Domino's Pizza Group Aktie

Thank you, [ Enrico ]. So, good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us here this morning. Before I ask Michael to host the Q&A, I just really wanted to say Domino's is an exceptional business with a really strong brand, really strong franchisee partnerships. We've got brilliant service to our customers and a supply chain to die for.

And I'm really encouraged by the performance that we've seen in half 1, and I think it's incredibly strong. But I do want to say that we intend to be disciplined, value-led and focused on execution going forward. So, there's -- we're confident in our FY '26 expectations. We're staying alert to what's going on around the consumer and cost pressures, but we feel very confident that we're sitting on a very strong, healthy and confident business right now. So, on that note, Michael, may I hand over to your good self.

Doug Jack from Peel Hunt. I've got 3 questions, if that's okay. First one would be in terms of like-for-like sales, perhaps the possible impact of the World Cup. And in terms of cheese versus pizza, what's been driving the like-for-like sales? That's the first one.

The second one is if you could just expand a little bit on franchisee profitability and the trend going on in there? And the last one would be on -- in terms of other projects you're looking at in terms of automation or anything else. If you can give us an indication of what they are and then any possible impact they might have.

Okay. I think you meant cheese -- chicken, not cheese, did you? Cheese versus pizza? Chicken versus pizza? No problem. Look, we had a very, very good half 1 in terms of system sales. And as you saw some strong like-for-likes, which is a really welcome thing for us to see. And I think it's a reflection of multiple things, Doug.

The performance that we've seen would have been -- was flattered a little bit by World Cup. It was a welcome tailwind and something that was always something that was going to happen to Domino's as we're a big brand and we participate in the national conversations around football, and we're front of mind for group gatherings and social occasions. So, there's no doubt it would have had some impact.

But we've seen the -- obviously, we have the benefit of seeing the results month after month after month by period. And our like-for-likes have been positive every month of the year, not just through the World Cup. So, I think the next part of your question really is, well, how does that break down between chicken and pizza sales. And it's pretty balanced actually.

We've seen growth in pizza, and we've seen growth in chicken, as you would expect, given that we launched chicken in February. That is something that we expected to see. It's early days with chicken in terms of the long-term read, but it's certainly made a contribution. What chicken has also done for us effectively is it's actually flattered pizza sales. It hasn't cannibalized it.

And I think that's also important. So we -- a good number of our orders for chicken actually then have incremental pizzas added to the order on top. And in those scenarios, for the most case, the ticket is higher because effectively, you've got a bigger basket size, which I think probably plays to the wider appeal in the family that we now offer multiple choices that can still be delivered under our fantastic service model.

So, all in all, it's pretty balanced. As I said, the positive like-for-likes have been with us really from the start of the year. So, we've had some little bit of help from World Cup, but it's not been material to the numbers that we've been reporting.

And what I would add to that is importantly that if we use orders as a proxy for volume, the volume value equation has held up well. We are selling more product. So, if you use orders as a proxy for volume and the delta as a proxy for price for a 2% growth driven by volume at about 3% true inflation on price.

Yes. Doug, your second question was about franchisee profitability. We've seen an improving trend in terms of franchisee profitability versus '24 and '25, which is really good to see. The franchisees are very behind our strategy to focus on the core because they can see that, that benefits the business and benefits their businesses.

And really, where we've aligned probably over the last 6 months or so is that if we focus on growing the pie, then we all benefit. So, our sales are up, their sales and profitability are also on an improving trend and up. I had a call with them at 8:00 this morning to share that. And I think we're in a good place.

Other projects?

Other projects, sorry, you did say 3 questions. I can't count beyond 2, Doug, sorry. Other projects. So the sort of projects that we're looking at really are in supply chain. They're all about warehouse automation. Principally, we've got opportunities to take -- I'm just going to go to the end of here because there's a couple of things to look at. We've got an upgrade to one of our sites that will effectively remove a full afternoon shift, brings down some of the labor costs in that area.

We've -- on the back of the SCC5 opening, we're able to reroute some of the deliveries that typically came from Milton Keynes. That's also enabling certain deliveries to areas like the Southwest to be fulfilled by 1 driver rather than 2 because the hours of the journey is substantially lower.

So that's another benefit in terms of removal of FTE time, and that's probably one of the most expensive lines in the supply chain cost base. We've then got some production automation around dough and also some sort of warehouse packing automation across various sites. So, all in all, we've removed quite a number of FTE roles already. They should start as I think Andrew has already indicated, start to flow through into our second half. But again, as we've said, there's potentially more to come as more of these projects are actually put into play. And that's a big focus for us.

Ross Broadfoot from RBC. Three, please. The first one, the loyalty scheme. It was obviously in trial for a while, but sort of what changed and evolved? And what's given you the confidence to launch it fully in Q4? Second, just on chicken, sort of where are we in terms of the customer awareness of that proposition? Have we reached the stage now where people know and they need to buy or people are still learning about the sort of the change in the menu? And then thirdly, could you just give us an update on plans for the rollout now versus sort of previous management guidance or expectations?

So, I'll start with loyalty. Certainly, we have a loyalty program already up and running with 2.2 million customers. The big opportunity within loyalty that we see is a growth in frequency. So, we've spent quite a lot of time really analyzing what the customer behavior is in our existing loyalty program in order to build that into the new one. So, we'll be looking at KPIs such as frequency, customer retention, how they're actually ordering with us their lifetime values.

We've been working on the timing of the transition to the new project because we wanted to make sure we've built in learnings from the current program and also learnings from some of our other markets that also operate loyalty programs because it's quite important to franchisee economics to get loyalty right, not just for the customer but also for the franchisees.

So, we are working -- we're partnering with Open Loyalty that's a proven third-party loyalty program operator. We've got everything pretty much ready to go, and we're confident that we will launch the full scheme towards the back end of this year.

And principally, what loyalty will do for us when we move to the new platform, obviously, it will continue the work that we're doing already on ensuring that our loyal customer base, our champion customers, et cetera, in our core base are retained. We've only been able to -- I say we've got 2.2 million customers, but there are 12 million on there that we actually would much rather have as part of the loyalty base. We've got a base of 14 million. If we can get some of the ones that are coming to us through aggregators onto that platform through loyalty, that would be a big win because having the scale to operate a loyalty program across the big -- the full database will, again, if you think about our average orders being 4.5x a year, one more order from a chunk of that database is a massive growth opportunity for us full stop.

And then loyalty in itself doesn't drive that. You've got to have the product, and that's where the chicken comes back into play another occasion and food opportunity. So that is one part of the opportunity, and I'm confident it will work because we've done so much work on the core program. The additional functionality, though, gives us 2 more opportunities.

Firstly, it gives us a much deeper personalization CRM opportunity. And at the moment, it is quite a basic scheme in terms of 5 stamps and it's a free pizza, whereas the new program will enable us to reward different behaviors to promote different products to potentially use it to bring some of our new product launches to life through the loyalty program. And what it will also enable us to do is effectively recruit new customers direct to the loyalty program.

At the minute, you can only be invited to loyalty when you're a customer within Domino's. The new solution effectively allows us to invite customers who are potential customers for people that are not currently with Domino's. So, I think when you take all that in the round, I'm very confident we'll be launching it back end of this year. There's a lot more functionality and capability coming through from it. We've spent a lot of time making sure that -- we all -- we're delivering what we need for customers, and we're delivering what we need for the franchisees who will operate the program. And so yes. Now what was the second question?

Chicken and customer awareness?

Chicken...

What's the customer awareness? Do we think there's more to go?

Good question. I think there is a good level of customer awareness. I think I don't have the exact numbers actually in terms of the numbers of customers that have tried it, but it's mixing really well. We've seen the mix increase.

I'd probably like to come back with a little bit more detail on that a little bit further on because, again, going back to what I said before about repeat occasions, we launched in February. It's still early for us to say exactly what the awareness looks like. But I think there's -- I wish I could remember what the percentage was, but the team has shown me there's actually quite a high percentage of awareness already.

And actually, the customers who have tried it are sort of saying 80% of what we call highly satisfied in terms of -- with the product and the experience that they've had. So again, that's really encouraging from that point of view. And the final question.

What's that rollout, Ross? Is that rollout of chicken or rollout generally? Stores, rollout of stores.

The rollout plan, okay. Fine. I'm with you now. Yes. So the economics on new stores are challenged, probably more than they ever have been in terms of just the costs that our franchisees are bearing, particularly around labor.

And although I answered the question of Doug's earlier around franchisee profitability, if you look at where we were in 2022, '23, it's not a stellar growth performance from their point of view. And that is not through anything that the business has done from a trading point of view, it literally has been the layering up of multiple costs and taxations and what have you into their businesses.

So for that reason, we're choosing to focus. We've got 1,400 -- more than 1,400 stores open already. I think by focusing on improving their profitability, focusing on growing like-for-likes and the sort of results that we're talking about today, effectively, that is the right engine and the right focus for us to think about what does that mean for the white space going forward because clearly, the stronger the like-for-likes, the stronger the sales and the stronger the average store EBITDA, the more the remaining white space in the U.K. lends itself to another store opening.

That being said, we've got 11 stores open this year-to-date. That is probably where we were last year, to be fair, Ross. So I'm not signaling that there's anything to worry about. And what I am signaling is -- from our point of view, I think pressuring franchisees to stores that don't make sense just to hit a store count number is not a good business. And so it's not something that we as a team are going to be focusing on with you guys going forward. The focus needs to be on sales and franchisees will absolutely open stores when it makes sense to do so as demonstrated by the 11 that have opened this year-to-date.

I think philosophically, historically, I think the pace of store openings has been seen as the cake of the business. We've built in the last 2 or 3 months, a very tight integrated business plan with a few key levers that Nicola set out in her presentation. And so the store openings become the icing rather than the cake. Our growth is predicated on improved performance out of the units that we've got. The return on capital on the investments either from us or our franchisees, that's where real success comes from. And if we can accelerate stores with the right economics, that's a layer on top rather than becoming the bedrock of the growth story.

Wayne Brown from Panmure Liberum. Three questions from me. Very good performance on sales and like-for-like. So well done on that. And yes, there were some labor reasons, but can we just discuss the conversion of that sales growth into profit growth? And you've laid out quite clearly the benefit that you're going to get from supply chain, but I'd much rather if we can just discuss overheads.

Is there -- in your time here, Andrew, is there too much overhead in the business? Is it the right level? Is there a cost opportunity? Clearly, with opening less stores, you're obviously going to be paying less store rebates, et cetera. So if we can just speak about that for a bit.

The second question is on HFSS and not being able to market before 9:00 p.m. What the impact of that has been? And has that also on the positive, freed up cash to invest elsewhere in marketing? That would be quite good to understand. And then on the tech stack, you mentioned personalization as an untapped opportunity. Can you just walk us through where the tech stack is at the moment and what investment is required so you can deliver on the strength of the loyalty and personalization as to what you want to target in FY '27?

Do you want to start...

Do you want to take 1 and 3 and then you take the HFSS piece because the third one actually is linked, yes.

Yes, thanks.

So I think, Wayne, it's a really fair challenge that we've had the sales growth come through, but predominantly our supply chain owns profit through volume. And so volumes are up 2%. So you've just got a little bit of a delta between the system sales growth and the profit that flows through into our supply chain.

Notwithstanding that, margins are slightly behind in the first half year as we've invested to some one-off costs to facilitate the automation program coming through. And I think those benefits will start creeping through in the second half of this year. And in fact, I've had conversations with many of you this morning, in the modeling we've built, we've got much more visibility of when the benefits of that automation will come through in '27 and '28.

And as such, we sort of nudged up those out-year numbers, and that's based on margin improvement rather than hope at top line level. So I think supply chain is in decent fettle. Nicola alluded to the fact we are looking at more efficiency opportunities. On the overheads, I think it's a really fair challenge. My view is simple. Every business in the world is looking at its overhead structure and whether it can be more efficient or not.

It's under constant review. My view is you can't save your way to prosperity, but where we can save overhead and become more efficient, we will do so, but it can't be to the detriment of the growth agenda. And also, we just got to balance the overhead savings that we could generate offset by investing in tech, as you're describing, AI that might be required to drive further efficiency going forward.

So it's a little bit of a balloon up and down at the moment, but under constant review. So to say there's a save of overhead to come out, I don't think that does exist. Should we be focusing on doing things smarter and more efficiently? Absolutely. Whether that's support, whether it's marketing, everything we do, we are perhaps putting a little bit more rigor on do we really need to spend that and are we getting the requisite spend on that.

On the tech stack, we've got a program and a commitment to continue investing in our e-commerce platform, around GBP 8 million a year. I sort of look on that as maintenance. It enables us to continue to invest in that digital innovation going forward. So I think we've got a very hard coded tech strategy.

Again, we're really asking the hard questions whether we can do that more efficiently. But in driving efficiency, you're probably having to reinvest somewhere else to ensure you're staying ahead of the game with our digital agenda.

The only thing I'd add to that, actually, if I may, Wayne, is certainly the investment that we're making in loyalty behind it is a behemoth of a customer database. And that we've obviously invested in that as part of the loyalty program investment. That effectively will yield a significantly richer customer -- source of customer information.

We already have black belts in the organization in AI and analysis that can then use that to really sort of stimulate sales to customers, personalize their app experience to them. It's -- I think we've talked about being the Netflix of pizza. And I think that is something that is becoming increasingly true of us in terms of our capability. So we're not looking at needing lots of additional investment around personalization. What we're looking to do really is make sure we absolutely sweat the asset of the investment that we've made so far in loyalty because ultimately, that's the engine room of it all, back to me.

HFSS, yes.

HFSS. So look, I think, again, has there been any impact of the advertising restrictions at 9:00 p.m., not that we've really seen. You can see, again, as a result of our like-for-like sales, our order count performance that it hasn't had any negative impact on the business.

Undoubtedly, it will have had some impact in terms of not being on those particular TV slots. But to your point, actually, what we're doing is redeploying the media spend into other avenues that are compliant to make sure that we still use that spend effectively. And again, we use an AI capability now to manage -- help us manage and support our media buying and media spend so that it puts it in the right places and make sure that we get a good sort of revenue return on investment from that spend. So all of our metrics around marketing spend in terms of working, nonworking, but also return on investment are still on good trends.

