Earnings call transcript: Cheffelo AB sees strong Q1 2025 growth in Nordic markets

Cheffelo AB reported a robust performance for the first quarter of 2025, with net sales reaching SEK 336 million, marking a 16.5% increase year-over-year. The company’s strategic focus on innovation and market expansion in the Nordic region contributed to this growth. With a market capitalization of $2.49 billion and an impressive YTD return of 23.88%, InvestingPro data shows the company’s strong momentum, reflected in its "GREAT" financial health score. Despite trading above its Fair Value, the company’s strong financial results and positive outlook indicate a promising trajectory.

Key Takeaways

• Cheffelo’s net sales rose by 16.5% year-over-year to SEK 336 million.
• EBIT more than doubled to SEK 20.5 million.
• The company expanded its geographic delivery footprint and customer base.
• Cheffelo anticipates exceeding its 8% net sales growth target for 2025.

Company Performance

Cheffelo AB demonstrated strong performance in Q1 2025, driven by significant growth in Norway and Sweden. The company’s efforts to enhance product offerings and improve operational efficiency have paid off, as evidenced by a 6.5% increase in active customers and a 30% rise in new customer acquisitions. The company’s strategic use of AI for recipe preselection and expansion of add-ons and groceries further bolstered its market position.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: SEK 336 million, up 16.5% year-over-year
• EBIT: SEK 20.5 million, more than double from the previous year
• Contribution margin: Improved to 32.6% from 31.4%
• Average order value: Increased by 4.5%

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Cheffelo expects to exceed its 8% net sales growth target for 2025, with most growth anticipated from Norway and Sweden. The company aims to maintain a contribution margin over 31% and limit sales and marketing expenses to 12% of net sales. Additionally, there is potential to grow the add-ons segment to 10% of net sales. InvestingPro subscribers can access detailed growth forecasts and 10 additional ProTips that provide deeper insights into the company’s potential.

Executive Commentary

"Our goal is to make life less complicated with inspiring and tasty, well-balanced meals that are easy to prepare," said Walker Kinman, CEO of Cheffelo AB. Highlighting the company’s market success, Kinman noted, "We grew in all markets with Norway sticking out and double-digit growth both there and in Sweden." Erik Bergmann, CFO, added, "The increased volumes in the first quarter had a positive effect on profitability."

Risks and Challenges

• Market Saturation: As the Nordic meal kit market matures, Cheffelo may face increased competition.
• Supply Chain Disruptions: Potential disruptions could impact product availability and delivery timelines.
• Economic Conditions: Variations in consumer sentiment across Nordic markets could affect demand.
• Technological Advances: Keeping pace with technological advancements is crucial for maintaining competitive advantages.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the strong performance in the Norwegian market and the company’s strategy for market consolidation in Denmark. Cheffelo’s executives also addressed questions regarding their add-ons and groceries strategy, emphasizing the importance of customer acquisition improvements.

Full transcript - Cheffelo AB (CHEF) Q1 2025:

Martin, Moderator/Host: Good morning, and welcome to today’s webcast where Cefalo will be presenting the q one report for 2025. Joining us are CEO, Woke Kinman and CFO, Erik Bergmann. If you have any questions, please use the form located to the right, and we’ll take that up during the q and a section after the presentation. And with that said, please go ahead with your presentation.

Walker Kinman, CEO, Shefalo: Thank you, Martin, and good morning to everyone joining us, and welcome to this presentation of Shefalo’s first quarter results for 2025. My name is Walker Kinman. I’m the CEO of Sheflow. I’m here today with Eric Berryman, our CFO. I will take a few minutes to give you a short intro on the company for those joining us for the first time and then take you through some prepared remarks on the first quarter development and financials.

And then we’ll take your questions. And those, as indicated, you can enter into the form on the right of the broadcast. So let’s start with a little about Shefalo and our business. For over sixteen years, we’ve been changing the way that people eat dinner by innovating the mealtime experience. In Norway, we operate under the brands and Adams Montkase.

In Sweden, and in Denmark, These well known local brands have a rich history of innovation and entrepreneurship, all geared towards making our customers’ lives easier. Our goal is to make life less complicated with inspiring and tasty, well balanced meals that are easy to prepare. By taking the stress out of meal planning, shopping, and cooking, we help more people eat better and bring families together around the dinner table. Our meal kit business model is demand driven. Because of this, we can maintain very low inventories and minimize food waste generated in our operations.

