Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Third Quarter and Nine Months Financial Results of Eurocash. Today, we have Paweł Surówka, the CEO, and myself, Adam Kucza, Head of Investor Relations, with you. We'll start with regular slides of presentation, and then we will have time for your Q&As. Paweł, go ahead.
Yes, thank you very much, and I also just wanted to say that Jacek Owczarek, our CFO, sends his regards. He had a calendar conflict, but he will be with us from the next quarter and sends everybody his regards, and wishes me luck in getting you through this presentation. And I hope Adam and I will do it. So, ladies and gentlemen, third quarter, as you have seen, you know, what we try to highlight in this year, in this quarter, is just to say, obviously, you know, we consider that this was a challenging quarter, because, you know, the sales of our addressable market, the wholesale market, has been below, for example, the likes of the discount markets. Overall, the FMCG market in Poland is declining in volumes.
We still see a quite high price sensitivity of the consumers. We see consumers holding back on some of the consumption and being very, you know, concerned with prices, very much looking for promotions, and we see everybody reacting to it, the fight for the consumer. And obviously, discounters have been, particularly well-positioned to respond to those, needs of the consumers, both promotions and price positioning and price perceptions. And so what we've seen is that the overall wholesale market that we sell to has, you know, still in the third quarter, had declining volumes as sales growth has been below inflation growth. And it has, you know, had lower dynamics than, for example, the discount markets. And this is obviously the reality in which we operate, with which we have to work.
Having said that, we consider this is our goal in Eurocash to, you know, kind of strive and work in every work environment and adapt to everything that we see. Particularly in this case, you know, we are happy to report that, you know, with the third quarter, we are reporting the eighth consecutive quarter of improved results, and we are bound to... You know, we want to continue to do so. In reality, you know, what we've been able to show is, you know, still a very strong effort on doing our job in two areas mostly.
One is increasing the efficiency of Eurocash Group by implementing our strategy, particularly with a strong focus on cash management, and I will say more about this because it is going to be a big topic for 2024. The second element is positioning our group strategically and fighting for the competitiveness and attractiveness not only of us as Eurocash, but of the entire channel that we are working with, which is first and foremost, the franchise proximity supermarkets that we are working on. You are going to see some elements of that in the presentation. We also, in this respect, I think, have done quite significant progress in this third quarter.
So in sum, therefore, we are happy to announce that, you know, yet another quarter of EBITDA improvement after nine months, overall, EBITDA is 9% higher than previously. We are going for, you know, we are very much approaching the PLN 600 million EBITDA line on pre-IFRS results now on a 12-month trailing approach. This is PLN 588 million, and, you know, we hope to be able to break that magical records quite soon. Obviously, as I already said before, last year, 2023, was a record year, but we very much believe that we'll be able to break it, this record this year, hence, with a slightly different macroeconomic environment. Margins, as I said, were challenging. Obviously, you know, again, this is a time of promotions.
This is a time of price competitiveness. We have been... We had to invest margin in order to get the consumer. But what you can also see, appropriately year-on-year, sales margin is slightly down. However, what you can see is that quarter-on-quarter this starts to get up again. So again, we are, we are positioned towards price competitiveness, and I will say more about this when we enter the retail part. But it is not all just a sacrifice in margin, and we start to see some improvement there also in the retail space. One thing we would like to highlight, because I think it is an important element of our business model and has been a big focus of the management in the last quarters, is capital management and cash flow.
As you can see, we have improved DPO by one day. We're now at 52 days, and, you know, we've been quite effective when it works down to operating our stock. Accordingly, operating cash flow has been growing much faster than just results, so 29% in operating cash flow year-on-year. Our, you know, overall cash generation now is at PLN 781 million, and that means that our operating cash flow to EBITDA is actually above one. And, accordingly, as you can... We'll see that has brought net debt down and cash in hand of the company up.
And obviously, I think that, everybody will agree that when it comes down to the financial strength and liquidity and prospects of Eurocash, going forward, that, it really has this very strong foundation that we actually intend to improve even further. So again, in the segments, what we can see is, you know, 9% sales, year-on-year. In wholesale, you know, different formats, different contributions, but overall, 6% EBITDA growth. Retail with a 6% like-for-like that, you know, some of you will want to compare with maybe the discounters. And when comparing to the discounters, obviously 6% we would have liked to have more.
Having said that, we do see some uptick in like-for-like numbers in the retail segment, and particularly when we compare it to some of our more direct competitors in the wholesale or more in the supermarket segment of the market. We believe that the 6% actually is comparing not too badly, particularly as we start to see some improvement in Delikatesy Centrum that I will be talking more about. And, you know, 8% EBITDA growth over nine months in this segment. And projects very high growth in Frisco and Duży Ben and EBITDA coming up, so decreasing less negative than it was. And we really are now going to focus more and more on bringing those projects into positive territory.