And so we haven't really seen any impact at all, Wayne, to be fair. So I think we will always do everything we can to remain compliant. My point of view in terms of the long term is that we absolutely support both what's happening in terms of the health and nutrition agenda.

But also, I would say, I do would like to see that be evidence-based and therefore, also implementable, which I think is where we are at today. And I think the other thing is to recognize that we're not actually a meal that is eaten regular anyway. We're an occasion meal with 4.5x frequency. So some of these restrictions have a dilutory effect to perhaps some of our other sort of QSR competitors.

Katie Cousins, Shore Capital. Firstly, just on aggregators. Have you disclosed the split of orders by aggregators? And then also just the visibility around that. I know it's a bit hard, but do you get any insight versus, like the customer behavior when there are those aggregator sites, et cetera? Then a point that you pulled out in previous presentations as an untapped potential market was gift cards. And I think you said that could be a potential 9 billion market.

Any update around that or anything we should be thinking about? And then finally, just on product development. Clearly, chicken was a great opportunity, no CapEx, but is there other opportunities that you can expand your current menu or any sort of white space or opportunity there?

No problem, Katie. Thank you. Firstly, on the aggregators, I think we do disclose.

We don't disclose.

We don't disclose the mix, right? So I'm not going to disclose the mix. Why you sat next to me -- keep me honest. I know what the mix is, and it doesn't concern me. But I think the important thing, Katie, is actually the degree of incrementality that sits on those aggregator platforms. That is something that we are absolutely able to evaluate and analyze and that is under constant scrutiny.

And we're on 2 aggregator platforms at the moment and both are delivering similar levels of incrementality. And we effectively know that there's substantial benefit from us being on those aggregator platforms just in terms of increasing our reach and sort of capturing the customer that otherwise wouldn't be able to speak to because they use that platform for all of their -- all of their purchasing -- food purchasing opportunities.

So I think it's a channel that's very complementary. It's not growing in a way in terms of the mix of orders altogether, Katie, that give us any cause of concern whatsoever. And the incrementality is very, very high and would have to fall substantially from where it is for it to then hit point that says this is not a good place for us to be.

So aggregator economics matter. They matter to us and they matter to franchisees. So we always evaluate the offset between the incrementality and the reach versus the cost of doing business. In terms of the customer behavior, I mean, the behavior is pretty much the same. And when we look at things like our average ticket, et cetera, Katie, there are variances, but they're not substantially different just in terms of the ticket and things like delivery charges.

I think it's the consumer that is on there, we know is slightly different, typically a bit younger, a little bit more affluent. And therefore, again, that's why we see them as a really great customer access channel for us.

What we do know is that our -- what we call our champions, so our higher-quality customers, our higher frequency customers are still ordering through our app, the aggregators to, Nicola's point, are those people that buy less frequently, and you've got to be in it to win it, frankly. So those better quality customers, we do have that direct visibility. They stay loyal to the Domino's system.

Yes, absolutely. You asked a question about gift cards. We did talk about it in terms of the opportunity when we sat down in March. But I think if you think about the biggest execution risk to delivering our strategy when we're talking about more customers more often and more efficiently, it's losing focus and trying to do too much at once. And that's been something that I think as a business, we have been guilty of in the past.

I think since Andrew joined the business in March, and we've been through a very robust integrated business planning process, as he's already alluded, we are going to focus on doing more -- less really well and then bring the next thing and then bring the next thing to you when these initiatives have a clear plan and some numbers that we're actually prepared to stand behind and bake into our numbers. So we have a very strong pipeline of things. The gift card market is still one of them. There are others as well, but we feel that we should concentrate in terms of making sure that we land the things that we want to land like Chicken, Loyalty, Aggregators now, then we will move on to the next thing, analyze that, bring that back.

It's the same with some of the formats work in travel retail. I think we referenced that in March as well. So I'm not in a position to answer questions on those at the moment, but do know that we are working on those in the background. And when we believe that there is something here that we wish to then start investing in or to exploit, we'll then bake them into our numbers and put those into our -- the guidance, et cetera, that we give you all because I think that is a much more honest and transparent way for us to talk about how the business is performing.

What has built our model is chicken, we have a value ascribable to Chicken, a value ascribable to Loyalty, a value ascribable to Aggregators and a value ascribable to Supply Chain efficiency. That is what builds the math, the numbers we're guiding you on. The philosophical change is really simple. We're not going to come and say we're going to. We'll come and tell you when we have done and we've got confidence that those activities can meaningfully add value going forward.

That is going to be the change in how we sort of report things to the market. So we're not thinking about it. It's -- we're not going to present false dawns to you because I think you're quite right to say, well, you said this, where is it? That sorts.

In terms of the organic growth strategy we set out in the presentation, the sort of structure of how we're looking at the business in terms of more. And underneath the gray on that slide, there's another sort of row after, row after row of what these initiatives are, but they all ultimately have to pass the sniff test against our North Star. So if it's not going to deliver more customers, if it's not going to make them more frequent and therefore, increase lifetime value, but it's not going to make us more efficient, why are we doing it?

There might be good reasons to do it, but we need to be in a position then to explain to you all. But I think having that keeping ourselves honest and not making promises that we can't have certainty around delivery is the way we drive the value of this business forward. And then your final question was on product development. What is there beyond chicken and pizza in terms of menu expansion? And it's a multifaceted response in some respects, Katie, because chicken is a brand-new product, and it is way -- way off where I think chicken could be as a product proposition.

So there's a lot of work going on at the moment on the existing proposition, particularly around dips and also around flavoring for the coating. But then one of the big areas that I think is complementary to both pizza and to chicken, what are we doing with our sides.

And we're also cognizant around the healthy food agenda, which is something that is clearly -- it's not just a regulatory thing, but it's a consumer thing because some customers want healthier options, want smaller calorie options. And so a lot of the work that we're doing actually is exploring how do we expand the menu around some of the sides so that they are complementary to both chicken and to pizza.

But effectively, we'll continue with the basket expansion that we're seeing chicken bring to the business. So that's roughly where we're going. Do I see us getting into something else completely different? Not at this stage because I think chicken has so much more left to offer. I think, again, it goes back to focus on doing less really well. And I think chicken is -- for us, is still an immature product largely. I think we've taken a lot of care to analyze it and go, are we back in the right horse here on the right hand in this case? And I think we've concluded, yes, we are. And so that's where the focus will be in terms of the evolution of that.

Just one question for Andrew, please. On interest costs, you've got debt facilities of GBP 600 million versus monthly average net debt of under GBP 300 million. I know you mentioned this in your part of the presentation, Andrew. But -- so obviously, I know you're looking at it. But just keen to understand, given the focus on deleverage that you've also talked about this morning in terms of capital allocation rather than say, buybacks.

So what's the size of the prize here in terms of how much you can potentially reduce by without incurring costs to realize the USPP, it looks like one of them is due in July '27, you have to wait until then. So just sort of thoughts on how that could evolve over time? What are your thoughts on that and thoughts on interest costs in the out years would be welcome.

So it's a really good question, Richard, because we've got a lot of debt facility. And as we very clearly set out, our focus is on organic investments. So there's a lot of debt to support organic investments. So the -- if we take the USPP, that GBP 200 million tranche, I talk about the fact we are considering quantum and tenor. My view is if we just simply refinance the full GBP 200 million, why would you do that? Because you're fixing in an interest charge for 5 to 7 years depending on where the tenor lands, and you're not going to see any reward for reducing your debt and we'll be sitting on excess cash.

So I think that number will be below GBP 200 million, and it will be a balance of USPP draw down some of the RCF. The RCF gets paid down and you are immediately rewarded for a lower level of debt overall because you're drawing down less. Will that be the full GBP 200 million? No. I think it's probably pushing it a bit. Probably in the middle feels like a sensible place, but we'll update that accordingly. To your point, then you get the requisite reduction in interest as we pay that debt down.

And our target on that debt and leverage, looking at the modeling we've got, we'd expect to get to that 1.5x level within the next 2 to 3 years. Certainly expect at the end of this year to fall back a little bit. We knew we were investing in the supply chain center, and we're permitting ourselves a little spike up to 2.3x. That will nudge back this year, but I expect to see meaningful drop down over the course of the next couple of years or so. Clearly, if you just play the basic math on an EV/EBITDA basis, that should be rewarded through the equity value as you pay the debt down. What I'm keen to do, though, is that Nicola has mentioned these other opportunities that are not yet fully evaluated. Some of those may require CapEx.

And what I don't want to do is limit our balance sheet and prohibit us from making organic investments by overtightening our liquidity facilities. So we've got the opportunity a little bit like we've done with SCC this year. If we say there's a GBP 20 million investment that's going to return us GBP 5 million plus, we should be doing that.

So I don't want us to box ourselves into a corner inappropriately. But overall, just to reinforce that point on the capital allocation, this is really noddy. Invest in the business, run rate maintenance around GBP 20 million with a very, very strict 20% hurdle rate, maintain the dividends, keep the real value protected by that nod to inflation and whatever is left over, you pay down debt and reduce leverage. I think it's a really simple allocation framework. It is appropriate for a business of our nature operating in the U.K. equity market.

Richard Stuber from Deutsche Bank. Three questions, please. The first one, I thought it was really interesting, you talked about the market share of chicken going from 3.8% to 4.2%. Just that -- presumably, that means that even pre the CHICK ‘N’ DIP, your legacy chicken is still doing incredibly well. Could you talk about sort of interaction between sort of chicken orders of your legacy versus your sort of CHICK ‘N’ DIP and where you see that going?

The second question is around marketing. I guess, given the launch of CHICK ‘N’ DIP and also the World Cup, were you slightly more 1H weighted in terms of marketing spend this year and just really what your sort of plans are for marketing over the course of the rest of the year? And my third question is on Ireland. I think your profitability increased nicely there. I know you're sort of moving away or standing back a little bit from your total store targets, but those stores there are kind of within your ability. So can you talk a little bit more about the growth plans in Ireland?

Thanks, Richard. Look, I think in terms of chicken market share, we did already offer chicken, you're absolutely right. And so some of that market share was already there. But we're not separating out old chicken from new chicken. It's just chicken. And so we're bringing the old products into the range, and it's effectively available as part of the broader CHICK ‘N’ DIP proposition. So I think we may evolve the product. We may look to retire some of them potentially over time.

It will all depend on the mix and what's selling. But I think that a lot of the market share that we enjoyed from our existing chicken would probably have been more for the younger palate as part of the family and also as consumed as a side. The CHICK ‘N’ DIP proposition is more consumed as a meal and therefore, is as far as we can tell, I mean, you don't know who's actually eating the food when it lands at the customer's door, but it seems to be an older palate and more of a family food.

So we're not getting focused on which is old and which is new chicken. It's just chicken, Richard, and the intention is to grow our share of that market with whichever product mix is well and is appealing to the customer. In terms of marketing, we haven't particularly changed around the weighting of our marketing profiling. We have changed the mix of it.

So we did do a lot of spend on chicken over pizza at certain points of the year, particularly you would have seen that in the first few weeks and months following the chicken launch. But in terms of the quantum of the total spend and the profile of that year-on-year, it hasn't changed fundamentally. We always protect Q4 on a fish when the fish are biting basis because as soon as you get into that golden quarter, it's really important that you're present.

So no real changes to marketing strategy. I think what is interesting, Richard, is despite the sort of repurposing of marketing towards chicken in terms of the total spend, we didn't see that have a significant impact on the pizza sales. And in fact, to say what we do see in the chicken sales that we're enjoying is a significant proportion of them have incremental pizza added into their basket.

So I think some of it is a brand as long as you're out there talking about the brand, you're still speaking to customers even the ones that just want pizza when it may not be a pizza product. And despite sort of that headline stuff, there's always a drumbeat of local offers and local marketing that the franchisees do themselves.

The national deal for pizza has been running price rise now for almost 12 months. That proposition, I think, screens value and has been doing a lot of the heavy lifting work for ourselves and for the franchisees as a result. So again, I think that consistency of message around the core value proposition in pizza, the real focus and emphasis on chicken and really talking about the Domino's brand as I think we've got quite a lot of bang for our buck out of the marketing spend this first half. And then, Andrew, do you want to talk about Ireland profitability?

Yes. I mean Ireland profitability has improved. I mean the important point, taking outside the Victa consolidation play through, underlying performance in Ireland has been pretty strong this year. And given we had the impairment last year, that's encouraging. So we're seeing positive progress, slightly different operational setup. The current plan with Ireland is to expand through the store base as corporate stores, and then we can evaluate what the makeup of the Irish map ultimately looks like.

But taking direct control of that expansion agenda is the right strategic way to progress Ireland. There's an opportunity there. The end game is still to determine that. But we're taking advantage of the white space opportunity now from a corporate perspective rather than a franchise perspective.

It does go back, though, Richard, to -- we're not -- we're focused on sales and the store numbers will be what the store numbers will be. It's the most underpenetrated market in terms of Ireland versus U.K. from a concentration point of view in terms of our stores. But we think we'll focus on the end results, which is what drops through the sales and other account lines rather than store counts.

[indiscernible] in terms of CapEx guidance.

So there's a possible CapEx churn piece, you're absolutely right, which is you invest in the corporate store and then ultimately, that could be a franchise store down the track. Yes, currently in the CapEx guidance, yes.

Sorry, a follow-up Richard Taylor from Barclays again. Your comments on the price, Nicola wanted me to ask about any further thoughts you might have had on sort of everyday low price pricing versus current situation where sort of relatively high headline price and then significant money for offers. Do you think the current price architecture is there to stay? Or do you think it can be tweaked to it?

It's a good question, and it's something that is an open and live conversation with franchisees, Richard. So it's not really something I'm in a position to comment about in any detail. But I think there is a recognition that the price proposition as a headline is what draws people in. But then when you look at the mix of sales and orders through the system, the bundled deals and other propositions that you're referring to are also still very popular.

