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Hello, everyone, and a warm welcome to the Axfood Capital Market Day 2021. We've been looking forward to this day for a long time. We look forward to telling you more about how we're building a platform for continued growth. My name is Alexander Bergendorf, and I am Head of Investor Relations at Axfood. Today, you'll have the opportunity to hear more about us and our different operations with a number of representatives from our senior management. The ones we're presenting today are Klas Balkow, CEO, Anders Lexmon, CFO, Thomas Evertsson, who's the CEO for Willys, Simone Margulies, CEO for Hemköp, Eva Pettersson, CEO Snabbgross, Nicholas Pettersson, CEO Dagab, and Carl Stenbeck, Director of Strategy and Business Development at Axfood.
As you may know, in October, we entered into a partnership with City Gross, and so you'll also have the opportunity to hear Anders Wennerberg, CEO of City Gross, telling you more about their operations. The agenda of the afternoon can be seen in this slide. First of all, Klas is going to give us an overview of Axfood, talking about how we develop and how we'll be building value as we move forward. Presentations on Willys, Hemköp, Snabbgross, and City Gross. After that, we'll have a Q&A session. That will be the first of a total of two Q&A sessions during the afternoon, and those who are available under the first Q&A sessions are Klas, Thomas, Simone, Eva, and Anders. During the Q&A, we'll be taking questions both via the phone and the web.
If you'd like to put a question via the web, do this throughout the broadcast. Via the phone, you can ask them live. We'll get back to you with more details on that. After a brief break, we'll start the second part of our Capital Market Day. We're talking about our strategic cooperation with Mathem, announced only this Tuesday. We'll be looking more in-depth at our investments in logistics and the integration process with Bergendahls Food. A financial update before it's time for Klas to conclude today's presentation with a few final words. As a very last element of the day, the second Q&A with Klas, Anders, Nicholas, and Carl available to answer your questions. Now, with this brief introduction, I'd like to give the floor to our President and CEO, Klas Balkow.
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Thank you, Alex. I'd like to also take the opportunity to welcome you to our Capital Market Day. Together with some of my senior management colleagues, I will be giving you an extensive overview of what's happening within Axfood, and I hope that you will leave this event with a more in-depth understanding of us and what we'd like to achieve as we move forward. Within our group, the pace of development right now is very high. We're creating a platform which will strengthen our group and give us possibilities to continue provide sustainable, profitable growth for many years ahead. To try and sum up the current journey, I'd like to do it in four bullet points. Throughout the year, we've grown and developed at a high pace, and we have a strong position today. We've gained market shares.
In the future, we also have identified major opportunities to continue to challenge and grow more rapidly than the market. We need to be very efficient in all elements of the chains, and therefore we secure this through extensive investments, investing in the base for a nationwide logistics platform of the highest caliber to develop an even more sustainable, efficient, and competitive supply of products. Over the years, we've also developed our group by acquiring companies. We wrote history in October when it comes to food retail by concluding the acquisition of Bergendahls Food and the partnership with City Gross, a very exciting and positive deal, creating and providing preconditions to allow us to grow and be stronger in the market together.
We also have an ambitious agenda in the area of sustainability, and it is of fundamental importance if we want to remain a relevant player in this business. Our sustainability work is extensive. It characterizes everything we do in the group, and with long-term sustainable decisions, we can grow and create new business opportunities. Let me begin from the foundation. We are a family of different distinctive concepts in collaboration, and our vision is to be leaders in good, sustainable food with value for money. I would like to take this opportunity to present to you the new focus, the aim of our group, more quality of life for all. This is what we'd like to contribute with for society as a whole and for every individual we meet today and in the future. How do we go about achieving this?
We have a number of bold targets we're geared toward. We want to grow by making the most of the opportunities entrenched in the varying needs of humans and meeting them with our distinctive concepts. By 2030, we will be Sweden's most inclusive food player. We will also challenge and show the way forward to reduce the footprint in terms of climate in the value chain when it comes to food. By 2030, we'll be the strongest force toward a sustainable food Sweden, and we'll contribute to better public health and good food habits for everyone by increasing knowledge and making it easier to make healthy choices. By 2030, we have contributed to creating a healthier Sweden. Finally, we'll challenge usual patterns and habits through innovative solutions, enhancing efficiency and value for us and the world around us.
By 2030, we lead the development towards the simplest and best experiences surrounding food. We also have a strategy which deals with the trends in the market with six strategic areas of focus, customer meeting, customer offering, expansion, the path, the journey of the products, working methods, and our people. We have a strategic framework. We have a corporate culture built to purpose, and we have well-entrenched core values which can offer good, sustainable food at a good price, make a difference, and create value to all our stakeholders. We've had a good pace of growth throughout the years, a pace which has been more than that of the market. We've had an average annual net growth of approximately 5% over the past 10 years. If we look in the earnings per share, the situation is even better there.
We've seen an 8% growth per year on average. We've also been able to, this way, to give our investors an excellent direct return through extensive dividends. We are a unique family of companies, and we have a presence in all the segments of the market with concepts which attract all different types of consumers. The markets we are present in are large, stable, and they are growing. Our main market, of course, is food retail, but we can also be found in food service and in restaurants, and we also have a presence in pharmacies. Behind in the subsequent steps, we serve through our logistics and purchasing in Dagab, all these brands, and Axfood centrally also provides services through an extensive IT structure.
In addition to being a strong player in relation to consumers, we're also a strong player in wholesale with customers in many different segments. Through Dagab, we deliver to many of the major chains in food, retail and service and convenience, and also to restaurants and cafés. We're also suppliers to pure e-commerce players, where we see many of the new players in the market have come in over the past few years with food, quick commerce, for example, rapid delivery or unmanned stores. Our offering is broad and Dagab is a stable and competitive partner, creating extensive value for their customers. Let me also say that the market we are currently in is a changing one. Here, I'd like to mention in particular four very clear trends.
We and our customers have ever higher demands on the environment and sustainability to be assured, and the interest in health and wellbeing among our consumers is growing up, and price awareness is also growing up among customers. Our measurements show that value for money is the second most important feature when consumers look for after quality. We're operating in a highly competitive market. All major players are focusing even more on food and investing more in price. At the same time, the food retail is developing meal service concepts, price comparisons, recipes, home delivery. In certain selected categories, the products we buy less often is gaining volume and more are trying to get in, more players are trying to get into food retail. There's a sector convergence. Preconditions are also changed by accelerating digitalization and new ecosystems for products and services.
Growth of e-commerce has been significant. Digital tools growing, increasing in stores, customers expecting rapid access to products and services, and can pay more if it's a value-added situation, and new payment means providing new access to data. In addition, there's also a number of societal challenges linked to food, where we in the industry can contribute and have an impact for a positive change. Food to an ever-growing population without an increased footprint or reduced biological diversity is one of the biggest, most urgent challenges we're faced with. At the same time, we know that one Swede in four is running risk of becoming ill or dying too early in lifestyle illnesses due to their food habits. There's a very clear link between health and food, and that's placing ever higher demands on food stakeholders. We need to be a part of the change.
Some of these trends which I've just mentioned have also accelerated during the pandemic. The trends, in particular within digitalization, health and sustainability and value for money, have been strengthened as a consequence of the pandemic and have become even more important than before. In this rapidly changing world around us, we are well-positioned in the market. It gives us a good basis to continue to grow. We have competitive concepts which clearly collaborate. We have a strong technical platform and skills and competence in data and analytics and in e-commerce. Our market share is higher than our total share in the total market. We have a clear ambition to be leaders in sustainability.
Finally, we also have the leading position in the low price segment with Willys and add to that our attractive in-house private labels, which means that we can secure a very distinctive, effective product assortment. We are determined to continue to grow more rapidly than the market, and we will do this both physically in stores and online. We have a broad presence of stores across the country, but there are still some locations in attractive areas where we are not represented. Therefore, we will step up the pace of establishment for new stores in the next years. There's a clear demand for our concepts, and that demand we intend to meet. In e-commerce, we've grown considerably over the past years, and we intend to continue to expand that presence online. New stores gives us a scope for the e-commerce offering with collection in store.
We believe in the strength of channels that co-function, omni-channel, and the strength of seeing the entire, the full picture. We want to give the consumer the best customer meeting regardless of where they choose to buy from us in any of our concepts. Furthermore, it's our ambition to be leaders when it come to a sustainable food system which takes a stance, inspires, and can give guidance for good sustainable food. By seeing the full picture and seek improvements within the framework of the limits of this planet, we will contribute to a more sustainable development. Our sustainability work is of course an integrated part of our business with three clear areas: the food, the environment, and people. Work is done on a systematic way strategically with key ratios and targets linked to Sweden's environmental targets and the UN SDGs.
First and foremost, the food is the core, the heart of everything we do. Because the food's impact in the environment and on humans is so extensive, it's important that production methods and consumer patterns are developed. Here, for example, we work with sustainability label products and a varied product assortment. We also work actively to reduce food waste, which is an enormous waste of resources when food which is farmed, processed, transport, and then packaged is discarded, thrown away. Production of food contributes with great impact on the environment, stress on water, land exploitation, more emissions threatening the biodiversity. In our environmental work, we focus on greenhouse gas emissions, sustainable materials, and sustainable farming. The third area is people. Health, equality, diversity, and working conditions are factors which impact how people feel, their well-being.
We have a responsibility for human rights to be respected throughout our value chain, and we work to create good working conditions and social conditions for both our own people as for the people who work in food production. An additional offering of healthy products is an important component in improving consumers' health. We do, of course, have a lot left to do in the area of sustainability, but let me nevertheless halt for a moment and reflect on what we've achieved so far. If you look at the period from 2009 to 2020, we reduced our emissions of greenhouse gases by as much as 76%. Some of that achievement is linked to reduced emissions from transports because about 2/3 of Dagab's fleet vehicles are using fossil fuels today.
We've used the ratio of sales from sustainable goods, and we've also reduced our food waste. In addition, if we look to all our leaders, we have an even distribution between men and women. This is just a few examples of what we've managed to do and what we'll continue to do to drive this development. Now, I've outlined our direction as a group. Of course, the enabling factor are our operations and our concepts in the Axfood family. Let me continue in our program and come into the different areas of operations.
Because our model is built on having distinctive concepts where we can, at the same time, use the force we have in the collaboration in the Axfood family, we have touched upon the fact with the shared purchasing logistics company, and we also work with a joint IT digital development within Axfood. Let me start with our portfolio where we have our smaller companies, the development companies. Here, we work with innovation and development within our most important growth areas where we have a potential to develop to future bigger platforms. Mat.se is the online food store where customers finds purchase list of recipes that gives inspiration, and they also have access to a unique climate database that makes it easier to buy sustainably.
