Everyone's very quiet, thank you. We're just waiting for the on—are they on?
Just waiting to hear from you.
Yeah, just got to wait for the 11:00 A.M. kickoff for those that are joining online, so. Great to see such a wonderful roll-up. I'm not sure if it's because you like listening to what we've got to say or you like the freebies when you leave, or the food maybe, but we'll take it as the former.
I think we've got another minute to go.
Oh, I'm being told we've got another minute to go, so just relax. Hold your breath.
Is Rav here or—
No.
No.
No. Okay, right. Hit the 11, just wait for a shot. Yeah, you can follow whenever you're ready.
All right, well, sincere thanks to everyone for coming along to our 2024 Annual General Meeting. It's always very humbling to see so many people who make such an effort to come along and see us, and I believe we've got at least this many. I think there's something like 140 here, plus staff, and I think there's a similar amount online, so really appreciate your support because we wouldn't be here without shareholders. It's a hybrid meeting, as we've said. I'll go through some of the voting procedures in a sec and again later. I'd firstly like to introduce myself, Rob McGavin, the co-founder and chair of the company. I'd also like to acknowledge the Wadawurrung people of the Kulin Nation and pay my respects to their elders past and present.
It's now 11:00 A.M., and I'm advised by Hasaka Martin, our company secretary, that we have a quorum present and that we can therefore officially declare the meeting open. Just a little bit of a run-through on how today will work. Firstly, I'll say a few words. You'll then hear from our co-CEOs, Sam Beaton and Leandro Ravetti. We'll then do the formal part of the meeting and open it up to questions, and then we'll do a tour of the operation right through the bottling line and the nursery, and everyone will be split into three groups, and you're all color-coded, but we'll give you more directions when we get to that point. And then we'll have a light lunch over in the nursery. So again, really, really pleased that everyone has attended. I'd like to introduce the directors.
We've got Leandro Ravetti, he's a director of the company and co-CEO. Samuel Beaton is also an executive director of the company and co-CEO. We've got Craig Ball here, who is a non-executive director from Adelaide and chairs the remuneration and nomination committee. Dr. Joanna McMillan, who's from Sydney, who sits on the safety and sustainability committee. We have Toni Brendish, who is also from Sydney, non-executive director, chairs the safety and sustainability committee, sits on the audit and risk committee, and sits on the remuneration and nominations committee. That's a fair mouthful. David Wills, who chairs the audit and risk committee. He's also a non-executive director based in Melbourne. I can't even see who's next. We've got Annabel Godina, who is our CFO, and we have Hasaka Martin, who's the company secretary.
We've also got a lot of staff here and executives from Cobram Estate, and really so proud. I think they're nearly all shareholders and have done a lot of work today, those that are based in this site, to make this place look spick and span. Not that it isn't always spick and span, but I think they've done a little bit extra just for us. Also, David Hayes, who's our new audit partner from Deloitte. So Deloitte have always been our auditors or have for a long period of time, but they cycle through the partners for good governance. And David's also going to be our independent voting scrutineer for today. We're also joined by Richard Spencer from Deloitte, Chris Mitchell from DLA Piper, and I think we probably have Stephen Rafferty. Is he here? And maybe Ian McDonald from CBA. All good.
They must be happy with us if they're not here, so that's a good sign. We have around, I think when we started, we had around 850 shareholders. We now have around 3,600. So we don't have you all here, but hopefully the rest are online or engaged. A little bit on the participating in the voting before I get to my report. If you received a yellow card, you're a voting shareholder and/or proxy holder or corporate representative, and you've chosen to vote using the voting card, and there'll be a box come around at the end that you can put the voting card in. If you received a blue card, you are a voting shareholder, but you've already voted online or a different way, and if you received a red card, well, you're a guest, so welcome.
For those attending in person and eligible to vote, you can cast your vote by filling out that voting paper at any time at all. We will give you a reminder at the end and sort of be five minutes sort of before it closes. And those participating online or intending to vote using the online voting platform, you can simply click "Get a Voting Card" button and follow the instructions on the screen. And as I said, the poll is open now, and I'll give you a reminder with five minutes to go. So to the chairman's address, it's 26 years since Paul Riordan and myself co-founded this business. And it sounds a little self-indulgent because we had so much help and no more so than from Robert and Liz Riordan, who are here, who are Paul's mum and dad. Paul's apologies for the day he's overseas.
