Gruma, S.A.B. de C.V. (GRUMAB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Gruma's First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn this conference over to Mr. Adolfo Fritz, Gruma's Investor Relations Officer, who will present earnings results. And then we will open the Q&A session, where Mr. Raul Cavazos, Gruma's Chief Financial Officer, and team, will be available to answer additional questions. I would now like to turn this conference over to Mr. Fritz, IRO. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to our first quarter 2022 conference call. We're excited to be here and thankful for the opportunity to share our results with you. With me today, as always, are Mr. Raul Cavazos Morales, Gruma's CFO; and Rogelio Sanchez Martinez, Gruma's Corporate Finance VP. To start, we'll take a few minutes to share with you the fundamentals and results from the quarter, and then we'll open it up to any questions you may have. This quarter, the success we've had in further developing our existing tortilla operation and our ability to penetrate new markets was highlighted by our performance in the United States, Europe and Asia. Robust demand from both retail and food service clients in the U.S., in addition to increasingly strong brand awareness in Europe, especially for tortilla channel, along with healthy growth coming out of Malaysia, drove global tortilla volumes to grow by 5%. We also benefited from our traditional resilience in the corn flour market from strong demand in the U.S. and Mexico. Performance in the United States was strong relative to last year. With favorable growth reflecting rising demand from all our channels in this division. With the positive results in both tortilla and corn flour, total consolidated volume expanded by 3%. Price increases on our product lines in all our divisions, in addition to the strong demand experienced in the U.S., supported consolidated top line growth of 17%. From a cost perspective, as you know, almost every sector and industry is being impacted by overall inflation and especially higher labor and overall raw material costs. In this context, although we have effectively dealt with the majority of these pressures through our hedging activities, our COGS increased by 20% from a year ago. These cost pressures have also been mirrored in challenges experienced in logistics and the entire supply chain as a consequence of labor shortages. EBITDA on a consolidated basis decreased by 2%. However, thanks to the healthy demand and fundamentals we saw during the quarter, core EBITDA increased 4%, excluding extraordinary insurance claim gains in 1Q '21. Looking ahead, we do anticipate price increases over the course of the year to safeguard the profitability of our company and thereby, the interest of our shareholders. From a divisional performance basis in the U.S. division, both tortillas and corn flour had a solid first quarter of the year. Retail tortilla kept its strong momentum, growing by 1.2% on the back of healthy demand from Better for You tortillas, specifically the gluten-free, carb-balance balanced product lines. Meanwhile, food service has not only recovered to pre-pandemic levels since the fourth quarter of 2021, it has experienced strong demand, evidenced by volume growth of 8% compared to last year. In all, volume in our tortilla operation in the U.S. grew by 2% in the quarter. And our corn flour operations with a volume growth of 9%, which results close to historical record levels in the U.S. had it not been for 2020, where the effects of the pandemic supports strong volume sales. We experienced strong demand from institutional clients in addition to healthy volume growth from our retail clients as home cooking since the pandemic has started to overtake dining at restaurants, and even more so with inflation levels during the start of 2022. These healthy volumes, coupled with the price increases implemented last year, boosted sales by 17%, setting a firm precedent for future performance [indiscernible] Labor cost pressures, [indiscernible] costs, stemming from raw materials and logistics. This past quarter, however, the increase in the costs outpaced the support given by our previous price hikes, which will certainly lead us to seek for further price increases during the year. We're currently analyzing the right timing to do so. These cost pressures led our profitability levels to decrease with EBITDA 2% lower relative to last year. However, as I just mentioned, we're diligently working to protect our profitability going forward. And as has been the case in past cycles, we expect some of these inflationary pressures to wane in time, and the work that we've done to advance our strategy thus far will put Gruma in a privileged position in the sector. So far, we have seen healthy volumes and sustainable demand for our products across the country, which encourages us to keep expanding and bringing our entire range of products from coast to coast. We're certain that further price increases will add to these exciting fundamentals and support our