Earlier this week, we made public that Mat.se will join forces with Mathem, and as a part of that, Axfood will be the second-largest owner of Mathem. I will get back to this. I'll describe more about the logic around this business, and you'll also get to meet Carl Stenbeck, who is in charge of our development companies. You will also have the opportunity to ask him questions and ask me questions about this or other questions you might have about our development companies, because we also are part owners in Apohem together with Novax, and we own today just over 50% of the company. This is a challenger in the market, and it's a rapidly growing online pharmacy where customers can order over-the-counter and prescription medicine.
Urban Deli has four stores in Stockholm, a combination of a food hall and a restaurant that is easily accessible where you have healthy food. Then we have Middagsfrid, the everyday hero offering ready-made grocery bags with recipes where you have a better food world, where more and more people cook food with selected products. Now let us talk about the other companies. We should listen to the CEOs of Willys, Hemköp, and Snabbgross, as well as Anders Wennerberg, who is the CEO of City Gross, where we have a minority ownership. We'll start with Willys and Thomas Evertsson.
2020 was an exceptional year for food retail because of the pandemic. Consumption was moved from restaurants to schools and travels to the home. This was a behavior that meant a larger purchasing with fewer visits, and this benefited bigger stores. This was a concept where people wanted to buy a lot in one go, and that was appropriate for Willys. Willys had double-digit growth and doubled the pace compared to the market last year. As a fact, already before the pandemic started, we had some very, very successful years. Since 2016, Willys had had an exceptional growth, some years double the pace compared to the market. This year as well, with extremely high like for like numbers that we had to reach, we had a positive growth and at the same time, we also outdid the market.
One of the reasons why we were so successful these last two years is that Willys and the image of Willys have changed. We still have discount prices. The cheapest bag of groceries is still in our offering, but we're no longer this niche discount chain, but have many other values as well, and not just the discount prices. Which means that we appeal not to just a narrow target group, but many, many Swedes. We see that when we see surveys of Swedish households and how many households that actually purchased something with us in the last three months. This tells us that we have moved from reaching about 40% of the Swedish households eight years ago, and today we are over 50%. About 3 years ago, in addition to this, we outdid our main competitor.
As a matter of fact, today, we are that concept in the Swedish market that reaches the biggest proportion of Swedish households. Of course, this expansion and the outcome of this is that we have more stores and we have a presence in more places today than eight years ago. This is also a result of us having a more multifaceted brand. If we look at food retail, for example, we have moved the farthest when it comes to sustainable brands and what consumers feel are the most sustainable products. Willys is now among the top five in the strongest brands in food retail. We have with us there, for example, Systembolaget. In 2021, we also came to be the brand that climbed the highest when it comes to the highest valued brand in Sweden.
This tells us that Willys is reached by more people, liked by more people, and we're now liked with the heart and not just with the wallet. Willys. Well, we have the best of two worlds. We have the low prices, and at the same time, we also have a broad assortment, a varied assortment that is well on par with other supermarkets. This is underpinned by having lower cost than competitors and also frequent price surveys. This is a unique concept and something that gives us an excellent position where we are liked by price hunters and gourmets alike. Willys today is more than just these low prices. We invest a lot in our physical stores, and today we have a modern and updated concept with attractive stores.
We have invested a lot in e-commerce, but also in other digital services, like, for example, self-checkouts, self-scanning, and most recently, Scan & Go, where we have self-scanning with a mobile phone. Today, we also have a very clear sustainability profile, and in many areas, as a matter of fact, we are well ahead when it comes to comparing us with other actors in the sector. In all stores, we have labeling from the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation as a good food choice, which means that we have many products in our assortment that have a good environmental choice labeling. Our loyalty program, Willys Plus, is another key, another explanation to our successes. In 2013, this program was launched, and it was then the first digital loyalty program in the market.
We could start from the beginning with everything being done digitally, which meant two things. This formed a basis for us being able to communicate digitally more cost efficiently with a very broad range of customers. At the same time, through this membership being linked to the debit card of the customer, we also had very quickly a very high proportion of registered sales, which means that we have a lot of good data, good insight about our customers, insight that we can use to create even more relevance for the customers, and thereby have a basis for loyalty and customer traffic in the physical stores and online alike. This year, we also passed another milestone where we saw over 3 million members in the program. Today, 8 years after the launch, still today, we have some 1,000 new customers joining the loyalty program every day.
We believe in a combination of physical stores and e-commerce. Even if we today focus a lot on expanding our e-commerce, we spend just as much focus on investing and developing our physical stores. Every year, we modernize some 20-25 stores, and in addition to that, we open several new stores. Right now, we have many store locations that are prepared, and today we have some 25 new locations where we have started or we are about to open. During the period 2020-2024 and we're working on even more store locations. Another explanation for this strong growth the last few years, that is e-commerce. E-commerce with food, as we all know, has seen a very strong growth, and this accelerated during the pandemic. We have found a concept for our e-commerce that is really effective in the market. It's based on three important cornerstones.
The same low prices online as in the store with the cheapest grocery bag online as well. That is number one. Number two, a transparent and easy model where we charge for the pick and the home deliveries, but we do not hide these prices in the assortment. We also offer click and collect and home deliveries, but we focus on our click and collect offering. We have spent a lot of effort on creating something that is easy for the customer and that is also effective for us. The click and collect solution where we have our automated stations where the customer can park, just enter a code and then without any manual handling from us, just collect your grocery bags on your way home from the job, to school or other activities. We're far ahead with the rollout of Willys collect.
Some 120 of our stores have these collect stations today and we're ahead of our competition because they have more manual click and collect solutions. Our click and collect offering is popular. It's a very flexible solution. You do not have to wait for a delivery and the price is a lot lower. A majority, more than 75% of our customers do choose the click and collect solution today and gives it very high rating when it comes to customer satisfaction. Willys eTrade has outgrown the market. In this pandemic year of 2020 we had our decentralized click and collect solutions with picking in the store and with this concept we could quickly expand our capacity to receive this increase of customers. We think that we'll reach break even with e-commerce this year. Profitability within e-commerce is difficult.
It's difficult for all actors and particularly the last mile is difficult because it requires automation and a higher willingness to pay from consumers. We have focused on click and collect and that offering which means that the majority of our sales is there. In combination with us also charging fees for the picking and the home deliveries, well, we can reach break even. In addition, we are an omni-channel actor. We can see the entire customer regardless of whether the customer shops physically or online. I would like to conclude with quickly looking at two other concepts. Willys Hemma, Willy's Home, where we have our smaller stores and also Eurocash, where we have the cross-border shopping. Let's start with Willys Hemma. We have some 50 stores from north to south.
With Willys Hemma we can have a presence where you do not have the room for a regular Willys store, but we can compete in this very important supermarket segment. We see that there is potential for growth with trends like urbanizations, convenience and an increased need for complementary shopping, which is something we see as an add-on to an increase in e-commerce. Eurocash. Eurocash, it has been difficult for Eurocash during the pandemic because many of the customers, the Norwegians, they were behind closed borders. We still have a certain level of uncertainty because Norway has implemented new restrictions these last few weeks. We have made use of the time and we have invested in concepts, we have invested in stores and we have strengthened our starting position waiting for borders to open up again.
During the pandemic we actually also started a new store in Långflon in Värmland because the Norwegian customers will be back. We're convinced those short periods of times where borders have been open, we have seen that Norwegian customers have found their way back across the border. In spite of tax reductions in Norway, there's still an incentive that is interesting. Prices might differ up to 25% and even more on certain products and certain segments. Norwegians like more than just the lower prices. They also appreciate the journey as such, the shopping experience, the assortment that is very different from what they have at home. To summarize, we have a very clear concept that is appreciated by more and more consumers. The brand is getting stronger and stronger. We have an aggressive investment plan with modernizations and new establishments.
We also have a strong position online with a clear and competitive offering. Year-on-year we have outperformed market growth and our objective is to continue like that. Thank you.
The Hemköp chain, we have two brands, Hemköp and Tempo. I'm going to tell you about who we are, our long-term objectives and what we've been doing over the past year to achieve those goals. First, I thought I'd tell you about Hemköp. Hemköp is a supermarket chain in growth. We are in the part of food retail that we call traditional food retail. 53% of food retail can be found here. We have 200 stores in a mix of franchise stores and group-owned stores. We believe in optimizing every marketplace based on its unique local location, so we adapt it with a unique ownership structure. We have between 400 up to 4,000 sq m in terms of our size, and the assortment is between 10,000 and 12,000 products. We have a clear pandemic effect if we look back.
A variation in customer behaviors and rapid growth in locations near residential areas, but in city centers, we've lost some turnover. Over the years, however, we've outperformed the market, and in particular, outperformed our competitors. We've also seen an excellent period where, in spite of the pandemic, we've been able to perform much better than our main competitors. We've worked actively over the years with clear efficiency improvements, with campaigns, price, assortment, and stores, and we've seen excellent development in our profitability. In Hemköp, we have a clear store structure. We are in markets with clear population growth, and we perform better than our fair share in the markets where we see growth. We have a presence where people move and live.
In these active flows, we have a mix of franchise stores and group-owned stores and the store managers in the franchise store are often in smaller locations, and we tend to see our own group-owned stores having slightly larger surfaces. We want to expand in both these areas in the future. Over the years, we've put together our new strategy now in the last year, in particular for 2025, with a clear ambition to be the best in every local market, and we've also defined our purpose. Our aim is to make life easier for all those who love food and who want to eat well every day. Enjoying good food every day includes a sustainability, a health, and a value for money perspective.
You cannot have good food, eating well every day, unless it's good for your health, unless it's good for the climate and for your wallet. In our strategy, we've defined four focus areas within which we work strategically and tactically to deliver against our long-term plan. Our first area of priority is that we want to have the best customer meetings in the market. There, we've identified that we need to have an attractive concept and a strong and distinctive customer meeting. We want to have an attractive, appealing customer offering, focusing on fresh produce and meal solutions and good price perception. Thirdly, a strong omni-channel experience, and that's a clear position in e-commerce. The fourth area is to continue to be a leader in sustainability.
I'd like to tell you a little bit more about our focus areas, what our thinking looks like and what we've done over the past year. Having the best customer meeting in the market involves having inspiring store concepts. Over the year, we've developed a new store concept for Hemköp. We want to create a warm and inspiring atmosphere. We want to clarify our positionings in perishable foods such as deli, meat, dairy, and fruit and vegetables. We also want to simplify for the customers. We have a clear customer journey through the store with optimized flow and self-checkout being simplified so that you can check out quickly and easily. With the new format, we want to build a modern and inspiring ambiance with the choice of colors and bright wood. We have 10 updated stores with a new concept.
