Good morning, and welcome to Orkla's Capital Markets Update. My name is Annie Bersagel, and I'm the Head of Investor Relations and Communication. We've invited you all here today to give a more detailed update on Orkla's progress against our financial targets and to show how we create value within three of the largest portfolio companies. Just a little practical information: we have a livestream going on right now, so all the presentations will be webcast, and the recording of the webcast will also be available on the Investor Relations website, as well as all the presentation materials. If we turn to the agenda, we're going to begin with President and CEO Nils Selte, who will begin with an update on our progress against Capital Markets Day targets.
After that, EVP and CFO Arve Regland will provide a deeper dive on the financials, including the targets for the portfolio companies that are not presenting today. After that, we start with presentations from the three largest consolidated portfolio companies, starting with Orkla Foods CEO Aku Vikström. Following Aku's presentation, we are going to have a 20-minute break. It is important that you all hold your questions because we are going to have Q&A at the very end. Refreshments will be provided by the portfolio companies in the lobby outside of the auditorium. After the break, we are going to start back here at precisely 10:15 A.M. with CEO of Orkla Snacks, Ingvill Berg, who will present, followed by Orkla Food Ingredients CEO, Johan Clarin. When the presentations conclude, that is when we will have a joint Q&A. Everyone will come up here with Nils, Arve, Aku, Ingvill, and Johan.
We're going to be taking questions then first from the audience and then also from the web, so feel free to submit any written questions via the web during the presentations. After that, Nils will wrap up with some concluding remarks. With that, let me turn it over to you, Nils.
Thank you, Annie, and good morning to all of you. I'd like to open this Capital Markets Update with a simple headline: "We did exactly what we said we would do, and we intend to continue doing it." When I stood on stage in London in November 2023, I outlined that our target for an annual 12%-14% total share return is the ultimate KPI you can hold me accountable for. Now, the actual TSR development since the Capital Markets Day is about 40%, so in that sense, you could argue that we are done. What is important to me is that this target is based on the underlying value creation in the consolidated portfolio companies. On that score, we have still plenty of work to do, and I see a lot of potential.
I cannot guarantee the same return going forward, but I can guarantee that we will stay focused on the drivers that sustain TSR through good quarters and through tougher ones alike. To reach our TSR targets, we have three strategic priorities through 2026. First, our primary focus so far has been on organic value creation, while also reducing complexity in the existing portfolio. From the beginning of 2025, we communicated that we are intensifying our effort to identify value-adding structural transactions both to complement our existing portfolio and through new platform investments. Our core competence is within brands and consumer-oriented industries. We are looking for opportunities that build on our competence, where Orkla's active ownership toolbox can accelerate value creation. Since joining Orkla as CEO in 2022, I've been encouraged by the potential for value creation within our core.
We have changed the way we work, made sure that we have the right people in the right place, built competent boards, and changed the operating model in several companies. I'm pleased by all the good work executed in the portfolio companies. We are just beginning to see the benefit from increased autonomy and accountability. Aku, Ingvill, and Johan will speak to what this means for Orkla Foods, Orkla Snacks, and Orkla Food Ingredients today. We are nearly halfway into the strategy period with 5 or 12 quarters behind us, and I'm pleased to see continued progress from our companies in reaching our aggregated targets. Underlying EBIT adjusted growth is up from 6.9% in 2023 to 15% on a rolling 12-month basis. EBIT margin has improved from 9% to 10.3%, and the return on capital employed is up from 9.9% to 11.7%.
I said at the Capital Markets Day that our portfolio of 12 companies of varied size added complexity, and that we plan to reduce that number to 7-9 over the strategy period. We are now at 10 portfolio companies. Even at 10 portfolio companies today, the difference is clear. We have a more scalable active ownership model. We can draw synergies from our business service companies and center of excellence for a greater share of the portfolio than we could in 2023, and we are able to allocate our resources to more value-adding activities. Since November 2023, we divested two Transformor exit companies. In addition, I said that we would explore opportunities for our hydropower business. That process ended with the sale of the entire portfolio earlier this year.
Let me emphasize in this process going forward that we won't force a deal unless it is in the best interest of Orkla shareholders. We will continue to simplify the portfolio on the same terms: value first, timetable second. I presented this framework in November 2023 to categorize our companies in three groups: grow and build, anchor and transform, or exit. We use this in the capital allocation process and to help reduce complexity in the portfolio. As I said then, this is a dynamic framework, and the categorization of companies may change over time. Today, I'm pleased to announce that we are reclassifying Orkla Home & Personal Care as an anchor company. The company was carved out as an independent portfolio company in 2023 to focus on driving profitable growth in the home and personal care categories in the Nordics.
At the time, the company was underperforming in tough market conditions. Orkla Home & Personal Care has now completed a successful turnaround with increased focus on investments into hero brands and organizational adjustments and stronger customer collaboration combined with net revenue management and cost-out initiatives. The company has delivered financial results well above the targets communicated at the Capital Markets Day, with EBIT adjusted more than doubled in two years and robust delivery on all KPIs. We are seeing strong long-term position for this company with organic value creation potential combined with robust cash flow generation. The company has been a successful pilot for the rest of the portfolio, implementing modern tools to achieve growth that we are now rolling out into the other portfolio companies. Aku will tell you more about this methodology during his presentation of Orkla Foods.
Let me close by saying that I'm proud of all the hard work from the nearly 400 employees in Orkla Home and Personal Care to complete this turnaround. With that, I will hand over the floor to Arve to elaborate on the progress towards our financial targets.
Thank you, Nils, and good morning. Let me begin by going beyond the usual quarterly lens to give you a longer-term view on our financials. The consolidated portfolio company's revenue and EBIT shows steady growth over many years. Over the past six years, revenue grew by 10% annually, with annual EBIT adjusted growth of 8%. EBIT margins have remained within the range of 9%-12% and are currently on a positive trend in line with our target, as Nils mentioned. Orkla has demonstrated consistent underlying earnings growth over time, with earnings per share compound annual growth of roughly 10% over the period. As an investment company with both fully and partially owned consolidated companies, as well as associated companies like Jotun, this is an increasingly relevant metric for Orkla. We see a marked increase in cash flow from operations from 2023.
This is a result of both increased EBIT as well as reductions in net working capital. As we guided at the Capital Markets Day in 2023, replacement investment as a share of operating revenues also declined from 4% in 2023 to 3% last year. We are now more focused on cash generation across the portfolio. With the change in our operating model, portfolio company management teams are not only responsible for the EBIT, but also for the balance sheet and the cash flow. Our capital allocation priorities remain firm. First, to pay a stable, increasing ordinary dividend. Second, to conduct long-term value accretive investments, both structural and organic. Third, we return excess capital to shareholders. Acquisition spend over the last two years has been at historic lows. As Nils mentioned, we are intensifying our evaluation of value-adding structural transactions.
As we indicated at the Q1 presentation, we estimate the leverage ratio as net debt to EBITDA at 1.9 times at the end of the second quarter after closing the hydropower transaction and payment of dividend. Let me now provide you with an update on the portfolio companies not presenting today, except for Orkla India. As stated at the Capital Markets Day in 2023 and the second quarter earnings results last year, we have been evaluating various structural options for Orkla India to unlock value, including accessing the Indian capital markets. For this reason, we are unable to comment on any forward-looking information with respect to Orkla India. Beginning with Jotun, the company continues to outperform relative to its financial targets, with an operating margin of 20% and return on capital employed of 34% in 2024.
Note that these are Jotun's long-term targets, which were in place well before Orkla's current strategy period. Our outlook for 2025 remains unchanged. Jotun expects continued sales growth at a higher level than projected market growth. However, operating margins are expected to decline compared to the historic high levels that we've seen the last two years. On balance, we expect Jotun to deliver 2025 results on par with last year. Orkla Health holds market-leading positions in its home markets, with ample room to grow across geographies, channels, and within categories. It's fair to say that we underestimated the amount of time it would take for Orkla Health to capture profitable growth from the organizational buildup. The change in CEO was also a complicating factor. Since the beginning of the strategy period, Orkla Health has strengthened its focus on the company's core markets, combined with international expansion of select brands.
