AGT Food and Ingredients Inc

AGT Food and Ingredients Inc

20.09
CAD
-0.16
(-0.79%)
Dec 02Next Earn

Q2 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptAugust 11, 2026

Operator

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator.

Welcome to the AGT Food and Ingredients Incorporated Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded.

After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad.

You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. Should you need assistance during the conference, you may signal an operator by pressing star then zero.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Harley Ulmer, Global Corporate Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Harley Ulmer

Thank you, Danielle. Good morning and thank you, everyone, for joining the call.

My name is Harley Ulmer, Global Corporate Treasurer of AGT Food and Ingredients Inc. With me on the call today are Murad Al-Katib, our President and CEO, and our Board Chair, Bill McFarland.

After a brief presentation, we will take questions, with the call ending by 9:15 Eastern Time. We'll be commenting on our Q2 2026 results and outlook, with the assumption that you have read the Q2 earnings press release, MD&A, and financial statements.

A slide presentation which supports today's comments is posted on our website, and we encourage participants to access the slides and follow along with our presentations. Before we begin, I would like to make some comments about forward-looking information.

In yesterday's news release and on Slide 2 of the presentation that we have posted to our website, you will find cautionary notes in that regard. We do claim the protection for any forward-looking information that we might disclose on this conference call today.

I will now turn the call over to Bill McFarland for his introductory comments.

Bill McFarland

Good morning and welcome. Management and the board are pleased to report AGT had a good second quarter, with the key metrics consistent with or improved over the comparable 2025 period.

This was despite shipping delays due to the war in Iran and a slower rebound in our South African operations. We are seeing encouraging results from the strategic investments made over the last several years within our Packaged Foods and Ingredients segment, which became, for the first time, AGT's largest contributor to adjusted EBITDA during the first six months of 2026.

Our strategic plan is on track and being executed with focus and passion by the management team, and the board is excited about the future, including the progress being made on our growth initiatives in India and Minot. We also believe that over time our shareholders will be rewarded as the market appreciates our disciplined approach to capital allocation, resiliency, and performance, and the future prospects of the business.

With that, I'll turn it over to Murad to discuss the quarter in more detail.

Murad Al-Katib

Thank you, Bill. Appreciate it.

Welcome, everybody. Glad to be back on our Quarter 2 conference call.

I wanted to start by just providing a bit of a market update on crop conditions. We're at a period where we start to look at the North American harvest, and just wanted to report that favorable crop conditions across North America and Australia, combined with generally average Black Sea prospects, uncertainty in Indian production—even with all of those factors, we're expected to maintain ample supply availability to execute our plan.

Together with a positive demand trajectory in global pulse and food markets, these conditions are expected to support attractive sales opportunities through the balance of the year, particularly within our Value-Added Processing and Distribution segments. We are expecting, with continued tensions in Russia and Ukraine and Sea of Azov problems, we do expect the Black Sea region to contribute to a little bit of price upwards pressure that may ultimately just lead to kind of this stability in the current commodity price regime.

Again, good crops, no major volatility in the commodity markets are expected. This will be good for us in terms of how we execute our plan.

Conflict in the Middle East initially resulted in higher freight and other costs, along with some shipment delays in Q1 and Q2. AGT has now begun to incorporate these costs into new contracts.

Alternative routes of transport are being utilized. This will allow us to ship and reduce our inventories through contractual commitments by customers, including food security programs currently being shipped.

AGT is expecting this catch-up and new growth will positively impact our results over the next six months, which historically, the second half of the year does produce our strongest results each year. Packaged Foods and Ingredients continued its strong momentum, as Bill noted, becoming the largest contributor to adjusted EBITDA on a year-to-year basis.

We're truly seeing the benefit of these capital investments in recent years through growth in the segment. Adjusted EBITDA compared to the prior year 42% in the quarter, and an increase in revenue of 18%.

While we have room for more growth, we continue to grow our customer order book. We expect unutilized capacity to decrease in the back half of the year.

On a consolidated basis, AGT delivered a strong operating quarter, rebounding from Q1 with adjusted EBITDA of $39 million, and was consistent with the same quarter of the previous year. Ultimately the Q2 EBITDA increase, even with the slowing in shipping and South Africa and the weather challenges, Q2 is traditionally a slower quarter.

