Scandi Standard Stock

Good morning. Thank you for attending today's interim report for the second quarter 2026. My name is Sarah, and I'll be your moderator today.

I would like to pass the conference over to our host, Jonas Tunestal, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this presentation of Scandi Standard's results for Q2 2026. My name is Jonas Tunestal, and I'm the CEO and Managing Director of Scandi Standard. I'm pleased to have Fredrik Sylvan, our CFO, by my side today. I'm also glad to report a strong growth and result in the quarter.

So next slide, please. And when we look at Q2 2026, margins continue to improve. We have a 4% growth in net sales and increase in volumes supported by strong demand. We have a 30% increase in EBIT and a margin of 4.9%. And it's mainly 2 things. It's a focus in ready-to-cook to climbing the value ladder. And in ready-to-eat, it's about our growth journey and passing through our cost increase.

We also see that our improvement program continued with full force, supported by significant investment in 2026. I'm also glad to present a new 5-year financing in place at improved terms. So altogether, we have a strong outlook for the business in the coming period. Next slide, please. And the reason why we see a strong demand is related to these 3 value drivers for chicken, responsible, safe and nutritious, convenient, versatile and tasteful and affordable because it's sustainable.

So next slide, please. And here, you can see the strong historical and ongoing consumer trend for chicken. On graph on the right-hand side, you can see the long-term growth in chicken benefiting from substitution from other proteins like pork and beef. And as you can see, we're estimating a 3% volume CAGR in the Nordics and Ireland. So next slide, please.

And one of those 3 value drivers is affordability, and it is benefiting from other proteins just because it's sustainable and affordable. Price has always been important for consumers and the focus has increased even more in the current environment of high food prices. Beef prices are at a high level and are expensive, which chicken is benefiting from. But also, and that is important, the long-term trend of switching proteins from all the red meat to poultry.

So chicken is affordable in all segments, and it gives us further opportunities to drive long-term volume and value creation. And we see future opportunities to drive more value out of the chicken due to its affordability related to peers that you can see on the right-hand side in the diagram.

So next slide, please. And on this side, we want to present our EBIT per kilo measure. And EBIT per kilo is a good measurement of value creation for our business. In Q2 2026, our home markets and Scandi Chicken are contributing well and Ostervol will be a good addition for us reaching our 2027 goals. And our EBIT per kilo in Q2 was SEK 2.37 compared to SEK 1.88 last year, which is an increase of 26%. And we are expecting to continue to take material steps also in the second half of 2026.

And in the different colors in the diagram, you can see the development in the different segments. And as you can see, RT is increasing, but still a small part of the earnings, which is fundamental for future growth when recovering prices and ramping up the new RT capacity. So next slide, please. And now we're moving over to our segments, and the table shows the reconciliation of our segments.

Strong net sales growth in most of the markets, strong EBIT contribution from RTC and improved results from RT. And as always, we want to remind you of the category other includes Ingredients business and our corporate costs. And Ingredients had a negative contribution in the quarter due to an adverse price environment and operational challenges. We, however, see a positive start in the third quarter.

So next slide, please. And here, you can see the summary of our sustainability scorecard. We are transparent on multiple parameters and Q2 shows improvements in all areas compared to last quarter, but still on a level with room for improvement, especially on the LPI side. So we expect a positive trend during the second half of 2026.

Next slide, please. And moving into ready-to-cook. And as we said before, it's another step on the value ladder. We see 3% increase in net sales, and we also see 3% increase in chicken process, what we call the grill weight. To mention Sweden held back due to low supply driven by a few disease cases in our external parent stocks, but full production since July and the demand is high.

And we also see positive volume and mix effect. And that comes up to an EBIT of SEK 156 million compared to last year of SEK 150 million, and EBIT margin of 5.6% compared to 4.2% last year. And we remain focused to continue client the value ladder. And there's a lot of different activities in that. Of course, product development going into more convenience and branding is one important thing, but it's also supported by more investment like leg bonus and robobatches to improve the quality, improve the efficiency and improve the yield.

But we also have had a project of reduced giveaway and improved our product mix, and that is together with our pramatic customers to actually find more value out of the chicken. And at the same time, we do further investment in our backward integration.

So next slide, please. And when we move into the feed prices, so we have now been seeing fairly stable feed prices for some quarters. In Q2, the prices decreased slightly versus last year, but still there are a lot of uncertainties, and we need to be prepared for further volatility. Latest days have shown a significant increase in wheat prices -- and generally, we look at feed costs and other costs such as packaging, energy and transportation.

So we carefully follow the effect of the Middle East crisis, where we see some challenges with the fertilizer supply that can have impact on the grain prices in the future. But we also see challenges with El Nino, and that can cause an uncertainty if it will have impact on the grains and also the Ukraine war where we see disturbances in the sales of grains.

So we are following this closely. We have seen a stabilization, but there are uncertainty. We also want to highlight that feed cost is 1/3 of our cost base and also that the short production cycle compared to other proteins enable us to be more agile in our supply chain.

So next slide, please. So moving into export prices. As you know, 2025 volatility was driven by supply issues, bird flu in Poland and Brazil, but we have seen stable prices versus Q1 2026 and Q2 2025. But we see possible disruptions driven by EU import restrictions on Brazilian chicken in late 2026. There will be a ban of Brazilian chicken from September, but there are a lot of stock in Europe.

So we think if that continues to go, there will be effect in late 2026 or in 2027. But there's a lot of uncertainties in that. But we are aiming to reduce our exposure to the volatile markets. So we have long-term partnership. We have optimized sales and operation planning, and we're also benefiting from integration with ready-to-eat. So next slide, please.

And in this slide, you can see the strong demand in retail. You can see our challenge development more in detail. And through these details, you can notice the increase in retail in the quarter. So in general, we are seeing a strong demand in all our home markets in the quarter.

Next slide, please. This slide is to remind you on our strong market position in all our 5 home markets and the countries are highly consolidated. These markets have large hurdles for new entrants. They can individually be regarded as semi-closed markets due to the strong consumer preference for domestic produce. So due to our strong market position, our own supply decision have a meaningful impact on the market balance, which has proven to be a strong instrument in the period with volatile markets. Note that each market, however, also includes consumer segment less sensitive to provenance.

So next slide, please. And here, you can see our ready-to-cook plant. Note that 1 million chickens in Lithuania is just one shift. And if positive momentum in the market, we will have the possibility to scale up another shift and double the production.

So next slide, please. So now moving over to Ready-to-eat. And we see improved results and a positive outlook. We have a 12% growth in net sales, driven by demand in both foodservice and retail. We have an EBIT margin of 4.1% compared to 3.2% last year. And we continue to build back margins towards historical average. But our lead time in passing through raw material pricing, but we have a positive outlook for the second half. And when we look at our Netherlands plant, we are on track with a sequential startup. So our cabin factory A is fully utilized, and we're installing another and factory C is preparing for the second half trial runs.

So next slide, please. And here, you can see the figures. It's, of course, very encouraging to see the growth in foodservice after several periods of weak demand in Ready-to-eat. Growth in retail channel continues to be very strong. And Ready-to-eat will be an important long-term tool on developing EBIT per kilo and more specifically to increase the value of our protein. So next slide, please.

And this slide is also a reminder of the strong historic organic growth in our Ready-to-eat business the latest 10 years. And I'm confident that we will continue the trend. And our 2 main type of businesses, 3/4 is branded products, European market and 1/4 is integrated local business in Sweden, Norway and Finland. And there is a high return on capital in this segment and our average EBIT margin of 6% in the last 5 years.

And in this quarter, we have a 4.1% EBIT margin, which shows the potential going on forward. And that combined with low capital employed compared to ready-to-cook make this as an interesting investment. And as you remember, we lost some continental contract in 2023. But as soon, as you can see, we're almost on par with our 2022 high numbers.

So next slide, please. And we are expecting a healthy market growth in Europe over the coming years. And the market players divided into tiers, European players, regional players and local players. And Scandi Standard has been a large regional player with 36,000 tonne project weight in 2024 and about 5% European market share. Production platform has not been competitive in the top tier. But we saw in the COVID-19 inflation, some stagnation and some European overcapacity, but we still see 100,000 tonnes market growth expected to 2030. And that is the reason why we did the acquisition in Osteralde.

Next slide, please. And the Ostlovalder plant were acquired in Q1 2025 in an idle state, have been fire in factory B under previous ownership. The start-up of factory A in Q3 2025 after refurbishment, and that increased our capacity for our profitable and popular Kaba products. Factory C is being prepared for the second half trial runs.