So we need to be really careful about any changes that we do make. And clearly, some of those changes could have an impact on franchisee profitability, too. So it's a live consideration. It's something that we effectively work with the franchisees to the Marketing Advisory Committee, and these are live topics of conversation. But you're not going to see a sudden wholesale shift in strategy. Whatever we do will be done incrementally and thoughtfully to protect both the customer and the franchisees.

Just 2 last questions for me. Are you seeing any change in terms of levels of local store marketing with the franchisees? Are they holding that up? And the last one was in terms of the market you're seeing growth in delivery at the expense of collection? Are you seeing that within your business?

Probably quite quick answers to both, Doug. Not seeing any substantial changes in the local marketing by franchisees. They're committed to growing the pie as we talk about it. And so local marketing absolutely complements the work that we do with the MAC around the national advertising campaign. So not seeing any fundamental changes.

It's certainly not where they are going in order to make savings in their own P&Ls. And they, like us, recognize you can't save yourself rich and actually not talking to your customers is probably the last thing that you want to do. So no real changes there. In terms of growth in delivery, it's not something that we're seeing, to be honest. I think the performance in both our channels is pretty balanced. And I don't think there's much else to say on that, to be fair.

We do -- we have a sort of collection perfection deal, which incentivizes coming to collect, but it hasn't moved the mix.

Anubhav Malhotra from Panmure Liberum. I want to just dig deeper into the loyalty scheme, if you don't mind. Just on the new features that you mentioned that you'll have once the full rollout happens, which is around personalization and recruitment.

Have any of those been tried in the trial phase? Or will they just come in when new launch happens? Has the trial phase been just a simple buy 5, get 1 free? And if not, why not? And then secondly, on the take rate, 27% take rate at the moment, that suggests to me you have 2.2 million customers. So probably you have marketed it to more than 8 million customers already, and there are 14 million in total. So how much more is there to go for in terms of actual sign-ups? Do you expect that 27% rate to tick up to a higher number?

And lastly, just on the economics of the loyalty scheme, the cost of implementation with the new partner that you're working with in terms of the central cost line, the overhead line and also how will the cost be shared between you and the franchisees?

I'll let Andrew talk to the cost question potentially. Look, the new features haven't been tested because the solution that we put in place was very basic. And so we've not had the functionality to be able to test it in the real world, so to speak. which is one of the reasons we've worked really closely in terms of modeling what the impact of that might be on our customer base. So it will be rolled out with full features, but we will still be undergoing a period of testing and learning around what works, what doesn't. But that's no different effectively using the existing CRM capability to analyze and understand what works and when.

So that's why not because they are -- although in the way we look at loyalty in the business, we -- I keep doing that, I don't like that. We see it as a continuation of a program or an extension of the program, but the reality is there's a hard stop on the old scheme and a transition to the new one. So it's a very different solution.

In terms of your estimates on the -- one of the reasons we're at 2.2 million actually is a capacity issue, which goes back to the fact that this is not a fully fledged program. And so this has been invitation only, and it's been rolled out around specific cohorts. So the take-up rate has probably been higher than you might model for a typical scheme.

So we still think there's a big chunk of the database that we've not even spoken to yet about loyalty. And I think the third thing is just really to remind you that this scheme is not about the existing customer -- this is about the existing customers because it is also then about a future customer database as well, which is where we have no functionality currently to be able to invite people to join Domino's loyalty in order to become a customer, which is the reverse of how we do it currently.

On the economics, honest answer, it's a bit of both. So there's a bit of cost from us, there's a bit of cost from franchisees. The way we model it out, we're very transparent when talking to franchisees, what do we think we're going to make? What do we think you're going to make? Does that look about right? They have to be behind this. So they're not behind it. This isn't going to happen. They are behind it. They recognize it's not something you can just say 6 months down the line, we don't like it.

So we've got a longer-term commitment. But both parties coming back to Nicola's point, this grows the pie for both parties, so it works, but it does need a little bit of costs on both sides. That's incorporated into our guidance already.

Sorry, one last question for me. Are you seeing much variability in the performance between the franchisees vis-a-vis the larger franchisees versus the smaller ones? And if there is variability in that performance, assuming that scale really matters in today's world, do you expect franchisee consolidation to be a theme in the future relative to where we are today?

There is always franchisee variability, Wayne. It does have a relationship to size to some extent, but it's not a hard-coded rule. There are certain points as you grow your scale where you need to invest more in capability like such as training and other central capabilities that a smaller franchisee doesn't need. So effectively, you can see small franchisees with really strong profitability, the big ones with scale, and then it's the group in the middle that are building to the capabilities that they need.

So it's not a linear matter at all. The system, though, you're talking about consolidation, I think, is already heavily consolidated in some respects. And I think a lot of our franchisees are groups of 10 stores or more, and they're able to really optimize their cost and therefore, their profitability. The real variation, the main variation we see actually is more regional than it is necessarily franchisee-based.

And that's how we look at it. Now some of those franchisees in those regions, again, we'll start -- so London is a very competitive market, very, very difficult in London for franchisees. So they are the areas that are really a focus for us making sure that we support those franchisees with some good marketing and it's another consideration when we're talking about aggregators as to why that's quite important because in the London market, it's probably a higher concentration of customers that would typically use that type of platform as opposed to a native one.

But the way we assess, Wayne, and this is very important, we look at the store, the economics and performance of the store and then there's who's the franchisee. So you're looking at the unit performance and it so happens when it might be -- one might belong to a bigger franchisee, one might belong to a smaller franchisee. But a consistency in how we approach the store challenge is the really important point because it means that regardless of how big or small you are, you're all treated equally when presented with the same challenge.

Well, I just wanted to say thank you all very much for making the time and effort to come and talk to us today and for your questions. I hope we've given you the answers to all of them. But if there's anything else, I'll point you to Michael. And if there's any follow-up questions, then he will do his best to make sure that we help you with that. But yes, thank you.

Thanks very much.

See you all in 6 months.

Good morning. Let me start with the headline. Our Half 1 performance shows a business that is delivering results and building confidence. We have grown sales and orders. We have opened more stores. We have continued to gain share across our key markets, and we have increased profit and cash generation. These data points matter because they show progress against the priorities we set out in March.

We said we would focus on the core, strengthen the foundations and build disciplined organic growth opportunities. 6 months on, we are seeing early evidence that the strategy is working. Importantly, we are not relying on a market recovery to do the work for us. We are using the assets that make Domino's distinctive, our brand, our scale, our store network, our delivery capability, our data and digital capabilities, and of course, our supply chain. Those strengths give us the right to win in pizza, and they give us the right to expand into new occasions, delivering organic growth in a disciplined way.

I'm now going to hand over to Andrew, who will take you through the financial performance in detail, and I will then come back to explain why I'm increasingly confident in the organic growth opportunity ahead.

Thanks, Nicola, and hello, everyone. As Nicola has just highlighted, this has been a strong first half with positive progress across all key financials. Sales and orders grew in the period, feeding positively to all P&L metrics with EBITDA up 3.6% and EPS up around 5%. Importantly, this earnings growth has contributed to improved free cash flow, up significantly to just over GBP 50 million, which I will expand on later. As a consequence of this performance, together with our confidence in achieving our full-year expectations, we are proposing an interim dividend of 3.7p per share, up around 3% on last year.

Looking at how that trading built through the half, as we reported back in April, we had a strong Q1 with both sales value and orders in like-for-like growth. Although CHICK 'N' DIP was launched in February, the Q1 performance was predominantly pizza-driven. In Q2, that positive momentum has continued. And whilst chicken has clearly contributed, importantly, pizza continued to grow, supported by the launch of our Italiano's range and the commencement of the World Cup tournament.

And the conclusion of the World Cup contributed to continued positive trading in July. The growth in system sales drove uplift in all of the DPG revenue lines, with supply chain revenue up 2.5% on higher volumes and royalty revenues up 5.4%. The growth in corporate store sales principally reflects the Victa acquisition. But importantly, we've seen an improvement in underlying trading across our Irish businesses.

Turning now to profit. As I mentioned earlier, EBITDA grew just over 3.5% to GBP 66 million, driven by higher supply chain profit, royalties and corporate store income. The increase in depreciation and amortization reflects investment in supply chain, corporate stores and IT systems, and finance costs were higher, reflecting the higher cost of our new bank facility that we entered into last year. Importantly, both of these increases are in line with our expectations. And EPS was up around 5%, reflecting the impact of last year's share buyback activity.

Finally, on costs, we are fully hedged on all key items for 2026 with some arrangements extending into 2027. Currently, therefore, we're not foreseeing any material cost or supply issues arising this year or next.

Moving on to cash flow and debt. The increased earnings have positively contributed to cash flow in the period. We've clearly seen a significant working capital improvement, and we would expect some, but not all of that to reverse out in the second half year with some improvements made in our underlying stock and creditor management. The other item of note is cash tax, reflecting a refund in respect of historical U.K. and Ireland transfer pricing arrangements.

Overall, therefore, even if we discount back the working capital, we've achieved a significant cash improvement in the period. On the balance sheet, we are well financed. We have a GBP 300 million RCF maturing in 2030, which is almost entirely undrawn with extension and accordion options within it. In addition, we have GBP 300 million of U.S. Private Placement notes. GBP 200 million of these notes mature in July 2027, and our plan is to refinance this tranche by the end of the year with the final quantum and tenure to be determined.

To summarize, this is a picture of strong, dependable cash generation, underpinned by a strong balance sheet. We're also investing behind our growth with full-year CapEx of around GBP 35 million planned for this year. The majority of this spend will be into supply chain, principally reflecting the Avonmouth investment and other initiatives that Nicola will expand on later. Roughly GBP 3 million is being invested into new stores in Ireland and around GBP 8 million into e-commerce, funding digital innovation for the future.

Looking forward, we're anticipating a run rate level of investment of around GBP 20 million, in line with depreciation. And at this stage for 2027, anticipate an additional GBP 5 million of growth CapEx in our supply chain operations.

Finally from me, our capital allocation framework is simple, but we have perhaps not explained it clearly historically. Our priorities are clear: first, invest in the core business to support sustainable growth, combining run rate, maintenance CapEx, as I've just mentioned, together with growth CapEx underpinned by a rigorous discipline of a 20% minimum return hurdle rate.

Secondly, maintaining a sustainable and progressive dividend is important, protecting the real value of the dividend with nominal increases, loosely linked to inflation over time. Thereafter, any residual cash can then either be used to pay down debt or return to shareholders in the form of buybacks or special dividends. In evaluating this, we have a stated leverage target of 1.5 to 2.5x, and we are at 2.3x at the half year, reflecting the timing of the SCC investment.

Our aim is to operate towards the lower end of that leverage range. And as such, our primary focus is to use any excess cash after our 2 key priorities to pay down debt and reduce leverage. Importantly, as I have mentioned, we have a strong balance sheet, which provides us with flexibility to invest in the numerous organic opportunities under consideration, but not yet fully evaluated. This is intended to be a clear and simple framework, organic investment in the business, maintain the dividend and reduce debt and leverage over time.

With that, I'll hand back to Nicola to take you through the strategy.

Thanks, Andrew. Now, let me turn to the strategy and how we are building our organic growth opportunity. The framework is deliberately simple, more customers by expanding our reach and attracting new cohorts, more often by giving existing customers more reasons to choose Domino's across more occasions and more efficiently by improving productivity, so we have the capacity and the funds to deliver our growth agenda. These are not disconnected initiatives. CHICK 'N' DIP, loyalty, aggregators and supply chain productivity are designed to work together. They give us multiple complementary routes to sustainable organic growth.

Before I go through those in more detail, though, I want to start with why Domino's is so well positioned to deliver. We are building from a position of real strength with one of the most recognized and loved consumer brands in the country, a brand that continues to go from strength to strength with unrivaled awareness and consideration. That strength is underpinned by 4 important foundations: a growing store network across the U.K. and Ireland, unrivaled product quality combined with fast and consistent delivery remains a major competitive advantage, a world-class supply chain capability with the capacity to support future growth and world-class franchisees with improving store economics.

So when we talk about growth opportunities like chicken, loyalty, aggregators and productivity, we are not starting from scratch. We're taking assets that already exist at scale and making them work even harder. These are the foundations of our confidence. So let me bring that to life with a couple of examples. Our recent launch of a more premium pizza range with a hand-stretched Italian style crust gave existing customers another reason to buy from us more often while also encouraging new customers to try Domino's.

The early response has been encouraging with strong repeat rates showing that the range is resonating with customers. And we have a strong innovation pipeline across our core pizzas, sides and new categories. Our brand strength also gives us permission to show up in popular culture and benefit from big moments. Whether that was the Fury versus Makhmudov fight on Netflix or the launch of our [indiscernible] for the World Cup, we have successfully tapped into moments of heightened demand. Customers know and trust what Domino's stands for, great product delivered quickly that never fails to delight the crowd.

So our foundations have never been stronger. Our ambition is now to build on them, creating even more reasons for customers to choose us, and in doing so, delivering our growth ambitions. As I said, the early signs are positive. We have a large and loyal customer base, and they are responding to the investments we've made in innovation, value, service and our digital capability. We're seeing customer growth and increased frequency. More importantly, this means we're gaining share. These are important leading indicators. They show that the strategy is influencing customer behavior in the way that we expected. And with a customer frequency of just under 4.5x, encouraging customers to choose Domino's just one more time a year would have a meaningful impact on orders and value, and we believe we can give customers many more reasons to choose us across additional occasions. And one clear proof point of that is CHICK 'N' DIP.

CHICK 'N' DIP is much more than a product launch. It's an important strategic test of how far we can extend Domino's beyond the traditional pizza occasion. The logic is straightforward. Chicken is a large adjacent category. We can enter it using our existing system rather than building a new one, and we can do that without significant additional capital investment. What makes this opportunity attractive is that this is not about taking more share within pizza. It's about winning occasions where Domino's has not historically participated. The demand for high-quality chicken with great flavor is continuing to grow, not just in the U.K. and Ireland, but globally.