So that's a highlight, as I already mentioned, so 7% EBITDA growth in over nine months, 6.8, to be exact. And, you know, this both in wholesale, retail, and projects. On this slide, the only thing that I would like to highlight is, you know, please pay attention to the proportion of SG&A. That you can see we've been really working quite a lot on keeping costs in place, and we will continue to do so over the next quarters, and particularly the entire next year. And so, hope that, you know, this will also show in the EBITDA margin as we go forward. You know, overall macro numbers, everybody knows them. You know, CPI has been coming down.
We do see some deflation even on some categories of food. It starts to be an environment that is difficult to chart. You know, you have still some inflation and actually some inflation coming back again in some categories, deflationary pressures on the others. So macro environment is starting to be difficult to navigate. All we can say is that we believe there's further room for us for negotiations with producers and really making sure that, you know, we invest both in price attractive business and also margins of this sector. So, we believe there's still quite a lot of room for maneuver for Eurocash Group to have negotiations with the producers, particularly as we are improving execution. And, you know, I would say the reliableness of Eurocash as a retail group also.
You know, we really hope that this will translate into a better price positioning of the group overall. One thing maybe here to highlight again, so again, retail sales in Poland still negative. One thing that was helping, obviously, the last quarter was a relatively warm and mild month of September. We've seen it. It has been good for small stores. This was really the time that we saw consumer sentiment coming back again, and we hope that we will be able to see this sentiment also as we are approaching the winter month and particularly Christmas season.
One thing I've already mentioned, and that I believe is very important, is, you know, we have been able to deleverage the company very significantly now, you know, in a constant way over the last quarters. In the third quarter, our debt to EBITDA is now below 1 at 0.81989. Which, you know, is a very, very conservative measure for a trading group. And, you know, we believe obviously that, you know, as we try to maximize net income, we will continue to use the strong cash generation of the group to further deleverage the company and further optimize our financial costs. Our financial costs that, you know, by the way, you might have seen, this quarter have been impacted somewhat adversely. And here you can see it...
Thank you very much. You can see it on this slide. So this quarter, financial cost has been a little bit impacted, and that, you know, on the one hand side, was linked to some of the provisions coming in, but mostly, it's also an impact of, EUR/PLN hedges that we had in place and that, you know, we, we closed September at 4.64. Obviously, it's everybody's guess where we'll be at the end of the year, but, you know, the zloty has increased quite noticeably ever since. So, we consider that this, adverse effect that we've been experiencing in the third quarter should reverse, you know, if we, if we continue to see levels of, EUR/PLN at the levels as they are right now.
So financial income, sorry, financial expenses, a little bit on the higher end for in this quarter, and that obviously has also impacted our net income, which would have been higher otherwise. In, you know, cash conversion, as I already mentioned, we've improved by one day, and we think we will continue to do so. You know, obviously, we're showing, here an improvement of one day between 19 days, but we think that, you know, particularly on the payable side, we could, improve even more. And that, that will definitely be a focus of us in the next year, as we try to, improve the cash generation and working capital cycle of the group, even more going forward.
But still, as we already said, cash generation, quite importantly, and PLN 173 million more cash generated year-on-year, if for this time. In wholesale, as I already mentioned, 6% higher EBITDA margin, you know, somewhat under pressure as we try to really fight for consumers and particularly our small format stores. And what we have seen, obviously, is that this, you know, strong price sensitiveness of the consumer is not affecting everybody in the same way. And some of the stores that have been strongest impacted by consumer behavior and the fact that people are now more trying to look at expenses and then, you know, trying to reduce price were the smaller corner stores that are particularly serviced by our Cash and Carry.
Here we can see that, you know, they are a little bit on the higher end when it comes down to price positioning and therefore have been stronger impacted. That has been offset somehow as a little bit, as I mentioned in September, by a relatively mild weather. But still, overall, volumes there are, you know, less than we have seen last year. And correspondingly, sales in the Cash and Carry section that is almost exclusively built to service those smaller stores has been affected by this. On the other side, very, very strong showing on the Eurocash Serwis side. So our tobacco company that has been, you know, taking over more and more market share and distribution, and food services having also growing further.
One thing, you know, an announcement that you might have seen and we consider as a next step in, the fulfillment of our strategy, and quite an important one. As you know, some of you have always asked, you know, we have a lot of retail banners that we are working with and franchise systems. Over the last quarters, what I mentioned is that we started to, cooperate stronger on the banners, Euro Sklep, ABC, and Groszek. They have been, put together under one structure, and, you know, worked so that, that they are, more and more, cooperating. Particularly as we are rolling out our EuroPlatform POS systems in all of those three banners.