We are confident in the company's long-term prospects, and Orkla Health's targets remain unchanged. Turning to the European Pizza Company, while we see a strong positive development in the grassroots in Poland, consumer sentiment in our other core markets is weaker than we anticipated at the outset of the strategy period. We also met setbacks in the German business that required a restructuring and downsizing in 2023 and part of 2024. Going forward, the company continues to focus on a capital-light expansion in existing operations, particularly in the grassroots in Poland, and leveraging scale across markets. Orkla Healthcare continues to track positively against its target for EBIT margin. They remain focused on growing core brands while also reducing complexity across the value chain.
The company has established a robust transformation program, which has brought a step change in the way they monitor and follow up the execution of its strategy. Health and Sports Nutrition Group has made good progress on its targets for both revenue and cash generation. Growth stems from active price management together with volume growth in grocery trade and from the D2C platform. The positive cash conversion is heavily linked to optimizing inventory levels and improved payment terms, while progress on the EBIT margin target has been more challenging due to increased raw material prices for protein powder. These are the ESG targets that we presented at the Capital Markets Day. We have reduced greenhouse gas emissions from scope one and two by 64.2% and are progressing according to plan to meet the 2030 target of 70% reduction.
We revised our scope three greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, and these were approved by the Science-Based Targets Initiative. Scope three reductions are challenging and depend on significant changes in our value chain. We continue to develop a responsible climate transition program together with our portfolio companies. Portfolio companies in the food sector continue to develop their positive health impact plans. At the end of 2024, roughly a quarter of our management teams had the agenda balance between 40% and 60%. We still have some way to go to achieve our diversity targets. At the 2023 Capital Markets Day, we presented a methodology for reaching a total shareholder return of 12%-14%. As Nils said, our TSR target is not based on the share price development, but the implied increase in the underlying net asset value of Orkla.
Even though we are more than halfway in terms of net asset value creation that underpins the TSR target, there remains plenty of additional potential for value creation through the remainder of the strategy period. With a diverse portfolio, we expect some companies may overdeliver and some may underdeliver. In some, however, we are on track to meet our targets. With that, I'd like to present the CEO of Orkla Foods, Aku Vikström.
Thank you, Arve. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. This is the first time I will be speaking to you as a new CEO of Orkla Foods. I'm very, very excited to be here today, sharing my first insights eight months in the job about this wonderful business and our progress against the targets in 2026, but also sharing some thoughts and new thinking that we are injecting into the business going forward. Let me start by introducing myself. As you can see, I have worked all my life in foods, all my life with brands and people, so I think I'm a good fit for Orkla Foods' CEO. First 17 years of my career, I had an opportunity to work for a wonderful family company called Mars, also making food products across the world.
I joined after Mars for a 10-year journey in the restaurant business, which is all about food, all about food taste and experiences. There I had an opportunity to first work under private equity ownership, and then the last five years I was leading the largest restaurant group in the Nordics in a stock-listed company in Helsinki. If you want to look at what are the things that are common, I always work with brands and people, and this is the thing that makes Orkla Foods also special. Just a quick reminder of what Orkla Foods is about. It is the largest fully owned portfolio company by Orkla. We operate in the European food market, which is roughly NOK 608 billion stable business.
Our business is mainly in the Nordics and in Central Europe, where we have a higher purchasing power and a strong relation to local brands. Local brands is one of the things that I hope you will remember from today's session, because food is all about local taste. It's all about local tradition, local heritage, and that's why local brands play such an important role, because these are the brands that are built over decades into our repertoire. Our market consists of 14 different countries. We delivered last year about NOK 20 billion revenue, about NOK 2.5 billion EBIT, with a nice over 120% cash conversion rate, and we employ 5,500 people. You can say this is a sizable and nice business to have. What makes this business very special is the collection of our brands. As I said, food taste and eating habits are all very local.
To play in this game, you need a collection of local brands, which are built over the years. We have a fantastic collection of those brands. I can argue that we have at least one brand in every single household in our markets. That's a pretty nice thing to have, to get access to the most sacred places of people's homes and dinner tables. We have 49 number one brands in our portfolio. This is a pretty interesting number, 49 number one brands with category leaderships. 80% of our revenue comes from number one and number two brands. This is obviously the name of the game in FMCG to be able to win, that you need to have the winning brands. Our share of market share is two times competition in our main categories and three times market share of private labels.
A very strong platform to build for the future. That you need to combine, of course, with people and our operating model. I think when you combine the great brands and the great people, you get the great business. This is our competitive advantage when we can combine the regional scale with local empowerment. The scale benefits we have are typical economies of scale with lower unit cost procurement, bargaining power through the value chain. We also have scale benefits vis-à-vis our trading partners. We are a top five supplier in all of the markets we operate. That means that we have access to discuss with our trading partners how we can build categories. We are often the first point of contact when they need help building and growing the categories. Last but not least, we have access to the best talent.
I can really say with my experience working for Mars, here we have great talent. I think the difference versus many multinationals is because here we let people still do their jobs. They are very much accountable and empowered, driving their own business, driving their own markets. This is some engine that we want to build on. Combining this local empowerment, local accountability with the scale benefits, that is a unique model, which I believe makes Orkla such a special place to work for. We have scale also to develop the talent. We want to be the marketing university, if you want, of the Nordics. If you look at our results, this can be backed up by what I just said. Great brands and great people make a great business. We have a consistent delivery on earnings and cash.
As mentioned last year, NOK 2.5 billion, above NOK 2.5 billion EBIT. That was a 9% growth on the previous year. So we can be happy on the financial delivery of our company. I'm also happy to confirm that we are on track to deliver what was promised. Nils said in the morning that he has delivered and we have delivered what we promised. Same goes for Orkla Foods. We are on track to meet the 2026 targets when you look at our financials. We have delivered the reorganizations or redevelopments in three of our biggest markets. So we are more efficient now in Norway, Sweden, and Czechoslovak markets. We have made a step change in procurement, delivered savings above NOK 200 million annually from our value chain.
We have focused in our cash management, mainly in inventories and payment terms, released about NOK 1 billion capital since the capital market day. This is pretty effective work, which I cannot take any credit for because this is the team that has been working on it since last capital market days. However, as we know, there are things that we need to improve and we want to improve. This is related, of course, to the way we want to grow this business going forward. If you look at the FMCG industry over the last couple of years, we all experienced the same cycle. Historically high inflation on input costs, which has led us pricing towards the market to defend our business model and margins, and that consequently leading to volume hit. This is the cycle where we need to break out.
This is the cycle where I'm very committed with my team to break out. I'll talk a little bit in the next couple of minutes how we plan to do that. We have all we need to deliver that, but we need to shift a little bit of our thinking and strategy how we go forward towards more balanced growth in the future. The areas where we will focus, I will explain a bit more in detail, but let me first tell you how I came to this conclusion. When I joined Orkla as an outsider, I obviously wanted to respect and understand the culture and learn how this business has been so successful.
I really spent the first six weeks traveling across all our business units, visiting 17 factories, talking to hundreds of people, going to the sales stores with the salespeople and really understand what makes this business special. That was interesting. That was very insightful, as I mentioned in the beginning, that we have a lot of strengths to build. The brand equity we hold in this company is unique. It's absolutely unique. The scale we can have on our supply chain and in our procurement brings us advantage. The people we have in this business are very talented and empowered. We have scale also regarding to our trading partners. Like every business, every company, there are areas we can improve.
There are three things that we are going to inject into new thinking and a new strategy going forward, which will help us to accelerate our growth trend. Those are focus, simplification, and new ways of working. Let me tell you what I mean with this. I believe the focus in our kind of business, where we have a very fragmented portfolio, a lot of brands, a lot of categories to build, is essential to drive growth. All focus starts from portfolio. We have conducted quite extensive work on our food portfolio to be clearer on the choices where we were going to invest and where we will not invest going forward. Out of that work, where to play and how to win, we have defined three different clusters where 60% of our business sits in the growth category.