In addition, we've 40 modernized stores, and we have a long-term plan with a high pace of modernization so that we can gradually revamp all our stores into the new concept. With meal kit solutions, we create new value. We have three leading concepts, three terms: innovation, simplicity, and scalability, so that we can offer this through as many stores as possible. We work in three areas. First, the packed ready meals, where we've rolled out a new offering, both in private labels and other brand labels in all our stores. This means that we grow more rapidly than the market in this segment, and we're gaining market shares. We're also overperforming in relation to our share because of thanks to this ready meal concept. Secondly, we've developed a concept for fresh sandwiches and salads prepared in store.
Today, we have this up and running in a number of selected stores, and we want to scale it up to many more of the stores next year. The final area has to do with warm and cold meals prepared in store as well. Here we have a concept and a store design to be able to offer this. We have it in a select number of stores today, and we're going to be rolling it out into many more in the next year. In our digital customer meeting and by working in an omni-channel, our loyalty club is very important. We launched Klubb Hemköp last year, a new modern CRM platform we can use. It makes it possible for us to work with the personal customer journeys, and we also are unique because we work with sustainability.
We use the club as a platform for our sustainability work. We give guidance to our customers towards more sustainable choices. In a playful way, we help them to change their habits a little bit. 1.7 million members in the club with excellent growth, new members, and we've seen a very clear increase of loyal customers. We've more than 70% of our customers who are active members of the club. We reward all our actions, but we reward twice those who make sustainable choices. We'll continue to develop the club with customized customer journeys to enhance loyalty, but also using it as an basis for new sustainability initiatives. We've accelerated our rollout in e-commerce in the last year.
When we came in in 2020, we had 19 stores that offered this option, and now at the end of the year, we are at 31. Both our store managers in franchise stores and group-owned, we believe in home delivery and click and collect. It's the collection in store where we've seen the biggest growth in the last year. We have the same position in e-commerce as we do in our physical stores. We focus on fresh goods and value for money. We continue our high pace of expansion in e-commerce in the next year. We'll continue to develop our customer meeting to raise the experience even further.
Rolling out e-commerce in stores so that we're now at 17 instead of 19 at the beginning of the year is the basis for our clear growth, and there's a real growth to collect in store as well. Both in 2021, we've grown much more than the market. We work with a broad agenda in sustainability, something which is really part of our DNA. Under an umbrella we call One Bite at a Time, Tugga för Tugga. Together with our customers one step at a time, we move towards a more sustainable food chain. In Klubb Hemköp, this is our platform for involving our customers, making more sustainable choices. In the umbrella Tugga för Tugga, One Bite at a Time, we work with communication to give guidance to customers on more sustainable choices.
This will be further rolled out next year and in all our channels. Assortment development is an important part of our sustainability efforts here. We work with only MSC-labeled fish in our deli section. We only sell fair trade roses and organic bananas. We work actively to have more sustainability-labeled products, and we're the first in Sweden selling green salmon with using circular feed in the farming of the salmon. We also try to halve our food waste by 2025 according to our plan. We work throughout the value chain, and we also work with dynamic pricing against, towards customer to be able to sell off products that are about to expire. An ambitious agenda based on our establishment to try and reduce the consumption of electricity and to work on cooling.
We have an aim for 2030 to be climate neutral in our cooling facilities, and we have a high pace of renewal of our cooling equipment in stores. Plastic is another part of our sustainability agenda, which is important, and we try to reduce the use of plastic both at product level and from a consumption perspective in our different chain links. We also have a new cooperation and collaboration on social collaboration, where together with the charity SOS Children's Villages, we give support to their work. I'd also like to say a few words about Tempo. Tempo is our mini mart format to be the good neighbor. That's the ambition. We have a position to have a close personal customer meeting and a customer offering to go with it.
130 stores or so with only store managers and owners who run this between 300 and 500 sq m of surface in store with up to 4,500 products. Just under SEK 2 billion in net sales with excellent growth and new stores coming into Tempo. Only this year, we've welcomed more than seven stores into the Tempo brand. Now, with clear changes in customer patterns over the past year with strong growth where we outperform our main competitors in terms of growth, we've been quick to refocus our customer offers, offering and experience in stores and online. We have a clear strategy in place with a long-term plan focused on 2025, a new organization in place from this year, and also with a new operational model to work within.
We'll continue to expand physical store network both with group-owned stores and franchise stores, and we've successfully launched a new loyalty program, Klubb Hemköp, where we'll continue to develop our personalized, customized customer journeys and build loyalty. We have a high pace of expansion in e-commerce. We're growing stronger than the market, and we'll continue to have a high pace of expansion over the next year. We've also developed our customer offering in meal concepts and fresh produce, and we'll continue to scale this up and develop it further. Now, an eventful year lies behind us. We have a strong plan for the future. In Hemköp and Tempo, we focus on growing in the market in the upcoming years. [Non-english content]
Snabbgross has a unique position in the market. Snabbgross is Sweden's most available restaurant wholesaler with 27 cash-and-carry stores across Sweden. All of them have good opening hours, seven days a week, and in addition, they also offer e-commerce in all the stores. Our personnel has a close dialogue with our customers, where our prioritized customer groups are restaurants, cafe, and fast food. Net sales per September this year on a rolling 12th month basis is SEK 3.6 billion, and over the same period, we had a result of operating profit of SEK 176 million.
In our assortment, we have some 12,000 items and the sales share of a private label of around 10%. Last year, we launched our own private label for restaurant kitchens, Gastrino, and we have that done, and we will be working with new launches of new articles and new categories. Snabbgross has a very successful history of growth. Between 2016 and 2021, we had an average growth net sales of 5%. Five years ago, Snabbgross had 22 stores across the country, and in 2017, we established new stores in Helsingborg and Sisjön, and last year, we added stores in Jönköping and in Enebyängen. In August this year, we have also opened a store in Södertälje. Next year, we will add two new stores when we establish stores in Gävle and Skövde.
The two largest stores in Snabbgross are in Årsta in Stockholm and in Partihallarna in Gothenburg. Our e-commerce was launched already in 2011. Snabbgross has some 78,000 active corporate customers. Around 75% of our sales go to prioritized customer groups of restaurants, cafe, and fast food. Other sales go to a large customer base, more than 50,000 active customers, and among those we have corporate customers and associations. An average ticket value in the store is around SEK 1,800, and on e-commerce, the average is a lot higher, around SEK 11,000. As I've already said, we offer e-commerce in all our 27 stores, and sales in e-commerce is around 20% of total sales in Snabbgross.
Snabbgross has accessibility, which has been a success factor during the pandemic with existing customers and new customers that have come to the store to shop for the day in uncertain COVID times. Given restrictions and uncertainties about sales the next few days, restaurants were afraid to place large orders in advance, and that is also something we see from the drop in e-commerce during COVID. Between 2019 and September 2021, we have, again, market shares corresponding to around 3.9 percentage points rolling 12th month basis in the private food service market. Over this period, the number of unique customers have gone up with 8%. One year ago, midst of the second wave of the COVID pandemic, we opened up a new concept, Snabbgross Club.
The time for this launch, this new concept, wasn't the best, but it turned out to be a success nevertheless. Snabbgross Club is the result of a work that was started already in 2019, inspired by big international actors like Costco and Sam's Club. In Snabbgross Club, we also offer consumers to come to us and shop directly from the restaurant wholesaler. With Snabbgross Club, we cover a void in the Swedish food retail market. We have found a unique position where we can offer consumers as well a unique, affordable restaurant assortment. A membership is SEK 299 a year after a free trial period of three months. The target group are those who like food and cooking, the big family that wants to stock up for a party or just for everyday living, and the consumers, they have found us.
Sales to consumer has gone according to plan. We see higher average tickets than the traditional food retail. Today, we have some 16,000 registered members in our two concept stores, one being Enebyängen that was opened in November 2020, and Södertälje that was opened in August. The next planned store will be in Skövde and will open during the first 6 months of 2022. We see great opportunities with Snabbgross Club in the future, and we do have the ambition to establish more new stores in the next few years. Existing Snabbgross stores with the right preconditions and with the right locations will also be converted to fit this new concept. Snabbgross Club starts with the same basis as a regular Snabbgross store, and our corporate customers, they're welcome to shop at both concepts.
Today, we have e-commerce that is offered only to corporate customers. Bigger corporate customers, they are offered discounts, and the special corporate customers can shop from different selected product categories that are not available for consumers. In both concepts, we offer a restaurant assortment that is affordable, where we have many non-perishable and perishable products from several continents. We also have beverages, non-food range that is adapted for restaurants and takeaway customers. Our ambition is to be the cheapest restaurant wholesaler in Sweden. On top of that, we have campaigns with good prices and focused theme days where we have excellent offerings. In addition to this, we also have more segmented customer offerings. In Snabbgross Club, we have also added on a more consumer-adapted assortment to meet the needs of the private consumer. We also have membership campaigns and discount services.
Too, that we offer to selected partners and the ambition is that you should be able to have earned what you paid in the membership only after a few purchases. Let me now end with the focus areas for the next few years. Our ambition is to establish one to two new stores every year and modernize and improve the existing stores. Next year, we're establishing stores in Gävle and Skövde, and in addition, we're moving into new premises in Linköping and in Varberg. We continue to broaden and develop our assortment as well, and we're going to defend the position as the most affordable restaurant wholesaler in Sweden. Digitalization is also a very important development area where we see new opportunities.
With the launch of Snabbgross Club, we also have a new modern tool for our customer programs where we can segmentize our offerings even further. We see opportunities for continued profitable e-commerce growth. Of course, we're going to continue to develop our Snabbgross Club concept where we see a lot of potential and many opportunities by focusing on these areas where we have new and existing customers that decide that they want to shop with Snabbgross and Snabbgross Club.
Hello, I'm Anders Wennerberg, CEO of City Gross. Today, I'm in our store in Hässleholm, and I thought I'd tell you about our business idea, our concept, and our thoughts for the future. I had looked forward to meet you in Stockholm, but now you'll get a greeting from Skåne down here in the South instead. In City Gross, we love food. We give everything for our customers.
It's been an important part of us ever since the company has been building up since 1993. Every week, we reach out to 1.5 million customers through our 42 stores across the country and also through our e-commerce, where online stores get their products from the nearest shop. We have 1.3 million Prio members. Prio is the name of our loyalty program, our members club, very appreciated by our customers. At City Gross, we combine the attractiveness of a fresh deli and food halls with hypermarket efficiency, and we offer our customers high quality at a low price through the broadest product range in Sweden. What this means in details, I thought I'd tell you a little bit more about in my presentation.