And so it made sense to keep it under one structure that, in the main part, is really dedicated to connect them and to, you know, have even better integration with those stores. Now, we've have taken over the last weeks, you know, a further step by reuniting those stores into what we call Moje Sklepy, which is, you know, My Stores. It is an umbrella brand. It is not going to replace, you know, day one, those three banners. But the idea is really, on the one hand side, to build a much more efficient way to communicate with consumers. So Moje Sklepy is going to have their form of communication.
They will have their consumer application, they have their loyalty system, and what is most importantly, they have the possibility to negotiate nationwide promotions, and that's the other big element of this. This is really a very important tool through which we want to bring down, as most of you know, the price gap that we see between the supermarkets and the discounters. It is a strategic focus of ours. What we see as very important here is to really build credibility with producers and particularly improve execution of promotions and execution of the stores. Meaning, if we negotiate one promotion, it is really we are able to implement it in all those stores that are participating in that.
So the creation of Moje Sklepy, which is an entity that now includes more than 10,000 stores, and by retail sales, accounts for some PLN 20 billion of retail sales. So, you know, if you consider this to be a retail chain, it would actually be bigger than the Dinos and Żabkas of this world, and would be positioned as a number three retailer in this country. We think this is an important information because it allows producers to really see the power of those stores, and it allows us to speak for them when negotiate promotions.
We've been able to successfully implement promotions that, you know, are at levels of discounters that are fully implemented in the stores. That is thanks to our integrated services on the franchise system level that are implemented in the POS systems that are now connected. So over half of those stores are connected with our EuroPlatform POS systems, and our target, our long-term target, is that all of them should. They can increasingly be communicated to consumers through the Moje Sklepy app. So as you can see, we are building the, you know, necessary building blocks of a something of an institution that more and more looks like a proper retail chain.
And we hope that with this will come the efficiency, the buying power, and most importantly, the price competitiveness, that our, you know, clients need, in order to be attractive to consumers. And we are very upbeat about, the numbers that I will be happy to share with you next quarter when it comes down to, first of all, execution of promotions in those stores. Second, the uptick in like-for-like for those stores that do participate in those promotions, and then also loyalty to us as a wholesaler, and, and transactions. So again, Moje Sklepy, an important, milestone in, in our, in the fulfillment of our strategy. The retail section. As you remember, last time, we've done some important changes in this respect.
We have pretty much overhauled the entire management board of Delikatesy Centrum, except obviously Darek Stolarczyk, who, as a board member, oversees it. But the people overseeing the Delikatesy Centrum stores have now all been formed from some of the leading retail companies in this country. And so we believe we can start to see the impact of the work slowly, but slowly. Again, 6% like-for-like in DC, you can argue is below discounters, but we believe it's on the right trajectory. Overall, 6% sales evolution in our retail banners. But what you know is good to note is that you know, here we did not have to sacrifice margin.
On the contrary, margin has been growing after nine months to 4.4%, and that's in spite of the fact that we've been very aggressive in the price positioning, and particularly in the promotions of Delikatesy Centrum. And here I'd really like to point out that, you know, you can really see the work of our new team. So a new head of marketing, new head of purchasing, and the people working on assortment and on operations. We came up with a new consumer app, Łappacz, that has been very good in getting people to interact and then, you know, really drive traffic. We've implemented vouchers that increase the return of our consumers, and they are supposed to bring up the basket.
Some weeks ago, we have introduced a second leaflet on Mondays through Wednesdays, particularly catered to fresh and with the idea to increase transactions in our stores, and particularly to bring people to the stores in those days where they are coming less, so bringing up transactions again. And we've been, you know, much more vocal and have started to work on much deeper and more visible promotions. And we really start to see this, not only on the element of the sales of those promotions, but really the transactions. And we will continue in a very stringent and disciplined way in transforming Delikatesy Centrum, its assortment, its consumer appeal.
There's still a lot of work to be done to be really sure that this Delikatesy Centrum brand, that I would just remind everybody, is really a modern supermarket brand with a full execution, with, you know, everything integrated, that we really use those tools in a way to build a modern appealing and good retail company. And I believe that both on the franchise side of the Delikatesy Centrum stores and on the owned stores, we'll be able to show some significant improvement. On the owned stores, still, maybe just some you know information about here. A question coming from you from time to time is: What is your idea about own stores? How do you actually want to improve this performance that.
You know, has been quite shaking over a lot of the time right now. As you know, we have had the luck to employ Hugo Mesquita, who is the Chief Operating, who was for a very long time, the Chief Operating Officer of the biggest retailer in Poland, Biedronka, and was also CEO of Netto, who came to us only to help us transform the own stores. Now one project that we are really pushing, and we believe will move the needle quite a lot in their own stores, is the conversion of those stores into agent stores. By now, we have some 80 stores converted, and we have converted stores from different formats, different regions, and different missions.
