Jamieson Wellness Inc. (JWEL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Jamieson Wellness Conference Call to discuss the Financial Results for the Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that the reproduction of this call in whole or in part is not permitted without written authorization from the company. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. On the call today from management are Mike Pilato, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Chris Snowden, Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary. Before I turn the call over to Mr. Pilato, please note that a press release covering the company's fourth quarter and full year 2021 financial results was issued this afternoon, and a copy of that press release can be found in the Investor Relations section of the company's website. Please note that the prepared remarks, which will follow, contain forward-looking statements, and management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. These questions do not guarantee future performance, and therefore, undue reliance should not be placed upon them. We refer you to all risk factors contained in Jamieson's press release issued this afternoon and in filings with the Canadian securities administrators for a more detailed discussion of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projections and any forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly correct or update the forward-looking statements during the presentation to reflect future events or circumstances, except as it may be required under applicable securities laws. Finally, we would like to remind listeners that the company may refer to certain non-IFRS financial measures during this teleconference. A reconciliation of these non-IFRS financial measures was included with the company's press release issued earlier today. Also, please note that unless otherwise stated, all figures discussed today are in Canadian dollars and are occasionally rounded to the nearest million. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Pilato to get started. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Sarah, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking the time to join us today to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2021 financial results. I'll begin with some high-level comments about our business, a brief overview of our fourth quarter results, and then I'll turn it over to Chris to go through the financials and guidance in more detail. It's great to be talking with you today as we are reporting another strong quarter and year, reaching CAD 100 million in adjusted EBITDA as we celebrate the 100th year of our Jamieson brand. Brand growth momentum that lasts an entire century is rare. I'm humbled and privileged to be able to lead this company, surrounded by such an incredible team that continues to deliver in its charge of shaping our vision as we look to drive our leadership into the next 100 years. While the ongoing pandemic increased global consumer adoption of proactive health and wellness practices, Jamieson established a strong connection with millions of consumers much earlier by being part of their daily lives for decades. The brand equity we built by staying true to our core values enabled us to drive exceptionally strong performance in 2021 and has positioned us for even greater growth potential long into the future. Fourth quarter results reflected continued progress across our 3 primary strategic initiatives: expanding our market-leading position in the domestic Canadian market, building a scaled brand in China, and leveraging the power of our platform to drive growth in other international markets. Our gross margin performance in Q4 was a major proof point for the strength of our operational excellence through a volatile supply chain period. Despite unprecedented supply chain and inflationary pressures, we were able to expand our consolidated gross profit margin by 150 basis points on a normalized basis, reflecting our ongoing focus on operational improvements, efficiencies and cost management. Let me share some additional highlights from our strong Q4 results. Total revenue increased by 8% to CAD 130 million, and adjusted EBITDA was up 15% to nearly CAD 34 million. Growth was led by our domestic branded business where revenue rose 11%, reflecting strong consumption along with higher inventories to support seasonal promotional activities. Internationally, branded revenue increased 14% on a constant currency basis as further strong growth in China was partially offset by the timing of strong replenishments to other regions earlier in the year. Our Strategic Partners revenue was in line with expectations and declined 2%, reflecting our planned production cadence as shipments were more front-end loaded in 2021 versus the prior year. We shared our initial 2022 guidance with you today as well, including our anticipation of revenue growth of plus 5% to 9% with branded revenue of plus 6% to 10%; adjusted EBITDA in the range of CAD 108 million to CAD 112 million and adjusted diluted earnings per share in the range of CAD 1.42 to CAD 1.48. Our outlook emphasizes our confidence in the future and our continued commitment to delivering strong, consistent results that lead to significant shareholder value accretion. Our guidance reflects current and ongoing supply chain inflation pressures as well as anticipated increase to raw material, freight and labor costs. We continue to manage these pressures to ensure we deliver our guided margin trajectory. We have multiple pathways to drive growth for the foreseeable future along with a highly leverageable global platform that resonates locally with consumers in each of the geographies in which we operate. Before I turn over the call to Chris, I also want to touch base on our significant efforts around ESG. Our vision at Jamieson Wellness is to improve the world's health and wellness. We are very fortunate to manufacture and sell products that have a positive impact on physical health, but our definition of wellness also includes mental and social wellbeing. As a global organization, we believe it is our responsibility to help drive positive change in all these areas for our team members as well as our consumers, stakeholders, partners and communities around the world. In a recent report, we highlighted achievements in diversity, equity, inclusion as well as additions and improvements to our governance practices. We also committed to a 50% emissions target reduction by 2030 and to establishing a formal action plan to reach net zero by 2050. These goals are aligned to the United Nations Paris Agreement goals. And as we enter our 100th year, projects have already begun to help us achieve them. We know this is not going to be simple or straightforward process. But as we look to expand our leadership beyond this 100-year milestone, we believe it is the right thing to do, and we welcome the challenge of creating real and positive change. I also want to thank our entire team for their hard work, dedication and perseverance to bring our vision to life every day for consumers around the globe. Your energy and passion for helping to improve the world's health and wellness helped us deliver another outstanding quarter and has positioned us for an even brighter future. We remain focused on health and safety of our team and our communities, and we continue to drive our brands forward into the next 100 years. With that, I'm going to turn the call over to our CFO, Chris, to discuss fourth quarter financial results in more detail. Chris, over to you.