Historically, many chicken occasions have been enjoyed in store or restaurant. Increasingly, customers are looking for that same great chicken occasion at home in the same way they already enjoy pizza. That is why we can win. We can offer customers an outstanding chicken product, great flavor and delivering under 25 minutes through our 1,400 strong store network from a brand they already trust. Today, we have just 4% share of a chicken market worth GBP 3 billion. So the headroom is significant, and the opportunity plays directly to our strengths in brand, marketing and digital engagement. And as I said, we can do this without significant CapEx or material changes to our in-store operations.

It's the strength of our model that means we can add this occasion without compromising the pizza proposition that remains at the heart of Domino's. So this is not diversification away from pizza. It's a disciplined extension of Domino's into a broader set of takeaway occasions. The real test, of course, is customer behavior, and this is where the early results are particularly encouraging. Our champion customers love having another reason to choose Domino's across additional occasions with over 80% of customers who have tried it saying they're highly satisfied. They are buying from us more frequently since the launch of CHICK 'N' DIP. They are not substituting pizza for chicken. They are adding it to their baskets, which is helping drive higher average order values.

We are also seeing orders from new younger customers who are choosing CHICK 'N' DIP in more social occasions. So the launch is helping us broaden the appeal of the brand and build stronger relationships with the next generation of Domino's customers. Taken together, that gives us the confidence that CHICK 'N' DIP can become more than a successful launch. It has the potential to become a second growth engine for the business. Our CHICK 'N' DIP gives customers more reasons to choose us and helps us attract new customer cohorts.

Loyalty is an equally important strategic growth lever. It is about rewarding customers when they choose us more often and building a strong relationship with them over time. Loyalty drives frequency. As I showed earlier, even a small improvement in frequency, given the size of our customer base can translate into significant order growth over time. We're really encouraged by the progress we've made with Domino's Rewards and its ability to drive frequency.

We have a strong pilot scheme with 2.2 million active customers. That's shown us the potential for the platform to drive deeper engagement, stronger retention and ultimately greater lifetime value, driving orders across all of our customer cohorts. It helps us turn a large customer base into a more engaged customer base. As you know, we have been building a permanent platform with Open Loyalty, a world-class loyalty provider, which will enable us to optimize the program and unlock further value over time. And we are on track for the full national rollout of the new full scheme later this year, giving us the opportunity to engage our customers in a more meaningful way than the pilot allows.

It will also help us attract new direct customers through a more dedicated rewards experience. And in time, it will also give us richer data and a stronger platform for personalized marketing, helping us improve retention, increase frequency and lower acquisition costs. That's why loyalty is strategically important. It's not just about giving customers rewards, it's about creating a more relevant and more valuable relationship with them, an important long-term frequency engine in the business.

So loyalty helps us deepen relationships with customers who already know us. Aggregators help us broaden our reach and access customers who are choosing to buy through different channels. The aggregator market continues to grow, and Domino's has a clear opportunity to grow profitably by reaching customers who are not active in our own channel. These are customers who are often younger, more affluent, less price-sensitive and they prefer to order through their aggregator of choice. That makes aggregators an important route to incremental reach.

The opportunity is not to just appear on these platforms, it's to use them in a way that expands our addressable market and brings new customers into the Domino's experience. That's why we're approaching aggregators as a customer access channel, not as a replacement for our own channels. The focus is on profitable incremental growth. Done well, this allows us to participate in a growing part of the delivery market while staying true to the strengths of our own model. This opportunity also leverages what we already have, our brand, our store network, our operating infrastructure and the strength of our delivery model.

Hot food deliveries through aggregators can often be slower because there's a handover break between kitchen and driver. That handover break does not always guarantee that products arrive hot delicious and in under 25 minutes on average the way we do. We address that gap by continuing to use our brilliant franchisee network to deliver the products ourselves. And the data shows that our strategy is working.

Incrementality of customers and orders is high, satisfaction with Domino's and aggregator platforms is strong, and we are seeing growth in our active customer base as a result. So aggregators are not just another channel, they're a disciplined way to reach incremental customers using a service model that is already a Domino's strength.

And the final lever I'm going to talk about today is productivity. The initiatives I've described earlier create customer growth and revenue opportunities, but sustainable growth only creates value if we can support it operationally and financially. And that's why supply chain productivity is such an important part of the plan. Domino's has one of the strongest supply chain operations in the sector. It's a genuine competitive advantage. I often describe delivery as our superpower, and that applies not just to customer deliveries, but to our supply chain center deliveries, too.

We operate with high service levels, high food availability and high delivery accuracy. Every week, the network gives stores and franchisees all of the products they need to serve customers consistently and reliably. We also continue to make store deliveries more sustainable. By the end of this year, 1/4 of our units in our distribution fleet will be lower emission using a combination of CNG, HVO and electric vehicles. The customer never sees the supply chain, but they feel the benefit every time the product is available. The order is accurate, and the delivery is on time.

Our investment in SCC5 has strengthened that capability further, giving us additional capacity, resilience and efficiency. That gives us the operational base from which to drive the next wave of productivity. And productivity allows us to invest behind growth while maintaining financial discipline. As I shared in March, we've identified a wide range of productivity opportunities across the business. 7 are currently underway across various sites, ranging from production automation that increases throughput to warehouse automation and automated deboxing, picking and loading processes, which collectively will deliver cost savings in 2026 and further benefits in 2027. So as we talk about sustainable growth, we are equally focused on how that growth is delivered, efficiently, profitably and with discipline.

So let me bring this together. Returning to the framework I set out earlier, more customers, more often, more efficiently. CHICK 'N' DIP gives us a route to more occasions and new customer cohorts. Loyalty gives us a route to higher frequency and deeper relationships. Aggregators give us a route to incremental reach and productivity gives us the ability to support that growth efficiently and profitably. None of this depends on a single big bet. These are practical, executable levers. They use the strengths we already have in the business. And together, they give us multiple routes to sustainable organic growth.

In pizza, we continue to strengthen our leadership position that demonstrates the resilience of the core business and the effectiveness of our investment in innovation, value and customer experience. In chicken, the early performance of CHICK 'N' DIP gives us confidence that Domino's can participate in a broader set of customer occasions. And across the wider takeaway market, we're increasing our relevance with consumers and gaining share of the bigger pie. These proof points are important. They show the strategy moving from intent into execution. We're strengthening the core business. We are expanding the addressable market. We are building multiple routes to long-term growth.

So I'll close by returning to the word confidence. There are 3 reasons I feel confident looking ahead. First, Half 1 gives us encouraging evidence that those actions are now translating into performance. The core business is performing. We're delivering sales growth, order growth, profit growth and strong cash generation and gaining share. Second, we have multiple organic growth levers across the short and medium term, and we're beginning to see evidence that they are also working. And third, we have a strong pipeline of further opportunities still under evaluation, giving us confidence that there is more growth potential to unlock for Domino's. I look forward to bringing those back to you as they become more fully formed. Importantly, we remain confident in delivering our full year expectations.

Thank you.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the Domino's Full Year results. My name is Claira, and I will be coordinating your call today. I will now hand over to Nicola Frampton, CEO of Domino's, to begin. Please go ahead.

Thank you for joining us. I hope you've all seen our update from earlier. I'd just like to say I'm really pleased with our 2025 results. It was a very difficult start to the year, but I think a really solid finish. I hope you all agree, given us a lot of confidence and belief and momentum into 2026. So on that note, I'll probably ask Michael to start with the Q&A. Michael?

Yes. Douglas Jack with Peel Hunt. In terms of the people ordering, you've got 8 million app users and they're ordering 4.5 -- 4.3x on average. To what extent are you seeing the loyalty members, the 1 million ordering more often than that? And how quickly is the loyalty program being rolled out? That's the first question.

Thank you. So loyalty, we've obviously been taking loyalty very, very steady over the last year just to make sure that we don't make any big mistakes in the loyalty program -- big cost of mistakes because loyalty programs can also be quite expensive. But to your point, Doug, app -- our customers typically order [ 12 ] times a year. And so actually, loyalty takes some time to build up. It's probably going to be a slow burn to about 18 months before we can give you any real indications of what the loyalty program is doing for that reason. I think we'd probably be better off giving an update towards the back end of the year just in terms of how it's doing. And also by then, we'll be in a position to talk a little bit more about the enhanced functionality that we're bringing along with that in terms of increasing our customer acquisition capability as well.

Great. So two other questions. Your energy costs, obviously, we're seeing a lot of volatility in the market. How far into the future are you hedged on energy? I know if you've got any exposure to what's going on.

Do you want to take that?

Yes. I mean the key energy costs are obviously diesel, gas, we're hedged more than 12 months ahead. Okay. And obviously, we do a deal for the entire system. So there will be other franchisees in our system that will have taken advantage of our hedging arrangements, too, if they haven't made their own.

We're also in a good place in terms of product pricing, Doug. So we're reasonably well insulated in terms of the things you can anticipate might play out over the next few months.

That's great. And then just the last question. Are you seeing new franchisees joining the system? I think a couple of years ago, you started to move towards that process and to what extent people are asking, what kind of multiples of EBITDA do stores change hands at or multiple of sales, if that's any help.

Yes. So I'll take the new franchisees question, if I may, and then maybe Richard can talk about the multiples. But we started the homegrown hero program a couple of years ago. You may remember with a view to bringing new franchisees into the system. We ended up with a list of potential candidates longer than we could actually manage. So we paused the program.

But we do have five homegrown heroes in the system, effectively new franchisees. And two of them are actually in the process or have already opened their second store, which was really what the homegrown hero program was all about. So we're very pleased with how it's going. But obviously, it's early days in terms of seeing that program build out any further.

Yes. I mean, Doug, in terms of change of hands, predominantly when the transactions Nicola has been talking about is homegrown heroes, people who have taken one or two stores. So there have been limited change of [ hands ] deals since I've been interim CFO. I've heard no squealing about the prices that have been paid, but I'm going to go and check what the answer is and then just see whether we are allowed to give you a directional share on that. But I have not heard of any major leg down or leg up in terms of the multiples. Franchisees tend not to look at EBITDA multiples. They tend to look at the revenue, revenue opportunities. I hope that's a fair answer.

It's Tim Ramskill from Bank of America. I have a few questions. I'll go one at a time as well. I guess in your presentation that you shared online this morning, you kind of indicated kind of the share gains that you've enjoyed in the pizza market. But at the same time, the market by that math looks to have been declining by 13% over the course of the last 12 months, which is pretty dramatic. Just interested in your thoughts on the dynamics. You talk a lot about the consumer being under pressure, which I guess we all recognize. But to what extent are there other sort of more structural factors at play driving such a material reduction in the size of the market?

It's -- look, I think you're right. The pizza market is not growing, Tim. That's for certain. But I don't think it's necessarily right for us to conclude that it's structural as yet. Pizza is a very flexible product in terms of being able to respond to changing consumer demands and what have you. If you look at what's going on in the wider QSR market, this has returned to growth, indicating that there is a shift in consumer dynamic back to the sector more broadly.

And I think what we're seeing is that in that brider market, the encouraging signs, I think, could flow through to pizza. So I don't think we will ever move away from saying pizza is not at the heart of our business. It absolutely is. And we continue to innovate and continue to bring out new pizzas. We've got Italian's coming out in April. We've got some new things coming out towards the back end of the year that are all effectively pizza related.

And when the market isn't growing, you need to grow your market share. And what I would like to point out is that's what we've been doing very, very successfully in terms of our market share grew by -- numbers on the top of my head, 6% over the last year, just taken us to over 52% of the total pizza market. And it's also the reason we're looking to expand our total addressable market in terms of looking at wider opportunity, say, in the broader QSR system that can complement what we currently focus on to help give us another string to our growth, so to speak.

Leads nicely on to my next question, which is around, I guess, the CHICK 'N' DIP launch. You've obviously referenced the 80% attachment rate to sort of pizza alongside the new CHICK 'N' offer. Maybe you could just sort of help us understand some of what you're seeing. I realize it's early days, but where there is that attachment, is that sort of substituted for other product? Or is it helping actually grow that specific basket size? And to some extent, I'm a little bit more interested in the 20%, right? So is that totally new incremental sales? To what extent does your data, your app data, your loyalty data tell you anything about that sort of stand-alone CHICK 'N' ordering?

Yes. So I think the first point you made, Tim, is the key one. It's very, very early days. We ran a trial last year. That trial was actually very encouraging in terms of the customer behavior that we saw, but we've only launched the product across the entire system on the 9th of February and really went above the line on the 23rd. So I caveat what I'm about to say with that piece of information to be fair.

Look, I think, first off, 83% of the baskets do have pizza in them as well. But within that, I think your question is, does it cannibalize other products? No, we don't believe it does. The majority of those baskets, not all, again, I'm using generalizations at this stage so we can bring you proper analysis. The ticket is significantly higher than the average ticket of the pizza-only orders that we were previously seeing by a significant amount, which suggests that actually what we're doing with those orders is seeing customers come to us who wanted chicken and pizza, and we have bought it separately on an aggregator platform and now buying both of those items from us on Domino's because certainly the price sensitivity seems to be very, very different.

So that is really encouraging for us. The other thing that we're starting to see, and this is, I suppose, to an extent, new news, because we've -- as I said earlier, we've only just gone above the line. But as we have gone above the line and to your point about the remaining 20%, a good chunk of those were new customers to us, customers that we haven't previously seen before that have come to us in response to our chicken advertising.

So again, it's early days, but I think it's very encouraging just in terms of it's bringing another consumer to us. First indications are that a lot of -- not all, but a lot of those consumers are what we would call Gen Z or Gen Zillennials that have become known in Domino's. It's a little word for them. And again, they're giving us very high customer satisfaction feedback on the product, and it's very much aimed towards that generation.

They're also a generation of probably more protein aware and really interested in that sort of white meat product. So I think all around, it's encouraging. I mean the whole concept behind CHICK 'N' DIP was partly -- I talked about the call before, but partly about getting customers to come more time, additional occasions for customer.

Our customers typically shop with us four times a year and they're having pizza on a Friday night as a family. If they then have chicken on a Friday night, a few weeks later and they come and get that from us, we're growing the occasions with segments that we've already got. But then obviously, the other aspect of that was to grow the customer base. And this looks on certainly on the face of it at this stage, Tim, to be capable of doing that for us too. I think we'll have more for you probably towards the half year.