Our local chefs and dietitians create recipes that reflect local taste preferences while offering the broadest selection of meal kit recipes that are available in the markets where we operate. We provide a highly personalized customer experience across all our brands powered by our in house technology platform. The customer experience we deliver capitalizes on AI technology, driving, for example, preselection of recipes based on preferences, purchase history, and ratings, and our recommendation engine. This level of personalization is supported by the capability to produce and order individually using Pick to Light and automated production solutions. Our supply chain is well established, strong, and scalable, enabling us to efficiently purchase and distribute our products in each country where we operate.

Furthermore, we are constantly integrating our Nordic supply chain, enabling us to take advantage of sourcing opportunities across markets. So turning to slide five, let’s talk about some of the key figures for the quarter. We hit the ground running in q one with very good momentum coming off of q four. Good execution combined with Easter shifting between quarters allowed us to generate 17.6% net sales growth on a local currency basis. Norway was the standout market in the first quarter, recording over 25% growth in local currency.

This impressive performance in Norway somewhat overshadowed our third consecutive quarter of double digit growth in Sweden, where we achieved a 12.6% increase for the quarter. Notably, our add on and grocery products, which we have identified as a key growth area, grew by 55% in the quarter. The top line growth was assisted by a 6.5% increase in active customers, which was due to a 30% increase in new customer acquisition. And this marks the third straight quarter of year on year growth in this customer metric. Order frequency also grew by 5.7%.

This was a bit counterintuitive given the jump in new customer acquisition, but we also need to be mindful that the Easter timing contributed to more order flow. The final highlight is, as we have been saying, that economies of scale in our model drive improvements in relative profitability on higher volumes. So while net sales grew by over 16%, we saw EBIT generated for the quarter more than double. Let’s turn to slide six to look at the general market development. Looking across our markets in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, we see a fairly good correlation to where consumer sentiment has been heading recently.

In Norway, we have seen a steady improvement in consumer sentiment, which has happened despite any relief on the interest rate side. Easter traditions also have a bigger impact in Norway compared to Sweden since our customers are more likely to pause deliveries and head to their cabins for the holiday. As noted in the last slide, we grew by over 25% in Norway. In Sweden, we saw consumer confidence fall steadily during the quarter, down from a health from healthy levels at the end of last year. Our own performance in the market appears strong with growth of almost 13%, well outpacing the growth of the Swedish online grocery index in the first quarter at 2.2%.

Our investments in improving product fit combined with competitive dynamics in the market are likely contributing to market share capture in Sweden. Despite a healthy 4.80.8% growth in Denmark during the quarter, we saw a much higher rate for most of the past year and had expected more in this market. Consumer sentiment in Denmark trended lower in the first quarter, however, and even the Danish online grocery index showed tepid growth of less than 3% during the first two months of the year. As we move into the second quarter, we’re continuing to see strong growth in Norway, solid growth in Sweden, and a stable business in the Danish market. The timing effects of Easter were reversed in April, so we are not expecting these types of growth figures during the second quarter.

But as we look toward the full year, we are now expecting to exceed the upper end of the net sales growth target range of 8% during 2025. So what is working? Let’s take a closer look at what it means for us to offer unrivaled customization in the markets where we operate. Our value proposition is that we offer meals that unite families, which means taking the stress out of planning, shopping, and preparing food so that the focus goes goes towards positive family interactions around the dinner table with great tasting home cooked meals. Every family is unique with their own taste preferences and routines.

To be able to truly deliver on our value proposition and win in the market, our offering needs to be unrivaled in customization. In a nutshell, it’s your taste, and it’s your choice. It’s our job to make sure you don’t have to lift a finger if you don’t want to. Or if you prefer, you can be fully in control and explore a world of flavor with a wide variety of recipe selections. There are many dimensions to how meal kits could be customized, and we are set up to do that as we custom produce every meal kit in a scalable cost efficient manner with Pick to Light technologies.