Thank you, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone. As Mike discussed, physical and mental wellbeing remained the primary driver of our fourth quarter results. In the fourth quarter, revenue increased 7.9% to CAD 129.8 million, driven by continued growth across our Jamieson brands, partially offset by a modest decline in our Strategic Partners segment. Revenue for the Jamieson Brands segment increased 11.2% to CAD 99.8 million, including 10.9% growth in domestic revenue due to continued strong point of purchase sales on an expanded customer base as well as inventory replenishments to support seasonal promotional activities. International revenue for the Jamieson Brands increased by 14.1% on a constant currency basis and 12.6% on a reported basis as growth in China was partially offset by the timing of strong replenishments to other regions earlier in the fiscal year. Revenue in our Strategic Partners segment decreased by 1.9% to CAD 30.1 million, reflecting the timing of shipments and growth realized earlier in the year to smooth out the timing of demand on our manufacturing capacity. Revenue growth, improved operating efficiencies, cost recoveries drove gross profit margin improvements. On a normalized basis, gross margin increased 150 basis points, reflecting margin improvements in both segments and the mix impact of proportionately higher sales in the Jamieson Brands segment, while partially offsetting negative mix impact realized in previous quarters in the current fiscal year. The Jamieson Brands segment normalized gross profit margin improved by 50 basis points to 45.3%, driven by volume-driven efficiencies, cost recoveries, partially offset by continuing elevated costs reflecting the ongoing global supply challenges, sustained safety measures and increased costs associated with our new third-party logistics model. Gross profit in the Strategic Partners segment increased by 130 basis points to 14.2% as a result of our improved operational efficiencies. Selling, general and administrative expenses were CAD 19.5 million in the fourth quarter, up CAD 0.9 million on a reported basis. Normalized SG&A was CAD 19.3 million, up 7.2% or CAD 1.3 million versus a year ago, reflecting additional resources to support strategic initiatives and our international marketing investments. Fourth quarter operating income increased by 27% to CAD 28.9 million due to higher revenue and gross profit along with lower fixed costs as a percentage of revenue. Operating margin increased by 330 basis points to 22.5%. Normalized for the specified costs in both the current and prior period fourth quarter, adjusted operating income increased by 16.7%, while adjusted operating margin improved by 170 basis points to 22.4%. Reported EBITDA increased 26.8% to CAD 32.2 million, while adjusted EBITDA increased by 14.9% to CAD 33.8 million during the fourth quarter. Adjusted EBITDA margin increased 160 basis points to 26%, with gains in both segments reflecting general margin improvements as well as a positive contribution from the mix impact in our Jamieson Brands segment. Net earnings of CAD 20.2 million increased by 31.1% from a year ago due to higher revenue and improved margins. Adjusted net earnings, which excludes specified costs and foreign exchange, increased by 16.3% to CAD 20.5 million. Our earnings per diluted share was CAD 0.48 and adjusted earnings per diluted share was CAD 0.49 for the fourth quarter of 2021. A reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net earnings is provided at the end of today's press release announcing the fourth quarter results. Now turning to the balance sheet and cash flow; we generated CAD 34.3 million in cash from operations during the fourth quarter compared to CAD 18.7 million in the year earlier. Cash from operational activities before working capital considerations of CAD 24.5 million was 10.4% higher due to increased