla Foods had very nice improvement of 4.2%, but I have to remind you that we are comparing with a relatively weak quarter last year. And actually the opposite is the case for confectionery snacks. We are comparing with a very strong quarter last year, But despite that, Confectionery and Snacks adds volume on top of that.
In Home and Personal, we see a mixed picture. It is especially Home Care, Lilleborg and Piero Bad Group that has had seen some decline in the quarter, And that is due to very tough situation with the currency because both Lilleborg and Perobard, they have a lot of traded goods imported traded goods. But we also saw a very strong piping effect in Q2 that we also announced in July. And Orkla Food Ingredients, as usual, they are in line with their targets and they report 4% organic growth in the quarter. When it comes to market share development, we also see a mixed picture.
Overall, in the food retail chain, we still see a slight decline in market shares. However, we see a better trend than we have seen in the last years and the last quarters. So it is a slow improvement. However, we see a growth in other channels and especially Orkla Food Ingredients gain market shares in their markets. So overall, we believe market share is quite stable, but in the food channel food retail channel slightly decline.
So that is not satisfactory, but more positive. So now let's look at some of the exciting new products that we have launched this autumn. Pizza, as you know, is an important category for Orkla, especially Orkla Foods Norway. We have approximately 70% market share in the frozen pizza segment in Norwegian Food Retail. So we launched this quarter, we launched an Italian inspired pizza from Orkta Foods Norway.
This is a high quality Tipo 0 flour that gives a better base with more crust. And this is also a very good example of closer cooperation with our customers. This is launched developed and launched together with a large Norwegian customer, and it's launched exclusively in their stores for a limited period. And you will find it in the stores, and I hope you have time to taste it. It's a great product.
Another example is from confectionery and snacks. We have launched also hand cooked Olavi Natuzz chips, all natural potatoes. That is launched. It's produced in Latvia in one factory and it's launched in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Latvia. And this is a good example how we share best practice and we share production facilities to reduce cost in supply chain and also to increase speed to market.
And then some of you might think why didn't you launch this in Norway? Well, first of all, we already have a similar product in Norway, but the most important thing is that Norway is not a member of EU. So unfortunately, we have an import duty of SEK 26 per kilo of potatoes. So that will not be competitive. Here in Scandinavia, the winter is coming closer, and we can feel it's getting colder outside.
And Piedurbel, they continue to build on their unmatched market position in retail stores, food retail stores in the Nordics. They have extended their product range with super soft merino wool with some new products, hats, gloves and also wool collection T shirts that really is nice for this time of the year and the winter. And this is launched in Norway and Sweden. The graph on the left side shows the rolling 12 month adjusted EBIT margin. Compared with the full year 2014, the EBIT margin improved by 0.2 percentage points to 12% at the end of Q3.
So overall, I am pleased with this performance, which is achieved despite negative currency effects and dilutive effects from acquisitions. And we mentioned that, I think, also in Capital Markets Day in London that acquisition of MP Foods and Seadrog will have a substantial dilution effect on our margins. Orkla Confectionersnacks see a quite strong dilutive effect in the Baltics and altogether and also home and personal with Seadroat. And in Q3, only 1 month of Seadroat is in the figures. It's only September, so we'll get the full effect in Q4 from the dilution of Seadroat.
However, our aim is, of course, to raise the margin to the old levels we had before those acquisitions. But this is also a reminder why we decided to move away from margin targets to have EBIT growth targets. In the quarter, we also had substantial negative impact from the weak Norwegian currency. Another aspect of weaker Norwegian currency is positive currency translation effects. Adjusted for the positive currency translation effects, EBIT growth in brand consumer goods was about 9%.
And that is in line with the announced targets in London some weeks ago. In general, we see 3 currency effects. We have one positive translation effect, but we see increased input prices in raw material. However, I believe in the long run that weakened Norwegian currency will strengthen our relative competitiveness in the market. Since we have local production, we are not exposed 100% to the currency.
