Hello, and welcome to today's Finwire Broadcast presentation with Cheffelo. After the presentation, there will be a question and answer session, so if you have any questions, you can submit using the form on the screen. With that said, I leave the floor to you. Please go ahead.
All right. Good morning to everyone joining us. Thank you, first of all, for your interest in Cheffelo, and welcome to this presentation of our Q4 and full year results for 2025. My name is Walker Kinman. I'm the CEO of Cheffelo, here today together with Erik Bergman, our CFO. I'm going to take a few minutes to give you a short intro on the company and then take you through some prepared remarks on the Q4 developments before Erik gives you a run-through on the financials. And then we're going to take your questions, which you can fill out in the form located to the right of the broadcast. All right, so let's start a little bit about Cheffelo.
We are solving dinner for tens of thousands of households across Scandinavia every week with our meal kits, and our ambition is to do this better than anyone else in the market. We've been a pioneer in the meal kit business for nearly two decades. We're profitable. We own and operate our local brands, which are Godtlevert in Norway, Linas Matkasse in Sweden, and RetNemt in Denmark. Our service is centered around a clear value proposition: to unite families around the dinner table. We achieve this by simplifying dinner with a wide variety of inspiring, tasty, and well-balanced meals that are easy to prepare and satisfy a wide variety of preferences and dietary needs. By removing the stress of meal planning, shopping, and cooking, we help more people eat better and bring families together around the dinner table. Our meal kit business operates on a demand-driven subscription model.
Because of this, we can keep inventories low and reduce food waste in our operations. One of our competitive advantages is our ability to offer significant personalization with the widest range of recipes in our markets, available in portion sizes for two, three, four, five, and six persons. Each month, we offer over hundreds of unique recipes, including many recurring customer favorites and a constant rotation of thematic and seasonal recipes to provide renewed inspiration. As we say, it's all about personalization so smart, it feels simple. We aim to avoid overwhelming our customers with choices and focus on user experiences designed to ensure our customers receive what works best for their household in the easiest way possible. This personalized customer experience is powered by our in-house technology platform and deep data analytic capabilities.
We use AI technology, driving, for example, pre-selection of recipe based on preferences, purchase history and ratings, and our recommendation engine. This level of personalization is further supported by the ability to produce each order individually using pick-to-light and automated production solutions in fulfillment centers we run ourselves. Our supply chain is well established, strong, and scalable, enabling us to efficiently purchase and distribute our products in each country where we operate. Furthermore, we are constantly integrating our Nordic supply chain, which enables us to take advantage of sourcing opportunities across markets. Turning to Slide 6, let's talk about some of the key figures for the quarter. So we successfully closed the year with net sales growth of 9.1% in the Q4 , equaling 12.6% on a local currency basis.
Continued growth helped us set a new record for Q4 EBIT profitability of SEK 36.7 million, equal to 11.3% of net sales. These Q4 results were especially exciting given the absence of one delivery week compared to last year. Norway continued with very strong momentum in Q4, with 23.5% growth. Sweden, at the same time, notched the 10th quarter of sustained year-on-year growth. So this is the Q2 in a row where we have noted double-digit increase in active customers, which reached 13.5% and comes on the back of sustained growth in new customer acquisitions and improvements in retention. We have talked a lot about our efforts with limited add-ons and grocery selection, focusing on enhancing the relevance and stickiness of our offering, and saw basket penetration increase by 3.7 percentage points versus the previous year.
For the full year, net sales grew by 12.3%. That's about 15.1% on a local currency basis. Profitability followed suit, and we achieved an increase in EBIT of 76%, reaching 73.4 million SEK or 6.2% of net sales with good operating leverage. Both cost of food and sales and marketing expenses were lower in Q4, which helped us exceed our own expectations on full-year profitability. Consistent with our approach to capital allocation, the board will be recommending a dividend to shareholders of 7.05 kronor per share, corresponding to 91.8 million kronor. We've recently announced two key initiatives related to our strategic development that I would like to expand on further this morning.