financial performance. In our Mexican division, in spite of recovering the volume loss as a result of bad weather conditions last year, the client selectivity process that we started at the end of 2021 limited growth in 1Q '21 and volumes remained flat relative to a year ago. I want to underscore, however, that demand from both the retail and institutional clients has continued to be at very healthy levels. As we communicated in our last conference call, we increased prices in February to cope with inflationary pressures on raw materials and thus, the combined effect with the strong demand I just mentioned, resulted in sales growth of 20% relative to a year ago. In terms of costs, products increased 17% as corn prices have also impacted the subsidiary compared to 1Q '21. In this context, EBITDA increased by 37%. In our European division, our company's resilience and a successful product placement strategy was underscored again as the demand for our products drove volumes to grow by double digits in both the tortilla and corn flour businesses, resulting in 19% of total volume growth in this division. On a side note, the tragic circumstances taking place in Ukraine have not affected that our operations in this division due to the nonmeaningful size it represent. Thanks to our efforts over the last couple of years in the Europe division, sales are now greater than those over the 3 years prior in our business channel. The demand we saw during the quarter, in addition to the price increases we implemented in line with those implemented in other divisions at the end of 2021, helped us drive sales growth of 28%. Cost-wise, supply chain disruptions and inflationary pressures across our cost structure have been apparent. These have been exacerbated by the geopolitical conflicts affecting supply and demand of goods. As a result, our COGS increased 30% in the quarter, although our core EBITDA presented a growth of 40%, excluding extraordinary gains from insurance claims in 1Q '21. Gruma continues with the strong momentum in the tortilla market that started in 1Q '21 when the pandemic effects started to ease in Europe. We're extremely pleased with the volume performance in Europe in both channels, albeit higher costs given inflation and supply and demand challenges with the commercial grounding that we've started will support our operation even further in terms of profitability once these incremental costs start winning in time. Our division in Central America has recovered the volume loss with a reduction of UN initiatives in 2021. Corn flour volumes grew 5% relative to a year earlier as our marketing efforts and product placement strategy intensified during the quarter, especially in Honduras. This good performance was also reflected in our net sales, where we grew 16% on the back of price increases in line with the prices implemented in other divisions across the globe. But just as positive seen in other divisions were reflected in our Central American division, so did the fundamentals driving costs up. The level of prices and grains in addition to inflation on utilities and fuel led COGS to grow by 18%. In all, EBITDA contracted by 4% given these costs, but the operation itself after implementing the price increases looks promising for the rest of the year. We're very pleased with the performance and recovery of our division in Central America as it gives us solid grounding into regions to increase profitability and potentially reach all-time high results in the future. Lastly, operations in Asia and Oceania are maintaining their momentum, particularly in Malaysia, which led the overall performance relative to other countries in this division in terms of sales and volume. Total volume increased 4%, while sales grew 2%, even with logistics problems in the region due to flooding, such as in Australia, where our sales were flat relative to a year ago. Timing effects between cost growth and price increases in this division led EBITDA to contract by 21% compared to the performance we saw a year ago. On a side note, as we've done in the past, this April, we will be holding our Annual Shareholders' Meeting, where we will be asking for approval for the cancellation of 18.5 million repurchased shares, which represents 4.7% of our market cap and for the distribution of dividends to shareholders, representing approximately a dividend yield of 2.1%. In sum, in 1Q '22, we saw healthy demand and consumption fundamentals across all our divisions. Our decisions taken thus far reflect our traditional approach of protecting and enhancing profitability, while growing market share and safeguarding brand equity. In spite of growing inflationary pressures, we remain positive as we believe this quarter not only underscores the strength of the core strategy I just mentioned, but also as we prepare to increase prices again to mitigate the timing effect between cost growth and revenue growth that we have experienced thus far. With that, I'd like to open the call for questions from our listeners today. Operator, can you help us out with that?