Across the board, we can see that, transforming the own stores into agent stores translates into lower losses, higher sales, better like-for-like, better overall margin, as agents are better in, keeping costs in check, are more outgoing in, finding consumers, are better in adapting local assortment to appeal to local consumers, and are also able to navigate local produce and other... And, you know, you know, the assortment that is in the hand of, of the local store manager to squeeze out the extra margin. And, after, you know, the implementations that we have done so far, we feel quite emboldened to say that we believe this is a model that actually will work, very well for our own stores. These are relatively small stores, and we believe the agents model is a good one.
So the stores that we will not be working with on franchise, we will also try to convert in agents. We don't want to give a number right now, but we believe that, we should, add a significant number of our own stores into the agent number, into the agent model, and we will be, communicating about this with you over the next time. Last but not least, projects. You know, really the growth engine of our group. Evolution, of sales, you know, has been 23%, well above inflation in Poland, and, you know, showing a very, very healthy growth. And what is more importantly, we've been able to reduce negative EBITDA, by PLN 10 million, and hoping to have, our most important com, companies, Duży Ben and Frisco, over the break-even point.
Duży Ben, you know, should be a profitable company for the full year next year. Frisco, we hope that this will be the case by 2025. But, you know, just a little bit more on the numbers. So, Frisco now going towards and approaching slowly but slowly, PLN 500 million in sales. Obviously, a very big milestone here will be the second warehouse in Warsaw that, you know, will be brought to the market actually as we speak, and we very much hope that this will already be a booster for the Christmas time.
Christmas that, you know, some of you who are using Frisco, has always been a time where even a couple of days before Christmas, Frisco has been already completely booked out, and you could not get any slots for delivery because our existing warehouse has been completely booked out. As the second one will, you know, come online in the next weeks, we hope that we'll be able, this time, to really get the, you know, take advantage of the full demand of this Christmas sales. That has been a very convenient consumer proposition. You know, get all your Christmas shopping to you at your doorstep, at a very, very attractive price, with a very big assortment.
So, we hope that the new warehouse will already have a boosting effect on the Christmas side of things. Duży Ben, well, again, what can I say? Almost 40% year-on-year sales evolution. This is really, you know, an important concept for us, and I would say that as we are now looking at Duży Ben, we're looking at it not only as, you know, a very attractive standalone concept that is really a modern convenience retailer, comparable only to, you know, convenience players like Żabka. And, you know, as showing very, very good contribution, very good work on margin, very good consumer appeal.
And I have to say that the team has been very good in navigating elements, like additional services, like parcel lockers, like, you know, Lotto sales, and then, and working with Glovo, working with everybody, really, becoming a fully fledged convenience model. But we are thinking more and more about, you know, not, you know, not only investing into the expansion of Duży Ben more, but it's also about thinking of Duży Ben as a model to, replace and be actually a very good benchmark for some of these smaller stores that we are working with as a wholesaler, and that I mentioned in the first part of my presentation. So we see, thousands of stores, all over Poland, particularly in the non-urban areas, that have and fulfill somehow this alcohol mission that Duży Ben is, fulfilling.
But obviously, Duży Ben, it does it in a much more sophisticated way, and gets much more sales out of square meter and like-for-like, and margin, through, you know, the recognizability of its brand and the cleanness of its concept. And so we believe that, over the next years, we hope to be able to transform and to convince a lot of our franchise partners to actually transform their stores into Duży Ben stores. And we believe this can be a quite interesting model for the market on this not supermarket side of the market that we are working off, but more the convenience and small store market. And we will probably communicating more about this in the future. A long speech, and now open to questions from you.
Yes. Yes. We have over 90 participants online, and we already have nearly a dozen of questions. Starting with some details on costs. Let's jump back to the financial costs that we've mentioned that were higher quarter-over-quarter. One of the questions was about the impact of the exchange, euro to PLN. In the third quarter alone, that was additional cost of PLN 13 million. That's also maybe more visible because in the second quarter of this year, we had nearly PLN 20 million plus on revenues, financial revenues, because of this strengthening of Polish zloty, right? Just to remind you, that's a non-cash event, so that's only, let's say, visible in the P&L.
Further question on costs?
You know, if EUR/PLN stays the way that it is, you know, we... That should be, you know, mostly reserved, reversed in the fourth quarter. Yeah.
We have further questions on costs, somehow fashionable topics, for this conference. Let's jump back to one of the slides where we stress the SG&A to sales ratio. I would focus on that very much because in this quarter and going forward, that will be something to watch. And the questions were about general management costs, that decrease and other operating expenses that were also down in the third quarter. And generally, costs in any positions that we manage, so operating costs, management costs, SG&A, even other costs and revenues, these are the things that were reviewed and are decreasing and will be decreasing.