earnings in the quarter. Cash invested in working capital decreased by CAD 13.3 million, driven by the timing of receivables and accelerated inventory purchases realized earlier in the fiscal year. Capital expenditures during the fourth quarter were CAD 5.4 million, mostly related to investments made in our manufacturing and packaging to expand our production capacity. We distributed approximately CAD 6.1 million in dividends during the fourth quarter, and we ended the quarter with almost CAD 133 million in available cash and operating lines with net debt of CAD 142.4 million. Based on our strong cash position and earnings growth today, we have announced a dividend of CAD 0.15 per common share for the upcoming quarterly distribution. Now turning to guidance; we are initiating our outlook for fiscal 2022 and anticipate the following: Net revenue in the range of CAD 474 million to CAD 491 million, representing top line growth of between 5% and 9%. This compares to CAD 451 million in revenue for fiscal 2021, reflecting strong demand for our branded products, both domestically and internationally. Adjusted EBITDA in the range of between CAD 108 million and CAD 112 million, representing 8% to 12% growth over fiscal 2021, reflecting higher volumes and margins realized from our expanding operating efficiencies, while we anticipate passing along pricing in all business segments to recuperate the impact of higher raw material prices, transportation and other input costs. Adjusted earnings per fully diluted common share of between CAD 1.42 and CAD 1.48 represent almost 8% to 12% growth over fiscal 2021. Additionally, I would like to note assumptions to assist you in your modeling. We anticipate the Jamieson Brands segment growth of between 6% and 8% in fiscal 2022, including 4% to 7% growth in our domestic brands, reflecting continued strong consumer demand on a higher post-pandemic baseline and the impact of retail replenishments throughout 2021, in addition to our continued focus on innovation and our 100th year anniversary marketing campaigns. International revenue growth of approximately 20% on a constant currency basis, driven by growth in China as we increase our local capabilities and brand investments in that market. In addition, revenue will continue to come from our existing markets as well as expansion across new geographies in our key regions. We expect Strategic Partners growth of up to 5%, reflecting new programs and pricing in that segment and normalized SG&A increases of between 5% and 8%, reflecting investments in international marketing and our long-term growth opportunities in China. Stock-based compensation of between CAD 5 million and CAD 5.5 million. Depreciation is expected to be CAD 12 million, reflecting our capacity expansion projects completed to-date and interest expense of between CAD 5 million and CAD 5.5 million. Income tax rate of approximately 27%, reflecting the impact of our nondeductible stock-based compensation. And additionally, our guidance reflects an exchange assumption of CAD 1.26 per U.S. dollar and an estimated fully diluted common shares of approximately 42.1 million shares. A complete discussion of our outlook and factors impacting our expected performance in 2022, including our guidance for the first quarter in fiscal 2022 is included in the outlook section of our MD&A that would be filed today. In closing, I would like to thank all of my colleagues here at Jamieson for their dedication and time invested and their unwavering commitment to ensuring their consumers' needs are met. As the world continues to focus on their health and wellness, we are honored that the Jamieson brand is trusted by consumers for the past 100 years and counting. With that, let me turn the call over to Sarah for Q&A.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And we'll go ahead and take our first question from George Doumet with Scotiabank.