We are 2,800 people employed with net sales of SEK 9.7 billion in the last year. Before we look into the future, let me briefly tell you about our history. It's almost 100 years since Mikael Bergendahl started to import margarine, coffee, and cheese in Hässleholm. Through the years, the operations developed, but it wasn't until 1993 that the doors were opened to Sweden's first City Gross store. City Gross was a part of the Hässleholm-based warehouse and logistics company, Bergendahls Food, back then. 30 years later, we now operate 42 stores across the country, and we are still part of the Bergendahls Group, but now with a new strong partner, Axfood and Dagab and our head office is still located here at home in Hässleholm. 13.3% of the hypermarket segment is covered by City Gross today.
Our main competitors are ICA Maxi and Stora Coop. Here we see a great opportunity challenging our competitors with our generous offering of fresh produce and highly affordable prices in both colonial and special. I come from previous leading positions in both ICA Maxi and Stora Coop, so I have a good understanding of what it takes to really enter into the arena to fight for, first of all, the second place. We see this as a realistic goal. It's a real driver for me, and we want the most satisfied food customers in Sweden. That's our vision. We're a fresh food hall and a hypermarket under the same ceiling. We inspire to passion for food, like a whole end market with good prices. We have the right knowledge on-site in the stores.
We have trained fresh food heroes mastering the craftsmanship of artisanal products who can offer really high quality in our raw materials and products. We train our staff ourselves. We have training premises here in Hässleholm, both for meat, fish, deli, bakery, and cooking. We also offer a wide range of Swedish foodstuffs, a product range which differs from north to south because we've adapted it to what can be locally produced and offered. We've always been very strong in suppliers of locally produced goods, and that is something that is needed to be noted in the market. Thanks to our new cooperation with Axfood and Dagab, we see great potential in some of our weaker areas, such as purchasing, logistics, and computer IT and data systems.
In our long-term strategy, there are five areas in particular where we see major shifts needed to take the next step for us. It's about where we're coming from, the position we have amongst customers, and the new opportunity offered together with Axfood Dagab to make the most of and maximize new opportunities through that cooperation in years to come. The basic pillars in our strategic house is our values. They characterize the way we work and run our business, idea to new levels. We want to be result-driven, inclusive, customer-focused, and responsible. In our offering, there are four areas where we try to stand out a little bit extra. At the same time, it must be very easy to make good choices in your everyday life when you come to us. We invest in Swedish fresh meat cut in store. We have trained butchers in store.
Customers can ring a bell in the store and ask to get what they want. We offer as many as 250 cuts, so we sell the entire animal. With competitive prices, both in colonial and special, our customers have the opportunity to a really good deal. We have a clear strategy to work with good campaigns and bargains, very appreciated by our customers. In our bakeries on a daily basis, we bake bread, cakes, biscuits from the ground. You can see as a customer, when we create the cakes and roll chocolate balls by hand, you'll find fresh, tasty bread throughout. Over the years, we've also invested in our fruit and veg department. We have trained greengrocers. They're highly skilled in handling the products.
They can inspire customers who would like to try new products or just learn a new way of preparing their favorite vegetable. To ensure that we really deliver in all stores every day, we ask a number of customers via email if we live up to their expectations. This is one of our most important tools of steering in terms of the performance of our stores. A sustainable food retail sector begins with us. We help our customers from a sustainable everyday life, but we also take responsibility for our own operations. We see great benefits when we want to make the most of our new cooperation with Axfood and their market-leading position in this area. We work actively to avoid food waste. That's one of our most important area.
Through the waste stations, by waste, we've avoided having to throw away fruit and veg, which is fully edible. Our aim is to get down to 1% of food waste in our stores, and we're well on the way. In 2021, we ended up at 1.48%. Our packaging, skin pack for meat and fish, extends sustainability and shelf life up to 10 days and helps us to reduce our meat waste by 44%. That's what we've seen over the past two years. In the autumn, we invested as a senior partner in Save the Children. It's something which is very warm and close to our hearts. As a family-owned company, it's important to support an organization that will help children whenever they need it, both in Sweden and the rest of the world.
During the year, we've mounted solar panels on three of our stores in Linköping, Karlskrona, and Jönköping. This is a cooperation with Swede Energy and Castellum. Solar panels is an environmentally friendly additional source for us, and they produce most of their electricity during the summer, the same period when our stores consume the most. It's a perfect combination for us. It's important to be able to offer our customers Swedish products in terms of high quality. Over the past three years, we will step up the provision of Swedish products by 10%. It's about sourcing locally, products produced just outside the town, building long-term relationship with suppliers so that they and our Swedish farmers can feel safe in investing in those products and working with a long-term perspective.
The net sales for City Gross was SEK 9.7 billion during the past year, a total sales development of 3.5% compared to the previous year with two new stores. For our comparable stores, we ended up at 2.2%, and e-commerce share is 4.9%. It was a very special year for food retail as the corona pandemic had a great impact. Sales went up when we were encouraged to work from home and many social events and occasions were canceled. We bought extra and we invested more money in having good meals at home. We've seen incredibly strong numbers from when the pandemic passed the first year up until now. The graph shows clearly how different events during the pandemic had a direct impact on our sales, if you look at this.
The sales for months compared to the previous year on comparable stores is the numbers we're seeing here, and we're very proud of our sales. According to ACNielsen's official reporting over the past five years, we've had the best development in the hypermarket segment. As I mentioned earlier, our e-commerce share is at 4.9%. In the past year, our purchase patterns have changed considerably. E-commerce has seen an explosive growth during 2021. In handpicked grocery shopping, we went up by 200%, and we've outperformed the market for 20 consecutive months in spite of not offering home delivery. E-commerce rests on two large legs, handpicked groceries, including catering and meal kits.
We offer the same fair prices online as in stores and compare that to some other players who will add up to 10% in e-commerce channels. Over the year, we've emphasized greatly raising of quality further in production, and we've invested in training our people so that they can handpick and pack correctly so that the customer will feel that this is done with care and of great and high quality. As commerce develops, innovative solutions will have an ever more important significant role, and we're always working to provide even better offerings to our customers. Axfood, as a new cooperation partner, will here as well give us an opportunity to develop our e-commerce offering more rapidly. What happens in City Gross moving forward?
Over the past five years, our aim is to grow by approximately 15 new stores, and with access to Dagab logistics and warehouse centers, new opportunities open up to us to grow further north as well. There are several Cities and towns which have become more interesting now than they used to be. We have some white parts on the map and cities where we can open up more City Gross outlets, and we have long, extensive dialogue with players in the market. It's important for us to provide and offer the best experiences in the market at City Gross.
We want our people, our employees, to enjoy going to work, to enjoy being at work. We want everyone to feel motivated to contribute with their skills, their experience, and their ideas. Over the past two years, we've focused entirely on what I call basics. Now it's time for the next step. With this brief presentation, I've tried to give you a first insight into what City Gross is and what we want to represent. With those words, I hope to meet you soon again. Thank you.
I hope that with these presentations, you now have a good insight in some of our companies. I do think that now is a good opportunity open up for a Q&A session so that we can answer your questions about our different concepts. To be very clear, we will have a second Q&A session later on this afternoon, where we're going to focus on the transaction with Mathem, our work within logistics, and our financial outlook for 2022. For the Q&A session, you can either call one of the phone numbers that you see on the screen, or you can write your questions into the text comment. With me here I have, and we say welcome to Thomas Evertsson, Willys, Simone Margulies from Hemköp's chain, and Eva Pettersson from Snabbgross.
We also have Anders Wennerberg, the CEO for City Gross, with us via link from Skåne. Let's see. Do we have a first question? Well, thank you. If you want to ask a question you can do that press the zero one on your phone and if you want to cancel your question press zero two. And w e have a question from Daniel Schmidt at Danske Bank.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes. Hi, Daniel.
Hi, and good afternoon. Thank you for these very interesting presentations. I do have a few questions. If we start with Thomas, Willys, and us as well, of course.
You have had a press release before this day as well, and you talked about break even for the online business within Willys and that you expected a break even towards the end of the year. I have to say that that's quite impressive considering what it's looked like with many other different actors. Of course, it also reflects your mix, but also what you've talked about, the transparency in how you charge, et cetera. With this mix, do you think that this will stay? Will there be any changes, something that will be to your advantage, disadvantage if you're at break even now? What should we expect to see, and what should we think about the profitability development this part of this year and next?
Well, of course, that's very, very difficult to predict what the e-commerce development will be like in the next few months, because that's very closely linked to the development of the pandemic. You mentioned the breakeven, and as a matter of fact, that's not towards the end of the year, but for the full year of 2021. I do not want to present any forecasts for 2022 because we have way too much uncertainty in how the e-commerce part will develop.
Is it reasonable to believe that you will be even more efficient in your e-commerce the next few years compared to what you have been doing? Now you're investing in Bålsta. What do you think about 2023? Will you be even more efficient by then? That could pave the way for making some money even.
Well, I do not want to make any predictions, but you mentioned Bålsta, and that is where we can add to the mix automation. Automation is a very important mix in creating profitability for e-commerce. Right now, we have manual handling of the picking within the e-commerce.
You have created scale in different ways, and you've also touched upon that with this is one and the same platform in some 120 stores.
Well, we're going to build more stores, and that will help the scale. You also touched upon this with what would happen with e-commerce in the future. I have been very, very clear saying that no one knows. We are determined to offer what the customers want. With volumes, we get scale, efficiencies, and then, of course, what underpins that, we're going to talk about that with automation, for example. That will be the next session.
Thank you. Another question, if I continue with Willys and with Thomas, but perhaps also link on to what Anders said towards the end, because you had a graph talking about the development of City Gross, and Anders talked about City Gross having had the best development in this hypermarket segment. I think that you described e xcluded Willys, but anyway. That was what you could see in October, but has it been more sluggish for the hypermarket concept the last few months if you compare to other parts of what you do? Anders, do you want to comment?
Yes, I can comment, says Anders. I think that we have had two amazing years within the hypermarket segment when it comes to sales, and that is because of the premises with the services that we have, the space we have, combined with COVID restrictions. In October, November, of course, we see record sales. Overall, we are very happy with the sales that we've seen. I have to say that the hypermarket segment for us is something that is well-defined, but we also have the discount segment where we have the Willys, where stores are so much smaller compared to what we have with City Gross.
Just to conclude with Hemköp, you launched as the first actor, I believe, double points in your loyalty program for sustainable choices, and you touched upon that in the presentation as well. Could you say something about how that has been received and what attention this has gained? Is it what you have hoped for?
Well, we launched Klubb Hemköp last year, and the reception was very positive. Our ambition is to step this up, and we see that we have higher loyalty among our customers. With the sustainability initiatives that we have launched, we also see that they have gained a lot of attention, that they are worth the double with the digital receipts, for example, and what we have done. Now when we give a bonus for organic choices, we see that that has a good effect as well, so we're very, very happy with this. You should also understand that this is something we're working with long-term. We continue to develop components and also looking at different platforms and sustainability initiatives.