Yes, and maybe one point, and thank you for bringing me up to that, because I, I wanted to mention it in the main presentation, but you brought me back to that. So cost is going to be a very big focus for us for the next quarters and all of 2024. I remember, you know, when discussing with you a lot of, or asking the question about the perspective of building, you know, our strategy towards 2025 and our PLN 1 billion EBITDA pre-IFRS goal, and you always ask, you know, "How should we think about the different phases? How are you going to move there? How are you going to get there?
And is this going to be something of a J-curve or, what is the trajectory?" You know, we always said that, first of all, it's not going to be a J-curve. 2023, we will already be better than 2022, which it will. But, obviously, 2024, in this trajectory, is really the year where we will want to implement a lot of the synergies that we've identified in our strategy last year. So 2023 was, for us, a crucial year in which we really lay the groundwork for a lot of the strategy implementation. You know, implementing the strategy that we've worked out in 2022. What you have seen is, you know, integration of the wholesale.
We have, by now, really gone through the entire processes, working with a couple of advisors on identifying how can we streamline the processes in our three wholesale units. We've done assessments with most of our directors. We've now redesigned structures and work charts to be working as one company, starting first of January 2024. As you have seen, we've also, you know, integrated our franchise operations, changed our dedicated Centrum team. So this year was really the year where we prepared the synergies that we've identified last year. 2024 will be the year where we will want to make these synergies happen, and for me, that means, first and foremost, a very big focus on costs.
You know, as we now are in our budgeting season for 2024, we are really going to go, well, quite deep on cost reductions. That will obviously also mean payroll reductions, but we'll be looking at our entire costs, parts. And I actually really do see in head office costs and payroll costs and, you know, even rental costs, I do see quite a lot of space of improvement. As we are working as a more streamlined, a leaner, a smaller, but, you know, kind of somewhat more agile company, I think they'll be able to shed a little more of the costs, and you will see those improvements coming in quarter by quarter.
One more topic that maybe we haven't touched enough in the presentation, it's about the EuroPlatform.
Yes.
So how do we assess the development of it after a year of collaboration with COMP? Is management satisfied with the rate of growth? Are there any challenges? And has this expansion already some measurable effect on our results, or is it more long-term oriented?
Yes. So, we wanted to have the benefit of, you know, a longer time span, and I think that next quarter, I'll be happy to, I'll be happy to, communicate a little bit more about the actual record, you know, the, the numbers on, on, on EuroPlatform. But overall, I can say that we are satisfied with our cooperation with COMP. We can see the rollouts, you know, really coming in, and, you know, we do see that there's a high interest from all supermarkets to enroll. Again, our long-term target is to be at 10,000. We're now at 5,000. Obviously, you know, we went for the quick wins first. Now, you know, we really have to go store by store and, you know, install those POS systems.
But the truth is that what we have already seen and shown in the existing 5,000 stores, and by the way, that's already a huge number, is that execution has come up very, very significantly, both in the organized franchise networks, but also in the ABC stores that for the time being had a quite low execution. We see the implementation of promotions that are very crucial for the competitiveness of those stores, and they are actually at discount prices. And, you know, again, I will, I will share the numbers next quarter, but what we see is higher like-for-like in those stores that are on the promotions compared to a, you know, comparable group that has not the EuroPlatform installed. And to the same group, we also see a higher loyalty to us as a wholesaler.
So we see that the stores that have implemented it sell more, and they buy more from us, which is obviously a net, net gain from us, and therefore, we have, you know, really full motivation to be further rolling out those, those POS systems. Particularly as, what we also see more and more is that suppliers get it. Suppliers start to get it, and, you know, we really can show that on those POS systems, the promotions are being executed. When we negotiate something, the promotions end up in the stores, they end up on the shelves, they end up with the consumer. What is more importantly, we have accurate data, we have online data on the promotions, which allows producers not only to have better visibility on their promotions, it's also more cost-efficient.
Because in the past, in the traditional markets, to run a retail promotion, you would have to send a ton of people to the stores to convince them to put up the price tags, to keep the price, to not play around with the price, et cetera, et cetera. Now, this is all being digitized. It's really an important, it's really an important element of our growth trajectory. Maybe we should have been more vocal on that, but for, you know, the year-end presentation, we will-- we are preparing something of a wrap-up of, you know, one year, of how we've been building this, and I think we, we, we'll show you a little bit more about this.
Then we have a question from Henrik Herbst of Morgan Stanley, more about general environment and consumer sentiment. So do we see the improvement in consumer sentiment, and how do we forecast the fourth quarter? And also going forward, minimal wage hike, and some stimulus from the government, can it support the consumer sentiment in the nearby quarters?
