Hi. Morning and afternoon to all.

Thanks for joining in for the Q4 FY26 AWL conference call. From the management, we'll be represented by Mr.

Angshu Mallick, Executive Deputy Chairman; Mr. Shrikant Kanhere, the CEO and MD; Mr.

Saumin Sheth, the ED and COO; Pankaj Goyal, Interim Chief Financial Officer. I right now hand over the call to the management for further remarks and emphasis.

Over to you. Thank you.

Thank you very much, and very warm welcome and good morning to everyone who is attending this call. We'll spend couple of minutes, maybe 10 minutes to discuss about the result.

We'll run through a small presentation, and then of course, we'll open the floor for question and answers. All of us sitting here, we will try and address as much as possible the questions coming in from you all.

To start with macro context, I think the quarter saw a lot of events happening in and around, and particularly the month of the March where we saw the Iran conflict raging up and had got an impact on many factors affecting the business, rather I would say. Edible oil prices firmed up because the crude oil prices went up, and as a result, the edible oil complex also followed more or less similar trend.

Conflict also resulted into supply chain availability of the vessels, because of which the inventories tightness was observed throughout the industry. All the crude-linked commodities went up, and as a result, chemical, coal, packing material, all costs shot up in the month of March.

Although the impact of all these costs was not felt too much in the March, but I think in the coming quarter in Q1, most of the industry players will feel the heat of these increased costs. As if this is not enough, the rupee kept depreciating, and there was a sharp depreciation that we saw in the rupee in the month of March.

Given the fact that we run quite a significant portfolio of imports and exports, rupee depreciation is something we watch very carefully. Export disruption continued in the Middle East because of the Iran conflict.

All these events somehow kept the businesses on the tenterhook, and we just tried to sail through all this. Edible oil prices flared up particularly in the month of March after the conflict started, with sunflower settling above $1,400 a ton, soya more or less near to the 1,300 level, and palm ranging between 1,220 to 1,250 kind of level.

What we see today is all the elevated price of edible oil complex, which we have not seen at least in last year. On the performance, happy to present a very good set of numbers for the Q4.

We have been able to deliver 14% volume growth and deliver close to 1.9 million volume. We also could able to register a highest-ever quarterly revenue of plus of 21,000 crore, which is 18% year-on-year growth.

Both on operational EBITDA and PAT also, company was able to deliver better numbers, with EBITDA growing by 40% and PAT growing by more than 50% year-on-year on quarterly basis. For unit metrics, we have been able to maintain what we have been saying.

We have been able to maintain a gross margins per ton plus of 12,000, and EBITDA closer to ₹3,400 a ton for the quarter, which is again a growth of 19% and 23% year-on-year for both the metrics. Similarly, when we look at full-year number, happy to share that we finally closed the full year with 6.8 million metric tons of volumes, which is 4% growth.

In this 4%, edible oil grew by 6% with single digit, which is also something we were expecting. We are happy to share that company crossed a highest-ever turnover of 74,000 plus in the year FY26, with 17% year-on-year growth, operational EBITDA at plus of 2,300, and we delivered PAT of plus of 1,000 crore, which is in line with the expectation by the Street and the guidance which we have been giving to the analysts for past couple of quarters.

Again, here also for the full year, the per-ton metrics on a gross profit per ton as well as EBITDA per ton, we have been able to deliver plus of ₹11,500 ton for gross profit, and EBITDA closer to ₹3,500 a ton. Some of the other highlights: for the quarter, Fortune as a brand in oil and food put together grew by 11% year-on-year, which is quite encouraging.

Kohinoor brand again for the quarter grew by 39% year-on-year, and all our masstiege brands like King's and Raag and other brands grew by 18% year-on-year on a volume. On channel, we remain very optimistic about the alternate channel, which is growing very fast for us, which grew by 43% year-on-year for the quarter.

HoReCa as a channel on which we are putting focus for last couple of years grew by 64% year-on-year, and the branded exports, which is again also a focus area for the company, grew by 48% year-on-year when we talk about the Q4 numbers. Full financial performance: on a standalone basis, we did a revenue of plus of 20,000 crore with an EBITDA of 638 crore, which is 38% plus; PAT of 268 crore for the quarter.

