Del Monte Pacific Limited (D03) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning to all our participants in Asia, and good evening to all our participants in the U.S. First of all, we'd like to convey our sincere apologies for the change in this briefing schedule. We had to meet with the Securities and Exchange Commission of the Philippines. It's a routine meeting required by the submission of our registration statement with the SEC for the planned IPO of Del Monte Philippines. Unfortunately, it was advised on short notice and it started late. So we'd like to apologize for any inconvenience caused. Representing Del Monte in this briefing are Cito Alejandro, Group Chief Operating Officer of Del Monte Pacific; Parag Sachdeva, Group CFO of DMPL; Greg Longstreet, CEO of Del Monte Foods in the U.S.; and I am Iggy Sison, Chief Corporate Officer of Del Monte Pacific. Parag Sachdeva will now present our results for the fourth quarter and full year ending April 2021.

Thanks a lot, Iggy. Good morning to everyone in Asia, and evening for those of you who may be joining from the U.S. As Iggy said, we do apologize for the delay that was caused today. On Slide 4, I would like to reconfirm that DMPL owns 87% of Del Monte Philippines and 93.6% of Del Monte Foods, Inc. Therefore, DMPL recognizes a 13% and 6.4% noncontrolling interest in these 2 subsidiaries, respectively. These are captured in the NCI line in the P&L. On Slide 5. Next slide, please. Our Q4 highlights, DMPL Group improved its margin to 26.8% from 17.8%, which is an improvement of 900 basis points coming from better sales mix, lower trade spending and lower cost, both in the base business and in DMFI. EBITDA increased by 30.8% to $73.1 million. Net profit of $14.5 million was a turnaround from the $12.4 million loss in the prior period. EBITDA of Del Monte Foods rose 20% to USD 41.2 million and delivered a net profit of $4.6 million from a loss of $18.4 million last year. The group reduced the net debt, lowering the gearing to 2x from 2.4x equity, while Moody's and S&P upgraded Del Monte Foods' credit rating in April 2021. Final dividend declared, which was approved by the Board, represents 37% of fiscal year '21 net profits. Next slide. On the outlook, our strategy continues to strengthen the core business, expand the product portfolio in line with market trends for health and wellness and grow our branded business while reducing nonstrategic business segments. We will continue focusing on more product availability through better distribution and expanded sales channels including e-commerce or dollar stores, convenience stores and also expand in our international markets such as China. DMPL Group is well positioned to build on momentum achieved in fiscal '21, and offset the impact of commodity and transportation headwinds. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the DMPL Group expects to generate higher net profits in fiscal '22. Next slide, please. We'll take you through our fourth quarter group results summary. Sales of close to $500 million, or $497.8 million to be more precise, lower by 22%. U.S. sales lower by 34.6%. Philippines higher by 6.1% in local currency and 11.9% in dollar terms. Sales of S&W branded business increased significantly by 31% in the fourth quarter, mainly coming from recovery of premium fresh pineapple segment as well as higher sales of packaged pineapple products. JV in India declined by 20% in local currency as B2B business did get impacted by COVID-19, though it was partly offset by surge in retail and e-commerce sales. EBITDA of USD 73.1 million, up 22.2% on a recurring basis due to better sales mix in both U.S. and Philippines, and also active cost management with significant savings from DMFI's asset-light strategy and other cost-saving initiatives. Operating profit of $49.2 million is up 43.7% from $34.2 million. Net profit of $14.5 million, up 3x from USD 4.8 million even after including the impact from minority interest changes explained on Slide 4. There are no one-off items this quarter, all figures above are versus prior year quarter, excluding one-off items that were relevant to fiscal '20. On nonrecurring expenses, next slide, please. There are no one-off items in the fourth quarter as confirmed previously, impact of one-off costs in fourth quarter of fiscal '20 on a post-tax basis was $17.2 million and included the remaining plant closure costs that were incurred, severance as well as write-off of deferred financing costs and interest rate swap settlement following refinancing of first and second lien loans by high-yield bonds. Impact of one-off costs on a post-tax basis was $113.6 million from a full year perspective in fiscal '20. So next slide, please. We'll take you through our Q4 results on a reported basis in more detail. Fourth quarter sales of $497.8 million was 22% lower than last year. Higher sales from Philippines and international markets, both from premium fresh pine and packaged exports were offset by lower sales from a high base effect. This will be explained more in the turnover analysis as well as by Greg. Gross profit at USD 133.2 million is higher by 17.4%. More importantly, the gross margin at 26.8% is higher by 900 basis points, led by lower trade spend, lower costs driven by DMFI's asset-light strategy and improved sales mix both in the U.S. and the base business. Margin for the base business, which excludes DMFI improved by almost 310 basis points and DMFI by 910 basis points during the same period. EBITDA of USD 73.1 million is an increase of 30.8%, mainly due to increase in gross profit and gross margin as explained previously. OI followed gross margin at $49.2 million, is up 63.4%. Net finance expense of $27.4 million reflects a higher interest cost driven by higher coupon rate on high-yield bonds issued in the U.S., however, lower on a reported basis as last year includes $11.3 million for interest rate swap settlement and increased deferred financing charge on settlement of first and second lien secured loans. DMPL's share in FieldFresh joint venture was close to breakeven and -- which is an improvement versus last year, reflecting continued recovery of the business, and change in mix more towards B2C following the pandemic impact. Last year, higher -- due to tax cost and dividends, I'm on tax cost now, from subsidiary and also we had a true-up of tax on one-off costs, partly offsetting higher tax expense due to higher net income before tax this year. Net debt at $1.257 billion, lower by $106 million due to stronger operating results and consequently, the gearing ratio at 2x, lower by 0.4x mainly driven by lower loans plus higher shareholders' equity following good and strong operating results. Next slide, please. On the turnover analysis, Americas as you can see, does constitute 66% of total group sales. It was lower by 34.6% in the fourth quarter to $330 million, mainly due to extremely high base coming from peak pantry loading in March and April of 2020 and to some extent, reduced promotions. Shares, however, held or improved in all categories on an equated volume basis. New products continued to perform well and contributed close to 7% to DMFI sales in the fourth quarter. Asia Pacific sales in the fourth quarter increased by 23% to $150.5 million from $122.3 million, mainly due to increase in all major segments, including Philippines retail, S&W, fresh pineapples and package business and exports of non-branded processed pineapple and packaged products. It was really great to see how our fresh pineapple business bounced back in the second half and grew significantly and even better than pre-COVID period. Sales in the Philippines domestic market were up in both peso and dollar terms by 6.1% and 11.9%, respectively, mainly due to higher volume in general trade. The group continue to progress with expanding distribution coverage in general trade and is also seeing early signs of recovery in the foodservice business. Moreover, the sale of S&W-branded business increased by 31%, as explained earlier, in the fourth quarter, mainly coming from higher sales of fresh pineapples in North Asia as well as higher sales of pine solids tropicals and juice drinks. Europe also had a good quarter at $17 million in sales, which is an increase of 60% on a lower base coming from higher sales of packaged fruits and beverages. Next slide, please. Next slide, please. On full year results, the key highlights. Again, in line with Q4, DMPL Group improved its gross margin to 25.7% from 21.2% on better sales mix, lower trade spending and lower costs. EBITDA more than doubled to $309 million, net profit of $63 million was a significant turnaround from the USD 81 million loss in the prior year. EBITDA of Del Monte Foods surged $270.5 million from $33 million in the prior year and delivered a net profit of $15 million from a loss of $100 million last year due to asset-light strategy, which has generated significant savings and also led to a huge change in sales mix, which is more skewed towards branded sales. Our group reduced net debt, lowering the gearing to 2x from 2.4x as explained in the Q4 highlights. Final dividend, again, represented a 37% of FY '21 net profits and has been approved by the Board. Next slide, please. Group results on a summarized basis. Sales of $2.2 billion is a 1.6% improvement versus last year. U.S. sales declined 2.7%. Philippines is higher by 10.3% in local currency and 15.9% in dollar terms. S&W brand in Asia declined marginally by 0.9% mainly due to lower sales of fresh pineapple in North Asia in the first half. Fresh pine business was really a tale of 2 halves: first half was still recovering from the COVID impact; second half did exceptionally well. JV in India declined by 7.9% in local currency as B2B business did get impacted significantly by COVID-19. But encouraging to see how the results were gradually improved, particularly on the B2C business. EBITDA of USD 309 million, up 36.9% from $225.7 million due to better sales mix in the U.S. and Philippines and lower costs, including benefit from asset-light strategy. Operating profit followed at USD 211.9 million, up 57% on a recurring basis. Net profit of $63.3 million, again, on a recurring basis, almost doubled from $32.2 million, and does include the impact from minority interest changes explained on Slide 4. No one-off items in '21, and all figures that I just mentioned were excluding one-off items. Next slide, please. Results on a more detailed basis for fiscal '21. F '21 sales, as mentioned, of $2.16 billion is 1.6% higher than last year from higher sales in the base business, both in Philippines and international markets, partly offset by lower sales in the U.S. We will talk more about this in the turnover analysis. Group profit at $556 million higher by more than $100 million driven by volume increase in Asia, better sales mix both in Asia and the U.S., particularly in the U.S. And the gross margin at 25.7% stood 450 basis points higher than last year on a full year basis driven by lower trade spend, improved sales mix both in the U.S. and the base business, lower costs in the base business and U.S. also contributed to improvement in the margin. Margin for base business on a full year basis increased by 250 basis points to 30.6%, whereas for U.S. gross margin improved by almost 500 basis points to 22.6%. EBITDA of $309 million is up 117.2% from $142.2 million mainly due to the increase in volume and more importantly, the branded sales volume, which led to an improved sales mix and lower trade spend and last year included one-off costs, as explained on Slide 8. Minor detail, increased depreciation from change in accounting of leased assets is $7.7 million in '21. OI of $211.9 million, up 57.3% on a recurring basis, and it's a complete turnaround on a reported basis, with an increase of $161 million. Net finance expense, it does reflect higher interest costs driven by higher coupon rate on high-yield bonds issued in the U.S. But if we exclude -- and that would be true if we exclude the one-off costs that were related to incremental deferred financing cost settlement and interest rate swap of 11.3%, as explained in Q4. That was booked in fiscal '20. Just like Q4, on a full year basis, DMPL's share in FieldFresh joint venture was a loss of $1 million, on an organic basis, and lower than last year due to great effort put by the team to control costs and also reduce marketing spend to offset the impact of decline in B2B business due to the pandemic. Higher tax expense last year as Del Monte Philippines declared a dividend to its parent, which was taxed at 15%, amounting to $39.6 million. Net debt, in line with Q4 is an improvement by $106 million due to strong operating results. Next slide, please, '21 turnover analysis. Americas constitutes around 69% of group sales was lower by 2.7% to $1.5 billion. That's what we delivered by way of revenue. This was actually driven by higher branded sales. Branded sales increased by 2.5% in the U.S., offsetting the impact of extremely high base or coming from peak pantry loading in March, April 2020 and decline in private label sales that we have strategically pursued. Then DMFI benefited in the categories and segments with strong leadership position as in-home consumption increased throughout the year and consumers that trust -- they turned to trusted names. Growth in addition to category tailwind was also driven by increased distribution in club stores, e-commerce and emerging channels. New products continued to contribute well, and it was around 5.7% to DMFI sales. Now moving to AsiaPac sales, increased by double digit at 13% to $627.2 million from $555.2 million last year driven by Philippines and S&W sales of shelf-stable packaged products. Fresh pine business also surged and grew at pre-COVID levels or better in the second half. Sales in the Philippines domestic market were up in both peso and dollar terms by 10.3% and 15.9%, respectively, mainly due to higher volume both in general and modern trade, favorable sales mix and sales price variance, too. The strong retail growth was driven by more or less all the categories in the Philippines. Europe sales increased at $38.6 million by 13%, mainly from higher sales of packaged food as the supply of pineapple improved considerably in the fourth quarter. With that, I would like to hand it over to Greg for providing a more in-depth review on the U.S. business.

