Welcome to the presentation of Swedencare's Q3 report, led by our CEO Håkan Lagerberg and CFO Jenny Graflind. We are pleased to have our Production Director John Kane joining us with a presentation during today's webinar.

As usual, we will have a Q&A after the presentation, please raise your hand if you have any questions. Over to you, Jenny and Håkan.

Thank you so much, Emma. A warm welcome to everyone for this Q3 2026 presentation.

Yes, let me start. Strong momentum in Europe and Production, turnaround in North America is the focus.

Let me start with main highlights from the third quarter. Overall, a mixed quarter as in Q2.

Europe and Production continue to perform strongly, both delivering 11% organic growth, while North America declined by 4%. At group level, revenue increased by 3% year-on-year, and we saw clear sequential improvement with revenue up 9% compared with Q2.

Organic growth, however, was only 2%, which was clearly below my forecast expectations. After delivering 7% organic growth in Q2, my expectation was that we would remain around that level in Q3 despite the stronger comps in Q3 from Q3 2025.

From my perspective, the organic growth was disappointing. The shortfall mainly came end of quarter and can be explained by three factors: an SQF inspection with positive outcome in September for the second of our big manufacturing sites, which affected production more than expected; weaker development from our European veterinary brands towards the end of the quarter; and supply chain challenges, which resulted in delayed deliveries and also affected online sales for some of our major brands.

I think it's important to be clear about this. 2% is not where we want to be, but we understand the reasons behind the shortfall, and they do not change my view of the underlying opportunities in the business.

Europe and Production both delivered 11%, as I said, and dental and pharma, and the areas continue to perform really strongly. ProDen PlaqtOff had another very strong quarter, growth of about 30% overall.

We continue to see very good momentum in, especially online and export. Our own Amazon sales are developing well in both US and Europe, and export sales have already exceeded the full year level of 2025.

Pharma continued strong growth in both development and manufacturing in our Production segment, and our UK specialty pharma company, Summit Vet, continued to deliver double-digit growth. During the quarter, they also launched the first pharmaceutical special soft chew ever on the UK market, giving them a new competitive advantage.

This is a good example of how we can combine technologies and expertise across the group to create new growth opportunities. We consolidated Viyo from July 1st, where we have a majority shareholding following our move in that position.

Viyo is a small niche company with very palatable liquid immune and recovery solutions complementing many of our group brands. Finally, we announced the planned CEO transition during 2027 at the latest.

Recruitment process has been initiated and will take a couple of months, as I understand it, and start date is, of course, dependent on the candidates' availability. My full focus remains on the business and on creating the best possible conditions for a smooth transition.

While 2% organic growth is clearly not satisfactory, the underlying picture is more mixed, with several important parts of the group continuing to deliver very strong growth, and the quarter for the group was the strongest for the year with regards to both sales and profitability. I now hand over to Jenny to go through the financials.

Thanks. Like Håkan said, revenue was not only strongest for the year, but actually Q3 was our strongest quarter ever.

It amounted to 732 million, representing a 3% growth. 2% was organic, and we had 1% acquired revenue from the step acquisition of Viyo.

The currency impact this quarter was rounded down to zero. Håkan will describe more of the growth in our segments later in the presentation.

Year-to-date, we have 6% organic growth. Our operating margin is 59.2%.

This gross margin continues to improve year-over-year and remains in line with our expectations. The external costs have increased compared to last year as Amazon is one of our gross drivers, and this contributes to higher sales-related cost.

Amazon sales in Europe, outside the UK, is still not huge, but for the first nine months of this year, it corresponds to the total revenue for the last five years. Personnel cost is stable as a percentage of sales.

It's in line with Q3 last year and a bit lower than it was in Q2. All this comes down to operational EBITDA, which this quarter is actually 2 million below our reported EBITDA.

It amounts to 150 million, a 3% decrease compared to Q3 last year, and a margin of 20.5%. This is lower than last year when margin was 21.7%, but it's in line with our expectations for the quarter.

Like Håkan said, it's also the highest for the year. Our net debt to EBITDA is 3.0 this quarter.

In Q2, the expected earn-out payment for Summit Vet was included in the calculation as it's due within the next 12 months, so that's the reason for the increase. However, with that said, net debt did decrease since last quarter, and that's the normal trend that we have when we don't have any M&A activities.

Our cash conversion increased to 64% for the quarter. It's a positive trend since Q4.