I mean there's a dip story as well, isn't...

There is a dip story. I should have mentioned the...

People are -- it's a new flavor event. So obviously, the iconic garlic sauce we'll love. People are buying dips with their pizzas. And it's another reason for coming to us instead of coming to our competitors. It's just differentiated and it's working. It's just interesting. It's not what we expected from the trial seeing how well that's gone there.

I think that kind of plays a little bit back to your question on the sort of pizza category as well. There's more, I think you can do with pizza around flavors. There's an infinite number of toppings and dips that you can put with the product to make it interesting. I think it's just running on the right one. But as Rich has quite rightly reminded me, we're seeing some brilliant incrementality across dips, actually more significant than chicken in some respects.

Brilliant. And my last one is just around capital returns. I guess you've sort of chosen today to increase the dividend, obviously, ahead of where the earnings trajectory has been. There was a small bit of buyback activity during Q4. But maybe just -- and again, totally aware and appreciate there's a new CFO sort of starting on Monday, but just, just your overall framing and thoughts around that balance of capital returns between buybacks and dividend and the sort of willingness to move the dividend payout ratio a little bit higher.

Richard?

The dividend increase is obviously a reflection of the Board's confidence in the strategy Nicola set out and the focus on the core and the opportunities that are there. One of Andrew's tasks, many tasks when he joins and we've been pretty close over the last six months is to review, as we've said we would, the capital allocation structure. In reality, if you look at consensus in the market this year, the CapEx that we've laid out, particularly getting SEC 5 done and the fact we're currently positioned towards the upper end of our range.

If you look at our old, old capital, we'll call it old capital allocation framework, there isn't significant room, significant keyword for buybacks in let's make it next 12 months. That might be a different conclusion by the Board might be a different conclusion for Andrew, and I'm going to leave it open to them. I think there'll always be a place for effective use of capital in Domino's and for capital returns at the right point. I think that's probably -- if you've got any follow-ups on that. I think that's a fair summary. And I'll be very interested to see the conclusion that the Board and Andrew and Nicola come to.

I've talking to the Board about it already, the Board is very keen to be very clear, but we also need to let Andrew come in and contribute his thoughts and ideas before we actually give any feedback back.

It's Anubhav Malhotra from Panmure Liberum. I've got a few, if you don't mind. Let's start with the new store format that you have launched, 720 square feet, a smaller format. Just maybe tell us a bit more about where you see opportunities to grow, how much that can grow? And what part of your new store increase objective for the next couple of years does that store format form part of?

Yes, sure. Thanks for the question, Anubhav. The pods that we opened in Wellington was developed with -- in collaboration with Motor Fuel Group with a view to sort of looking and exploring opportunities to get into some of their overserved real estate space. We did that principally for -- the main reason was actually availability of affordable real estate on the high street in the typical places that we would go. That was the main reason for doing it. But as we explored the pod and we worked with Modular 500 who have partnered with us on the construction, what we've realized is that there's also quite a significant opportunity for us to reduce the cost to build and cost to serve because it's a lower CapEx model, particularly where you get landlords -- and as Motor Fuel Groups indicated who are willing to do the CapEx of the build of the pod in the first place.

So I think we've got the first one open. It's operating really well. It's performing well. We're not seeing any -- it's running on a standard format, the traditional Delco, if you walk inside, it doesn't look any different to Domino's store because that wasn't one of its primary objectives.

It's performing well, and we anticipate maybe another two or three into 2026 out of the portfolio of stores could be in that format subject to the obvious challenges of the space but also the planning commission.

They have exactly the same planning commission requirements as a traditional store. So it doesn't help us from a planning point of view at all. However, sort of just going back to, I think, where do you see it popping up going forward? We are -- we have indicated that we are exploring, again, it goes back to sort of how do we increase our addressable market. So what are the types of occasions that we can further explore. And obviously, talking to Motor Fuel Groups has got us thinking about travel retail.

We've been there before. It didn't work. But obviously, in the days of electric vehicles, longer dwell times, et cetera, sometimes it's the right idea, not necessarily the right place. So I think travel retail potentially is an area we would like to explore as well as the sort of shop-in-shop opportunities that you see, particularly in venues like train stations, which again is aligned to travel retail.

So what the development team is doing essentially is continuing to -- we've now got effectively a blueprint in the pod. And now we're working how do we get that down in size. So we've got a unit at the moment that's at 500 square feet. It's tiny. That will require some changes to the operating model, and it will bring in -- it will require labor efficiencies, but will also bring in both labor and CapEx efficiencies.

And it's early days. So I wouldn't like to give a number on how many of those we will get. So at this stage, I'm not giving lots of guidance on new store openings because there's so many of the factors these days that affected this last year, sorry, '25 was very much impacted by the National Insurance threshold and the impact that, that has on store profitability and therefore, variability of sites and dispatches being generally sensitive, coupled with, again, the availability of real estate, the cost of real estate and then the planning requirements. So lots of things for us to consider. So we expect this year to be -- I probably -- if I was going to give any guidance at all, and I'm trying hard not to, it will be around '25. But I want to make sure that we meet or exceed that in the way that we did when we reguided you all on the 2025 number.

We don't need those formats to deliver those numbers. But in the long term, maximizing our opportunities will be great.

That's absolutely right. We've got a pipeline and by pipeline, I mean, identified physical sites that are at different stages of negotiations with landlords and planning, but a number significantly in excess of '25. So we're very confident in the number for '26 being broadly what I've indicated.

Next one is on the CapEx that you've guided for this year. So the extra CapEx this year is going into the supply chain center. Just maybe looking forward and thinking of a more normalized run rate of CapEx, how should we think about that, especially how far ahead are you with your automation projects if those are mostly complete or there's more to go? Just more guidance.

So look, again, you go back to Andrew Andrea's review of capital needs of the business, returns opportunity, balance sheet, et cetera. But in the presentation, which I'm sure you've all watched and listened to closely, I talk about it returning to more normalized levels. Clearly, that means lower in '27 than this year. I think the SEC 5 numbers in aggregate, looking at automation and that across the supply chain, but not maintenance at GBP 20 million. And obviously, there will be some more automation projects in '27.

I'm sure that Pete who is here has a list of those that we've discussed. But I think '27 will be above probably similar to the current year and then it should be reduced, subject to opportunities that the team identify the returns we can generate, the new store opening opportunities that come with Shorecal and Victa. So I'm giving you a trajectory rather than precision, because I'm pretty positive about the Irish market. And I think we've got a real store opening opportunity there.

And just one last one. I know you would be asked this many times before with GLP-1, the impact of that, potentially, if you could maybe describe that impact from the point of view of maybe your best consumers out there. Have you been tracking their consumption and seeing maybe a reduction in frequency amongst your best consumers, those who are ordering 8 to 10x...

Before we answer 23 kilos, and I had a large double pepperoni, jalapeno pepper pizza. Nicola, you give the real answer. I just wondering the impact of GLP-1, they are still eating at least 4 times a year.

I think it's a good -- I don't really know how to follow that.

I think you follow the fact of what we've seen as opposed to the benefit of one pizza fan.

What I would say is, i.e., a lot of our pizza, and I don't have a problem or requirement for GLP-1. I don't think our product -- I mean, as I said earlier, our customers, I think you made the point yourself, but on average, order pizza 4 times a year. So GLP-1 isn't having any form of structural impact on our business whatsoever.

We're very, very different to that sort of weekly lunchtime spend. Even with, I would say, with the most loyal customers, we're not seeing any -- I would say in terms of what we see in our database, and you can't say whether it's GLP-1 because unfortunately, they don't tell us whether they're taking the drugs or not.

But I would say that in our core customer base, the frequency is going up, right, which again indicates that GLP-1 is not a factor in affecting Domino's. That said, I think -- and again, I think you saw it in my presentation, you can't ignore it. I think increasing numbers of households will have at least one GLP user potentially going forward, particularly when it goes into the tablet form.

And we've always innovated with an eye on the future and with an eye on consumer trends. And I use the term trends loosely. I'm not suggesting it's a trend or a fad, but it's a change in how consumers behave and what they want to consume. So a significant part of what we do with our product innovation is making sure that we've got a very broad range on our menus that can suit all of the diners, whether it's a low appetite, small portion that's heavy veg loaded.

I mean we're right the way down to loaded veg at 200 calories. But equally, you might have that GLP that wants that small portion, but then the rest of the family want a pepperoni passion. That is also then available for them to order in a range of sizes to suit their family appetite. So I think for us, we're just making sure that GLP-1 and all of the food preferences are being taken into consideration as we do all of our product innovation.

Katie Cousins, Shore Capital. First of all, could you just tell us where we're at with food basket inflation for the year ahead, please?

Do you want to take that?

Well, what we said to the franchisees. -- happy to say that in terms of our supply cost then for food. We've done a really good job.

We have done a really good job. So our food costs for 2026 franchisees year-on-year are lower than they were in 2025. And that's largely a result of what's been going on in the milk market with cheese. So we're in a really good position from that point of view. I'm not going to give any more detail in terms of the financials around that. But I think we've been able to signal to franchisees a very strong food price benefit. And as I said earlier, a lot of that is locked in for a longer-term contracts with suppliers that also insulate us to an extent from any sort of freight risk and what have you. So from that point of view, I think we're in a really good place, and I think it will help franchisees make sensible pricing decisions into 2026.

Okay. And then from your comments earlier, is it fair to assume now those medium- to long-term store rollouts, so I think it was 2,000 stores and GBP 2.5 billion of system sales is now all under consideration, so then we shouldn't really...

I think the aspiration is correct. I think we talked about it -- I think we initially started talking about that number in 2024. And clearly, quite a lot changed structurally for us in the sector. So I think we look at our white space. I think it is achievable and it's achievable with the Domino's format. That we've got now, but we'll also need some development on new. So talking earlier about the travel retail opportunity. That's the way we get to 2,000.

So really, it's about making sure that we go at the right pace to grab the right opportunities. I also think we don't know yet what CHICK 'N' will do more broadly to the store's overall P&L. And ultimately, then what that does to the viability of the white space across the rest of the U.K. and it is likely, but I can't make any promises at this stage, Katie, that it could bring some of those to maturity a little bit sooner than we thought.

A lot have been pushed back because of that massive national insurance and labor burden and it would bring those forward. So the ambition is right. It's an achievable target, but I don't think it will be in 2033.

And then final one. I haven't seen a franchisee margin this time. Normally, there's a table in the presentation.

The franchisee profitability we didn't put in there. But last year, I think they made GBP 161.6 million -- sorry, GBP 1,000 per store on average.

Yes.

We shared that with them this morning, which is why it didn't go into the presentation because we presented.

We can put that information for you. I missed the fact that if we normally provide it. But franchisee profitability did decline by about 4% year-on-year. However, what I would say, Katie, is that, that is significantly ahead of where we thought we were going to land at the beginning of 2025 with them.

We were looking at a reduction of probably 20% to 25%. And in terms of the work that's been done around food pricing, around reducing some of the other consumables that they buy from us in terms of leaning into labor productivity through invest -- we've done some investment in labor scheduling and sales forecasting using AI.

We've increased the productivity of the teams that are working. We've reduced the amount of manpower that's actually required. And so we ended up -- I think the original estimate of the burden of both the national insurance threshold and the general national living wage is about GBP 36,000 per store. And I think we've mitigated to 20,000 of that through multiple initiatives, which is significant. So we've gone back 4%, not where we want to be, not where the franchisees want to be.

But I think what I would say is we'll go back to growth in 2026 if you look at where we've guided. And I'm also talking to franchisees regularly who are also feeling that their mood is really important. Franchisee mood can really make a difference to how the whole system shows up to the consumer. They're feeling very positive. They're also seeing the positive results that we've seen from the early release of CHICK 'N'. They've obviously heard about the food cost decreases. So I think we will see that momentum in terms of profit growth for them and for us start to get back into the shape we want into '26.

Ross Broadfoot from RBC. Two, please. I'll go one at a time. The first one, you've obviously been present on the aggregator apps for a little while now. And previously, the group has talked to incrementality from that presence. Could you give any color on how many new customers you think have come through that channel? And any commentary on conversion to the app? And actually, I'll give the second one straight away. Second brand, you've obviously stepped away from that a bit this morning. Is that just a waiting for new CEO comment? And second part of that, is that disappointing for the franchisees?

Okay. Let me start. I can answer some of your question on aggregator, but probably not everything that you were scratching out, Ross. So we might need to get back to you on some of the points and [ Sarah ] is here. So I might ask Sarah over the CHICK 'N' later to perhaps give you a little bit more color.

Nothing has changed in terms of what we're seeing on the aggregator platforms in terms of incrementality. We're running at about 75% roughly. That's how -- roughly where we calculate it. Aggregators about -- account for about 8% now of our orders, 12% delivered. So it's significant, but not a massive proportion of the business. I think the interesting thing is the profile of the consumers that are coming to us on the aggregator platform are typically more affluent and typically shop using aggregator platforms. So they are customers that we wouldn't have access to if we weren't there.

So I think to me, now aggregators is table stakes. It's a part of how we show up. We've seen some real strengthening of our core consumer database, the loyalty consumers are really doubling down. We've got fewer of the one and gone in that database because more of them, I think, are coming through from the aggregator platforms. But as I say, when we look at it, and we're very thoughtful on incrementality to make sure that we're not losing customers. It is very high.

In terms of seeing them coming to the app, it's pretty impossible to back to us. It's quite difficult to track, partly due to commercial arrangements that we've got with various partners. We probably got a little bit more insight with one than the other. They're a useful marketing tool for us, though. We've been collaborating with Uber brilliantly over the last few months and really seeing some growth, some quality market share growth for us and for them.

So yes, that's working really, really well. We've got good commercials with both that we're pretty happy with. But also we're a global brand. We're part of a global business, and there are some great negotiations, conversations going on about global agreements with some of these aggregator platforms that are equally global that I think can drive further margin improvement for the franchisees.

