Good afternoon and welcome to this live video interview with Zinzino following the Q1 2026 report released this morning. My name is Niklas Elmhammer from Carlsquare Equity Research.

We're very excited to be joined today by CEO Dag Bergheim Pettersen. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to use the chat function and submit your questions, and we will try to answer as many as possible.

Now, without [further a?] do, welcome Dag.

Great to have you with us today.

Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to be here with you.

Do you have a sound problem in the studio?

Sorry about that. Dag, very welcome, great to have you with us today.

Thank you, thank you, and thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure, as I said, it's always good to be here with you.

You released your Q1 report this morning. Strong growth, more than 20%, and even a more significant increase in the margins and profits.

How would you describe the development in Q1? Is it according to expectations?

It's a little bit above our kind of expectations, I would say. The profit margins are a little bit higher than it used to be in the quarter one.

Quarter one is probably the most difficult kind of start of the year. Quarter four is the best one traditionally.

Very pleased to see that we are growing and at the same time having good profits. It's very good.

We are investing a lot, we need some of that profit to invest more. We invested quite heavily in inventory and new markets, new technology, and products in general.

We are acquiring some companies, all of that is fantastic for us. Margins are one thing, but the growth continues.

Growth, super important for us. All in all, it's a really, really good quarter for us.

Great. You have expanded in North America during '25 and '26.

Could you elaborate a little bit on this market, what trends you see here? You write in the report that that was indeed organic growth.

We both have organic growth and we also have some from the acquisitions. I still think today is more on the organic side than on the acquisition side, but it's a little bit depending on how you're calculating things.

US, we started in US 10, 11 years ago. We know that that is one of the most important and largest markets in general for what we are selling.

It had taken us some years to get up to speed. Last year, as you were mentioning, we were acquiring three companies in US, and this year we've acquired one in Mexico and one in US.

Of course that is a big part of what we have done, is to acquire acquisitions in US. We do believe that it's going to be head-to-head the most important market this year together with Germany and that region.

It's a long-term strategy process to run different markets. We try to run it the same way with scale advantages and where we are more or less having the operations very centralized here in Europe, where we are putting together logistics, of course, in a small matter, and then customer care, but sales more or less out in the global world of the different markets.

Excited to see that the US is now have a good run rate and a good revenue. I have strong beliefs in that market, but also in Mexico, and we've launched Peru, and in June we will open up Colombia as a market as well.

We are on our way to really expand and grow our business.

If I'm reading the leaves right, I see the underlying growth with a bit of a slowdown in North America in the quarter. Is this correct or what are you seeing?

Is it your view?

No, I don't see it as a slowdown, but I'm not comparing quarter four with quarter one. I'm comparing quarter one with quarter one last year a little bit more, I see it a little bit different.

I see the underlying growth figures from customers and partners and intake of that, I see a good growth in North America, but it's a lot of work. It's a lot of more work to do, and we haven't even started, I would say, in growing.

Remember, if you look at the markets close to ourselves in the Nordics, Scandinavia, and the Nordics, we have a much higher intake if you compare that to the population than in the other markets. We have a lot of work to do to really take out the potential and the market potential.

More questions about the US or your acquisitions. How is the integration with It Works!

going, and do you think they will able to do above $45 million sales this year?

Start with the last. Yes, I do believe we're going to extend that number.

It's a lot of hard work implementing a new acquisition. It has been a good transition.

Everything is in our database now, everything is within our tech system and our payment gateways, it's fully integrated. Still a little bit early to say what kind of level of revenue this will give us over the next two, three years, and it has been the largest transition that we've done.

We can see the complexity. It's a little bit more work than what we normally would be adding to an acquisition.

I think the benefits of it over the next years will be tremendously good. I'm not going to say that it hasn't been hard work, because it has been hard work.

We've gained a lot. We have now employees from It Works!

part of the group, helping us out a lot. We have a lot of new distributors and customers, and we have not only gained the revenue in US, but also in France and in Spain and here in Europe as well.

All in all, it has been a super positive acquisition. Then we now have the third largest shareholder from the family that we were buying the company, we are super excited to have that family as owners in Zinzino as well.

Just one additional question on that front. I noticed that you mentioned $45 million as guidance.

It's down compared to the previous guidance of 60.

You were asking me do I believe we're going to be above 45, and I just confirm, yeah, I believe in that. I'm not sure if it's going to be 50, 55, 60, or 65.

It's a little bit too early to say. We are tracking it.

Very often we do lose a little bit of momentum when we are acquiring companies. It takes a little bit time to reengage the customers and reengage the distributors as well.

What I can tell you is that we're working hard to gain a lot of benefits, and we have now the last three, four months worked really hard on that. I am very positive on the acquisitions that we have done, both the one in Mexico, Sanki, and this one, It Works!.

I think we're going to gain a lot of benefits out of it. On the number side, we were hoping to get more than $60 million, and that is still my hope and the dreams, and I'm working hard on accomplishing that together with the team.

Okay. Thank you for the clarifying comments there.

Now moving over to Central Europe, 40% growth, I believe, and much of that is organic. How do you achieve this continued, solid growth quarter after quarter?

I'm a little bit afraid to answer a little bit boring with the same way as I did the last time, and we are getting benefits and gaining from long-term work. I'm not sure if we've done a lot of things differently.

It's just that we've been very stable in the way that we have been operating. We have a lot of good partners in the field who is helping us out.

We have invested a lot in logistics and products and customer care and all of the things surrounded by having an efficient organization. We have a lot of good people working in that region.

That is the kind of the good thing is that we believe that we are still kind of on the front run to keep this growth ongoing. Germany and the region, Switzerland and Austria, about 100 million people, they are interested in wellness.