This is typically categories and brands where we hold clear number one or number two positions, where we see a positive growth outlook building on consumer trends going forward, and where we see relatively lower private label share in that business. We believe that's going to be the growth engine with our capabilities going forward. 20% of our business is sitting in what we call defense scale. These are categories and brands where we see growth outlook, but a bit more moderate than in our growth categories, but which are important for our business model to defend our cash position and defend our scale. There are the areas where we need to put attention, but we are not investing above the line advertising, for instance, to the same extent of the growth categories.
Then we have 20%, which is a new thing in Orkla Foods' thinking, areas where we see that are not future-proof in terms of category growth going forward, or where we see that we are not maybe the best owner of that part of the business or competitive going forward. These are the areas where we will look actively also to divest to make our portfolio more productive. Having these areas of focus, I believe we can accelerate our decision-making execution, have clearer priorities, and then stronger market execution going forward. Let me elaborate what this growth part, 60% of business, actually consists. Breakdown of growth clusters is, as mentioned, these are the platforms or categories where we see are driven by consumer trends, where we have a future-proof model for growth and where our competitiveness is very strong. First three are common across our region.
These are growth platforms where we have scale benefits, frozen meals, that's including pizza, for instance, ready meals and fries, all sitting on a wave of consumer trend growth. The category is growing and we have capabilities to win in that category. Sauces, all about enjoyment, ketchup, mayonnaise, salad dressings, all things that people add to their food repertoire as enjoyment, a growth category, and we are very competitive in this market. The third category, a real profit pool, is about dilutables, fun light drink, which you can enjoy during the break. It's a nice business where we have strong market position in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and we are going to scale it up in our region. These three growth platforms will shape 40% of our business. This will dictate our investments in both money and time.
This is where we will win market share, and this is where we will not take any step back. In our business, which is also very local, we have still very nice positions locally, which are not scalable regionally. Those we call local diamonds. These are, for instance, TUR brand in Norway, TUR Dinner brand, fantastic, our biggest brand in Norway, fantastic brand, one of the strongest brands overall in Norway. This is a typical local diamond where we will invest and where we will grow. This makes 20% of our business, these local diamonds. Altogether, 60% of our business is going to be the growth engine going forward, focusing our resources and investments. Good. The second topic is about simplification. What we mean with simplification, complexity is a typical challenge for FMCG.
This is a partially self-created problem because there has been inability to grow in FMCG. Normally companies are very active in building innovation, new product launches, year after year range extensions. If you take a five-year horizon, you see how many of those new product developments have actually stayed there. It's a very, very small %. This complexity, we also have been a bit of victim, this behavior. We need to step back and take a much more rigid approach to complexity. We have started the journey already since the last capital market day. We have cut 20% of our SKUs in the portfolio, mainly from the supply end of the business. This is a typical way you approach your portfolio, cutting cost, cutting complexity. What we need to shift now is to look at our portfolio from a consumer standpoint.
Understanding what are the needs, what are the occasions that you need to cover in the market to be competitive, start from that angle and understand that the real bottleneck for your portfolio is the shelf in store, not necessarily only your supply chain. Moving the attention and perspective on the demand side of the business, we will start looking at our portfolio and simplification as a tool to grow, creating more space for the hero SKUs, high-rotating SKUs, and taking away those SKUs that not necessarily rotate. That's a big change of mind on a company that has been very focused on bringing innovation. It does not happen overnight, but we have started this journey to understand that more SKUs do not necessarily bring growth, but actually dilute your core, also your time and investments and critical assets in store.
Let me give you a simple example of that, what I mean. Here you see a store, one store in Sweden where we had an improvement potential to shift the planogram of the shelf so that we have fewer SKUs and we have the better selling SKUs in the better place. This is very simple FMCG logic, but when we do these types of things, when we put focus on this, we can deliver much higher sales productivity. This individual store delivered 32% growth. Please do not replicate that as a new growth trend for us, but for this individual store doing this without any capital, just making focus on the core business, on the core SKUs instead of putting your time on innovation. These are the type of bread and butter for our business going forward.
This is the type of things we need to do as a category captain. We have access to trade, and these are the things that do not reserve any capital, but just your time and right mind. Third area of focus on top of focus and simplification are the new ways of working. As I said, we are a very decentralized business, and that brings you a lot of advantage, but that brings you the common mindset that you are looking for unique things rather than common things. What we want to do is we want to get system value of our commercial engine much better. Therefore, we have launched new standardized ways of working and growth engine, which is called growth wheel. First thing is that we have set a clear growth strategy for the company.
When we talk about growth, we do not talk about only price-driven growth or innovation-driven growth, but the balanced growth of real internal growth, which means price, volume, and mix. Brand is an instrument to create value. Yes, pricing will remain as a tool, but we cannot depend only on pricing. We need to have better balance on volume and mix growth and introducing the concept of user-based penetration measure. These are the type of levers we want to drive this business going forward, organic growth. Understanding, have a common understanding across the markets, which are the demand drivers that you need to have to drive your penetration up. This is all institutionalized in this growth wheel. We start to look at things like I mentioned about the portfolio, your shelf, pricing, your product performance, all those standard items of FMCG.
In a way, you could say going back to the basics. Thirdly, all of this is captured in the standardized tool of growth wheel, which puts data and fact-driven decisions in the centerpiece of our marketing and demand organization. It is a great tool because it connects sales and marketing. It is a universal language across the markets, which helps us to identify the root causes, why growth is not happening, and fix them in a systematic manner on data-driven methodology. I am really happy because a lot of people, my colleagues who are listening, and I can be really proud of the reception of this new philosophy, new tool, has been mind-blowing. This is a really positive thing, and I think we are doing the same thing across other portfolio companies, but this can really be a game changer when we do that.
Let me give you again a practical example of this very short time because we've only been here a short time, but Grandiosa, all of you who come from Norway know that's an iconic pizza brand. Norwegians eat more pizza than anybody in Europe. This is our number three brand in Norway, iconic brand where we have struggled with growth, struggled with base sales, and we have been compensating that in a typical manner of bringing new products into markets, new flavors, and promoting. Going back to the root causes of this problem through this tool, we have identified actually that the root causes in this brand and in this given SKU is actually twofold. One, the product doesn't deliver against the same qualities and taste as main competition. So when you ask from a systematic way from consumers, our product doesn't deliver at the same level of consumers.
It does not matter how much you put advertising money if your product does not deliver. We have to fix that. That is the basics. The second thing is when we have been advertising, we have not done that at the minimal level, which is adequate for building a brand and brand memory structures. This type of analysis and diagnostics, this tool will help to have the right conversations in a fact-driven, data-driven manner, and then putting the focus on fixing the root causes. Putting the R&D effort instead of bringing new products in the markets, putting the focus in renovating your core in the core business where the beef is. They have done that in Norway, fantastic way, not managed top-down, but giving tools, framework to look at the business through the same lenses.
As you can see, the early results on this given hero item is 29% year-to-date sales up. These are the type of things we want to inject into the business. Improved focus, simplifying and understanding simplification as a way to grow the business, not to take cost and capital only out, but also to grow the business, and then common ways of working. By that, standardized ways of working, we have a freedom within the framework where we can build on this accountability and empowerment of our local organizations with this aligned commercial engine. Good. That was just a taster.
We have an opportunity to meet later, and if there's any questions on this, I'm quite excited to share those later on, but hopefully you got a little bit of idea what are the three main things, new things that we inject into our thinking and strategy going forward. The good news is that we are on track on all 26 targets in EBIT and cash, and we need to accelerate the growth. We are committed to do that. It will take a bit of time because the things what we are fixing and what we are improving are the ones that we want to put fundamentally in place to deliver sustainable organic growth, but we are on a good track to deliver that. I am very committed that we will do that.