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Fernando Olvera with Bank of America.

I have 2. The first one is related to pricing. In the press release as well as in your initial remarks, you mentioned that produce price increases are muted, and that statement in the U.S. So how much and when are you going to increase prices to mitigate the pressure on raw material and labor? And how will this impact your annual guidance? And my second question is, how do you expect the demand of your products to behave in coming quarters given that you need to implement additional price increases, if you can comment about the demand elasticity and the price?

Sure. Thank you for your question. So in terms of pricing, pricing will be obviously backed up by the increases that we're seeing in costs, depending on when we do these price increases. We're more or less planning on doing so in this quarter. So once we have an idea on when in the quarter we'll be doing those, we'll have the right amount of increase we'll be doing. But they will be in line with what we've done in the past, in 2021 approximately. In terms of the guidance, with those increases, we really think that the guidance should not be changed as is, as we provided in our last conference call. So we feel very comfortable, really. That relates to your next question actually because we feel very comfortable with the fundamentals of the core business itself. Consumption has not slowed down. There's really very strong demand for the product out there. Right now, the real question on our end is to follow the bouncing ball in terms of costs going forward, meaning labor costs and other costs within the cost structure that are not hedged. Now in terms of labor costs, the good news is that we feel that those costs, I think that the peak in those costs has passed. From now on, the growth will not be as accentuated as we've seen it in the past quarter. The past quarter was really a quarter without, I guess, precedent in terms of how much labor increased relative to last year. But we feel that, that peak has passed. And right now, our job is to continue doing what we've done traditionally in terms of product placement, in terms of keeping the quality out there. And we feel the consumption is still there, despite of price increases.

Our next question comes from the line of Luis Yance with Compass.

Two questions on my side. The first one, I guess a follow-up on the pricing question. One, it pertains to the U.S. specifically, I guess. Food service, you have more room to maneuver price increases on the timing of it. But in retail historically has been kind of like a once a year type of thing, there's a prolonged negotiations. So just wondering, how open the retailers, do you think, are for kind of off-schedule price increase at this point? So that will be my first question. And the second question, as we look forward, clearly, you've done a very good job balancing price increases and not impacting volumes. And we're seeing it on numbers. I know people have to eat. There doesn't seem to be a clear substitute for people to switch. But the price increases have been quite sharp last year, the year before and this year again. So do you feel we're getting closer to a point where further major price increases could start having a major impact on volumes? Have you seen any sort of trade down related to that? Any comments there would be helpful.

Sure. Thank you for your question, first of all. Well, in regards to your first question, it's a total different context where we're living today, as opposed to the one that probably we lived in a few years ago in terms of negotiation with our clients. Right now, we're all with the entire sector, with our world even is being affected by the same variables caused by both synthetic, if you will, inflation that's been exacerbated with the conflict, the geopolitical conflicts and then with the labor shortages around the world. So right now, our clients are experiencing also their own pressures as well as our providers. So we're all in this together, and they're pretty open to sit back down with us and still negotiate the price increases. I would say that that's not the real challenge at this point, given their openness and given the times we are living. But your second question is the one that is a lot more interesting because, as you very well mentioned, right now, we feel comfortable with the price increases. And as you very well pointed out, and thank you for doing so, that our volumes have not been affected by the price increases that we've implemented. We don't feel that it will be affected in the future either. However, it may come a point, I guess, when the consumer will have to decide, if this reaches the next level next year or the next couple of years when -- if things continue the way they are, because people will have to have a choice. And that choice will be either a $5 latte or going to get basic food in supermarket, grocery store. So I think there will be a major shift potentially from items that are not as needed as the items that the food and beverage industry provide. So one of them is a tortilla, which is a basic good. So we feel comfortable in that regard. Although we feel that, that, consumption wise, it's bound to happen if things keep going like [indiscernible].

Great. And my last question is it seems like the additional pressure on the cost side came mainly from labor, because clearly, you have good visibility on raw materials given your hedges. So I just wonder if you could share what's been the unitary cost increase on labor? And what makes you feel that we're past the peak? Any anecdotical evidence that you're seeing there would be helpful.