When considering the impacts of the shipping delay and the war and the decrease South Africa results, adjusted EBITDA still increased by 14% when compared to the second quarter of 2025. Consolidated shipment volumes increased 7% during the quarter, led by growth in Packaged Foods and Ingredients, even considering those impacts of shipping delays.

Adjusted free cash flow increased 39% year-over-year, demonstrating the strength of the business model, and 52% of adjusted EBITDA was converted to adjusted free cash flow during the quarter, making our trajectory target of increasing free cash flow showing strong results and strong trajectory. Customer demand is strong across key markets, supported by significant confirmed order book, which includes the delayed sales impacted by the war planned to ship in the second half of the year, and a growing book of customers to fill the Mersin, Turkey and Minot, North Dakota plant expansions in the short term.

Strategic growth in capacity investments in India and Minot continue to progress on schedule, and the competitive and consumer landscapes continue to show these were the right investments to build long-term shareholder value. During the quarter, we saw adjusted net earnings growth of 9%.

As noted, our Packaged Foods and Ingredients delivered another strong quarter. On Slide 5 in our deck, you can see adjusted EBITDA increasing 42% and adjusted EBITDA margin increasing to 13% in the segment, realizing return from our capital investments in new capacity.

Many of you will recall our goal of a trajectory towards 14% to 14.5%. This 13% result is a good trajectory upwards.

The Turkish pasta plant and packaged foods continue to drive strong volume growth and profitability with a diverse set of customers around the world: Japan, other markets in Asia, Canada. Demand for AGT's better-for-you extrusion platform is also growing, supported by a pipeline of both new and existing customers in the better-for-you pasta, and we've seen growth and opportunity in diversification in various extrusion snacks, which has a key advantage of diversifying this business unit.

These new products are on retail shelves in the US, and we're seeing strong initial sales and interest, and our taste and products meet the consumer demand for healthier foods with more protein and more dietary fiber. The diversification of the product base beyond pasta more into snacks and breakfast de-risks our modular CapEx expansion strategy in Minot.

We saw a recovery of the South African results in the month of June at the end of Quarter 2. This had a nominal impact on the quarter, but we are expecting an increased contribution through the balance of the year consistent with our 2025 results.

The South Africa platform should contribute to some recovery. Slide 6 on Value-Added Processing, on a year-to-date adjusted EBITDA margin basis, we've increased from 5.7% in 2025 to 7.1% in 2026.

The main drivers to the increase are diversification of the product mix, operating efficiency, and we believe the margins will continue to increase over the medium term. Food security programs had lower revenue due to lower commodity prices, with year-to-date volumes and adjusted EBITDA contribution generally consistent with the prior year.

We had a catch-up, and we have strong order book from food security agencies. Our conversations suggest that the war in the Middle East has caused governments to review their food security reserves, which should create a positive demand trend over the next 18 to 24 months.

Our inventory at quarter end is up $100 million over the prior year, as we built inventory with confirmed orders, and are now scheduled to ship those in the second half of 2026. We expect inventory levels to normalize by the end of the year.

Shipping delays in the Middle East are estimated to have reduced revenue and adjusted EBITDA in the quarter by $57 million and $3.4 million, respectively. This is not lost revenue, but only a shift in timing.

The war and inflationary pressures in Turkey have resulted in some short-term margin compression impacting our results. Overall, though, Value-Added Processing was a mixed bag given the war, but the long-term strategy fundamentals are in place, and we are confident in our ability to continue to show positive results in this segment.

On Slide 7 and the strong financial position, I'm going to let Harley take over.

Harley Ulmer

Thank you, Murad. AGT's balance sheet is substantially stronger following the IPO and the Fairfax private placement, and this will allow us to fund growth investments and execute our strategy going forward.

As noted in our materials, we had an adjusted net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio at 0.49 times, which is in line with our expectations. Lower leverage than in pre-IPO period has reduced financing costs and enhanced our free cash flow generation.

Our adjusted free cash flow and adjusted free cash flow conversion rate of 52%, 52% positions us to fund capital projects and support future dividend payments. We are on target to exceed $100 million of adjusted free cash flow in 2026.

Of specific note this quarter, we did call out that there was a change in the Turkish tax rates that are specific to Turkey, where we're seeing the programs were set up to give a beneficial tax rate on manufacturing process of about a tax rate of about 17.5%. This should give us a blended rate overall for AGT of about 20%.

What that should allow for is a stronger competitive position going forward, where we should see less cash taxes in our business as we continue to execute our plan. I'll now pass it along to Murad to take you through Slide 8 and the rest of the deck.

Murad Al-Katib

In summary, the execution of our strategy is working. We have color-coded this slide to highlight the areas where we made good progress in Q2 in green, and where there's more work in progress in orange.

First, AGT is expanding sales with new and existing customers in all of our business segments, and is seeing value driven from recent growth investments. We're seeing growth in our Packaged Foods and Ingredient margins as the contributions from pasta and better-for-you, which have higher margins, grow.

Demand trends across protein and dietary fiber are strong, and affordability of our packaged foods platform is driving the interest and growth. Just to digest that, meat protein alternatives are expensive compared to many of the better-for-you alternatives that are being developed and put on the store shelves by the major CPG companies of the world.

By the end of 2026, the new Turkish short-cut pasta capacity is expected to be over 75% utilized, while the long-cut commercial capacity reached production in early Q3. That long-cut line that we put in is now producing, and the new Minot line is expected to be over 75% utilized by the end of 2026.

Strong uptake on the commercial modular CapEx that we've undertaken. We expect commercial production and sales to start from the India facility by mid-2027, with test production at year-end and commissioning beginning early in the new year.

I want to reiterate that project is on time, on budget, and will be bolstered by pasta customer pipelines, including tax-free and duty-free access in Europe given the free trade agreement with India. Low operating costs of the project in India will help to provide a competitive advantage, and will add about 78,000 metric tons of capacity to our footprint.

We'll finance this facility and hedge the investments with a loan in rupees, and the project will drive strong adjusted EBITDA growth in excess of 10% per year in the Packaged Foods and Ingredients segment. As another point, inflation is also a concern for many businesses.

The good news for AGT is that our people costs are less than $200 million annually on a consolidated basis, which partially insulates AGT from inflationary pressures. We were $186 million of people costs in 2025, excluding our share-based comp.

Although we see some margin compression in Turkey given the interplay between the lira and inflation, with the lira not devaluing at the pace of inflation, the inflationary pressures and margin compression are present in our business, but are manageable, and we expect them to continue to trend towards our pricing power as we continue to move forward on sales. Finally, currently we're trading at about 6 times adjusted EBITDA, while our peers are trading around 9 times.

Yes, we believe we are undervalued, and AGT represents a compelling investment opportunity given our strong balance sheet, growing free cash flow, and an expanding portfolio of higher-margin products and future prospects. AGT is focused on executing its growth strategy as outlined with double-digit adjusted EBITDA growth in Packaged Foods and Ingredients and strong single-digit growth in Value-Added Processing, leading to consolidated adjusted EBITDA and adjusted free cash flow exceeding 2025 levels of $190 million and $73.7 million, respectively.

We believe that our targets are achievable regardless of whether or not there is peace for the Iranian war. Packaged Foods and Ingredients will continue to be the company's primary growth driver and profitability platform with both pasta and extruded products, diversifying our product mix and continuing the growth trajectory.

During the second half of the year, we're going to capitalize on strong customer demand in food security, reduce our inventories, ship the delayed product in the first half of the year, and continue to leverage our asset-light strategy in our Distribution segment with matched opportunistic sales achievable through strong crop conditions in the world. We're going to finish India and Minot on time, on budget, and move into the commercialization phase in 2027.

We plan to do all the above while continuing to build the capability of our management team and the confidence of our investor community by delivering on our focused plan. Now let's get to questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session.

To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request.

If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two.

You are asked to limit yourself to one question and a follow-up, then rejoin the queue if you wish to ask additional questions. The first question comes from Luke Hannan from Canaccord Genuity.

Please go ahead.

Luke Hannan

Thanks, and good morning, everyone. Murad, if we could unpack the performance within the Packaged Foods and Ingredient segment, because it was very robust growth during the quarter.

I know some of that was the timing of Ramadan, but can we just dig into what exactly drove the growth there, because it is, I think, a little bit above what you expected over the long term. I think I heard you say about 10% annual EBITDA growth over the long term.

Just curious to know what is in there that you expect to be, I guess, rateable going forward, and potentially could we see above-algorithm growth over the course of the balance of the year there? Thanks.

Murad Al-Katib

Luke, first of all, just to clarify, the Ramadan demand won't be a big driver in the packaged foods business in our side, just because again the better-for-you and the pasta side being much more focused on, let's say, Japan, Canada, Malaysia, and then places like that. We're not seeing a big Ramadan uptick on that side.

That's much more in the value-add. Let's just unpack this here.

Again, incremental CapEx, we gave some indication the short-cut capacity in Turkey is going to be running at high-70s utilization by year-end. The long-cut pasta line is now commissioned and running.

That didn't contribute in Q2, so that's going to again give us more upside growth as we continue to move forward. Frankly, the guidance on Minot utilization over 75% by year-end gives you the signal that the demand trajectory in our extruded product segment is strong.

Again, we want to prove out that sales pipeline. We've got orders shipping, being accepted, and repeat orders and larger repeat orders being placed by a number of major retailers and CPGs.

That trajectory is going to continue. Again, our comfort in giving you that, look, we're going to exceed 10% growth in that segment, we feel the confidence interval on that continues to rise.

This is, again, fundamental staple food demand. It's not affected by the war.

If you look at Quarter 2 of 2026 versus Quarter 2 of 2025, it's almost a complete inverse. Right, packaged foods is bigger than the value-added processing for the first time in our history.

That's where we've deployed the capital, that's where we're executing, and that's where we're taking this company. Pasta growth, better-for-you growth, again, offset a bit, Luke, by South Africa.

Just to put the worries on South Africa to bed, seasonally they're always quite light in the first half and much heavier in the second half due to the timing of their harvest. We're expecting South Africa to be able to be a positive contributor in the second half.

Luke Hannan

That's helpful, thanks. Then for my follow-up and then I'll pass the line here.

You had touched on the expectation, Murad, that there should be better volumes in the second half of the year in value-added processing, one because your order books are healthy, but also higher sales to food security customers. Then on top of that, you gave a bit of an update when it came to the crop outlook as well.

I'm just curious to know what impact, if any, do you expect there to be from El Niño when it comes to, I don't know, whether the bins are full to end the harvest season or not?

Murad Al-Katib

It's interesting. Again, what we're talking about is North American harvest is going to be robust.

Black Sea, we think, will be average. Turkey's average.

The El Niño effect is likely continuation of short monsoon rain in India, which we think, Luke, is going to be a positive demand trajectory. In the El Niño effect, northern hemisphere is likely benefit, southern hemisphere is likely suffer.

As a result of that, again, robust demand in Indian subcontinent will be a market driver. Then, continued instability in the Black Sea region also is not bad for our value-added processing business.

We source there for Turkey, but the Canadian platform can be a lot more robust when Black Sea has political uncertainty. All of those factors are giving me some strong confidence that normal seasonal demand will be there.

We're going to get those inventories that were built up—just to be very clear, we didn't build inventories for the sake of building inventories. We built inventories because there's sales that are being executed in Q3.

This just happened to be the snapshot that inventories were built, and snapshot it, and they're shipped in the third quarter. We're seeing good strong order books.

On the food security side, there's no mystery. Contracts have been awarded.

We're going to execute now. We're seeing demand from governments in that region that we think are going to be sustained over the next 18 to 24 months.

Harley Ulmer

I'd just add as well, Murad, when we talk about El Niño, that the geographic diversity of our sourcing, which you highlighted, is really a strength for AGT. We're not dependent on any one region, and we know that there will be pluses and minuses when there's these massive weather events, and we can still find our product and meet our sales demand based on our ability to source from the various geographies in the world.

Murad Al-Katib

Yep. Let's get to the next queue.

Operator

The next question comes from Zachary Evershed from National Bank Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Zachary Evershed

Morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions.

The packaged food and ingredients margins were quite strong this quarter. Can you comment on how sustainable you believe that level is, and how much incremental EBITDA is still going to come from Turkey, US, and Indian capacity expansions?

Murad Al-Katib

Zach, we said very clearly in our IPO messaging and even in our first quarter that we had a very strong move towards a trajectory of 14% in that segment. I think what this quarter is showing is that the better-for-you margins that we talked about being much better than just the overall PFI margins, it's starting to show as volumes grow on that extrusion business.

The incremental dollar sales are smaller than the pasta, but the margins are bigger, it does have a margin impact quite quickly. We expect that to continue as we continue to add lines in '27 and '28.

Our signal that 75% utilization by year-end on that does give you a strong signal that the trajectory is as we expected. We'll get those orders in the book and then look at incremental capacity in the future.

On the pasta side, we've said the long-cut line is just commissioned, and it's producing commercially in Quarter 3. There's still some upside to be seen in that, and then India will come online for commercial production mid-2027.

You're going to see some strong, sustained growth in this, both from a volume perspective and a margin perspective. Again, we started off this process when we did our IPO at margins around 11.5% to 11.6%, 11.7%.

We're up at 13%. We're going to play in that range of 12% to 13%, and then our goal will be as continued better-for-you goes, we'll go to that 13% to 14%, and just continue to incrementally drive sustained margins.

The volatility in margin in the packaged foods, remember, commodities are a very small part of this, and we hedge the commodity. This is all about finding better sales, better opportunities, and even higher margins as we continue to drive into more diversified segments.

One key thing, Zach, is we said diversification. We talked a lot about gluten-free pasta.

We're now saying, look, our snacks and our breakfast category on extrusion is becoming more robust, and that diversification is going to benefit that trajectory going forward.

Zachary Evershed

That's helpful, thank you. Then for the follow-up on building out that capacity, it looks like CapEx year-to-date is already above that $50 million number.

Is it going to slow sharply in the back half of the year, or are you going materially higher this year?

Murad Al-Katib

Absolutely. Listen, one thing that we'll do in the future is we'll look at ensuring that our commissioning costs are appropriately reflected in our capital budgeting guidance.

Just to be very clear, those commissioning costs are not large when it comes to the magnitude of the CapEx budgets. It's months of commissioning, not years of commissioning.

We want to appropriately capture those. Look, our guidance was $100 million over the two-year period.

What we're going to see is we're going to see a heavier 2026 because of the India project, it's sensible. Then we'll see a slowing at the back half of the year.

You'll see quite a material slowing, and then you will see us target to be close to our budget for 2027. Call it maybe 65/35, somewhere in that range.

Maybe a bit more if the trend continues to accelerate in the packaged food side and the better-for-you, but we'll give that guidance as we go forward. No big surprises on CapEx.

Don't expect that because we spent 50 in the first six months that we're going to spend 50 in the second six months, and we're going to spend another 50 the six months after that. This is a disciplined modular CapEx strategy, full stop.

We will maybe have a bit of variance depending on how the trajectory goes, and that's sensible because we're using free cash flow to fund these budgets. Let's be very clear: we're not using leverage; we're using free cash flow.

Operator

The next question comes from Steve Hansen from Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Steve Hansen

Good morning, guys. Thanks for the time.

Hey Murad, can you just describe maybe perhaps how much of the India book is sold at this point for the facility? You seem to suggest that the European customers will be at the core of the book given the tax, favorable treatment there.

If I recall back to some of the earlier discussions, North America was also in focus. Just where do we stand on booking that capacity as we get closer to production?

Murad Al-Katib

Steve, I would say that we have strong visibility on the retailers that are going to be customers. The process would work that you have to build your facility, they have to audit the facility, and then you place your orders.

We're on track with the retailer discussions. We're expecting to have visits in fourth quarter and Quarter 1 on audits and procedures to meet our commissioning by mid-2020—sorry, call it second quarter of 2027.

We have a strong confidence that the tax advantage into Europe is going to be an advantage, and we have strong view that North American, meaning Canada and the US, duty certainty are going to be quite important as we go forward. India's on track, Steve.

Steve Hansen

That's appreciate that. Just as a quick follow-up, I just wanted to delve into the logistical cost just briefly.

Recognizing there's an insane amount of volatility out there, but are the customers starting to act more normally as yet, just given all the volatility we've seen, just recognizing that food is still a staple demand side? Or are they sort of waiting and gauging some of the volatility to make those orders and place those orders to move volumes?

I'm just trying to get a sense of how smooth the rhythm is out there right now from the customer side to move volumes into that region. Then I guess secondarily is how those costs are fluctuating through the third quarter thus far.

Murad Al-Katib

Listen, this is not an AGT-specific question what you're asking. Demand fluidity in the time of war, and on again, off again war, are we attacking, are we settling peace—these are all uncertainties.

The demand side of the value-added outside of the food security, Steve. In the food security, we know our contracts we're shipping, and ultimately we're expecting good strong shipments in the second half.

Demand fluidity on the other side is still a bit hand-to-mouth. We are expecting that to resolve because stocks are dwindling in the region.

This is no longer a "do I want to import?" I need to import; the question is how much.

We're expecting the back half to be reflecting that. On the cost side, new contracts are being costed at the new freight.

That's the reality. These are staple foods; they're not discretionary.

The supply chain costs have to be borne by the customer, and that's ultimately what we're starting to see.

Operator

The next question comes from Kyle McPhee from ATB Cormark. Please go ahead.

Kyle McPhee

Hi. First one, just a follow-up on your packaged food and ingredient margins.

Great performance in Q2. I hear your comments around contribution margin as volume ramps and the mix benefits within the segment, but it was a huge step up for margins in Q2.

Curious if there's any kind of temporary or one-time benefits in there aiding margins this quarter, maybe something like sticky product pricing alongside deflationary crop input pricing for a pocket of time, but eventually passed through the lower commodity price. Any color on that would help.

Murad Al-Katib

There's nothing. It's just great performance, simple.

Look at when you've got the capacity, you get the benefit, Kyle, of economy of scale. Adding 40% capacity to your pasta in Turkey, significantly increasing your extrusion capacity lowers your fixed costs per metric ton.

As you diversify out those segments and the customer base, you realize margin improvements. That was the margin trajectory that we communicated in the IPO, and you're starting to see it.

I'm not suggesting that margins are going to continue stepping up like that at that magnitude and that quickness, but, as I said earlier in my comments, that 12% to 13% as kind of our new range, we're quite comfortable that we can continue to stay in there and then start to continue to take steps up in the future.

Kyle McPhee

Got it. Great to see that structural margin lift.

Murad Al-Katib

Then,

Kyle McPhee

looking at your inventory positions and of course the cost of financing the inventory position below the EBITDA line, seems like these shipping delays and the unfortunate timing of sales, it's keeping your inventory elevated beyond normal levels, and it's adding some cash flow drag from higher financing costs, your trade financing losses. Is there a way to dial back here capital flows into inventory during this disruptive period that's slowing cash conversion cycles, or is this just the reality you need the inventory ready to go to satisfy demand you have, despite timing of sales risk probably for the foreseeable future?

Murad Al-Katib

I think that what you'll see, Kyle, is we needed to have the build because the sales book is real and full. It's not like we're building it in anticipation of sales.

If the sales don't draw through as we expect them to in the second half, don't expect us to continue to build inventory. We don't think that's the case.

Let me be very clear: inventory build was in specific response to order books and shipment plans in the second half. You will see that come through.

The annualized costs will come back more into normalized levels, and we'll continue to run at normal inventory levels. There's no fundamental change in our structural view.

We don't carry inventory. When we build it, it's sold, and that's what we're going to continue to do as a strategy.

Operator

The next question comes from Ryland Conrad from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Ryland Conrad

Thanks very much, and good morning. At the start, I believe last quarter you indicated that food security revenues are expected to be stable year-over-year for the full year.

Is that expectation still intact, and if so, how should we think about the cadence of recovery there between Q3 and Q4?

Murad Al-Katib

Just to be very clear, we expect food security volumes to be consistent year-over-year. Again, the revenues themselves would depend on commodity prices, and in that segment, we're working much more, Ryland, on a dollar per ton basis, the EBITDA contribution we expect to be consistent year-over-year.

When we look at this food security volumes at Quarter 2, they're very consistent with the prior year, and EBITDA contributions are running just slightly below last year. We do expect the shipments in the second half to be better than the first half, we're still sticking by our view that volume and EBITDA contribution are going to be consistent with last year even with the crisis.

We're adding further color to say we expect that the governmental food security programs, including buffer stocks and stabilization programs, maybe even more robust in 2027. We are saying forward that we do see a trajectory of potential that there will be some tailwinds that will come as a result of the crisis or post-crisis.

Very consistent, Ryland. We're on track, and we're seeing that.

Those contracts are not we're hoping; they've been awarded, and we're just now executing.

Ryland Conrad

Got it. Thanks for that.

Then on value-added processing, I know you mentioned that pricing actions have been implemented there on the new customer contracts to recover some of those increased transportation costs. I guess timing-wise, when should we expect to see the full benefit of those actions in the results?

Murad Al-Katib

Listen, again, I can sit here on a conference call and tell you we put in place pricing things. We're going to recover it all, but we still have to sell it all through and recover it all.

Again, we always don't sell on a cost-plus; we sell on what the market will bear. We have confidence that, again, when we look at stabilization of commodity prices, and even with the increased freight costs and with alternative routes coming up, and alternative logistics, in particular into the Middle East region, and, again, we've seen fuel and energy prices more stabilized—remember, we were at $110, $115, $120; now we're at $80, $85, $90.

With that stability, I'm expecting that the market will be able to bear in staple foods these types of transport items. We're expecting a Q3, Q4 to be a bit more normalized, for sure.

Operator

The next question comes from John Zamparo from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

John Zamparo

Hi, thank you. Good morning.

I wonder if you could describe how third quarter operations are impacted by the war at this point. It sounds like the impact in Q2 was about $3.5 million from lower orders, that's referring to EBITDA, and then there was $2 million that looks like it might have been from surcharges.

I wonder if you can try to quantify what the impact is on Q3. Presumably it's much lower, but wondering if you could share any color on that.

Murad Al-Katib

John, it's much lower. Look, the world is adjusting.

Again, when we had the last conference call, if you would have asked me whether or not I'd be sitting here in August and still looking at no peace deal, we didn't expect that. The prolonged nature certainly left a little bit more uncertainty in Q2.

As we get forward, things are adjusting. Pricing's adjusting, alternative routes are becoming more prevalent, and flows of goods are going in different ways.

We see the impact being much, much less, John. Ultimately, this is potentially a new reality, and I don't think that a crisis resolution is coming in a very quick period.

Yet, I also don't think that the crisis continuing is going to have a material impact on our business going forward. We're in the food staples business.

In the value-added side and in the packaged foods, it's all about protein and dietary fiber. These are trends that are not related to the Middle East war, the business is going to be healthy going forward.

John Zamparo

Thank you for that. Then, I wonder if you can give a sense of what the buyback usage will be for the rest of this year.

Murad Al-Katib

You're referring to our stock, you mean?

John Zamparo

Yes, yes, the NCIB.

Murad Al-Katib

Listen, we have an ordinary course NCIB, and ultimately, look, we think that we're undervalued. From that perspective, an NCIB should be utilized to stabilize your stock and to repurchase when you hit your target areas.

You see it's there. We're going to continue to have it.

We've got a lot of free cash flow. We've given you guidance, John, to say we're going to be over $100 million in free cash flow, as we said we would.

One of our uses, especially when I clarified the discipline will continue on the CapEx side, even with those commissioning costs and things, we've got free cash flow to use. If it's needed, we will.

We expect that institutions are going to step in and buy our stock. We're consistent.

In a time of uncertainty, our Packaged Foods and Ingredients performance has been great, and it's going to continue to be great.

Operator

The next question comes from Derek Lessard from TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Derek Lessard

Good morning, Murad. Good morning.

I congratulate you guys on the strong result in packaged foods as well. The $57 million in delayed sales, could you just maybe give us a sense on how much you expect to recognize that in the balance of the year, or could a portion of that slip into 2027?

Murad Al-Katib

Derek, we've still got some things that spilled over from Q1 to Q2 and Q3, and we have some stuff from Q2 that will slip into Q3, Q4. You are correct.

I think that three quarters forward, these backlogs are going to all clear up. I think that there could be a small spill-in into Q1, but ultimately we feel like a lot of these kind of adjustments have now happened structurally in the business.

I made the comment that stocks are dwindling in that region, you can't sit and delay and delay and delay forever because there's no food left. From that perspective, that may be a positive contributor, and that's what we're forecasting in the second half is a bit more stability in that demand side.

If you ask me today, again, I'll have to see how it all plays out. We're early in the quarter, but I don't expect that we're going to see these continued and sustained delays, Derek.

Derek Lessard

Awesome. Thanks, Murad.

Murad Al-Katib

Any follow-on, Derek, or you good? Let's go to the next one.

Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Murad Al-Katib for closing remarks.

Murad Al-Katib

Again, thanks for joining our call, and again, as I said to you, overall, our strategy is working. We're going to continue with our modular CapEx discipline.

We're going to continue with our focus on our packaged foods and ingredients. We're going to continue to focus on developing out India, Turkey, Minot, and continuing to focus on product mix and margin improvement in our value-add.

Thanks again for joining our call, and again, have a great day.

Operator

This brings to a close the conference call for today. You may now disconnect your lines.

Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.