And Factory C has 2 of Europe's largest and most efficient breaded lines that can produce 50,000 tonne annual capacity. And it's one of the few with advanced form product capability, tailored to meet the criteria of the largest clients. So we have bought a significant growth platform for Scandi Standard. Next slide, please. And here, you can see our main processing plant in Scandi Standard.

And with that, I hand over to Fredrik Suvan, our CFO.

Thank you, Jonas, and good morning, everyone.

Next slide, please. And next slide, please. Q2 was another strong quarter with continued growth in both sales and profitability. Net sales increased by 4%, driven by continued strong demand across both RTC and RT. EBIT increased by 30% to SEK 179 million, corresponding to margin improvement of approximately 1 percentage point. The EBIT improvement was primarily driven by a favorable mix and price and also continued operational improvements as well as higher production efficiency.

Ready-to-eat continued its positive development with profitability improving further during the quarter. Net finance expenses decreased by 18% versus last year, driven by SEK 5 million one-off reversal of accrued leasing costs related to the Vale transaction. The effective tax rate is higher than last year as we continue not to recognize deferred tax assets on tax losses in the Netherlands.

Earnings per share increased 39%, reflecting the strong operational performance together with lower financing costs. Feed efficiency remained at a stable and strong level, while long-term injury rate increased compared with last year, but below rolling 12 months. This is, of course, an important area that gets a lot of focus, and we expect positive development already in Q3.

Next slide, please. This quarter, we continue to improve our returns while at the same time, increasing the capital employed in the business. Average capital employed increased by 12%, primarily reflecting our acquisition strategy and continued investments to support future growth. Despite the higher capital base, return on capital employed improved by 2 percentage points to 13.1% as a result of good returns from our recent investments.

Our average equity also increased with the return on equity significantly improved by -- to 15.9% from 11.1%, reflecting higher profitability and improved earnings generation. Despite acquisitions and the dividend payment, we maintained a solid equity ratio of 34.2%. So overall, we continue to balance growth investments with capital discipline while maintaining financial flexibility.

Next slide, please. Cash flow in the quarter reflects continued investments to support our long-term growth strategy, while our underlying financial position remains strong. Operating cash flow was impacted by the seasonal buildup of inventory and we also completed the Vale buyback with a cash impact of SEK 270 million, of which SEK 143 million relates to CapEx and SEK 128 million is the reduction of lease liabilities captured under other items.

During the quarter, we also completed the acquisition of DanBroiler as well as we continued investments in our value chain improvements and integration activities. The onetime effect from the Vale acquisition impacts paid finance items and adjusted for that, it's close to on par with previous year. As said, we also paid the first dividend installment of SEK 108 million, and the dividend is in line with our dividend policy.

As a result of the above, net interest-bearing debt increased during the quarter, but leverage remains at 2.2, which is below our internal ambition of staying below 2.5. So overall, we continue to invest for future growth while maintaining a strong and flexible balance sheet.

Next slide, please. Working capital increased during the quarter, primarily reflecting the seasonal buildup of inventory to support high demand and customer activity. Inventory increased by 10% versus year-end and 29% versus the same period last year, mainly driven by the planned inventory buildup and the inclusion of the Lithuania operations as well as and Roller that was recently acquired.

Despite continued sales growth, trade receivables remained below last year and trade payables and other working capital items remain broadly stable. Overall, capital continues to be a focus -- working capital continues to be a focus area. Adjusted for financing items, working capital represents 5% of our rolling 12 sales, which is below our internal target of 6%.

Next slide, please. For 2026, we expect CapEx to amount to approximately SEK 680 million, which includes about SEK 140 million for the Val buyback. In the second half of this year, we will continue to invest in farming capacity in Lithuania, debottlenecking and increased capabilities in the factories and finalize the Netherlands for the start-up of factory C.

And as we ramp up factory C, we expect increased working capital, which will start in the middle of the second half of this year, which will be partly offset by inventory release linked to the seasonal buildup. We expect finance cost to be about 7% of our net interest-bearing debt, which includes cost for leasing, factoring and vendor financing.

Next slide, please. I'm also very happy to announce that during the quarter, we agreed a new 5-year financing package with our existing relationship banks. We are pleased to continue working with the same strong banking syndicate, reflecting the confidence in our strategy, business model and financial performance.

The total committed facilities have increased from about EUR 288 million to EUR 450 million, providing a significant additional financial flexibility to support future growth. At the same time, we have improved the commercial terms of the facilities while maintaining a prudent covenant structure. The agreement extends our debt maturity profile with a 5-year tenor and preserves substantial headroom under our financial covenants.

We also have maintained our ambitious sustainability-linked financing framework, which remains an important part of our financing strategy. Overall, the refinancing further strengthens our financial platform and positions us well for both organic growth and future acquisition opportunities.

Next slide, please. And back to you, Jonas.

Thank you, Fredrik. Next, I would like to talk about one of our cornerstones and the license for us to operate. And there are 3 key areas when it comes to creating trust for what we do. It is about responsible animal welfare, it is safety for consumers and employees, and it is nutritious products. And this is closely linked to our strategic pillars. And you've seen this slide before. There are 4 strategic pillars that will support us in achieving our goals. So it's increasing the value of our protein.

Next slide, please. It is increasing the value of our protein. It is ramp up our efficiency and with integrated sustainability and doing this in every step along the way as one company, making us constantly better together. And the thing I mentioned about in the ready-to-cook, it is about increase the value of our protein or climb the value ladder, but you also see us investing in ramping up the efficiency because that starts and that is a part of the whole value chain and our acquisitions in the value chain is a part of that.

And we know that it's emphasized that collective effort and shared goals and team cooperation lead to improved performance and outcomes. So these 4 strategic pillars are super important for us reaching our 2027 goals. And so if we move into next slide, please. And here, you can see our 2027 goals. And here at the right-hand side, you can see the targets.

So we are expecting strong growth over the coming years, and we have set a target for 2027 of a 5% to 7% net sales growth. We have an EBIT margin in excess of 6% by '27, but we're also measuring the progress in terms of EBIT per kilo for which we have a supporting target of SEK 3 per kilo that we have shown before and we will show later in the presentation. And we are progressing as planned.

Next slide, please. And also, as a reminder, on this slide, you can see that our structured efforts has resulted in a recognition in forms of improved ESG ratings. We have an A in the CDP rating for climate, and there's only a few companies that has achieved A- and an even smaller group that actually have achieved A rating. And the high scores reflect our standards and sustainable nature of our business.

So next slide, please. And coming back again to our EBIT per kilo measure, and that is a good measurement for our value creation for our business. And it is mainly these 2 headlines that drives EBIT per kilo. It is about climbing the value ladder, and that has, of course, a big impact on what we do in terms of S&OP, in terms of utilization, in terms of yield and so on. But that's also a large efficiency potential in our value chain.

And that's why we are acquiring something in backwards in our value chain, investing in our store houses and also investing in the market to actually take out that efficiency. And that is the building blocks for actually reaching the SEK 3 per kilo.

So next slide, please. So the summary and outlook, we see a strengthened demand trend. We take another material step in our margin journey in ready-to-cook, it's climbing the value ladder, Ready-to-eat, it's growth and our positive outlook after a low period. And our improvement program continue with full force, and it's supported by significant investments in 2026. So we are well positioned for further consolidation. And to summarize all this, we have a strong outlook for the rest of 2026 and going forward.

So with that, I say thank you and open up for Q&A. So next slide, please.

There are no questions waiting at this time. So I'll turn the conference back over to Jonas Tonesta for any further remarks.

Thank you very much. The message was clear. No questions this time. So with that said, I want to thank you very much for listening into this call, and I wish you all a great summer. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Enjoy the summer.

Thank you. That concludes interim report for the second quarter 2026. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this presentation of Scandi Standard's result for Q1 2026. My name is Jonas Tunestål, I'm the CEO and Manager Director of Scandi Standard, by my side, I have Fredrik Sylwan, our CFO, and I'm pleased to have him by my side today. I'm also glad to report the strong growth and result in the quarter. The next slide, please. We report Q1 2026 with strong growth and in net sales and margin. We had a 9% growth in net sales and increasing volumes, supported by growth across all countries, channels and segments. Sales are supported by continued strong underlying demand EBIT is up 35%. Solid improvements in Ready-to-cook. We had low ready-to-eat margin but a positive outlook. Improvement program continued with full force supported by significant investments in 2026, and the integration of Lithuania and Netherlands are progressing well. So in general, we have a strong outlook for the business.