Similarly, when we look at for the full year, on a standalone basis, we crossed revenue of 72,000 with a standalone EBITDA of 2,400 crore, and a PAT of little lower than 1,000, at 981 crore. On standalone again, the unit metrics rather I would say, continued to be healthy: gross profit of plus of ₹12,000 and EBITDA plus of ₹3,500 for the quarter, whereas for the full year, we are able to deliver a gross profit of 11,200 of gross profit, and 3,600 on the EBITDA.

When we look at a consolidated level, more or less similar story. As I said earlier, we could achieve highest-ever revenue of 21,000 plus crore in the quarter with a PAT of 293 crores, which is 54% plus.

For the full year, we crossed 74,000 crore of revenue with a PAT of 1,000 crore plus. Here also on the key metrics, we remain more or less same at what the guidance we have been giving to the Street.

When we look at the segment-wise, for the quarter four, while we delivered a 14% volume growth, in this 14%, edible oil grew very encouragingly by 17%, food and FMCG grew by mid-single digit at 6%, and industry essential at 13%. Overall, all the segment delivered the volume growth, and also the revenue growth at 18%.

Robust operational EBITDA for the quarter stood at 628 crore, reflecting a strong growth of 40% year-on-year. What we saw is the margin expansion basically was driven by improved profitability across edible oil and food segment.

For the full year, while the volumes grew by 4%, but on segment basis, edible oil grew by 6%, food and FMCG degrew by 4%, and industry essential by 8%. However, when we normalize these numbers with one-time government-to-government business that we had last year, the growth is 6%, with edible oil at 6% and food and FMCG at 3% plus, and industry essential at 8%.

The food performance of single-digit growth is basically coming from two aspects. One is we had consolidated NBR business, which we had started couple of years back.

Now we are going and focusing market-specific business, and then will slowly grow it. Number one.

Number two, during the last full year, the wheat prices were more or less range-bound; they didn't go up. In a sense, all the players who bought the inventory or who bought the wheat at the time of harvest were not able to get the carry cost the way the small players were able to, because they were buying from the open market and pricing their product.

We had a very tough competition from private labels and a small players. I think as we go forward in FY27, we should be able to overcome this and should be able to deliver a strong growth in wheat flour and rice business put together for us.

On other highlights for the Q4, as I said earlier also, alternate channel continues to be very focus area for us, as it grew by 43%. Branded exports and HoReCa again remains on our priority list.

We had couple of new products launched during the quarter. On edible oil, as I said earlier, Q4 it grew by 17%.

We crossed revenue of 17,520 crores for edible oil in Q4, which is 19% 19% year-on-year growth. On market share, we have been able to see consolidation in market share of edible oil for the quarter, where it improved by 60 basis points.

In e-com and q-com also, our market share of edible oil continued to remain above 30% level. On FMCG part, in terms of the market share, our wheat flour market share more or less remained flatish at 5.3%, 5.4% kind of number, which we had earlier also.

One significant improvement which we saw in the basmati rice, where our market share improved by 330 basis points, and now we are closer to 9% kind of market share from what we had earlier. The segment also recorded a profitability of close to 35 crore in Q4, and for the full year, we had a segment result of plus of 200 crore.

While we have been positive in food, but as we have been saying earlier also that we will continue to drive food aggressively and see to it that we get the top line first, and profitability will certainly follow once we get a volume handle on our side. Industry essential, both oleo and castor continued to grow better.

Segment recorded 13% year-on-year volume and 11% year-on-year revenue growth in Q4 '26. Oleochemical business, which contributes 30% of business, continues to remain key growth driver for the segment.

Our new installation coming up at Krishnapatnam by end of early or the Q1 of Q4 of '27 should be able to add more volume to this segment. Gradually, we are diversifying into the specialty chemical, which now contributes close to 7% to 8% of the portfolio.

On subsidiaries and joint ventures, GD Foods, which was acquired last year, continued to grow. In Q4, the volume grew by 24%, and full year, volume grew by 15%, revenue growth of 21% for the quarter and 12% for the full year.