Overall, I would say labor has increased around 20%. Again, our -- and I'm talking about where the major point of, I would say, collection, which is the U.S. So that's around 20%. But given the -- how things played out, as we mentioned in other calls, our problem has been different from other companies in the sense that we've been having to substitute overtime employees with, I would say, regular hour employees. So that difference in wages was the one that has been hitting us and hit us on a comparative basis. But now that we -- I think we've done a great job with the new hires, the -- our capacity has not slowed down in that regard with the new hires and the switch between the overtime employees and new hires. So we feel that, that the bulk of the damage has been done. And going forward, any other costs that should arise should be purely out of inflation. Just to give you an example, I don't know, packaging, for example, the increased by inflation proportionally as time goes by. But I would say labor, at least the peak of the labor growth in terms of cost, is behind us at this point.

Our next question comes from the line of Alan Alanis with Santander.

The first thing is, could you remind us the guidance again that you provided in the last quarter? And if in that guidance, or if you include how much of your corn and meads for the remaining of the year for 2023, you already have covered? That would be the first question. And then my second question would be how are these price increases of corn impacting your competitors relative to your -- in other words, how are you seeing the competitive dynamics in light of these price increases and in light of this tremendous cost pressures?

Sure. Thank you. So our guidance was done based on what we -- as you know, what we saw on that particular point in time on the horizon. We're -- again, we're maintaining our guidance. The guidance on a consolidated level was low single digits for volume growth, double-digit growth in terms of sale, and 100 basis points to flat EBITDA margin. And I should point out also, with those numbers, our EBITDA per ton, which in this inflationary context is, for us, an important measure, should be around single-digit growth as well. In terms of your other question in regards to the competition, look, we're all in the same boat here. We've seen our competition increase prices as well. They're dealing with their own issues. As you know, our brand recognition is substantial in the U.S. as well as our operations. So we believe that we have a much better position right now to support these incremental costs than our competition would, given the size and their operation as it stands. So it's -- in fact, I was looking at numbers yesterday, and we've gained market share over the last 20 weeks because of brand recognition. So -- against our competition. So I think that we feel very comfortable in that regard. And our competition is in the same boat dealing with their own issues according to their own cost structure.

Got it. That's very clear. Congratulations on the market share gain. Now one last question. Are you seeing any down trade in terms of products? I know that during the pandemic, we saw a lot of people upgrading into -- I mean, they added more value-added products. And I noted the comment that you made on the $5 latte. I think in New York, it's more than that actually. And I think that makes a lot of sense in terms of staples being more resilient. But I was wondering if you're already starting to see some down trade in terms of the product mix?

No. Sure. Thank you for your question, again. No, as a matter of fact, our top position of those products that we mentioned that are targeted to the wellness sector has been consistent, it's growing. It has not contracted since "after the pandemic", so post -- I would say, post 2020. And they've been a huge success. And the reason for that, we think is -- the market it's targeting, it's a market that's not very price sensitive. They will still buy the product, and it's a product that's for a different market than the regular vanilla market. So there's 2 different markets there. And also, we have all sorts of new launches of new products coming into the market. They're very exciting for that wellness market in specific, and we're excited because it's a market that's been developing very, very well, and it's working great for us.

Our next question comes from the line of Sergio Matsumoto with Citigroup.

It's Sergio Matsumoto from Citi. Just wanted to kind of dig deeper into the U.S. tortillas. And I know you mentioned that demand has been consistent. But perhaps if you could break into different types of consumer, maybe the lower end of the U.S. consumer? Are you seeing a slowdown there? Or how about if you were to kind of look into the home cooking that you mentioned. So January would have been -- there would have been more home cooking due to Omicron, but then less so in March. So any color there between the beginning of the quarter versus the end of the quarter, or even now in the 20th week. And also, since you have different branding, the Hispanic consumer versus the mainstream consumer, any differences there.