In q one, we released three and five portion recipes in Sweden and Norway, meaning that we are offering over 200 unique recipes every month in each market available in two, three, four, five, and six portions. While theoretically, we could do anything in terms of directly customizing recipe ingredients, we are not interested in overwhelming our customers with too many choices. And therefore, a key focus area is on the user experience and design elements that make the service easy to understand and simple to use. Last fall, we launched a new method of preselecting recipes for each customer every week that adjust the menu to their preferences, purchasing habits, and other signals given with reactions and ratings to recipes. We do this using advanced algorithms and other AI technology elements.

This combined with the broadest selection of recipes on the markets gives us the possibility to present a weekly menu that is well balanced and has a high probability of delivering on our value position more frequently without changes by the customer. Our aim is to be so good at this that the purpose of changing recipes shifts to exploration, providing our customers with the opportunity to be inspired by new tastes when time and energy allow. Turning to the next slide, you hopefully can get a sense of where unrivaled customization further contributes to meeting customer needs. By expanding our range of add ons and groceries with subscription options, we can tap into another convenience area, namely automatically restocking the refrigerator and pantry without household staples on a weekly basis. We’re now including in the add ons and groceries offering do it yourself options that include easy side salad or special occasion recipes and basic proteins.

If we’re really good at making great recipes, even though we are are good at making great recipes, sometimes the customer has a preference best met with a bit of logistics help. Finally, customization also includes delivery elements, and we continue to expand our geographic footprint as well as the number of available delivery options on preferred delivery days. Functionality with adjustment of the delivery address is also helpful for easily red redirecting a meal kit to mountain cabins in Norway or summer cottages in Sweden. Turning to the next slide, let’s revisit what we have said about growth in the near term and how translated into first quarter results. We have highlighted four areas that we see will have a meaningful impact on growth for Shefalo in the near term.

We have indicated that we are expecting two to three percentage points of growth in the three areas of pricing, number of customers, and order frequency, and perhaps one to two points of growth from add ons and groceries. On the pricing side, average order value was up 4.5% in q one on price increases and larger basket size due to more portions and recipes on average. To be fair, the average order value increase also includes add ons and groceries that grew by 55% in q one and was 1.9% of net sales, up 0.5 percentage points compared to last year. Expansion of the add ons and grocery business is about building capabilities that haven’t been in place, and some of the most important elements of that were still not present in the q one results. For q one, both active customers and order frequency overperformed expectations.

While the number of active customers was helped by higher customer acquisition in the quarter, order frequency was also somewhat higher due to Easter timing effects. In summary, we are executing well on our growth ambitions, and as noted earlier, feel confident that 2025 will exceed the high end of our financial targets for net sales growth of 8%. With that, let me turn it over to Eric to take us through the financials.

Erik Bergmann, CFO, Shefalo: Thank you, Oke, and good morning, everyone. I’m pleased to report a strong start to the year with net sales growing by 16.5% compared to the same period last year. Net sales reached SEK $336,000,000, which was up from SEK $289,000,000 in the first quarter last year. In the first quarter, we saw negative effects from currency on our consolidated net sales, as the Swedish krona getting relatively strong into both Norwegian and Danish krona. Without the impact of currency effects, our growth would have been 17.6%.

Based on the relative rate of the Swedish krona going forward, we expect our net sales growth in consolidated currency to continue being dampened by currency effects going forward. As noted in our report, the timing of Easter impacts the comparability of metrics year over year. This year, Easter fell in the second quarter, while last year it was partially in the first quarter. If we exclude the Easter week from both years, our local currency growth was 14%, still a very strong figure. Also note that we will see the opposite effect when we’re moving into the second quarter.

Growth in the first quarter was underpinned by three key metrics: Active customer base, which was increased by 6.5% order frequency, which was increased 7%, and average order value, which increased by 4.5% in local currency. The growth in active customer base was the result of effective customer acquisition during the quarter, combined with continued improvements in retention rates. In the third quarter, we do typically see higher customer acquisition as we aim to onboard new customers early in the year, providing them a longer period to remain active before the seasonally weaker summer month. This quarter, we managed to achieve 30% higher customer acquisitions compared to last year, which then contributed to growth in active customers. It was also encouraging to see a higher order frequency despite the higher customer acquisition.