Well, this is perhaps something you do to distinguish yourself in the market because that might have been a problem that you've had, that you haven't had this unique profile, but now perhaps you've created it.
Yes. That is what we think. We are now making it clear what our stance is within sustainability, and we also work with communication. We work with this bite by bite, Tugga för Tugga, and that is also to strengthen our position within sustainability.
Thank you.
See if we have any further questions. There are no further questions right now for our speakers in the phone conference. We also have the comment section.
Alex is reading there. Alex, anything? Any questions there?
Thank you, Klas. Yes, we do have some questions through the web template. The first question is for Eva. What about Costco's introduction into the Swedish market? Costco versus Snabbgross Club, et cetera. Any thoughts?
We're following that introduction with great interest, of course. At the same time, we have our concept, but we did look at Costco when we created Snabbgross Club, of course, because there's a membership feature. You pay your membership fee, but we focus on our setup, and we're mainly focused on food, of course. We have a concept which will allow us to grow in many parts of the country, so there are some differences and some affinities.
Thank you. From Magnus Råman of Kepler Cheuvreux. Here's the question: How do you assess the competition from your main competitor, ICA? When the ICA-handlarnas Förbund acquired it, will there be a change with the new structure?
I don't think anyone here can answer that question. I think you'd have to put that question to ICA, but I'll answer it as best I can. We focus on what we do, and I've been very clear in saying that we focus on our development, making our investments, following our plans, even if we are listed. ICA has made another choice, and we'll have to see what where that takes them.
Thank you. Another question from Magnus. You're giving guidance to say that Willys will break even this year, and we've already touched upon this, mainly in e-commerce that was mentioned, but how many additional years do you expect to have to wait until the e-commerce doesn't impact the margin in a particular region?
As an omni-channel player, like we are, we offer our customers both to shop in our physical stores and to shop online. We can see in that position that customers who start e-shopping with us, they continue to also buy from us in our physical stores, so they invest more of their money out of their budget, their household budget, than they used to before they started, shopping online, so that's good news. We look at the profitability of that customer as a whole. If you look at it strictly, limited to e-commerce, I do believe, as I mentioned earlier, what we see is it's an important component, but to a great extent it's about your offering.
If you're going to send products to a consumer, depending on how far you're going to stretch it, how far the vehicle goes and the density in that area. I believe we're only at the beginning of that journey in an industry which isn't quite mature yet. We're learning every day to improve a little bit further. One of the most important elements in being able to reach a break even is the focus on picking and collecting in store. Every month, every quarter, we've improved. We're fine-tuning small details which, taken together, bring us to a level which is quite good as we see it right now.
I have one more question, in fact, on this topic from Niklas Ekman at Carnegie, and he's wondering about profitability as well. He's asking if it's the same for click and collect and home delivery.
Do the fees that you charge to consumers, do they cover the costs? What's the situation? No. Well, of course, in the activities we have in click and collect, we have a better margin, and we have a less good margin in home delivery. There's nothing surprising there. It's the sum total of the offering from Willys that will break even.
Thank you. A question, another question from Niklas Ekman at Carnegie to you, Anders. What's your perspective? You're operating in the hypermarket segment. ICA Maxi and Stora Coop are your competitors. What about competing with Willys, for example? What's your perspective there?
We try to focus on what we do, just as Klas mentioned earlier, and our nearest competitors in hypermarket stores are ICA Maxi and Stora Coop, mainly. I try to stand out to make a mark with fresh produce, meat and fish and deli and catering in store and full-scale bakery in store. I think we are quite complementary. We move in different markets, different segments, I would say.
You can add, Anders, that we are neighbors more or less in some areas, and it benefits all of us, and it's a clear confirmation of the fact that we are complementary.
A question on sustainability from Anders. Any further investment in vegetarian or vegan food considered perhaps more sustainable? Klas?
Yes. Permanent development on new protein and new sustainable offerings. It takes time, however, for consumers to change their favorite recipes, et cetera. We've embarked on the journey. We're working on launching new products. The most recent one is Cashewmeetly, where together with an entrepreneur, we've we're now offering a cashew-based, cashew nut-based, raw material to produce a meat-like product. We continually develop new products, and we do everything we can to get the consumers to try it out and adopt these offerings. Excellent. We'll keep going. Thanks.
Thank you. We have more questions, so let's keep going. Simone, this is a question for you. Willys, we've heard about profitability online, and what about Hemköp?
Well, we're lagging behind Willys is something. We have focused this year and the last year on expanding e-commerce. In 2020, we had 19 stores offering this, and this year it's up to 100, both our own stores and franchise stores. We do focus on this expansion, and we want to find a good mix with home deliveries and collect in store.
Thank you. A question from ABG and Fredrik Ivarsson, and that is for Thomas. You talked about increased penetration and what has happened since 2013, and what have you seen in terms of expansion and what can we say about like-for-like growth?
Well, scientifically, we can only say that both these things have contributed, but we can not increase penetration solely by increasing the number of stores or locations. It's about building a brand that people enjoy more and more. If you're new to a location, then of course it's a good idea to set up a store with a good offering. It's an interaction, expanding and developing the brand. To assign proportions to these two different components, it's impossible.
Another question from Fredrik is: When you modernize a store, and I guess this is basically for all of you, what impact does that have on sales? Can you measure that effect on modernizing a store, and do you see an effect in sales? Perhaps that is something for the three of you.
Well, I can start i f we go back a number of years in time, we could see that it did have quite an impact if we invested in something. We saw a negative impact because, well, we had the, what we referred to as the Wilma project, transplanting hearts and lungs. That was a big project, and that had a negative impact. Today we're more careful because consumers, they do not like things when you cannot find what you want to buy. We're more careful today, and we have improved there. Then the impact that, refurbishing has, well, that depends on the change. It's like when buying a new car, is it just a facelift to the more modern model, or do you change to another brand altogether? It depends on what we're talking about.
Hemköp stores have also been modernized, right? Has that had an impact on sales?
Well, we have our new concept that was introduced last year, and we have modernized a number of stores. During that particular refurbishment period, it's difficult. We have a dip, but then once we're done, we see that we have a nice growth in those stores that have been modernized with the new concept.
Eva, about the club, the typical consumer in Snabbgross Club, who is that consumer, and what is segment in the market? Could you tell us a bit more?
Well, it's a bit difficult to be very exact about this consumer and what the consumer looks like because we opened up during COVID, so we haven't really had these big parties where you want to buy in bulk. What we have seen is that this has been very popular among large families that like food, that enjoy shopping at good prices. We also know that many people have been working from home, studying from home. Big families that enjoy food and also have a car so that it's easy to get to us to do that bulk shopping.
Then a question about food waste, and perhaps for you, Klas. Is it possible to quantify the financial savings of reducing food waste? I'm sure you can answer it too, but Klas first.
Well, we are going to get back to some of the financial developments and the development we've seen during these historic few past years, where food waste clearly has reduced and had an impact on the gross margin. We'll get back to that.
Thank you. Now we have a few more questions. We have lots of questions in the web broadcast. You can also dial in if you'd like to ask your question yourself. I'll remind everyone of that. If we don't have time for everyone, we'll answer them afterwards. Yes, of course. Now let's see. A question from Gustav Hagéus at SEB on the updated margins, but I think we can keep that one for the second Q&A when Anders Lexmon is with us. He also has a question, same person, which is this: You mentioned that there are some places where you don't have a presence with a physical store, and you see some growth opportunities.
If everyone thinks that way, including all the competitors, combined with migratory movement across to e-commerce, is there a danger of an over-establishment of the number of physical stores in the market?
I can go first. Of course, for us, where before these deals, we had a market share of about 20%, we do see a potential to gain more of a market share. We think that as far as we're concerned, there's 80% left to fight over, as it were. We have excellent distinctive concept where we come into markets, even when there are other stores, we bring a new concept and we stand a chance to gain market shares. As far as we're concerned, it's about seeing great growth potential in a number of places and venues where we don't have a presence right now.
Thank you. Another question for you, Thomas, from Gustav Hagéus. It's on profitability and e-commerce again. He's wondering about how you allocate costs, of course, when you calculate profitability. Can you tell us a bit about what you mean by break even? And on that topic, cost allocation and whether you expect any cannibalism from stores to online, if that impacts your margin in any way moving forward. We've already talked about profitability online, but perhaps you might be able to comment a little bit further.
Well, the ratios and how they develop, we've seen over the past few months how e-commerce some months have shown a positive trend, others, other months, negative trend. It's really very difficult to surmise a guess. What was the first question? Oh, the allocation, that's right. We've really tormented ourselves in that allocation. We've done it by the book. It's not a business on the margin, not about margins. We allocate costs and revenues in our physical stores. We've done the very same in online.
Thank you. I think that was all from the webcast. Thank you. Thank you very much for all those questions and, for the questions on the phone as well. I think we've all earned a break. We're going to break for 15 minutes, and then we'll get underway with the next session. There's going to be a countdown here, so you won't miss it. See you in a few moments. Now we have a break.
Welcome back. I hope that you had the opportunity to have a cup of coffee or something. We're now going to start the second half of today's capital market day, and we're going to talk some more in-depth about the transaction that we made public last Tuesday. We're going to talk about what we do to develop the logistics of the future and our financial development as well, and also the outlook for 2022. We're then going to conclude with another Q&A session with a focus on those components. Let's start with the news that came Tuesday.
In brief, it's about Axfood starting a strategic collaboration and becoming the second biggest owner in Mathem, in that Axfood's e-commerce actor Mathem is merging with mat.se, which corresponds 12% of our e-commerce, and in return, we get 16.5% of Mathem. That will create better opportunities for growth and synergies, and together Mathem and mat.se will become a stronger, more efficient unit. At the same time, we sign a long-term delivery and collaboration agreement with the Axfood purchasing and logistics company Dagab, and through this agreement, we can become a strong, stable partner to the new Mathem. Now I'm going to say welcome to Carl Stenbeck, the Axfood Strategy and Business Development Manager, who's also in charge of our development companies. Welcome. [Non-english content] .
Carl, you have been part, you've been very much involved in this deal. Before we start to talk about that, you're working a lot with digital developments and e-commerce in general. Do you want to comment on what we see in the market?
Well, as everyone knows, e-commerce has grown enormously the last year, not least due to the pandemic. Today, we can say that about half of it is click and collect and the other 50% is home deliveries. This is interesting. Sometimes we talk about omni-channel, pure play, et cetera, but we see that we have sales within omni-channels. We also see that customers who start with e-commerce, well, they will shop a lot more. We see additional sales as well.
We see a strength in the programs that we have at Willys, where we have some 5 million members in total. A lot is happening. We see a lot of developments having to do with home deliveries, collaborations, and we think that this will continue. We have also seen this with mat.se, and this is very exciting, but why this merger? Well, with this transaction, Axfood will get an ownership part in the biggest pure e-commerce actor, and we think that there are big synergies to be had between mat.se and Mathem with the technological platform, and that will be good for both of them, for example. This is very exciting.