However, we still have an increased inventory and accounts receivable at the end of the quarter. We continued the expansion of Vetio South.

John Kane is going to speak more about that both in the report and on the presentation today. However, CapEx remains at 3% of sales, which is where we also expect to land even for the full year, including the expansion.

We did repay 70 million on our external long-term loans this quarter, and year-to-date, we have now repaid 125 million net. Our rolling 12 months, not a large change on the left, the trend, except that there is less adjustments between the reported EBITDA and operational EBITDA, as there is less M&A activities.

On the right-hand side, you can see the trend of Q3. Here, you can see that we had a really strong growth in Q3 both in sales and EBITDA last year.

To Håkan, back on some details on the segments.

Thank you, Jenny. North America, turnaround actions gaining traction.

Moving to North America, which clearly remains our main challenge. Net sales were 406 million SEK with organic growth of -4%.

North America still represents 56% of group revenue, improving performance here has a significant impact on the group. The main weakness continues to be within nutraceuticals, where lower orders from some larger customers have affected both private label contract manufacturing and our own brands, with NaturVet having the largest impact.

Looking specifically at NaturVet, the turnaround has started going in the right direction. Pet retail and online is stabilizing, small positive trend there, and we are seeing also reports from the retailers that the point of sale development, the out-the-door sales are increasing, and we expect continued momentum in Q4.

The negative impact came primarily from lower Walmart sales since Q3 last year was the loading quarter for our Walmart launch. Sales from Walmart is trending in the right direction, but volumes is lower than wanted.

We are all set for 2027 and has had a couple of meetings together with the Walmart team and building strategies and programs to continue the growth pattern that we are seeing. On the other hand, ProDen PlaqtOff, as we mentioned before, continues to perform very strongly also in North America, with organic growth of 33% in that segment during the quarter, seeing growth in all channels: online, pet retail, and vet.

In Q1, we will be launching our new cat cream that has successfully launched in most markets in Europe, and it's important to launch it in Q1 since some of you know that dental month is in February in North America. The veterinary channel still remains soft, but we finally have some product launches ahead and the larger partnerships we've been discussing, where we expect to see an impact in connection with scheduled launches for early 2027.

We also launched with the new private label club customer during the quarter, positive initial trend and reviews, we are building relationship there and hope to add new products in that setup. We have done extensive work within NaturVet and North America more broadly.

We believe we are addressing the right issues, but we also expect the improvements to be gradual. Getting North America back to growth remains our number one priority.

If North America remains the key challenge, Europe continues to show the opposite development. Double-digit growth led by online.

Europe delivered another strong quarter. Net sales reached 184 million SEK, an increase of 13% year-on-year, with organic growth of 11%.

Europe now represents 25% of group revenue. We saw strong development across most of our European businesses, although our veterinary brands had a somewhat weaker end of the quarter than expected.

Online continues to be the growth driver, with UK as the leading star, followed by Germany and Spain, two two big markets where we are doing really well in growing the business. Export is another area showing excellent momentum.

Sales in the rest of the world almost doubled compared with last year, primarily driven by China and Chile and some other Asian and Latin American countries, and our export sales have already exceeded the total achieved during the full year 2025, as Jenny said. This quarter, we're also expanding our retail presence in the UK.

We are preparing an in-store launch in October/November of NaturVet by Swedencare together with an expanded ProDen PlaqtOff range at the leading pet retailer. Europe continues to demonstrate good momentum across brands, channels, and geographies and remains an important growth engine for the group.

We see similarly strong underlying demand in large parts of Production. Double-digit growth with further upside.

Production had another solid quarter with net sales of 142 million SEK and organic growth of 11% despite continued challenges in our largest US manufacturing operation. The strongest development came from the UK, Ireland, and pharma, and we continue to have a strong pipeline of projects with both existing and new customers.

Pharma is particularly encouraging. Our pharmaceutical development and manufacturing increased revenue, and we continue to see good demand.

Our RX facility in North America has been approved following a pre-approval inspection by the US FDA for a recently approved pharmaceutical product, with production planned to start during 2027. In contrast, our US dermatology production remains the key drag within the segment.

We are taking actions to broaden the offering into categories where we see demand, both internally and externally, and we expect the US site to return to growth over the coming quarters. We passed the SQF certification, opening up for a new customer profile, that is big club and mass retailers that demand this special certification.