I want to talk a little bit about the International segment. So a really strong guide there, 20% for fiscal '22. Can you maybe tell us what that means for China, I guess, maybe in terms of distribution or velocity? And Mike, can you maybe share with us what new markets you're planning to enter this year?

Yes. Chris will take it. Go ahead.

So with China being the largest of our international markets, there is a significant component of that 20% based on growth in China. As you know, we don't break that out specifically, but it does include some of the following factors: continued strong double-digit growth on cross-border e-commerce, continued penetration in the retail channel as well as expanded club penetration as some of our key customers are both expanding the number of locations in the market and as we expand to other club participants in the market.

Okay. And maybe new markets that you guys plan on entering outside of China this year?

Yes. So we do have some new markets that we're planning to enter throughout the year. Some of them through Southeast Asia, working on some plans for a country like Vietnam and also recently, some approvals to get products into Mexico. So I would say those 2 are top of list and in the near term, George, and we've got plans for some others throughout the year that as they get more appropriate to talk about, hopefully, we're able to do that.

That's helpful. And Chris, you mentioned in your prepared remarks that we're investing a little bit of SG&A dollars to grow in China. I'm just wondering if you guys internally have the discussion to maybe invest more of those dollars maybe at the expense of margins to grow faster. Is that a discussion you're having? And maybe any color around there?

I think the key to that is our long-term view to get closer to the consumer in China as we look to end this -- the current distribution arrangement and with Jamieson wanting to be closer to the consumer, I think that will be the right time for us to really accelerate the investment in that market and start to drive the Jamieson brand to another level there. But while we're continuing to share profits in that region, we're probably just going to be conservative and kind of continue with the same sort of cadence while continuing to invest, while continuing to drive brand awareness responsibly. But I think when you think about that big push that comes in future years when we're closer to the consumer there.

That's helpful. And just one last one for me, Chris. On free cash for '22, can you maybe share with us what you expect CapEx to be? And I think working capital was around 6% of sales in '21? Would you expect a similar kind of level for '22?

I would expect working capital to be low double digits in fiscal 2022. And I would expect CapEx and investments in systems and registrations to be between CAD 15 million and CAD 20 million in total.

Thank you. Next we move on to Endri Leno with National Bank.

A couple for me. First, I just wanted to ask relating the growth in gross margin that you achieved in Q4. You talked about some cost recoveries, offset by the elevated costs on the supply chain. Can you expand a little bit on what the cost recoveries were? And if you can quantify the impact of the global supply chain in Q4? And how are you seeing them develop in early '22?

So I think it's well known that costs continued to increase throughout 2021 primarily as it relates to transportation and logistics costs. And when I say transportation, I'm talking fuel, energy to move product as well as the actual cost of freight. So that would have been an offset to what we would have expected even incremental margin increases that we could have realized later in the year. Ultimately, we continue to hit our goals and through at the rate we did in fiscal 2021. When we exited Q3, we had a view of what the inflationary environment was in 2022. As we finish that contracting process, those increases were higher than what our view was exiting Q3, and that has given us the conviction to already start moving on pricing for fiscal 2022 to ensure that we maintained our margin profile and -- margin profile entering the year, ensuring that our efficiency allowed us to expand margins and our pricing allowed us to recuperate incremental costs.

That's great color. Thank you, Chris. And one more as it relates -- I mean, to cost indirectly, but if you can talk about labor availability in addition to the cost, I mean, are you having any challenges finding employees or it's all good?

Yes. Right now, Endri, we're not seeing any labor availability issues. We're able to fill any holes we have. I would say it is a more challenging environment to fill those roles. But to-date, we haven't had any issues. We have looked to change our recruiting processes, how we reach out to prospective employees. But to-date, we have not run into any issues around labor availability in our facilities or through our administrative or office staff.

That's great to hear. And one last one for me. Just to focus a little bit on the growth in China. You mentioned you're focusing on those 3 areas, a cross-border physical stores and club stores. Is it possible to kind of flesh out where would you be focusing more? And where would you be focusing a bit less? Like where do you see most of the growth in one of those 3 channels?