Thank you, Parag. If you could please turn to the next slide for market updates. Slide 18. On Slide 18, we've included some brief highlights on our performance in the U.S. At Del Monte Foods, we continue to maintain our leadership position in each of our core businesses, and we are pleased with our market share growth in the fourth quarter. Market share highlights include growth of our largest business, canned vegetables, of 1.6 share points and growth of our -- in our popular Fruit Cup snack business of 2.3 points. I'm also pleased to report that Del Monte Contadina and College Inn businesses outperformed each of their respective categories in the fourth quarter. Each of these portfolios now hold stronger share and broader distribution when compared to 2019 pre-pandemic conditions. We continue to invest in consumer-centric innovation and renovation. These efforts are successfully differentiating our products and our portfolio, and they're enabling us to drive top line growth in a number of new channels, including club, dollar, natural and e-commerce. These new products and new channels will lead us to continued positive top line growth in Q1 and FY '22. On the next slide, Slide 19 (sic) [ Slide 20 ], we've briefly summarized our key Q4 results. Sales were up -- I'm sorry, sales were down 34% compared to a year ago when the peak-of-pandemic stock-up conditions were occurring in the U.S. I'm pleased to report that when compared to 2 years ago, pre-pandemic, our branded portfolio delivered 18.4% growth in the quarter, signaling the strength of our portfolio. Our largest decline in Q4 sales was private label, which was intentionally reduced per our planned exit of margin-dilutive nonstrategic business. I'm pleased to report that new product sales in Q4 were 8.6% of branded sales or $23 million and for the full year delivered 7.5% of branded sales or $85 million. New product growth was fueled by our performance in Fruit Cup snacks, our new premium pineapple line and our successful new frozen food item, Del Monte Veggieful Pocket Pies. Gross margin in Q4 was 23.9%, a 910 basis point improvement, which Parag alluded to, and for the full year, was 22.6%, a 500 basis point improvement. Key drivers of this gross margin improvement included: low cost of goods driven by asset light and various cost reduction initiatives; our improved mix, which is focusing on building branded business; and a decrease in trade promotion discounting. We generated a net profit of $4.6 million in Q4, and there were no write-offs. I'm also pleased to report that we received credit rating upgrades from both Moody's and S&P in the fourth quarter. On the next slide, Slide 20 (sic) [ 21 ], we've included some examples of our national marketing, shopper marketing and e-commerce activities in the fourth quarter. You will see an equal focus on our core business and our new products such as Bubble Fruit and Pocket Pies. Also included are some new creative execution examples of our Growers of Good campaign, featuring various portfolio products. On Slide 21 (sic) [ Slide 22 ], we have highlighted our increase in public relations activities and media coverage in Q4, which included a large-scale media event conducted virtually and multiple examples of feature coverage of our innovation efforts and initiatives and our leadership in plant-based foods. Our outreach efforts generated a 553% increase in impressions for the company versus year ago. Lastly, on Slide 22 (sic) [ Slide 23 ], we delivered growth in foodservice sales, profit and profit margin in both Q4 and in FY '22, led by our collaborative efforts with chain customers, school districts and relief programs. As the economy has reopened in the U.S., we've seen a sharp increase in Q1 sales in this channel. Thank you, and I will now hand the presentation over to Mr. Cito Alejandro.