Next slide, please. And now we'll move into the growth and value drivers and the reason why we see a strong demand. It's related to these 3 well drivers for chicken responsible, safe and nutritious, convenient, versatile and tasteful and affordable because it's sustainable. So next slide, please. And here, you can see the strong historical and ongoing consumer trend for chicken. On the graph on the right-hand side, you can see long-term growth in chicken benefiting from substitutions from other proteins like pork and beef. And as you can see in the top bullet, we are estimating 3% volume CAGR in the Nordics and Ireland.

So next slide, please. And 1 of the 3 value drivers is the affordability, and it's benefiting from other proteins just because it's sustainable and affordable. Surprise has always been important for consumers, and the focus has increased even more in the current environment of high food prices beef prices are increasing and are becoming more and more expensive, which chicken is benefiting from, but also the long-term trend of switching proteins from red meat to poultry. So chicken is affordable in all segments, and that gives us further opportunities to drive long-term volume and value creation. So we see further opportunities to drive more values out of the chicken due to its affordability relative to PS. So that you can see on the right-hand side in the graph at the top.

So next slide, please. And on this slide, we present our EBIT per kilo measure, and per kilo is a good measurement of value creation for our business. And in Q1 2026, EBIT for kilos was SEK 2.22 compared to SEK 1.73 last year. And that is an increase of 29%, and our home markets are contributing well and ostomate will be an addition for us reaching our 2027 goals. So we're expecting to take another material step in 2026. And in the different colors in the diagram, you can see the development in different segments. And as you can see, RT is a very small part of the earnings, which gives us fundamental for future growth when recovery prices and ramping up our new RPE capacity.

So next slide, please. Now we're moving into the segments. And the table shows the reconciliation of our segments, strong net sales growth in all markets and strong EBIT contribution from ready-to-cook, whereas ready-to-eat still has low results in the quarter. And as always, we want to remind you of the category Other includes our ingredients business and our corporate costs. So next slide, please. And here, you can see the summary of our sustainability scorecard, and we are transparent on multiple parameters. Q1 shows mixed results partly driven by exceptional cold winter this year. You see slightly higher numbers in the quarter on antibiotic use lead to some challenges in our Irish and Lithuanian operations, but we expect to post a trend during 2026.

So next slide, please. And if we look at the segment ready to cook, and that's another step forward with 10% increase in net sales. We have a 5% increase in chicken processed our grill weight, and we have a positive volume and mix effect. EBIT is SEK 151 million compared to last year's SEK 93 million, and the margin is 5.3% compared to 3.6% last year. And it is broad improvements across all markets and channels and glad to see that our structural improvement programs are yielding results.

So if we move into next slide, please. Then we move to the feed prices. And we have now been seeing fairly stable field prices for some quarters. In quarter 1, the prices declined slightly versus previous year, but there are still uncertainties, and we need to be prepared for further volatility. We also want, as always, highlight that feed costs are 1/3 of our cost base and that the short production cycle compared to other proteins enable us to be more agile in the supply chain. Generally, we look at feed costs and other costs such as packaging and energy and transport we carefully follow the effect of the Middle East crisis with a view to pass on cost increases to our clients.

Next slide, please. And then we're moving into the export crisis. And we see volatile export prices in 2025, volatility were driven by supply issues and that was mainly bird flu issues and Newcastle in Poland and bird flu in Brazil. Q1, also to mention is seasonally our weakest quarter. That's the effect of the Christmas season, where the chicken consumption of poultry consumption is low. Where we compare prices versus last year and prices are up 2%, and we also see that current prices is above Q1 2026 levels. And our aim is to reduce exposure to volatile markets as we're looking for long-term partnership, optimized S&OP and an integration benefits with our ready-to-eat business.

So next slide, please. And on this slide, you can see the channel development more in detail. And through these details, you can notice the increase in both foodservice and retail in the quarter. So in general, we're seeing strong demand growth in all of our markets in the quarter. Next slide, please. And this slide is to remind you of our strong market position in all of our 5 home markets and the countries are highly consolidated. These markets have large hurdles for new entrants. They can individually be regarded semi-closed market due to the strong consumer preference for domestic producers. And due to our strong market position, our own supply decision has a meaningful impact on market balance, which has proven to be strong instrument in periods with volatile markets. And note that each market, however, also includes consumer segments less sensitive to Province.

So next slide, please. And here, you can see already to cook plants. And as we always mentioned, we should note that [ SEK 11 million ] in Lithuania is just 1 shift. If the market have a positive momentum, we have the possibility to scale up another shift and double the production. So next slide, please. And then we move into ready-to-eat. And the headline is a low result and positive outlook. And we see gradual margin recovery underway, 10% growth in net sales, and that is driven by strong recovery of food service demand, but we see a significant drop in EBIT versus Q1 2025. Part of it is driven by planned maintenance stop in fare during the first quarter, but it's also structurally takes longer time to pass through increased raw material costs. But we're on track with our sequential start-up in Netherlands, successful kebab processing factory A, outperforming our internal targets.

And we're also looking into capacity -- double capacity during the second half of 2026 on the kebab production. In the Factory C, we will do the trial runs as planned in the second half 2026. So next slide, please. And here, you can see the figures. It's, of course, very encouraging to see the growth in food studies after several periods of weak demand in ready-to-eat. Growth in the retail channel continued to be very strong. Ready-to-eat will be an important long-term tool in development EBIT per kilo. And more specifically, I will talk about that later in our strategic pillars. It is about increasing the value of our protein.

So next slide, please. And this slide is a reminder of the strong historic organic growth in ready-to-eat business, the latest 10 years. I'm confident that it will continue that trend. And the 2 main type of businesses, 3/4 is breaded products on the European market and 1 quarter is integrated local business in Sweden, Norway and Finland. And it gives us a normalized high return on capital employed, an average EBIT margin of 6% the last 5 years. But in the quarter, we only had 2.7 for the reasons described earlier, which also shows the potential going forward, and it is low capital employed compared to ready-to-cook. And as you remember, we lost the Continental contract in 2023. But since December 2023, we have growth quarter-by-quarter.

So next slide, please. And we're also expecting a healthy market growth in Europe over the coming years. The market players are divided into tears, European players, regional players and local players and Scandi Standard has been a large regional players with 36,000 tonnes of product weight in 2024, and that is about 5% of the European market share. But there's been a stagnant market after COVID-19 and inflation and some European overcapacity. But we see the expected growth to 2030 is about 120 tons.

So next slide, please. Next slide, good. And this is the reason why we acquired the plant in Q1 2025, and we acquired that in either state and there has been a fire in the factory under previous ownership. And then the start-up of Factory A in Q3 2025 after refurbishment and that increased our capacity for popular and profitable kebab products that we're producing. And Factory C is being prepared for the second half 2026 or start-up of trial products. And Factory C has the 2 of Europe's largest and most efficient breaded products lines with a capacity of 50,000 tonnes annual capacity 1 of the few with advanced form product capability and it's tailored to meet criteria of the largest clients. So we are expecting significant -- this as a significant long-term growth platform for Scandi Standard.

So if we move into the next slide, please. And here, we show our for main processing plants in Scandi Standard . And the 2 European plants is power plant in Denmark and our Ostwald plant in Netherlands and then stock in Norway and Hong Koin Finland are serving our local markets. So I hand over now to Fredrik Sylwan.

Thank you, Jonas, and good morning, everyone. Next slide, please. As Jonas mentioned Q1 was a very strong [Technical Difficulty] it is clear that the underlying performance is very strong. Finance net is down 14% versus previous year. And the cost for increased bank loan is more than offset by lower interest rates. On the back of the reduced positive impact from interest rate swaps have expired, so we don't see that positive effect during this quarter. The effective tax rate is higher than last year, and this is due to a correction of capitalized tax losses in the Netherlands and the effective tax rate is expected to return to previous level. Feed efficiency remains stable and at a strong level. And as Jonas mentioned earlier, lost time in years is up during the quarter.

Next slide, please. Capital employed increased year-on-year from SEK 4.5 billion to SEK 4.9 billion, reflecting acquisition activity and integration ramp-up. Return on capital employed improved to 13.3%, which is almost 2 percentage points up despite capital employed -- higher capital employed, indicating that incremental capital is being deployed efficiently. Our return on equity also strengthened to 14.9% from 10.7%, driven by improved profitability and disciplined capital allocation. The equity ratio increased to 36.2% from 34.7%. And as said, the company remains well capitalized and within our targeted capital structure. And as always, we continue to monitor our leverage position to ensure financial stability and maintain flexibility for future investments.