So I think we should all accept that aggregators are part of the way a lot of customers shop these days. We should embrace it. We should be present, and we should always have something to offer and attract them. Now then your next question, sorry. I'm learning. I've written down the forgot to look at my second brand.

So as we've signaled already, we have no plans whatsoever to pursue a second brand. We have said until a new CEO starts. But even then, it's not a case of we still got something in mind and we've just got to get a permanent person. It's just off the table. And I say that because actually, one of the sort of key ambitions from second brand was to grow the addressable market for our franchisees.

And I'll come back on to your sort of final question in a second, Ross, if I may. But we are seeing the potential for a similar level of growth. CHICK 'N' is a GBP 3 billion market. We've got 4% of that at the moment. It's hugely complementary to our business. Why would I want to spend hundreds of millions of pounds buying a chicken brand when actually I've got 1,400 stores, I've got a world-class supply chain. I need no CapEx whatsoever.

We're not having to invest anything in the stores. This chicken just goes through all our existing cooking mechanisms, all our existing operations, go through peak supply chain like a dream. Why would I want to spend all that money on a second brand? We've -- I think Sarah's team have done the most outstanding job putting the product together in a way that we've got a really distinctive sub-brand, right?

You wouldn't want to walk away from the Domino's brand. Why would you? We were Brand of the Year by the Marketing Society last year. That's what we want above the door. But having that instant recognition that there's also now -- it's a new product. I've seen some commentary somewhere, so it's just chicken, they already did that. They just wrapped it up differently. That's rubbish, frankly.

We've got new tenders. We've got new bikes. We've got 7 of the 9 we've got on office, 7 of them are brand new. And they are, as we heard earlier, flying off the shelves. So I don't think we need a second brand, frankly. We needed to grow our market opportunity and our growth potential, but we don't necessarily need to do it through a second brand. So to your point about the franchisees disappointed, no, they're not. They're not at all disappointed because they, like me, are going, right, Nicola, what do we need to do to really exploit this opportunity. We want to go after it. They're so excited about it. And I think that's really where all of our focus and all of our energy and effort is now going because it's a much cheaper way of doing it.

Thank you. It's Hai here from UBS. My first one is on the dynamics of the first 9, 10 weeks when you say good momentum there. Is that still price driven mostly based on the trends we've seen in the past? And why the question is into 2026, at what point do you think pricing will hit the ceiling and you need volumes to come back to meet targets? My second one is just on the apps loyalty. So you mentioned before in the early days of the trial that I think there's a 10% uptick in frequency. Have you seen that with the 3 million customers that you've rolled out with? -- the same trends as well? Is it incremental?

Okay. So the first question about your -- obviously, if I tell you about the first 9, 10 weeks, I'll have to kill you. I really want to do that. What I can say is that it's not price driven and that there's some good order count there, positive order count.

Okay. So I think that's probably about as much as I can say right now. So when we get to the trading update after quarter 1, I think I'll be in a better position to give you some answers to those questions. But I would just say that 9, 10 weeks of positive order count is something that I think demonstrates that we are getting very, very back to focus on our core business.

I don't know all the answer to your question about the loyalty uptake. I understand it's the same. We've not seen any deterioration in performance 1.8 million customers at the moment on the loyalty scheme as it is today. We've invited more than that, but that's the number of customers that we've got. As I say, they will probably take 12 to 18 months to mature in terms of their behavior for us to take any real analysis as to the impact that it's having. But our view is that it is continuing to be positive and incremental for others.

All the way down because that really matters of pizza champions, that's me, as you've heard earlier, will benefit from joining loyalty and getting extra pizza. It's the people who are less frequent. That's what I'd be most interested as the CFO looking at the data is the incrementality and the benefits happening in these lower frequency cohorts. But as Nicola said, we'll give you some more information. Andrew and Nicola will later this year.

I think towards the end of the year is probably the best time to come back and ask us about loyalty. I think we'll have a lot more analysis and insight for you then in terms of what's happening.

Richard Stuber from Deutsche Bank. Just 2 questions left, please, for me. First of all, just in terms of the chicken market, I think you said you got over 3.8% of the 3 billion market. So that's about GBP 100 million of sales at the moment. Is that also CHICK 'N' DIP? Or is that part of it was some of your existing sort of chicken sales within the sort of Domino's menu? And what percentage do you think you can get to? Obviously, you got 50% in pizza, but do you think you can get to sort of mid- to high single-digit percentage in there?

And the second question is just really about new store performance. Any metrics on that? I know historically, sometimes you've talked about some new stores, which are opening with greater average weekly unit sales and sort of lower [ discounts ]. So any color around how new stores are performing, please?

I think, Richard, to your point on CHICK 'N', that market share is from just the existing. That's where we were before the launch of CHICK 'N' roughly. There have been some trial data in there, but we're running about [ 222 ] stores, I think it was.

We're not setting out our market share ambition.

We're not setting out any market share ambitions at this moment in time. It's early, Richard. As I say, it's only been launched full estate 3 weeks ago. We've only got 3 weeks worth of data. And then if you look at the sort of customer behavior and performance and what was referencing before, it's probably 12 to 16 weeks before we'll get our first read on repeat rates and what have you. And I think once we've got that, we'll maybe get a better clue on market share. But I'm sure -- I mean, I could tell you any number on market share, but you're going to ask what Kantar said anyway. So I think let's wait and see what Kantar come back to us with on that as well.

New store performance.

New store performance. I don't have any updates on new store performance than what we've previously guided. I mean the stores that we opened in 2025, not a lot of them have annualized yet because we opened -- 18 of them came through right at the very end, which were a feature of some of the planning and last minuteness of the way the property system works. So it's probably a question for the half year, and we'll bring some more data back on as some of those new stores are annualized because I can talk about 24 stores, but we've already covered those for you.

A couple of follow-ups, if that's okay. It's Douglas Jack at Peel Hunt. You talked about the cost pressures in 2025, employers, NIC and all that. And you're coming into '26 with your food cost lower and your energy locked in. What are you seeing in terms of competitors and their pricing and their behavior in that environment? That was the first question. And the second one was just on the underlying costs. If you could just go through those very quickly.

And which part of which business Doug -- just coming to the second part first, the underlying costs.

Sorry, non-underlying...

The non-underlying costs. Shall I take that at the moment? Do you want to just talk about the competitive environment and how we're seeing the likes of Papa John's and...

Yes. I mean, look, I don't know too much about Papa John's cost pressures or Pizza Hut cost pressures, et cetera, and how they're responding to it. I mean, all I can say, Doug, to be honest, is I'm very pleased to be sitting in this seat and not sat in the seat of the other brands because if you look at that, we're not able in our market share data anymore to share who is who on the fly, Kantar restricted us from doing that.

So again, if I told you, I'd have to be killed. So I don't particularly want to do that either, Doug. But I think they are struggling. You can see they're struggling on their share data. And you can see they're struggling in terms of some of their responses in the market around customer pricing, because I think there's a degree of, I don't know, desperation, I suppose, that you can see start to come through.

So I think what we typically do is we look at the market environment that we're operating in. We very much look at market share as our bellwether to see how are we doing. We look at our own data to see what's happening in our own customer database to see what the impact of price changes, increases, et cetera, is. And that's really what we get focused on.

Not seeing anything much. I mean there's been some narrative around supermarket pizza sales. I mean why would you bother? Why would you bother? -- cheap supermarket pizza, you've got to take home and cook. I don't think it's a comparison at all, and we're not seeing any impact of that on Domino's. As I said, go back to before, we are the family treat on a Friday night. It's not a treat when you've got to cook your own pizza from the supermarket and scrap it off your pizza plan at the end of it. So -- as a working mom, -- so yes, I think that's it. And on the do you want to start with Shorecal and then I'll...

Yes, just to check, are you talking about for FY '26, where I hope that it will be just reacquired rights amortization? Or you want me to run through the 2025 I did on the presentation?

A bit of both.

Okay. Well, if I just run through, there obviously was a good gain on Full House, which is a long-term investment with the partnership [indiscernible] we sold that in December. Transaction completed GBP 17.7 million of cash in, which you'll have seen in the cash flow and the net debt bridge and obviously, a very good gain on that asset.

On the flip side, we did have to impact and impair Shorecal. Two drivers of that because it's easy, I wasn't around, the classic wasn't on my watch. In March '24, the environment, the U.K. economy and the outlook was different. And the business plan was put forward, a really good one because I've gone through it the post that review by the team to work out the ambition for that business.

We bought the business. Two really big things have happened commercially. Firstly is the November '24 budget, which we all know impacted our and everyone else in the QSR hospitality industry materially. And that has increased the cost of employing people, our franchisees and the Shorecal people and the management running businesses pretty efficiently. We've had to view that as a permanent change in the profitability of the business, and that is one chunk of the impairment.

The second was a no known, but the impacts are different. So in the Republic of Ireland, we committed with Revenue Ireland that we transition our contract drivers, delivery drivers and make them full-time employees, that itself had a cost, which was built into our plan and hope for efficiency.

What's happened since then is Revenue of Ireland have applied that model to everybody in the industry, and it's driven up the cost of delivery for everybody in the market significantly, and that we viewed as a permanent impact.

Store openings have been a bit slower than we perhaps hoped in the first year or so of ownership of Shorecal, but they've been very good in Victa, where we've been involved as joint venture partners. So we've seen that happening.

The white space opportunity still looks good. So yes, it's disappointing to impair it. It's about 12% of the carrying value. The other obvious cost is the transaction costs, which is GBP 6 million spent on a number of transactions, which ultimately didn't proceed as we've made it clear, activity in that area has ceased. I hope that's answered the question.

Any more question?

I thought I would agree because only have one round.

We can chat about it if you like. I don't want to sort of labor the point in terms of current trading because I know it sort of can get a little tedious, but there was an awful lot happening in the U.K. in that fourth quarter, the uncertainty of that later budget cycle in particular.

And obviously, you referenced then strong Christmas then flowing into the year. So again, I'm not expecting you to give me a month-by-month breakdown of things, but just sort of some flavor as to how you saw that backdrop play through? And to what extent, again, is it about things you've been in control of with the launch of the CHICK 'N' offer versus that sort of uncertainty for the consumer, which seems for a lot of businesses to cause a lot of volatility in Q4.

Yes. It's -- good question. Certainly, in the latter part of 2025, we really saw things start to pick up, I'd say, in November, the last sort of couple of periods of the year. I mean it's always the golden quarter anyway, the last 3 months of the year, typically for us. And normally for retail. And I think this year, what we saw was the broader retailers saying it hasn't actually been that great of a quarter and it's been quite tricky, but we held up really, really well.

And I think it comes back to -- it comes back to our core philosophy around innovating around pizza and being the brand that customers tend to evolve around. And I think certainly, the stuff that we launched food in terms of bringing back the ultimate Christmas turkey, Christmas pizza and bringing back all of the sort of core items from Christmas, that sort of really anxious, delicious, lovely food that we do seem to be something that consumers in tough times really held on daily to and brought back to the table much more strongly. So I think what we saw was it in our control, I think it was, but I say that because of the focus that we have on that one more time that back to the core proposition and making sure that we've always got something that is relevant to the right occasions in the customers' lives, and that's been a real focus.

Constancy of pricing on the national offers has been a good thing as well.

It has -- one of the other things that we've done, and this is very much in close collaboration with our franchisees as it always has to be when we run national deals, -- we've been running two very consistent and very attractive national deals, one across delivery in terms of price lice and one across collection in terms of collection perfection.

We -- I think, again, you can maybe pick up with Sarah later, but what we have seen and what we've seen in our data is that, that really is driving repeat rates because it's a great deal. It's an easy-to-understand deal. It's easy to find on the system, and it's just offering great, great value.

So it goes back to the fundamental value proposition of Domino's, which is great product, fantastic service where you're going to get you to pizza delivered in less than 25 minutes if it's not Domino's, because I know if you tried an aggregator, it's about an hour. The fact that, as I said, back to the brand being in people's psyche is so, so important and that we're the first pizza brand that anybody ever thinks about.

And having that really clear and consistent price point, it's screaming value at the consumer. We are seeing that, that is one of the things that is underpinning our sort of sales performance in the latter part of the year. So I think is it in our control, not 100%, but I think we've done an awful lot to pull levers to help that. I think that, as I said, did give us momentum into January and February.

There's bound to be some weather impact. I know everyone thinks about the weather and bad weather always makes customers want to stay at home and order more delivery. So we benefit from some of that, but it's not something we plan our business around nor that we're dependent on.

And actually, sometimes the weather goes against us because I'm sure in June, we'll be craging because the sun is out and everyone is wanting to have a barbecue. So we don't spend too much time worrying about the weather, but there will have been an impact from that as well. And then to sort of finish your question, I think CHICK 'N' is definitely then starting to form a part.

I don't want CHICK 'N' to sound like it's a major player here, though. We have got a drumbeat of core pizza innovation that comes out campaign after campaign campaign. We bring them back. We listen to customers, they say, I'm missing my hot honey [indiscernible]. That was the battle cry a few months ago. And so that came back to the menu. So I think some of it is the consumer environment and some of it is how we respond to it and then go back out with something that they want to buy from us.

I mean there'll be more detail in the quarterly update. We're holding our four times a year update in terms of what our quarterly results were and the drivers of those.

I've been told several times not to say too much about...

It's positive.

Thank you for the grilling. Look, this is -- a couple of things. Firstly, I would like to say a massive thank you to my colleague here on my left, Richard Snow.

He's been my interim and the previous CEO's interim for an incredible amount of time and has done an amazing job. And I'd just like to say a massive thank you because you've been my wingman and kept me honest and on it across all these numbers.

I'm a step-up CEO. I'm interim, doesn't change my commitment to this business or this brand. I hope you've got that from me in spares today. I love this brand. I love this business. I love the people that are in it. It is my happy place, and Richard has come in and helped me really get a grip of where we are, stabilize the business, start to put some structure around the strategy, some clarity around the strategy.

And the strategy is not brand new. It's not -- I just plucked out of. It's all the stuff. I mean we have the most amazing ExCo in the world. And between us, I don't think anyone has got less than four years service and some of us have got 10-year service. And we have been the stable driving force of Domino's to all the other changes and things that go on.