We are also preparing for additional growth at Vetio South. The expansion into pet treats and prescription non-sterile liquids broadens our manufacturing capabilities, with the treats operation planned to ramp up during Q1 2027.

They received all of the machines and material this early quarter and will be set up by the end of the year. Production Director John Kane will go through this in-depth a bit later.

Despite the current US weakness, the underlying demand, project pipeline, and expansion of our capabilities give us confidence in the continued good outlook for Production. Then let me finish with our four main priorities going forward short term.

First, turn North America around. This is clearly our number one operational priority.

We are working very hard on the turnaround. I want to be clear that we are not yet where we want to be.

After this report, I'm traveling over to the US for a couple of days there. The turnaround is not based on a single initiative.

A lot of work is going on across North American business. We are not satisfied with the current performance, but we believe we are addressing the right areas.

We expect the improvement to be gradual, but the objective is clear: get North America back to growth and make it a positive contributor to group organic growth again. I don't expect the segment to immediately bounce back to double-digit growth, but there should not be more in negative growth.

Second, improve operational efficiency. We see opportunities, particularly within production and supply chain.

Better efficiency and on-time delivery should also support improved profitability and sales. Third, accelerate online and D2C globally.

The strong development we see through Amazon, our own online platforms, and export confirm the potential here. We want to continue driving growth, strengthening our brands, and increasing higher-margin direct sales in existing and new markets.

Fourth, leverage our global manufacturing platform. We have a manufacturing offering and capabilities that's unique since we can offer the same solution on both sides of the Atlantic, and we increasingly want to combine the specialist expertise we already have across the group.

There are many customers that require the exact look and feel of their product, and that can sometimes be challenging having different suppliers. This is an opportunity for our customer offering with few, if any, competitors being able to compete with.

To sum it up, the priorities are clear: North America, operational efficiency, online and D2C, and getting more leverage from our global manufacturing capabilities. Execute on this, and we will be back to very solid double-digit growth and increased profitability in 2027 and onwards.

Over to you, John.

Good morning. Thank you for this opportunity.

I'll talk about some of the opportunities in the Production segment, including the expansion that Håkan mentioned. Starting with three main topics today: the pharma segment growth, what is driving that and what is the outlook, followed by, as Håkan mentioned, the Summit Vet soft chew launch.

We're excited about those products coming out into the market, and they've received nice reception by customers. Then finally, the Vetio South expansion, which is a very large opportunity.

The pharma segment defined by two group companies: Vetio North in Montreal, Canada, and then Summit Vet, which, as was acquired April 1 of last year. When we started tracking this pharma segment, it's really from Q2 2025 on.

Vetio North is a CDMO, contract development and manufacturing organization. We work exclusively with animal health, both start-up companies to very large multinational organizations, helping them bring new molecules and generic products to market under FDA.

These are approval process and other approval processes by regulatory bodies around the world. This business historically has been contract development, shifting to contract development and manufacturing in recent years.

We talked about a strong pipeline there, and we see that continuing with what's very exciting is manufacturing opportunities, more of them coming to fruition over the coming quarters. Then Summit Vet, different business, also doing pharmaceutical products, as a compounded veterinary specials company.

It's compounding pharmacy, but in a bulk fashion, and really serving unmet needs on the market. This is a segment that's been growing.

It's had nice opportunity for innovation, which Summit has a very strong track record of. The pharma segment has performed nicely when you look at since we started tracking this in 2025.

Q2 last year to this year, and then Q3 last year to this year, you can see nice growth in both cases. In the case of Summit Vet, we've had nice year-over-year growth at clinic level.

We've had very good reception of new product development, including the soft chews that recently have gone out, and that will create a nice pipeline going forward. Then we've had a reorganized sales and marketing team, which has really driven some growth and excitement within the business.

Vetio North, the other part of it, what we see down the pike there is a recent pre-approval inspection by the FDA with no observations, very strong quality foundation, manufacturing foundation. That product will launch next year.

We have two other products: one that we feel very strongly will launch, and then the third that may also launch. We have a good 2027 ahead of us with busy scale-up and commercialization activities.

I think the headline for pharma is that we have nice opportunities that we are pursuing and that are very much in our future. Talk a little bit about soft chew, the Vetio soft chew intellectual property globally patented.

In fact, some of the recent countries around the world that we just received patent notification, China being one of note. It is a highly stable matrix to deliver pharmaceutical active ingredients or nutraceuticals.