So, as we have shown, the... You know, we've seen sentiment turn quite a lot in September. With the mild weather, we see, you know, volumes come up and then people really visiting the stores and not pay too much attention to the prices again. So you could see this. Having said that, you know, our part of the market, the market that we work with, is an extremely seasonal one. So, what is now going to be the big litmus test for us is: How is the Christmas season going to look like? And obviously, it's now too early to be able to comment on that. As you have pointed out, there's a lot of factors working into that.
You know, you have minimum wage growth that is going to kick in yet another tranche in first of January. You can see some interest rates coming down. You can see some deflation on some products. So net-net, pricing power of the consumer should come back and, you know, also back into its perception. Obviously, there are other elements on the negative side. You know, we do see, you know, inflation coming back in some categories like fuel. Overall macro environment, you know, is not, you know, the most positive. Now we have, you know, two wars and a lot of things to worry about in the world. So, you know, I guess, Morgan Stanley also has a view on where the economy is going. I'm-...
Not sure, you know, I'm probably not the one wanting to forecast that, but all I can say is that, you know, for us, the most crucial one, as we are a very seasonal business, will be now the Christmas season. You know, we're very much hopeful for that. All I can say is that we are very well prepared. We are well-stocked, assortment is well prepared. Our stores have been working very strongly on strong promotions, and then also, you know, really retail promotions. So using all those tools that we've put in place, as I said, Duży Ben, Frisco, everybody's now laser-focused on working Christmas, and then, you know, let's cross fingers that Christmas is going to be... will surprise us all to the upside.
Retail-oriented question from Grzegorz Kujawski, Delikatesy Centrum, and their like-for-like sales growth range for the future. What do we see in here for the upcoming year? And obviously, we don't forecast that, that figure directly, but looking at the consumer sentiment and our actions, is there any flavor we can give for the future?
Okay, I'll try to give, I'll try to give a, kind of, you know, roundabout answer because as Adam said, you know, we normally don't guide towards sales growth. But I would say, you know, what do I see as key targets for the new team now that is in place with Delikatesy Centrum? The first one that is, I think, important is owned stores. You know, as I mentioned, Hugo Mesquita came in. You know, he's really very... He knows his stuff when it comes down to running stores and, you know, he's been running the biggest retail chain in this country. Now he's running our 500 owned stores. I really believe, you know, he can put everything in order that needs to be put in order there.
And when it comes down to our own stores, it's not a question of trends and consumer trends; there's just a lot of catch-up growth to be done. I, I think it is fair to say that those stores have been underperforming for some time, and we can particularly see this in sales per square meter compared not to the market, but to our average Delikatesy Centrum stores from our franchise partners. And so I think, you know, we've, we have, you know, done some mistakes there, clearly, and it's upon us now to, to, to correct them.
When it comes down to the owned stores, the target for the team in the owned stores and the 500 stores that we have there, is really to turn the ship around and generate sales that will kind of offset some of the weak like-for-likes that we've had there. I would really expect them to grow above our franchise stores in the next year, as they are, you know, fulfilling the potential on a sales per square meter of the locations and surface that they have. First point.
Second point, you know, please bear in mind when you look at inflation of Delikatesy Centrum is that because we were focusing on, you know, quality and really reworking the strategy, reworking the management team, all those elements that I mentioned, we haven't had much of an expansion in Delikatesy Centrum over the last quarters. Yeah. And so when you look at Delikatesy Centrum like-for-like, obviously, you know, people compare this to, like, Dino and stuff like that. But, you know, please bear in mind that when you are comparing like-for-like of Dino, you are comparing like-for-likes of stores that have been open, you know, one, two, three years ago. In Delikatesy, it's a much more mature, settled network, and the like-for-like that we are getting here is real like-for-like, and not kind of still growth like-for-like.
And this has further potential to grow as we are going to activate, you know, growth and store openings again, and expansion again, as we are going to see the positive outcomes of the team that is now in place. So our target has been to say, we want to put Delikatesy Centrum on track. We want to make sure that we improve assortment, we improve the promotions, we improve price positioning, we improve operations on store level. I think we've done meaningful improvements in all of those areas.
I think we still have meaningful, improvements in those areas to be done, but I think, sooner than later, we will deem that we've been able to turn Delikatesy Centrum around, and then we'll be also able to say, "Now we are able to switch on the expansion button again, meaningfully.
Mm-hmm. We have two questions for project segment, mainly about the break even. That's from Przemysław Staniszewski, and then from Grzegorz Kujawski as well. So Grzegorz appreciate the loss reduction that happened in the, in the project segment. So is it reasonable to assume positive EBITDA in Q4 already, in the segment? I believe that that's too early yet, but then Przemysław is asking: Can we expect break even on Duży Ben and Frisco next year on the EBITDA and potentially in the future on net profit level?