On the way to deliver the 2026 targets with this more balanced growth, which we will achieve through focus, simplification, and common ways of working, we will shift our resources where we can win. We can see our core part of the business will be bigger already in 2026, but even going forward, the ambition level to grow our core business is we are raising the ambition level. As we are also letting some parts go of our business, areas to divest, we are going to actively look at new categories where we can build scale and build value to do acquisitions to complement our core business. We will have even stronger and more future-proof portfolio going forward.
It will not be a walk in the park because some of the things like when you talk about product delivery or packaging or simplification, it will take time, but when we will get there, it is a sustainable model that will bring us organic growth going forward. I am very committed with my team to deliver the ambitions of 2026, but also raising the ambitions going 2030. I'm really happy to be here today talking to you. Thank you.
Thank you, Aku. We're running a little bit ahead of schedule, so we're going to go ahead and take a break and come back at 10:00 instead of 10:15. We'll start a little bit earlier here. Orkla Snacks' next CEO, Ingvill Berg, will begin her presentation then.
Just a reminder, we're having the Q&A with everyone after all of the presentations are finished, so please reserve your questions until then. Please go out, try some of our products. There is a soft serve machine even, and see you back here at 10:00.
Okay, welcome back and hello everyone. I am Ingvill Berg, I'm the CEO of Orkla Snacks, and I'm looking very much forward now to present to you the strategy of Orkla Snacks and the update of our strategic priorities. Yes, let's start. Our aspiration is very clear. It is about being the number one snacking choice for the Nordic Baltic consumers. We are winning both by having very strong local brands, but also a team of very passionate, engaged, capable people. Okay, do I need to start from the beginning? Can I suppose the webhook? I can just continue.
Okay, so just let me reiterate the aspiration then. Being the number one snacking choice, winning with both our very strong local brands and also our passionate, engaged people. We'll have a clicker that does not work. Then it works. Okay, first, a company overview. Orkla Snacks has revenues of around NOK 10 billion. We are playing into three snacking categories: biscuit, confectionery, and snacks. We are operating in seven markets in the Nordic Baltics. We have around 3,000 employees and 13 factories. The snacking categories, it's really a very attractive place to be. These categories, they are large. They have really good growth rates over time. The margins are good, both for the retailers and even the manufacturers. I think maybe most importantly, it's quite low, a relatively low private label share in the snacking categories.
To the right here, or actually to the left, you can see our position in Orkla Snacks. We really have some truly market-leading positions, being number one or number two in most of the markets and categories. This is really the fundament for our company. If we take a look at the financial development of 2024, we did have a very strong year. We had an EBIT growth of around 25%, growing our EBIT from around NOK 1 billion up to NOK 1.3 billion. If you look to the left, you can see the four targets that we communicated in the previous capital markets day. We have good progress across all of these targets. I've already talked about the EBIT. We are growing EBIT margin up to 13.1%. We had a good volume mix growth last year, above two percentage points.
Cash conversion, strong, 112%, and a good also development in return on capital employed, up to 11.7. A very strong year. Looking into the 2025 financials, the high cocoa prices we see in the market will impact our chocolate category. We have seen very high volatility within the cocoa market over the last year, one and a half years. We see cocoa prices more than tripling compared to a more normalized level in 2023. We have a very strong mitigation program in place. We are working with pricing. We're also working with price pack optimizations to make sure that we hit the right consumer price points. We are working with an aggressive end-to-end cost program across the whole value chain to compensate for some of the impact from cocoa. I'm very proud of our organization working very hard with these mitigating actions.
With these actions, I'm also confident that we can compensate for much of the negative impact we see from the cocoa development. However, the outlook for 2025 still remains uncertain. The key here is what will happen with the market volume. We see naturally lower market volumes now following higher pricing. We do not know how this will develop over the next few weeks and months. When we look more over time, we do believe that there will be a better balance between supply and demand in the cocoa market. With that, also lower cocoa pricing. With that, we will recover both our margins and our volumes. We do remain committed to the targets we have communicated for 2026. Of course, that will be pending that we have more normalized levels of cocoa. Good.
Let me talk more about our strategy and our strategic priorities. When I presented in the Capital Markets Day in London one and a half years ago, I talked about these three key priorities for Orkla Snacks. The first one was about winning with heroes. That is about growing volumes, growing market share, and really being prioritized, having strong portfolio management, which hero brands to support, and really step change the investment behind these brands. That is number one. The second part is to have a more aggressive end-to-end cost out programs, cost agenda to really fuel the investment we need, both in our brands and also in capabilities. The third priority is about capability and enablers, and really step changing our ability to win in the market and drive operational efficiency. I will now go into each of these three.
Before doing that, I would like to state that we really see a lot of focus on these three across our company, and also very good progress on all of these. First of all, I would like to speak to you a bit more about the commercial priorities we're doing. We have some very strong category strategies in place with clear commercial priorities for each of the three categories. If we start with snacks, here we have strong number one brands. We have OLW in Sweden, KiMS in Denmark, Laima in Latvia. We have Taffel in Finland. Really strong brand positions. The focus here is on the biggest snack segments, potato chips, cheese. Here we're really driving and focusing on driving volume, market share through strong consumer activations, through innovations, and also we focus on product quality.
We have also a specific focus in snacks on price pack architecture and formats to really make sure that we tap into all the different consumer petitions we see in the market. If we turn over to confectionery, here we have both some very interesting, exciting brands. We have Boops, we have Smash, where we see that there is both potential to grow in the whole market in Sweden, Norway, but we even see potential across all of our seven markets and even outside those. That's the first priority here. It's about driving these, what we call pan-regional brands across our markets. We are also very proud owners of number one legacy chocolate brands. We have Kalev in Estonia, Laima, Neusirus. We have Nidar here in Norway, number two player. We also focus here on driving these strong brand platforms, stepping up communication, activation of these brands.
Of course, short term, a lot of work ongoing also to mitigate the cocoa situation within chocolate. Biscuit is also a very interesting category. Here we work a bit both on one side, expanding more into indulges and delivering on that, but on this other side, also working on tapping into everyday consumption by focusing on the snacking segments. When we met last time, I talked about the challenges we've had in the biscuit factory. I must say that that's going very well. We are fully ramped up. It's working very well. We've been able to now deliver full service level. We now have very strong both capabilities and also capacity. This is a fantastic opportunity for growth within biscuits. A key focus for us now is across our markets to work with strong growth platforms and coming from our new factory.
We have also here strong number one brands across our markets. I'm sure you recognize many of them with Ballerina, Jøttebakk, Sætre, and so on. I want to share one success story from the last years, and that is Smash. Last year, we had an impressive growth of Smash of 30% in the whole market, Norway. That growth came both from working with a new communication. We launched a new communication platform, but we also here worked more with format innovations and launched the XXL bag, which has been very successful. 30% growth in the whole market is strong, but we even had close to 100% growth outside Norway. This is mainly in Sweden and Finland, where we launched the tablet into these markets and with that also activating the Smash bag. Together, this gave a very, very good growth for Smash.
With all this good growth, we have capacity limitations. We are in the process of building a new Smash line in our Nidar factory in Trondheim, and that will double the capacity for Smash going forward. A great foundation for growth. Another brand that has had a very impressive growth over the last years is Boops. We've seen close to doubling of volumes over the last few years. We've seen a lot of potential in our whole markets. Main markets now are Sweden and Norway, but we see a lot of interest for Boops also outside in our other Nordic markets. We even see a global demand here. There's been a lot of traction on Boops and this whole Swedish candy concept on social media, TikTok with influencers. This is really a diamond in our portfolio. The only limitation we have now is capacity.