We are the stabilizers of this bike. And so I do want to reassure everyone that this business is in really good shape. Our people are happy. Our franchisees are happy. We're feeling really confident and we've got some good momentum going into 2026.

I am sure there will be knocks and blows and battles ahead. But I think this year, we're well positioned to weather those storms better than we probably did in 2025. And I'm really looking forward to coming back in 6 months and telling you just how well we have weathered the storms. But yes, thank you, my friend.

Nicola, thank you. It's been great working with you. The business is in tremendously good hands. But that key point you've made, it's basically the same hands that are delivered in a market that's down 12% system growth, partnership franchisees and the [ ExCom ]. And a little bit when I look as a CFO at our business and the comms, there's been a huge obsession around second brand and what it means and buybacks. And there's noise outside. There's been this core group of people, which I've got to know by being interim, who have been utterly focused on just making that happen. Market down 12%, our business up and that doesn't happen overnight by miracle, by [indiscernible]. That's because of years of hard work done.

I have those words in my favor [indiscernible] them out.

Right. End up. Done.

Thank you very much, everyone.

Thank you. This now concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining today's presentation of our 2025 full year results. I'm Nicola Frampton. I've been at Domino for almost 5 years, most recently as Chief Operations Officer. And today, I have the privilege of speaking to you as Interim CEO.

I'll start with our operational progress in 2025, then I'll hand over to Richard, who will take you through our financial performance. After that, I'll return to share our priorities for 2026, our strategy, where we're focused and the growth opportunities ahead.

But I do want to say this first, although my title is interim, my commitment to this brand, our teams, our franchisees and our investors is absolute. Since stepping into the role in November, my focus has been on stability with forward progress. And as we enter 2026 with both confidence and momentum, having set strong foundations for sustainable growth.

Domino's operates from a real position of strength. We continue to be the #1 pizza brand in the U.K. by market share. We have almost 1,400 trading stores across the U.K. and Ireland, thanks to our fantastic franchisees who continue to invest in the brand. We have over 12 million customers with 8 million using our app, which continues to grow in scale and in value.

Our supply chain capability is world-class, and we ended the year with over GBP 80 million in free cash flow. 2025 also brought external recognition across many elements of our operations from brand strength, marketing creativity, training excellence through to diversity inclusion and customer service.

These achievements underline the strength of our core and reinforce our confidence in the opportunities ahead. We closed 2025 with more than 52% market share in takeaway pizza, a result of relentless focus on brand, outstanding service and product innovation. When the market is challenging like this, you have to take share.

And it's worth noting that independents are also taking share. That tells us the category remains relevant with customers continuing to choose pizza, but their preferences have evolved. Those who respond successfully will continue to grow.

Importantly, though, we are not just outperforming in pizza. We've grown to 7.3% share of the total GBP 22 billion QSR market. This is a strong platform for us, yet demonstrates significant runway for the future expansion.

Today is about our 2025 results, but it's also important that you understand our focus for '26. Our strategy centers around 4 clear priorities: growing revenue through our core capabilities, increasing our addressable markets, accelerating digital and AI opportunities and doing this whilst driving operational efficiency and cost discipline.

Richard will now take you through the financials, and then I'll expand on each of these areas. Richard?

Thank you, Nicola. I will now run through the highlights of our 2025 results and our guidance for 2026. As the charts Nicola has just shown, 2025 was a challenging year for the QSR industry and pizza Delivery segment. In this context, getting the Domino's system to almost GBP 1.6 billion with system sales growth of 1.5% across 71.1 million customer orders was a great performance.

DPG itself delivered underlying EBITDA of GBP 133.9 million on GBP 685.4 million of revenue, in line with our expectations, but lower than 2024 for reasons I'll come on to in a moment.

Free cash flow generation, a key feature of our business model was again strong at GBP 80.7 million. And the Board has recommended a final dividend of 7.7p per share, up 3% on 2025, reflecting its confidence in the opportunities we have ahead of us.

As I said a moment ago, the Domino's system in the U.K. and Ireland grew by 1.5% last year. On the right-hand side, you can see the quarterly trends. Now in order to mitigate the impact of the 2024 U.K. budget, which brought higher employee taxation and minimum wage levels, overall system ticket rose by about 2.5%.

But reflective of a weaker U.K. economy, the overall system orders declined by 0.9%, which had a knock-on impact on supply chain profits. Whilst these quarterly trends very much reflected this environment, we had a good run into Christmas and the positive momentum we saw then has continued into this early part of 2026.

On the left, you can see performance by channel. Collection has done particularly well, as you would expect in a tougher environment for customers. Looking next at system and DPG revenue trends. Overall, the U.K. and Irish system grew by 1.5% with the U.K. stores growing by 1.4%.

The Irish market showed stronger growth, reflecting the benefit of the increase in the Irish store estate from 61 at the end of 2023 to 71 at the end of 2025. Now DPG's statutory revenues rose overall by 3.1% to GBP 685.4 million. Corporate stores revenue showed strong growth, up 75% to GBP 92.9 million with a full year contribution from Shorecal that we acquired in March 2024 and from the Northern Irish subsidiary, Victa, where we acquired Control in March '25.

Supply chain revenue declined by around 4%, partly driven by lower volumes, as I discussed earlier. NAF and e-commerce spending and therefore, revenue rose in line with the overall system. Next, let's look at EBITDA by activity. In FY '25 overall, EBITDA declined by 6.6% to GBP 133.9 million.

Although corporate store EBITDA grew almost 60% to GBP 10.6 million, driven by Shorecal and Victa, in the supply chain, reduced volumes and higher franchisee incentives impacted the supply chain center where EBITDA declined by about 8% to GBP 126.7 million. Overheads increased by 13%, driven by some one-off items in H1, as we explained at the half year results and the annualization impact of investment in skills and capabilities in 2024.

As we guided at the half year results, the increase in H2 for net overheads at 5% was very much lower than we saw in H1. Cost efficiency is an area of key focus for Nicola and her team for FY '26 as she will come to it in a minute.

As we flagged previously, technology costs, the specific spend we incurred on our new ERP system and tech platform stopped in H1, and this line should disappear in our future reporting. You will already have noted that the items down to underlying PBT are in line with our published guidance.

Overall, with EBITDA down 6.6% and higher depreciation and interest, underlying PBT was down 15% to GBP 91.2 million. Underlying EPS decreased by 13%, slightly better than PBT due to the benefits of the buybacks undertaken in 2024 and 2025.

Turning to non-underlying items, where in 2025, we saw a net charge of GBP 10.1 million. Let me run through the key drivers of this. Firstly, transaction costs relating to M&A transactions that ultimately did not proceed was GBP 6 million.

As we announced in November, all activity in relation to a second brand has now ceased. Reacquired rights amortization, which relates to the value of sub-franchises we've acquired with Shorecal and Victa deals have risen due to that M&A activity and will continue in the future.

In terms of asset carrying values, we recorded a GBP 10 million gain on the sale of a long-term investment and a similarly sized impairment on Shorecal. For Shorecal, the impairment charge at GBP 10.4 million or around 12% of its carrying value was primarily the result of higher structural employment costs in the U.K. following the November 2024 budget and in Ireland following our transition to a paid delivery driver model.

We view these changes as permanent and have, therefore, adjusted our carrying values. On the positive side, we recorded a GBP 10 million gain on the sale of our full house joint venture interest for GBP 17 million in December to our franchisee partners, reflecting the significant growth we and they have generated over a long period of time.

Strong and sustained free cash flow generation is a key asset of DPG. Although free cash flow was a little lower than in FY '24 at GBP 80.7 million, it provides us with the ability to invest in the core and to progressively grow dividends as we have again this year.

On this page, I've set out the group's current capital allocation framework showing where we generated capital and how we've deployed it in 2025. This framework will be reviewed by our incoming permanent CFO, Andrew Andrea, who will join us in the middle of March.

Overall, you can see that we generated capital sources of around GBP 98 million from the group's free cash flow generation and the sale of Full House in December. We've invested GBP 24 million of that in the core business, paid over GBP 43 million in dividends and invested GBP 25.6 million in Victa, where we took our control to 70%.

At year-end, reflecting in part our GBP 20 million buyback during Q4, debt rose to GBP 285 million from GBP 265 million at the end of 2024.

As a result, our gearing rose to 2.3x within our target 1.5x to 2.5x gearing range but towards the upper end of that range. In 2025, we continued to invest in the core business with GBP 6 million in our existing supply chain centers, introducing our first phases of automation, which are now online.

We invested around GBP 9 million in our new supply chain, SCC 5, where Phase 1 will complete shortly, and we will start operating later this month. GBP 7 million has been invested in our digital technology, keeping it effective and adding new functionality like flexible meal deals that our franchisees want to help differentiate us in the market.

Finally, we've invested GBP 2 million in our corporate stores network. Looking at current trading, we've built on the momentum we saw at Christmas 2025, and we have seen a good period of positive system sales and order count growth.

We are still early in 2026, but these trends are fully supportive of us delivering results consistent with our end market expectations. CHICK 'N' DIP was launched nationwide on the 9th of February and has started well with initial trends consistent with the trial we ran with franchisees in Ireland and the northwest of the U.K. last year.

Our FY '26 technical guidance is set out below. You will note that the completion of the SCC 5 means that our CapEx levels in FY '26 will be higher than usual with the bulk of this incurred in H1.

I will now hand you back to Nicola to take you through the strategic update.

Thank you, Richard. Now let's talk about our '26 strategy. Our strategy is anchored in our core business and the capabilities that have made Domino's the clear market leader. Focusing on our core means leveraging the superpowers of our brand, our products and our service, all underpinned by our infrastructure, distribution centers, store network and committed franchisees.

Our growth plans for 2026 revolve around 3 revenue opportunities: giving customers more reasons to choose Domino's, expanding our addressable markets where we can compete and elevating our digital capabilities to drive retention and loyalty. And we will do this whilst continuing to strengthen efficiency and cost discipline to support profitable growth.

Even with 52% pizza market share, we know there remains headroom for further growth. Our ambition is simple: get customers to order one more time. Our formula is proven and it hasn't changed, and that's because it continues to work, great product, great service, great image at a price that is considered to offer great value for money.

Getting this balance right has driven a steady 10 percentage point improvement in our value for money score over the last 4 years. I'll start with pizza. Our product innovation continues to be a major driver of volume, value and order frequency, especially amongst our most loyal customers.

We have a strong innovation pipeline for '26 across Italian style pizzas, delicious new sites, seasonal launches and fashionable flavors. Our approach to our innovation pipeline also supports evolving customer needs.

While Domino's is typically an indulgent treat, many of our customers are increasingly seeking lighter options. So we're focused on 3 principles: communicate the healthier options we already offer, create lighter appetite choices on our menus and reformulate thoughtfully over time where it makes sense.

And this approach ensures we stay aligned with customer expectations without losing what makes Domino's special. And service remains one of our greatest differentiators. No one delivers like Domino's. Our on-time delivery has steadily improved by 6.8 percentage points over the last 4 years with our average delivery time below 25 minutes.

Delivering on our service promise drives brand trust, loyalty and retention, and our work to improve consistency has meant that more customers experience is more often. And when we talk about image, we're really talking about the power of our brand. Domino's is about belonging, bringing people together.

Let's have a Domino's is part of the nation's language. In 2025, we invested strongly in PR and social media activation. Our impressions are up nearly 100%. Our coverage is up over 50%. Our stunts, cultural moments and presence in the national conversations help us stay relevant, strengthen emotional connections and amplify the impact of our marketing.

And we have lots more exciting brand activity planned for '26. And in a year of inflationary pressure, thoughtful pricing has been essential. Strengthening our data insights capability really helps us understand the importance of a consistent national value proposition, one that communicates clear value across both delivery and collection.

This will remain a priority in 2026 as we continue to work closely with our franchisees to protect our hard-earned value perceptions and drive customer frequency. Now let's talk about chicken and the role it plays in our growth strategy. As shown earlier, we have a 52% share of the GBP 3 billion pizza market.

The chicken market is similarly sized at another GBP 3 billion that we currently hold just 3.8%. That means our addressable market effectively doubles as we expand into chicken. Our new CHICK 'N' DIP sub-brand positions us brilliantly to maximize this growth opportunity.

It offers new chicken tenders, new boneless bites, wings and 9 full flavor dips from around the world. Trials in the Northwest and Northern Ireland last year were positive. Over 80% of CHICK 'N' DIP orders contain both chicken and pizza. Dip attachment was strong across all order types even without chicken. And early indications are that our proposition will be incremental.

And uniquely, we've activated this across 1,400 stores instantly with no additional CapEx and deliver in around 25 minutes. No other chicken operator can match that level of scale, speed or consistency. If you haven't tried our new CHICK 'N' DIP yet, I would really encourage you to do so.

Whether you love it hot with our ghost chili or more exotic with our Mexican or Mayo, we have your taste covered. Turning now to digital. Digital is one of our greatest strengths and the headroom remains substantial, particularly in personalization, loyalty and AI-led experiences.

We are digital first. 84% of our orders are online. Almost 80% are placed through our 4.8 star app. App customers order more frequently and have higher loyalty, making digital a critical engine of growth. We design our customer experiences primarily for digital to deliver frictionless and highly personalized journeys, all engineered by our in-house digital and data teams. We continue to innovate across the entire customer journey. Pre-shop AI tools have been developed with Google and Meta, which have increased our marketing return investment by 29% since 2022.

In app, investments in personalization and core experiences have delivered 3.9 percentage points of conversion growth. And post-purchase, Dombots order tracking and our service recovery program ensures customers stay with us even when things go wrong. We're only at the start.

Our loyalty program reached 1.8 million active members in 2025, and we will be expanding its functionality in '26 to drive both acquisition and retention. We're also rolling out our in-house AI quality tool.

It's now live in half the estate, which assesses product quality in real time, a critical driver of order satisfaction and repeat rates. And we've yet to explore the GBP 9 billion digital gifting market, which will open up another significant growth opportunity and broaden our customer reach.