Well, thank you for your questions. It's a pretty interesting and good one. So in terms of dissecting the different product types or the different markets, as I mentioned, our Better for You brand, which is those products targeted, the wellness market, is doing pretty well. It's the one that's growing the most actually. The other products that are not as sophisticated, if you will, are growing as well, not as much as that one, but they're growing as well in terms of, as you mentioned, the Hispanic market, that would be more focused on corn products, corn tortilla specifically. It's -- I would say, this quarter in specific, I would say, was the segment in terms of products with, let's say, the second with the most growth that we've had. So it was the first one was Better for You. And the second one was all our corn products that we have in place for that market. So everything -- as I said, everything is in line with what we were expecting, and we're very pleased with the performance we've had. In all, we increased our tortilla volumes by 1.2% with that composition. So the strongest composition coming from Better for You, the next strongest composition coming from corn products, and the next composition coming from, I would say, the middle of the range products within our product offering. So everything is going quite well in terms of fundamentals. And I cannot underscore this enough, be the variables that in terms of fundamentals around the market are great. The one challenge that we had to deal with during the quarter was the increase in labor cost, which just the increase in costs overall are just outpacing what we had in revenues based on price increases. So as we deal with that during the year, we feel very comfortable with catching up to these costs, we implement those prices that are needed.

Our next question comes from Felipe Ucros with Scotiabank.

Congrats on the results again. A lot of my follow-ups have been asked, so let me ask a very quick one on hedging. Obviously, you were very disciplined throughout all of '22. You were probably the first one to hedge the entire year in our sector. So I'm just wondering, what's your plan on hedging going forward? I imagine, up to now, you've been holding from doing additional hedges for 2023. Just want to see how that's going and how you're thinking about the future when -- whether you plan to roll or you plan to eventually let those hedges that you have in place roll off without replacing them. And then the other question I wanted to ask, I've always wondered about this elasticity between the U.S. and Mexico. It would seem that Mexico would be a much more inelastic product than the one you sell in the U.S., just because of the nature of Mexican consumer and what the Mexican consumer tends to eat. But just wondering if now that we've implemented these types of price increases, you've sort of gauged how different the elasticity is between those consumers?

Thank you. So in terms of the hedges, as you very well pointed out, we're still holding back and waiting to go into the market and close hedges for next year. Right now, the prices are unprecedented. So it's not very attractive that we do it. So we'll just wait it out and see how things play out in the next few months to knowing detail what we're going to do in terms of going into the -- or closing the hedges or not closing them at all. We were able to close around 5% of our needs for next year, that was before everything started increasing in price. So we still have a lot way to go until we close that entire year, and we're currently deciding on that. And in regards to the other question, I mean, the products that are sold are very different when you compare Mexico to the U.S. But in spite of the difference, I can tell you that the markets they serve are pretty similar in terms of the need of the product. I'll tell you that if it's not for the wellness market in the U.S., and you just focused on the vanilla customer, their need for the product is very similar to the need for corn flour here in Mexico. So you could say that the elasticity is -- or has been quite similar in both countries. Again, we'll have to wait and see how things play out in terms of the fundamentals right now in the market and all these geopolitical conflicts and such to see how things play out next year. And when all these price increases are done, we'll have to see where the consumer chooses and where those flows of capital are being allocated to, to know exactly what the elasticity is with the country, but so far it's been [indiscernible].

Thanks so much, Adolfo. Very clear. If I could just one follow-up. I think you mentioned that obviously, the price increase that you did in Australia and Asia was done through the middle of the quarter. Is that correct? Did I understand that correctly? I'm just wondering if you can give us some idea of -- at what point in the quarter you did it?

Yes, that was correct. So we're -- we've been increasing prices in Asia aggressively during the quarter. And depending -- again, depending on how things start playing out, not only there, but in the rest of the world, we'll start increasing prices again according to the needs that we have relative to our costs.

