Hello, and welcome to the Duni Group Q2 interim report. Throughout the call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode, and afterwards, there will be a question-and-answer session. Please note this call is being recorded. Today, I am pleased to present Robert Dackeskog, CEO. Please begin your meeting.
Yes. Hello, everyone, and welcome to this interim report for Q2 2025. The headline for this quarter is Subdued Economic Situation Balanced by Targeted Measures and Acquisitions. So, if we move to the agenda, we will go through this today, and at the end, we will finish off with a Q&A. So, moving into the highlights for the quarter, we see weak markets and economic conditions pressured the demand and volumes in many markets, but we saw the quarter ended stronger than it began. The recent acquisitions, Poppies and SETI, had a positive impact, and structural internal actions and measures were taken to adapt to the market condition. One action is that the sales and marketing organization has been restructured as planned, including integrated sales team in the two respective business areas with a 10% staff reduction.
The expected annual impact of this is approximately SEK 30 million, and this will start from Q4 2025. Last, an improved operational cash flow seen in the quarter, and this is by lower inventory levels versus quarter one this year. If we look a little bit on the market outlook and the market data, it's still a continued weak market, persistent inflation, and a challenging consumer climate, as you know. And as you can see on the left graph below, in 2025, the consumer confidence went down versus 2024. The forecast when we went in 2025 was the assumption that it was actually going to be stronger, but we're not seeing that yet. On the right side, you can see the German graphs here, which is our log, actually, where the visits went down by 4.8% in Q1.
It's still a tough market, but the German government has proposed to lower the VAT for the restaurants from 19% to 7%, which then hopefully will give a positive impact to the restaurants. When the consumers in Germany will start to come back, it's hard to say, of course, but historically, they always return off downturns in the economy. If we look at a little bit the market and the restaurants, consumers are trading down to cheaper places. This graph shows the visits in the big five European countries: U.K., Germany, Spain, France, and Italy. We can see that there is a trade down from casual dining to quick-service restaurants, but also from quick-service to retail, also delivery loss to quick-service restaurants.
As I mentioned before here, historically, the arrows have gone the other way when the economy is getting better, and the restaurants and Duni has, after the different crises in 2008, 2012, and also after the pandemic, always bounced back again. Looking into the key financial, the net sales is increased, mainly driven by the acquisitions we've done. The operating profit declined by SEK 14 million, mainly driven by lower volumes. The margin ended up at 6.4% versus 7.2%. We'll come into this, of course, a little bit more here. If we look at the net sales, it has increased by 5.2% in fixed currencies, and that was thanks to the contribution from our acquired companies, Poppies in the U.K. and SETI in Slovenia, which covers the southeast of Europe.
We had negative organic growth of 3.8% in the quarter, coming from a negative mix effect as customers placing lower priority on premium products, selling more tissue compared to, for example, our premium napkins like Dunilin. Of course, then the volume in total. We have a gradual impact of our price increases in Europe to balance the effect of inflation. In the second quarter, BioPak Group continued to grow, which has its biggest share of sales in the Australian market. If we look at the drivers behind the operating margin, as mentioned here before, the main driver was lower volumes in sales and the mix effect in the assortment. In order to mitigate our efficiency, we have taken some measures both in production and logistics, which has strengthened the income in the quarter.
Also, measures have been taken to reduce our sales and marketing costs, and that will have an impact from quarter four. Positive is that the normalization of inventory levels throughout the quarter helped to improve the result within BioPak Group versus last quarter. The recent acquisitions within Dining Solutions, Poppies, and SETI, contributed by SEK 21 million in the quarter. Now I'm handing over to Magnus to go through the two business areas in more detail.
Thank you for that, Robert. As usual, I will now provide a more detailed overview of our two business areas, and I start off with Dining Solutions, which includes our table setting products. Despite currency headwinds, sales increased by SEK 70 million compared to the previous year, reaching SEK 1.14 billion. This growth was primarily driven by acquisitions completed earlier this year and at the end of last year. Profit improved slightly year-on-year with a stable operating margin of 8.7%. As Robert mentioned earlier, the second quarter was marked by challenging market conditions, reflecting weak consumer confidence and declining volumes in the HoReCa industry, I would say, across all over Europe. The price effect was close to 2%, implying a volume decline of 3%- 4% in the HoReCa segment.