This as we usually see a higher early churn rate on new customer cohorts. The increase in order frequency also holds true when we adjust for the Easter effects. Increase in average order value was driven by price adjustments in late December, and also continued improvements in add ons and grocers penetration and a shift towards larger basket sizes. The larger basket sizes was to a large extent driven by the expansion of six portion options across all recipes at the end of last year. So in summary, 17.6% growth, excluding currency, improved customer metrics and increased customer acquisition marked a strong start to the year.

With that, let’s move on to profitability, starting with our contribution margin. Our contribution margin for the first quarter improved to 32.6%, which was up from 31.4% last year. This increase of 1.2 percentage point was driven by continuous improvements in operation and economics of scales from higher volumes. The contribution margin typically varies with the seasonal volume, with higher contribution margin expected in the first, second and fourth quarter. We have previously expressed that we are aiming for a contribution margin exceeding 31% in 2025, or our focus on operational excellence, cost management as well as economics of scale are expected to be able to improve that further in coming years.

Let’s move on to have a look at the profitability. In the first quarter, we achieved a significant improvement in our profitability metrics. Our EBIT more than doubled, reaching SEK20.5 million compared to SEK10 million last year. This increase reflects an EBIT margin expansion to 6.1% from 3.5 last year. This improvement also reflects higher volumes, improved contribution margin and continued cost discipline.

With the increased volumes, we see a large effect from economies of scale. As the first quarter is a quarter where we focus relatively more on customer acquisition, the first quarter is usually a quarter with higher marketing spend. Sales and marketing expenses for the quarter amounted to almost SEK 48,000,000, which was up from SEK 43,000,000 last year. I want you to note that the organizational change that we talked about in fourth quarter report, that shifted cost from the marketing organization to the tech organization, which is then included within central functions. So if we adjust for that reallocation, the relative spend measured as percentage of net sales is at the same level as last year.

Due to the cost shift from sales and marketing in the tech department and the economies of scale, the target for sales and marketing expenses is 12% of net sales on a full year basis. So with this strong profitability, let’s move on to the next slide and have a look at the cash flow. Free cash flow for the quarter amounted to million. This was lower than last year despite the increased profitability. Therefore, I want to highlight the SEK 9,800,000.0 increase from operating activities before changes in net working capital, which reflects the higher profitability.

However, as you can see in the graph, this was more than offset by lower cash flow from changes in net working capital. And to truly understand the cash flow and cash flow, it is important to understand the dynamics of net working capital. And to simplify, we have two major factors that is influencing cash flow: it’s accounts receivable and accounts payable. This quarter, it was mainly accounts receivables that temporarily affected cash flow. The quarter this year ended on a Monday, which delayed our inbound payments into the second quarter, unlike last year.

This resulted in cash flow from changes in accounts receivables being SEK 18,500,000.0 lower this year, and that is explaining the reduced cash flow from net working capital. So in summary, the impact of net working capital temporarily dampened cash flow for the quarter. Our cash flow performance remained robust, supported by strong operational cash generation. So let’s move on to have a look look eloquently forward. So the first quarter marked a strong start to the year.

And based on current momentum, we now expect to exceed the upper end of our growth rate targets in 2025. We anticipate that most of the growth will come from Norway and Sweden, where performance has remained solid. I also want to again emphasize that the timing of Easter will have a reverse effect on net sales in the second quarter. While the holiday timing boosted volumes in the first quarter, it will shift deliveries out of the second quarter affecting the year over year comparison. The increased volumes in the first quarter had a positive effect on profitability.

While we don’t expect to double the EBIT in the second quarter, we do still expect to see an increase in EBIT versus 2024. Looking at the margins, we remain confident in delivering a contribution margin that exceeded 31% in 2025, supported by operational efficiencies and economies of scale. Sales and marketing expenses are expected to be around 12% of net sales on an annual basis. This reflects both our disciplined approach to spend and the cost reallocation from sales and marketing to the tech team following last year’s reorganization that we talked about in the fourth quarter report. With that, I would like to hand back to Wakir for a quick summary.

Walker Kinman, CEO, Shefalo: Alright. And thanks, Eric. So let’s turn to the final slide to summarize, and we’ll then open it up for questions. In summary, the first quarter represented a solid start to the year. We grew in all markets with Norway sticking out and double digit growth both there and in Sweden.