We continue to maintain the material margin at level of 55% and 54% for the quarter and full year, respectively. On general trade distribution, our focus continues to play on spreading the distribution.

Now we reach more than 900,000 outlets directly, 9.7 rather I would say. On rural reach, we are there, 63,000 towns listed, of those 63, close to 55,000 outlets get billed every three months.

This is the area where we would continue to focus and grow. Overall direct plus indirect reach as per the Nielsen is now 2.6 million, we are reaching close to 26 lakh outlet, which is still not the level where we would want to have, because the universe of overall outlet is more than 4 million.

There is a lot of headroom for us to grow, which we will continue to do in next couple of years. Alternate channels, I'll not spend much time.

I think we have spoken earlier that it is continue to grow at 43%, revenue growth of 51%. Now the quick commerce, which is one of the part of the alternate channel, contributes close to 32% of the overall alternate channel volumes.

There were a couple of new product launches. We launched our new series Fortune Premion, a premium brand, under which we launched olive oil and also launched cold pressed mustard oil.

This is something which we will develop. Currently, we have launched the new range in Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Bangalore markets, which is where we find customers are there for such kind of products.

As we go further, we will be tapping more metro and 50 lakh-plus population towns to see that this category also expands. Now we have quite a few products at a premium range as well as health and convenience-focused foods, which include soya nuggets, biryani kit, Kohinoor brown rice, and then premium cold pressed oils.

Apart from that, now we have a blended oil portfolio, which is more focused on the health and convenience, and we will continue to develop this portfolio. That is all from my side as far as the update on the Q4 numbers as well as performance is concerned.

I have with me Mr. Mallick, who is Deputy Chairman; Mr.

Saumin Sheth, who is our Chief Operating Officer; and Pankaj, who is our interim CFO here. I request now operator to open the floor for question and answer.

We'll take questions one by one and try to answer. Thank you.

Thank you. Firstly, congrats on good recovery.

First is in terms of Iran crisis, we saw two, three levels of impact on the sector. One was, of course, gas availability to a lot of the canteens and restaurants was severely restricted for few days.

Then we obviously saw inflation in edible oil, etc., and a lot of the local edible oil players would not have been able to manage the working capital sourcing for few days the way you would have managed. If you could tell us on a overall basis, did you gain or did you lose, because in HoReCa, I think there could have been some adverse impact?

If you could clarify on that. Second, of course, convenience food, there was some upstocking for few days because some consumers got worried that availability itself could get impacted.

Overall holistic level, what is the impact in Q4 of Iran crisis?

See, Abneesh, on the Q4 per se, if I say, I think the impact is not that much because while prices went up in March, but it also saw a recovery of significant demand in the month of March because trade tried to accumulate a lot of inventory, and therefore, we saw huge amount of demand coming in the month of March. That, to some extent, offsetted any issues with respect to the pricing and other things, one.

Second, yes, the prices of lot of things has gone up like packing material, chemicals, and coal. I think all this will get reflected in the Q1 number because this real cost which has gone up will actually hit because month of March, most of the players were having the inventory, sufficient inventories to take care of the cost.

This will be impacting in Q1. Initially, we did saw some demand destruction because of this LPG shortage and other things, but after that, we didn't saw.

Yes, when we got into April, we did see some of the sluggishness in the demand because a lot of people who had accumulated inventories in the month of March are now consuming it, and therefore, we see not a very encouraging demand scenario as far as the April is concerned. I am very sure that in the month of May and June, it will recover, and we will have a fairly good quarter, Q1 as well.

Okay. Till now, how much price hike you have taken pre-Iran versus now across your products, if you could tell us, given packaging cost will be say 20% of your broad raw material?

How much hike you would have taken across different parts of the portfolio, specific each, if you can tell? See,

the packing cost, as I said, will start hitting you actually from the month of April. There is no question of taking any price hike because of the packing material.

No,

April one I am asking now.

Yeah. In general, the edible oil complex went up in the month of March close to 10%, and I think that 10% of increased prices, every player has passed it on to the consumer somewhere in mid of March or end of March.