In some areas, we are, like Perobard, but in general, roughly 50%. Our international competitors, they have 100% exposure to the weak Norwegian currency. We also continue to optimize our factory footprint and the whole supply chain. Since 2014, we have announced closure of 14 factories. And this quarter, we announced closure of 2 small factories, 1 in Home Personal and 1 in Orkla Food Ingredients.
So we have to date 6 factories being announced closing. So overall, I think we delivered quite solid EBIT growth also adjusted for the currency translation effects. We see a continued positive organic growth. Even though I'm still not happy, I think we should be somewhat higher because it's slightly below the growth rates in our largest markets. We see successful innovations launched large innovations launched across markets, across countries that really contribute to the growth and to the margin.
We also see in the quarter strong contribution from associated companies from Jotun and Sapa. I also have to mention that a big part of the improvement in both Jotun and Sapa is related to currency, but also the underlying business is improving both in volume and especially in cost. And going forward, we will, of course, work hard to improve profitability in a difficult market. Organic growth is important to improve margin and improve top line and, of course, also cost initiatives to take out cost in the supply chain and at the same time work as 1 Orkla and utilize the strength and the knowledge within the whole of Orkla. So then Jens will give you some more details about the financials.
Thank you, Petti. I will now take you through the details around the financial performance in the Q3. Let's start with the group P and L. We see a broadly positive development in income this quarter. Oikla had operating revenues of SEK8.4 billion in the 3rd quarter, an increase of 15%.
As Peter mentioned, we saw continued positive organic growth in the branded consumer goods area in the quarter and we also benefited from positive currency translation effects to Norwegian kroner and the contributions from acquisitions. Adjusted EBIT almost touched NOK1 1,000,000,000 and that's up 13% from last year. The growth was related to improved results for the branded consumer goods, both from underlying improvements as well as structural growth currency translation effects. I'll come back to more details on the development in the branded consumer goods area later on. Sorry for that.
Other income and expenses amounted to a negative SEK96 1,000,000. This was mainly related to acquisitions and integration costs and write downs. Profits from associates totaled SEK 239 1,000,000, mainly driven by strong performance in Jotun. The group's net financial costs increased in the quarter and that's mainly due to negative effect on interest rate swaps, which hedging account is not applied. The underlying funding cost is, however, reduced.
This resulted in a profit before tax of SEK1.1 1,000,000,000 in the quarter and that's up from SEK907 1,000,000 in the same period last year. Earnings per share increased by 57 percent to NOK0.80 in the 3rd quarter. And now let's look at the breakdown of the EBIT. Here you can see the adjusted EBIT bridge from Q3 2014 to Q3 2015. And to keep it simple, I will from now on in my presentation use the term EBIT when referring to adjusted EBIT.
As I mentioned, the group's EBIT was 13% or NOK114,000,000 in the quarter. Branded consumer goods experienced a growth of 15% or SEK135 1,000,000. The positive development was supported by growth in all segments and especially in Oikla Foods and Oikla Food Ingredients. Approximately onethree of the growth in EBIT was driven by currency translation effects. EBIT in Oikla Investments, which comprise the hydropower and real estate operations decreased by SEK5 1,000,000, and that's mainly related to 15 year low electricity prices.
Orkla HQ costs increased partly due to periodical effects as well as incentive programs linked to the group's positive developments. Let's look closer at the branded consumer goods area. In Q3 2015, branded consumer goods had an increase of 15% in revenues year on year. This increase was driven by positive currency translation effect from a weaker Norwegian kroner and contribution from acquisitions. The organic growth was, as Peter mentioned, 2.3% in the quarter.
All business areas except Oikla Home and Personal contributed to this positive organic growth. Let's now review the performance of each business area and then starting with Oikla Foods. Year on year comparison for Q3 showed that Foods delivered organic growth of 4.2% and an increase in EBIT of 20%. It's important to keep in mind, however, that Q3 last year was a weak quarter. The sales growth was broad based among the business units.