We could have sold so much more if we had more capacity. That is why I am very happy now that we are in the process of building an entire new Boops line in our factory in Jönköping, and that will double capacity for Boops. I am also really, really excited about the launch we are now doing in the U.S. market that was announced a few weeks ago. We have entered into a strategic partnership with a local U.S.-based partner, Mount Franklin Foods, which will support us with sales, distribution, and production. Together with them, we will launch now somewhere late this fall. Of course, very early days, but we have had the first customer dialogues, and it is very promising. Let us see what this can be, but I think this is really exciting.
Another success story talking about winning with heroes, that is about our snacks category and our KiMS brand in Denmark. KiMS is a really strong brand. I think it's for the last three, four years, we've been named the number one strongest brand in Denmark. With this brand, I think the team in Denmark have done a very good job in activating with having very strong promotions, launching new communication platforms, and also working very well with in-store activation of KiMS. We have a very strong field sales force, ranked recently number one. This has given a very good growth in both volume and market share over the last years. Last year, 9% volume growth, which is very impressive.
With that, I would like to turn into our second priority, and that is about cost, because we need fuel to invest behind our brands and drive margin and invest in capabilities. I must say, I'm very happy with the strong cost program we have in place. The first program is about input cost reduction. The largest part of our cost base, that is raw material input factors. Now we are working with a strong procurement program to reduce our costs. A key here is harmonizing. It's about harmonizing ingredients, specifications, raw materials across our markets to get more volume into fewer specifications and in that way get costs down. Another important priority when we're talking about cost, that is production efficiencies. A key here is what also Aku talked about, reducing complexity.
Last year, we reduced our portfolio by 17%, and we will continue to have a focus to decomplexify. We're also focusing on having the best possible efficiencies on our lines. It's about having larger volumes on fewer SKUs and really maximizing efficiency. On both these first areas, we target to have above NOK 100 million annually in cost savings. Another focus area within the cost side is fixed cost. Here we focus on optimizing our organization and indirect cost through driving system value and scale. The target we've set here is to reduce our fixed cost as a percentage of sales by 0.5% annually. The last part is about capital efficiency, and it's been mentioned earlier today as well, but we have a high focus on reducing the maintenance CapEx and replacement CapEx. The key here is to utilize the network of factories.
We have 13 factories, and we have somewhere lack of capacity, other places more capacity. We aim to reduce or optimize the use of this capacity and reduce replication of technology. Specializing more each of the factories. Last priority is about capability. We are also taking very important steps now to strengthen our ability to win in the market. We are working across several levers here. I want to talk about three of them today. First one is about implementing a new joint commercial model for growth. This is the same growth wheel or growth model that Aku talked about earlier. We are implementing the same model also into Orkla Snacks. For me, this is a very most of all, it is a structured way to drive penetration across our markets. It is about driving mental availability, physical availability, and making sure that we optimize our product offerings.
Another important initiative we're driving right now is implementing a common cross-market sales and operational planning process, or S&OP, as we call it. This is really important because most of all, we always need to have 100% or not 100%, but the right service level, probably in 98% and 97%. At all times to have the right service level, that's important for our customers and our consumers. It is also important to have a strong S&OP process to optimize costs. This is about both optimizing the inventory levels and also optimizing the line efficiencies that we talked about earlier. This is a key going forward. We recently also launched a new supply chain strategy focusing both on operational efficiency and also product quality. A key focus in that strategy, that's about performance discipline in our factories and the day-to-day governance.
We're taking very important good steps there. It is also about digitalizations. We see large opportunities to run our lines and our factories more efficient by using new technology. We are now doing a lot of projects across our factories piloting new technology and seeing how we can digitalize more our operations. These are some examples of all the good work ongoing now talking about capabilities. For the last part now of my presentation, I would like to talk about our operating model. Maybe that seems a bit boring, but it is actually very important for how we run our business. We've had a model previously where we had the different business units operating quite independently and being only loosely connected.
We have now built a new model where we still remain close to local consumers and local customers, but we also have organized for scale, collaboration, and system value. We take the local consumer market insight we have, we scale solutions where it makes sense, and with that support the local teams in the markets to win in the markets and execute with excellence. The fundament for what we are talking about here is what is said in the bottom. We want to remain local where it matters, but also drive system value where it makes a difference. This model was fully operational now from 1st of January. The foundation for our new operating model is what we call the Orkla Snacks value creation diamond.
A key principle now in how we drive our business is to also focus more into the category dimension, not only working the market dimension, but also more the category dimension. That is why we have built strong category-organized teams focusing on snacks, biscuit, confectionery, supporting our local markets. We have centralized now fully the R&D and sustainability function. This function will have responsibility for owning the whole product portfolio and driving innovations, renovations, optimizing product quality. This department will also be essential for the cost out I mentioned earlier. I talked about harmonization of specifications, ingredients, and so on. We need one joint department to do that across markets. Another thing that is new is that we have established a new central commercial department that we have not had previously.
This commercial department is responsible for developing and outlining our commercial priorities and strong category strategies for each of the three categories, of course, in connection and together with the local business units. This central commercial function is also responsible for owning and sharing best practice, the growth model, growth wheel I talked about, net revenue management, and together with also the Orkla Centers of Excellence, implementing that out into the markets. We have also a fully centralized supply chain team now. We have a fully centralized procurement department working closely together with R&D, and this is key for our cost takeout. We have also the planning and logistic department running also now the whole S&OP consolidation initiative I talked about earlier. We have now category-organized our supply chain.
That means that instead of each factory being owned by the local markets, we have one supply chain director for all the confectionery factories, one for all the snacks factories, and one for biscuit. I think the totality of this and the central functions here in the diamond will really support where the value is created in the end, which is out in the market, where we meet consumers and customers. I am very confident about this new way of working, and that will really accelerate our strategy. I think key to be able to do this change, because this is really a huge transformational change for us in Orkla Snacks. This has been possible because now we are a much more independent, autonomous portfolio company. We have been able to do what is right for Orkla Snacks.
We have also received very, very strong support from our board in this transition. One of the changes in the new Orkla setup is also that we have our own boards, and those both with internal board members, but even with board members from external coming in with external backgrounds, bringing also in external perspective, experience from working in different operating models in regional global players. That has really been useful for us in this change. Are you getting impatient now, Johan? I think this has really been key for us. As I said, I do believe that this new way of working, our new operating model, will accelerate our strategy implementation. I believe it will accelerate top line. I have already talked about the joint category strategies we have developed. It is all about setting direction. That is what it starts with for the whole company.
Like example, knowing now that Boops, Smash, those will be priorities across our companies. We can come together, consolidate volumes, and that also makes us able to build good business case for the big investments we are now doing in new technology and capacity for those brands. It is a lot also about using now we're implementing marketing mix modeling to make sure that we optimize the ROI of the investments we do in our brands. It is both about increasing the investment in our brands, but it is also about making sure that we have the best ROI of those investments. I think I already mentioned several examples of how this will support us in driving cost out and the cost program I presented earlier. A key here is harmonization.
That takes someone to own the recipes and the specifications to make sure that we can use more of the same. I just heard some examples last week from the snacks team working together. Coming into this year, it was planned to launch, because we do launch this every year, I think it was planned for 17 new flavors into our business. That is a lot of complexity. By joining forces, working together, utilizing the flavor bank that we have now created, we are now down to four new flavors. That is a huge improvement. Also, just another example, I heard sour cream and onion, one of our important flavors in snacks. We are now going down from seven to two flavors. It is back to demonstrating how we can reduce complexity.
Another important part is how we utilize our capacity, our production network of 13 factories, making sure that we utilize the capacity we have, that we do not replicate all the technology and drive too much complexity. Also back to the CapEx part and make sure that it enables us to reduce maintenance CapEx. Utilizing our joint production network, it is easier when you have a joint supply chain organization and you have one supply chain director for all the factories within a category. Now I am probably getting into details, but I think this is so fun to talk about. The last part is about strengthening capabilities. I think also implementing capabilities across markets. You need someone that is the expert, someone that owns it and runs out the implementation.
