CEO’s review

The quarter was far from ordinary for Musti. In November, a bad batch of potato flakes led to a recall of four items within the SMAAK brand and the announced ongoing tender offer had the potential to further disrupt team focus and application, yet again the team highlighted their commitment to our Pet Parents by not allowing either of these factors to impact the delivery of our customer service goals.

Notwithstanding these events, we continued our journey of profitable growth, emphasizing the strength of our business model and brand. The team again gave me reason to be proud of their achievements.

Sales growth and financial performance, given the circumstances were solid, supporting another quarter of strong cashflow. Net sales increased by 4.8% to EUR 115.7 million, growth in local currency excluding exchange rate impact was 8.7%. Adjusted EBITA increased by 6.1% to EUR 12.4 million affected negatively by EUR 0,6 million due to exchange rates. The increase in profitability was due to production integration, stable gross margin, tight cost control and continued efficiency in the central warehouse highlighting that the company continues to perform efficiently in this difficult and volatile operational environment.

During the quarter we successfully expanded the store network opening eight directly operated stores taking the total number of stores up to 348. We plan to continue to open 20 to 25 stores a year, primarily in Norway and Sweden.

Our online business continued to perform very well. Like-for-like online sales grew by 13% to EUR 26.9 million and accounted for 23.3% of total net sales. These numbers show that our online customers appreciate our broad offering and delivery options. 

The incident with SMAAK was a wake-up call not only for Musti, but for the pet food industry. At Musti we have improved our quality control processes and standards taking new measures to prevent such incidents going forward. I’m confident that our products will continue to meet the high demands of our customers and we are winning back the trust of those customers that were impacted by the recall.

As we move into Q2 our focus remains to deliver great value to our Pet Parents. Our ability to combine a growing portfolio of products, services, and advice into convenient propositions for Pet Parents is unique and will be the key enabler of future success. This will help us to continue to gain market share in our core markets and seek additional value creation opportunities that are practical and suitable for our business platform.

To our team members – on behalf of our shareholders, our Board, our Group management team and myself, thank you once again for your tireless commitment to support our customers and their pets.   

David Rönnberg,

CEO