Thank you, Greg, and good morning again to all of you. Happy to report that we not only grew our business in the Philippines, but equally important, we expanded our leadership share, thus providing a stronger foundation for future growth. These results were made possible by our world-class marketing and sales operations. We never stopped. We continued our marketing and sales activities throughout the pandemic to bring more consumers to our franchise. Next slide, please. In the fourth quarter, Philippines sales grew 12% in dollar terms, 7% in peso terms. Both retail and foodservice sales improved. All our categories grew behind advertising and promotion programs that led to the market share increases. Renovation of core categories and innovation or new products, these were pursued throughout the year. And finally, we are investing in resources and infrastructure to accelerate our emerging e-commerce business. Next slide, please. So right before you in living color the -- is the breadth and depth of the products we introduced last fiscal year. In culinary, you will see a lot of low-cash outlay small packs all meant to expand distribution in down-line stores to further increase penetration among low-income households. In the fruits and beverage categories, we focused on line extensions and seasonal packs for Christmas and the summer season. Next slide, please. In the fruit category, communications centered on in-home meal preparations and home celebrations as people spend more time at home. We also introduced line extensions of our fruit cocktail, featuring mandarin and jackfruit additions to build consumption during the off-holiday season summer months. Next slide, please. Here are the initiatives on beverage, guided by 2 key strategies. First is pushing health and wellness in pineapple juice, which, as you know, has become more relevant in these times. The other strategy is driving home consumption of our juice drink portfolio via expansion of our 1-liter Tetra Pak format. Next slide, please. In culinary, it was all about maximizing our opportunities in home-cooking incidence with families spending time at home. Quick 'N Easy continues to be a winner. It is a meal mix. It's complete, easy to prepare and makes for delicious food, and one doesn't have to be an expert cook. Next slide, please. I want to share with you our maiden entry into the dairy category. It has also broadened Del Monte's appeal amongst children. So Mr. Milk performed very well since its introduction only 10 months ago, and we expect to accelerate growth with increased marketing activities this year. Next slide, please. Another major development is our entry into the biscuits category. Left side of the chart is Potato Crisp made with real potato, baked, not fried. Right side is our upcoming entry next month, fun-filled Fruity Munchsters. These are fruit-filled cookies. Next slide. I'm sure this will interest a lot of you who have been watching Del Monte Pacific for many, many years. So we will relaunch our 10-year-old Fit 'n Right juice drink with a totally new health proposition. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all when it comes to weight management. That's our proposition: your fitness, your way, featuring a totally new lineup of weight management products that suit unique health needs. Next slide, please. I shall now move to S&W. In China, we are a market leader in fresh pineapple under the S&W brand, and the business continues to grow. In Japan and Korea, we are very strong, top 3. And good to note that S&W e-commerce and digital are growing in North Asia, expected to be -- the biggest market being China. Next slide, please. In the fourth quarter, S&W sales of packaged products grew by 23% in Asia and the Middle East driven by higher sales of canned pineapple and mixed fruits. Sales of fresh pineapple grew 53% in the fourth quarter, coming from a low year ago that was impacted by COVID. Overall, our sales of fresh pineapple was hampered in the first half of the fiscal year due to carryover impact of COVID. However, it managed to rebound by the second half of the year. Next slide, please. Here is a great example of what we plan to do in China to further accelerate growth. This strategy is about increasing our distribution in fruit stores beyond where we are today with major chains Pagoda and Xianfeng. So in summary, what we want to do is expand our potential playing field to an additional 3,000 fruit stores over the next 3 years. Next slide. So S&W has gone beyond selling fresh sweet pineapples to fresh frozen pineapple, and it is gaining momentum across geographies, across customers. At the left side of the chart is our patented Nice Fruit frozen Pineapple Stick, great for snacking, lots of sales and usage coming from the youth and Millennials. At the right side is our new foray into IQF pineapple, primarily for institutions and foodservice. Next slide, please. So here are more examples of how we are gaining more traction in our fresh frozen pineapple. In Nice Fruit, we got the KFC account in the U.K. and Ireland and McDonald's in the Middle East. Very soon, our efforts in Nice Fruit will be truly global. On IQF pineapple, this has grown very fast in retail as well as convenience stores. Next slide. So this is my last slide. I just wanted to show to you a brief summary of S&W's packaged foods initiatives in retail, foodservice and e-commerce in Asia and the Middle East. So that concludes my portion of the review. I now turn you over to Iggy Sison.

Thank you, Cito. Sustainability is one of DMPL's strategic pillars, supporting our vision nourishing families and reaching lives every day. In the Philippines, we are installing solar energy, which will increase our renewable energy by 2 megawatts, in addition to the waste-to-energy facility, which already generates 2.8 megawatts of energy. In the same Bugo processing facility, we improved our water use ratio last year. And during the pandemic, the Del Monte Foundation partnered with over 400 organizations to support communities and frontliners in over 50 medical facilities. In the U.S., we reduced our carbon emissions by 13% and water use ratio by 26% in FY '21. Del Monte Foods is a finalist for the Sustainable Food Awards, which recognizes organizations that help build a sustainable food industry, while Del Monte Pacific's FY '20 Sustainability Report was a finalist in the Asia Sustainability Reporting Awards in Singapore for Asia's Best Community Reporting. Next slide, please. To recap our outlook, we will continue to strengthen our core business, expand the product portfolio, in line with market trends for health and wellness, and grow our branded business as we reduce the nonstrategic business segments. We will continue to improve product availability through better distribution and expanded sales in our core markets in the U.S., in the Philippines, North Asia for the fresh pineapple exports as well as other channels like e-commerce. Del Monte Pacific is well positioned in this environment given our nutritious and long shelf life products, which enable consumers to prepare nutritious meals at home, and build their immunity amidst the pandemic. DMPL is well placed to build on the strong momentum achieved in FY 2021 and expects to offset the impact of commodity and transportation headwinds. Del Monte Pacific expects to generate higher net profit in FY 2022. Before we proceed with the Q&A, we'd like to convey our apologies again for the change in the schedule because we had to hold a routine meeting with the regulator, in line with the submission of the registration statement and application for the IPO of Del Monte Philippines. So we regret any inconvenience caused by the change in schedule.

Before we go...

I would now hand back to...

Just one -- sorry about that, Iggy. I would like to just say a few words on Slide 16 that I missed, if that's okay.

Yes, on the dividend slide.

Yes. I did cover it but just wanted to emphasize that. Slide 16, please. So would like to again reconfirm the 37% dividend that the Board has declared. That equates to $0.012, and this would be expected to be paid by end of July. That's our plan as it stands. So would like to share the good news with the shareholders. Thank you. Sorry about that, Iggy.

Thank you, Parag. It's good to highlight the good news for our shareholders. We would now like to open the floor to questions. [Operator Instructions] Our colleague, Jennifer, will also read some questions which have been e-mailed to her earlier. Jen?

