Libstar Holdings Limited (LBR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and welcome to the Libstar Pre-Close Update. [Operator Instructions] I'll now hand it over to Charl to take you through the proceedings.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to this pre-close update for the financial year-to-date. My name is Charl De Villiers. I'm the group CEO. I'm joined by Cornel Lodewyks, Executive Director. We were going to be joined by our CFO, Terri Ladbrooke. She's unfortunately under the weather. So please accept apologies for not being able to make the call this afternoon. We will, between myself and Cornel, provide a bit of color around the wording of the trading update released earlier today. Thereafter, we will open the floor to some comments and questions. To start off, just to remind everyone that this pre-close update pertains to the 21-week period ended 30 May as compared to the prior correspond 20-week period ended 24 May. Now it's important to understand that the group employs a 4-week, 4-week, 5-week reporting cycle. Since I've joined Libstar 8 years ago, June was always a 5-week month. But given the changes in the calendars and the leap year last year, this year was a bit different, and we closed off the main months on the 30th, meaning that we are reporting on a 21-week period compared to a 20-week period. So just to highlight that as a starting point. We also noted the fact that the Chet Chemicals division, which was disposed of effective 31 December of last year, that has been excluded. Obviously, not included in the current year results, but also excluded from the comparative period to provide a like-for-like comparison. Just a few comments on the market overview. We mentioned a definition total defined market for Libstar's products. Just to provide some context to that, we measure a basket of products in top end retail and wholesale. It doesn't cover all of the retailers and all of the wholesalers, but it is a representative basket of the products and the categories in which Libstar participates. To provide some context to the market data in the 3 months ended March, total revenue growth in that defined basket was up 0.8%, with volume declines of 2%. Around April, as a stand-alone month, growth accelerated to 4.1% with volumes largely flat. This meant that the rolling value growth, the 3-month value growth of the basket increased to 2.5% by the end of April. In May, the stand-alone month growth slowed somewhat to 1.7% with volumes down 3.3%. This meant that the total market movement for 3 months through to May was 2% with a 12-month value growth at 4.7%. It is against this background that we believe the revenue growth of 10.1% and specifically, the volume growth shown in both the perishables and the ambient categories is representative of growth exceeding that of the market. Moving on to the categories. We mentioned firstly, that at the group level, revenue increased by 10.1%, driven by volume growth of 5.2% and a price mix contribution of 4.9%. Looking at the Ambient Products category in which revenue increased by 11.5%, supported by volume growth of 5.4%, we made a mention of the underlying subcategory performances. In that regard, the dry condiments continued its strong momentum in retail and contract manufacturing channel sales, driven by extended own branded ranges. For reference, those would be the gold rest and the Denny ranges, which were extended I referenced the Goldcrest Pestos that were extended in the year. So extension of our existing brands, as well as the continued growth of our private label offerings with one additional private label customer coming online in August this year. Also increased contract manufacturing demand and the sustained improvement of our Baking Aids division retailer brands, both in terms of the operational performance, the ranges that we have managed to distribute more widely and more efficiently in the year thus far and also in the previous year. Moving on to the dry condiments subcategory, the group's Cape Herb & Spice brand has continued its growth momentum. It's still a relatively small brand in the context of the larger Libstar portfolio. However, we noted the 52% year-on-year growth in 2024, and that growth momentum has continued into 2025, supported by the rollout of existing new listings, I would call. We mentioned Migros in Switzerland, Tesco in U.K. and Ireland as well as new international listings referencing their protein as a retailer in Croatia coming on board this year. Moving on to the Food Service channel. We referenced the bolstered Food Service structure that was put in place in 2024, which has supported our meal ingredients and other Ambient Product subcategories. Also noteworthy that our principal branded products showed a strong double-digit revenue growth in the year thus far, supported by that new structure. In meal ingredients snacks and spreads, revenue benefited from an improved operational performance of our snacking operations, that is the Ambassador Foods division, as well as the launch of new product ranges being syrups and maple into the retail channel. This was partly offset then by logistical disruptions and operational delays affecting our imported meal ingredient lines. Now just to provide context to that comment as well as our opening comment in the market overview, we mentioned that the import and export supply chain volatility persisted during the start of 2025, evidenced by extended import lead times and also intermittent delays in securing export container availability. These delays were brought about by a combination of wind-bound conditions, as well as equipment breakdowns at the Cape Town terminal, particularly then affecting our imports from Europe in the Rialto division. Moving on then to the Perishable Products category, the category as a whole experienced revenue growth of 8.9% with selling price inflation and mix changes contributing 4%. We mentioned the fact that the volume growth in that super category was driven by value-added meat as well as the dairy subcategory in Retail and Food Service channels. But to provide a bit more context, I'll hand over to Cornel to discuss the dairy subcategory performance.