That is always happened. As far as the packing material is concerned, I think slowly people will start passing it off.

Packing material for us is close to I would say 2%, 2.5%, 3% of our overall cost, not more than that. If it has gone up by 10%, 15%, the overall impact per se would not be more than a quarter basis or a 50 basis point.

As we approach to end of April, I think we will take the corrections accordingly.

Sure. My second and last question is on alternate channels.

If you could tell us total alternate channels portion of domestic business, how much it is, and how is the profitability versus overall business? Is it better?

Is it slightly worse? Second question will be part of this: on Kohinoor, we have seen a spectacular recovery.

Of course, first few quarters were very challenging, which means base is quite favorable here. If you could tell us ex of the base effect, are you now happy with this performance?

Because the base had seen decline, and now it's a growth. Are you happy till now whatever has happened in terms of the acquisition?

Is it something you are satisfied, or still lot of things left to do here?

See, on alternate channel, I will answer, and then for Kohinoor, I will request Mr. Mallick to revert to your question.

On alternate channel, now in edible oil, we sell close to 15% of our volumes comes from the alternate channel, and as I said earlier, it is growing by 40%, 44%. Similarly, for the food, it is close to 25% of volume which comes from the alternate channel.

This channel certainly more profitable than any other channel, whether it is a general trade or whether it is export. I think we will continue to grow on this.

I request Mr. Mallick to specifically answer your Kohinoor-related query.

See,

on Kohinoor, we clocked around 50,000-plus tons this year, '25-'26, showing a growth of almost 20% over the last year. Kohinoor as a brand has its own salience and very strong in south and western India.

We have concentrated in these markets more, but because of AWL's distribution strength, we have taken it to entire country. We see good traction coming from eastern India, where the brand had a good traction earlier, but in between, there was no supplies by the earlier companies.

We have taken it, and we are now doing it well. This year also, I expect this momentum to continue and even do more.

Our HoReCa brand is Kohinoor Chef's Choice, which has a legacy in hotels and restaurants, and many top hotels wants our flagship brand Kohinoor Trophy Royale. That way, if you ask me, Kohinoor has come back into full action, and we will see more growth coming in days to come.

Understood. Sure, sir.

That's all from my side. Thank you.

Hi, sir. I have only one question, which is, let's say, going into the later half of FY27, what's your worldview on inflation, specifically agri-inflation, right?

Are there pockets, given this disruption, etc. currently which can impact sowing, etc.?

Just your worldview on agri-inflation in general going into fiscal '27 later part.

See, today CPI is at close to 3.5%, in which food contributes significant 40% of the weightage, and food itself, wherein you have all this edible oil and other food stuff is there, it's actually sitting at 3.5%. Very difficult to estimate anything right now because in today's world, it's too much of dynamism there.

I think I don't know how the things are going to pan up tomorrow. If edible oil complex more or less remains same, I think the inflation rate of this 3.5%, CPI of this 3.5% to 3.7%, 3.75% should remain same.

Whether this will have any impact on the demand, I think our industry is more of a essential products rather than discretionary products, the demand destruction generally doesn't happen in our case. What in our case happens is downtrading, for which we have requisite brand architecture in place, where if consumer wants to buy a lower brand, we have that brand also to offer to him.

The customer remains within our scheme of the things. Yes, if inflation goes up, the more impacted are the discretionary spend FMCG products, where customer would try to cut.

Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Hi. Good morning, and congrats on good set of numbers.

Sir, my first question is related to foods. The kind of improvement in terms of margin what we have witnessed in FY26 because of restructuring, can we assume that now this kind of profitability is a new base going ahead, if not material improvement from here on?

It can stay at current level?

See, that's what we have been saying that the food profitability is something which all depends upon what kind of opportunity that we will get in the market to grow the top line. Therefore, our first focus, of course, will remain to grow the volume.

We have been saying this that at least till end of FY27, the priority will always be a top line and not the bottom line. Whatever level we are today, I think we should be able to continue.

Maybe we may become little aggressive as the opportunity comes during FY27 to see that we give priority to the volume over the margins.

Got it. Got it.