We can start with the first, regarding the consolidation of our business in Norway under the Godtlevert brand on Slide 7. As we look back at 2025, we can confirm that a significant amount of the growth in the Norwegian market has been driven by the Godtlevert brand, which is over two-thirds of our business in Norway. This is the brand in Norway that embodies our value proposition of meals that unite families and which we have been able to best leverage our strategic advantages on personalization and service reliability. We acknowledge that driving two meal kit brands in a market with the same underlying abilities makes clear differentiation between the two brands complicated at best. In practice, we have been suboptimizing both brands over time, which we are now correcting.
This means that by migrating our Adams customers into the Godtlevert brand, we will be able to give an even more personalized experience to both customer groups while eliminating sales and marketing and other costs related to maintaining two brands in the market. At the same time, the consolidation helps us strengthen the menu variation for all of our Norwegian customers, with a menu that has expanded to 150 recipes a week and hundreds of unique recipes every month to meet a wide variety of taste preferences and dietary needs. Former Adams customers will also gain access to more portion sizes and significant thematic and seasonal variation already enjoyed by both of our customers at a lower price point.
At a product level, what we're doing in Norway will be rolled out in Sweden and Denmark during the year, and the continued development of our product and services in existing markets remains key to increasing our competitiveness and profitable growth. However, we are also broadening our geographic ambitions based on existing fulfillment capabilities, and I'd like to share some more thoughts on the pilot project in Finland that we announced in the Q4 report on the next slide. We have held off on geographic expansion because we still see a great opportunity in Scandinavia, and at the same time, have needed time to strengthen our strategic capabilities and the organization behind them. Testing those capabilities in a new market is not the same as developing them in well-established markets where we already have strong brand assets.
At the same time, we know that Norway, Sweden and Denmark will, at some point, reach saturation. This may be many years away, but it will come, and we feel the time is right to increase, increase our geographic reach. Against this background, our initiative in Finland is a logical next step. It expands our total available market, allows us to test our expansion capabilities while keeping Cheffelo's overall risk level largely unchanged. In practical terms, we have decided to launch a cross-border pilot project in Finland during 2026, using our existing fulfillment capabilities in Sweden. No launch date has been set, and we won't be sharing significantly more details today, other than that we are not making any capital investments at this stage, and incremental operational costs are not material given the current size of Cheffelo.
Based on learnings from the pilot phase, we should be able to clarify any add-on investments and set clear expectations going forward. Let's now turn to Slide 9 to look at how things are developing in each market. So first off, when looking at growth rates, note that we had one less delivery week in the Q4 compared to the previous year. So market conditions remained favorable in Norway, and here our business continues to perform the strongest, with growth of 23.5% in local currency. This growth has driven, was driven principally by an increase in new customer acquisitions.
Momentum remains good in Norway moving into 2026, and while we express in the report expectations of a bit more moderate growth for the year, we are also convinced that consolidation of our brands will, over time, allow us to strengthen our position in the market. Net sales grew by 4% in Sweden for the quarter. Here, as well as in Denmark, the effect of one less delivery week sticks out in the growth figures. For instance, Sweden was somewhat lower than the online grocery index that came in at 8.3% for the quarter. For the year, we grew by 9.3% in the Swedish market, while the online grocery index registered 6.6% growth. We are expecting to see good volume growth in Sweden over 2026, and all signals at the start of the year support that.
Both Sweden and Norway saw a recovery in consumer confidence over 2025, while in Denmark we saw the opposite, with declining sentiment over most of the year, followed by a shift in direction in December and continued improvement in January. Our business in Denmark declined by 3.5% local currency during the Q4 , with the calendar timing effect the main driver of the contraction. This can be compared to the Danish online grocery index, which was about 4% higher during the October and November period. Over the year, our net sales in Denmark have been basically flat on lower volumes. We have increased our media investments in Denmark, and are introducing product changes that, combined with improving market conditions, are expected to drive a return to volume growth during 2026. This is something we are already experiencing at the start of the year.