Importantly, operational efficiency sits at the heart of our core growth agenda, supported by our supply chain, productivity initiatives and disciplined cost management. Our new Avonmouth supply chain center goes live this month, and this purpose-built site has been designed specifically to support core Domino's growth.

It will optimize our radial distribution. It will improve our routing efficiency. It increases capacity around 1,000 additional deliveries per week. This investment strengthens an already outstanding network that delivers 99.9% availability and accuracy across 4,200 deliveries per week.

Avonmouth reinforces the beating heart of our operations as the system organically grows. Across our existing network infrastructure, we have a strong pipeline of productivity projects that will remove around 280,000 hours annually by 2028, helping us to better absorb cost increases.

And alongside that, we're maintaining a firm grip on our central costs, ensuring spend remains tightly aligned to our priorities. Better labor efficiency, smarter processes, asset utilization and procurement benefits will all help strengthen the system and protect profitability.

So as I said at the start, our strategy for 2026 is straightforward: grow revenue through the core, broaden the addressable market, accelerate digital and strengthen efficiency and cost discipline underpinned by prudent capital allocation.

The opportunity for sustainable growth is compelling. We have unmatched operational capability. We have momentum, and we have a focused strategy aligned to the opportunities ahead.

And all of it is built around one simple ambition to get customers to order one more time with Domino's. Thank you.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the Domino's Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Call. My name is Gaby, and I will be coordinating your call today. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand over to your host, Andrew Rennie, CEO of Domino's. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Gaby. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Look, I'm really delighted to deliver some -- what I think is positive news in a pretty tough environment. As you'll see from the Q3 results is that we've delivered a solid Q3 performance, positive sales and operational momentum in a tough consumer backdrop. In particular, I'm really pleased with the initial results from the introduction of our Chick 'N' Dip brand, which we'll give a lot more detail at our Investor Day coming up in a few weeks' time.

Our franchisees, which I'm really proud of, continue to lead the industry not only with amazing delivery times, but we continue to work with them to mitigate increasing costs and potential impact from the budget that may come towards us. We're in a really good place to deal with anything that's thrown at us. So, I feel like we're set up for success, not only towards the back end of this year, but also leading into next year. We're on track to achieve our full year profit expectations, as I said before, and we really look forward to setting out our future plans in the Investor Day in December.

Just a couple of numbers for you to walk away with. Total sales were up 2.1%. Our like-for-like sales were up 1%, excluding split, of course. Total orders were down slightly 1.5%, collection was up 1.7%, just showing how much value means to consumers at the moment and delivery is down a bit, which to us was expected due to cost impacts, et cetera, on the business. We've had really good positive feedback from customers from our Chick 'N' Dip launch, and we're very happy with where that's gone. And our ultimate Indian fees have gone really well as well. And the thing that impressed me most is that we've just gone through Halloween, which is one of our busiest days of the year, and the delivery times were once again outstanding to our franchise partners once again have really nailed the operational side of our business, which again ensures the long-term success of this brand.

Once again, I'll just reiterate that we're maintaining our guidance in the range of $130 million to $140 million EBITDA. New store openings was unchanged in the mid-20s. And we just launched yesterday our new pod format, which helps us get into the smaller towns, quite exciting. And again, at our Investor Day in 5 weeks' time, we'll be updating you on more of those detailed things, which are very exciting and the innovation that our team is bringing to this fantastic brand.

With that, I'll open the floor for questions.

[Operator Instructions] We have a question from Douglas Jack from Peel Hunt.

I've got 4 questions actually, if it's possible, but I feel like you can do one at a time. In terms of the loyalty program, how many app users are now got availability towards that? I knew you were about 3 million a few months ago. I was wondering if you're still at that level at the moment. If you want to do that one first?

Yes. Thanks, Douglas. Yes, we're around that 3 million mark. Look, it varies at the moment each week. So, I don't want to try and give you an inaccurate number, but it's around that 3 million number. So, it's still doing everything that we thought it would do. We still feel very good about that. And we still do plan to launch that in the back half of next year. Again, at the Investor Day, we'll give much more detail about what we've learned. And we've got a pretty good presentation coming. So yes, it's around that number, Douglas.

And in terms of the Indian ultimate fees, I mean, that 7.6% of sales only launched towards the end of Q3. What kind of impact could have had on like-for-like sales if it was launched, say, at the start of Q3? You obviously wouldn't expect that level to fully flow through. I'm guessing there'd be some rotation going on between products.

Yes, that's spot on. I mean, typically, you're replacing some of the other LTOs at that time, Douglas, people will switch out of their -- maybe their favorite pizza instead of just getting a pepperoni passion and say, a media or maybe they get a pepperoni passion and an Indian fee. So, there is a bit of swapping out. It does help like-for-like a little bit. But as you said, at the back end of Q3, it hasn't had a very big impact at all.

And in Q3, I think the cheese price has been falling as opposed to being up quite a lot in the first half. Is that helpful towards your margins in Q3? Or is there other things at play? I know you don't really want to get into too much detail on margins so being only a trading update.

Yes. We're not going to talk about margins but just remember that we have a mechanism in place that tops and tails cheese pricing. So, when it goes up too much, we don't feel the impact for some time it gets leveled out and likewise, when it goes down. So those things bode well for 2026 because that gives us a great runway for pricing into next year. So, it's a good thing, but it doesn't have an impact in the immediate short term.

And just last question. The pipeline, the new store pipeline for 2026. Obviously, the expansion rate slowed a bit in 2025. Does that point to sort of higher quality openings and a good pipeline of available sites for next year as things stand at the moment?

Yes. Again, I'd like to give more detail on that on the Capital Markets Day also at the Investor Day, simply because we've got 4 or 5 different points that we want to sort of showcase, particularly around these new pods. All our openings are quality openings. We don't open a store unless we believe it's going to be quality openings. So even the mid-20s that we'll get this year are high quality. So we want to lay out sort of a longer-term plan, not just focus on next year, we want to focus on the longer-term as well when we update everyone in 5 weeks' time.

Our next question is from Katie Cousins from Shore Capital.

Just a couple from me, if I may. First, on the loyalty program, too. You previously talked about seeing 10% incremental sales coming from loyalty program. Is that still kind of the thinking at the minute?

Look, I don't want to give away too much yet because we're still finalizing the data. And remember, in the early days, we're talking to customers that only buy pretty irregularly. So, I'd rather say that to the Investor Day. What I can say is it hasn't changed from what we've seen at the start. We still continue to see good incrementality. And you've got to discern between incrementality of a consumer buying a bit more versus sales. I mean there are 2 different things, right? So again, more detail I can give you will be in the Investor Day because I think you need to see the whole picture. But having said that, we're very happy with how it's going. Cool.

And just thinking about Q3 like-for-like trends. Obviously, we had a weak run rate to start with and picking up in July. But how did that look in August and September?

Yes. Look, it wasn't too bad. We don't break it out specifically. But yes, we've -- it did as we expected it to do. And we feel as though that Q4, all going well, will do what we expect to do as well. The consumer is in a tough place out there at the moment, right? We all recognize that. We've taken the tough decisions on pricing and all the rest of it we need to do to make sure that our franchisees and our business is in a really good place profitability-wis and that's working. So, we're setting ourselves up for a very good 2026 regardless of what happens in the budget. That's what I feel very comfortable about.

And then finally, just on share buybacks, obviously, you -- the GBP 20 million. But how should we think about that capital allocation over the '26 and '27?

Again, at the Investor Day, we'll give an update on the capital allocation, et cetera, because I think it's a topic that would be disingenuous if I try to explain it here right now. I think the Board needs to be fully signed off on the plan. But yes, we've been analyzing that, and I think we'll have some definite updates on the endeavor.

We said that barring any move on a second brand that we would look at the position as we do every year again at the end of the year. But if you put the GBP 20 million in your models and see the level of gearing we have, as we exit this year, we're at the upper end of our 1.5 to 2.5x range. But in terms of our capital allocation model, we've applied it consistently. We've returned the best part in dividends and buybacks of GBP 0.5 billion over the last 5 years. So no change, no update there and the buyback went down well with our investors.

Our next question is from Hai Huynh from UBS.

So, my first one is, how are you seeing the competitive landscape over Q3? Volumes were down, pricing up, but did you gain volume share? Or in Q3, you were in line with the market in terms of the volume development? And what about the pricing in the industry? Have you seen competitors also increasing prices? And just a follow-up on that, what are the pricing plans for the rest of the year and into FY '26? That's my first question, please.

Just to comment, we obviously -- we only see and talk about revenue data for the system. People don't disclose volumes and shipment orders by industry, by pizza. So Andrew, you just want to talk about the pricing environment in the market. I think we've gained a little bit of share again.

Yes. Look, all I would say is that our market share has grown again, which is the best sign that we're winning in the pizza space. When we see around the marketplace what others are pricing, they're pricing very similar to us. So, we don't have -- we're not at a disadvantage, which again shows why we're growing market share. So yes, we won't talk too much about pricing because it would be stupid for me to lead for our competitors on what we intend to do with pricing. All I can say is that our cost structures are very stable for next year. Obviously, we're all waiting for the autumn budget, but we've factored a lot of thinking in around that already. But we feel pretty comfortable with where our pricing is today, and we feel very comfortable with where we roll into 2026.

Yes. We have said in the statement -- sorry, it's Richard Snow, the interim CFO here. I realize that the call moderated and introduced me. We have said we expect order count position to be weak into next year because of the pricing environment and because of what we've heard from Rachel today.

Understood. Got it. Regarding the CapEx, so I believe the last time in half 1, it was guided EUR 22 million, now it's EUR 25 million. So what's the main driver of the increase? Is that the warehouse automation that you've talked about that already? Or is it the Chick 'N' Dip or the new internal menu.

That's exactly right. It's accelerating the investment in automation. And of course, next year, you'll see higher CapEx. We haven't given a number yet, but obviously higher CapEx because of the supply chain investment. Andrew, do you just want to talk about the benefits of that?

Yes. So first of all, there's no CapEx involved in Chick 'N' Dip. All the CapEx is going towards becoming a more efficient system through automation and building more capacity, as we've spoken about before, for the SEC 5. That's all on track. We feel very good about that. That automation is now starting to roll out and see the benefits of that. We'll see the real benefits of that as we roll into next year. So yes, the CapEx has a fantastic ROI on that CapEx. So we feel very good about it.

And my last question, please. So you opened 18 gross new stores year-to-date. Where have you been opening mainly? Is that smaller address count area? Is that Ireland, Northern Ireland or within England?

It's a good mixture of everywhere. There's no particular area that we're focused on. It's just availability of locations, planning acceptance. Yes, so they're pretty well spread. Some are small towns, some are fortressing of splitting current stores, some are in Ireland, some are in Scotland. So yes, there's no specific area that we've targeted.

And on the smaller address count areas, is that in line with what you've said before in terms of higher average weekly sales from those new smaller address count areas than expected?

Yes. All of them penetrate at a higher return per address compared to the rest of the market. So yes, that hasn't changed.

Our next question is from Anubhav Malhotra from Panmure Liberum.

Just a couple from me, please. Maybe on the 5% pricing in the quarter, if you could help split that into how much of it was due to lower promotions? How much of it was due to higher menu prices? And was there any changes to the delivery charges that are charged to consumer? And then maybe on the Chick 'N' Dip side, can you give us some clue on how the consumer has been ordering the Chick 'N' Dip? Has it been mostly a case of an add-on to an existing pizza order? And or in some cases, had it been a case of a separate order, just a Chick 'N' Dip order on its own?

Yes. And there's no simple answer to what you've asked, unfortunately, because some franchisees have put delivery pricing up, some franchisees have put delivery fees down. Some franchisees are a little bit more aggressive, some franchisees are being less aggressive. So, I would say that our pricing has not changed in terms of strategy and what it has in the last 12 months or so. So, price hasn't really been a major factor in what we've been achieving. If you look at it, we've got a strategy that we've deployed that, yes, has taken into account cost increases, particularly with national insurance, et cetera, but that's across the board. So yes, it's too intricate to try and disseminate across nearly 1,400 stores, all the ups and the downs, right? Because every franchisee has its own strategy in terms of their own area. And we're seeing some great success. We've got some franchisees that are growing very, very nicely actually.

Most importantly, franchisee profitability is in a good place, right? We've been able to regain a lot of the profits that were taken from the higher costs, et cetera, from wages and from national insurance. So, we're going in a really good direction on franchisee profitability, which is our main focus. Your question about Chick 'N' Dip. Look, I don't want to give too much away again because our Investor Day is going to go into more detail, and it would be wrong for me to give you bits and pieces. All I will say is it's a combination of new customers and customers ordering with Pizza and without pizza. So, it's all those. It ticks all those boxes. And it's performed sort of ahead of what we expect it to be fair. So yes, we're very, very happy with what we've seen so far. But again, on the Investor Day, you'll get much more detail.

[Operator Instructions]

Well, Gaby, I think if there's no more questions, I'll let you -- I'll finish up by just saying, first of all, thank you very much for everyone for their time for joining. I really appreciate it. I feel really good about the company. I feel really good about our core business and where it is in this environment. I think we always have to put it in context of -- versus others. I think when you see that we continue to grow our market share in a tough environment, we continue to give outstanding delivery times, which is best-in-class. Our franchisees' profits continue to be some of the strongest in the world. Our customers keep telling us that they love what we do in terms of product quality and innovation. And I'm very excited about Chick 'N' Dip and what the team have done. It's been quite incredible. And loyalty, again, is on track and doing as we expected.

So, a lot of great levers there, plus the automation. But I'm really excited. I've got all my team coming along to present at the Investor Day, 5 weeks away. And I think, again, a lot more detail about the core of this business and how strong it is and where we're going. We feel very positive. And hence, why we're excited to come to the Investor Day and showcase everything that we can do. The environment is tough. We know that, right. But even with a tough environment, we feel like we've set the business up to deal with whatever comes at us with the budget. So really look forward to presenting to everyone in more detail at the Investor Day. Thank you very much, Gabby, and thank you, everyone, for attending.

Thank you. This concludes today's Domino's Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.