In terms of new product launches in food segment, the kind of premiumization what you are trying to do in edible oil with the recent launch, is there any particular action you would like to highlight in food segment where you are trying to drive premiumization and improve your gross margin as well as overall profitability?

Absolutely. This category of premium products will certainly has got a better margin profile on the gross margin as well as EBITDA.

Right now, they are at a very small scale, doesn't change the metrics at a overall scheme of the things. Premiumization is something it's not only limited to this niche products which we are launching.

This niche products is just a beginning, I think over the years we will develop this into a bigger category. Premiumization, we continue to do in other products also, which is our normal Fortune brand, where we have both the under-index market and over-index market.

The markets where we are very strong, we try to work out how can we improve the margins from there. That process is continuous, should reflect on the per-ton or a unit metrics which we have been communicating.

Got it. Sir, my next question is related to the balance sheet.

What we have seen is that there is a significant decline in inventory, while there is a increase in trade credit what we avail to buy edible oil. How do we read this to line items?

No,

basically, the trade credit and the borrowings keep exchanging between the lines, and therefore, what you should be looking at is that overall inventory plus receivable as compared to the borrowings. If you compare these two set of numbers, you will find more or less no major movement within these two, because sometime we opt for a buyer's credit rather than a trade credits, and sometimes we opt for a trade credit rather than a buyer's credit.

That number keeps fluctuating between the schedules. If you look at the current liabilities versus current assets, I think we are quite comfortably placed.

Got it. Got it.

Sir, one request: can you explain the divergence in your quarterly press release what you highlighted where you said that the food volume growth would be around 1% and top-line growth would be in a mid-single digit, while what you reported is 6% volume growth and 18% top-line growth? Thank you.

That's it from my side.

I think what you are talking is basically between the stand and console. The consolidated, I think what we are saying is that the food volumes were actually 3% growth after normalizing that G2G business.

Standalone is what we are saying that it has degrown.

Got it. Thank you very much, sir.

Hi, sir. Good morning.

Am I audible?

Good morning. Good morning, audible.

Hi, sir. Sir, just continuing on the comment which you made on the previous participant's question that in the foods business we will prioritize volumes over margins here if an opportunity comes, basically wanted to know at what volumes would you be able to maintain the margins?

No,

to answer your question is very straight, I don't think that we can quantify now, because many a times opportunity comes in, and you are able to grow also and without diluting on the margin. That's something which is very difficult to say.

What we are actually trying to communicate is that we will have priority on the volume, because we would certainly want in FY27 food volumes to grow in double digit, at least in mid-teens kind of number which we are looking at. Profitability, that should be the first, but however, if we have any constraint on that, we will certainly give a priority to the top line.

Therefore, it's difficult to say up to what volume you would be a profitable, after what volume you will not be, because it all depends upon what kind of opportunity that we will get in the market. As I was saying in my initial commentary that last year we didn't get any opportunity in wheat flour business because wheat prices didn't go up, and therefore, we had a significant competition coming in from the smaller players.

Now this is an opportunity which was not there. If this opportunity comes in this year, I think we will grow volume as well as profitability also.

Okay. Where I was coming from is, is it fair to assume that as you mentioned that your ambition is somewhere to grow in mid-teens, basically is that the base case for you in your AOP, when you make your AOP, that, okay, fine, this is something which we grow?

Let's say if the additional opportunity as you mentioned in wheat, let's say from what we are seeing currently, the prices are firming up there, would that be an add-on to what you are building in as your base case of mid-teens volume growth?

Of course, the base case is certainly double-digit growth, which is mid-teens kind of growth for food. Opportunity strikes and the things comes favorably to us, we would certainly try and make it even better than this.

That of course is there.

In that case, whatever that 3 odd percent margins which we've done would be slightly lower?

Maybe, yeah.

Sir, again, FY26 as well is probably characterized by reversing too many opportunistic calls which we had taken in the previous years, right? When you talk about these opportunities, right, are these short-term tactical opportunities or these are areas where you can create a structural edge or benefit and then build on it?

Because we would not want to see that reversal going ahead as well.