It's fitting that as we summarize the end of the year, we also give a short update on our progress with sustainability topics, and for that, let's turn to Slide 10. An essential part of solving dinner for us is doing it in a responsible way that contributes to a reduction in food waste through better predictability, supply and chain efficiency, and ingredient sizes that match the requirements of the recipe. We were pleased that our efforts have led to a 36% reduction in food waste produced in our own operations. That reached only 1.6 grams per portion during 2026. Think of this as food waste in our supply chain, equating to only the size of a large almond per serving, while significantly contributing to limiting the amount of food products tossed in the bin in our customers' homes.
Another area where we can report progress in 2026 was the strengthening of our position on animal welfare practices with the introduction of 100% slow-growing chicken in Norway. This brings this market in line with something we've been doing in Denmark for several years. We can be very happy to see the successful growth and corresponding profitability of the business during the year, but at the same time, do not accept any compromise on the values that define our business and motivate our team to get there. And with that, I'm particularly proud to see strong employee engagement and leadership scores across Cheffelo, and feel certain there's a solid connection there to our effort to provide a work environment with increasing psychological safety and responsible stewardship.
Finally, it's worth highlighting that we are directing 2% of our net profits to local Red Cross initiatives that combat food insecurity and support bringing families closer together. This comes on top of our practice of donating any extra usable food from our fulfillment sites to local nonprofit organizations whenever we have it. We will be publishing our full sustainability report in May, and I encourage you to check it out. Take some time to get a deeper understanding of the efforts that our team is making to solve dinner in a sustainable way. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Erik to take us through the financials and summarize our outlook for the coming year.
Thank you, Walker, and I will start with saying that the Q4 finalized the year quite well, with growth outperforming our expectation in Norway, and Sweden continued to deliver a steady growth. Net sales came in at almost SEK 324 million, which is a growth of 9.1% year-on-year. This was at the upper end of our expectations when we released the Q3 report. This is an impressive result, given the negative impact from the strong Swedish krona, and if adjusted for currency, the local growth in the Q4 was 12.6%. And I would also like to point out that we achieved this despite having one less delivery week in 2025 compared to 2024.
To explain this calendar effect a bit further, we do have weekly deliveries and roughly every fifth year, there are 53 weeks instead of 52 weeks. This is not a shift between years, but simply one extra week in certain years. Last year, we estimated that the extra week contributed positively by around SEK 8 million to net sales, which then would be translated to an effect on growth this year by approximately 2.7%. With the headwinds from both currency effect and fewer weeks, I do think that we report a good finish of the year. It is encouraging to see that new customer acquisition continued to be strong also in the Q4 , where we saw almost 17% more new customers compared to the year before.
This, in combination with a steady improvement in retention, resulted in active customers being 13.5% higher during the quarter. Another important factor behind the growth is the increase in average order value, which was up 5.7% in local currency. This was explained by a combination of price adjustment, a shift towards larger meal kits, and the higher penetration of add-ons and groceries. I would also like to mention order frequency, which is lower in the Q4 than the previous year, even though the underlying trend is quite stable. The decline is mainly due to a comparability effect from having one less delivery week, so I would suggest to not read too much into this decline. For the full year, net sales reached almost SEK 1.2 billion, which was an increase of 12.3%.
Adjusted for currency, growth was actually 15.1%, which is more than double the growth rate that we saw in 2024 and above our long-term target range of 7%-9%. With that, let's move on to the next slide, looking into the profitability. Starting with contribution margin, in the Q4 , contribution margin was SEK 103 million, which is 8% higher than the previous year, with a margin of 32% versus 32.3% last year. In the third quarter, we talked about the relatively higher food cost, and I'm glad to say that mitigation actions to address this was successful. The year-on-year gap in input goods as a percentage of net sales was reduced to be only 0.9 percentage point higher in the Q4.
This compared to the 2.2 percentage points gaps that we saw in the Q3 . At the same time, the average fulfillment cost per delivery were slightly reduced versus last year, and the combination of both the lower food cost and the stable fulfillment cost was explains that the contribution margin in the Q4 came in better than we had expected. So looking at the full year, contribution margin reached 13.7%, which is a slight reduction versus previous year. This reflects the higher food cost that we saw in the Q3 and also a continued investment in customer growth and experience. So with that, let's move on to the next slide and have a look at the EBIT.