Next slide, please. Operating cash flow was SEK 69 million in the quarter, primarily driven by strong EBITDA together with reduced CapEx as the Ostwald acquisition last year was an asset deal. Other operating items are driven primarily by FX impact on personnel costs. Paid tax is below previous year due to less tax paid in both Norway and Sweden. And other items are impacted by FX on interest-bearing debt as well as the stock buyback linked to the 2025 year long-term incentive program. Our net interest-bearing debt is close to flat versus year-end. Reported leverage landed at 1.9x, which is below our internal aim of 2.5%.

Next slide, please. Working capital remains low in the quarter despite unfavorable impact from stronger sales and a low level exiting 2025. We see 7% inventory decrease versus year-end and almost flat versus Q1 last year. And despite having a higher level of live birds was basically not in the base last year. Other working capital consists mainly of personnel-related costs, such as and VAT. Our target for working capital as a percentage of the sales, adjusted for financing remains at 6%, in Q1, this metric stood at 4.4%, including financing adjustments, meaning that we are at an efficient and low working capital level for the quarter.

Next slide, please. For this year, we expect CapEx to increase to approximately SEK 650 million, which is driven by focus on the 3 main areas, which are the same as last time. Which the first 1 is increased chicken farming capacity in Letania, then debottlenecking and increased capabilities. And the third one, finalized the Netherlands for the start-up of Factory C. And as we ramp up Factory C, we expect an increase in working capital, which will start in the middle of the second half of this year. We also expect finance cost to be around 7% of our net interest-bearing debt, which includes cost for leasing, factoring venderfinancing. The blended effective tax rate is expected to be approximately 19%.

Next slide, please, and back to you, Jonas.

Thank you, Fredrik. This slide, I want to talk about 1 of our cornerstones and license for us to operate -- there are 3 key areas when it comes to creating trust for what we do, it is responsible animal welfare, safety for consumers and employees and nutritious products. And this is closely linked to our strategic pillars. So if we move into next slide. And those of you who have followed us for a while have seen these pillars before. These are the 4 strategic pillars that will support us achieving our goals. And it is about increased the value of our protein, taking out more value out of the board and processing more and utilizing more of the board. Then it is about ramping up efficiency, and that is ramping up efficiency in the whole value chain end to end. There's a lot of gains to do with that focus. And that with integrated sustainability and doing this in every step along the way as 1 company making us constantly better together. And it emphasizes the collective effort of shared goals and team cooperation and that leads to improved performance and outcome.

So if we move into next slide, we then will show the slide and remind you of our targets for 2027. And you can see them at the right-hand side, and we are expecting strong growth over the coming years. So we have set the targets 2027 to 5% -- to 7% net sales growth -- we have targeted an EBIT margin in excess of 6% by 2027, and we're also measuring the progress in terms of EBIT per kilo, for which we have support and targets of SEK 3 as presented in formal slides.

So next slide, please. And we also want to remind you, this slide is reminded we are structurally working with our improved ESG work and improve ourselves in AHG ratings. So we have an A in the CDP rating for climate. There's only a few companies that has achieved A minus rating and even smaller group with an A rating. So the highest scores reflects our standards and the sustainability nature of our business. So if we move into next slide, and once again, we want to show you our measure Enable is an important measure for our value creation. And as you can see, the part ready-to-eat part of the EBIT per kilo is very small. Part of it today -- so the potential of growing our ready-to-eat business in the future is an important part for us to increase our EBIT per kilo.

So if we move in next slide, please. And this is to summarize the outlook. So strengthen organic growth trend. It is another material step in our margin journey ready-to-cook that we have strong improvement momentum and ready to eat, we have a positive outlook after a low period, and our improvement program are continuing with full force supported by significant investments in 2026, and we are well positioned for further consolidation and expecting a strong outlook for 2026. So with that said, we are moving to next slide and open up for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Daniel Schmidt with Danske Bank.

Yes. Okay. But a couple of questions from me. And you clearly performed well again on the group, but ready-to-eat is still sort of sluggish when it comes to margin performance and of course, we -- I do understand that you had that maintenance stop, but that also impacted. But you also talked about longer lead times to pass on raw material costs. And on that topic, we are, of course, in a situation now where the world is quite uncertain, and it has an impact on commodity in general and maybe also so fertilizer prices. And of course, that lead time is quite long. But what do you see there? And what do you expect in terms of eventually passing those extra costs on down the line? .

I would say if we take the -- on the cost side, that will reflect the ready to cook and the thing that you mentioned about fertilizers and so on, that is a long-term thing. Our most -- our focus is that we see at the moment, stable feed costs -- we see, of course, as everyone increasing oil prices and cost for transport and plastics and so on, but we have aand really close monitoring that and focus to pass those costs further to the customers. And I think we have a good model for that. If we're linking it to the ready-to-eat part. It has more been driven that we have such a strong demand for our ready-to-cook raw material, the sales out of them, there has been a lack of poultry. And that, of course, optimize the ready-to-cook business. But keep some short-term challenges with the ready-to-eat business because that's the raw material integrated.

So what we have been focusing on is to increase the efficiency in our ready-to-eat part. And of course, past prices through, but they have a strong link to what the demand is in ready-to-cook. And there is a little bit longer lead time, as stated. But for us, it's more about the high demand for ready to cook. So they will come after a while. But the cost base, we are following that really close and expect to pass those costs through. But we don't see anything on our big cost parameter yet on the feed prices. But of course, it is, as you say, if forties prices are high, that can have an effect for the crops that will be harvested next year and so on. But -- but we are monitoring it.

Yes. But I'm just coming to understand that these 2 channels are sort of dependent on each other in terms of raw material costs and so on, the fertilizer prices and then, hence, the feed prices is, of course, something that could come later maybe this year or start of next year? And what makes you sort of confident that you won't see longer lead times to pass that cost on as well that you have seen it in RTE? .

Yes. Because the RTE sourcing of changing -- let me give an example to give it more practical. If we have a high demand for means to meat because of the meat and red meat is really high. Then we sell the ready-to-cook raw material off cuts as minced meat and drive value out of that. But that's also raw material into our ready-to-eat -- and then that product is not available, then you need to change that to another product due to the high demand of off-cuts to ready to mince meat. And then we need to change the recipes and push the prices through because we need to use another raw material. So the ready-to-eat business is more linked to the high demand in ready-to-cook. And those costs we need to pass through because the raw material is utilized better and ready to cook at the moment. That's 1 example, more than the cost base backwards in ready to in terms of higher feed costs. If that's what 1 practical example.

So basically, sort of the ready-to-eat input base is more complicated maybe? And maybe you'll feel that you have a stronger pricing power and ready-to-cook if you start to see feed prices going up. .

Exactly -- that's where it starts. .

And you also talked about, of course, high inflation, driving people to look for more affordable choices. And of course, that's been very true for some years now, but we actually have seen food inflation hitting in Sweden in March, and it might take off again given the talk that we just had on fertilizer prices, but that's going to be further down the line. Do you feel that with food price inflation hitting 0 in March and probably not a big change in the coming months. Is that something that could change the behavior of the Nordic consumer? .

I think that we -- if we take the Nordic consumer and including Ireland in that, we see a change to poultry, a structural change to poultry. Of course, that's a short-term effect because the mean meat prices, especially in before really high, but does a structural change from red meat into white meat even -- even if that's not high meat prices. So there's 2 effects that are driving in a positive way for us at the moment, but the structure has been for a while, and it seems to increase .

Okay. So no change in momentum despite food inflation coming down? .

Not what we can foresee now .

Okay. And maybe also back to the last question on input costs. Fuel costs have gone up quite a lot on the back of the situation in the Middle East. How big part of sort of your cost base is related to fuel prices?

I cannot specify the exact number of you because it's only a part of our fuel prices that actually they call the DMT Dream mailers tillage that are changing. So I don't -- I cannot say that exact percentage by heart. But it's a minor part compared to the other input costs. .

Thank you. There are no questions waiting at this time. [Operator Instructions] We have a follow-up question from Daniel Schmidt with the Danske Bank .

I might as well continue then. We did talk about the VAT cut coming through by the first of April in Sweden when you reported last time, and that was still ahead of us back then. And any real sort of reflections now? It's been basically close to a month since that happened? .

The lower VAT first in Sweden, have we seen...

Actually, we see a high demand from the market, but we have seen that before the VAT was lower, and we still see a high demand. Our challenge at the moment is actually to be able to provide the consumers with chicken due to some lower volumes -- so we see high demand for chicken even before. So no, we haven't seen any change in consumer behavior that we can see after change.

Yes. And maybe on the sort of political question, given that this has become such a hot potato in Sweden when it comes to food prices and the lowering of VAT and the special commission that's going to follow the pricing in Sweden. And it's election year on top of that. So politicians are trying to make a thing out of it -- do you feel in any way that sort of your counterparts, i.e. retailers in Sweden are more forcefully trying to push prices or if you need to come to price increases? Or any change to that dynamic? .