No, no, of course. These are all structural changes that we want to do.

There are only two things which happened last year with respect to the food. One is, of course, that one-time government-to-government business, which was not there.

The other is we are just trying to consolidate the NBR business, which we earlier tried that we will penetrate across India, but then we thought that it is better to go regions by region and then build this portfolio. That's the only change which we did in the food business.

I think that should continue.

NBR is, sir, private label, right?

NBR is non-basmati rice.

Non-basmati rice, okay.

Yeah.

Let's say segment by segment, if we think of wheat, rice, and let's say others, right, soya, sugar, etc., where do you see, you mentioned that a few categories are already growing at 30% in your pre-quarter update, but let's say going into FY27, where do you see the largest opportunity, sir, let's say for next one, two years in terms of growth for us? See,

the largest opportunity, to be very frank with you, sits in rice, wheat flour, besan, and we also have a sugar, which is also volume puller for us. These are the four categories and pulses, of course.

These are the four, five categories where we see a huge amount of potential to grow.

Okay. To the earlier comment which you made on wheat, right, that we did not have the opportunity last year because the prices were quite stable and local competition so went in.

Basically, if the prices firm up, would it also mean that apart from growth, even the margins of that particular wheat flour business should improve for us in FY27 versus FY26?

No, not necessarily. I think if prices firms up, it will be beneficial to the recognized and a big players like us who buy the stock at the time of the harvest, because since we are delivering a consistent quality to the customer.

The local players actually not able to compete with organized players like us. It will help us to build volumes.

Not necessarily it will have impact on the profitability. Yes, it will have if the prices goes up even beyond the carry cost.

That is the completely a margin accretion which will happen to us, because if prices goes up beyond a carry cost which normally you account for, certainly it will add to the margins also.

Okay. Sir, on a longer-term horizon sustainably, what is the kind of margins do you foresee or envisage in the foods business?

No, in a food business, we are actually if you go through our earlier comments, we have always been saying that food will remain an EBITDA neutral till FY27, and after that, we will try and build ₹1,500 per ton to ₹2,000 a ton kind of EBITDA in the food from FY28. This is what we are working on while we are delivering it today also.

That certainly doesn't mean that it is something which is sustainable at least for the year. That's what we are looking, and then from there, the journey will start wherein you should ideally get to a margin level where you start benchmarking yourself with your competitor, like for us in wheat flour, the competition is with ITC, and in rice, we have KRBL and LT Foods.

You have to go to that level. We are not there right now because, of course, we are still at investment and growth phase.

Got it, sir. Thank you so much.

Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity.

My question is on at what point in time does a business shift from the reinvesting gross margin gains to the delivering sustained EBITDA expansion, and what are the key triggers for this transition, sir?

Your question is specifically for the food?

For the foods, exactly.

Can you repeat the question again?

What I'm trying to see is at what point of the business does the shift happens in reinvesting the gross margin gains to delivering sustained EBITDA margins, and what are the key triggers for this?

I think key triggers remains a good market share which you have, and only then you have a pricing power to charge prices. Until that time, you are just playing aggressively on pricing and growing.

I think food anywhere closer to or anywhere more than 1.5 million tons of volumes, I think we should be able to start consolidating the margins. This year we closed at 1.2 million.

I am hopeful that next year we will go beyond 1.5, 1.6 million as far as the food is concerned. From there, I think the consolidation will start on gross margin as well as the EBITDA margin.

Okay. Technically, you also gained market share in this quarter.

Are you focusing more on market share gains at the cost of the margins then?

At least for FY27 for sure, and maybe some part of FY28 also. We will certainly give priority to the top line rather than margins.

Okay. My second is on the volatility in the oil that's been going on in recent trends.

Have you done any sensitivity analysis on every ₹5 or ₹10 drop or increase in the cost of oil, what is the impact on the margins, and how do you protect and build price through the pricing measures?

Can you just repeat your question? I'll suggest that Saumin to come in and answer.

Just repeat the question for sake of clarity.

Basically, the recent volatility in edible oil, I just wanted to understand the sensitivity analysis. For every ₹5 or $5, a $10 decline or an increase in the edible oil or crude oil prices, how are you managing the inventory, and how are the margins being protected through pricing in this?