This is key because we have five installations of this around the world: one at each Vetio site in Canada for RX pharmaceuticals, both development and manufacturing; and then Vetio South in Florida, Vetio UK, Vetio Ireland for nutraceuticals; and lastly, with Summit Vet. They recently completed a new production suite, validated suite, inspected by the VMD, and soft chew development, strong pipeline with several products under stability for release, with the first one having launched about 1 month ago.

That launch really once we made the acquisition of Summit, that was one of the things we wanted to get right after. They commenced build-out of a new production suite.

As I mentioned just in the previous slide, that suite was commissioned recently. We launched the first product, gabapentin.

We have prednisolone, fluoxetine, others behind it. The reception has been very strong amongst veterinarians and pet parents.

This gives us the opportunity to look at our sales data for other solid dosage forms, tablets, capsules, and put them into a soft chew, working in concert, as Håkan mentioned, with the Vetio teams around the technology, the process, and what's very important, palatability, as we look to launch cat products soon. We've initially started with products for dogs.

The palatability needs of cats is trickier, but we have a good product offering there that's coming out and really gives us a chance to really come out in the market with something that's unique. We are the first to market, and with this patented technology, have a very strong position going forward.

I should mention also that there's very strong development pipeline for still other solid dosage forms, like pastes, liquids, powders, for example. I'll talk a little bit about the Vetio South expansion.

We announced this earlier this year. We talked about it this summer at the Investor Day, Capital Markets Day.

The Vetio South expansion, about 4 years ago, Vetio South got into nutritional supplements, nutraceuticals. That was a new capability that was leveraging the Vetio soft chew originally designed for pharma, moved that into a nutraceutical, which, as I mentioned, is now being used around the world at the Vetio sites.

This other expansion, you can see the building there, we occupy one piece of that building, and we took on a lease to expand the building significantly with the addition of a new category, pet treats, and then also RX non-sterile liquids. Pet treats is an area that is adjacent to supplements.

It shares much of the same favorable market dynamics around growth, around what can be done, what type of ingredients can be delivered, functional ingredients, things much like a nutritional supplement. We see a lot of opportunity there with cross-selling for external customers, but also the largest initial customer will be Swedencare.

For internal supply, that production capability will really, I think, complete, at least for now, the types of products marketed by Swedencare, virtually all of them will be able to be produced by internal supply, which is a strategic decision that was made and then one that we can leverage as a CMO to other customers. The second category, which is exciting for us, is RX non-sterile liquids.

At the moment, we are strong in the liquids category for both medicated and non-medicated grooming aids, oral care, things like that, shampoos. These are more personal care type products or OTC products.

What we will do with the liquid facility is we will build a state-of-the-art facility that will have the GMP, or Good Manufacturing Practice standard, to do these RX pharma products. That same site will make our current line of shampoos, wipes, and other care type products.

In under one roof, we'll have really three plants: the liquids plant, the treats plant, and then the soft chew supplement plant. Maximum cross-selling opportunity.

Our customers, probably every one of our customers out of Vetio South buys from at least two of these categories. We see this as a nice synergy with the sales team and a nice growth platform going forward.

The total site will be 12,005 m once finished and will give us, on this next slide, really large addressable markets that we can operate in. Starting with the liquids category, as I mentioned, this is a $3 billion global market.

We are in right now the OTC topical dermatology and grooming products, also oral care liquids. That's about a $1 billion market.

This new capability that we acquire will be also a nice synergy with the Vetio North team, Vetio North dealing with RX pharma products, mainly solid dosage, meaning tablets, powders, and our own soft chew technology. We've had customers asking about non-sterile liquid capabilities, but we've not had that.

Yet another synergy between Vetio North and South, customer base asking for these solutions. The supplement market, you've heard us talk about this, it's a core market for Swedencare.

This is a $5 billion global market. Vetio has been very strong in Europe, UK around clients there, which also have been entering the US, which has been a nice synergy amongst the Vetio units globally to have same process technology, same formulas, servicing those brands globally.

That's an existing capability. Then the functional treats and other treats market, we have extrusion today, but the new injection molding machines, we've received the first ones this month.

The first part of that production suite was built and ready for it. That's being installed and commissioned this quarter.

We are well on our way there. Then the rest of that facility build-out, what comes next after we get the treats fully up and running is the movement and installation for the liquids facility.

All told, in 2027, post-expansion, we'll be operating in a $12 billion global market out of that site. We do have global customers even with the other sites around the world.