I think that, of course, does there's competitors in the retail that want to have the best offers as possible and our competitors around us that wants to create the best offer. Of course, there's always tough discussions when it comes to price negotiations and with the sensitivity for consumer, that is always a discussion. But I think -- and as I said before, I think we have a good model where we actually can present the costs, and I think it has also been improved in in media that the cost of -- when the cost comes, it's the cost that we are pushing forward. And I think that model is actually working pretty well. And of course, it's always a tough discussion when it comes to prices. That's the nature of it.

Thank you. No further questions. So I'll pass the conference back over to Jonas for closing remarks. .

Thank you very much, and I want to thank you all of you for listening in to our quarterly report. So I will wish you all a good day, and thank you very much for joining.

Thank you very much.

Good morning. Thank you for attending today's Scandi Standard's Interim Report for Fourth Quarter 2025. My name is Sarah, and I'll be your moderator today. [Operator Instructions].

I would like to pass the conference over to your host, Jonas Tunestal, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this presentation of Scandi Standard's results for Q4 2025. My name is Jonas Tunestal, and I'm the CEO and Managing Director of Scandi Standard. By my side, I have Fredrik Sylwan, our CFO, and I'm really pleased to have him by my side today. So I'm also glad to report a strong quarter and result.

So next slide, please. In Q4, 2025, we see a strong growth in net sales and margins. We have a 9% growth, and that is mainly driven by substitution from other proteins long term. We see this underlying growth in poultry and chicken. We have managed to do a 46% increase in EBIT and the margin is up to 4.5%, and that is based on a solid improvement in our Ready-to-cook business. We also have a net sales growth in Ready-to-eat, but we have gradual margin improvement and recovery underway. Our integrations of our acquired entities are also on track, and we have a dividend proposal of SEK 3.3 per share, and that is up 32% compared to last year. And our outlook for 2026 is strong.

Next slide, please. And here's the reason why we see a strong demand. It is related to these 3 value drivers for chicken, responsible, safe and nutritious; convenient, versatile and tasteful; and affordable because it's sustainable.

Next slide, please. And here, you can see the strong historical and ongoing consumer trend for chicken, the latest 10 years, that with 50% growth, and we see a 3% volume CAGR in the Nordics and Ireland going forward. And as you can see on the graph on the right, it is a substitution from other proteins. And you can see on the right-hand side, the growth of 3% in poultry.

Next slide, please. And chicken is an affordable product. Price has always been important for consumers, and chicken is affordable across all segments. And this is an interesting thing, fillets, that is the highest priced part on the chicken, is competitively priced versus average and low-end cuts in other proteins.

Next slide, please. And on this slide, we want to present our EBIT per kilo measure. EBIT per kilo is a good measurement of value creation for our business. And we see a positive momentum towards our 2027 target of SEK 3 per kilo. And in quarter 4, 2025, our EBIT per kilo is SEK 2.03 and that is compared to the SEK 1.55 in the same quarter last year. So that's a 31% increase. And we need to bear in mind that Q4 is seasonally the weakest quarter in Scandi Standard. And we are expecting another material steps in 2026.

Next slide, please. And then we move into Ready-to-cook. So we see material progress in Ready-to-cook. And here, you can see the segments, and we see strong net sales growth in nearly all markets. There are lower net sales in Finland due to exiting our loss-making contract that we have mentioned a couple of quarters now. Then if you look into the Norwegian numbers, there has been some technical accounting adjustments in the quarter linked to our ERP implementation, and that's impacting top line. But Norway is contributing well in Scandi Standard in the quarter. We also want to remind you of the category other that includes our Ingredients business and our corporate costs.

So next slide, please. And here, you can see our sustainability scorecard. And we are transparent on multiple parameters, and I'm glad that most of them show a positive trend. You see slightly higher numbers in the quarter on antibiotic use, and that is linked to some challenges in our [ idle ] production.

Next slide, please. And if we move to Ready-to-cook, that's another solid step forward, 9% increase in net sales. We have 11% increase in chicken processed as our grill weight. And we see a positive volume and price/mix effects. And this is our strongest segment. We have an EBIT of SEK 120 million compared to SEK 63 million last year, and we moved the margin to 4.6% compared to 2.6% last year. We need to remind you also that there were a SEK 14 million start-up cost in Lithuania in Q4 2024. But it is a broad improvement across all markets and channels and structured improvement programs that are now yielding results.

Next slide, please. And when we move over to the feed cost, we see minor softening of feed prices, but they are fairly stable. There are still uncertainties. It is a volatile uncertain market. So we need to be prepared for further volatility. But our model that most of the input costs are linked to top line, we feel that we have a good security in the feed cost. And also worth to mention is that we have limited trade with U.S. and China. And feed cost, that is 1/3 of our cost base. So feed cost has a major impact on Scandi Standard's results.

So next slide, please. And we see increased export prices. They're up 4% compared to Q4 2024, but slightly decreased compared to Q3 '25, and we are expecting volatile pricing in 2026. And that is linked to that there are a lot of avian influenza in Eastern Europe that will maybe affect the supply, but it's also the volatility will continue over the year. But the underlying growth in demand for chicken continues quarter-by-quarter.

So next slide, please. And then, in this slide, you can see the channel development more in detail. And through this detail, you can notice the increase in both Foodservice and Retail in the quarter. So in general, we've been seeing strong demand growth in several of our markets in the quarter.

Next slide, please. And this slide is to remind you of our strong market position in all our 5 home markets, and the countries are highly consolidated. The markets have large hurdles for new entries. They can individually be regarded as semi-closed markets due to the strong consumer preference for domestic produce. And due to our strong market position, our own supply decisions have a meaningful impact on the market, which has helped us during the recovery process from inflation. So note that each market, however, also includes consumer segments sensitive to provenance.

So next slide, please. And this slide is just to show our Ready-to-cook plants. And you can see on the right-hand corner, Lithuania and Joniskis, there we produce 11 million chicken, but we're planning for double that volume with another shift in the future. When we have the demand, then we will increase the supply in Lithuania.

So next slide, please. If we move into Ready-to-eat, we have gradual margin recovery underway. So we have a good growth in the segment, 11% growth in net sales, and that is driven by the strong recovery in the Foodservice demand. But we also have a significant drop in EBIT versus Q4 2024, and that is the delay in passing through increased raw material costs. So when we have increased results and sales prices in our Ready-to-cook segment, that also means higher input costs in our Ready-to-eat. So we are passing those price increases through. So we will see gradual improvement, and that is expected during 2026.

Worth notice is that we, in January, had a maintenance stop in our big Ready-to-eat plant in Farre to change some equipment to increase our efficiency going forward. But we are really on track with our successful start-up in Netherlands. We are already producing kebab in factory A on our first line there. The second kebab line will be up and running in June, and then we will gradually ramp up the new factory C and those 2 big lines in Q4 2026.

Next slide, please. And here, you can see it in figures. It's, of course, very encouraging to see the growth in Foodservice after several periods of weak demand in Ready-to-eat. Growth in Retail channel continued to be very strong, and Ready-to-eat will be an important long-term tool on developing EBIT per kilo, so more specifically to increase the value of our protein.

Next slide, please. And this slide is a reminder of our strong historic organic growth in Ready-to-eat in the latest 10 years, and I'm confident that we will continue that trend. There were a setback in 2023 to the first half of 2025. That was a general drop in the QSR demand post COVID. We had this loss of this large Continental European QSR contract. And at the same time, we saw strong increases in raw material prices during 2025. But the inflection point from quarter 3, so we're encouraged turning into higher European QSR demand, and we are in process of passing through the increased costs. And the average EBIT margin is 6% latest 5 years.

Next slide, please. And there is a healthy market growth expected for the breaded products. And you can see the market players are divided into tiers or the European players, the regional players and the local players. And Scandi Standard has been a large regional player with 36,000 tonnes product weight in 2024. That's about 5% of our European market. And the production platform was not competitive for the top tier.

If we move to next slide. That's why we made the acquisition in Oosterwolde, and that will take Scandi Standard's breaded activities up to the top tier. So the Oosterwolde plant was acquired in Q1 2025, and it was in idle state. There had been a fire in factory B under previous ownership. Then we have started up factory A in Q3, and that has increased our capacity for our popular kebab products. We see a strong demand for kebab products in our different markets. And then factory C will be prepared for start of a ramp-up in the first half 2026, but we will go commercial in Q4 2026. And that will have the 2 largest and most efficient breaded product lines in Europe. And that will be a long-term significant growth platform for Scandi Standard.