His boys race motorcycles, so he spends a lot of time in Europe and the States with them. Obviously also our partners, my wife, Kate, our initial advisory board, and probably really like to recognize those very brave people that put in the first, over the first three years, AUD 15 million into founding this business. I'd suggest that a fair majority of our shares is still held by those original people who have been with us for between 25 and 26 odd years. There's no way we would have this business without them, and I think that we can never forget that they took a massive punt backing Paul and I in those days, and it wasn't all plain sailing, and they've stuck with us through the thick and the thin, and we're enormously grateful for that.
It is quite humbling to think now that we have an incredible olive business. I could never dream, and Paul couldn't either, of just what's been achieved, where we are, our position on two continents here in the U.S.A., both in the production side right through to the marketing side. And we didn't really know what we were doing, but we just focused on quality and integrity and low cost of production, and consumers have really taken to that. And I think, sadly, the reason we've been able to succeed is because the industry is so adulterated and so many consumers are ripped off and cheated by brands in this category that when you just focus on the consumer, they repay it in spades. So it's a long burn, but I really feel that that's the key to success.
And obviously, on that whole journey, we've had some incredible people, no more so than these guys beside me, but Leandro, I think, has been with us something like 23 years now, and he has written the world book on olive oil. So before you hear from the CEOs, I'll just make a couple of comments on the FY24 results. And I think, well, it's pleasing that we were able to announce an EBITDA profit of AUD 67 million and record cash flow from operations of AUD 64 million. And what makes that pleasing is it was an off year. As you know, olives are biennial bearing, but I think it demonstrates our ability to manage the business, which we've always done, which has always confused people a little bit. Our customers turn up every day and buy product.
They don't just buy it when you've had an on-season, and they don't just buy it when you've had an off. It's just for how many months from each season you supply that oil and how you spread that out to have a business that every single day there's a similar amount of olive oil bought through our consumer brands. They don't know when we've had an on-year and off-year. So that's really pleasing. Sorry, I don't get a teleprompter like the others. I'm sort of thinking through, and again, this is not really my style because you have to write your speech, publish it, and then stand up and sort of read it, but I probably don't read it as well as I should. But I tried to think through why is this business good? What makes it different?
If I was a shareholder, like I'm an insider, obviously, but if I wasn't, why should I care and why is it good or not? And I think I've listed a few things. One I reckon is our proprietary production system, Olive.i Q, and Leandro and his 16 team technical members, staff, over years and years and years have done a huge amount of research and ever-increasing dedication to doing a better job. And how do you make high-quality olive oil at a cheaper price, reduced risk, get systems in place so it doesn't rely on one person? And they developed this system that's ours, and it's registered trademark called Olive.i Q, and it's really focused on four pillars: the quality of the oil, the productivity of the groves, the sustainability of what we do, and our cost of production.
We had UC Davis do a review of our results to ensure that it was the most credible university in ag, probably in the world, and their head guy of the Olive Center did a review of Olive.i Q of the facts to say, well, just so it's easy for us to say it, but is it true? I just want to take you through some of the headline stuff. Our groves achieve at full production, of which we've got thousands of hectares, not our very best grove, our groves, all of them, even our worst ones, 60% higher yields than the next six most productive groves in the world, and nearly nine times more oil than the global average.
The key point being that our yield average is 60% higher than the world's top 6% of productive groves, sorry, 6% of productive groves, and nine times more oil than the global average production, all at a 30% lower weighted cost. It is quite remarkable, and you go, well, how would you do that? It's not easy, but it's really, in summary, it's growing more fruit per square meter of canopy on each tree, a fruit that weighs more and is bigger because it has more oil, a fruit that accumulates more oil by how you manage it and where it is and all those different things, and then being able to extract more oil out of that fruit. That's the only reason we've got this incredible position of really high quality, low cost, which is unique, and I'll touch on that a bit in a minute.
These principles have allowed us to work with growers in the U.S.A. and improve our two key partners over there. Our two key partners. We've improved yields there by 80% per hectare since we've been offering them technical advice on their groves. The yields we're talking about are across thousands of acres here in Australia. What's probably most exciting is that the U.S.A., the early results from the U.S.A. where we're growing there, it's just as good, but probably better than here. I mean, their climate is incredible. It's just a sunny day every day, whereas we've got cold, sunny, hot, wind, whatever. It's very different. They don't get any summer rain. They seem to just get no summer rain. We're really excited about California and the opportunity there. We had been working with them for many years.
