Thank you, Rituja. Hello and good afternoon everyone present on the call.

I, on behalf of ICICI Securities, welcome you on AWL Agri Business Limited's Q3 FY26 earnings call. I would like to thank the management to give this opportunity of hosting the call.

From the management, we have Mr. Angshu Mallick, Executive Deputy Chairman; Mr.

Shrikant Kanhere, MD & CEO; Mr. Saumin Sheth, Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer; and Mr.

Pankaj Goyal, the Interim CFO. I now hand the call over to the management for any opening remarks.

Thank you.

Thank you, and good evening everyone, and thank you again for joining this call. I will begin with a brief overview on the operating environment, followed by our Q3 performance and the key business updates.

During the quarter, operating environment remained mixed with a heightened volatility in sunflower oil following intensification of Ukraine conflict, even as Russia emerged as the largest supplier to India. Edible oil prices more or less remained largely range-bound with a grammage-led value offerings continuing across the industry.

We also saw off-late Indonesia delaying the B50 mandate and a continued availability of cheaper soya imports under the SAFTA route into the India, shaping overall market dynamics. Edible oil imports have remained broadly flattish over past two oil years now, close to 16 million tons in both the years.

During the current year, import across all three major oils—palm, soya, and sunflower—were lower compared to the last year, indicating measured consumption and the inventory discipline. Sunflower continued to trade at a premium over soya and palm during the quarter, and at the same time, the price gap between the soya and palm widened meaningfully, influencing customer's choice and a portfolio mix across the categories.

Finally, we are seeing the chart which usually we used to see a couple of years back where sunflower sitting on the top of the table, followed by soya and finally palm. On wheat side, this year the wheat prices more or less remained range-bound between the range of ₹27, ₹27.5 to ₹28.5, ₹29 a kg, flattish kind of price trend that we have observed.

This essentially puts players like us into a disadvantageous position who procure significant amount of wheat during the harvest, and of course, it puts into advantageous position to all the smaller and repackers who normally work on a replacement basis. On the results snapshot for the Q3 FY26 against this backdrop, Q3 FY26 overall volume grew by 3% year-on-year while revenue increased by 10%.

Profitability during the quarter was in line with the management estimates, reflecting disciplined execution in a stable pricing environment. Our core brands continued to perform well with Fortune brand and food delivering a very healthy growth of 13% year-on-year.

Kohinoor, which we acquired in May 2022, registered a strong growth of 32% while King's, which is now second largest brand in India, oil and food together grew by close to 7% year-on-year. Growth was broad-based across the channels, but the alternate channel and HoReCa plus the branded exports delivering even stronger momentum.

On the P&L, on a standalone basis, volume grew by 2% during the quarter with a revenue growth of 8%. On per-ton basis, that is what we always suggest to look at our profitability metrics, both the gross profit as well as the EBITDA remained in line with our stated management estimates.

On consolidated basis, volumes grew by 3% year-on-year with a revenue growth of 10%. The difference between standalone and consolidated profitability reflects improving performance of our Bangladesh subsidiary and a consolidation of GD Foods and Omkar Chemicals, both of which are scaling up well.

On a quarterly gross profit trends and EBITDA trends, we are delivering strong improvement in the gross profit and EBITDA per ton as compared to the previous quarters. This reflects better operating leverage, product mix, and a sustained cost discipline.

On the business updates, at a company level, volumes grew by 3% led by oils with food remained broadly flat, excluding G2G sales that we had last year. Industry essential declined due to challenging macros in castor, while oleo continued to scale steadily.

Our last 12-month EBITDA now is close to ₹2,200 crores, and the Q3 EBITDA stood at ₹637 crore. Consistently, we are delivering EBITDA of plus of ₹600 crore quarter after quarter.

Alternate channels for us continued to scale very rapidly with last 12-month revenue from this only channel close to ₹4,800 crore now. The demand environment remained moderately challenging, though the offtake improved in the second half of the quarter.