Okay. Good morning, everyone. So we've had some questions e-mailed beforehand, and I see some questions in the Q&A box already. So I'll start off with some questions from [ George Tan ] on our U.S. subsidiary, Del Monte Foods. First is how well did this subsidiary performed? Can we sustain profitable operations in fiscal year 2022? And there's a similar question also in our Q&A box from [ Wen G. Chen ]. What sort of sales growth should we expect in FY 2022? What's a reasonable run rate going forward? Over to you, Greg.

Thank you, Jennifer. There's a few questions there. So first and foremost, the performance, we're quite pleased with. We are delivering the kind of results that we had modeled in our LRP, and we're probably 6 to 12 months ahead of schedule, if you look at where we are delivering our net income, our gross margin and our EBITDA. So the work that we've been doing has really been executed quite well. The sales that we're lapping from a year ago include the tremendous initial lift of COVID. They include a 53rd week. They include a lot of private-label business that we chose to exit. As we look at the business in the first quarter of the new year and the outlook for fiscal '22 and for the next 3 to 5 years, we've modeled a 5% CAGR for top line growth. So we see a clear path to growing this company from $1.5 billion today to $2 billion in sales. That will be driven by our focus on our brands, our focus on innovation and our focus on developing new sales channels. We remain very underdeveloped in a number of channels that we are now entering and having success within. As I mentioned, club stores, dollar stores, convenience stores, the natural foods segment are just a few of the areas that we see a tremendous growth potential within. So quite optimistic about the outlook for growth as well as gross margins. I saw some questions in the Q&A area around margins and the outlook. We've raised our margins to well over 24% through the work of asset light and through the work to improve our mix. Those are the 2 primary drivers. So think about half of the credit going to asset light, which was really an effort to take away a lot of fixed manufacturing expense, a lot of layers of SG&A that we removed and, as we downsized operations, focused on the plants that were the highest producers and the lowest cost. And we've added a lot of capacity and a lot of production into those plants. So we're running our facilities much more efficiently. We've negotiated some substantial savings in our key areas of M&S, such as metal cans and corrugate and film, and that has lowered our cost of goods. So that's one key benefit. The other benefit is by focusing on our branded business which generates all of our margin and deprioritizing areas that were margin dilutive, like private label, like USDA government bids and those type of activities, we're shifting that raw material and that production capacity to things that generate very, very positive margins. So our outlook for gross margins is further increases in fiscal '22 and further increases in each year of the LRP. And we've committed to delivering gross margins at -- in the out-years in the LRP that are at or above our peer group in the -- north of 25%. In the 27% to 29% range is the outlook for the long term. So we see a clear path to doing that driven by the initiatives. There's more cost savings occurring. We didn't stop at asset light. Those cost savings are necessary to offset inflation that's hitting us in the U.S., just as it is in Asia, but feel confident about our ability to offset cost pressures in the coming year.

Just to build on that. Thank you, Greg. Would like to clarify that we absolutely expect our margins to improve in the first half in the U.S. So margins, we'll see the tailwinds coming from low production cost and asset-light benefits from last year. But in the second half, we would see a little bit more impact from headwinds. And as Greg rightly said, the cost headwinds that we are seeing around commodities, whether it's raw produce or whether it's metal packaging and a number of other areas, they would be offset with the benefits and programs that we are putting in place through more automation, through more direct labeling, efficiencies around moving the product across the country and also increased volume. So those will mitigate it, but there would be some margin pressures in the second half as we go into it. But overall, from a full year perspective, as Greg said, we expect to improve on gross margins in the U.S.

Thank you, Greg. Thank you, Parag. There's some follow-up related to cost pressures. So will we be increasing prices? This is a question from [ Mohammed Ali-Reda ] and also from [ Wen G. Chen ], similar questions on whether we're planning to raise prices to offset some of the cost pressures. And what's the magnitude of these price hikes? And also to maintain -- to help maintain gross margin, some competitors have already communicated increased pricing later in the year.

Yes. Great question. We actually led the market -- we raised our prices on May 1, so we didn't wait till September or until December or January of this year. We raised our prices immediately, May 1, on our biggest business, canned vegetables, in the neighborhood of 7% to 10%. We also raised our pricing on canned pineapple, and we are -- we've announced plans to raise our pricing here in September on our #10 bulk business across that family of products. And then we've also taken some measures to reduce our trade expense and trade spending. So we are very proactive in our pricing actions. I would say that the reaction to our price increases in May has been quite favorable. We haven't seen any decrease in velocity or business. On our core vegetable business, actually we've gained share and grown the business post price increase. So we feel confident in our ability to execute even more pricing action throughout the year.

And on the Asian side, similar approach. We have taken pricing to mitigate the impact of headwinds in Philippines, and the average price increase taken is around 2% to 3%. And we will continue looking at opportunities to go for a higher ASP in case we can't cover any additional headwinds that come our way.

Thank you. A question from [ Paul Chu ] is how does the branded product sales grow with lower trade or marketing spend? And is this the new level of trade spend?

Yes. We've been lowering our trade spend each year as we find ways to get more efficient and better evaluate our return on investments, so we've consistently brought that trade spending down. When I joined the company a few years ago, our trade spend was -- if you can believe, it was close to 28% of sales. Today, it's hovering around 17% to 18% as we've brought it down each and every year. We'll continue to work on that approach. What we see is through the power of good marketing and good alliances with our partners and the fact that we've been able to rationalize a lot of our competition and have them eliminated from distribution, we really are the dominant brand. And as Parag mentioned in his presentation, the solid trusted brands are winning in the U.S. market. The retailers and the customers are carrying fewer products and fewer brands, so you have to be a top player. You have to hold #1 or #2 market share to survive in the U.S. right now, and that's where we are. So we're leveraging our strength, and we're building upon that. And we're finding ways to grow through lower trade. But as I mentioned, we're also finding ways to grow through new outlets and new customers and new channels. So that's how we'll grow by spending less trade.

What is the percentage of foodservice sales? And can you remind us which branded products enjoy higher gross margins?

Yes. Our foodservice business is still low relative to our peer group in CPG. We're relatively new to foodservice as a company. For many, many years, this company was just focused on retail business, retail big-box business within brick and mortar with big retailers, and we do well there. But as we built that business, we've created a revenue platform which is well over 5% of sales, approaching 10% of sales. And over the long term, we see room to grow. Our peer group in the U.S. would normally have a foodservice business of 20% to 25% of sales. We'd like to get there. And we believe we have the brands. We have the portfolio of products, and we have some new leadership. We've been out hiring some very experienced and seasoned leaders in foodservice that come from CPG success, and we've placed them around the country to build those relationships. That's one of the reasons we grew foodservice this year, while most companies did not because of the shutdown. And we see more growth occurring in the out-years in foodservice. So that's one of our growth pillars. And then as you think about margins, there -- we have a nice base of margin mix across our brands. Our Del Monte portfolio, our core canned vegetable and fruit business delivers exceptional margins, much higher than our average margin as a company, as we've stated, 24% today. That and our College Inn Broth business. The broth and stock business is highly profitable. It's been a nice growth sector for us. That's another category that over-delivers. So most of our branded business meets and exceeds our hurdles, and what we've done is focus on eliminating the bad business. We had a lot of bad business in the portfolio 2, 3, 4 years ago that we've exited those contracts, and we've moved on to better business. And that's been a strategy behind this growth in gross margins.