We saw the third straight quarter of active customer growth on a year over year basis driven by an increase in customer acquisition. We have good momentum as we move into the second quarter, but also realistic expectations on growth with Easter timing effects reversing in April. A strong q one and other indications we’re seeing in the market give us confidence that our full year net sales growth will exceed the upper financial target range of 8% in 2025. And finally, more volumes mean that we were able to leverage economies of scale and EBIT profitability more than doubled in q one. It is always encouraging to start the year well, and there’s a lot of energy in the team right now.

We have clear ambitions to invest in our value proposition and are working hard to strengthen the capabilities to support it. What we do is only possible because of the effort and engagement of all Chefalonians. And once again, I extend my thanks to them for their commitment. So this concludes our prepared remarks, and we’re now ready to answer your questions. Remember to use the form located to the right of the broadcast if you haven’t done so already.

And so the we have a couple of questions here from Carl, and so let’s get started with that. And the first question is, why is the growth in Norway so strong? And the answer to that, first and foremost, is good execution. We have things that are running really well across the business right now, and in Norway, we’re executing very well. I think we have opened up and done some new things on the customer acquisition side with influencer marketing that has has done quite well, also with friend recommendations.

I think when we look at Norway, we also see the greatest opportunity for us to expand geographic footprints that we haven’t done previously. So we have a combination of factors helping us to go in Norway, but we also then, as commented, need to see that also consumer sentiment, and maybe this is just domestic spending in Norway versus for versus foreign travel is is quite good right now, it looks like. And then, obviously, there’s there’s also the timing effect of Easter. So in the timing effect question, while across the business, it’s maybe a little over 3%, when we look at Norway and Denmark, it’s a much steeper impact. Would probably be closer to six or 7% given the fact that all of the timing effect is concentrated in one week versus a couple of weeks in Sweden.

The second question also from Carl. How is the market consolidation developing in Denmark? Do you see any potential opportunities in that market? So on the consolidation front in in Denmark, the biggest news that’s happened in the Danish market over the last, say, half a year is that which once upon a time was the market leader in the Danish market, was acquired by Mani, which is a grocery retail chain. So that’s causing some changes in the market.

It’s also moving meal kits more into the retail physical retail space. They have a very strong brand name. I think the question here is, do you, you know, do you see any potential opportunities in that that market? And I I I wouldn’t comment on specific opportunities if I if I did see them. I think in every market that we operate and look at, there’s very limited opportunities for really any driving any consolidation that fits with our model strategically and also is is something we would be interested in.

What is the situation in other North Northern European markets is the next question, and would you consider entering new markets through the acquisition of a competitor? I think the keyword here is consider, and I think I’m a a pretty open person when it comes to considering all options. So I think what is important to say, though, is that we have a lot of opportunity in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, and there’s significant potential in these markets. We’re we’re operating as a very strong number two in these markets, and there’s a lot of market share to be taken to continue to grow the business. So in the balance of making sure that we have excellent focus on our core business and are also looking at opportunities that may present themselves.

Obviously, we will continue to execute on the core business. So the next question here, with your new sales guidance implying higher operating leverage, is it fair to assume a full year EBIT margin already above the midpoint of your four to 6% midterm target, or do you intend to increase your cost lines such as marketing? And this is from Clement from Ryan Garnier. I’ll leave this question to Eric.

Erik Bergmann, CFO, Shefalo: Yes. So our financial target is dependent on economies of scale. And as we see do see that we are increasing in more than the financial target says, it is fair to estimate that we are above the midpoint of our also the profitability targets. And also to reply to the if we are intent to increase other cost lines such as marketing, we are targeting sales and marketing expenses at 12% on the full year. We do see slightly or we do see increases when it comes to central functions, mostly due to the shift from the sales and marketing expenses to our central functions.

So that is also something that could consider, but the the the short answer is yes.

Walker Kinman, CEO, Shefalo: Thanks, Eric. Our next question is from Martin at Redeye. I believe this is the first time you comment on add ons and groceries. Just to be clear, penetration rate means the share of orders that has an AMG component, and this is correct. So the when we talk about penetration rate, we’re looking at the number of orders that have made add ons and grocery order alongside the the the basic meal kit.

So we have a lot of room to grow. I think that’s the message here when it comes to introducing and making it much easier for customers to find and find things that work for them in the add ons and grocery selection. Our next question here also for Martin. Do you have any target of how large the add ons and groceries component can become. 5% of sales, 10% of sales.