Edible oil volumes grew by 8% with broad-based gross growth across categories and double-digit growth in mustard. Market share improved sequentially on a quarterly basis, supported by high marketing intensity and continued grammage play that we saw across the industry.

On a food, volumes were impacted by a pricing action in the wheat and a flat G2G sales. However, our domestic branded rice business delivered a robust and sequentially improving growth.

We maintained market share in wheat flour and saw meaningful improvement in the basmati rice market share. Now basmati rice market share on a MAT basis has actually crossed 11.9%.

Products other than rice and wheat continued to grow in a strong double digit and now contribute to the 30% of the food or FMCG volume. These products are basically sugar, nuggets, pohas, suji, rawa, maida, and other products, which constitute now 30% and growing in a double digit.

On industry essential front, volumes were impacted by macro challenges in castor, while oleo volumes are flattish. Oleo contributes about 30% of the segment and continues to deliver high single-digit margins.

We are steadily diversifying into specialty chemicals, which now contributes close to 7%, 8% of our oleo volumes and offer higher margin potentials. On GD Foods, which we acquired this year in April 2025, the business delivered revenue growth of 15% with underlying volume growth of 18%.

Material margins stood at healthy 54% and distribution expenses remained the key focus. Alternate channels grew sharply for this particular business as the GD is increasingly leveraging AWL's distribution and infrastructure bundled offer along with the AWL products.

Our priorities for GD Foods includes accelerating distribution expansion, leveraging AWL's infrastructure, and scaling channels beyond general trade. We are also focused on driving growth in tail end products to broaden the portfolio and improve overall throughput.

On brand investment, we are consistently investing in this. We stepped up brand investment during the quarter with multiple new advertising campaigns launched across the region.

These investments are aimed at strengthening brand salience and supporting medium-term growth across the categories. As far as the distribution is concerned, now we reach close to 900 950,000 outlets across the country directly.

Rural distribution has scaled up to over 60,000 towns now, and we are now focused on improving throughput and distribution efficiency. Alternate channel remains one of the core focus area for us as this is the channel of the future and growing very fast.

Alternate channels continued their strong momentum this quarter also, with a volume growing by 42% year-on-year. Quick commerce now accounts for close to 30% of our overall alternate channel volumes, and we continue to invest behind this channel given its growth potential.

Quick commerce volume grew by robust 65% year-on-year during the quarter. Our brand strength is clearly reflected in the market leadership across the categories with strong shares in oil, soya nuggets, besan, sugar, and maida.

We continue to invest in expanding a meaningful portfolio and therefore in that direction, in the health and convenience portfolio, we launched Fortune multigrain atta during this quarter, and the initial feedback is quite positive on the product. Our value-added and convenience offering across oils and food are also steadily scaling as we plan to expand this portfolio further in the coming quarters.

With this, I think I am done with the initial thoughts about the performance of the company for the quarter. Now I hand over call to the chorus team to open the lines for Q&A, and me along with Mr.

Mallick and Saumin and Pankaj are here and happy to take questions from the participants. Over to you.

Thank you

Yeah. Good evening, gentlemen, and thanks for opportunity.

Sir, regarding your guidance of ₹3,500 to ₹10,000 EBITDA per ton as a sustainable. Now in stressed commodity cycle, what are the biggest levers where you can use to protect this margin, these numbers?

See, actually the levers are basically more to do with a proper risk management that we follow. In a sense, the guidance that we give of ₹3,500 to ₹3,600 is basis all the risk management that we have put in.

This is generally we have been able to deliver. Given the fact that our positions are not speculative in nature, and that is the basis at which we are giving this estimate of ₹3,500 to ₹3,600.

Generally, we have not seen this per-ton margins going down below this even in very strong bearish or a volatile trends.

Sir, in food business, we have become now EBITDA-positive. What margin band should we expect when this business grows meaningfully?

See, this business to actually deliver meaningful EBITDA, I think we will still have to allow some more time to this business. As we have said earlier that we took some pricing correction this year, and therefore we are EBITDA-positive.