In retail, however, we experienced a double-digit volume drop, primarily due to the loss of a few large contracts, though these were low margin in nature. As we touched upon in the market outlook section, in tough market conditions, we've seen a shift in customer behavior, particularly in the premium segment. Some customers are opting for more cost-efficient alternatives over our higher-end offerings. While we have competitive solutions also in these segments as well, the result has been a negative mix effect, lower margins, and reduced cost absorption in our factories. This behavior mirrors what we observed in previous downturns, as Robert said. Still, we remain confident in the strength of our premium offering, thanks to enduring appeal in terms of quality and sustainability and its contribution to the overall dining experience.
If we look on the acquisitions made in the past nine months, they contributed positively to the profit this quarter, in line with our integration plan. Although full synergies are expected to be realized by 2026, the contribution from the acquisitions were approximately SEK 20 million, and this was partly offset by volume decline in our core business. Nevertheless, we are well positioned to capitalize on increased volume once the market recovers. Finally, we continue to see growth opportunities outside Europe, particularly in the APEC region, which remains relatively immature in terms of the premium fiber-based Dining Solutions offers. However, as you have seen also this spring and summer, we have huge geopolitical uncertainties driven by conflicts in the Middle East and discussions, I guess, on global tariffs. That has created a more cautious market environment.
While we don't foresee any direct threats to our markets, the indirect effects of reduced consumer willingness to spend on travel, and by extension, also maybe on dining, are being felt. If we turn to the business area of Food Packaging Solutions, which focuses on sustainable food packaging, sales declined by 7%, primarily due to a weak quarter in Europe and negative currency translation effects from a stronger Swedish krona. Although improvement from the first quarter, which was very weak, you can see that profit decreased to SEK 22 million from SEK 40 million last year. That corresponds to an operating margin of 3%. There are essentially two main reasons behind the weak sales performance in this quarter. Firstly, organic growth was 0.6%, so it's nearly in line with the same period last year.
The primary driver of the overall sales decline was the weak Australian dollar, particularly against the Swedish krona, which has strengthened by more than 10% in the period. This currency effect accounts for the majority of the top-line decrease. Additionally, we observed continued softness in the European takeaway market with lower sales compared to last year. But on a more positive note, sales outside Europe, especially in Australia, continue to show organic growth when measured in fixed currencies. We also saw continued growth in our Dunif orm system, which we mentioned earlier. This system, comprising sealed machines, trays, and films, is designed to optimize food packaging processes. It' s an area where we are currently accelerating efforts backed by strong customer recognition, and the system offers a clear competitive advantage by prioritizing food safety, operational efficiency, and user-friendliness.
During the quarter, we completed the restructuring of our commercial and marketing functions, as Robert mentioned. This is an important step towards increasing efficiency in a rapidly evolving market. More important, this change allows us to strengthen our focus and expertise across our distinct business areas. So the restructuring will impact both business areas, delivering annual savings of approximately SEK 30 million. The majority will be realized with Dining Solutions, but also in Food Packaging Solutions. We remain convinced that a more specialized and capable sales force is essential for future success. As the demands on restaurants and hotel operators grow, particularly around materials and regulatory compliance, we are well positioned to provide meaningful support and create real value. Food packaging is undergoing a fundamental transformation driven by evolving legislation, shifting customer expectations, and emerging business models centered around recycling, reuse, and compostable solutions.
Duni has long been a leader in developing innovative materials and packaging solutions, and we are committed to stay in the forefront. A key focus going forward will be our ability to clearly communicate and demonstrate these future-ready solutions to both existing and new customers. I hand back to Robert again.
Thank you. Yeah. Looking at our sustainability initiatives, we have three: becoming circular at scale, going net zero, and living the change. In the quarter, there have not been any major activities, but a lot of small ones, of course, which we are working on. If we look at circular at scale, we're on track on adaptation to the European Union deforestation, also launching new products within improved recyclability. Our KPI on virgin fossil plastic here is to reach 50%. At the moment, we are at 63%. If we look at going net zero, index are at 38 in the quarter, and we have had a reduction with 62% since 2019. The target this year is 37 in index, so a lot of small steps to be taken there. The third one, living the change, which we're measuring EcoVadis.