I think we have that with the commercial new department with central R&D, central planning and logistics, and so on. That will really help to build those common best practices and frameworks and roll it out. I think also another thing I would like to mention talking about capabilities. It is also the leadership changes we have made throughout this process. We have a very strong foundation to build from. As you talked about also, Aku, we have a great set of people and we have great leaders. It's been really good for us to combine that leadership, but also bringing in some new leaders in some of the key roles, bringing into us external perspective and experience from global regional players in the outside world. I think together this is really now giving a very strong leadership of our companies.
To sum it up, I am very happy with the progress we are making on our strategic priorities. In Orkla Snacks, we have very strong local brands, and we even have some brands with global potential. We have seen here Boops in New York. This is AI, but it looks good, I have to say. We have something that is difficult to buy for money, and that is our people. We have very passionate, engaged people. We have a very strong company culture. We have a clear strategic direction, and we have now an operating model that is fit for purpose for our strategy. Summing it up, I believe Orkla Snacks is really a company that is set up for future success. Thank you. Now, finally, it's up to you, Johan.
Thank you, Ingvill. That was a great and inspiring presentation.
I'm proud and super excited to share an update on the journey that we are on in terms of building a leading European and US food ingredients company. This journey is powered by four Cs. Number one, consistency in strategy execution. Number two, that is continuous improvements. Three, customer focus, and four, culture. I will, during the coming 20 minutes, share how these driving forces come into play on the journey that we are on. First, we are in Orkla Food Ingredients very fortunate to operate in large and growing markets. Mind you, the definition of the market here is actually the smallest definition, because as we move into new geographies and new categories, the market size will grow exponentially. It's actually not only size that makes this an attractive market. It is also characterized by high purchase frequency.
It's the resilient nature of ingredients. There is also a lot of underlying fundamental consumer trends in terms of quality, premiumization, even customization, convenience, health, nutrition that is pouring value into this domain, which is, of course, a great thing. You have heard Aku and Ingvill talk about the local preferences. Taste is local, and that is also true for us in Orkla Food Ingredients. I will come back to that in just a little while. In order for us to go after all of the opportunities in an efficient and effective way, we have organized ourselves into three different business clusters around bakery, sweet, and plant-based. At the core of our thinking, that is that we deliver solutions that enable our customers to win, enables our customers to win.
You see on this slide some of the beautiful and tasteful products that we either produce or enable. I'm fairly certain that most of you have had one of these similar products in your hand during the last 24 hours, or you will do so in the coming 24. That goes to show the frequency. As it seems, also penetration is high, but there is more to go for. It is also pouring in more value. It tastes great. What's not to like? This is just a fantastic space to be in. I thought we would double-click a bit on our role in this great value chain. From left to right, you have commodity suppliers. That would typically be wheat, grains, sugar, vegetables, nuts, seeds, what have you. Then you move into the formulation and production part.
You move over to the sales and distribution. You have the customers, and you have the consumers. Once again, it's very dangerous to lock in consumers in a chevron. It makes good use on a PowerPoint slide, but it's very dangerous to lock consumers in one chevron because the taste preferences are so much different across regions, across countries, and even in your families. Moving into the customer segment. We are fortunate to have over 25,000 customers in Orkla Food Ingredients. If you look at our sales, ballpark, two-thirds of that sales would be in the industrial and artisan segment. When you think of it, an artisan bakery and an industrial player, they have completely different needs, right? Think of an artisan baker who has a small shop and needs basically 20, 30 SKUs on one pallet.
It is only one pallet because it cannot fit into anything more. You think of an industrial player. They want one SKU on 20, 30, 40 pallets. This is, of course, a huge difference. We have the unique flexibility in our operations to serve both of these requirements. We have a strategy to have a full assortment working close with our customers and close to the customer needs. We combine it with deep product knowledge and scale in manufacturing. We are rather unique in having this approach of combining production and sales and distribution. It really, really sets us apart. Someone might think, you know, how is this working out for you? I am happy you asked the question because it is going well. We showed this graph on the last Capital Markets Day in London 2023.
I'm happy to report when you look at the numbers to the right, all of them are significantly improved. The driving forces behind this journey is the consistency in strategy execution. It's the continuous improvements, it's the customer focus, and it's the culture. There is actually one more big thing, and that is people. You know, we simply have the best people and the best leaders in the industry. This journey is a token of their abilities, their efforts, and commitment to grow Orkla Food Ingredients each and every day. I'm profoundly thankful for all of these great activities and efforts. Now we will pivot back into what we said in London, and I will share a progress report and also give some indication of what we will do going forward.
We introduced this model, our value creation model, our operating model, our multi-local model from which we derive our competitive edge. It starts with winning locally. You heard Aku talk about it, and you heard Ingvill talk about it. Winning locally is also key for us. Here we operate with strong positions close to customers. We move up. I mean, we want, of course, to leverage our scale, and we want to play as a team. Here, of course, we take out synergies from collaboration and establishing common capabilities and systems. We want to go for more. We want to expand both organically and structurally. I will take you through these elements of our structure right now. Starting with winning locally. Orkla Food Ingredients was founded in 1999 from a Scandinavian base.
We have since then grown into 22 European countries. Then we added Denali and US and the fantastic team over there in 2022. The basic plot and the basic thinking is still the same. We operate local companies being very close to customer demands and customer needs. We take that model that we have, of course, refined over the years, and we replicate it and adopt it to the local markets. This has been extremely successful. That model also gives us great insights into how those local markets operate, how they work, what are the inner works. With this, we can drive organic growth and also leverage our scale. We do not talk in Orkla Food Ingredients anymore about one single home market because all our markets that we operate in are home markets.
Just to double-click and explain this a bit further, we have for the last couple of years been focusing on Eastern to Central Europe. You can almost see a line from Estonia to Greece here. The first question is, of course, why? The population size is much bigger in this region than when we compare with the Nordics, and also the growth numbers are higher. Taking our model and adopting it, implementing across this region has shown that we have a very solid track record. The numbers you can see here from the last three years, I think, speak for themselves of what the teams in this part of Europe have been able to do. The beautiful thing is that, you know, it's still fragmented.
There are still so many opportunities that we have both where we are today, but also in neighboring regions and countries. That is just phenomenal. That is our base. We also talked about in London our ambition to grow operating profits ahead of revenues. We outlined four different areas in terms of cost reduction projects around conversion, distribution, and SG&A. We also talked about the need to optimize our footprint and also to leverage our spend base further. Last but not least, we also mentioned the fact that we are rolling out a common ERP solution. I will come back with examples on the first three ones, but just on the last one. I do not want to jinx it, but this might be one of the absolutely best ERP programs out there.
We are typically now installing this into four or five companies per year, and we're just above one-third of sales. This is going extremely well, and we have a very powerful and knowledgeable team driving that initiative. To the cost reduction projects, you know, to be very honest, this is very close to my heart. It's close to the Orkla heart. It's close to the Orkla Food Ingredients heart. This has been a focus for many years. I would say that basically post-pandemic, we have elevated our game. We have set a better governance, better analysis, better tracking, and performance follow-up. This is core. You know, we need to continuously improve. We need to have the Kaizen mentality. We have also a fully-fledged operational excellence team consisting of 14 highly capable and talented, smart people.
They work with our local companies and across local companies to see how we can improve and we can have a clear focus on the activities that we're doing. Of course, finding new ways, improving old ways, and so forth. We also see in terms of SG&A that, you know, with not at least a common ERP solution, we can, you know, leverage our scale better, firstly within countries, but also across regions. A common ERP solution is, of course, vital to that. On this picture, we talk about dedicated initiatives. Someone might think, what is that? That is the case when we have companies that are not performing to the standard that we have set to our expectations. We have a sit-down with the management.