Our next question comes from the line of Alvaro Garcia with BTG.

A couple of questions, more on the same topic. The first one is sort of looking backwards at the price increases you've put in place in the fourth quarter or the first quarter this year. I guess my question is why Gruma hasn't been more aggressive in the U.S. specifically? I mean we sort of knew that corn prices were up 60% or around there this year relative to last year, as per where we estimate your hedges to be. And your EBITDA margin contracted by quite a bit, your gross margins contracted by quite a bit this quarter. So why not see more aggressive price increases would sort of be my question. And the second one is really just going back to guidance. I mean, your consolidated EBITDA margin fell by 260 basis points, and you're guiding to flat to minus 100. So I was wondering what are you thinking about that implies, obviously, a strong second half of the year, how you're thinking about that going forward?

Sure. Thank you for the question, Alvaro. The first one is we're -- I mean, if -- in this kind of environment, we feel that being more aggressive would not be fruitful, given that it's an eternal chase of costs. I mean, right now, there is a timing effect, a very apparent timing effect between the growth in costs and the growth in revenues through price increases. And I mean, if we were more aggressive, we would have to go back to our client however times you want in a year, which is not optimal for all sorts and purposes. Even from a negotiation point of view, isn't optimal. So we haven't been aggressive because we want to see how everything pans out. Now that I said that, for example, labor costs have "peaked" already, we don't expect as much kind of out of the labor as we probably could from other points in their cost structure. We're waiting to see how much they actually increase so that we can go to -- back to the client and tell them a thorough position on our side in terms of the price increase that we need to cover for all those costs that increase in their cost structure instead of going 6x between now and the end of the year. So that's the reasoning behind that. And in regard to your other question, you're totally right on what you're saying in regards to the guidance. However, we feel that with the price increases that we have planned out during the year, as I mentioned in the opening remarks, we're probably going to do that or started doing that during this quarter. We'll probably see a recovery of the margin so that it goes back to the guidance that we provided originally. So that's the thinking behind that.

Our next person comes from the line of Barbara Halberstadt with JPMorgan.

Most of my questions have actually been answered, but I wanted to make 2 quick ones, if I can. One in the CapEx side, just wanted to know, like you mentioned, you are confident with the guidance, but if there's going to be any adjustment in size? And where do you see you could make adjustment in CapEx, if needed, within the array of projects that you already have going on? And then the second question is related to your bond that comes due in 2024. I just wanted to know if you're already looking into the financing options? If it is too far away? How you're thinking about that?

Yes. Well, in terms of CapEx, no, we're maintaining the guidance there. We're not canceling out any projects that we had in mind. Right now, the goal is our -- the opening of the plant in Indianapolis sooner rather than later, but it's planned for the beginning of next year. And in terms of the financing, we're currently working on that. We're diligently working on the refinancing of the bond. So we should be quite well prepared.

Our next question comes from the line of Ulises Argote with JPMorgan.

Just one quick one here on my side on Mexico margins. So we obviously see the trends improving significantly versus last year, but still remaining below there, the mid-teens level that we typically see for tortilla operations. So here, I just wanted to understand a bit there, since you're already pushing 5% and the costs for corn are hedged. Can you give any color on what's generating this pressure? And is there any change in dynamics here that we should be aware of? And then also on Mexico, will you require any additional pricing here in the next couple of months? Or are you comfortable with the price push that you gave earlier?

I will -- I'm very sorry, you got cut off in your first question. I do -- I did get the second question, so I'll answer it right now. And if you can just rephrase your first question, I appreciate it. But in terms of price increases in Mexico, we're currently evaluating that. As you know, we increased prices recently. So only if it is fully warranted, we'll evaluate to have prices increase again. We don't -- if our costs start being pressured, then we'll evaluate that again. But now, we're good with the increase that we did in February.