We are measuring once a year, and our goal is to become platinum level there. As mentioned last quarter, we are reviewing the goals now since code three is coming up as well as part of the going net zero. If we look at our strategy and our strategic priorities, the first point is that we want to increase our innovative offering to customers and consumers. Here, we have worked very hard to be the first one in the world with a biobinder in airlaid for Bio Dunisoft napkins. We are also able and can offer both recyclable, reusable products, including systems, and in addition, compostable products.
Going forward, we are focusing on both improving our current assortment to match the needs of our customers today, but also focusing on innovating and growing in our existing concept like Dunif orm, where we, as Magnus mentioned, we acquired LinePack in Finland in order to strengthen the service part in Dunif orm. The second priority is that we want to grow our acquisitions in Europe and Asia-Pacific, and with the acquisitions in the U.K. with Poppies and SETI, which is in the southeast, in Slovenia, we are covering and diversifying our presence in Europe and the dependency on Germany. The third priority is to enhance our operational efficiency and enable regional differentiation. We have increased our operational efficiency in production and logistics, and also we are working with more efficiency in our sales and marketing, as Magnus was into here.
The important thing is that we specialize sales now and sales and marketing for each BA. Also, the move of our logistics center in 2026 will enhance our efficiency. Now we're going into the financials.
Thank you, Robert. Usually, we start with the income statement and try to summarize the key drivers behind this quarter's performance. I think we touched upon many of those already. As you can see, sales were nearly on par with the previous year, and this is primarily driven by the acquisitions of SETI and Poppies. If we adjust for these acquisitions and at fixed currency rates, organic growth declined by 3.8%. As mentioned earlier, the price effect was close to 2%. This is slightly below our expectations or targets. We are facing challenges from negative mix effects with a higher share of private label and tender business diluting the impact of these price increases. Inflationary pressures remains, I think, notably from salary increases as well as other cost areas.
The main reason for the one percentage point you can see a decline in the gross profit is primarily lower absorption in our production facilities due to the decreased volumes and also these negative mix effects. We continue to work diligently to mitigate these impacts through efficiency improvements across our production setup, infrastructure, and indirect costs, as we touched upon. These efforts are aimed not only at offsetting the effects of weak demand, but more importantly, at enabling a strong operational leverage when the volumes recover. Overall, the operating margin decreased by 0.8 percentage points, ending at 6.4%. I think it's also worth mentioning the adjustment you can see here, amounting to SEK 194 million over the rolling 12-month period. Of this, as you might remember, SEK 125 million relates to restructuring costs recognized in Q3 2024 for our new main warehouse in Meppen, Germany.
These logistic investments will enable significant savings in handling costs and, more importantly, future-proof our ability to deliver efficiently to our customers for the decades to come. Looking a little bit more on the business areas, it is clear that both are currently performing below the financial target of 10% operating margin. This is, of course, something we are addressing decisively through a range of initiatives, although against a challenging market backdrop. At present, we are trailing from the target by 2.5 percentage points. Considering our historical performance and the return on capital employed above 25%, it is evident that this gap needs to be addressed across both business areas in a balanced and focused manner. If we look on operating cash flow, in the second quarter, it was positive, largely driven by a significant reduction in inventory levels.
As mentioned in the previous quarter, as some of you might remember, we took targeted actions to address elevated inventory, particularly outside Europe and within the BioPak Group. We're now pleased to report that these efforts yielded a result in Q2, contributing not only to improved cash flow, but also to reduced costs and a positive impact on BioPak Group's profitability. If we look on the CapEx, it remained in line with the previous year and also in line with the level of depreciation. Our financial position remains robust. Net debt has increased compared to the previous year, and this is primarily due to recent acquisitions. As highlighted in April, we have focused on reducing inventory levels, which has a positive effect on the second quarter and contributed to reducing the net debt. Return on capital employed has declined year- over- year, while not on an external target as such.
This is important for us in our internal metric that we actively monitor. We are committed to improving it through careful evaluation and optimizing our capital allocation decisions. If we look on our financial targets, organic growth for the last 12 months landed on -0.8%. This is again primarily driven by weak consumer demand across all markets, most notable still in the DACH region. As Robert mentioned earlier, macro indicators for the HoReCa sector in Europe have deteriorated in some way significantly. Despite this, we have managed to partially offset the decline through growth in selected segments in Europe and even more so outside Europe, particularly in Australia. As stated this spring, the key drivers for improved consumer confidence remain lower interest rates, increased disposable income, and for sure, a more stable geopolitical environment.