So EBIT amounted to SEK 36.7 in the quarter, and this is the highest Q4 EBIT that we have ever recorded, and this is even higher than we had anticipated, a strong way to finish a great year. This, the year-on-year improvement in the Q4 was mainly driven by economies of scale, combined with a controlled contribution margin and lower and more efficient sales and marketing expenses. Our sales and marketing expenses was SEK 2 million lower in 2025 compared to 2024. As a percentage of net sales, sales and marketing expenses was reduced by 1.4 percentage point, driven by economies of scale, a more efficient allocation of the marketing spend, and the commercial restructure announced in 2024.
I am very pleased to see that we spent less and still acquired more customers, which reflect a better marketing efficiency and a positive impact from the new commercial reorganisation. For the full year, EBIT amounted to SEK 73.4 million, an increase of about 76% and an EBIT margin improvement of 2.2 percentage points. Again, economies of scale, combined with controlled unit economics, are what drove this improvement. All in all, we are very pleased to finish the year with an EBIT record. Let's move on to the next slide to see what improved profitability is translating into the cash flow. Increased profitability drives cash flow, so focusing on the full year—free cash flow increased by SEK 37 million to almost SEK 84 million, with increased profitability being the main driver for the higher cash flow.
Our negative working capital model, where customers pay closely after delivery, while we pay our suppliers at the latest stage, also supported cash generation. Changes in working capital contributed SEK 12 million to cash flow in 2025, compared with SEK 5 million in 2024. This was supported by higher volumes and a calendar effect from one additional payment date between the last delivery and the year-end, although this was partly offset by a somewhat higher inventory at the end of the year. All in all, cash and cash equivalents at year-end were SEK 157 million, which is up from 114 in the end of 2024. So overall, we have seen the increased profitability in 2025 being translated into what I would consider a strong cash flow.
So let's turn to the next slide to see how this affects our dividend. Based on the strong cash flow and our capital allocation principles, targeting financial flexibility and a high return to shareholders, the board proposed a dividend of SEK 7.05 per share, which is up from SEK 3.32 per share last year. This corresponds to a total dividend of almost SEK 92 million, which is more than double the amount that we distributed the year before. The board based this dividend on the free cash flow generating during the year, but also adding the cash proceeds from the new share issue related to the long-term incentive program in 2025. So with this proposal, Cheffelo will have repeatedly paid dividends since 2022, and this reached a bit more than SEK 182 million in cash dividends to shareholders.
So let's move to the next slide to have a look at the future periods. At our capital markets event, we communicated our ambition to grow net sales by 7%-9% per year in average, reaching around SEK 1.5 billion in 2028, and then also deliver an EBIT margin of 7%-9% when we reach those volumes. Looking at 2026 specifically, we have seen a good start. We expect to continue, but a more moderate growth in Norway after a very strong 2025. In Sweden, we expect a steady growth against a good macro and with continued product enhancements. In Denmark, our plan is to return to organic growth, supported by higher media investment, product enhancement, and help, but what we see as an improved consumer environment.
From a profitability perspective, we expect a stable contribution margin, 30%-31% for the full year. We also expect sales and marketing expenses to be around 11% of net sales on an annual basis. This reflecting continued unit economic discipline and the benefits from the brand consolidation in Norway. With that, I would like to hand back to Walker for a quick summary.
All right, thanks, Erik, and let's turn to the final slide to summarize, and we'll open it up for questions. So in summary, we're pleased with how the year concluded and certainly note the that accelerating growth in the current environment allows us to reinvest in initiatives that we expect to reinforce profitable growth over time, as laid out in our financial targets. Let me leave you with the following takeaways from this presentation. We delivered double-digit growth in local currency for both the quarter and the full year. This is supported by customer acquisition, improved loyalty, and increased average order values. Higher revenue led to scale benefits with a record Q4 EBIT and a 76% increase for the full year.