On fiscal '22, based on the scale of the cross-border e-commerce business, I would expect most of the growth to come from there. But as you also -- like -- and then the second would be the expansion in club and then continued penetration in the retail channels. That's kind of how I'd rank them.

Thank you. Next we'll move on to Peter Sklar with BMO Capital Markets.

Hi Mike. I'm just curious, can you explain when you go to a new market like say Vietnam. Like how does that work? Like I would think you get, like, first, you have to identify a distributor? And then like do you fund the working capital to ship product? And how does the distributor get things on the shelf in Vietnam, like do you have a budget for listing fees and like you share those costs or distributors? Like just how does it all work when you go to a new jurisdiction?

Yes. So thanks, Peter. Good question. I mean, first of all, it starts with the consumer, right? So we have to focus on markets that we know our brand will resonate with where consumers are looking for products like ours and high-quality foreign brands like Jamieson. So it all starts there. We then look to -- we look at the size of the opportunity and decide if that's a country with the right size of opportunity with a consumer that's interested in the brand. And from there, we look for a good partner. And we try to find really good distribution partners in every country we're in, who have good distribution capabilities, have connections at retails or whatever channel it is that we're penetrating in that market. We partner with them to educate them on the brand. We provide them with marketing assets. And quite frankly, we move into a distribution agreement where they sell products, and they fund their marketing programs based on their margins and set their retail prices based on what's needed in that country. And it's a real back and forth, I would say, every partner, we have different relationships with different partners around the world and how we support them all depends on how we're doing in market, how the consumer is reacting to our brand and what we see the future opportunity being. So we do support some, but most of the spend, most of the marketing, most of the investment is done through the distributor and their margins.

The only thing I'd add to that, Peter, is between the identification of the market and the selection of the distributor, there's also a regulatory analysis that we have to go through to ensure that we have the ability to sell or register products in that geography. And depending on the geography, that registration process can take years. So that would be the only step I'd add. We typically have a marketing incentive as a trade program with each of these distributors, and that's typically between 5% and 10% of our wholesale price. So significantly lower than you would see in the domestic market.

And then how does the -- like, how does the distributor like get the product on the shelf in the retail channel because people in Vietnam, like don't know the Jamieson brand. There's no brand equity there. So like do they buy shelf allocation or how do they do it?

We would typically -- sorry, do you want to go ahead.

No, go ahead. Go ahead.

So we would typically choose a distributor that already has relationships with pharmacies and they would use those relationships to educate the pharmacist and the pharmacists would use that information to identify the brand and provide those benefits directly to the consumer as a way to educate the consumer, both the brand and the benefits of the products that are on shelf.

And I would just say, Peter, it's no different than a new brand coming to Canada, right? Walk into a grocery store, walk into a pharmacy any quarter, and you're likely to see some new brands trying to make inroads in a country. It really is no different than that. It's just outside of our domestic market.

Yes. I know about like when a new brand comes to Canada, like they pay a fortune, do you know what I mean, for listing and positioning, et cetera.

Every market is different based on their consolidation, based on their market dynamics, that would all be worked into our pricing, worked into the financial model that the distributor has and go from there. I mean typically listing fees and the like are not as high in a habit section or a pharmacy as they are in food. So in food, they're much higher. They are much higher than they would be in categories.

Yes, that's a good point. Switching gears, coming back to Canada. Just like Mike and Chris, there are just a couple of comments like you were talking about margins and you brought up promotional intensity. Has there been any change in your approach to promotions and the way you come to the market domestically? Maybe I was just imagining, but just kind of reading between the lines of what you commented a couple of times.

No, no change. The market is still very competitive retailer to retailer. We still have full offensive promotional programs going on all time to build our share, build our brand awareness and equity with the consumer and drive sales, so no real change there. What we're referring to in some of our comments is just timing quarter-to-quarter, where you see some sales at the end of one quarter to set up for some promotions early in the next quarter. But nothing different in our promotional planning. We've worked with all of our customers domestically to plan out the strategy, the goals and the promotional calendar for the year.