Hi.

I think see, as prices goes up, our experience says that at every ₹10, we see demand slowing down by 1%, and vice versa. As prices comes off, the demand increases.

Basis the international price analysis, we also revise our inventory and supply chain, and also depending upon the season, then the festivals. Depending upon the prices and the trend, we revise and we manage our inventory, supply chain.

Okay. Perfect, sir.

The next is on the alternate channels. They've been scaling up rapidly, and I just wanted you to just help me in understanding and pick your brains on how can you quantify the margin difference versus general trade, and how this evolves with scale?

No, I think this alternate channel certainly is more profitable than general trade because there are less number of intermediaries involved, because you are then dealing directly with the e-com and alternate channel operator. Also the stocks are moving very fast.

You certainly have a better margin profile as far as general trade are concerned. Again, on the alternate channel also, you have other costs which you have to incur because alternate channel is all about ensuring the visibility of your product on the platform, plus you will have to also spend some amount of time, some money on ensuring that the fill rate doesn't go down, and therefore, you have to keep supplying to them through your logistical capability.

All these costs are there. In spite of taking all this, it's a better off in terms of margins as compared to general trade.

That's why we are saying we are quite optimistic about this channel growing. It's a channel of the future, and the way it is growing at a 40%, although the base is low, that's why the 40%, 50% looks very good number.

As the base increases, this growth rate will certainly come down, but I'm sure in the years to come, we will have close to 30%, 35% of our volumes coming in from the alternate channel, which is today at 15%.

What would be the margin difference versus general trade, sir, in this?

The margin difference is very minuscule margin difference, but maybe if in general trade we are making X percentage, I think the general trade versus this is hardly a 50, 60 bps higher than the general trade. Because in our overall scheme of the things, the margin itself is 1.5%, 2% at the end of the day.

Any change in 25, 30 bps is quite a significant for us.

Okay. One final last question.

The per-ton EBITDA has improved YoY, but it's been volatile on a QoQ or on a sequential basis. Now what is the steady-state range that we should be building in across the cycles from this?

Steady-state range you can build is around ₹3,600 a ton, or 3,500 for a safer side you take it. I think we should be able to deliver within that range.

Okay. Okay.

Even given the volatility that's been going on with this Iran war?

Yes, yes, yes. Okay.

Okay. Thank you, and good day, sir.

Thanks for the opportunity, sir. Congratulations for the strong volume and revenue growth in the quarter four.

Sir, my question is related to whether the Wilmar defined itself is a branded product company or a simple commodity company? Because we are valued far below the other peer group company like LT Foods, which has a brand Daawat, KRBL, brand India Gate, Patanjali, which are trading more than the one time of the revenue, because our market cap is around ₹26,000 crore, and revenue is ₹74,000 crore.

Can you explain the reason for such anomaly, sir? See,

first of all, AWL Agri Business is food FMCG that we classify ourselves, because 70% of our revenue comes from the brands. I think this is what we are saying, and this is how our numbers tell.

Now as far as the valuation is concerned, I will not be able to comment too much on it because it's ultimately a market-driven price discovery. We can only say that the kind of potential that AWL Agri Business has got, the investor is taking their own time to understand that potential, and we are quite hopeful and very positive that sooner or later investor will understand that potential and will give a valuation that we deserve.

Thanks. Sir, next question: why the management is constantly guiding the margin per ton?

Because we are selling the product as a brand and under the small packaging. When we are selling as a brand and under the small packaging, the margin much more higher than the per-10 per-ton basis.

What is the logic to guide the margin per ton rather than in a percentage term of the each segment? See,

the reason for giving my guidance in margin per ton is very simple, because the product levels at which we operate gets impacted due to the price movement in the commodities, whether it is a edible oil, whether it is a wheat, whether it is a rice. Therefore, what happens is that since we operate a very significantly strong brand, most of the time we are able to pass on the price increase or a commodity price increase to the consumer.