In Oikla Foods Sweden and Oikla Foods Finland, the distribution agreement of Tropicana Juice and new launches had positive effects. Weiklaf Foods Norway had sales increase driven by launches and within key categories and higher campaign activity. In general, there was a high level of campaign activity in this quarter, which is expected to be at a lower level in the Q4. Last year, the campaign program had the opposite profile with a higher level of activity in the Q4. The EBIT margin improved by 0.9 percentage points and ended at 13.2% for the quarter.
And the main drivers for the EBIT growth were sales increase and overall positive effects from cost improvements throughout the value chain. And now on to confectionery and snacks. Orikla Confectionery and Snacks reported organic growth of 1.2% in the quarter. The sales improvement was mainly driven by the Danish company, but also the Norwegian and Swedish companies. The inclusion of NP Foods resulted in considerable structural expansion.
The EBIT growth was primarily driven by strong sales and improved profitability in Denmark. Following the acquisitions of NP Foods, Oiklaas decided to restructure its operations in Latvia. This work is extensive and somewhat dampened the EBIT growth. Overall, EBIT margin was pulled back in the quarter due to the dilutive effect from the inclusion of NPE Foods. And we are also comparing, as Peter mentioned, performance to a strong half of twenty fourteen.
Nevertheless, the underlying margin growth was positive despite increased raw material prices, especially in Norway. Moving on to home and personal. Heikla Home and Personal suffered an organic revenue decline of 2.6% in the 3rd quarter. This was mainly down to Lilleborg and the P. I.
Robber Group. The decline for Lilleborg was to a certain extent expected as the sales in Norway were higher than normal in the latter part of Q2 prior to the holiday season and the price adjustments. Nevertheless, Liliborg's strong performance over time was also challenged by increasing competition in some home care categories in the Norwegian market. Kjell Robel Group showed decline after 2 strong quarters. The setback is caused by phasing of campaigns between the 3rd and the 4th quarter, limited the success with summer campaigns and changes in the retail markets.
Oikla Health showed improvements after a weak first half of the year. However, the market is still challenging. The acquisition of Seadrot has been approved by the competition authorities in all relevant countries on the condition that 2 brands, the 2 brands, Assana and Alevo, are sold. The sales process are ongoing. Seadrill's results are included in home and personal results as from September.
The EBIT margin ended at 19.1% in the quarter, and the decrease versus last year was caused by dilution from the inclusion of Seadrots as the main item. Several business units also experienced significantly higher input costs due to a week in the Norwegian kroner. As we look ahead to Oil Claf Food Ingredients, we see stronger performance. Odfjellfelder and Girdens delivered organic growth of 4% in the Q3 and reported an increase in EBIT of 32%. The improvement is caused by broad based sales growth benefiting from stronger market positions, stable raw material prices and an improved product mix.
The EBIT margin increased by 0 point 5 percentage points and ended at 6% in this quarter. The main driver for this EBIT improvement was organic revenue growth. In addition, the weak Norwegian kroner impacted EBIT positively due to translation effects. Strong organic growth and acquisitions has made the ice cream ingredients business an increasingly important part of the food ingredients. Ice cream ingredients normally has a strong season in both Q2 and Q3 and contributed strongly to the EBIT growth in this quarter.
This is a very seasonal business, and therefore, we expect weaker contribution in Q4 and in Q1. Let's now look at the results from Orkla Investments. During the Q3, there were no major changes to our assets in Oikla Investments. The shareholding in Grengis and our remaining share portfolio represent the combined market value of roughly NOK 1,200,000,000. Poikla Investments also manages a real estate portfolio with a book value of approximately NOK 1,700,000,000.
The Sapa joint ventures continue to make good progress with solid growth in underlying results in Q3 and year to date compared to last year. Strong North American markets and effects from synergy and restructuring initiatives contributed positively. And as Peter mentioned, the currency translation effects had additional positive impact on results both in the quarter and year to date. Oikla's share on net profit from Sapa was SEK54 1,000,000. In the quarter, there were some restructuring costs as well as unrealized derivative effects of SEK135 1,000,000 and SEK95 1,000,000 respectively.