Yes, okay. And then just lastly, a lot of like food manufacturers in Canada, like they've really struggled in the fourth quarter on margin because just COVID really disrupted their operations with absent employees and all the other side effects. Like did you have trouble getting people in the plant, like by your margin, it looks like you weren't really having any difficulties or any difficulties you did have you were able to resolve.

Yes. We -- again, we did not have any labor availability issues through the fourth quarter. I think you can see that in our results. As I mentioned earlier, it's getting a little more challenging to find people when we have open or vacant roles or need more people. We've had to change the way we recruit and widen our net, but we really have not had any real issues or outages today. But we do track it daily, Peter, weekly. We track absenteeism, we track recruitment, churn, any measure in KPI that we can measure around that, we are on top of and making sure we're staying ahead of it as best as we can.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And next, we'll move on to Derek Lessard with TD Securities.

Congratulations on a good quarter. I was curious about the underlying domestic gains that you're seeing and maybe get your thoughts on some of the drivers there and maybe on what you think or on the sustainability of those gains.

Yes, sure, Derek. Thanks for the question. I think it's a great question. It's one we've been answering for about the last 18 months as the pandemic really accelerated our baseline of consumers and the adoption of consumers into this category. We've seen very consistent consumption and POS growth quarter after quarter after quarter, which is going on now almost 2 years into this pandemic. We continue to see the categories grow around immunity and really across multiple, multiple categories. The categories we've mentioned in the past around, again, resiliency in immunity, most notably vitamin D, energy digestion, stress, sleep and beauty from within all continue to trend well as consumers continue to maintain their higher level of vitamin mineral supplement consumption that we saw earlier in the pandemic, new consumers that entered have stuck in the category, and those consumers have now started to expand their usage to multiple categories. So really no change to what we've been talking about. It just continues quarter after quarter to show the resiliency of this category through this time and our belief that these consumers are now embedded in our baseline for years to come.

And I guess, just maybe one around the marketing spend. Any planned spend around things like Centennial celebrations?

Yes. I mean we definitely are focused some of our marketing on our Centennial celebrations. If you've seen our new campaign, we have a new TV spot that hit the airwaves in January. It is all about Jamieson quality, the consumers' health and wellness journey from birth to senior ages. And it is all celebrating our 100th anniversary. So it's a fantastic spot. We've had great feedback on it and is the kickoff to our 100th anniversary campaign that you'll be seeing various things in market throughout the year on.

Okay. That's it for me and congratulations again.

And also, sorry, one more thing, Derek. And that message and that campaign is also being picked up by our international partners as they also celebrate our 100th anniversary with the consumers around the world at our great heritage stores. So that campaign is not just Canadian, it's gone global.

Thank you. And next, we'll move on to Sabahat Khan with RBC Capital Markets.

I just wanted to chat a little bit about kind of the free cash flow and the working capital. I think you answered part of this in George's question earlier, but it looks like the working capital and the CapEx has been kind of eating into your CFO over the last couple of years. Could you comment on, is that maybe partly higher cost due to the pandemic, some of the stuff that you've been incurring? And maybe over the next kind of 2, 3 years, where do you see working capital going? And also, where do you see kind of CapEx going? Should we expect it to kind of moderate now that you've made some of those investments? Just trying to get some color on sort of the free cash flow outlook as we exit the pandemic.

So when you go -- when we go back to 2020 and 2021, we really accelerated raw material purchases through both of those years to ensure that we have the breadth and quantity of supply to ensure we met our consumers' needs. So we are exiting 2021 with a significantly higher inventory balance than we would expect during normal operating times. We have not planned for that to go away in 2022. We expect that, that inventory will normalize by the end of 2023 and as such, have planned kind of a modest growth of low double digits of working capital in fiscal 2022. I would expect our working capital growth to be very close to our revenue growth on the typical year. So that's what I would plan long term. You're going to see some bumps in the next 2 years as the pandemic winds down and as we unwind that incremental inventory, you'll see some positivity likely not until 2023, but it could come at the end of 2022. We're not forecasting at this point in time when we get better visibility, we will. When we talk about investments in capacity and CapEx, when we look at our investments this year, that CAD 15 million to CAD 20 million that I talked about is pretty evenly split between completing our capacity expansion projects that are currently underway that set us up through with capacity needed into 2025 and 2026. And then also split between some system improvements, both from a supply chain system perspective and from an ERP perspective over the next couple of years. So I would expect to continue to see at least mid-double digits like mid-teen investments in those types of costs, whether it be registrations, IT costs and to fiscal 2022 and 2023. That should be done by the beginning of 2024. And at that point in time, I would expect lower double digits investments in both CapEx and system costs on a combined basis.