Of course, they are aware of this, and they are super committed to turn this around. We deploy resources, governance, and follow-up to secure that we can lift the performance. Coming out of the pandemic, and mind you, the pandemic was especially tough for us. We lost a third of our sales in April 2020. We have since then, we started with 10 dedicated initiatives, and now we're near down to three. We will continue to close these as we move forward. I should also mention our sweet cost improvement program. Arve and Nils have spoken about that earlier in the earnings report. That is going really well. We are now at the level where all activities are implemented, and we're tracking according to plan. Optimizing footprint. You know, when you acquire companies, you, of course, need to look into your footprint.
I mean, how can we make sure that we simplify and reduce unnecessary complexity? This has been for many years a focus area. I would say that we are elevating our game. We're leveling up our focus area. We see that with the consolidation currently ongoing, but there is also more to do. We see that we can lift this even higher as we move forward. We're not only consolidating. We're also investing, making sure that we can drive the growth that we see is out there. We're also doing a mindful insourcing of products. Of course, we want to lift our factory utilization and secure a margin uplift. It's hard to talk about improvements without mentioning procurement. Ingvill mentioned this as well. This is absolute key for us.
Two-thirds of Orkla Food Ingredients is procurement, naturally, a big focus area for us during many years. Also here, we have geared up. I would say the big difference in 2024 was that we established a procurement excellence program. We consolidated four people into one team that works together with the local procurement teams and Orkla Group procurement to secure that we not only leverage our spend, but we secure that we get the deliveries and we secure that we have a better capital position in terms of payables. This has worked really well. This trinity of a central team, the local teams, and Orkla Group procurement is very, very powerful. You can see in 2024, it is an improvement, but we also see that with this setup, we can take this to the next level in terms of gross cost improvements. We are very happy for that.
Of course, we want to go for more because there are a lot of opportunities out there. It should be mentioned that we are currently reinvesting our cash flow to secure that we capture that future growth and capture those future opportunities. We are investing in expansion CapEx and M&A. On the expansion CapEx side, we want to increase our capacities, enhance our capabilities. We have actually both relatively and nominally increased expansion CapEx quite significantly during the last couple of years. On M&A, we want to explore opportunities to strengthen our competitive edge in the markets and regions that we operate in. Also here, we have acquired five companies since the start of 2024. I thought we could double-click a bit on M&A.
Since the start of Orkla Food Ingredients, we have acquired a lot of companies. With over 25 years of experience, we have what it takes to be successful in this domain. I would mention one area that was a concern for us, and that was the integration of these new companies that we have addressed during the last couple of years. We feel very confident that we now have a solid playbook and approach to integrate these companies. We have built a solid platform, of course, also supported by a common ERP solution. We are really, you know, well positioned to continue the consolidation journey in a still fragmented industry. We also have two owners with broad industry networks and tons of experience to support us. Before talking more about the owners, I just want to mention one thing around culture.
You saw the very nice animation that came in. I promise you, I didn't do it, but it actually showed many of the companies that we have acquired. One fantastic thing also in relation to M&A is that many of the people who founded those companies, who were driving and leading those companies, they are still part of Orkla Food Ingredients today. You know, these people are typically no-nonsense, very entrepreneurial in the spirit. They know who they are, but that actually has a very profound impact on the culture and the spirit and the driving force, both to drive growth and in terms of entrepreneurial seeking and exploring new opportunities. Back to the owners. We are one year into the partnership with Rhone.
When we started this process, we looked for three things: capital, of course, but also capabilities and experience within integration, within industry, within finance, etc. Of course, we also looked for the network they sit on, in particular in the U.S. I have to say that Rhone is ticking off all of these boxes in a great way. We have also been joined by three members in the board who actually contribute a lot into our conversations. I would almost also claim that there is a new thing here as well, and that is Oakley. We have greatly benefited from the journey that Nils has taken Oakley on in terms of creating more autonomous portfolio companies. That gives us, of course, a bit more room to maneuver, but also more stringent governance and more focused governance. That has, of course, helped our journey.
And then last but not least, we have owners that are ready to deploy more capital. Right, Arve and Nils? Yeah, they are nodding for you who do not see them. It is great that we have this on camera as well. We will come back soon on that. You know, we outlined three areas at the last capital markets day around revenues, around EBIT adjust and ROAS. And we are on track. We are confident that we will deliver on these targets. I think looking at this picture, someone might call out revenues, and that is correct. We are a bit behind on revenues. You have to remember that during three quarters last year, raw material markets were actually going down, and we adjusted our prices down during that period, which of course led to negative pricing.
That turned in Q4, and we see now also the same situation, as I'm sure you're aware of, in Q1. Over time, we will get closer to that target. Thank you very much for listening to our journey in terms of building a leading European and US food ingredients company, a journey that is now, by now, you know this, powered by, I do not want to test you, but it is consistency in strategy execution, its continuous improvements, its customer focus, and its culture. Not to forget, the best people out there. Thank you very much. Now I believe it will be Q&A.
Correct. I invite all of you to come up to the stage here. Thank you. All right, we are going to start, just to remind you, with questions from the audience here before we turn over to questions from the web.
There's still time to submit questions on the web. Please just raise your hand, and we should have a couple of microphones out here. I see there's one taker already. I think the first question is over here. Håkan, if you can just raise your hand and please introduce yourself first before you state your question.
Hello, Håkan Nilsson from Kepler here. Thank you for taking my question. This is for Orkla Foods. I have a question regarding your thoughts around the private label shares in Norway, because we have seen the last 10 years that this has increased a lot, but we still see that the share of private labels in the grocery stores is way below the rest of Europe. I just wonder how, which implies that this probably won't stop for the next year.
I just wonder if you could elaborate a little bit around your thoughts around this and how you think about that?
Yes, I think I'll take that one. In the portfolio strategy, when we went through that, one of the primary reasons to look is those categories where we are competitive, where we can win. That is where we will drive further growth, where the share of private labels is not strong. I think going forward, the key tool to assess that is that we cannot be dependent on price-driven growth alone. People are more focused on value for money, and that means that we need to drive our brand equity and drive penetration of our user base without pricing too far away from the private label. That is something that is coming into the picture.
That's the reason why we need to look for more balanced growth also coming from volume.
Thank you so much.
Question down here.
Ole Martin Westgaard, DNB Carnegie. Starting with Foods, I guess this goes for you, Aku. You are below on organic growth, but you believe you are on track to reach your EBIT margin target, as I understand it. If you look at the EBIT margin improvement so far, it has predominantly been driven by higher contribution margins. How should we think about that going forward, given that if you now are slashing SKUs, it looks like most likely organic growth will come down, and most likely OpEx to sales probably could come up. Wouldn't that make it challenging to deliver on that target?
I think you're right that we have been mainly, our growth has been mainly driven by net contribution from pricing.
Both pricing up and taking cost out of the value chain. Now we need to get all those three guns working at the same time: price, volume, and mix. That will be the answer to your question. What comes to the simplification of the range, I think that's a little bit of a misconcept that taking out SKUs will actually reduce your growth. Yes, on a short run, like-for-like base, it could do that. In the long run, what it will create, it will create more space in the shelf for your better rotating items. What we are cutting is not something that is selling well, but something that is actually rotating quite slow and then creating more space to actually grow your hero SKUs. Long run, that will be a catalyst for growth, not actually slowing down your growth.
Just to follow up on those 20% SKUs that you are planning to reduce, is this day one for that 20% reduction, or is that an initiative that actually started back at the London capital markets day, or where are we in that process?
Yeah, that 20% which I was referring to, that's the starting point from the previous capital markets day, which we have cut from the portfolio. If you take a like-for-like look on that part of those SKUs, that has accounted to a negative 0.8% in the short term, but in the long term, that will be compensated by hero SKUs having better space and selling more. That is the whole thinking simplified to growth, not only taking cost out of the system. We will prove that that system will work.
I will take one question for Ingvill, if that's okay.
Can you give us some insights on what you've actually seen in the demand response from higher prices in the trade now for cocoa prices or chocolate, I should say? How do you see that demand response or what's the price elasticity here?