Therefore, when you pass on the commodity price rise to the consumer, your margin percentage actually goes down, but you normally able to maintain per-kg or per-ton of margin. That is the reason why we say we are not a pure-play discretionary FMCG product where you try and maintain margin as a percentage of a revenue.

Our revenue gets impacted because of the inflationary pressures, and therefore, we say it is better for us, better for investing community to track our margins on a per-ton basis.

Sir, would like to know what portion of your 10% to 15% growth in volumes in edible oil was real consumer demand versus distributor stock-up and consumer stock-up before the price hike? Are you seeing slowdown in volumes in April due to commercial LPG issue across the restaurant and eateries?

No, see, in our scheme of the things, the primary and secondary keeps happening hand in hand. You have a primary in one month, then followed by the secondary in the another month.

What we are saying is that between one month and two month, there are certain pipeline corrections between the trade which keeps happening, and therefore, you might see some slump in one month, which is getting replenished in the next month. It's only a stopgap which happens between one month and other month.

I think for us, whatever we are able to sell, I think it's reflective of the secondary itself. On your second question, does this slowness in the demand in month of April is suggestive the fact that there is a shortage of LPG, I don't think that is there now on the street.

We don't see any shortage of LPG across the country. Coming months, we have quite a few marriage season coming up, and therefore, we are hopeful that demand will pick up from here.

Understood. Also, sir, as the palm oil price reduces, is it our margin remains stable, or we have to pass on the lower prices to the consumers also?

No, for us, whether price goes up or price goes down, since we operate in a brand, we don't change the prices quickly. In the case whenever the prices goes up, we have that ability of passing on the price to the consumer quickly because of the brand.

When the prices goes down, we try and time it such that we are able to get as far as margins before passing it out to the customer. That happens both the way.

Understood. Sir, are you also planning to enter into palm oil plantation business like your peers like Patanjali Foods and Godrej Agrovet due to government push?

No, as we speak today, we don't have any plan because our promoter, Wilmar itself, they are into a big plantation in palm in Indonesia and Malaysia. As far as AWL is concerned, as we speak today, we don't have any plans to get into this.

Okay. Sir,

as an industry voice, do you think the Indonesian government of increasing palm oil usage in diesel instead of importing it will see some sort of a price hike and lower production exports to other countries?

I'll request Saumin to answer this question.

Hi. As you mentioned, Indonesian government has planned to increase the biodiesel consumption to B50, and that is happening across the world that all the producing countries are increasing their biodiesel blending into the diesel.

The main reason is today the biodiesel is cheaper than the fossil diesel because of the war situation. Indonesia is on the right path to announce and eventually consume more palm into biodiesel.

That may not start from tomorrow, but yes, the plan is from the second half of the year that may impact the price structure, which may help palm prices to go up and the other competing oil to remain at a reasonable price spread, which is probably good for AWL because we are very strong soft oil consumer pack company. I think eventually it will help us.

Yeah. Congratulations on good set of numbers.

Really what I wanted to ask is how have been the traction in edible oil and foods in the month of April, and how do you see it panning out in the month of May and June going forward?

You are talking from the consumption point of view?

From the consumption point of view.

See, normally, first half of April is always slow because the new year or the wedding season starts from 15th of April. The first half we always see little slow, and then the demand picks up.

This year, the overall summer has set in quite strong, and we have seen very high temperatures, which has cut into the consumption overall. Small disruptions in the out-of-home consumption has been seen.

Hotel workers or other workers going away for either the election or for the wheat harvest season has also disrupted the entire labor force in many of the places. This type of disruption we have seen.

Again, after 15th April onwards, the season picks up, and this will continue till June. This year, the wedding season is good, the consumption normally will be good.

One, harvest has been good, we expect the rural to do well because wheat, mustard, and chana has been good harvest. We only now have to see how the monsoon sets in.

Overall consumption-wise, I think Q1 should be good. April is slow, but May and June will pick up.

Okay. Overall, a growth of double digits in terms of edible oil and foods, edible oil?

Not possibly double digit, but surely a single-digit growth.

Okay. All right.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much for attending this call, and keep tracking us. In case of any further queries, you can write down to our IR team, and we will certainly respond.

Thanks again.