We see that the consideration on a cash and debt-free basis is SEK 6.8 million, and that is about 16.5% that you get an ownership part. We can also say that this is a transaction that has to be approved by the competition authority.
What will happen next?
Well, what will happen immediately after Christmas is that we will send in an application to the Swedish Competition Authority, and they will look at it. We expect that well, once that has been done, then the transaction can be completed.
What do you think? Will it be approved?
Well, of course, we believe that it will be approved, otherwise we wouldn't have gone ahead with the transaction. We hope and believe that it will.
Great. That will be very exciting. You will be here for the Q&A sessions. It will be possible to ask Carl questions about this transaction and also about other development companies that we have. Thank you. We're going to continue with our program, and we're now going to talk about other investments that we do within logistics. That is quite a bit as a matter of fact. Here I would like to say welcome up here to Nicholas Pettersson, who is the CEO of Dagab.
Nicholas, I hope that everyone can see this slide because this is a new logo type that you have for Dagab, and that could signify that something has happened. If we look at Dagab, we actually have three different components that have been merged, and that is what we see in this new logo type. Could you describe this journey?
Well, to be brief, this was something that was necessary because of the requirements that we have and the number of brands that we have in Axfood, and also the fact that the world is moving a lot faster. We needed to change and we need to become more agile. This was necessary. I suspect that, well, the journey has not come to an end yet.
You will continue, right? What do you think about what has happened this far? Have you seen that this has been appreciated?
Well, I think we see that through sales and also what we see the development that we have, and, for example, that Willys is the most recommended store in Sweden. That is a sign that we have a good collaboration between Willys and Dagab. That is one component, and I think that this is proof that we're doing the right thing with merging these three components.
Another question. You're not done. You're going to continue your journey. Why don't you tell us a bit?
Definitely I will. We could say that Dagab and Axfood, we're now in a situation where we have embarked on a journey, and that journey will continue. Today we can manage large complex projects, and we have an organization that is moving all the time. Then, of course, you can think about what this will lead to, where are we headed and o f course, we want to be a smart distribution center with a flow that's smart, efficient for stores and e-commerce alike, and we want to have an attractive assortment that is distinctive for the different brands that we have and for the different partners that we have, and we've wanted to cherish this.
We wanted to have a portfolio where we have these distinctive food concepts, and we also want to be in this green transition, where we see today that we can have a sustainable food bag, a grocery bag. This is something that we want to continue with, where we need to work with a strong brand, also as an employer, where we work with inclusion and with good leadership capabilities.
What is the objective with the change that you're doing?
Well, it is about Dagab moving from being a support company to becoming something that is even more successful, a complete supplier for all of Axfood's brands. In order to get there, what is required? Well, we focus on two things, digitally and data-driven working methods and also a high degree of optimization in our business. These are the two components that we already have and where we are going to continue to invest heavily the next few years. Talking about the digitalization and digital working methods, I would also like to say that we have our customer-centric work method that is called AKKA, and this is a necessary tool for us to be able to make the right decisions about negotiating prices, deciding on what assortment to have, and also campaign products.
This is a great example as to how our data-driven working methods can strengthen what we do. Through high competitiveness and through a high quality in customer data, we can help the value chain, and we can be more proactive in our decision-making processes, and this is what is typical for such a complete data-driven supplier today. That is not enough. We've also invested in something called NLM. That's a new system for assortment price campaign forecasts, how to handle seasonal fluctuations, for example, and we're halfway through. We're working together with SAP to deliver a new merchandise system, and we'll be first in the world to make use of these solutions. The solution will be fully operational next year, but certain components have already started to be used.
By changing to this system, we'll have a system that is better adapted for a digital, agile, data-driven working method. One example as to how to work more efficiently is that we can distinguish assortments based on Axfood's different brands and positions in the market. We'll be much more effective in doing this, and that is an important component. We can support Simone and Hemköp in their future developments and plans, for example, but it's also a very good tool to use when we have data-driven negotiations with suppliers. We have started a very offensive journey into automation. In 2025, our entire logistics platform should be finished and should be operational for many years ahead, and then we will have invested in new platforms for logistics. We have Bålsta, Göteborg, Jönköping, and Landskrona that will be key premises for many years onwards for Dagab.
This is a journey that started in Jönköping already in 2019, and it will be completed with our new highly automated e-commerce warehouse in Gothenburg in 2025. By doing this, we will have created the framework for something that is efficient, flexible, and supportive logistics that can serve Axfood for many years ahead. The biggest investment in this journey is the new logistics center in Bålsta, and you know that this is a project started in 2019. The project has been running well despite all the turbulence.
Next year we'll have the premises ready, and then we're going to start with the ramping up with non-perishables, and then we will have it fully operational in 2023. Bålsta should be stressed is a logistics center that is quite unique, and It's evidence that Axfood dare go their own way and also evidence is showing the market position that Axfood has in the Swedish market.
This is Bålsta. I'm going to show you what it looks like. We have a layout that has been created where we have in one and the same building different picking processes for store and for e-commerce, and we create by having this benefits of scale improved customer offering, where we can have a high degree of service and also have opportunities to optimize transport and staffing and also to reduce waste, which is very important because we want to reduce our environmental footprint. We'll have a new omni-channel warehouse where we combine different temperatures, dry goods, cool, freezers.
That way, we can also optimize the scale and the transport emissions compared to having several different places with different temperatures. The order is placed through sequencing in a specific order based on the route planning. We have a high degree of automation in Bålsta in all warehouse processes for deliveries, warehousing, picking, and sending the merchandise off, which means that it's very flexible, and this is why Bålsta is kind of flexible. This way, we can also balance production at the same time as we can have efficient consolidation opportunities between different picking processes in these premises. The simulations tell us that we'll have a high degree of efficiency in stores and e-commerce as well. That is thanks to this higher degree of automation, and not the least because of the flow when it comes to freezers.
Here we are the first in automating the way we do. One example is that we have a solution where we do not have to use artificial ice, and that way we can save money, and we can also improve the working environment for our coworkers. Not least, we reduce our environmental footprint this way. We have other investments as well, and they run according to plan. Towards the end of next year, we'll have our new warehouse in Landskrona for fruit and vegetables, and we'll complete this with automation in 2023, and we're ahead of schedule with this project. In 2023, we're also going to have the build-out and the modernization and the automation of the warehouse in Backa that will be completed. That way, we'll have additional extra capacity in the southwestern parts of Sweden, which is needed.
To conclude, we'll also have the new automated e-commerce warehouse in Gothenburg that will be completed in 2025. We will be able to reuse all the lessons that we have from Bålsta, and we'll be able to make a carbon copy of that functionality, which means that we can have the same customer offering and the same customer meeting for all Axfood e-commerce customers in the Stockholm Mälardalen area and in the Greater Gothenburg areas, and 4 million consumers. To link all of these investments together, what we invest into logistics, we have talked about this before, that we have invested in a new transport management system. Through this system, we get an overview of all our transports to warehouse and to all our e-commerce consumers.
This is an important part of improving the efficiencies and also to improve the customer meeting that we have within e-commerce. With the efficiencies throughout the value chain, that is actually the most important part. This is a project that is underway, and it will be rolled out before Bålsta opens up. By having a big delivery fleet that is linked to this transport management system, that means that we're a big procurer when it comes to transport, and we can impact function, innovation, working environment, sustainability. We basically control the value chain, which means that we're very interesting as a partner to collaborate with, and that allows us to test and experiment with what fits us. Klas touched upon this. Back in 2017, we decided on a clear strategy saying that we wanted diversity in our fleet.
That means that to 2025, we shouldn't have one vehicle type or one fuel type that should make up more than half of all the vehicles. To invest in electricity and electrical trucks, that is also part of the diversity strategy. For us being successful, we have today four hybrid trucks with batteries that are charged when you drive on the highway, and then you can use electricity when driving in urban areas. Last summer, we also had the Scania first fully electric vehicle that was introduced. This is something that is appreciated by the driver and also the surroundings because transport, if you deliver to urban areas, for example, that might be something that disturbs people living there.
This is also something that reduces emissions, which means that it has a positive impact on air quality when we invest in these vehicles. We use green electricity to charge these vehicles. We have a reduction of around 40 tons per year that we can reduce the carbon dioxide emissions per vehicle. Electrification is a necessity, and this transition, of course, is to happen everywhere, but transports are key. Infrastructure, there we see that there's no opportunity today to have this rapid transition. Technology develops quickly, but investments in power grids, charging stations, et cetera, does not develop at the same pace. Without political decisions, we need innovation and collaborations amongst the purchasers and executors of transports and also those who manufacture the trucks. That is a collaboration we have started together with Scania.
To conclude, let me also mention the integration that we're doing with Bergendahls, and this is something that is ongoing at full pace. The work is, o ngoing at a good pace, and we are working towards the objective where we'll have one company where we can ensure that we have the future synergies that we have promised. The future organization and what it will look like with the assortment, support, logistics, et cetera, that is an analysis that will be carried out next year. Warehouses and offices in Hässleholm will be converted to the Dagab IT environment in April next year. Then after that, we'll have a conversion of the City Gross stores in the Axfood store infrastructure. This is a big job that has been initiated also with EMV, and next year we're going to start with phasing that in.
That means that the brands Favorit and Budget, they will be replaced with Garant and Eldorado, and that will happen second half of 2022. In addition to that, we have also started negotiations for purchasing. This was done in October, and we expected this to be done in Q1 2022. Then, of course, we'll also work with harmonizing and creating one assortment for Axfood customers, including City Gross. That being said, well, I think I'm done with my presentation. Over to you, Klas.
Good evening. Thank you, Nicholas. I don't think there's any doubt about the pace of your development. On the last part of your presentation, I was just thinking the integration with Bergendahls, there's a lot of investment in their warehouse facilities in Hässleholm and future facilities. What's been the greatest challenge in the current phase, in your view?
Well, we are two separate companies with good values as the basis, both family-owned, very much characterized by family ownership, but they've progressed to different points. They need to get to know each other, they need to communicate, but we're well underway as I see it. With humans and communication and different levels of progress, but it's well functioning dialogue. Anything that surprised you, that was better than expected? Well, Anders commented on what's important to City Gross, and it's very clear in warehousing as well.
They have very good offering in some ways where we have not progressed as much in Axfood. We have a lot to learn. I'm surprised by some of the knowledge in fresh foods and on special goods. We haven't done very much there in Axfood at all, so we can really learn and grow and use it in Axfood's other activities.
Yes. You're here as one of the panelists for the Q&A, so we'll see you in a few moments. Thank you very much. Now, we come to the next part of this session, and I'm going to welcome Anders Lexmon, our CFO, who's going to talk us through the financials and our financial development. Anders?