Yeah, no, we definitely see a reaction among consumers on the higher prices. We see some variations from markets to markets. It is also closely connected to the purchasing power. We see that market decline has been higher in the Baltics than we see in the Scandinavian markets. We see also that this is looking at the last year and also over the last months, it is escalating as prices are now going up higher as cocoa prices are coming into the market.
I would say maybe a general average we see is around 10% market decline, but there are variations also in between the different markets, and it is increasing a bit more over the last months. Let's see where this ends. I think it's also maybe initial reactions to new price points, and then you get more used to them, and it gets more promotions into the markets. I think back to your price elasticity question, I think that varies a lot. We are measuring it, and we see differences. It is definitely higher in Baltics again than Scandinavian markets.
Thank you.
Marcela Klang, Handelsbanken. You mentioned increased M&A ambitions going ahead. Could you describe what you're looking for, what categories, what preferred sizes of targets you're looking for?
We are saying that we are stepping up the activity to look for more M&A.
We have been quite slow or done very little M&A over the last few years. I think for Orkla it's about we haven't created that much value in the core of our business, so we have been slowing down that activity, especially for those companies where we have not created value. I think we have stepped up now, so we are increasing activity. We don't guide on anything when it comes to future M&A, but we look for M&A opportunities that will contribute to the value creation and where we can be the best owner and also extract synergies. As I said, where we actually can use our active ownership toolbox to create value.
A question regarding the success of Smash. Can you describe a little bit more how you identify the potential for this exact product category?
Yeah, that's a good question.
SMASH is originally a Norwegian product invented in the Nidar factory where we had one of our R&D people trying to, it must be good with salty and sweet together. Then they found this SMASH product that was really successful, growing and building up over time. The first 10 years, not that big. Now for the last, I think, 10 years being the biggest chocolate bag in Norway. Having this success in Norway, we realized that this combination of salt and sweet, that's quite international or is not only a Norwegian thing. We see differences in how local taste is across our segments and categories. When it comes to chocolate and pure chocolate, that's often more national. However, SMASH, that's chocolate covered, but it is also the snacks inside. We realized that this is a product that is easier to drive across markets.
We said, let's try in Sweden first. We did a launch there a few years ago, and we got very good traction. I think I would say it's more of an organically building up now market by market and seeing that we have something really interesting here. Adding now into the neighbor markets, it remains to see how big it can be. We have a very funny story about this. One of our customers, the retailer Heinemann, which does all the airports, has also been very successful in selling Smash and also saying that it is one of the most popular SKUs in their employee store in Germany, in Hamburg.
That was, I think you say something about the Germans also really into it, and we see it when we take it out to trade fairs, and the consumers also outside the Scandic countries are really interested in Smash. Let's see now how big it can be.
Yes, we have a question down here.
Thank you very much. It's Callum Elliott from Bernstein. A couple of questions first for Aku. You talked about the 20% of the business in harvest exit areas, I think you called them. I think you said you'd identified those areas as the areas, I'm paraphrasing, where growth is not future-proofed, category growth is not future-proofed. My question is, how do you think about forecasting category growth, and how confident are you that you're going to get it right?
That's a great question.
In this work, we have, of course, used external resources and external experts to look from future back, what are the consumer trends, what are the underlying trends in consumer penetration and consumption habits. As we have so many categories, there are clearly differences in category growth. One thing is looking at the history, but also looking at how the consumer trends develop. One of the things what I said also in my presentation is that maybe we have been too evenly distributed our resources and allocating our resources across the board. Now we need to be much more choiceful because there are clear differences in the category growth where we play.
This 20% part of that will be harvest, and part of that will be if we are able to find new owners for this business, which is a new thing for Orkla Foods to start divesting also businesses.
Thank you. My second question is for Arve. I'm interested and encouraged that you were talking about the increased focus on cash flow. Obviously, we can see the strong progress over the past couple of years. My question is, how sustainable do you think the current sort of very high levels of free cash flow conversion are? We obviously heard Ingvill talk about capacity constraints for Smash, for Boops. Johan was seemingly making a bit of a plea for more investment as well. Just wondering if we might need to see free cash flow conversion come back down again.
Yes, maybe to put that into perspective, I think that some of the positive development we have seen in the past couple of years when it comes to working capital reductions and all is truly also a normalization. I think in general, what Aku also talked about, the great work done in Foods and in some of the portfolio companies, truly setting focus on working capital is sustainable, but obviously the delta from year to year will be less in a more normalized environment. When it comes to the growth initiatives and expansion CapEx, I see that as a different theme, as that's a positive momentum. Continuous focus on a normalized replacement CapEx level, but growth initiatives on expansion CapEx is still as a positive driver and maybe a bit on the side of that equation on the positive development on operational CapEx.
Yes, we are at a new level, but the deltas from year to year, you can't expect the continuous trend as to the past couple of years.
Thanks. Maybe if I may sort of follow up for Ingvill. You spoke in your presentation about the BUBS opportunity in the U.S. You mentioned in answer to one of the questions about Smash maybe has an opportunity in Germany. Just wondering, could we be doing more to capture some of these international opportunities and leaning into them a little bit more?
Yeah, good question. I think this is this kind of two-track focus we have now. On one hand, we have these very strong local legacy brands that we see still a lot of potential to grow further, but we have these few selected brands with a lot of potential.
I think what we're doing now with BUBS in the US is very exciting. We are awaiting a bit the capacity also for the bigger Nordic rollout. I think we are doing what we can there. I think same goes with Smash. We have also even Panda, which has a quite successful export business today. I would say that that is also some of one of the strengths with the new operating model we have, where we have the local markets taking care of all the local legacy brands, but we now also even have the commercial central team, which are working with these pan-regional brands and seeing how we can build good growth plans, brand plans too, and how to expand. I think we are really stepping that up, and with this new model, we're getting more momentum into that.
Thank you.
I think we have another question from Ole Martin here.
Just a quick follow-up from me. If I understand you correctly, on the M&A agenda, are you focused on supporting your existing segments, or should we also expect that Orkla could add another vertical or segment?
What we said on, I guess it was on the fourth quarter presentation for 2024, we said that we are stepping up to invest behind the portfolio companies, and we are also stepping up the activity to look for future portfolio companies, to say so. I also added to that that this will be a long process. This is not a quick fix or a quick transaction, to say so. We will use our time, but we are looking both for add-ons to the portfolio companies and new portfolio companies if that is meaningful to Orkla.
Is that within the sort of, when you launched your investment company strategy, we were focused on branded consumer goods? Is that still in that definition, or?
We always talk about brands and consumer-oriented businesses. We need to add some synergy or some competence to the company that we should have recent on the company.
If there aren't any more questions from the audience, I do have a couple of questions from the web. You can go to two questions from Petter Nyström in ABG. The first one is on M&A, and the second one is for foods. On M&A, he asks, is there a slight change in your M&A strategy, meaning that you are more willing and interested in doing M&A now?
Yeah, I guess I just answered that.
On foods, is it correct that you now have a slightly stronger focus on volume growth over margin improvement?
Yes.
That seems to be the last question that we have from the web. Nice and concise. I like the Finish style there. Just a reminder before Nils comes in with some concluding remarks, you're welcome to mingle outside the auditorium afterwards. We have lots of Orkla products that you're welcome to take with you, and I think there may be some Grandiosa coming shortly. With that, I think I'd like to turn it over just for Nils to take the concluding remarks, and please, yeah, please feel free to stay up here.
I'm going to leave you with our three strategic priorities through 2026.
We have made significant progress driving organic value in the existing portfolio and reducing complexity, but we still see further value creation potential in our portfolio. I hope Aku, Ingvill, and Johan's presentations have helped you clarify where we are headed and how we will get there. Thank you to all three of you for contributing today. We are intensifying our evaluation of value-accretive structural transactions where we can add value as active owners. I am excited for the journey ahead and confident in our continued value creation. Thanks to all of you for joining us today and holding us accountable for our targets. Thank you very much, and please enjoy whatever we will serve outside. Thank you.