So if we move into next slide, please. And here, you can see our main processing plants in Ready-to-eat. We have our plant in Farre producing -- have a capacity of 50,000 tonnes, the same capacity in Oosterwolde. And then we have our local ready-to-eat plants in Stokke in Norway and Honkajoki in Finland.

So with that, I will hand over to you, Fredrik Sylwan.

Thank you, Jonas, and good morning, everyone. Next slide, please. As Jonas mentioned, Q4 was very strong. In fact, our strongest fourth quarter ever. But also Q4 is our second strongest quarter ever across all quarters during the seasonally weakest quarter, which is very, very positive to see. And top line is growing both driven by RTC and RTE, supported by strong underlying EBIT growth in our Ready-to-cook segment, partly offset by Ready-to-eat, which is normal when bird and raw material prices increase. And the Ready-to-eat profitability has started to recover and is also expected to continue during the coming quarters.

In total, EBIT is up 46% in the quarter with a 110 basis points margin improvement. Keeping in mind that Q4 last year includes a start-up cost in Lithuania of SEK 14 million. But adjusted for that effect, it is clear that the underlying performance is very strong. Finance net is 13% lower than last year, and the cost for increased bank loan is more than offset by lower interest rates, but also we have a reduced positive impact from our interest rate swaps that have expired. Tax expenses were slightly below last year, but the effective tax rate is significantly lower, and the main driver is the utilization of previously nondeductible interest costs in Sweden.

Next slide, please. Capital employed increased year-on-year from SEK 4.7 billion to SEK 5.0 billion, reflecting acquisition activity and integration ramp-up. Return on capital employed improved by 70 basis points to 12.5% despite our higher capital employed. And that indicates the incremental capital is being deployed efficiently. Return on equity strengthened to almost 14%, mainly driven by improved profitability. And the equity ratio decreased somewhat from 36% to 35%, primarily driven by increased investment activity. While the decline is modest, the company remains well capitalized and within our targeted capital structure. And as always, we continue to monitor our leverage position to ensure financial stability and to maintain flexibility for future investments.

Next slide, please. Our EBITDA is now north of SEK 1 billion, rolling 12, which is a milestone for us as a company. Operating cash flow was almost SEK 200 million in the quarter, primarily driven by strong profitability and positive working capital effect. And it's partly offset by increased capital expenditures, mainly in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. And the CapEx in Sweden and Denmark are mainly linked to efficiency and capacity, while in the Netherlands is focused on making the factory production ready. Paid tax is below previous year due to a tax refund in Sweden this year linked to 2024. Other items are positively impacted by currency effect on our interest-bearing debt. And all in all, for the quarter, we managed to reduce our net interest-bearing debt by SEK 160 million, giving us a reported leverage at 1.9x, which is well below our internal aim of 2.5x.

Next slide, please. Working capital remains low in the quarter. We do see a 2% inventory increase versus year-end, which is driven by a higher level of live birds, keeping in mind that Lithuania was basically not in base last year. Our target for working capital as a percentage of net sales adjusted for financing remains at 6%. And in Q4, this metric stood at 3.7%, including the financing adjustments, meaning that we are at an efficient and low working capital level for the quarter.

Next slide, please. Total capital expenditures for 2025 was close to SEK 450 million, excluding the acquisitions carried out in the Netherlands and Lithuania in the beginning of the year, of which totaling approximately SEK 330 million. For '26, we expect our CapEx to increase to approximately SEK 650 million, which will mainly be focused on increased chicken farming capacity in Lithuania, debottlenecking and increased capabilities in Ready-to-cook segment. And last but not least, finalize the Netherlands for the start-up of factory C. And as we ramp up factory C, we expect increased working capital, which will start mid of 2026. The blended effective tax rate is expected to be approximately 20%.

Next slide, please. And back to you, Jonas.

Thank you, Fredrik. Next, I would like to talk about our cornerstones and license to operate. And there are these 3 areas when it comes to creating trust in what we do. It is about responsible animal welfare. And there, I think it's important we have a strong heritage of animal welfare up in the Nordics. We are working continuously that together with our farmers and all our suppliers to actually continuously improve in that area every day. Then we have the safety for consumers and employees. And it's also a super important area for us and create the bottom trust that is important in the food industry. And then chicken is a nutritious product. And these 3 areas are closely linked to our strategic pillars.

So if we move into next slide, please. And for those of you that have been watching this presentation for a while, you have seen these 4 pillars before, but they are super important for our ways of working and increase the value of protein, that is about taking out more value out of every chicken, everything from the consumer product to the things that can go into biogas or rendering products. It is about climbing what we call the poultry ladder, and that is to take out the most value of every product.

Then we have ramp-up of our efficiency. That means the efficiency end-to-end that starts out at the farms and it ends at the consumer. And that is an important topic that we are working with in several different angles to increase the efficiency all through our value chain. And when it comes to the pillar of sustainability, we call that integrated sustainability, and that is that we are working with sustainability in all means integrated in our business. It's not a separate pillar. It is a pillar that we work in with all our customers and internally in Scandi Standard all the time.

And then we have the fourth pillar, Better Together. that means taking out the strength of actually being one Scandi Standard. We are very local in the market that we are, but we will take out the strength of being one Scandi Standard, both in terms of benchmarking best practice and using the competence all across markets when it comes to innovations and so as well.

So if we move into next slide, please. And on this slide, we want to remind you of our 2027 targets, and you can see them on the right-hand side. And we are expecting a strong growth over the coming years, and we set the target 2027 of organic net sales growth of 5% to 7%. We want to exceed the EBIT percent above 6% and a ROCE above 15%. We want to reduce our CO2 emissions with 42% and have an antibiotic use below 1%. And then we want to work with the LTIF below 15%, and we want to have the employee satisfaction above 75%. This is our 2027 target, and I think that we have built a strong foundation to be able to manage to reach them at the end of 2027.

Next slide, please. And when we come to the sustainability and the ESG rating, we can proudly present that we have once again got the climate -- A in the CDP rating. And for us, it's important to have this structured approach to ESG topics and go for facts. And I think that we are progressing really well in that area.

Next slide, please. And in order to reach our target for EBIT margin, we need to increase our EBIT per kilo from the current SEK 2.03 up to the target that we have at SEK 3 per kilo. But we are taking material steps. If we look at this quarter 4, we are at SEK 2.03 compared to the SEK 1.55 last year. And that is about climbing the value ladder and it's balancing supply to domestic fillet demand, it is value creation through increased consumer convenience, differentiation and branding opportunities, and utilize further part of the protein in our Ingredients business. We also see a large efficiency potential in the value chain, and that is the pillar when we talk about increased efficiency end-to-end. And the ultimate measure for how much value we can take out of our chicken is the EBIT per kilo measurement.

So if we move on to next slide. So if we summary it all and give you an outlook. So we see this strengthened organic growth trend. We have taken another material step in our margin journey. Performance in Ready-to-cook is progressing well. We have gradually recovery expected in Ready-to-eat. We are preparing capacity for long-term growth. And we're also confident and make a proposal to increase the dividend by 32%. And with that, we're well positioned for further consolidation.

That was all from us. So with that, we open up for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Daniel Schmidt from Deutsche Bank.

I was just thinking about the Swedish market. You have been growing close to 10% or above 10% there for 5 quarters in a row now. And I was just wondering what you think the market growth is in the Swedish market? And then secondly, what do you think is going to happen with demand when the Swedish government lowers the VAT on food by the 1st of April?

Yes. The first question about the growth in the Swedish market. I think that there will be an underlying growth around the numbers that we have said in the presentation about this 5% growth. When it comes to the VAT part, it is a temporary set-down in VAT that is going to get back again. We are not sure what the outcome will be, but it will be the same for all food. So we are not expecting any consumption increase out of that. There may be some changes in the channels, because the reduction of VAT is linked to retail and takeaway and not in the restaurant. So maybe there will be some sort of change, but it will be the same for all food. That is our expectation. So we're expecting this growth that we have in our financial target as well of 5% growth in Sweden.

Yes. I find that very strange. Why don't you expect any impact on demand if you lower tax by 6 percentage points?

Because I think that when it's equal to everything that is sold, then it will be lower for the other things that people eat as well. So it's not a lowering for our poultry in specific. It's lowering for beef and pork and plant-based and other proteins as well. Maybe we will see some changes in the channels. And that can, of course, create some growth, because we have a stronger foothold in Retail than we have in Foodservice. And maybe also higher presence of Swedish meat in Retail.

Empirical evidence shows, if you look at Europe, when this has been made in different countries, that there is a price elasticity of minus 0.5%. So why shouldn't that happen in Sweden? I don't get that.