Okay. Yes, yes. The first one was on Mexico margins. So obviously, they improved versus last year, but still below the mid-teens level that we typically see here. So just wanted to understand a little bit better since you're already hedged for corn prices and you're pushing price increases here, what's going on and what's happening that still get margins at bay there below the level that we usually see?

Yes. Well, part of it is what's happening in, I guess, in the U.S. as well, which is what I call the catch-up effect between revenue growth and cost growth. With the prices implemented right now, we implemented in February, so you're going to see a benefit from that going forward that we have not seen yet. That's the first thing. And so until we see the full benefit of the price increases into our financials and see how they behave relative to the cost structure, we will be in a better position to understand if anything else is happening. But other than that, we're going also -- as we mentioned during the first quarter, we're going through a selectivity process of clients to improve profitability. So that's still ongoing, and that's why you see those, I would say, a little hiccups here and there in terms of the profitability in Mexico, but we don't see any challenges going forward. We're -- again, if the profitability starts being compromised, once the prices are fully embedded in our financials and once the selectivity process is done with, then we'll evaluate an additional price increase, if warranted, during -- probably during the second half of the year, if at all.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Rahi Parikh with Barclays.

The question is kind of related to the previous. So I saw that Mexico was the only region where sales grew faster than COGS. So can you just give more light on what happened there versus the other regions? Is it something you can carry over to the other regions? Or is it just a function of like cheaper labor cost or anything like that?

I'm very sorry again. Could you repeat the question? You got cut off right when you were asking it. Sorry.

Yes, so the question is a little related to the previous, but I saw that Mexico was the only region where sales grew faster than COGS. So like what -- can you give more light on what happened there differently versus the other regions? Or was that more a function of cheaper labor cost? And -- but are you able to carry that over to the other regions as well? That's the question.

Yes. No, thank you. So we -- it's because of, I would say, the delay effect that we've had in terms of pricing. Last year, if you remember, there was a delay in terms of pricing that we did voluntarily to help out with the context that we were living in at that particular point in time. So that delay was the actual cause of what you're seeing in the financials. Other than that, it's just the levels of the price increases that we've done. We did, if I remember correctly, 3 price increases last year that have helped us a lot in that sense.

Our next question comes from the line of [ Jorge Mauro ] with [ Fundamental ].

Yes, regarding the U.S., trying to quantify a bit the -- all the bits and parts of movements of cost base. If you were to take the average cost per ton the company has, let's say, up to June last year and relative to where is that cost today at current spot prices, can you give us an idea of how much cost increase is, or a magnitude?

No. I cannot provide you with that at this particular point in time other than the increase that you see in the financial statements on a year-over-year basis. But on an average per ton cost at this particular moment, I cannot give -- provide it to you. I'm very sorry.

Our next question comes from the line of Bernardo Malpica with Compass Group.

I wasn't able to hear very well some of the questions, so I hope I'm not making you repeat yourself. But talking about specifically about the region of Asia and Australia, when talking about a metric that you're using a lot that is EBITDA per ton, this is a region that was -- that had a huge decrease in net EBITDA per ton. So I just -- I was wondering if you could give a little bit more outlook for this year in terms of Asia and Australia.

So thank you. So what happened there during the quarter, we had a lot of logistic problems due to floodings specifically in Australia. Australia, as you probably know, is our main contributor to our operation there in terms of sales. So with these problems taking place in Australia, it was something unprecedented. Obviously extraordinary that it's already been taken care of. So we should -- you should see an improvement during this following quarter in that regard. Once Australia gets going, because we had a great, great quarter in Malaysia, for example, that in terms of the composition of sales and the performance overall in that division, it will add to the performance going forward. So once Australia starts their regular operations after the flooding, I think it should be corrected.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of today's question-and-answer session. I would like to turn this call back over to Mr. Adolfo Fritz for closing remarks.

Well, I just want to thank you guys again for joining the call. We are always very pleased to answer your questions and feel to contact us at any point if you should have any further questions you need answering to. Thank you. Bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes Gruma's First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines at this time.