So overall, from a group perspective, our foodservice business is less than 10%. So that would be applicable to the U.S. and our Philippines operation.

Yes.

In terms of margins, overall, as Greg said, retail branded business is in line with FMCG and what we see on the Asian side, so pretty good margins in the U.S. And also our retail business in the -- on the Asian side, particularly in Philippines, is very much in line with FMCG. Thank you, Jen.

Thanks, Parag. We have a question from [ Jamshed Desai ]. How much pantry-loaded sales are embedded in the fiscal year '21 sales in the U.S. that may drop away this year and be a headwind to reported sales growth? Would the first quarter have a similar loading as the fourth quarter?

Okay. To begin, as we try to break away the difference between what's pantry loading and what's sustainable growth, a couple of factors to consider. We grew the number of households buying all of our categories by double digits during the onset of the pandemic. So we had many new users come into our category and as -- in each of our businesses. And as the pandemic went on in the U.S., we saw those new buyers buy several times, a second time, a third time, a fourth time. They've been using our products. We've built some loyalty. We've built some familiarity about our -- around our products. They've learned new ways to use our products. Our products have become staples in many household recipes as a result. So as we think about the category growth that we enjoyed, which varied between 5% and 15% during the duration of COVID, we don't have any intention to give that back. Obviously, category sales are going to moderate this year and flatten out in some places, but we don't intend to return to pre-pandemic levels. So we're going to carry that benefit of a higher base of business. And the forecast for this year is some single-digit growth in each of our category segments. And thus far, we're delivering on that. And actually, we're ahead of plan as we think about our core flagship business, our canned vegetable and fruit business, as we look at the initial results of the year. So feel good. Feel good that we've increased the buying base, the households buying and that we've established a new level of consumption that we're going to build on throughout this year. Anything to add there, Parag?

I think, Greg, you summed it up. With the distribution increase that we are seeing across multiple channels, including club stores, the growth story that we have in our Mexico operations or LatAm, plus foodservice, which, again, Greg alluded to, those are the additional drivers which will absolutely make sure that any headwinds coming out of categories declining or becoming flat or flattish, they will allow us to continue the growth momentum, including a very important driver around innovation. So we are on track to deliver and build on the strong base that we shared with you in '21 results.

Thank you, Parag. Thank you, Greg. There's a question also on COVID-related costs. Did we have any of them in the fiscal year '21?

Yes. We had COVID-related costs of approximately $5 million from a group perspective that we incurred. But obviously, they were offset by several other savings as well we had in overheads. So I would not expect the impact of COVID cost to be significant on our results. And we do expect to make sure that the environment, particularly around our plants and network and DCs, continues to be safe. We would continue to have the same level of safety standards to protect our employees and in the bargain, make sure none of our locations are adversely impacted during the more important pack season considering how important it is for our business.

Thanks, Parag. I'm just going to finish all the cost-related questions. This is from [ Wei Tan ]. Can you elaborate on the impact of increasing raw material costs? How much percentage does it eat into our net margin? And do you see raw material costs tapering off? Or will the commodity costs remain high for the whole of next year?

So great question. Overall, from a group perspective, we are looking at headwinds across packaging space, raw produce as well. And in terms of total impact, we are looking at, overall, it being 2 to 3 percentage points of sales. But more importantly, we have so many levers in place to mitigate that margin erosion through the commodity headwinds or transportation headwinds that we are seeing. Greg talked about pricing, favorable sales mix as we keep on increasing our branded business. Increase in volume also helps quite a bit in terms of making sure our conversion costs on an overall basis or per unit basis go down. So that's another measure. The value engineering work that is being done by our supply chain teams, both procurement, R&D and supply chain, there are several programs underway to, again, mitigate the impact of commodity headwinds. And several investments are being made so that we reduce our labor costs in our plants, particularly in the U.S. Our direct labeling is expected to increase significantly due to those investments and which will also have a significant impact on our transfer freight, which is almost 3% to 4% of sales in the U.S. So all those areas are being worked on. And it's an amazing job done by the entire team, which is allowing us to stay ahead of the commodity headwinds and make sure we can protect our margins.

Yes. It's a great summary, Parag. The only thing I would add to that is keep in mind that we have some tailwinds due to the costs that we incurred in fiscal '21 to supply our customers. We had to accelerate and expedite freight and choose many inefficient freight lanes and freight modes to keep up with these sharp surges in demand and the volatile nature of the consumption trends that occurred. We're lapping that this year, and we really -- we'll be careful in how we manage resupply and how we manage service to our customers. So there's a lot of significant expense that we're going to avoid in this fiscal '22 relative to fiscal '21 cost that is a positive tailwind for us.

Thank you. Moving on to the Asian side, are we going to see the same pullback in sales in terms of magnitude, especially as Philippines emerges out of a COVID lockdown? And then questions on U.S., Philippines and the group outlook in terms of sales growth and profitability?

Cito, you want to provide a little bit color on Philippines first?

Yes. As far as the Philippine market is concerned, we are optimistic that we can sustain growth not only this year but in the succeeding years. What is good to note is we were able to increase market share during the COVID period. That's important because it really sets our level to a higher -- to higher starting point going into this year. Foodservice is a different story. That used to account for 10% to 15% of our business. But right now, that portion is really challenged. And even the QSRs, the McDonald's and the others, are not very optimistic that recovery will be soon. Likely, this will come in, in the first half of calendar year 2022. But having said that, the retail remains strong. And one positive -- one other positive development is we have actually increased our distribution coverage. So from about 60,000-plus stores directly covered when we started fiscal year back in May last year, we ended our fiscal year in April with 91,000 more stores -- 91,000 total stores. So that again sets the pace for how we plan to grow the business moving forward. And as you know, direct coverage is very important. But this is just the start. Our vision is to take it to 130,000 stores this year and eventually get to our 200,000-store coverage 5 years from now that will put us at pace with the likes of Unilever and Procter & Gamble. So that, in a way, sums up the Philippines. Growth in beverage, culinary, that continues to be positive. Also, as you know, the kids are still at home. Schooling is still at home here. So that should all be positive for all of our products. Parag, anything else you want to add to that?

Yes. Thank you very much, Cito. So building on that, right, so we did see some tailwinds coming from COVID in Q1 of last year. So I just want to emphasize on that. But with the plans we have around distribution, expansion, some recovery of foodservice, as Cito said, recovery of foodservice will take a bit longer, but we are seeing signs of recovery. Distribution and commercial excellence will help to offset the tailwind that we saw in 1 or 2 quarters in Philippines, a strong recovery of fresh business, which was unfavorable in the first half of '21. All these things will help mitigate any category tailwinds that we saw for 1 or 2 quarters in Philippines business on the retail side. So we absolutely have plans to continue growing our operations, just the way we talked about in the U.S. on Philippines and international markets, too.

Thank you, Parag. We have a question from [ Ronald Esguerra ]. For Philippine market, with a favorable acceptance of Mr. Milk., how do we see the dairy product growth from product offering to market penetration?

Well, first, let me tell you that the work on Mr. Milk is not yet over. I mean, we're not yet happy with the way -- even if we had a good start, there's more room to grow, and we will accelerate this growth further this coming year. As you know, Mr. Milk is just our maiden entry in the dairy category. We right now have a -- we're working on a strategic partnership with a regional dairy player, an Asian dairy player. I cannot disclose it at this point, but we expect to complete this very soon. And we should have our new products in the market, too. So that will -- that initiative together with Mr. Milk should broaden our footprint in the dairy category.