Okay, great. And then on the China commentary earlier, it sounds like the cross-border is still going to be a major growth driver. Can you maybe update us on the regulatory backdrop there? I think around the time of IPO, it sounded like they were looking to transition out of that channel, most of the -- or I guess, the foreign brands. Where do we stand on that today? And is there any update, the licensing process that we're talking about a few years ago. Is that still kind of a major part of the China story or is cross-border is probably where you can probably do most of your sales for a while? I just want to understand if there's still some shifting in the regulatory backdrop.

So that must have been a misconception because we've always planned that cross-border e-commerce would be a significant portion of our business in China, where we believe we could create some differentiation with through our registrations and less international competition in the domestic, both brick-and-mortar and e-comm channels. So yes, we continue to register. We continue to get registrations and we continue to penetrate those markets. But with the pandemic, I think in general, with the lower retail foot traffic in those stores, we've been slower to increase our distribution until we know the traffic is there to support the investment to get into that channel.

Okay, great. And then just on the last one, sort of on the domestic market. In terms of looking forward, is there -- I guess, when you look at the competitive backdrop, are there still -- is this more doing more with kind of the shelf space you have or do you still see opportunities for whether it's shelf space gains, market share gains? And maybe with that, if you can comment on sort of the competitive backdrop, particularly given all the focus on this space through the pandemic.

Yes. Thanks, Sabahat. So I mean the competitive marketplace remains competitive. I mean like every category in consumer goods or in the channels in which we play, it is a competitive category. With that being said, we continue to expand our leadership. We continue to expand our market share. We continue to grow this business at rates above market, and we're quite proud of that. And we see a long-term plan to continue doing that. One of our strategic pillars for the long term is to continue to build the domestic business at or above historical growth rates. And we really see it coming in a few places. One, our continued investment in understanding of the consumer here and our investment in marketing, ensuring we're getting bigger and stronger ROIs on that investment year in and year out and converting more consumers to our products and getting to be more loyal to our products over time; 2, our continued focus on innovation and bringing new news to the consumer and ensuring we're bringing good innovation to the consumer that sells off the shelf. And 3 is continuing to increase our shelf presence, be it more space in stores we're in or out of section placements and display or new distribution in channels where we still have upside to gain shelf presence with more products or more -- or quite frankly, listings of the vitamin category in some channels that are not as penetrated in the category. So I think all of those are still in play. All of those have been working for us for the last few years, and we continue to have those as pillars for growth into the future.

Thank you. And next, we'll take Ty Collin with 8 Capital.

Chris, I think you mentioned taking additional pricing as part of the '22 EBITDA guide. We've seen some high-profile cases of retailers starting to push back against price increases. I'm just wondering, is there any risk of meeting resistance from your retail partners in '22? And just how those conversations been going so far this year?

Thanks. It's Mike. I'll take that. So yes, I mean, we're not going to comment on what other companies are going through. We don't understand the details of it. What I will say is we have a track record of protecting and growing our margins over time and recovering costs that hit us that are, I would say, material and structural in nature and justifiable in nature. And we will continue in the future to ensure that we protect those margins. And when it comes to having to protect and pass on those costs, we will do it. Every time you do a price increase, it is challenged by retailers. It is never an easy thing to do. But when it's justified, it's fact-based, and we have good backup to support that. I think our track record shows that we're able to successfully get those price increases in. We're able to get them passed through and we're able to protect our margins. And our plans for that continue into 2022 and into the future whenever we need to do this.