We cooperate very strongly there, and we also are giving ourselves a state-of-the-art plant with a lot of revenue capacity. Vetio South has been challenged, as Håkan mentioned.

The sales traditionally have been mostly vet channel related, which has had softness and volume weakness. Most of the wins we've been getting recently have been outside of the vet channel, retail and, in particular, online retail.

These new capabilities will address both. The functional treats and supplements, of course, is a retail, largely a retail-applicable channel.

Then the RX topical liquids really gives our liquids capability and that business a new boost and a new customer base that we can go pursue. We're very excited about this opportunity.

We will talk about this expansion and give you updates in the coming quarters. Thank you very much.

Thank you, John. By that, we are open for questions, and the first one comes from Julia.

Please go ahead.

Thank you for taking my question. I would like to start on the double-digit target.

In Q2, you said that you would build more margin when presenting expectations, and yet at the pre-close, which was 2/3 into the quarter, you guided for organic growth similar to Q2, 7%, and the outcome was 2%. What has changed in your forecasting, and why should we trust the forecasting going forward when there's very little room for error?

I think I explained the reason why It was really late-quarter disappointments and changes. Of course, I'm very disappointed, and I'm sorry for the forecast given, but that was what it looked like when we saw it before I presented.

It was some larger orders, both internal and external, it both affected our, let's say, online sales and retail sales. We couldn't get the orders out before month end.

For external customers, it was orders pushed. For example, for the European veterinarian site operators, it was mainly international sales that was pushed into Q4.

They were scheduled, and as I told last time, we are working a lot with forecasting, and it's, of course, very annoying about not getting it right that time either. We are working on it.

Why you should believe the capabilities of Swedencare going back to double-digit growth is, of course, what I see with our customer contracts, with the market as a whole, and the potential that we have. It's up to us to show it.

As I said and wrote in the report, it's definitely that the aim for Q4 is double-digit growth, but let us show it instead of promising it. Also that the full-year target of double-digit growth will most likely not be achieved.

That's our guidance from today, because we're now at 6 6% for full year, and that would require a 20+ organic growth in Q4, and we're not expecting that.

Okay. Thank you for that.

Then on the SQF inspection, could you give some more color on why this inspection did disrupt production more than expected, and how much revenue did this cost?

It is linked to what I said with both internal and external deliveries, that the inspection is what it is. It took a couple of days longer time, and some things that we even though we passed, we needed to address immediately to get the clearance.

I don't want to get into the volume of it, how much is affected, because it both affected the output from that facility, but then also on the third point I mentioned, both internal and external sales out the door and our online sales. It did affect.

It pushed deliveries out.

Okay. Then lastly, if I may, on European brands, which was weaker towards the end of the quarter, was there a few large orders slipping, or is this a demand shift, you would say?

Our two main veterinary markets in Europe is UK and Italy, and for both, it was larger orders or slipped or being pushed by our customers. It was mainly international orders that was pushed into Q4.

You expect them to be delivered in Q4?

Yes, and also the underlying, let's say, veterinary demand is stable in Europe. It's not a double-digit growth, looking at the market as a whole.

We haven't either delivered double-digit growth in the for the full year or in any quarter basically. The veterinary market is stable, but not fantastic growth-wise.

Got it. Thank you.

Those were my questions.

Thank you, Julia. Your next question comes from Adela.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning. I'm going to stick to the topic of what happened towards the end of the quarter.

Håkan, are you saying that you were running at a high single-digit organic growth then when you held the pre-close call and that shortfall is entirely explained by the inspection and the orders related to the European business?

I said I expected a similar number as we had in Q2, it was

Were you at that level?

We were expecting that level if the forecast had been delivered.

Just want to clarify one thing. We usually have our last month of the quarter are usually the strongest, and that's usually what we forecast.

We've always forecast the last month of the quarter to be stronger, it's usually how it turns out.

This quarter, September was basically the same as July.

All right, you were running under that level then when you held the pre-close call. That's what's implied by your comments now.

All right. In that case, then you were still targeting double digits in Q4, you're targeting double digits now as well, then shouldn't Q4 be more of a mid-teen organic growth if you're just facing the lost sales in Q3 into Q4?

Otherwise, there must be something else explaining the variation.

No, but what we, as I said, we are aiming double-digit growth. We don't want to guide mid or whatever.