Thank you. Lastly, on the Philippines from [ Wen Gi ]. Are we going to benefit from lower tax rates under the CARES Act? Can you help quantify the benefit?

Yes. We would benefit marginally as the regular corporate income tax did get reduced, but we are also seeking and waiting for the implementation rules to come into place so that we can have a complete assessment. But based on our preliminary review, there is a marginal improvement in tax that we would expect on our DMPI side, which is effectively around 70 to 100 basis points on an effective tax rate basis.

Okay. Thanks. Moving on [Technical Difficulty].

You have connection problems, Jenny. Can you repeat that, Jenny?

What's the time line in terms of refinancing and paying -- okay. For the -- on the balance sheet side for U.S., what's the time line in terms of refinancing and paying down debt? And how high is this in terms of our strategic objectives from [ Eric Chow ].

So it's a great question. Thank you. We would be looking at options, but we don't intend to pay it down in fiscal '22. The valuation would be considered in this year. But any plans to evaluate or execute the options would be more from next fiscal year. In terms of savings, we could lower the cost by 3 to 5 percentage points if we stay on course in terms of execution of our operating plans.

Okay. We have a number of questions related to the IPO. So I'll ask all of them in one go. So first is, of course, the time line for the IPO. What's the status? What will be the use of the proceeds? How much of the proceeds will be used to pay down the preference shares? Will you be scaling down the IPO? Okay. We can start off with those.

The use of proceeds at DMPL level would be partly to redeem the pref shares, A-1 Series, which is $200 million, and partly to repay the debt at the holding company. So with that, we expect to improve our overall leverage debt to equity, from a group perspective, from 2x that we outlined today and bring it down to 1.2 -- 1 to 1.2x. In terms of debt to EBITDA, from a group perspective, we are looking at our leverage to be brought down to almost less than 3x. So that is what our outlook is, and that's the use of proceeds expected in case we proceed with the IPO.

And the timing?

Timing, it is subject to regulatory approval and market conditions. So we can't really provide any definite time lines on the same. But we are working with the regulators on it.

And how do you think the coming IPO of DMPI affect the share value of DMPL?

It should have a positive impact as it will really unlock the valuation of our Philippine business or DMPI, which is our crown jewel. And that could have a positive impact on the valuation of DMPL as well.

Thank you. Okay. A question from [ Mohammed ]. With respect to capital allocation, can you comment on cap spending and the thinking around debt [Technical Difficulty] returning capital to shareholders from fiscal -- so basically said that dividend policy and why are we giving dividends in light of our debt level?

So we are careful on our dividend policy, and we are making sure that we pay the right level of dividends to reward the shareholders. And our retained earnings are -- and also our ability to cash -- generate the cash flow has been considered while making this decision of paying 37% dividend on net income. Is there any other question, Jen?

The CapEx.

CapEx is -- CapEx that we plan to incur is around 2.5% to 3% of our group revenue.

Thank you. Okay. Let me -- there was a e-mail from [ George ] on FieldFresh. How did FieldFresh perform given the COVID situation in India? And will this be a profitable operation in FY 2022 as planned? Will this be achieved?

So as far as India operations are concerned, we would like to commend our India team for improving the cash profits. They improved their EBITDA considerably, considering how big the impact on the business was from COVID. More than 50% of the revenue in the India business comes from foodservice. We were able to generate positive cash profits as compared to a cash loss last year. Obviously, it had a significant overall impact on revenue. The revenue was lower by 11% to 12%. But the more important development that I would like to share is our B2C business improved by almost 20%. It grew by 20% and which is a big focus for us going forward, whereby we plan to improve the channel mix and have our revenue coming from B2C at around 65% to 70% versus less than 50% where we were a year or so back. So we are on the right track. We expect to achieve that in the next 18 to 24 months. And that will allow us also to improve our gross margin by 300 to 500 basis points, which is our goal in India. That would be instrumental in terms of enhancing the value of that business and also turning it around from a net profit perspective, which is what we are on course to. Obviously, the COVID situation in India has made it complicated. And that also has impacted our Q1 of fiscal year '22.

Thank you, Parag. Going back to the IPO, from [ Wei Tan ], how much of the Philippine profit will be reduced as noncontrolling interest or minority interest? What will be the net reduction in the group profit?

So we expect the noncontrolling interest, which is today 13%. As you know, noncontrolling interest currently is 13% in fiscal '21, that to increase to 25%. So it would more or less double. And you can accordingly do the math in terms of what does it mean. The only thing I would say is it does lead to improvement in cash profits, including pref dividend of $25 million to $30 million from a DMPL perspective.

Thanks, Parag. We have a question from [ Wen Gi ] on what's driving the significant increase in G&A expenses? And what would be the growth like in the next 12 months? Separately, can you also talk about the outlook for distribution and selling expenses, especially given the increase in freight costs? Is it reasonable to think that selling expense should grow by at least greater than 10% in FY 2022?

Great question, Jen. Thank you for that. In terms of G&A growth, G&A did increase for the group. And that's because we did make some structural changes last year, which gave us some onetime benefits from an IFRS perspective. For example, the defined pension plan in the U.S. was changed. That gave us some savings. And similarly, retiral benefit programs were also changed that led to some one-off benefits in IFRS accounting. We also did see the benefit of really having no variable compensation in the cost last year, considering we were restructuring the business and our performance was not in line with the plan. But considering this year, we have over delivered and increased our performance tremendously, you are seeing the variable compensation costs also being included in the G&A.

Thank you, Parag. We have a question from [ Brian ]. Could you identify 1 or 2 weaknesses or threats that could challenge the group's position in the market or its profitability?

Yes, I can help you with that, Parag, if you like.

Thank you. Thank you, Greg. Yes, yes.

Yes. I think we're in an ag-based business here in the U.S., and we need to have a good pack season to build back inventory and stocks for our sales activities over the next 12 to 18 months. So there's always a potential risk. What we've done to help mitigate that risk is we've planned for a substantial increase in production. As Parag alluded to, we're going to be using our plants like we haven't used them for some time to run production. We've also formed partnerships with global suppliers in many of our categories. So we're sourcing some of our key commodities from areas like Brazil and China and Greece as an example. So we're trying to balance that normal risk that we have. And I think the biggest pressure that we're facing collectively, and Parag has alluded to this earlier, is just the inflationary headwinds. We really need to make sure that we are on top of these headwinds, we're monitoring these headwinds, measuring them and identifying the offsets to each area of increased costs, so that there's no margin erosion, there's no profit erosion. That's our commitment and that's what we work hard at here. So we haven't seen -- I know a lot of the industry talk here in the States is around labor shortages. We've been able to keep our teams in place. We are adequately staffed for a healthy pack season. And ongoing workforce that we have is strong and well suited for what's in store in the coming year. Parag, do you want to add anything to that?

Thank you very much for helping out, Greg. Only thing I would add is successful execution of our innovation plans and entry into adjacencies is something that we would need to make sure we stay ahead of.

Yes.

Parag -- thanks, Greg. There's a comment from [ George ] in terms of reporting our results. Can you highlight the net income to common shareholders as preference shares take about 1/3 of the reported net income?