We are consolidating our brands in Norway under the Godtlevert brand to further strengthen our strategic capabilities and our ability to deliver on our value proposition to customers. We are looking to the future and how best to expand our geographic footprint by embarking on a cross-border pilot project in Finland during 2026. The year has started well. We expect to continue our growth journey, including accruing further scale benefits that come because of net sales growth. And finally, as a result of improved profitability and good cash conversion, the board will propose a dividend to shareholders of SEK 7.05 per share, totaling SEK 91.8 million. The Cheffelo team has never been more enthusiastic about the future, and they're showing it in the day-to-day effort to continue solving dinner better than anyone else.
Without this level of engagement, we would never be able to serve our customers in the way that we do, and I again want to thank all of our Cheffeloans for their dedication and their efforts. So this concludes our prepared remarks. We're ready to answer your questions. Remember to use the form located in the broadcast, if you haven't done so already. We'll start with the first question here from Jacob. We have a strong position, or you have a strong position in Norway and Sweden, and a smaller market share in Denmark. When marketing efforts in Denmark increase during 2026, what is it that you need to be different, to do differently in Denmark to grab market share?
I think this comes back to analysis that the team has been introducing, when it comes to, media mix modeling and looking at where we can maximize and make our investments more effective and more efficient. We will increase media spend, so part of this is visibility, but... But on the other hand, we also have learned this last year that we need to have a presence within media as well, and that's something that's already started, here at the beginning of the year. So I think part of that is changing the way you work, but also making sure that we're visible and we're acquiring customers in the market.
Again, from Jacob, "How is the Finnish market dynamics for meal kits compared to your current regions?" And the second part of that question is: "If your pilot project in Finland is successful, does M&A fit into your strategy of geographic expansion there, or will you stick to a greenfield expansion in that particular region?" I think the first, the first part of that question is that the meal kit market in Finland is significantly smaller than the rest of the markets that we operate in today. A lot of that has to do with the absence of competition in the area, but also the underdevelopment of food e-commerce.
I think this is, this is an opportunity to really showcase to Finns what a meal kit is all about, with significant variation, significant personalization, and real inspiration when it comes to different ways of eating and, and how to solve dinner for the family. So I think it's, it's definitely a growth opportunity here, but it's a different market in the sense that we'll be part of driving the meal kit category in general in Finland. The question here with if it's successful, I think, you know, for, at this point in time, we've made it clear that we're, we're starting from a greenfield expansion approach, but this is also a very low capital intensity approach.
We're not introducing any long-term commitments at this point in terms of, you know, fulfillment facilities, or even setting up extensive, networks with regards to, local supply. I think that comes at a later stage. We can capitalize on the capacity that we have available, in Mölnlycke and, provide a very, very, interesting product for the Finns. Jacob has another question, and this one is: "When you say moderate growth in Norway, do you dare to say if that is aligning with your long-term financial targets or lower than that due to high comparable figures?" And I'll leave that one over to Erik.
So the long-term target should be seen from a more long-term term and not specific for a country itself. It's seen for the group. But, going back to the comment on a more moderate growth in Norway, that should be seen on the back of a 23.5% growth in 2025, more than alignment to the financial targets.
The next question we have from Andreas is: "Explain a little bit more detail why the growth has been so strong in Norway. Are you working differently in Norway compared to Sweden and Denmark?" I think the Norwegian market dynamic this past year has been really quite interesting, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that we have expanded our product offering. We're providing a lot more variation. We're providing a number of different recipes, and back in 2024, we also introduced personalization at a completely different level so that customers were getting default meal kits that passed their own sort of preference and behavior.
We also introduced in Norway as well as Sweden, three- and five-portion recipes, so we offer a complete spectrum of the ability to personalize the number of portions that customers are having. I think all of this contributes to improving, you know, the business in Norway, but I think at the same time, we have to acknowledge that the market conditions have changed quite a bit in Norway. We went from a flat business in 2024 to 24% growth in 2025. A lot of that on the back of the central bank lowering interest rates on mortgages, a lot of Norwegians staying at home and not traveling abroad because of a weakened Norwegian crown, which stimulates local domestic spending in the big picture.