Preventative health is something that I believe that region understand and also grasp. I see many, many years of good growth and lots of benefits in that market, in that region in itself.

Continue to work on the basics and doing that and making sure that we are constantly developing and taking care of customers and distributors.

A little bit on that front as well in my next question. If I read your annual report, the number of distributors have increased to 40,000 about.

That's sort of more than sort of doubling compared to the previous annual report. How do you achieve that?

What are your success factors here?

It is a big part of the success. I'm not sure if that number is totally read correctly, but maybe over 12 months' time.

Then we have a lot of our people working part-time with Zinzino, and we've done four, five significant good acquisition the last 12 months, which has gained a lot of I would say optimism inside of Zinzino. We are counting customers and really, really important for us to have a ratio between the customers and partners, not only partners, distributors, but also customers.

In general, I would say that when you are growing, it's extremely important to take care of your customers and also make sure that the underlying things that you are dealing with, meaning that you have an inventory, that you are shipping products, that you are exploring new products, that you are doing all of the basics correctly. That is a hurdle in itself to maintain a certain level of, I'm not sure if the word is correct, but we need to have a certain level of maintenance to make sure that the customers and the partners feel safe and good.

It's important for us to have a lot of new partners, but it's even more important for us to have a lot of customers and to continue grow long term, not in the short-term picture.

Okay. Thank you.

Now moving over to margins. That was a strong point in the report, over 50%, well above your financial target, or the lower bar in the financial target.

I believe you previously said that one reason for relative conservative target was you're uncertainty regarding the impact from acquisitions. Are you more comfortable now with the acquisitions?

I am. I am more certain that we are doing the right kind of steps.

Sometimes it's good to be conservative because then you're kind of watching the costs a little bit more extra, and you stay a little bit grounded and being humble. There is a lot of investments, even though the quarter was fabulous, we believe that we're going to have a good year.

We get a lot of scale advantages, which is a little bit hard to forecast. Although, we also need to invest certain money in the organic growth and the growth in itself.

You can say in a very easy picture, you can say that we're feeding the organic growth with cash and campaigns and promotions, while we are feeding the acquisition growth with shares. We find that to be a quite perfect match in a way to grow the business.

That's one of the benefits that we get out of that. To do the forecast and how much things will cost and what kind of revenue you are gaining from especially the acquisitions is a little bit hard to calculate all of those costs.

We're really happy to see that we have moved this pretty nicely in this quarter. I believe we can continue this kind of trend throughout the year without promising too much.

Yes, actually we have a question regarding the margins from the viewers. You have a gross margin of 37%.

It's the highest level since '23, I believe. Is it sustainable?

What impact do you see from a possibility of rising energy costs and freight costs?

Everyone is impacted by the circumstances in the global market economy. Of course, it impacts us somewhere.

We have a factory, we see the costs are increasing. We see the interest rates somewhere is also increasing.

Then we are a global buyer of products and inventory and all that. Everything impacts.

I'm pretty sure that we will be above the levels that we promise: 20 percentage growth and 11 percentage EBITDA, which is going to be pretty hard not to beat those numbers. Of course, I want to be staying humble and saying that this is what we promise, and we would like to overdeliver the promises.

I think the hardest thing is to gain the growth, and that's what we put a lot of effort into. It sounds a little bit strange because you were talking about profit margins, but the profit margins are driven by the growth.

There's a good parallel between what kind of growth we can achieve, what kind of scale advantages we can gain, and where we are selling the goods as well has an impact. I strongly believe that we're going to continue our growth journey, and then the margins will be following.

Great. One component of growth is, of course, acquisitions.

It's a focus area for you also going forward. What are you looking for now in acquisitions?

Is it new product areas or is it geographies?

I would say that first we've been really focused on delivering on the acquisitions that we have done. That has been the super focus for this quarter and the quarter that we are within now in quarter two.

I would say gaining distribution power, customers, would be the main focus for new acquisition, not products or ingredients. Although we did invest quite heavily last year and we are investing in an algae production as we speak, so that has been important for us, but that is going to give us long term a lot of benefits.

For sure, those acquisitions, if we're doing anyone the next quarters, then it would be on distribution power and within existing markets, not necessarily in new markets. That's where we gain the most out of the acquisitions.

Okay. Thank you.

Another questions from the viewers. In the Q3 report, you mentioned strong momentum with the recently launched Gut Test, a lot of orders.

Is it possible to comment now on the outcome six months later? Is it according to expectations?

It's according to the expectations. I still think that the first concept, the BalanceOil, which is the leading concept still, that is leading things.

We knew from the other test that we have launched and we are working a lot on the science around that. We still have a lot of work to do, but I strongly believe that the Gut Test will be the second largest concept of tests that we have.

Things went slow down a little bit, but it's very natural. In the beginning, people are really curious, and then you take the tests, and then you start to gain some benefits of it, and then you get the next wave of momentum.

Everything is according to what are my expectations and the plan. This is a long-term product and test, I didn't expect us to grow faster than what we did to begin with.

It's going to be significantly part of Zinzino over the next years for sure.

I think we have covered a lot of questions already. I don't know if you have any final remarks, Dag?

I don't think so. The only thing I would say is that it's always a pleasure to come here.

We are positive about the quarter. We believe strongly that what we have said in the financial report will be continued with growth and good profits.

This year is going to be fantastic, and we have a lot of focus now on 2027 even, because the growth needs to continue over the next years. That takes a lot of effort from the team and myself.

Okay. Thank you, Dag, for coming in today and putting up with our questions.

Thank you for having me.

Okay. Thanks everybody else for tuning in, and looking forward to see you soon again.