Thank you for the question, Jen. As you know, our net income prior to pref dividend is around $63 million. And if we take out the $20 million that we pay by way of pref dividend, what's available to the common shareholders would be around $43 million.

Thank you, Parag. Let me see. For those who have other questions, you can also raise your hand because I see there is a lot of questions and some may be similar. And if they have not been answered satisfactorily, you can also raise your hand and speak up. Okay. There is a question from [ Patrick Chan ] on, can we assume that the FY '21 is representative of what would be a base year for the coming year?

So one thing that I am very pleased to report to the shareholders and to those who are on the call, that we did not have any one-off costs. So what you are seeing are the operating organic results in a true sense. There were no significant one-off gains either that we have recorded in our DMPL books. So that should give a good baseline in terms of how we are looking at building our margins and top line going forward.

Thanks, Parag. I'm just going through the questions...

Yes. And I think related to that, too, I see a question around growth and target growth rate. And building off of Parag's comments, we've committed to top line growth of 5% in the coming year. And our long-range plan outlook of 5% CAGR is what we've modeled and committed to.

Okay. Do the rest have any questions? And if you do, you can raise your hand for your questions. I don't see -- wait, there's one here. Okay, wait. There are some more coming in.

[ Eric Chow ] raised his hand, Jen.

Go ahead.

Can you please unmute [ Eric Chow ]?

Eric, go ahead.

Wait, wait. Let me unmute [ Eric ]. [ Eric ], please go ahead.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Yes. Go ahead.

Yes. Just back on the refinancing side. I'm just wondering why we aren't looking at reducing interest expenses, I guess, more aggressively given that we had an improvement in credit rating in the U.S. and the business outlook is also improving. Yes, can we just get more color on that?

It's a great question. We did extend our ABL and also reduced our interest rates around the ABL. So we are seeing benefit of that right away. That was executed end of April. But when it comes to high-yield bonds, we can't refinance it for the first 2 years.

Yes. The no-call period and the fees involved are substantial. So that's the reason we're not pursuing it right now.

In the first 2 years.

Yes.

There is a question on IPO and on the price range and the PE. So I'm not sure if we're able to answer that now. So the question just came in as well.

Yes. Our PE is based on really our comparables in the marketplace. And we -- PE that we have submitted in our registration documents is around 29x of our fiscal year '22 estimated net income.

Which is based on the theoretical maximum price.

Yes.

Okay. We have a comment from [ Wei Tan ]. Thanks, Greg, for including the market share change in your slide. So he's referring to the -- we included the percentage increase or decrease on market shares on top of just stating the market shares. I appreciate that you acted on his feedback before. His question is, is canned tomato still a market we want to grow?

Yes. Thank you, and we appreciate that feedback. So I think that was a good suggestion, and we're happy to include that change. When it comes to tomatoes, there's a couple of areas of the tomato category that we do like. We like the authentic Italian tomato space. It's one of the fastest-growing segments. We have an authentic Italian brand in Contadina. And we are seeing growth in velocity and growth in distribution. We also like the organic tomato category in that space, and we see an opportunity to grow there over the long term. So there's parts of that business we like. It's tougher to compete in a more commoditized price-driven areas of base tomatoes. But we do like the more culinary, more premium places. And there are varying categories in the U.S. that we are pursuing.

Thank you, Greg. Can you talk about your A&P marketing spending plans? How much would be the year-on-year increase? And what would you be spending on? Separately, can you provide a bit more color on how you see the sales mix changing and the corresponding impact on the gross margin?

Okay. Our advertising and promotion plans have not increased significantly this year. Our budgets haven't changed dramatically. One thing that Parag and I have been driving is we've been working to reduce our nonworking media spend and investment to find efficiencies and savings in agency fees and associated miscellaneous costs. And we're redistributing that, that was dollars, into working media. So we're going to get greater impressions and greater impact with a similar budget in advertising and promotion. So we're excited about that, and we are seeing some very positive change there. When it comes to mix, we're not quite done with private label. We're winding down some of the very last private label contracts and continue to grow a bigger percentage of our mix in branded business. That continues to become a bigger and bigger portion of what we do. So that inherently will bring positive gross margins with us. And it's one of the reasons that Parag alluded to the fact that we feel very, very comfortable in our first half gross margin improvements over this prior fiscal year and our total year gross margin improvements, driven by that improved branded focus and branded mix, less and less private label, more and more brands as well as our cost actions to remove costs throughout our supply chain and lower our cost to produce.

Thanks, Greg. Is there any further restructuring in the state in terms of cutting costs such as factory closures, et cetera?

Yes. We're always looking for ways to save and ways to cut costs and be more efficient and increase utilization. So we are through the majority of -- in the bulk of our asset-light work, but the work never stops. We're looking for ways, as Parag mentioned, to increase efficiencies, decrease the number of warehouses we have, decrease inventory so we have more of a just-in-time M&S environment and finished goods environment. So we're looking for and we're finding lots and lots of cost savings throughout all parts of the supply chain, and that's never going to stop. That's just part of what we do. But in terms of major asset sales and major restructuring and onetime events, those are behind us. Anything to add there, Parag?

Thank you, Greg. Yes.

We have a good question from [ Paul Chu ]. How much low margin our business to be deemphasized is left in the U.S. operations? And once this disappeared, can it lift net profit?

We have already made significant changes in our sales mix. That will continue. We would see further reduction in private label sales, particularly around veg. But in terms of major changes that we had to make, they have already been addressed in terms of taking out nonprofitable businesses. But continuous approach to really looking at anything that does not generate accretive profits will continue, but the big bets are behind us.

Yes. We finished the year with about $100 million in private label sales and about $200 million in what we call miscellaneous sales. And those are the things that Parag and I keep looking at for ways to reduce that small sales base now. It's much smaller than it used to be -- and move that into branded business.

I have one last question from [ George ]. In case I missed out any of your questions, please raise your hand. So this question from [ George ], will there be a special dividend because of the IPO?

That would be first subject to us completing the IPO. And once that is done, if the Board is -- Board approves it, we would look at it. But the first focus is to really get this to the finishing line and then make any proposal to the Board around that.

Okay. Thank you, Parag. Are there any more questions? Wait, I see one here from [ Eric ]. On the S&W side, are there any opportunities to introduce new product categories into China and North Asia?

Want me to take that, Parag?

In China and North Asia? In China, first of all, what we are focused on is really driving our business on the fresh side. There is tremendous potential. And we see that in the low consumption and also distribution opportunities in second-tier and third-tier cities. We also are focused on growing our frozen business in China. So that's an area which we see opportunities in and also on the not from concentrate premium juice, which have been recently introduced. So all pineapple-centric, that's where we are focused in terms of continuing our momentum in China and North Asia.

Okay. We have a question from [ Ramesh ]. E-commerce is a major platform to tap upon. Can Greg give us updates on that in the states?

Yes. We were encouraged like most CPG companies by the substantial growth in e-commerce sales this year in both what you'll call pure play through the Amazons, but also through what we call kind of click and collect through our brick-and-mortar partners that had tremendous growth through curbside programs and delivery programs. So we see this as just an avenue of tremendous continued growth. We actually have done a lot of work in this area this past year. And we formed a new e-commerce division within our selling organization with a Vice President that we hired from a very powerful CPG organization and a team behind her that are paving a lot of new ground for us. So we see this as being a very large segment of what we do in the future. Obviously, off of a relatively low base, we're seeing increases of 100% in growth. But we really think that COVID accelerated the e-commerce channel in the U.S. by 3 to 5 years. The adoption rate by U.S. consumers has been incredible. They like the convenience. They like the simplicity. So we're seeing success helping both traditional retailers like Walmart and Kroger as well as the Amazons in the world find success. And we're investing a lot of time and effort against this. So it is a major vehicle for growth for us.