[Non-english content]. Thank you very much, Klas. I'm going to split this in two parts. First, historically, where are we coming from? Then looking forward a little bit and see in the near future what the situation is like. Let's start by looking at the development for our financial targets, growing more with the market, earning more than 4% in store, and a solidity of over 20%. This year we've delivered, and we've been able to do this thanks to a strong operational cash flow in our operations together with the fact that we have managed to free up a great deal of capital in our operating capital. So we've been a working capital, so we've had a high level of investment in stores, in investments, and in IT.
This is something we've been able to do also very much over time without any major levels of debt. We have a strong balance sheet, and we've been able, in combination, to offer high levels of dividend. We have an example here. If you look at Axfood's development compared to seven competitors, where we see that we have developed since 2015 with an annual growth of 5.4% compared to 2.4% for the peer group. We're also up in earnings per share on average 7.1% since 2015 compared to 3% in the peer group. What's the reason why we've been able to uphold this margin? Well, we touched upon this. Klas had a question to answer earlier in the Q&A session.
If you look at well, reported gross margin, we see that from 2016, we've gone from 14.3% up to 16.1%, partly explained through the fact that we have stepped our our EMV private label component from 27.4% to 30.9%. We've also stepped up our ability to and focus on data. Nicholas mentioned this with AKKA, for example. We're better at controlling with campaigns and assortment towards customer. So we've sharpened the activity, and this has boosted our gross margin. By way of conclusion, what you discussed earlier, we've been successful in reducing our waste from 1.8% to 1.3% during this period, in fact.
If we then look at how our working capital has developed, we've freed up money in absolute cash, but we've gone from -2% in 2017 to -4%. Relatively speaking, during this period, we've freed up approximately SEK 1 billion in capital, which we've been able to use to invest in our operations and keep a stable balance sheet and steady dividends. We have a supply chain and financing program in place of about SEK 250 million currently. That's one reason. What we see now that we're bringing in Bergendahls Food into the operation, we're going to have a dilution of this because Bergendahls Food's entire sales is based on liquid sales. There's going to be a dilution to the tune of 1% approximately.
In addition, we have an impact on the fact that the new UTP rules will enter into force, having a full impact as of next year. If we look at return on capital employed, historically speaking, we've been at a high level, over 40%. With the new IFRS 16 rules for reporting, this has reduced somewhat. It's at a lower level. Now when we come into an investment phase, both with the acquisition of Bergendahls and a higher pace when it comes to automation-related investments, the indebtedness will go up somewhat. You can see this. By the end of September, we went up on those numbers linked to the acquisition of Bergendahls, as I mentioned.
If we look at our pace of investment historically, we have total investments over the past few years, which have been impacted by the automation investments in 2019 and now in 2021. If you take them out and look at the underlying investments, we're somewhere between SEK 900 million and SEK 1 billion. In relation to net sales, we're at very stable levels of approximately 1.9%-2%. If you look at depreciation, they have also, as a result of IFRS 16, gone up considerably, but on underlying, we're at a very constant level of approximately 1.5%. Let's have a look at the dividend history. Over the past 10 years, we've enhanced earnings, dividend per share from SEK 3 to SEK 7.50, 150%. This means an annual increase in dividends of 10%.
Our aim, our policy, is to pay out in excess of 50%, and we've been able to stick to that very firmly. We're somewhere between 70%-100% of the year's results. If we look at the yellow part here, between 4%-6% direct yield. If we look at the major areas of investment that we're currently involved in and for the future, we'll continue to invest in our stores, both when it comes to revamping, rebuilding, and newly established stores. We continue to invest in IT, as Nicholas touched upon, both IT in the SAP environment, but also IT in our store networks. Of course, also about investing in logistics operations and in Bergendahls, which we acquired. If you have a look more in depth at the automation investments, we have in all SEK 305 million.
A majority of that is linked to Bålsta, EUR 240 million. We also have investments in automation at the e-commerce warehouse in Backa, EUR 48 million. Then the high storage warehouse in Backa, EUR 300 million, and in automation in Landskrona, 14. Why investing in automation? We see opportunities to be more cost efficient, of course. We've made the assessment that already as of 2024, when Bålsta is in full operation, we will have the same cost level as we have today. As of 2025, when we've ramped up Bålsta fully compared to today's level, we should be able to reduce our cost by EUR 200 to EUR 300 million.
As we increase volume in Bålsta and have the remainder of our automation investments come into place in Göteborg and Karlskrona, we see that from 2027, we should be able to reduce our costs compared to today's level, somewhere to the tune of between SEK 300 and SEK 400 million. This is illustrated quite well if you look at this graph. On the thin line, you see the cost rate today. On the slightly more. The dotted line in bold shows where we've been at in our logistics operations if we had continued to invest only in existing solutions. The blue, green one, of course, shows the development of the cost rate that we see when we come into Bålsta and more automation. Costs will go up a little bit next year, linked to Bålsta.
We'll have the structural costs coming in next year. When the warehouse has been ramped up, we see an improvement in the cost rate level compared to today. We make the assessment that as of 2027, 2028 or so, we'll be able to reduce the cost rate. We expect a reduction of between 0.3% and 0.5%. Let's look more in depth at the Bålsta investment. I mentioned that we have a commitment of SEK 240 million in automation. At the end of this year, we will have invested 100, we have 140 left. Another 100 will come in next year. When this is fully in place, we'll start the write-offs. There's IT and various components, but an assessment of the average write-off time for this automation investment is 15 years.
We expect to be able to begin to write off halfway through 2023. This is also going to be brought into the balance sheet and according to IFRS 16. Our evaluation right now is that it's about SEK 2.8 billion that will be brought into the balance sheet, and that will be done in Q2 next year. I've already touched upon this, that we will need to have these structural costs having to do with the conversion from having six old warehouses to what we're moving into. The estimate is that about SEK 220 million will be what we will need to use next year. The bulk of that will be during the second half of the year. Then if we look at Bergendahls in some more detail, this is an activity that has sales of about SEK 10 billion and profit of SEK 90 million, EBIT just over 1%.
This of course is something that will have a dilution effect, bringing this into the Axfood Group, and that will be about 0.5 percentage points. We also estimate that we will get cost synergies, and that up until 2025, over SEK 200 million, and we do see a positive effect already from last year if we discount those structural effects. When we do the integration in Q4 this year, it will be another SEK 20 million that will be converted. For the full year 2021, it will be acquisition integration costs of about SEK 90 million. We also see another SEK 120 million that we will have as integration costs next year.
We will also invest in IT adaptations in this business, and that will be about SEK 110 million. We have also communicated that we're going to have writedowns of old IT systems, and that will also be brought into the acquisition balance sheet, so that will not have a dilutive effect because of that. If we look at what we bring into the balance sheet, we have preliminary analyses and it will be about SEK 1 billion in goodwill, and we will have another SEK 600 million in material assets, customer relationship, customer contracts, et cetera, where we have a writedown period of eight years, so some SEK 40 million per year. If we then look at debt, we have. This has been very low.
If we remove the light green bars where we see the effect of this, we have a net debt, and that is what we see when entering into the Bergendahls acquisition and moving on to a more intense investment phase, that it will go up. Here we have this revolving credit facility that we signed 2019, SEK 3.5 billion, and we are using about SEK 1.5 billion when acquiring Bergendahls. We also have taken the opportunity to extend this up until November 2026. In order to strengthen our balance sheet so that it can remain to be strong and continue with a high degree of a good cash position, we plan for a rights issue next year.
If we look at 2022, to summarize what we see for next year, we will have structural costs linked to Bålsta and to the integration of Bergendahls, and that will be around SEK 340 million. We will be investing about SEK 2.6-2.7 billion and SEK 1.3 billion roughly refers to Bålsta. The bulk of that has to do with automation. We're also going to invest some SEK 100 million in the new warehouse in Landskrona, and most of that will be for automation as well. As I've already said, we're also going to invest around SEK 110 million in IT adaptations having to do with the Bergendahls acquisition.
When it comes to store establishments next year, we expect to see eight to 13 new stores, which is a somewhat higher rate than what we've had before. If we adjust for those investments in Bålsta and the integration with Bergendahls, then underlying we are at around SEK 1.5 billion in existing IT and logistics. That being said, Klas, I think I'm done.
Thank you, Anders. I hope that you through these various presentations now have a clear impression of what we expect ahead of us. Now, by way of conclusion, I'm going to say a few words about the long-term financial targets of the Axfood group. We've previously had targets of growing more rapidly than the market and have a solidity of at least 20% at the end of the year, and those targets remain in place. Today, we revise our profitability goal, and we raise the target for long-term pricing margin to at least 4.5% instead of, as previously, at least 4%. As you have seen, we have a lot that's happening in our group. We believe very strongly and firmly in our investments. We're including Bergendahls Food in our books.
As Anders mentioned, there's going to be a dilution of the pricing margin for the group. We'll have some additional costs as well, linked to the fact that next year we'll begin the transition to our new highly automated logistics center in Bålsta out of Stockholm, which will also impact the margin. With the current investments in logistics, together with the development in our chains, we're laying good preconditions for increased profitability over time, and this means that we now feel secure in raising the long-term operating margin target for profitability. In addition, we also have targets for sustainability, and you can see them here in front of you. They are the ones we focus on, in particular at group level.
For sustainability, we're going to reduce electricity consumption and get to net zero emissions by 2030 in our own operations. We've started the process to have a climate target approved by Science Based Targets initiative, SBTi. Even if we already had publicly published climate targets, we're now taking the next step. We're stepping up the rate of sustainability labeled products as a share of our sales. Outside of the environment, we also have objectives for diversity and equality and to keep the sick leave levels down. We work on a broad basis with sustainability, and we're careful to follow up and measure the development in many different areas. With those words, I thought that we could now open up once again for a Q&A session to answer your questions.
Just like before, you can take part in the Q&A either by dialing in on one of the phone numbers which can be seen on the screen, or put your questions straight into the comments field. Nicholas Pettersson and Anders Lexmon. I think we'll be focusing on a few issues that have been presented, in particular in the second session. I'll start by asking if we have any questions waiting for us. If you'd like to put a question to our speakers, press zero one. If you'd like to... And you can also withdraw it if you change your mind.
Daniel Schmidt of Danske Bank has the first question.
Hello, I hope you can hear me. I have a few questions, mainly for Anders, but also to Klas, of course. I looked at the slide you showed on cost developments, Anders, over the next few years and where it goes up a little bit and then turns down as of 2025 onwards. How should we think when we look at this? You're saying that you're going to get to a margin of 4.5% at least, but in the shorter perspective, the margin will be a little bit lower over a certain period of time. I understand that it's going to be perhaps even below 4% for some time, if I've understood the press release correctly. Is this to be interpreted as both 2022 and 2023, looking at the graphical illustration you showed us, Anders?