However, having said that, this business will still remain in a investment phase or a growth phase as we go forward. For a meaningful EBITDA margins, I think we will have to wait for another two to three years where it will start delivering.

As we have been saying earlier also, the food has got better margin profile than edible oil. What we have seen in our competition, the EBITDA margins anywhere between 5% to 6% or little over 6% to 7% are something which we can look at for the food.

However, having said that, as I said earlier, this business for at least some time, for next two to three years, will still remain into a investment phase. Sir,

my last question is regarding GD Foods. As we have done 54% material margin, how much of these margins advantage can we retain as volume scale using AWL distribution channel?

No, I think we have already retained these margins. In fact, when we took over GD Foods, the material margins were actually in the range of 50% kind of margins.

While scaling up the business, we have been able to retain this margin. We don't want to grow by being aggressive on the pricing in the market.

Rather, we want to leverage the AWL distribution. That is what we are doing.

To answer your question straight, I think we will maintain these margin levels. Will be able to showcase growth just by leveraging the AWL distribution.

That's great, sir. Thank you very much, and very helpful to understand.

Thank you.

Hi. Good evening.

I had a few questions. The first was on this soya, palm, sun kind of pricing situation.

It seems like things have a little bit normalized, your volume growth is also back. Just wanted to get a sense of how you are kind of thinking about the macro context on the edible oil prices, you have a strong team who kind of works around this.

How in turn could that kind of affect the overall volume growth, maybe a near- to medium-term would be helpful, basis your understanding.

See, one is that we have been in all the category of oil that we work, so as a brand or as a company, we are present in all the oil. Whenever there is a escalation in price of one particular oil, say sunflower oil, then soybean oil is there with us or mustard oil or palm oil to back up the volume.

If you see the growth that is happening is an all-round growth, which we are doing in all the oils. The growth has come from mustard oil, it has come from soybean oil, it has come from sun oil also.

Overall, pricewise, there has been some escalation in prices of particularly sun oil because of the tightness in the market, in supply chain. Otherwise, palm oil and soya has been range-bound, it has helped us to grow the volume.

Going forward, we are confident that with the brand and with the type of distribution that we are expanding, it's possible for us to continue with the volume growth.

Your mention about this smaller grammages, market moving to 750 grams. What's happening here?

Why the movement downwards? Is it a price thing?

Is it affordability, driving up affordability? Is it competitive intensity?

If you could give some color on what's happening in the market as you're moving down SKU?

See, amongst all the food products, if you see last year versus this year, edible oil prices are almost 20% higher. What is happened is with the inflation pressure, at least 3, 4 months back or a year back, the pressure on prices were huge.

What happened was when the packaging order law changed that you can have any grammage as long as you mention the same, competition started reducing the weight so as to reduce the price. It started from 10 gram to say 900 and then 850, then 800, then 750.

Now at 750, it is almost stable at 750 and all the competitors are at 750 level. This is only to reduce the price and create affordability.

I'm sure if the edible oil prices remains stable or calm, the grammage might go up and it is possible. In case of mustard oil, we have seen there is no grammage cut.

This is mainly in palm oil and soybean oil we have seen that. Even in sunflower oil, we have seen grammage cut.

Got it. If you look at EBITDA per ton this quarter for edible oil, actually very healthy, if you add back the derivative gain.

Is there something where we can, apart from what's sitting in the other income which is the derivative gain, can we also assume that because of the way the prices did move, there would have been some kind of mark-to-market positive gains on commodity as well in this quarter on edible oil? Ex the derivative, ex the forex bit, yeah.

No, that's fine. I think right question to ask.

When you look at our numbers, I think, and this is we have been saying this for quite some time, is looking at a quarter number is not the actually right way of looking at it. In our scheme of the things, since we plan everything for 90 days given the fact that we are quite a big operator dealing in some more than 3, 3.5 million tons of oil, our planning cycle goes beyond 90 days.

Therefore, when you plan it in such a way, you always have a overlap of some M2M between the quarters. Therefore, if you really look at a six-month level or a yearly level is the something which gives you a right number.