Okay. Appreciate that color. And just sticking on price for a moment. Could you characterize how your competitors have adjusted their pricing relative to what Jamieson has done so far? Have you sacrificed any relative value to defend margins? And do you anticipate that your competitors will ultimately fall these terse in 2022?

Well, I'm not going to get into specifics of what competitors are doing in the pricing market. It's their story to tell. What I can tell you is our consumption continues to be strong. Our leadership continues to expand, and we continue to see growth in the domestic market. We're quite pleased with where the last price increase landed, how it was reflected in market and how the competitive environment reacted. As the market leader, it is normal for the market leader to lead on pricing, and that is what we will continue to do as the market leader here in Canada.

Thank you. And lastly, we'll move on to John Zamparo with CIBC.

I wanted to follow up on the pricing and inflation topics as well. And you mentioned you took pricing in '21. You look to take pricing in '22. Is that a reflection of cost increases across all categories? Because you've mentioned in the past that you can typically lock in ingredients costs for a longer time period. So is the second price increase really a reflection of what you're seeing on transportation and logistics costs or are you seeing ingredients costs increase as well? If you could just help us better understand the COGS profile.

So every year, we have a process -- well, an ongoing, I shouldn't say we have an ongoing process to assess all costs in our manufacturing process, be it ingredients, components, labor, all the things that you're talking about, John. And we assess how much is structural? How much is temporary in nature? How much do we think this impacts us in the short term and the long term? And how much cost recovery do we need to put in the marketplace through pricing. It really is an all-encompassing perspective that we look at before we were going to make a decision. From year-to-year, you'll see different ingredients increase. So on the last price increase we saw some ingredients that are different than some of the ones we're seeing this time. And that's just the ebb and flow of a very complex category with hundreds of ingredients that we buy. It really ebbs and flows by year, by source and by what's going on in whatever geographical area that it's coming from. So it really is not as black and white as this goes up or that goes up. It's a really all-encompassing process that we take. We then apply a price elasticity models to it and determine how do we pass this through? Do we spread it out across the whole portfolio? Do we target the SKUs that are impacted directly by the ingredients going up? How do we maintain our -- what's our competitive position in the marketplace on those subcategories? And how do we take this to market in a way that allows us to remain highly competitive, allows us to keep our growth trajectory going and it would be accepted by the retailers. And quite frankly, at the end of the day, the consumer.

Okay. And then my follow-up is on consumer behavior. And I wonder in the inflationary environment we're seeing with price increases. Are you seeing consumers trade down at all? You've referenced in the past the quality of data you have on consumer behavior. So I'm wondering if you're seeing consumers trade down because that would be a deviation from what you saw in the past. And any comments on volume growth or a point of distribution growth would be helpful, too.

We are not seeing a trade down. We're seeing consumers continue to be committed to high-quality products committed to our brand, which you saw in our results through Q4 and on the full year in 2021 and quite happy with that. Growth has come from 2 places, both unit growth with the consumer volume growth as well as dollar growth. So no change from past comments on that. It's all consistent with what we said before, and we expect the same into the future.

Thank you. That does conclude our Question-and-Answer Session today. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Pilato for any additional or closing remarks.

Thanks, Sarah, and thank you, everyone, for joining us tonight. In closing, I just really want to take a minute to acknowledge the tremendous contributions of David Williams, who has been Chair of Jamieson Wellness Board of Directors since our IPO in 2017, and quite frankly, a personal mentor to me in the last few years I've had the honor of working with him. Today, we announced David's intent to retire from the Board. His thoughtful guidance and outstanding leadership over the past 5 years has been deeply valuable to our company and has helped drive some of the great results you've seen since we IPO-ed. On behalf of the Board, on behalf of management and the entire Jamieson team, I want to thank Dave for all his support. We wish him all the very best. And we thank you all for joining us, and we wish you all a great evening. Thanks so much.

Thank you. And that does conclude today's teleconference. We do appreciate your participation. You may now disconnect.