We want to deliver it in a report, and then we can discuss further then.

All right. Gross margins were in line with what you guided for.

Should we explain similar trend into Q4?

Like I said, the gross margin are supposed to be around 59%. 58%, 59%, around there, yes.

Okay. Then maybe just on leverage, do you have any sort of year-end level that you're expecting here?

There's two different aspects to that, because we have the earn-out for Summit, and depending how they're performing in Q4, it might be an additional amount that need to be included. I expect our net debt to EBITDA to still decrease, because we had such a low Q4 last year.

I still expect it to decrease compared to today.

Below three times, but

Yes.

Okay. Thanks.

That's all.

Your next question comes from Johan. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning, guys. Johan Ekblom here from SEB.

Thank you for taking my question. A follow-up on the orders that got pushed due to the supply chain delay and the SQF inspections.

In terms of quantifying these orders, is it fair to assume that the order value of those orders being pushed is the difference between the 7% organic growth that you expected to deliver and the 2% that you actually delivered, or how should we think about the orders?

It's not only orders, it's also lost sales online, as I said. It's that we couldn't get those orders out internally, and we would have had also let's say, external online sales, top-line sales.

Normally, most let's say, from a consumer perspective, if the products are out, then you buy something else. They would probably come back if they like our products in Q4, but so it's difficult to say it's exactly the same.

That was the main reasons for it. There were, of course, other smaller entities in group, some performed better, some performed a bit less, but I wouldn't like to say that it's just being pushed, all of that into Q4.

A big part of it, yes.

Big part. Got it.

Retail orders are, of course, as you say, lost.

Then

moving on to NaturVet, you talked about it briefly on the call here, but can you try to explain again what's the issue here, because we can hear you talk about sort of a turnaround gaining traction and that the team has carried out, as you say, extensive work. In NaturVet, sales declined, the decline accelerated in Q3, and North America has been an issue for, yeah, more quarters than I can think of.

Fundamentally, in your opinion, what's the issue here, and what makes you confident that sales decline will stop in Q4?

No, but as I said, the most of the hard work when it comes to working towards the market, the new team has worked endlessly with all of the customers and building the brand that we should. It is a gradual comeback.

As I said, pet retail and online is very small increase, but the comps in Q3, the reason why NaturVet as a brand is down in the quarter is the comparison of the load-in order to Walmart. That's the main reason looking at this quarter.

Why I'm confident that we will see better numbers for the brand NaturVet going forward is that, of course, as you remember in Q4, our difficulties with the Amazon sales started, was increased in Q1, so, of course, online sales are at a lower comp level, and we are increasing even though we had a pretty good Q3 last year. We do expect a gradual comeback by NaturVet.

We have good set up for 2027 with all of the big retailers. There's the period for scheduling, let's say, the products in the shelves, the assignment we have with all of the retailers, those have been set for 2027, and we are working together with them with different campaigns and programs.

I'm confident that NaturVet is finally on the right track, but it will take some time to get back where we wanted to be.

Got it. Thank you for clearing that up.

A final one then, if I may, on the operational margin here. The operational EBIT margin declined close to 2 percentage points, I believe, year-on-year.

How much of the decline would you say came from weak volume leverage in North America, and how much is mix here?

The majority of the lower operational margin EBITDA is definitely North America. You can see that in the segment split that we have in the report as well.

That would you say is due to lower leverage, or is there anything else into it, sort of mix between Amazon or?

Not so much the Amazon, it's more like the NaturVet issue that when needs to get solved, I would say.

Got it. Thank you.

Those were all my questions for now. Thanks so much.

Thank you, Johan. Next question comes from Adrian.

Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Good morning.

I think I have three questions. I'll take them one by one.

Firstly, regarding the supply chain issues that you mentioned, do you expect this to be resolved anytime soon? Could you give any timeline and kind of explain what is the issue?

There were different parts in the supply chain. One is an, let's say, internal supply.

We have made a shift, like John said, we have made shift of one of the two remaining volume products that we have, we have made a shift making that internal. There was a difference in, let's say, forecasting and sales out the door from our online brands.

There was a gap in development time when supplying that product internally. Externally, the majority has been in the sector where we do sell, let's say, high single protein treats, organic treats.

It's been challenging to get material for those products, and that affects several of our online brands. It is a continual battle to get these type of ingredients and raw material, because we battle with human food companies.