Thank you, Charl. Good afternoon, everyone. In our trading update, you would have noticed improvements in our working capital investment. This was driven by a moderation in commodity prices, slower growth in national milk production. We closed the year last year. And if you compare our national milk production with the prior year, we ended the year at 3.5%. If you use a comparison from January to April this year compared to last year, the increase was only 0.75% and then also increased demand and growth in core categories. The foot and mouth disease or the outbreak late last year in the Eastern Cape is well contained. You would have also noticed or read about the foot and mouth disease outbreak in KZN. We also procure milk in the Western Cape and the Southern Cape as well as the Eastern Cape regions. Thank you.

Thanks, Cornel. Moving on to the value-added meats subcategory. We mentioned that demand for coated chicken products continued to increase. However, this has placed some additional constraint on our production capacity but did drive revenue growth of double digits. Beef volume sales were lower than the prior corresponding period. The reason for that being that the diversification of supply took full effect in Q2 of last year. So we had one quarter of 2025, which wasn't comparable to 2024. However, all of that diversification now being in the base. I might mention there of the foot and mouth disease outbreak that Cornel also mentioned, disrupting beef supply chains nationally. At this point in time, we've been able to procure sufficient raw material in order to remain operational in our factory. However, we do expect beef sales to be lower in the week -- in the month of June and July until supply chains normalize towards the start of August. Finally, before we take some questions from those in attendance, we mentioned the fact that just to remind you that June will have fewer trading days than the prior comparative period. But notwithstanding this, we do expect continued positive trading momentum from the rest of the year as we focus on the 3-pronged strategy that we've communicated to the market in our 2 super categories as well as in our 4 operational channels. That was short and sweet, but really looking to understand if there are any questions from the floor that we can answer at this point in time. Keegan?

[Operator Instructions]

We have a question from Dirk asking around the gross margin progression. Dirk, obviously, we didn't want to say too much at this point in time, but broadly, our margins have been protected, if not improved in the super categories that we measure, we can go into the nuances of the margins in the subcategories when we report in September. Sorry, there was a hand up from Craig.

I appreciate you run the 4-week, 5-week planning cycle, but it obviously makes it a little bit difficult when the 21-week period to the end of 31st of May this year obviously includes the extra week, but it's also a payday week as well. So is there any possibility you can give us a more direct comp versus prior year, whether it's the extra week in the base or removing the extra week in this period? If you can give any color on that.

I can see you also have access to Twitter where that comment was raised. Unfortunately, I can't give you a definitive number, but I can say to you that the majority of the revenue growth most definitely did not come from an extra payday week that we are comparing with the prior year. If I were to give you broad guidance, it would be the upper to higher single-digit numbers in terms of revenue growth.

Okay. And that's comparing 21 weeks to 21 weeks, you're saying?

Yes, upper single-digit revenue growth. Okay. We have another question from [ Lusani ]. Geopolitical exposure around Israel and Iran. I'm just reading the question. I'll broadly paraphrase your question, [ Lusani ]. I think what you are asking us is whether the Israel-Iran conflict has had an impact on our -- both our export as well as our import logistics. And the answer to that is, at this point in time, our operations have not been affected by that. You'll remember that most of our exports make it into either the European region, which could be affected but hasn't been affected to date, but also to the U.S. and Northern America, which has not at all been affected. We obviously continue to monitor the situation as closely as you do. But at this point in time, not being affected by that.

Okay. There was a question from Dirk. Are your market shares progressed in the dairy categories? Dirk, with the information on market data available, the latest data, the Lancewood brand gained market share and is growing ahead of our core categories, namely soft cheese, hard cheese and the yogurt categories.

We will give those in attendance another minute or 2 just to ask any questions. Okay. It seems like we've covered all of the questions short and sweet. We will be publishing our results on about the 16th of September, at which point we will provide more in-depth updates on the subcategory as well as the margin performances. We look forward to seeing you there. Thanks, everyone, for joining the call and keep well.