So, yeah, I think this is a this is a very relevant type of question. And in in our experience, I think we can we can look internally and and look back historically at at even our our Danish business. Before it was fully integrated, the operation of the business actually contributed 10% of of net sales coming from add ons and groceries. That component also included alcoholic beverages, which are much usually easier to distribute in the Danish market. But all in all, I think where we’re where we stand at at sub two percentage points in terms of net sales to to sort of the potential upside of here of even approaching double digit sales is a meaningful impact and target that we that we are setting when it comes to top line growth.

The next question in here, I’ll leave over to Eric. How does the contribution margin compare between add ons and groceries and the traditional meal kit offering? Roughly the same contribution margin, but lower marketing spend?

Erik Bergmann, CFO, Shefalo: So the contribution for add ons and grocers is lower than we have for our meal kit. But what’s also important to understand is also what you implied in the question is that add ons and grocers, it’s directed to our existing customers. So we do have a lower acquisitions fee for them. It’s also a part of or it’s an add on to the meal kits. So we do already deliver to this the meal kit to our customers so that we don’t see have any additional delivery cost for the add ons and groceries.

But in the end of road, yes, ons and groceries do have a lower contribution margin than the meal kit offering.

Walker Kinman, CEO, Shefalo: Thank you. The next question regarding customer acquisition also from Martin at Redeye. Thirty percent customer acquisition increase. Could you elaborate a bit a little bit more on what is working here? Better marketing, better market, loss less competition for customers.

I think the easy answer there, Martin, is all of the above. I think we we are seeing better execution in acquisition. We’re doing some things differ differently, which is having an effect. We do see a better market. Particularly when we talk about an increase in customer acquisition, we see a lot of that increase happening in the Norwegian market.

There’s a there’s a slightly better increase in Sweden, flat in Denmark, but I think, you know, where we can really see the effect is coming in Norway. So as mentioned, you know, we’re doing some things with the influencer marketing that we we have haven’t done in the same way before that have worked quite well. We’re also seeing an expansion in where we can deliver, which gives us an opportunity to serve more customers that has been met with a lot of success in areas that are underserved. And I think I I think in the context of the competitive environment, we we see our, obviously, our our major competitor announcing significant strategic changes and even changes that are happening in The Nordics. So I think we are in position to take advantage of all of the components that are that are helping drive customer acquisition right now.

I see another question here regarding from Alexander. You are delivering strong cash flows and building a solid cash position. What is the best way to use it? Maintaining high dividends, acquisition, or other opportunities? I think if you look at our dividend policy, we have we are we set a policy to distribute it’s a cash component metric and to distribute at least half of that.

Obviously, when we look at what we did here in 2025, the recommendation that was sent to shareholders and and was approved is we distributed more than 50%. I think the good thing about our business is that it’s not cash intensive to grow. First of all, it’s a capital light model. So we have a lot of capacity in place that’s been put in place with fairly fairly limited capital investments. And then when we look at available capacity in our business, capacity is is running know, we basically, rule of thumb for us is that we could do twice the volume with the existing capacity and would only need to increase in our sort of labor component, shift scheduling, and a number of of our production colleagues that are that are working and producing the boxes.

So we don’t see a lot of investment in the near term for for increasing capacity or needing to do that. I think also when it comes to acquisition, we we’ve done several transactions in the last two years looking at at simply acquiring customer bases. Those transactions are not significant or really meaningful in terms of cash. So I think even even the growth vectors and opportunities we’re looking at are are not cash intensive. So at this point in time, I think we’re we’re probably in a situation where most of the cash is is going back to shareholders in the form of dividends.

What I would, you know, what I would leave room there is if there are opportunities that present themselves and pop up, obviously, cash on hand is is the best way to to be able to to manage those types of growth opportunities. Alright. It appears that we have answered all of the questions that have come in, and thank you for those. Obviously, you can always reach out to us on IR@Sheffalo.com, our investor relations email channel, if you have any other questions. But given that we don’t have any further questions, I’d like you to thank you once again for joining us for this first quarter earnings call at Sheffalo.

We look forward to seeing you again in August when we share our second quarter results. So have a great day.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.