It's just been that the demand has been higher, and we are exploring different new suppliers with that, but it's taken longer time than we wanted. I expect these internal supply chain issues, those are solved now in Q4 already, and starting to shipping out those products.

When looking at the external, it's a constant battle, but we are in a better situation than we were end of Q3, but that also depends how much we sell out the door. We continue to work with that.

Perfect. That's clear.

Second question is regarding any potential sales decline that you've seen here from that distribution merger that we discussed, I think, last quarter. Could we have an update on that?

It's been a constant disappointing setup, pushing the launch of our new contracts. Now in, as I wrote in the report, everything is set, the POs are in, we are shipping out now in Q4, let's see where we end up for the quarter.

It's definitely that the launches that we anticipated even in Q2, but definitely in Q3, it's happening in Q4 and will be launched early 2027 to the market. Then hopefully that's well received, and the volumes can be really strong for us in 2027.

I don't have any major updates from the merger. It's more like a standstill.

I know there has come in some complaints of the market dominance, let's see where it all ends up. The different parties that are part of this potential merger is back to, let's say, basic, back to normal, working as two different entities as I understand it.

Let's see where it goes.

Right. Fair enough.

Could we say that this is one of the main reasons why you expect double-digit growth in Q4, thanks to this coming out?

No, that is not that big. I wouldn't say that.

It's a combination.

Okay. Last question for me.

Have you started to see better impact on your marketing spend on Amazon? Basically, are you seeing better return on ad spent on Amazon?

In end of the quarter, we saw better when it comes to the US, hopefully that trend continues in Q4. It was in, I would say, end of August and September was better in profitability when it comes to Amazon sales.

Perfect. That was all for me.

Thank you.

Thank you, Adrian. Next question comes from Christian.

Please go ahead.

Yes, thank you, and thank you for taking my questions. Would it be possible to quantify the size of the delayed order deliveries into Q4?

No, as I answered the other, it's difficult to say, but they are the main reason for us not reaching the forecast that I expected. You have to make your calculations of yourself.

Great. You mentioned that you're not where you want to be in North America, but you expect gradual improvement there.

Do you anticipate to be where you want to be by the end of next year?

End of next year? Yes, absolutely.

I expect a different setup and end of next year. It's continued work with that, but we have very, very, let's say, high ambitions in taking a better market position, especially when it comes to new venues, like the big box retailers, and also with predominantly in doing better online.

We've been flat or decrease online when it comes to NaturVet brand online, and we see lots of opportunities going forward, and where we will focus the most of our resources is definitely on the online sales. That's where we can have the fastest and best wins.

Just for your information, looking at the supplementary market or nutraceuticals, the percentage of products the market as a whole is continuing to increase online, it's plus 70% of all nutraceutical products are sold online, online is definitely the channel that you need to succeed.

Right. I think you mentioned that you don't expect the double-digit growth in North America next year, right?

Would it be fair to expect a mid-single digit growth?

No, next year, we definitely have the target that all of our segments should achieve double-digit growth, but let's see, we are just in budget times, let's see where we end up for the full year. There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to have the same growth in the US as we have in Europe and in Production.

Okay.

I definitely don't expect double-digit growth for the North American segment in Q4. We will be happy if we were back in positive numbers in growth-wise.

Okay. Could you please talk a little bit about as you are mentioning that you expect to return to double-digit growth in 2027, what kind of growth rate do you anticipate internally in North America next year?

No, but

like I said, the North American businesses have the opportunity and capabilities of growing double-digit full year 2027, and that's my expectations. As I said, we are in budget period right now, let's see where we end up.

Definitely, we are expecting a significant difference compared 2027 compared to 2026. The market is perhaps a bit more cautious, if have to use that word, due to different things in the US consumer sentiment, due to increased pricing, spend, and the turmoil around the world.

The consumer demand has been a bit lower than expected when it comes to nutraceuticals in the US, but it's still growth, it's single-digit growth. I would say that we expect when we make our forecast looking at the market as a whole, we expect a fairly similar 2027 market demand-wise, but we are planning to utilize the opportunities we see in the market for us to get back double-digit growth.

When that will happen, we will have to come back to.

Understood. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Christian. Final question comes from Javier.

Please go ahead.

Can you hear me?

Yeah.

Great. Thank you for taking a couple of questions here.

You mentioned North America is single-digit growth, if I understood correctly, is growing. Did you just

Not this quarter.