Jotun only reports financial figures on a 4 monthly basis. As a result, we cannot present official figures for Jotun for the 3rd quarter, but this slide illustrates the development for the period January to August 2015. Jotun delivered all time high sales and operating profit year to date. The reported growth in revenue is highly affected by positive currency translation effects, But adjusted for these currency effects, the organic revenue is still at double digit level with growth across all segments and regions. The revenue growth is primarily driven by improved deliveries in the Marine Coatings segment.
In addition, decorative paints in the Middle East and Southeast Asia contributed positively. Increased sales volumes, better margins combined with good cost control contributed to the underlying growth in profits. In hydropower, all time high production volume in Q3 is explained by cold spring, late snow melting of substantial snow reservoirs and the rainy summer. This resulted in extremely low power prices, the lowest in 15 years, which in turn resulted in a drop in EBIT from SEK46 1,000,000 to SEK22 1,000,000. I will now take you through the changes in the net debt.
Net debt at the end of 2014 was SEK5.7 billion. Net expansion payments year to date totaled SEK2.2 billion, primarily related to the Seadrot acquisition. Cash flow from operations amounted to SEK2.2 billion. The net sale of shares and other financial items was SEK0.2 billion in the period. Due to the weakening, Norwegian kroner debt denominated in other currencies increased by SEK0.4 billion year to date, resulting in total net debt of SEK8.9 billion at quarterend.
This is well under the target of net interest bearing debt to EBITDA below 2.5 to 3 times. OI class net interest bearing debt had an average maturity of 3.6 years and an average interest rate of 2.9% year to date. Oikla's financial position is robust with cash reserves and credit lines that exceed known cash outlays over the next 12 months. I'll now hand the floor back to Thadir.
Okay. Thank you, Jens. To sum up, I will just revisit this slide that we communicated where we communicated the targets for the period going forward at Capital Markets Day. And I think we see that results indicate that we are on the right track. As I said at Capital Markets Day, our main focus will be on operation, improving operations.
We have to utilize the strengths, the knowledge, the capacities within Orkla and operate as one Orkla. We have to share IDs, products between business areas and countries. And of course, we have to take out synergies throughout Orkla and especially in the supply chain to improve margins and to reduce costs. However, we also see still see a lot of areas for improvement, a lot of challenges, but areas for improvement and challenges also means potential. So we will continue to focus on accelerating our performance in the coming periods.
But I also have to remind you that the competition out there is really tough, and we see some very strong headwinds from a weakening Norwegian currency and translation or the transaction effects related to the weak currency. So that is a challenge for us. I'll then open up for Q and A.
Carnegie. There was a lot of talk about market shares, and you're still a bit disappointed on your market share in the retail channel. And it seems like also within Foods and it seems like Lilleborg is losing some market share. Could you go a bit more in detail on who is challenging you? Is it new competitors?
Is it private labels? And how do you think about this going forward?
Well, as I mentioned, in the retail channel, we still see a slight decline in market shares. However, overall, if you look at all the channels, market shares are relatively stable, somewhat differing from category to category. But we see increased sale of a lot of our categories in new call it, new channels, DIY stores, Internet and so on. So when I'm talking about weakening market shares, this is in the Nielsen universe, and they're only measuring in the retail channel. So overall, also in Lilleborg, we maintain our market shares.
Yes. We have a question from the web from Peter Nystrom from ABG. Regarding food, you say campaign activity was slightly higher in the 3rd quarter, which is expected to have opposite effect in the Q4. Can you quantify this? And also, what's the like for like in foods, excluding distribution of Turkicana juice?
To the first question, I cannot quantify that. Like for like in Foods, excluding Tropicana, Jens?
Well, we've agreed with Pepsi that we don't disclose any sales figures there. So but when you look at the foods organic growth of 4.2% in the quarter and adjust for the combination of the international business and the Tropicana business, then call it underlying growth in foods is around 2%. So that's my answer. And then it's we didn't say that the campaigns would have an opposite effect. We said that the profile was somewhat different and that the campaign activity was higher in Q3 And that this campaign activity happened in more in Q4 last year.
So different profile.
No further questions? Okay. Thank you, everyone, for joining us here this morning.