While there are some encouraging signs for this, such as the proposed government support we see in Germany for VAT reduction, the latest statistics still show that the European consumer remains cautious, I would say. Our rolling 12-months operating margin currently stands at 7.3%. This is below our 10% target. Closing this gap will require continued focus on improving gross margin and reducing the proportion of indirect costs. We are confident we are in a good position for a strong operational leverage when we see increasing volumes. Finally at the AGM in May, a dividend of SEK 5 per share was approved. This corresponds to 66% of net income if you adjust for a restructuring cost. This exceeds our target of distributing at least 40% of the net income. I hand back to Robert. Thanks for listening and have a really nice summer.
Thank you. Just a short summary of the quarter and of today's presentation. I think the main things here are weak market and economic conditions, of course, as we mentioned. The recent acquisitions had a positive impact and enabled growth for us. The sales and marketing organization is restructured as planned, and the expected impact is approximately SEK 30 million from Q4 2025. We see an improved operational cash flow driven by the lower inventory levels, as Magnus talked about. Thank you for listening. Now we head over to a Q&A. Thank you.
Thank you. If you do wish to ask a question over the phone, please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing star two again to cancel. Once again, please press star then the number one to register for a question. There will be a brief pause while questions are being registered. Thank you. That is star and one to ask a question. Your first question, comes from the line of Johan Fred from SEB. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Thank you for taking my questions. A first one on the sales trend during the quarter. You stated that the quarter ended stronger than it started. Are you referring to the volume trend here? My question is, could you elaborate on the sales development seen during the quarter? That would be helpful. Thank you.
Thank you for your question. I think we saw a really tough start in the quarter in April and May mainly, with the volumes in the market. At the end of the quarter in June, the volumes actually gone up. The customer, hopefully then, that will be continuous. We don't know. No one knows the future, of course. Definitely the volumes was a bit of a shift there. As you know, in quarter one, we had a lift in volumes as well. We expected maybe a convenience in April and May, but it was a bit lower there. Definitely, the volumes are better in the end of the quarter.
That's very helpful. Thank you. Given that volume has been negative now over the last couple of years, essentially, do you think we are sort of close to the bottom in terms of volumes?
Yeah, of course, it's hard to tell, as you know. If we look at the consumer confidence and all that, it's a bit on, it feels like it's rock bottom in a way. As I referred to before, in a way, you have 2008, 2012, and after the pandemic, it bounced back. I think when we went into the year, the predictions from some research and so on showed that, yeah, the first quarter would be maybe a little bit tough. I think that's what we predicted in a way. It's been maybe a bit tougher than we anticipated. The second quarter then was supposed to pick up. Looking maybe at the curve we showed here, it's still a little bit negative trend versus 2024 then in the consumer confidence.
Got it. The final one on the inventory levels in food packaging, which have been an issue for the last couple of quarters. I note in your report that you've seen a significant improvement. Could you elaborate on what the current inventory situation is, Australia versus Europe, etc.? That would be helpful.
Thank you for the question. Yes, it has been reduced since it went up quite sharply, as we said, in Q1. As we mentioned after the Q1 report, there was a lot of focus to take it down again in Q2, which we succeeded with. I think the inventory now in both Europe and in Australia is much more in balance. There is an overall challenge, I think, for both areas in terms of that we are still shifting the portfolio quite a lot. We need to address new legislation and so on, which puts a challenge on planning and being in control of each and every item in the inventory. But I think we learned a lot over the last years, and some of the mistakes, we should be honest in saying that, I think we will not do again.
There is super focus on keeping it as low as possible and efficient. At the same time, it's also important to be able to deliver to the customer. This is not rocket science, but it's sometimes more tricky in reality than you think. I think we are in a much, much better situation and more in balance.
Got it. Those were all of my questions for now. Thank you so much for taking the time, guys.
Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, that is star and one to ask a question over the phone. There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Mr. Robert Dackeskog for any closing remarks.
Thank you for listening in. I just want to wish you a great summer. Please make a lot of visits to the restaurants in Europe and visit many festivals, and also choose takeaway when you're not out and about. Have a great summer.
Thank you. This now concludes our presentation. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect.