Alicorp S.A.A. (ALICORC1) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Gisele, please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. We are very pleased that you could join us today. I am Gisele Remy, Managing Director of Finance Efficiencies and IRO at Alicorp. As presenters today, we will have Mr. Alfredo Perez, Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Manuel Romero, Chief Financial Officer; Mr. Patricio Jaramillo, Vice President of Consumer Goods and other members of the management team who will join us during the Q&A session. Today, we will be discussing the second quarter 2022 results after the financial results and earnings report we issued yesterday. If you have not received a copy of the earnings report, please visit us at www.alicorp.com.pe, where you will also find the webcast presentation to accompany our discussion during this call. Please be advised that today's call is for investors and analysts only, therefore, questions from the media will not be taken. If you are a member of the media and wish to direct any questions to the company, please contact the company directly after the call. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that forward-looking statements may be made during this conference call. These forward-looking statements are based on several assumptions and factors that could change causing actual results to materially differ from the current expectations. Thus, we ask you that you refer to the disclaimer located in the earnings release prior to making any investment decisions. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Alfredo Perez, Chief Executive Officer of Alicorp, who will begin the presentation. Alfredo, please go ahead.

Thank you, Gisele, and good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining us today for Alicorp's Second Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. We will start today's call by presenting some relevant external events impacting our business, followed by an update on our sustainability strategy. We will then comment briefly on the pressures we have experienced in our cost of goods sold due to increase of commodity prices and how we have continued to recover our profitability levels in this challenging context. Then we'll give you an update on 2 of the most represented strategic project that we embarked ourselves in, which will help us transform our go-to-market through the implementation of digital initiatives. Next, I will comment on our consolidated financial results, followed by Patricio and Manuel, who will cover our financial results by business unit and an update on liquidity and our balance sheet. At the end, before the Q&A, I will take the floor again for an update on our guidance for the full year 2022. Let's begin on Slide 5 to follow you in on some of our recent key events. First, in Peru, we're currently experiencing a fourth COVID-19 wave. Data shows that positive cases have increased significantly to 8,000 new cases per day in July, which are the highest level since February. However, no restrictions to transit or economic activity have been implemented since fatal cases remain low. As a result, we're not expecting any material impact on our operations. Second, the truckers strike in Peru, which started on June 27, with a small group of truckers has not materially escalated. We'll continue to monitor this situation closely and we have taken precautions to ensure affected regions have enough inventories in case the situation worsens. However, as of today, we see this scenario as highly unlikely and we continue operating with few issues. Third, the annual general inflation in Peru reached 9.3% year-over-year in June, which is a 25-year high, with the food and beverage component escalating to 14.4% year-over-year. Prices are increasing across the board in practically all categories, hurting Peruvian consumers who're still recovering financially from the pandemic. Finally, on the [indiscernible] side, [indiscernible] continues facing accusations directly linking him to corruption cases in criminal organizations. Even though the prosecutor has not shown any clear-cut evidence, all legal parties are already pointing to the precedent. On the other hand, Congress elected lady commons from APP, a center right party as the new President. Now let's move on to Slide 6 to discuss our corporate sustainability strategy. In 2021, we started a process of revising, strengthening and prioritizing our sustainability strategy. And even though we are aware of a long path ahead of us, we are also proud of the important progress made during the last quarters. Our initial roadmap, that started in 2021 and continues in 2022, established a number of interrelated actions that set the foundations to integrate sustainability guidelines into the company's operations and success metrics. First, we analyzed the expectations of our key stakeholders, identifying the most relevant gaps. Second, we work on strengthening the integration of the sustainability strategy transversely into the company's objectives and processes. For example, we said the goal that in 2022, sustainability KPIs should be included in areas such as innovation, commodities, procurement, investments and financial risk processes. Furthermore, we also defined the goal to close 10 gaps in the corporate sustainability assessment of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index in the current year. For example, we will address ESG risks in our supply chain, human rights and financial risk of climate change. Third, we reinforced the governing system through different policies and predetermined procedures led by the Sustainability Committee of our Board. As an example, our footprint reduction plans should be approved by the Sustainability Board Committee during the last quarter of 2022. Fourth, we reinforced the measurement mechanisms and reporting efforts to ensure improved tracking of the different initiatives implemented. As a result, in 2021, we achieved a 55% improvement in our Dow Jones Sustainability Index Score. Last April, we were included in the ESG Index of the Lima Stock Exchange. Our sustainability team has worked hard on promoting, accelerating and integrating into the company's operations, an important number of relevant initiatives guided by our 3 strategic pillars: One well-being; 2, community development; and 3, the environment. These initiatives cover a broad range of topics such as responsible marketing, social inclusion efforts and environmental efficiencies. Today, we would like to present to you 2 of our most representative initiatives. First, [indiscernible] program and our sustainability palm oil program second. [indiscernible] is a program designed to support sub-kitchen in communities of great need. This model has become especially important due to the times of food inflation reaching a 25-year high. Alicorp plans to reach 240 kitchens benefiting 20,000 people. We provide on only product donations but also training for the people running these kitchens, helping them improve the managerial capabilities, training more than 500 women in the first 12 weeks of the program. We're also looking to transform their operation model, so that these kitchens become self-sufficient and also their future operation is guaranteed. We are glad to share with you the other important proven companies like UNASAM, Banco de Credito, Peru, among others, have recognized the relevance of this initiative and are cooperating with us on this program, promoting the well-being of the communities where we operate and strengthening the relationship of the private sector with Peru's most vulnerable population. Regarding the sustainable palm oil program, we promote the development of a sustainable supply chain with the objective of obtaining a 100% certified local supply in Peru by 2030. This represents a great challenge for our company, which will require working hand in hand with several local farmers. In this context, 2 important milestones were recently accomplished. We assured more than 40% of external funding through our strategic partner, Sociedad, for our program from USID via U.S. agent for International Development. For the implementation of a digital tool in over 30% of the territory where palm is grown in Peru. This tool facilitates traceability of the origin of our product, reducing the risk that the palm oil we are purchasing origination areas where deforestation occurs. In 2022, we will continue our journey towards creating a more sustainable company with the goal of continuing improving our score in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and remain being recognized as a company with superior sustainability practices in Peru through the presence in the ESG Index of the Lima Stock Exchange. Looking further ahead, we plan to report for the first time to the TCFD in 2023. Next, we will discuss the trends in our cost of goods sold structure and its impact on our company's profitability on Slide #8. As we previously discussed, over the past 18 months, increases in commodity prices have been adding pressure to our margins. The situation continued to deteriorate with the international conflict between Russia and Ukraine as these countries together were responsible for almost 30% of global wheat exports. Because of these price trends, agricultural commodities became more relevant in our cost structure with a portion of cost of goods sold related to agricultural commodities increasing from 53% to 63% since the first quarter of 2021. Despite the continuous pressure from the cost side, we're glad to share with you that profitability shows a positive trend since the beginning of the year. Thus, even though total cost per metric ton, excluding the crushing business, increased 44% in the second quarter and 34% versus the first quarter of 2021, our gross profit per metric ton registered a remarkable 11% increase quarter-on-quarter. These results highlight the strength of our brands and our unique go-to-market footprint. 2 relevant competitive advantages that have made our business very resilient. Despite the headwinds we have previously described so far, we continue recovering volumes, market shares and profitability after the second half of 2021. We continue to monitor international commodity market dynamics closely in order to ensure optimal commodity procurement to minimize further increases in our cost of goods sold. This, together with our efficiency efforts and design-to-value initiatives, allows us to continue offering our clients and consumers a wide variety of products with reliable quality and service. Our client-centric approach has allowed us to continue strengthening relationships and market positioning in these challenging times. Now let's move on to Slide #9 for an update on our digital initiatives. In previous quarters, we have covered our corporate strategy, highlighting the importance of digital analytics, which are key to achieving our company's long-term goals. In recent years, our company accelerated digital transformation through different initiatives with the goal of accelerating growth, generating efficiencies and reducing the risk of potential disruptive threats. Today, we'd like to give you an update on the progress of 2 of our main projects, Insuma and DiaDia. These projects are 2 digital ecosystems that aim strengthening our go-to-market competitive advantage. While Insuma targets our B2B clients from the food service and bakery sectors, DiaDia is a solution oriented on mom-and-pops from the traditional channel. Both offer an e-Wholesaler platform where our clients can find not only Alicorp's products but also products from third parties to complement our portfolio at competitive prices. These initiatives were developed through a hybrid model where lean structures and exclusive teams that allow agile and independent decision-making while at the same time, leveraging all the capabilities and competitive advantages of our company. In the long term, both projects will strengthen our go-to-market capabilities and our relationship with clients while gaining access to additional sources of data through these digital solutions. Insuma was launched in March 2021. And since then, it has delivered excellent results, reaching PEN 111 million in annualized gross merchandise value or GMV in June 2022. Moreover, Insuma has a 70% participation in this client's share of wallet. This amazing growth leverages on our customer prospection and retention strategies. Commercial agreements with strategic partners are also important and play an important role in our value proposition, ensuring greater availability of prizes for our clients. We're currently deploying a positioning campaign through outdoor advertising in several points of Lima in addition to continuing to strengthen our relationship with our clients through online trainings and a partnership with Mibanco to facilitate the access of pre-approved loans. We are confident that as we continue scaling and adding more clients to this platform, we'll continue reducing our cost to serve, closing additional trade agreements, generating strong network effects that will continue to strengthen Insuma's value proposition. Moving on to DiaDia, this initiative was launched in December 2020 with the goal of empowering mom-and-pops with digital tools and know-how, boosting their growth and strengthening the traditional channel. With a base of 2,300 active mom-and-pops, DiaDia's annualized GMV reached PEN 54 million in June 2022. This performance would not be possible with our strong distribution network with unique coverage, our now to our clients as well as a relationship with them. Similar to Insuma, we're seeing very positive trends in our main KPIs and we intend to accelerate growth, improve unit economics and value proposition for our clients. Let's now discuss our consolidated results for the second quarter of 2022 on Slide #11. Consolidated revenue reached PEN 390 million in the second quarter of 2022, outperforming by 37% in the same period of 2021, while volume increased 12% year-on-year, mainly driven by the solid performance of our crushing, aquafeed and B2B businesses. Our consumer goods units also exhibited an important increase year-over-year as a result of price actions taken to partially offset the continuous cost pressures. On a year-to-date basis, revenue increased 36% year-on-year and volume 12%, reflecting higher revenue in all our business units. Moving on to profitability, let's now review our consolidated EBITDA for the second quarter of 2022 on Slide 12. Consolidated EBITDA exhibited an outstanding increase of 48% for the quarter when compared to the same quarter in 2021, mainly explained by the strong performance of the B2B, crushing and aquafeed platforms. Consumer Goods Peru and international grew 22% and 31% respectively, continuing the recovery path. We'd also like to highlight that these important results are partially explained by the efficiency efforts deployed during the last quarters. Year-to-date, EBITDA increased 31% year-on-year, boosted by the remarkable performance of our B2B, crushing and aquafeed units. Let's now review our consolidated net income for the second quarter of 2022 on Slide #13. Net income increased 3.2x year-on-year in the second quarter of 2022, mainly explained by higher operating profit and a positive base effect due to the loss of our discontinued operations, Brazil and Argentina, in the second quarter of 2021. It was partially offset by the increase in financial delivered expenses given the higher cost of foreign exchange derivatives in this year's more volatile environment. On a year-to-date basis, net income increased 68% year-on-year. Now let me pass the floor over to Patricio, who will discuss the operating results of our CGP and CGI businesses.

Thank you, Alfredo. Let's begin with an update on CGP market dynamics on Slide 15. For the second quarter of 2022, CGP is expected to continue growing at 3.5% year-over-year, while private consumption will grow 2.8%. Despite the decent acceleration of the economic activity indicators in the country, Alicorp continues to achieve an impressive 16.3% revenue growth rate year-over-year. These numbers reflect that the strategy deployed during the first quarter of the year continues to gain traction and is significantly improving the performance of our business, even though Peru is still facing significant political and economic uncertainty commented earlier by Alfredo. We are committed to our recovery path in terms of volume and profitability. In fact, financial performance in the second quarter significantly improved compared to the first quarter results as a result of our revenue management efforts in terms of pricing, rightsizing coupled with design-to-value strategies to reduce the impact of cost. Going forward, our business strategy will continue to be focused on increasing volume and promoting and up-tiering of our product portfolio, backed by advertising initiatives in our core categories and reducing price gaps across tiers. We are already seeing positive results in several categories such as edible oils, pasta, detergents and cookies and crackers. We are also deploying new and smaller formats for certain key brands with competitive prices to maintain household penetration. Finally, our channel mix continues to show improvement with the traditional channel now representing 78% of our channel mix, approaching to pre-pandemic levels. Regarding market shares, we continue to see positive results in both the traditional and the modern channel. For the March, April 2022 reading, we have gained or maintained share of volume in all of our main categories compared to the last 2 months of 2021. Moving on to innovation, we have launched new smaller-sized presentations in key categories and continue boosting the performance of new product launches made during the first quarter of 2022. For example, in edible oils, we have new bottles of 200 and 500 millimeters in our core brand Primor and also in our value brand, Mirasol. In our sauces category, we have continued promoting the new salad dressings with Alacena with promising results. In detergents, we launched new marketing campaigns for all of our core brands, highlighting key product benefits such as color protection in the case of Bolivar, stain removal power for Opal and differentiated fragrances for our brand, Marcela. Finally, in household care, we launched rightsized presentations for Sapolio bleach. Let's move on to the financial performance of our Consumer Goods Peru unit on Slide 16. For the second quarter, revenue grew 16.3% versus last year, predominantly driven by pricing initiatives in several categories to partially offset raw material increases in soybean oil, wheat and palm, better core value mix of our products sold and channel mix improvement already commented before. Our gross profit increased 8.9% year-over-year with a higher gross margin per metric ton of PEN 1,531 versus the PEN 1,353 for the same period last year. These very positive results confirm that the actions taken during the year have been successful and are taking us in the right direction to regain both volume and profitability. For the year-to-date, revenue grew 12.4%. And while gross margin lost 5%, gross profit per ton only decreased less than 1% despite challenging increases in commodity prices and exchange rate volatility in 2022. Over the past 6 months, we have recovered profitability at a faster pace than we expected at the end of 2021. For the time being, we will continue to focus on margins per ton due to relevant increases in our cost of goods sold that reduced percentage margins even if we maintain profitability on a per ton basis. EBITDA for the second quarter gained 21.9% versus last year and 12.3% versus the first quarter of 2021, reaching PEN 146.2 million. Now let's move on to Slide #17, our consumer goods international market dynamics. Regarding our consumer goods international unit, we continue to focus on our home care category expansion and strengthening our go-to-market initiatives to accelerate growth, both in Bolivia and Ecuador. In Bolivia, we are delivering significant top line growth in our home care platform, mainly explained by a 47% higher volumes sold. Revenue growth was driven by detergents with a 46% volume gain, where we continue to strengthen our Voliva, Opal and Patito brands. Our efforts on expanding our home care platform should reduce dependency on the edible oils business, which continues to face price controls that impact profitability. Additionally, we continue developing our distribution model with a new deck in Cochabamba, which has recently begun operations. Currently, our decks' in La Paz and Santa Cruz continue to expand our direct distribution model and now are reaching more than 10,000 points of sales directly. In Ecuador, our main focus continues to be the strengthening of our go-to-market strategy, which will enable us to expand our business into the traditional trade. We have now incorporated more than 15 new territorial distributors and we are also improving our modern trade channel presence in new categories that were recently introduced. Let's move on to the performance of our consumer goods Bolivia on Slide #18. Bolivia's revenue increased 7.6% year-over-year in the second quarter, fueled by our focus on home care categories, allowing gross margin to expand 1.2 percentage points. Excluding our edible oils category, revenue grew almost 9% year-over-year, and gross margin gained 1.2 percentage points. Regarding our edible oils category, we expect our gross profit to be further impacted by high commodity prices combined and price controls during the second half of 2022. EBITDA fell 7% when compared to last year due to higher non-recurring SG&A expenses, explained predominantly by a higher extraordinary remuneration paid to workers by law and an exceptional one-time bad debt provision. Let's move on to the performance of our consumer goods Ecuador business on Slide 19. Ecuador's revenue continues to grow, now up 15.1% year-over-year, fueled by increases in volumes sold, mainly in our home care categories, coupled with pricing initiatives and gross to net efficiencies. Our EBITDA increased more than 2.4x because of higher volumes sold, revenue and also SG&A efficiencies deployed during the quarter.

Thank you, Patricio. Let's move to Slide 20 for an update on our B2B market dynamics. The food restaurant industry in Peru continues to show resilience with restaurant GDP at 94% to 97% of pre-pandemic levels. Our foodservice platform continues its robust recovery with revenue, volume and gross profit, all above pre-pandemic levels despite tiering down in several key categories. Our focus on client prospecting is allowing us to continue our recovery path, achieving 22,000 total customers versus 21,200 last quarter and 10,000 in the second quarter of 2020. In the current context, where our clients continue seeking lower cost alternatives for their main production inputs, we are striving to continue generating differentiation through technical assistance, consistency in quality and reliable service. This focus on our customer needs and willingness to go above and beyond for them has led us to launch more than 70 customer solution projects. Let's move on to Slide 21 for the financial performance of our B2B business. Revenue grew 30% this quarter compared to last year, mainly due to higher prices aimed to compensate the increase in commodity prices. Volume remained flat compared to last year despite the complexity efforts, which led to the elimination of several SKUs and our exit of some non-profitable categories. While balancing market competitiveness and cost increases, we have been able to achieve a remarkable growth of 80% in gross profit with an improvement on the gross profit per ton of 40% and 1 percentage point margin gain. EBITDA increased 80%, supported by our gross profit improvement. Next, we will cover the aquafeed market dynamics on Slide 22. In Ecuador, shrimp exports grew 43% quarter-over-quarter, mainly due to the recovery of demand from China. China continues to regain ground among Ecuadorian shrimp exports while maintaining significant volume exports to the U.S. and Europe, consolidating the trend for a more balanced and diverse base in terms of Ecuadorian export destinations compared to previous years. In May, 200,000 pounds of shrink were exported from Ecuador reaching a historic high. Moreover, solid growth is expected to continue as we move further into 2022. International trade for shrimp continues to improve despite some logistic disruptions and COVID19-related restrictions in China. A positive demand scenario has kept global export prices relatively high compared to historic levels. However, prices paid to Ecuadorian farmers dropped near to their breakeven point for a few weeks during the second quarter of 2022 due to the uncertainty generated by Chinese COVID related restrictions and new plant suspensions. Nevertheless, prices have been improving as China eased COVID-19-related restrictions in the last 4 to 6 weeks. There is still room to improve and the market consensus is that prices should stabilize at similar levels to the first quarter of 2022 during the third and fourth quarter of 2022. However, this will greatly depend on how China manages their COVID-19-related restrictions and reopening processes. Despite these concerns about the outlook of the Chinese market, we continue to see farmers maintain the production strategies that have boosted returns during the last few quarters. Thus, they are increasing fund densities, which also increases the demand for feed, investing even more in automation and new technologies, which includes Vitapro's new digital ecosystem, slowly tearing up towards more premium diets where Vitapro is a market leader as well as reopening dry ponds and improving industrial facilities in order to better cope with growing demand from the U.S. and Europe. Regarding the salmon feed business, exports of salmon from Chile reached 6% quarter-on-quarter in the second quarter of 2022 and are expected to continue recovering in the remaining months of the year. As we shrink the recovery of demand for salmon, especially from the U.S. but also from other main import regions is above pre-pandemic levels and continues its upward trend, mainly due to higher out-of-home consumption, increased retail sales and the recovery of the foodservice and tourism industry worldwide. Prices in the salmon market have bounced back in 2022 to above pre-pandemic levels and are now at 5-year highs, which has incentivized farmers to rapidly start showing. Despite a slight price decrease in June, we expect salmon prices to remain at healthy levels for the rest of 2022. To compete successfully in the Chilean salmon industry, Vitapro continuing to deploy its differential go-to-market strategy in order to capture new tenders in 2022. All in all, during the second quarter of 2022, we continue to see a recovery in both the shrimp and salmon industries and we expect this trend to continue throughout the year. Vitapro continues to expand in exponential growth, especially in Ecuador, and this growth plus our differentiated feed products and strong brands allows to continue generating value for Alicorp. Let's move on to Slide 23 for the performance of our aquafeed business. In terms of business performance, the 57% revenue growth is mainly explained by an increase in volume in both of our business units, the tearing up of our portfolio to value-added feed mainly in Ecuador and by price actions implemented to compensate for the increase in our raw material prices. While gross margin decreased 1.2 percentage points mainly due to price increases in our raw materials, gross profit per ton increased 14% due to fixed cost dilution and the tiering up of our portfolio and price initiatives, demonstrating our ability to successfully transfer cost increases to price. EBITDA increased by a remarkable 62% year-over-year, mainly due to the growth in volume, the higher gross profit per ton and by the dilution of SG&A expenses. Next, we will cover the crushing business financial performance on Slide 24. The crushing business continues to perform robustly in all fronts: maximizing profits as commodity prices continue to be in the high end of the range and as we continue to execute on our export programs. We would like to highlight that crushed volume in the second quarter reached 353,000 metric tons, growing 1.7% year-over-year, and our gross margin grew 75%, considering both soybean and sunflower crush margin. Revenue increased 74% year-over-year in U.S. dollars, explained by higher prices and a 30% growth in volumes sold to third parties. As you know, reported results in our financial statements comes from the sale to third parties only, however, it is important to highlight that volume for internal consumption grew 15%, reaching 69,000 metric tons. These remarkable results have been achieved in addition to strong commodity prices, thanks to a stronger footprint, allowing us to defend and grow our market share on the back of the same principles that we use in other Alicorp businesses, such as focusing on our clients, in this case, producers, and relentlessly looking for opportunities in the agri business ecosystem. Examples of these are initiatives such as farming practices programs where we have transferred knowledge, sponsored productivity contest with positive results for the participants and our growing agricultural solutions business, which has contributed with $2.7 million in gross margins year-to-date. We strive to continue growing these business lines to strengthen relationships with producers while reducing volatility in our crushing business. EBITDA increased $10.6 million year-on-year backed on our ability to negotiate prices and our commercial team's efforts in developing the business. Let's move to Slide 26 to discuss our liquidity and credit rating. Regarding our liquidity levels, as of June 2022, we maintained a comfortable cash position, which amounted to PEN 825 million. The slight reduction in our cash position is mainly explained by an increase in our working capital needs for our crushing business as we assimilate grains for the winter harvest and the distribution of dividends in the second quarter. In the second quarter, we refinanced USD 75 million equivalent of Bolivian short-term debt, extending its maturity to 5 years at a fixed rate in local currency. During the second half of 2022, we will continue looking to reduce debt and interest expenses, prepaying debt with cash or readily available loans. As of June, our cash covers 1.02x the principle of debt maturing over 2022. Moreover, and to further boost our liquidity, we have uncommitted credit facilities for more than PEN 4.5 billion. As always, we remain active in exploring opportunities to improve our maturity profile through the extension of our liabilities to secure liquidity. These actions show our comprehensive and prudent financial strategy, which has been recognized not only by local rating agencies who have maintained our rating at the highest possible rating level in Peru but also by 2 global rating agencies, Fitch and Moody's, who have maintained our investment-grade ratings. Let's move on to Slide 27 to comment on our debt metrics. Regarding our debt metrics, our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio increased from 2.6x as of the first quarter of 2022 to 3.0x as of the second quarter of 2022. The increase was mainly explained by the financing of our working capital needs in our crushing business as well as the payment of our ordinary annual dividend in the second quarter. As we can see in the charts contained on the slide, the increase in total debt experienced in the second quarter is transitory as it is directly related to the purchase of readily marketable inventory or RMI, in our crushing business. RMI refers to the soybean and sunflower seeds stored within our facilities in our Bolivian operations. These inventories are hedged and easy to convert into cash since the market is highly liquid. This temporary increase in RMI occurs mainly over the second and third quarters as the business accumulates grain for the winter harvest. As our crushing business consumed RMI accumulated during this quarter, this will facilitate deleveraging in the third and fourth quarters. While the traditional net debt to EBITDA ratio in our crushing business was 5.4x in the second quarter, if we consider RMI as cash as most global crushing or training businesses do and subtract it from net debt, the adjusted net debt-to-EBITDA ratio for our crushing business in the second quarter would have been 2.9x. If we look at the metrics on a consolidated level, we would have net debt to EBITDA of 2.3x instead of the 3.0x that I mentioned before. This transitory impact on our leverage explained by the crushing business has become more relevant than in previous years as readily marketable inventories has increased significantly due to higher volumes and higher cost of seeds purchased during the winter harvest. Let's move on to Slide 28, please, for an update on working capital. Regarding our working capital, over the last 12 months, as of June 2022, our cash conversion cycle averaged 15 days despite higher inventories due to some supply chain disruption, high commodity prices and the volume increase in our crushing units. We were able to improve our cash conversion cycle by 1 day when compared to the last quarter as a result of efficiencies in our receivables management. Finally, let me circle back to Alfredo to wrap up today's presentation with a view of what we expect for 2022.

Thanks, Manuel. Let's turn on to Slide 30 to wrap up today's presentation with a glimpse of what we expect for full year 2022 results. Despite the challenging context and the continued pressure on our margins, the second quarter showed extraordinary performance. Furthermore, we find that our pricing strategies, innovations, design to value initiatives and efficiency efforts will continue to deliver positive results in the upcoming quarters. Thus, we're updating our guidance for 2022. In that sense, I will comment the main assumptions behind our guidance. Despite still challenging economic conditions for the next quarters in our main geographies due to economic deceleration, coupled with high inflation rates, which will continue to put pressure on family income, we're confident that our consumer goods units will keep recovering in the second half of the year. You may recall, during the second half of 2021, this business was heavily impacted. As to the recovery that we have been able to execute during this year, we expect significant growth over the next 2 quarters compared to last year. We also see clear positive tailwinds for aquafeed and crushing, while B2B continues resilient even in the face of tiering down and the deceleration of the foodservice industry activity. Considering the aforementioned assumptions, we expect revenue to reach over 20% growth in the full year. EBITDA should reach approximately 20% growth in 2022, coupled with double digit EBITDA per metric ton growth versus 2021. As was mentioned in previous quarters, we are now paying more attention to gross profit and EBITDA per metric ton metrics as commodity price inflation continues to generate even more distortion of margins measured as a percentage of sales. CapEx shed to reflect our prioritization efforts falling to USD 70 million, excluding aquafeed. This represents an almost 30% reduction versus 2021 levels, excluding aquafeed. Now including aquafeed and the expansions planned for this unit, capital should reach $125 million. As for leverage, our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio should fall to approximately 2.5x by year-end 2022 on the back of higher EBITDA and solid cash flow generation. This concludes our presentation. And now, we [indiscernible] any questions that you may have.

[Operator Instructions] While we wait for the voice question, we do have a text question about the debt. Are you considering to obtain more debt to new projects?

Thank you for the question, and I'll just ask Manuel to go ahead and answer it, please.

So far, we are not expecting any additional debt to finance new projects. We believe that we have sufficient cash to fund all our investments. What we are considering is refinancing some of our debt that is maturing in 2023 and 2024 to extend our maturity profile but we are not expecting any additional loans to finance new projects.

Our next question comes from Mr. Alonso Aramburú from BTG Pactual.

I wanted to ask about SG&A efficiencies. You've done a very good job keeping costs under control. Can you give us some color as to what are some of these measures you're doing and how should we think about the growth of expenses in the second half of the year?

Thank you, Alonso. And again, I'll ask Manuel to go ahead and answer the question.

Thank you, Alonso. Regarding our efficiency program, most of the efficiencies have already been implemented during the fourth quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022. Most of the efficiencies were captured on consultants and some third-party services that we were hiring at Alicorp and restructuring process that we implemented during January of this year. Moving forward, we are still being very disciplined with our expenses and we are not considering any relevant increases in our SG&A. So we are going to continue being very disciplined and focusing on the main levers that can continue delivering value to our shareholders. But we are not expecting any further relevant restructuring processes in the near term.

Our next question comes from Mr. Felipe Ucros from Scotiabank.

Just one follow-up on my side. The presentation today was pretty clear but just one follow-up on digital. Very clear what you're trying to do with DiaDia. Just wondering, is any of the international competitors that are starting up with digital B2B platforms in other countries have started doing the same in Peru, just wondering what the digital B2B landscape looks like today in Peru?