No, not yourself, but the end market. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. Can you help us understand your split in terms of maybe type of clients or type of end markets of North America, because how much of your revenue goes into online and distributors like big chains, etc., just to understand and how are evolving in the last two quarters those kind of clients, because just to understand, apart from the product, what's going wrong.

Obviously, you have explained the supply chain, etc., but it's a kind of a deja vu. Everything is the same: pre-call just before the end of the quarter, we have a pre-call, and then the last weeks of the quarter, previous quarter and this quarter, something happens.

It would be great to understand how your business has evolved in the last two quarters in terms of each of the distributors.

In general, as I said, it's a very mixed situation. Where we have had decline in this quarter has been in the a bit softer veterinary market, still in decline for us.

The overall market is not strong in the veterinary market, but I would say, I haven't seen any numbers for Q3 yet, but my expectation is that it's fairly flat. Then looking at, let's say, our biggest wide brand that we have talked a lot about is NaturVet, and in Q2, we had a decline with looking overall in with our biggest pet retail customers.

Looking at Q3, for example, as I said, finally see a very small positive momentum that we've broken the decline, we are happy about that. Then you have the success story of ProDen PlaqtOff, of course, that we mentioned, that continues to grow really strongly.

The continuation of ProDen PlaqtOff in all channels, predominantly online and pet retail, but also starting to grow a bit in the veterinary channel from low numbers, if we keep up the momentum for ProDen PlaqtOff, that's definitely a main driver also for the North American business that we continue the growth ride, and that will affect the total segment, of course, with the growth rate we have within ProDen PlaqtOff. I would say that the major hit on and that's not the effect of the short term or the difference between the forecast and the outcome, but the main drainer for our NaturVet business in Q3 was the comp from the load-in order for Walmart.

That was a huge order being delivered in Q3, so that's the main. I think I have explained the other three reasons.

If I may just follow up here just want to make sure that when you talk about guidance, etc., or double-digit growth, or 6% growth, whatever, is it more an ambition than a guidance? Is it like an internal target that you push your internal management to achieve, or is it really a forecast that comes from a bottom-up exercise in which you sit down with your management and each of them they give you their forecast and then you come up with a forecast?

Just to want to understand

We work with that on a monthly basis, and yet again, we got it wrong, unfortunately. We will continue working with that, and that's definitely something we need to get better at.

It's very annoying.

Understood. Just to finish, if I may, obviously, it's a personal question, but if possible, can you share with us your thoughts about the reasons of the resignation as a CEO, because obviously, the company is going through some problems.

Obviously, as you said, growth has disappointed to you as well. Wanted to understand the reasons behind your resignation now that the company is going through a problematic phase.

Also related with that, if you can share with us a little bit of how aligned are you with the board, because you are also a relevant shareholder, and obviously, it's important for the rest of shareholders that you as a shareholder, as you are aligned with the new strategy as well. So

No, definitely a disappointing year for us being only at 6% growth. Then again, we have done lots of work, and we have been open with the challenges we've had with mainly our biggest brand, and I definitely think that we are on the turning point right now.

My ambition, like I discussed with my chairman, is definitely that when the new CEO comes in, we will definitely have a better setting, have turned around the trajectory of growth for Swedencare. I would also like to add that Swedencare has had continued growth, not the numbers where we would like to have, but we keep on delivering strong numbers, at least if you compare with many, many peers, and a good cash conversion, and focused on deleveraging, I think Swedencare is in a good position.

Let's see when the transitions is going to happen, but I definitely feel that when that happen, probably sometime, of course, next year, we will have seen one or two better quarters than we have delivered in 2026. The reason for me stepping down is I've been CEO for 12 years.

I don't want anything else than the best for Swedencare, but I think, as I forecasted a better Q3, of course, I expect Swedencare to deliver a better report than we did, and I definitely believe that we will do that in the future. For me, it's been more of a timing issue.

For me personally, that's the main reason. Good time for me in a personal setting.

I don't have the ambition to work operationally after this, I'm looking forward to spending some more time with friends and family, and my wife that's been very cooperative during all of these years with my extensive traveling. Just time for a new setting, and I definitely will do the best for now and also in the future to support Swedencare wherever I can.

Many thanks for sharing your feedback, and thanks for the rest of the questions.

Thank you. That concludes our Q&A session.

Back to you guys for any closing comments.

Thank you so much for the interest, and looking forward to seeing you next time when we have the presentation in When is it? Early February.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.