Always you have either some overlapping shifting from previous quarter to this quarter or something getting shifting from this quarter to the next quarter. That's the only reason, and therefore we say that on a guidance level, you should be working on anywhere between ₹3,600 to ₹4,000 a ton, and that we should be able to deliver.

Got it. Right.

Last question was on FMCG. We've seen this kind of muted situation on the volume side, but now we're actually seeing your sequential market shares also kind of improving in the higher growth categories in the branded categories.

Just wanted to get your sense on when do we start to see a ex-G2G, which is now pretty much not in the base also, when do we start to see an acceleration in volume growth in food and FMCG? What is your kind of thought process outlook there?

On food and FMCG, when you see and you break down all the products, you will find that except for non-basmati rice and chakki atta, all our food products have shown a very healthy growth, in some of the products with 20% plus, whether it is sugar or poha or maida, suji, rawa, dal, besan, even basmati rice. As you see, basmati rice also, market share has improved substantially.

Now what has happened in non-basmati rice is that we have done some consolidation internally. Last year, we expanded rapidly, but then we found that non-basmati rice needs to be understood well at each geography, and so we consolidated it.

Then again, we are now getting back into the action after our learnings how to get the business well structured. That is one.

You will see going forward that our non-basmati business is giving us volumes. That is one.

Two is that chakki atta, as said in the presentation, that wheat prices did not increase. As a result, we did not get the carry cost as every year we would get if we store the wheat.

We generally store the wheat for 6, 8 months only to ensure that the quality remains consistent throughout the year. Now local players have the advantage that they work on hand-to-mouth inventory, obviously they could buy the wheat at a cheaper price and be much more competitive.

That is why we did not grow much in both non-basmati rice and chakki atta. These are two big portfolios in the food.

Had we had grown there even 10%, the overall food basket would have grown by 15% or so. We are confident that going forward, things would be better.

As we see now, January also we have seen, both non-basmati rice and chakki atta has started showing better results, and new crop is awaited anytime. From March, we will get the new crop of wheat, and non-basmati rice also, things are that it will get better.

Got it. Last question, if I may, your outlook on the prices for atta and for wheat and rice, given that new crop is likely to come in soon.

Prices haven't moved up much, as you rightly mentioned. If one could guess for the next 6, 12 months, is that a stable price outlook right now?

Is that how you're thinking about it for both these commodities?

I think the non-basmati crop has been very good this year, and I think it is one of the highest production of paddy, outpricing even China to become number one. The prices are very affordable, stable, anything at ₹38, ₹40 you get today Sona Masoori at the mill level, ex-mill level, is a very good price, affordable price.

Wheat also, if you see, the production is going to be very good, better than last year. That is because very good monsoon and coupled with so far the weather conditions are very good.

Wheat production also will be higher than last year, which makes both the commodities as very, very stable prices. When there is stable prices, obviously the brands have advantage.

Great. I'll come back for more.

Thank you. Wish you all the best.

Yeah. Hi, sir.

Good evening, sir. Sir, first question is regarding edible oil.

Last quarter, you highlighted that there is a soya oil import from Nepal, which is particularly impacting our business in north part of the region. What's the status on that now?

See, Nepal exports only soybean oil, and that also in consumer pack. Under SAFTA they can do that.

Most of the market they penetrate are Bengal, Bihar, UP, Jharkhand. These are four big markets where AWL has over 50% market share in soybean oil, it has surely impacted earlier.

Slowly, what we are finding that with competitive prices and palmolein becoming cheaper, so that is fighting against the imported soybean oil from Nepal. Nepal influx has reduced by almost 30%, 40%.

At its high, it was almost 200,000 tons per quarter. Now it has come down to roughly around 125 125,000 tons per quarter.

It has reduced, not that it has become zero, but the impact has surely come down. That is why you see our market share are also seen improving in Q3.

Okay. Sir, second is on foods business.