As I said, our target is for Duży Ben to be an EBITDA-positive company next year. Our target for Frisco is that Frisco should be able to take that hurdle by 2025. The reason why we don't think that 2024 is the year where Frisco can already become fully profitable is that Frisco needs to grow. Frisco needs to grow very aggressively because we've just doubled supply in Warsaw, and obviously, that adds also a lot of fixed costs.
And that will also cost us in marketing spend, et cetera, because we want to get clients for this warehouse, and we want to get people to know that now they can, you know, shop much better at Christmas in Frisco because they can get slots until the very end, before the twenty-fourth, et cetera, et cetera. So, the best way for Frisco to really have a nice positive EBITDA at a nice level is to grow sales, and they now have everything they need with the new warehouse. And so, we are going to engage with the management team very strongly for the next year to make sure that we will get this growth. And we will get this growth, obviously, and, you know, in a disciplined way when it comes down to costs.
I think for 2024, it will be too much to ask for Frisco to grow the way that we would want them to grow and to do that in a profitable way. I think the most important element is, again, the fixed cost of a second warehouse, a second automated warehouse in Warsaw is kicking in, is to generate the sales to use this fixed cost, and then we'll be optimizing in 2025.
Now, a couple of questions about the strategy and the implementation of it. Can we give some color on specific actions for coming months as far as implementation of the strategy, and how are we planning to communicate it, so the implementation and the KPIs related to that?
So again, I mean, you know already a lot about our strategy. You know about retail integration, you know about Delikatesy Centrum, you know about One Wholesale which is, you know, our integration of wholesale. I think that what we will want to do as we go into the next year, we will probably be able to give you a little bit more guidance when it comes down to the synergies that we think we will be able to generate on our different actions, particularly on the merger of the wholesale. The merger of the wholesaler, again, is actually a combination of three companies into one. We're starting with the buying departments and the operations. When it comes down to the buying department, you know, we believe that synergies are going to be on two elements.
The first one is, you know, a much better way to negotiate because we are going to negotiate as one firm, and we believe that as we will have all data and all levers of, you know, a PLN 30 billion company under one roof, in one hand, we'll be able to have much better informed and much more disciplined discussions with our producer partners, and hopefully get better conditions out of that. But on the other hand, you know, as we are combining three buying departments into one, we will also have reductions in overall payroll. Same is true also for operations. We are going to fold several regional networks into one, and we are going to eliminate overlapping regional networks.
And the idea here is to create something that is going to be much more client-focused, and we will have... You know, our aim is to have pretty much one client representative per store, and not, you know, responsible for one store and not multiple. And that is going to already on the one hand side make our cooperation with clients much more streamlined, but on the other side, also much more cost-efficient. So I think that what we will be able to do in the foreseeable future, probably beginning of next year, is to give you a guidance of what is going to be the cost reduction in payroll, in other costs, in marketing spend, in everything that we will be able to incur in 2024.
I think this is an action that you can expect, and where we are now particularly focused on, is to say, "Okay, we've done a lot of work. We've designed a lot of pie charts and a lot of, you know, corporate organization charts. Now is the time to implement that." Yes, and that will, you know, be linked to the fact that we will have to reduce a lot of jobs. But on the other hand, it will, you know, lead to the fact of Eurocash coming out as a much, much healthier company, a company, and a much more efficient company on the other end of 2024. So that is, I think, one thing that is going to be important. Obviously, we will be pushing much, much stronger on EuroPlatform.
So again, we really hope that next year will be the year where we will be able to connect the predominant, you know, majority of all our stores in the Moje Sklepy network to the EuroPlatform POS systems, and then really be able to manage Moje Sklepy like a retail chain. And Delikatesy Centrum should this, you know, 2024 should be really the year where this new team shows how we can, you know, turn Delikatesy Centrum into a fully fledged, modern, proximity supermarket retail concept that it is, but, you know, using its full potential, and again, Duży Ben and Frisco as the growth engines. We will probably also give you some guidance on expansion.
I believe that, you know, we will probably now focus more than we have in the past on thinking about Duży Ben as a concept for smaller stores in Poland. Really building this alcohol convenience concept that we see now, you know, in over 400 stores, has gained enormous traction, as incredibly popular with consumers. The team has been able to build sales, extend margin, you know, all KPIs are very promising. And we believe that, this is actually a concept that we will want to roll out, more aggressively in the next quarters.
Following up on that, question on the goals of 2025 strategy, mainly the PLN 1 billion EBITDA. Do we identify the possibility of extending the timeline for achieving this PLN 1 billion?