Well, I can start. Daniel, to be clear, we've reported the impact for the logistics investments where, yes, we have a number of non-recurring cost items which will primarily come in next year. As we ramp it up gradually, by 2024 we'll be in line with the current situation, current level, and hopefully fairly rapidly, depends on the growth and the development of course, where we see, expect to see a major improvement, and we've also quantified these components now. It is correct in the sense that, if you look at next year, as Anders mentioned, there's going to be a dilution impact of about 0.5% of Bergendahls and then the non-recurring items. In the short term we'll have an impact on those items, but that's primarily under 2022.
I just looked at the graph Anders showed that the cost development looked to be above the expected level of 2023 as well, and then it'll come down after 2023.
Yes. As you will have seen, we're not going to do a complete break in 2022 from one to the other. We're going to uphold operations when we work with double warehousing for facilities for a certain period. It's the impact of the fact that we haven't transitioned fully yet.
I see. A question then to Carl or Mat.se. Perhaps Mat.se saw losses. No, to Mathem. Does this mean that you'll suddenly lay off people? Are you going to lay off people? How many people are we talking about amongst the employees? How many have they been?
Well, that's the big question. We've been asked it already a number of times. Pure e-commerce operators like Mat.se, for example, there's no doubt that this has not been a profitable business in that sense.
We have a continuous development, and if you look at the peers, you can see where the development is. It's been negative on the operating margin. What's happening now is that it's very important to be clear and say that the employees in the Mat.se component, that's being transferred, but the click and collect and transport and warehouse are combined with Willys and Hemköp. That belongs to Dagab. Those components remain, and that's of course the operational part, which is, it's the operational part that's transferred.
Okay. Well, perhaps it's relevant to look at Mathem's operating margin then if you want to do an estimate for Mat.se. Final question for Anders, or a question for Anders at least. If you combine the parts SEK 200 million in cost synergies from Bergendahls Food acquisition up to 2025, and then from there additional efficiency on logistics from the investments you're making in Landskrona in Bålsta and Gothenburg of between SEK 200 and SEK 300 million, I think you've stated that it's only really cost synergies when it comes to the Bergendahls Food acquisition. Is there anything you could say on top-line synergies? It's always more difficult to forecast, of course.
Well, of course we have an ambition and a hope, and you've heard Anders talk about that from City Gross, and now we will become a strategic partner of City Gross. As they develop and grow, then we will also get those volumes in the underlying layers, and there is a potential there. Same thing goes for other components. We can continue to develop, and that will create scale.
On the cost side and cost synergies, well, that is one thing, but you haven't really said much apart from that. Well, purchasing perhaps, we're talking scale, but you haven't really mentioned Hässleholm and what we'll mention there.
Well, right now we're working with integrations. We're going to link the Hässleholm warehouse with what we have elsewhere, and we have the IT investments that are being done. Then Nicholas can help out perhaps, but Hässleholm will be Dagab Hässleholm. That will become one component in the warehousing that we have, and we'll continue with optimizations. Now we have this in Skåne, and we'll have to wait and see what happens with those developments. I can add on to what I said before. We are analyzing the business right now, and we'll have to get back to you next year perhaps when we're done with that analysis.
There is nothing that you can say that has happened when it comes to personnel. If anything will happen, it's next year.
Well, as I've said, we have two different companies that are going to merge into one. Now we need to get to know each other, understand each other's cultures, different working methods that we have that we need to analyze and look at. The idea is that we'll be one company.
Okay, thank you. That's what I had. Thank you.
Do we have more questions? No. No more questions, so I'll hand back over to you. I think we have Alex looking at the comments. Do we have any written comments or questions?
Yes, absolutely. We have a few questions that have been sent in, and I'll ask them, and I'll start with Carl. Apohem and that investment, what has happened? How are they doing?
Well, the pharmacy sector has grown, and Apohem has grown as well. They gained market share, and we're happy with what we have seen the last 12 months. We have also invested a lot so that we can grow even more. We have a new warehouse, and we're very happy with that, the technical platform that we have. We see growth, and we're happy.
We have a question from Fredrik Ivarsson, ABG. Mathem, they're working together with Kronans Apotek today, and what will happen there?
Well, generally speaking, Carl, you can add to what I'm saying, but, last Tuesday, we made this merger public, and it has to be approved by Swedish Competition Authority and Mat.se and Apohem are collaborating, and Mathem is collaborating with another partner. Of course, this will be for the new company or the new big Mathem to decide on what will happen in the future.
Thank you. Then another question from Fredrik. Are you looking at expanding into new product groups? Not pharmacy and food, but something else?
Well, I think I need to be clear, and I thought I was earlier today. We are now in markets that are very relevant, interesting, and also where a lot is happening, food retail, not the least, also restaurant, food service and pharmacy. We want to continue to be relevant in those markets where we have a presence, so that is what we're going to continue, and that is what we're looking at right now.
Another question from Fredrik about food price inflation. Do you think that this will compensate for higher purchase prices that you can see today?
Well, you have to look at this from a historical perspective, and our sector is a low margin sector after all, and over time, costs will be reflected in what we see going to the consumer over time. That is what we've seen historically, and I don't expect that to change. We'll have to wait and see. Yes, raw materials are going up, electricity prices, et cetera. That is the phase we're in, and we have to wait and see for how long it will continue.
Thank you. Two financial questions. Start with Gustav Hagéus at SEB. SEB, who's asking about our updated raised margins target. How does that compare to the previous target before you started to adapt the numbers to IFRS 16? Anders?
Thank you. We talked a little bit about the margins impact, and there's a dilution effect because of Bergendahls. We also see a positive impact linked to our investments in logistics and to Bergendahls as a deal. That's what we're seeing. If you look at this historically, we've achieved our long-term financial targets, also the 4% with some assistance from IFRS. As Anders mentioned, now we have a clear dilution part with Bergendahls, but also, and not least, we see very clear impact on the investments we're making. That's why today we're showing with clarity and force that moving forward, we believe we can raise our long-term operating margin target.
Thank you. Niklas Ekman at Carnegie is asking about the SEK 340 million in non-recurring expenditure. Is that how they're going to be booked as non-recurring item? Or how will you report them?
Yes, they will impact comparability. That's how they will be reported.
Thank you. A question about Mat.se. How integrated is Mat.se with Willys and Hemköp? Are there any costs involved in the fact that they go into Mathem?
Mat.se, we have our own platform, but we share a warehouse with Mat.se and Willys and Hemköp. The shared part will be transferred and the store, storage facility will remain in place. So there are some costs, but well, it's hard to comment on any cost, should I say, but it's quite a clear point nevertheless to distinguish.
Thank you. Now let's see. A question from Daniel Schmidt in Danske Bank. Can you update us on the customer flows on the border shops in October, November? What's the situation now with Norway having stricter restrictions on the border?
Well, Daniel, I rarely comment on things that have happened after we've closed a quarter, Q3, and now we're in Q4. Because I did comment on this in October when we presented Q3, that it was a very positive situation with open borders. As Thomas mentioned earlier today, there was a high flow, very happy faces, customers coming back to us shopping in our stores. Of course, it's enough to go and look at the border over the past few days or a week or so with the reintroduction of restrictions. It has become more difficult to cross the border. There's more testing and various elements that have an impact on us as well. So cross-border flows are going down.
Thank you. Then a question from Daniel Lovén at Nordea. We've already talked about profitability in e-commerce, of course, and for the various concepts that we have and in general terms. Here's a question: Is there a danger, generally speaking, that the margin in stores will drop when some of the sales move online and the stores are stuck with a lot of fixed costs? Yeah, others, have you seen it in other segments? What about food retail?
Well, all of this, I believe, has to do with the fact that we need to adapt to the reality around us. Without commenting on our figures, the food retail index has been published with the figures for the market. What we're seeing now is that we see growth rates for the market in general. Now we see e-commerce going down, and growth is up in physical stores instead. It's switching back. The e-commerce today is about 5% of the total. Of course, this depends on where things will go over time, and it's difficult to predict. We're kind of convinced that we will continue to have a big proportion of the shopping done in our physical stores. Even if I, as a consumer, shop online, about two-thirds of what you buy you actually buy in a physical store.
You do the bulk shopping online, and then you go to a physical store. Even if people go to e-commerce to do some shopping, they will continue with the physical stores. Well, we'll have to wait and see what happens with current developments. What we've seen today is that it's headed in the right direction. E-commerce is still a small part, but will get bigger with automation, and then we'll also have a better profitability.
Thank you. The final question, which is for Nicholas. We have seen many disruptions in supplies, and we've heard a lot about transports, et cetera. How has Dagab managed this, and what impact has it had last year?
Well, it is a good question. Of course, this has had an impact. We have had to work extremely hard and also have had to be very careful with forecasts, and we have had to ensure that we secure products that are seasonal perhaps. In the past perhaps if we had four similar products to offer a consumer, perhaps today we only have 3. We have been able to maintain a high degree of efficiency, a good assortment in spite of difficult circumstances. The world around us is turbulent, and it's difficult to say anything about when this will stop. If someone had asked me at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, then I would have expected it to be, well, a few turbulent weeks, but not two years or two and a half. There is an imbalance in the market, definitely.
Thank you. Actually, we had one more question. No. We have asked that question. That was food price inflation. Then we're done with the questions.
Thank you for keeping excellent track, Alexander. Thank you for all the questions. Thank you, panelists, for joining me in answering the questions.
Let's see. Now, thank you for taking part in the Axfood Capital Market Day 2021. Today, we've looked more in depth into future investments, laying the foundation for long-term profitable, sustainable growth. We've outlined how our different store concepts are strengthening their positions, how the extensive investments in logistics and automation now will lead to cost savings and an efficient and sustainable logistics platform for many years ahead. These are investments and a focus which means that we can now raise our long-term profitability target.
Finally, I'd just like to mention now when it's close to Christmas that a lot of very good initiatives are taking place to help out in various parts of the group. In several places we cooperate with local NGOs like The Salvation Army, Stadsmissionen or Church of Sweden. Stores give leftover food which can no longer be sold but which is of full quality and possibilities to buy food at reduced cost. We've worked with Stockholm Stadsmissionen for a long time. We donate surpluses that we have of food from our stores and our warehouses. Willys have also donated store design features and equipment to social economy stores in Sweden today.
There are various stores who are putting together a Christmas food giving out to local NGOs, and Hemköp works with the SOS Children's Villages and Willys with Save the Children. With that small Christmas greeting, I'd like to conclude for today. I'd like to wish all those who took part here today and who listen afterwards. Well, I'd like to wish you all happy holidays and Happy New Year. Thank you to all.