Thank you, Greg. I don't see any more questions in the Q&A box. Anyone still wants to raise their hand for questions? If not, let me see. And there's one more from [ Eric ]. What sort of growth rate can we expect for S&W? And what are the gross margins like?

So when it comes to S&W, there are 2 parts, as you know. One is fresh. On fresh, our margins are very healthy. In terms of where we are from an EBIT perspective, it's close to 30%. And we expect to sustain those margins or improve on it. In terms of growth rates, it should be in line with the momentum and growth that we have achieved in the last couple of years. When it comes to our packaged fruit business and beverages, that also will continue to grow at a stable rate of high single digit to low double digit that we are seeing in 2021 in our results.

I think also to add to that, our focus on S&W is really North Asia. And we also have pockets of businesses in Europe, which we will continue, particularly our co-branding with St Mamet in France, where we are the #1 pineapple brand alongside that co-branding with St Mamet. But basically, it will be a North Asia play because we believe that, that is where the greatest opportunity lies over the next 5 years and especially as Parag mentioned on fresh China, where the per capita consumption of fresh pineapple is still very underdeveloped compared to mature markets like Japan and Korea.

Okay. Thanks. [ Ramesh ], I muted you because I see your question here. You're referring to Asian growth, right?

Go ahead.

[ Ramesh ]?

Go ahead. Yes.

Go ahead, [ Ramesh ], if you have a question. Go ahead, Jenny. Ask [ Ramesh ] to ask his question.

[Technical Difficulty] So that's -- sorry. Can you hear me? Are you able to hear me? Can you hear me?

Yes, Jen, I think [ Ramesh ] also posted the question, has SEA Diner collaboration propelled growth?

Yes. So the Asia growth was stronger. Asia ex-Philippines growth was strong and appears to be e-commerce-based. Can we get more color on that? And has SEA Diner collaboration propelled growth?

So on SEA Diner, SEA Diner has been a great partner. They have been predominantly a financial investor, but they have worked with us on a number of areas as we developed our long-range plan, particularly evaluating our China story and also trying to look at avenues to get into categories such as plant-based products or ready-to-eat meals. So there are a few areas where we continue working with them, but it's more on the strategic side that they have really helped us a lot.

Thank you. We have a question from [ Wen Gi ]. DMFI's fourth quarter EBITDA margin and GP margin were higher than 4Q of 2019. But why do we not see any increase on net margin basis?

So net margin, as we said, our net profit is a complete turnaround for DMFI versus last year. So we have registered a net profit of close to $5 million, or $4.6 million to be more precise in the fourth quarter. And our margin -- gross margin at 24% is a big improvement versus last year. It's literally night and day when you look at the gross margin of the 2 quarters.

I think he's also referring to versus 2019. We have higher GP and EBITDA margins, but net margin has not increased as much. It's probably due to the increase in interest.

It's not just increase in interest, but also, again, as we were looking at opportunities to improve our business, there are certain one-off gains that we had in the fourth quarter of fiscal year '19, too, particularly around benefit funds. Yes.

I don't see any more questions in the Q&A box.

Okay, Jen.

I think -- yes, we can wrap it up.

If anyone want to raise his hand, are there any other questions?

Any questions?

Maybe if we can have a line from -- yes, Greg, just to summarize because there have been many questions about the prospects, especially in the U.S. So we can wrap it up with maybe 1 or 2 lines about prospects in the states.

And then Cito can also talk about the Philippines and our North Asia after Greg to wrap it up. Yes.

Okay. Sure. Sure.

Thank you, Jen. And we have -- in terms of the U.S., as Parag and I have kind of alluded to throughout the conversation here, we have a strong outlook for growth in the U.S. market. We've modeled a 5% top line increase and a 5% CAGR over the LRP, and that growth is coming from a number of areas. It's coming from innovation, but it's also coming from channel development. We've successfully built business and achieved and earned new contracts in the dollar channel, the club channel, the natural foods channel. We're seeing really nice growth building in foodservice in Latin America. So we have a number of channels that we are going to continue to drive growth within on our branded business as well as keep introducing this pipeline of successful innovation that we've now created. This year, our net sales from innovation were almost $90 million, and that's going to keep growing over time through the successful efforts that we're having. So that's the picture why we're pretty optimistic about top line growth in the U.S. As category growth rates stabilize, we'll still grow through those initiatives.

Okay. Jenny, you want me to speak now?

Yes, Cito. Please go ahead. Thank you, Greg.

Yes. So for Del Monte Philippines, which is really the Philippine market and our international business, I just wanted to share with you 4 building blocks for future top line growth. Number one is channel expansion. As earlier mentioned, in the Philippines, we will continue to expand our brick-and-mortar distribution. We're not yet done there. And I talked about increasing our distribution to 200,000 stores over the next 5 years. Beyond that, the other channel that we're very much interested in developing is e-commerce. And what we plan to do is beyond just simply investing in resources and infrastructure, we are going to convert our Kitchenomics platform. We have this website on Kitchenomics that provides all of these meals and menus. 3 million followers in the Philippines, we're going to capitalize on that one and try to see whether we can commercialize that and convert that to our own e-commerce platform. The second is -- which is good to note is the demand will grow. All indications from market data and also from global data confirm that the categories we are in today will continue to grow over the next 3 to 5 years. And as this happens, we are also preparing our infrastructure in our supply chain to make sure that we're able to respond to the growth in demand, particularly also for the fresh pineapple business. And as you know, that takes a while. That has a gestation. That has a preparation period of about 3 years given the agricultural nature of that business. The third building block is really portfolio upgrades and diversification. As far as our core categories are concerned, we will continue to refresh them, make them relevant and meaningful. We will introduce line extensions, product quality improvements. All of those have to refresh the current core business because that in itself is still significant. And then, of course, we have the adjacencies and the new categories, dairy, snacks. And we are also taking a look at other important categories that are in the pipeline right now that we are developing. We're not yet done with that because our vision is to -- is for the new products and the innovation, all of these to contribute at least about 10% to 15% of our NSV, of our revenue over the next 5 years. And that is a significant contribution coming from these upgrades and from these new products. And of course, as far as ASP growth is concerned, the strength of the Del Monte brand equity, coupled with its consumer preferred products, give us the runway of pricing power in the Philippines. And that is very important as far as making sure that we stay within our target margin over our long-range plan. So I would like -- that pretty much sums it up. And I do hope that you have -- I do hope that you're delighted with what you found out this morning from Greg and from us, that this company is very different from what I'm sure most of you have been -- have observed us over the past years. So we are really on a roll here. Thank you. Go ahead, Iggy.

Thank you, Cito. Thank you, Greg and Parag. So we hope, as the management team said, that you will see the very strong results of DMPL in FY '21, the turnaround of Del Monte Foods with a net profit of $15 million, EBITDA of $170 million as well as record sales of Del Monte Philippines and also record net profit of $94.5 million. And with this, we conclude our briefing. Thank you for joining us despite the change in the schedule, and we look forward to touching base with you soon. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you, Iggy. Greg, thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you Parag, Jen.

Thank you, bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you. Bye-bye.