I'm not asking for time now. As I, as I pointed out, we cannot forecast the macro environment, but what we have in our hand is what we have in our hand, which is, you know, making us more efficient. As I mentioned before, after the exercise in 2023, where we've been really, you know, I think I would say that, you know, we really turned every stone around in terms of understanding how our costs come about. I think we've identified meaningful cost savings that we will want to implement 2024, and we believe should get us, should get us there.
Obviously, you know, I really much hope that the market will help, and as some of you pointed out, there are, you know, there are reasons to be hopeful. There is the minimum wage increase, there is maybe Sunday openings coming in, you know, there's other elements that might be, you know, positive for Poland, European funds being blocked, unblocked, and other elements in the area and, you know, inflation coming down overall. Having said that, you know, we are aware of the fact that, you know, there is, you know, the macro, we cannot just, you know, build a strategy hoping for the best in the macro environment. There's also, you know, you could make just as many arguments on the contrary. There is a general recessionary fear over Europe.
Overall, it looks like interest rates, high interest rates, are going to stay for us for longer. Again, you have two wars waging, so I'm not here building this plan on nice weather. I have to, you know, hope for the best and plan for the worst. And this is how we've done this plan, and we are going to do our job no matter what the macro wind is going to do.
Last question on the strategy is about the number of stores. So that, what about the target of +500 stores annually that we've announced with the strategy? While we see some decreasing of, especially ABC stores year-over-year, right? Here, made one comment. We've already talked about it in the first Q results. Exactly at the end of last year, beginning of this year, we've done quite a review of the franchise agreements with ABC stores. So how these stores collaborate, focusing on the active participation of the ones that are more future-oriented, that we can put more hopes into. So that's why there was this change of how to count the number of stores.
Also, if you look at the macro trends, you might notice that there is a trend, or it accelerated this year, that the smallest of the stores, again, these ones below 40 square meters, are decreasing. Are decreasing versus the rest of the market.
Yeah. So, you know, for the time being, we are behind our timeline when it comes down to net expansion. Openings are okay-ish, but, you know, we are... Net expansion has been not, you know, we're not according to plan. This is mostly because, as I mentioned, while, for example, in Duży Ben, we've been way on track in terms of expansion. And, and for example, the Moje Sklepy networks, we've been really focusing our field sales force to implement POS systems, and we probably will be doing so over the next months, because we have already seen that our, you know, most important strategic task here is to get the stores that work with us connected.
So might be that, you know, as, as you can see, you know, we are not expanding costs, so we are operating with a relatively lean sales force. So it might have been that we have kind of prioritized our sales force in the last months, more on the EuroPlatform side than on the net expansion side. And as we are going to, you know, really get our numbers on the EuroPlatform, we will recalibrate this to focus more, again, on store openings, and that's definitely one case. The other case, as I mentioned, in Delikatesy Centrum, we have also now focused the team. Again, it's a completely new team. We have, you know, Marek Lipka, head of Delikatesy Centrum, Francisca, Hugo Mesquita, Alessandra Nogueira, Jarosław Motz, now all coming in the team, some of them two, three months ago.
So we wanted to give the team some time to recalibrate the strategy, to focus again on the homework that we think we have to do in order to get Delikatesy to its full potential, and that's mostly work on assortment, price positioning, promotions, and operations in the stores. And while we were doing this, we were somehow kind of, you know, a little bit holding back on expansion because we said, as we are redoing the model, we have a couple of new model stores out. We are recalibrating assortment. So we want to make sure that when we go for next expansion, we really go with the new kind of the new layout, the new planograms, the new assortment.
And so here again, we've kind of reworked the timeline a little bit, focusing the team now more on the groundwork and the strategy. As we are seeing the results of this, we will be heading much more on the gas pedal and expansion after that, probably next year. So, overall, we are behind the timeline. I hope once we've recalibrated both elements, Moje Sklepy and Delikatesy Centrum, we will catch up the timeline.
The last question, as we've already passed one hour, is about Frisco and its growth rate. It's from Wojciech Knap, about EBITDA and the growth rate, Warsaw versus other cities. We don't communicate on particular cities, with such figures. You see the growth of the total sales of Frisco, as well as what was also important, average basket increasing as well. At the same time, we must admit that in Warsaw, we haven't invested much in recent years, into the development. Why? Because there was not enough capacity in the automated warehouse, right?
Some of you, as inhabitants of Warsaw, maybe you've noticed that especially in peak periods with, let's say, worse weather or Christmas, Easter period, there were really not enough slots within Frisco to service all the customers. That's why the second warehouse... That's why now we will focus very much on Warsaw, which is the market, the best one, the one that Frisco also initiated in. So the growth in Warsaw will come back. In terms of EBITDA, as mentioned already, the goal to bring it to breakeven.
I think you said it right.
All right, so then, then we have it all. Thank you very much for all the questions.
Thank you.
If in case you have any further ones, please contact us via email. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.