No, it may. We haven't estimated in our forecast, but it's the first time we try it in Sweden. So there may be positive effects. What I can agree on with you at least is that we don't see the negative effect of the prices going down to the consumer.

No, I think it's just sort of -- anyway, if there's anyone that might be losing out because it's the Swedish government, but they, of course, hope that this will lead to more consumption.

Yes. It's a long discussion about the VAT reduction, but let's see what the effects will be. They are also putting in some government committee that will follow this and follow the price changes or follow the consumption. So let's see what the effects will be. We are not calculating in our prognosis at least.

Okay. No, no, absolutely. It will be sort of followed up in terms of price decreases, but it's only tax. So that's why I don't really get why it should -- it should be really positive, I think.

Yes, it will not be negative for us with lower prices in retail and lower tax. That's for sure. And I also think that it's important measure they do that they actually see that the prices will go down to the consumer as well. And hopefully, that will have a positive effect of consumption, but it will be equal all.

Okay. And sort of you said that the market growth in Sweden has been 5%, and you've been growing close to 10% now for 5 quarters in a row or above 10% in some quarters. Why do you think that is?

I think that we are -- there's a couple of different things, but I think that the thing that we're talking about taking more value out of the protein, I think the journey that we do in our Swedish business, we are doing a really good journey on that. Because it's not about processing more kilos only, it's also about taking out more value out of it, and both up to the RTE segment, but major partners in the RTC segment actually, where we debone more, where we actually take more as pre-prepared meat where we're actually able to take out more value. And I think that Kronfagel is doing a great job there at the moment. And I think that we can expect a really good work in that area even into 2026.

[Operator Instructions] There are no questions waiting at this time, so I'll turn the conference back over to Jonas for any further remarks.

Thank you very much, and thank you for listening in. And if there's no more questions, we will close this meeting for now. Thank you very much, everyone.

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this presentation of Scandi Standard's result for Q3 2025. My name is Jonas Tunestal, and I'm the CEO and Managing Director of Scandi Standard. By my side, I have Fredrik Sylwan, our CFO, and I'm pleased to have him by my side today. I'm also glad to report a strong growth and result in the quarter. So next slide, please.

We have 11% growth in net sales and increase in volumes, and that is supported by growth across countries, channels and segments, and sales are supported by continued strong underlying demand. We have the highest EBIT ever, up 21%, delivering continuous steps towards our financial targets. We see strong improvement across Ready-to-cook. Our new integrated business in Lithuania, which was started up earlier this year, is already contributing with a solid EBIT per kilo.

Ready-to-eat segment bottomed out in the quarter as price increases to compensate higher input cost will be implemented in the coming quarters. And then when we go to Netherlands, we have successfully started up our first production line in our newly acquired RTE plant in Netherlands, and that is earlier than expected. So -- and now we are preparing our main products line for start-up in the first half 2026. So next slide, please.

And this is the reason why we see strong demand. It's related to these 3 value drivers for chicken, responsible, safe and nutritious, convenient, versatile and tasteful and affordable because it's sustainable.

Moving to the next slide. And here, you can see the strong historical and ongoing consumer trend for chicken. On top of the increased consumption, chicken is also benefiting from a long-term inflow from other proteins. So next slide, please.

And one of the major reasons why it's benefiting from the other protein is because it's sustainable and affordable. So, price has always been important for consumers and the focus has increased even more in the current environment of high food prices. So, beef prices are increasing and are becoming more and more expensive, which chicken is benefiting from, but also the long-term trend of switching protein from red meat to poultry.

So chicken is affordable in all segments. You can see that on the top right side, and it gives us further opportunities to drive long-term volume and value creation. So, we see further opportunities to drive more value out of the chicken due to its affordability. We can move into next slide.

And on this slide, we want to present our EBIT per kilo measure. EBIT per kilo is a good measurement of our value creation for our business. So Q3 2025 EBIT per kilo is SEK 2.36 compared to SEK 2.15 last year. And that is an increase of 10%. Our home markets together with Lithuania are contributing well and Oosterwolde in Netherlands will be a good addition for us reaching our 2027 goals. So, we are expecting to take another material step in 2026. And in the different colors in the diagram, you can see the development in the different segments. So next slide, please.

And now we're moving over to our segments. So, this table shows the reconciliation of our segments. Strong net sales growth in nearly all markets, lower net sales in Finland, and that is due to our exiting loss-making contract. And we also want to remind you of the category other that includes both ingredients and our corporate costs. So next slide, please.

And here, you can see our summary of our sustainability scorecard. We are transparent on multiple parameters, and I'm glad to show that most of them shows a positive results. But what stands out in the quarter is the critical complaints, which are linked to a specific plant, and we have addressed the problem and expect it to be solved shortly. Next slide, please.

And now we move into Ready-to-cook. And that's a 13% increase in net sales, 10% increase in chicken processed, and we have this positive mix effect. EBIT is up a staggering 33% to SEK 159 million, and EBIT margin is 5.5% compared to the 4.4% last year. We have low quarterly injury, our LTI rate that is 16.4% compared to 37.1%, and that's a reduction of 44%. And this is an effect of our effort focus during the last quarters. But sadly, we had a fatal accident during the quarter in one of our newly acquired farms in Lithuania. So formal investigation has been initiated, and it's receiving our highest level of attention. So, next slide, please.

So let's move into feed. So, we are now seeing fairly stable feed prices for some quarters. In quarter 3, the prices declined slightly, but there are still uncertainties, and we need to be prepared for further volatility. But our model have most of the input costs linked to our top line. We also want to mention where we have no or limited trade with U.S. or China. We also want to highlight that feed costs are 1/3 of our cost base. And the short production cycle compared to other proteins enables us to be more agile in our supply chain. When we look at other costs as packaging and energy, we see costs are more at a stable level, and we are hedging the majority of our electricity exposure. So next slide, please.

So, let's move into the export prices. And our realized export prices reached historical heights, expectation of increased prices reflecting higher bird prices in Europe, and we are forecasting continued elevated prices. But we're also working strategically to improve our market performance and so we have this long-term partnership with prioritized customers in focus, optimized S&OP, our sales and operation planning that is super important for us, enhanced flexibility between export and Ready-to-eat and reduced exposure to volatile spot markets. And at the same time, we're working to broaden our export permits from all countries. Next slide, please.

And on this slide, you can see the channel development in more detail. Through these details, you can notice the increase in retail in the quarter. We see a minor decrease of net sales in the food service, though, but that is due to prioritization from our side to the more profitable local retail segment. So, in general, we have been seeing a strong demand growth in several of our markets in the quarter. Next slide, please.

And this slide is to remind you on our strong market position in all our 5 home markets and the countries are highly consolidated. These markets have large hurdles for new entrants. They can individually be regarded as semi-closed markets due to the strong consumer preference for domestic produce. And due to our strong market position, our own supply decision had a meaningful impact on the market balance, which has helped us in the recovery process from inflation. So, note that each market, however, includes consumer segments less sensitive to provenance. Next slide, please.

Now we'll move into Lithuania. This is a reminder of our successful start-up of our acquired low-cost ready-to-cook platform in Lithuania. It's a fully integrated business model, allow control of cost, welfare and food safety. The recent acquisition of Farms accelerating this process. We're also planning to build additional farm capacity in 2026. Well positioned to serve high-quality products to segments in our existing markets less sensitive to provenance, but also to our own Ready-to-eat plants and to our strategic export clients. And we are targeting medium-term EBIT per kilo well above SEK 3 per kilo. So, let's move into next slide, please.

And this is -- here, you can see our Ready-to-cook plants. Note that 11 million chickens in Lithuania is just one shift. If the market has a positive momentum, we have the possibility to scale up with another shift and double the production. So next slide, please.

And Ready-to-eat, we have a strong net sales. They are up 5% and a 15% growth in retail sales. We have reached the inflection point for our foodservice after a weak period. EBIT suffered from increased input costs, though. Lead time is passing them through to customers. We see sequential improvements expected in the coming quarters. So, we have bottomed out this quarter, and you will see sequential improvements.

We also had the successful start-up of the plant in the Netherlands. Our Kebab processing line started in Q3, that was earlier than expected when we're also seeing limited start-up costs. And now during the first quarter 2026, we will start up our main products lines in what we call factory C in Oosterwolde. So next slide, please.

And here you can see it in figures. And it's, of course, very encouraging for us to see growth in foodservice Ready-to-eat, where we believe that we have hit an inflection point after 2 years of stagnation. Growth in retail channel continues hitting a 5-year high during the quarter. And Ready-to-eat will be an important long-term tool in developing our EBIT per kilo, more specifically to increase the value of our protein. So next slide, please.