So I think we've benefited both from a tailwind, and the offering a very competitive product in the Norwegian market. The good news is that we don't work differently in the different markets. There may be a little bit of a lag in terms of product development, but what we're doing right now in Norway, with 150 recipes and hundreds of different options every month for our customers, is actually something that will be rolled out through the course of the year in both Denmark and Sweden. So I think it's, I think it's safe to say that sometimes one market will move at a different pace than another market, but I wouldn't chalk it up to significant differences in how we're working in the Norwegian market. Let's move to the next question then. Good morning, Walker.
Erik, from Clement, two questions. The first question: "With stable contribution margin and marketing, does it mean EBIT margin should be flat to slightly up, only thanks to G&A cost leverage in 2026?" I'll leave that one to Erik.
So the short answer is yes. We don't have any plan for increasing our central function costs in any way. So the short answer is yes.
Good. And the next part of the question from Clement: "Have you already conducted consumer surveys and some research around the Finnish consumers' appetite for meal kits, and you think M&A would allow you to faster re-enter the country?" So I think the last part of that question I've answered in the sense that we're approaching this as a greenfield approach. I think when we look at the Finnish market as well and consumer appetites, I think there is an opportunity based on some qualitative discussions that we've had with regards to the fact that Finns are looking for new inspiration. They're looking for ways to solve dinner. I don't think our Finnish neighbors are any less stressed when it comes to life in general, and activity levels and...
You know, the idea of being able to gather the family around the dinner table, I think is quite compelling in most cultures. So we think that there's definitely a good opportunity here in the Finnish market. Let's move to the next question from Christian. "As you consolidate the two Norwegian brands into one, what mix effects should we expect, particularly on average order value and contribution margin? How do you expect the consolidation to impact marketing efficiency spend in Norway?" And the last part of the question: "How have Adams's customers responded so far?" Maybe I'll leave the first part of that question to Erik.
So starting with average order value, the Adams Matkasse have a higher price, so yes, it will affect the average order value. Although it's the smallest brand in Norway, so it will not have that large of effect on average order value. And looking at the contribution margin side, we do have a quite well control over our unit economics and contribution from each delivery. So looking at contribution margin, there will be no larger effect from the migration.
I think there's a part of that question as well, looking at marketing efficiency and spend in Norway, and I think you can understand that any time that you have a brand that needs to be maintained, there's a minimum level of work and cost involved in that. I think this gives us the ability to focus our efforts. It means that we put all of our efforts behind one brand and strengthening that brand and the visibility of that brand in the market. There will be synergies, because it doesn't just transfer all of the money from one brand to another, but at the same time, it does give us more power in the market. So we expect both cost savings, but also a better effect by being able to focus our efforts.
I think you have that last question there, "How many Adams customers responded so far?" We haven't planned on going into details about that right now, but I think the migration effort has been two weeks underway. Our approach has been an opt-in approach, and that's been received quite well. So where customers are actually doing a self-migration from Adams to Godtlevert. What we've seen so far, we are quite confident that it will achieve what we have planned so far this year, and that's good news.
One more question from Andreas: "What is your expectation with the effort in Finland?" Like I said in my comments, I think here, Andreas, the point at this point in time is we're not going to create any expectations externally in terms of what we will accomplish in Finland. We're gonna run a pilot project here in the second half, and I think based on how that project develops, we'll be able to come back and actually set some very clear expectations. We don't see any need to put down capital expenditures or enter into long-term lease commitments at this point to be able to test the market.
Once we have product in the market, we'll be able to understand what is it that we need to make adjustments to in the product offering to actually get much closer to the Finnish consumer. We have some hypotheses about what that is, but there's no other way to do it than just to test it, and we're prepared to jump in and do it, rather than maybe the idea here is to if you, if we spend too much time working on sort of what could we do and don't do it, we'll probably move a lot slower. So we're gonna be putting down our first efforts here already in the second half.