Our aspiration of ₹10,000 crore, which was there earlier for FY27, you would expect any delay in terms of achieving that ₹10,000 crore of top line?

I think this ₹10,000 crore of estimate that we gave of course basis the kind of growth that we saw on the food side in FY23, '24, and '25. '26 was flattish for us, and I think we spelled out the reasons why it was a flattish.

As we go forward in '27, I don't think we will have any such of reasons which we had this year will be there. Having said that, if meaningfully GD Foods also contributes to it along with couple of more interventions that we are going to take, if not ₹10,000, I think we would be in a striking distance that we are trying to work out.

Yes, but FY27 ₹10,000 seems to be now kind of number which we may not be able to achieve. Maybe it may go up to FY28, but we would suddenly be into a striking distance of this number.

Got it. Sir, in foods business, we have seen lot of innovation where there's a new product launches has been quite aggressive in a way.

What would be the contribution of NPD to the overall growth of FMCG and foods in our portfolio?

See, in our portfolio, we have not been very aggressive in ready-to-eat, because only ready-to-cook we have gone into, in which we have this biryani kits of different varieties. We have double roasted suji that we have put.

We are also put expert functional oils, which has started doing well. These are some of the NPD products which have done well, but as a percentage, it may not sound very big because our general staples business is quite large.

In edible oil, obviously, if you look at our total volume, it's very large. These all put together, NPD will be roughly around ₹500 crores or something in that range.

No, got it. I was asking that NPD contribution to the foods and FMCG.

But ₹500 crore, I can reverse calculate it. It would be safe to assume that all this NPD would be more of a margin accretive for you compared to the existing portfolio of FMCG and foods?

Yes, surely. The margins are higher.

Only thing is that in the beginning, you need to invest in some of the brand building or promotion or creating some consumer connect. That cost if you take it out, then surely it has much, much higher the margin.

If you take our expert oil, say immunity oil, this oil gives us at least three times more margin than the normal. Then these are new oil which you need to advertise or you need to inform consumers in anyway.

We have now cold pressed oil. We have just launched cold pressed oil.

We have Pehli Dhaar as first press, but now I have introduced cold pressed mustard oil, we are working on cold pressed groundnut oil. We have multigrain atta, we have just launched multigrain atta.

We are working on high protein atta. There are few more products on which we are closing very fast.

Got it. Sorry if I missed, but if I look at only foods and FMCG business, what would be the...

...business, 25% business comes from alternate channel, 75% comes from your general trade. This is at all-India level.

Now when you go to different towns, say rural, there isn't any alternate channel, everything is general trade. Rest in towns when you go, you have different alternate channel doing well.

Now modern trade has been growing at around 15%, 20%, but quick commerce is the fastest, growing at around 65%, and e-commerce is growing at around 45%. Overall, the alternate channel has been doing much better, and you can say around 35%, 40% is the average growth rate of alternate channel versus 5%, 7%, 8% in general trade.

In some of the towns when you go further breakup, whether you take Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, NCR, you will find food and staples business 50% comes from alternate channel.

Got it. Sir, on profitability and market share, can you comment for this alternate channel?

Quick-commerce,

e-commerce gives us slightly more. Modern trade also gives us more than general trade for the simple reason that we don't employ or deploy lot of people in the trade or in the thing.

Distributors are not there. Most of it is direct dealing with the clients.

We supply directly to Reliance or DMart or anybody, so that saves us one cost, as well as manpower cost is less. Delivery at one point.

These are all some of the savings that you get. Overall, alternate channel gives us better margin than general trade.

Got it. Sir, last question from my end, can you give some color in terms of demand, let's say what on-ground demand environment do you see, be it in terms of geography-wise, north, east, west, south, or in terms of rural versus urban?

Is there any pickup you have been seeing, or what your analysis has been that how the FY27 would pan out in that terms? Thank you.

Okay. Good question, huh.

See, first is that first half was very dull. Both rural and urban was dull.

Q3 onwards, October onwards, we started seeing some uptick in consumption, both rural and urban. Now OND normally is a good consumption month because all festivals, Dussehra, Diwali, and then marriage season, and then overall up to Christmas and New Year, the market is always good.