And this slide is a reminder of the strong historic organic growth in Ready-to-eat business, and I'm confident that it will continue this trend. Two main type of business, 3/4 breaded product for the European market and 1/4 integrated local business in Sweden, Norway and Finland. And it gives us a high return on capital and the average EBIT margin of 6% last 5 years in the quarter. This quarter, we only had 2.4%, which shows the potential going forward and low capital employed compared to our Ready-to-cook business, which makes us an interesting for us growing segment. And as you remember, we lost some continental contract in 2023. But since December 2023, we have growth quarter-by-quarter. Next slide, please.

And we're also expecting healthy market growth in the future. Marketplace is divided into these 3 different tiers, European players, regional players and local players. And Scandi Standard has been a large regional player, 36,000 tons of product weight in 2024, about 5% of European market share, but a production platform that is not competitive in the top tier.

If we move into next slide and that's the reason why this acquisition in Netherlands takes Scandi Standard branded activities to the top tier. So, Oosterwolde plant that was acquired in Q1 2025 in idle state, and that was due to a factory -- a fire in Factory B in -- for the previous owner. Now we plan for start-up in Factory A in Q3 after refurbishment. We have increased the capacity for our popular cable products that we are producing in Farre today and now also in Oosterwolde with a start-up in this quarter.

Factory C being prepared for the first half 2026 start-up. And Factory C has 2 of Europe's largest and most efficient breaded lines and with an annual capacity of 50,000 tons. And it also has one of the few with advanced form product capability, and it's tailored to meet the criterias of our largest clients. And we will see a significant growth in Scandi Standard here in the future, and this is the platform for that. Next slide, please.

And this is our main processing plants. And as you can see, the 2 big plants are Farre in Denmark and Oosterwolde in Netherland, which have an combined capacity of 100,000 tons. So next slide, please.

So, if we look at this in a more holistic perspective, our Lithuanian business is a low-cost and high-quality end-to-end hub in combination with the state-of-the-art breaded capability in Netherlands and Farre. That gives us feed efficiency, low labor costs and efficient logistic together with a scalable platform. With this, together with our strong position in our home markets, it gives us very competitive combined offers to clients. And that gives us competitive strength to take market shares. But there are typically longer lead times in supplier switchovers, so we need to be patient to onboard a full value chain business with customers. But meanwhile, Lithuania has secured strong customer orders in fresh meat.

And with that, I will hand over to Fredrik Sylwan, our CFO.

Great. Next slide, please. And thank you, Jonas, and good morning, everyone. As Jonas mentioned, Q3 was a strong quarter. In fact, it was our strongest quarter ever. We see positive development where top line is driven by both Ready-to-cook and Ready-to-eat, supported by strong underlying EBIT growth in Ready-to-cook, partly offset by Ready-to-eat, which is normal when bird or raw material prices increase. The ready-to-eat profitability is expected to recover during the coming quarters.

In total, EBIT is up 21% in the quarter with a 40 basis points margin improvement. The ramp-up of the Lithuanian business is going well, and it showed strong positive EBIT for Q3, which is ahead of plan. Finance net is on par with last year. Cost for increased bank loan is close to offset by lower interest rates. And as we talked before, we had seen positive impact from interest rate swaps previously that now has expired. Tax rate is at 18%, which is in line with previous year. And feed efficiency remains at a stable and strong level. Next slide, please.

The returns are quite stable compared to last year in spite of the large investments in Lithuania and the Netherlands, which are both start-up businesses. The equity ratio decreased from 36% to 34%, primarily driven by increased investment activity. While the decline is modest, the company remains well capitalized and within our targeted capital structure. We continue to monitor our leverage position to ensure financial stability and maintain flexibility for future investments. Next slide, please.

We are approaching an EBITDA of close to SEK 1 billion, rolling 12, which is a milestone. Operating cash in the quarter landed close to SEK 190 million, primarily driven by strong results, partly offset by increased capital expenditures linked to both efficiency and capacity. Other operating items were driven by exchange losses on accounts receivable and accounts payable amounting to SEK 3 million. And paid tax is below previous year due to timing of payment in Ireland of EUR 1.4 million linked to the 2023 result.

The first installment of the dividend was paid in May and the second and final now in September to a total amount of SEK 163 million, which is an increase of 9% versus last year. Other items are mainly FX effect on interest-bearing debt. And the change of net interest-bearing debt was a reduction of close to SEK 100 million in the quarter, driven by the above. And leverage landed at 2.2, which is below our internal aim of 2.5. Next slide, please.

Our working capital remains low in the quarter. We see a 10% inventory decrease versus year-end and a 4% reduction versus Q3 last year, driven by lower level of finished goods, partly offset by live animals. Also, Lithuania was not in base last year, which makes the decrease even more positive. Our target for working capital as a percentage of sales rolling 12 adjusted for financing remains at 6%. In Q3, this metric stood at 4.5%, including the financing adjustments, meaning that we are at an efficient and low working capital level for the quarter. We should expect a more normal level in Q4. Next slide, please.

Total capital expenditures for this year is expected to amount to around SEK 450 million, which is a reduction from previously indicated SEK 550 million, as some planned investments in the Netherlands have been deferred to the beginning of next year. Moreover, the acquisition carried out in the Netherlands and Lithuania earlier this year will be in addition to the SEK 450 million. As we ramp up the Factory C, we expect increased working capital, which will start in the middle of the first half of next year. The blended effective tax rate is expected to be approximately 20%. Next slide, please.

And back to you, Jonas.

Thank you, Fredrik. So next, I would like to talk about one of our cornerstones and license for us to operate. And there are 3 key areas when it comes to creating trust for what we do. It is about responsible animal welfare. It's about safety for consumers and employees, and it is nutritious products. And this is closely linked to our strategic pillars. So, if we move into next slide, please.

And they can look pretty simple, but this is what it's really all about. And those of you who have followed us for a while have seen these pillars before. These are 4 strategic pillars that will support us achieving our goals: increase the value of our protein, and this is about optimizing our business and taking more value out of every chicken.

It is ramp up efficiency end-to-end to actually create efficiency in the whole value chain from the very beginning to the consumer. And it is about integrated sustainability, so we're doing sustainability in all means of our business and doing this as better together, leveraging being one Scandi Standard and let the best practice travel all around. So, it's empathize the collective effort, shared goals and team cooperation that leads to improved performance and outcomes. So, if we move into next slide, please.

And on this slide, we want to remind you of our 2027 targets. And here at the right hand, you can see these targets. We're expecting strong growth over the coming years, and we have set the target for 2027 of 5% to 7% net sales growth. We target an EBIT margin in excess of 6% by 2027. We're also measuring the progress in terms of EBIT per kilo for which we have supporting target of SEK 3 as presented in the former slides. And we are progressing as planned. Next slide, please.

And as a reminder, on this slide, you can see that our structured effort is resulting in recognition in form of improved ESG rating. So next slide, please.

And in order to reach our target for EBIT margin, we need to increase our EBIT per kilo from current rolling 12 of SEK 1.89 to above SEK 3 per kilo. And here are some examples and action to accomplish this. It is the investment in our ERP system that gives a common scalable platform to utilize the best practice in Scandi Standard.

Our current strong focus on hunting new business in Ready-to-eat has yielded surprisingly good result in retail sales. This illustrates how capabilities in convenience products can be utilized. Then we have investment in stock to support the local growth in our Norwegian RTE segment. The new capacity will be in production, and we are producing in full speed at the moment.

We're also investing in new leg deboning capacity and the latest investment in leg deboning will come here in the coming quarters in Finland. And all of this together, utilizing more of the bird, investing in efficiency that makes us our ability to climb on this EBIT per kilo ladder. And in this quarter, we are at SEK 2.36. So, if we move into next slide, please.

So to summarize it all, this is another step on the value ladder. We have a record EBIT in seasonally highest quarter, solid substitution to our chicken products, convenient, versatile and tasteful, affordable because it's sustainable, responsible, safe and nutritious. We are developing a top-tier European RTE platform with high-quality, low-cost meat input from Lithuania, state-of-the-art processing plant, and we're expecting material progress in Q4 and 2026.

So with that, we open up for Q&A. So next slide, please.

Any questions?

[Operator Instructions] We currently have no questions via audio line. You may continue.

Okay. If there's no questions to the report, I want to thank you everyone for looking in, listening in to this webcast. And thank you very much from us.

Indeed, many thanks.

Thank you, everyone. That concludes the Scandi Standard Interim Report for the third quarter 2025. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your line.