So, back to Christian, "In terms of the planned Finland pilot, you mentioned in slides that you will use the Swedish fulfillment center, which we interpret this as requiring limited to no incremental CapEx, with the launch primarily driven by marketing and leveraging existing infrastructure. And while you haven't communicated a specific start date, is this pilot more likely to begin in the first half or the second half?" I think that last one, I think it's reasonable to expect the pilot to be in the second half. I think we're very much focused on driving our existing business right now in the first half cycle. When it comes to the CapEx, as I've commented, and your assumption here is correct, we will not be making any incremental CapEx.
We have sufficient capacity to do a significant amount of fulfillment from our Swedish center. It will be mostly focused on how to, any costs related to this is focused on making sure that we have excellent translations, and also to make sure that we have money to test the market when it comes to market. Next question from Christian, again. Thank you. "Your 2026 guidance implies sales and marketing at 11% of sales, in line with full year 2025. Is it fair to interpret this as a reallocation of spend, for instance, from Adams Norway, toward Finland, Denmark, or is it mainly driven by higher efficiency and scale benefits?
Yeah, we have a reallocation between spend between countries. We will have a more... We will increase the spend in Denmark to continue to drive the growth in Denmark. And there will be some reallocations when it comes to spend. We haven't included Finland in that 11% of net sales though.
As the comments in the overview, in the voiceover previously, though, when we talk about Finland from an operating cost perspective, it's immaterial size of our current business. So our next question from Clement: Could you give us more color about the gross margin decline over 2025, and whether it should continue to decline through 2026? Is it driven by product investment, food inflation not being passed on to the customer?
In 2025, we have deliberately shifted a bit more into our fulfillment cost, especially in our food cost, with different initiatives to increase customer experience. We did a large change in the Q3 to how we approach our plus prices and the approach to that, which did have a quite large effect on the fulfillment cost as a percentage of net sales or input goods as a percent of net sales, does explain part of the increase that we see during the year. But on an overall level, we still guides to a contribution margin between 30%-31% in 2026.
Let's not forget there, there's also a bit of a dynamic change when it comes to the higher customer acquisition rate that we saw in 2025. So, because of the dynamics of how discounts and rebates are introduced into the equation on the P&L, because those are netted against top-line sale, that actually means we will see slight decline in contribution margin on a relative basis if we have an increase in acquisition, which is what we saw in 2025. When it comes to acquisition in 2026, it's very hard to say at this point. We don't expect to have a lot of volatility in that, but we are seeing, you know, we are seeing growth that already in Denmark, for instance, which is helped by acquisition.
We have one more question here from Andreas. What's the criteria that a pilot in Finland would go over to an established long-term effort in the Finnish market, total customers, et cetera? I think when we look at it from the perspective, what we're looking for is do we have the ability to acquire customers? So we're looking for an efficient and effective customer acquisition rate in the Finnish market, once we have launched. We're looking for a customer dynamic which is reflecting probably what we see in our other markets in terms of new customer acquisition.
I think when it comes to, you know, a big part of what we're looking at when you, when you put a pilot in place would be to see, are all assumptions as expected when it comes to unit cost controls, you know, incremental cost with regards to, making sure that the logistics flow works. Do we have the right suppliers to be able to give a level of service to customers? I think this is, you know, when it comes to sort of making a bigger investment, it's a much bigger investment in terms of sales and marketing efforts. When it comes to sort of at what point do you say, make a significant commitment and a long-term investment in the form of, of placing fulfillment centers, I think you see that develop over time.
You know, when we look at our business in Denmark, there we see, you know, this is a point where it makes sense to have a fulfillment center, and we reached that, you know, with roughly 4,500 orders and deliveries a week. Thanks for all of your questions. Thanks again for your interest in Cheffelo. It doesn't look like we have any more comment or any more questions here. So, yeah, thanks for joining us for this Q4 Earnings Call for Cheffelo, and we do look forward to seeing you again in early May when we share our Q1 results. So have a great day, everyone.