OND is good for all. But 15th November onwards, we found that rural markets started giving us much more consumption and there was a demand that we could see clearly, and this demand continues even till today.

Urban markets, I would say, Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns showed very good results and very good demand, which also continues till today. Only the pressure remains in the metro cities where possibly the stress is still there and alternate channel is taking some business away from the general trade.

That is the possible thing. Otherwise, the demand is up.

Going forward, what we feel is that with the prices stable, market mood sentiments are positive, agri production is increasing. Overall, the consumption mood is much better.

Staples normally, people come little later on buying bigger quantity. They first buy other products, but once they now see that rice, wheat flour, sugar, and all these prices are stable, consumption starts growing.

We are looking at at least single-digit growth in edible oil and double-digit in food going forward. That is what gives indications are like that from the market.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

That's it from my side.

Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity, sir.

My question is on the foods business. Given the aggression that you have on the food business, is the company looking for any inorganic opportunities as well like maybe...

Hello, am I audible?

Yeah. My question was on the foods business.

Given the aggression which you have, are you looking for any inorganic opportunity as well in the particular foods segment? Also if you could just elaborate more on the initiatives that you are taking to grow the overall foods business?

See, as far as the inorganic opportunity or inorganic route to grow the business, I would only say that as a company, we keep evaluating a lot of proposals which comes on our table, and that's a continuous process that keeps going on. I would not comment anything whether the opportunity is there today yes or no, but I think yes, as a process, we continue to look out for such kind of any opportunity that comes in.

If it fits into our valuation and if it fits into our bill, we certainly do it as we did in past, like we acquired Kohinoor and then GD Foods, and of course in oleochemicals, we acquired Omkar Chemicals. That's always will be there.

As far as the various initiatives are concerned to expand the food business, of course, we would be a little bit aggressive as we go forward on some of the product lines like wheat flour and rice. Of course, the big work that needs to be done, of course, is on the distribution side.

While we say that we are leveraging oil distribution, but answer is, are we there in terms of fully leveraging all oil distribution, yes or no? I think the work is still in process.

The big initiative that we would be taking is on the distribution side, number one. Number two, given the encouraging results on the quick-comm and alternate channel, we would be spending quite a big focus and big efforts on this particular channel because this has given us quite a significant growth along with a good market share.

These are the two things we'll continue to do particularly for the food.

Sure, sir. Sir, you have highlighted just now to the earlier participant that Q3 the demand has been good.

In general, is there any down trading kind of trend which you have seen, particularly in the edible oil portfolio? Any movement from Fortune to maybe bulk or regional players, something like that?

No, in fact, we are finding people are coming back to Fortune. Growth of Fortune is higher than our second brand.

That can be very clearly seen because Nielsen is also catching the same thing and we have seen our brand Fortune doing better. If you see our all-India Fortune share has increased, and that's an indication that consumers are, one, getting back into consumption; two, they are getting back into their preferred brands.

That is possibly because weight reduction was done to ensure that the affordability remains of the brand, and that is why consumption of Fortune is higher than our second brand, King's.

Okay. One last thing, sir.

On this US tariff, would the company see any better opportunity for expansion for this oleochemical exports? Anything on that?

I think the deal has just been announced. It's not been even 24 hours.

I think details will be soon out. We have not yet seen exactly what and how part of the deal.

Yes, certainly on a branded export side, we will be certainly get benefited because till now the branded exports were attracting more than 50% of tariff, which now come down to 18%. The oleo and other things and the bean oil, and there are a lot of discussions going around what will happen, whether India will import bean oil from US, yes or no.

I think once the details are out, only then anyone can be able to comment on it.

Sure, sir. That's all from my side.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you once again for all the participants for joining the call. If you wish to ask any further questions, any queries, you can certainly reach out to our investor relations team through an email, and we will certainly see to it that your queries gets answered.

Thank you very much again.

Thank you, everyone.