We've been there 10 years now, and our groves are very, very productive there. Probably the other key thing is that through this Olive.i Q system, we use 37% less water, 63% less nitrogen fertilizer, and 83% less phosphorus fertilizer than the world average. This is per L of olive oil produced. So just think about that. It's incredible. And it's all because of high production and really monitoring and measuring the inputs that we put in. And the quality is also outstanding. We've won over 650 awards, 190 gold medals, 48 trophies, and probably won all of the major global awards that there are from time to time. And we've also won the healthiest olive oil in the world as well. So Olive.i Q is really important, and leveraging that is hugely important to our business, and going to the U.S.A. was a key way to leverage that.
The second point I think is that we're lucky enough to be in an industry with incredible tailwinds because it's hard enough. Can you imagine if you're in tobacco or alcohol or something else where you've got headwinds all the time? We have got incredible tailwinds, which are from none of our doing. They just are there, and most of them are the fact that olive oil is healthy and it's natural, and the weight of science that keeps coming, supporting the long-term health benefits of regular consumption of high-quality extra virgin olive oil and its role in the prevention of chronic disease keeps coming and is very hard to ignore, so when you combine that with every other day, there's another article about the long-term health effects of consuming highly refined, mass-produced cooking oils. It creates a very important sort of foundation for future sales growth and definitely opportunity.
I think the industry that we're in, producing high-quality olive oil is extra virgin olive oil, has a lot going for it. The other thing I think is a bit different to us to a lot of businesses is our people. I know every business would say this, but I'm involved in a few businesses, and the people in this business, I'm not saying the people in the other business are no good, but the people in this business are so dedicated and so smart with what Tim Jonas used to say, "It's one thing to have an opportunity or a good idea to complete another if your team can execute on it well." I think the team here has got, we don't get everything right, but we have a history of being able to execute on deals and do a good job.
And as I said before, they've published 30 peer-reviewed research projects since inception in this business. Our staff have, and that's pretty rare for anyone in the non-university sector. And having a sole focus on olive oil also means that you're experts in that. You're not doing this and this and this and everything else. So I think that sole focus is another really important point that if I was a shareholder, I'd consider. The other thing is I don't think there's another agribusiness that I can think of, and certainly happy to be proved wrong, that has the position or the opportunity that we do. And we are farmers, but we're not price takers, and that's really rare. We produce in the top 5% in the world production.
We're in the top 5% quality-wise, but our cost of production per L is in the bottom 5% across all grades of oil. That's normally an oxymoron. Normally, if you're the highest quality, you are the highest cost, and it's just a really unique position. It comes back to Olive.i Q and a few other things. Our business produces 70% of Australia's olive oil just from the groves. Our freehold groves, we own ourselves, which obviously comes with a lot of benefits. We see that oil each year. Where the real consumer benefit in this is that we see all the oil we produce plus the stuff we buy from other growers. Before we bottle any of it, we look at what's the best and make sure that's Cobram.
So we just know no one's going to have a better oil than us in the retail market in any sort of volume. I'm not saying there wouldn't be a little one that might win a better award someday, sometime, but in any sort of volume. And that's stuck with us so well because when you see most of Australia's fruit or most of Australia's oil each year, you know you can have the best in what is your best brand, which is Cobram, which you know is going to give good consumer value. And the brand is also really important because consumers love it. You're not currency risk and commodity risk and the other things that mean that you're price taker to a certain extent, and you've got control over the quality of that, where it's distributed.
Obviously, it's in ALDI, which is a big tick to the brand because I only really put iconic brands in ALDI supermarkets because it's a home brand sort of operation. And we're in about 18,000 stores in the U.S.A. So the brand is incredibly important to us and is not valued at anything on our balance sheet. We have around AUD 845 million worth of tangible assets, mostly freehold land. And with that just definitely comes a high degree of inflation protection because tangible assets backed with a brand with pricing power is by definition inflation protection, or some as good as inflation protection you can get. So I think we're lucky in that regard too.
And obviously, producing oil in Australia that we mostly sell in Australia and producing oil in California that we most sell in California does take away a lot of the risks that a lot of businesses have from sovereign risk, commodity risk, currency risk, and obviously disruptions to import, supply, shipping, logistics, all of those things because nearly everything we need in Australia to produce, we have here. Of course, we do have some imports, but nothing like a lot who are importing even the product they sell. I think the other point. I won't keep going on forever here, just in case you're worried. The other point is that the opportunity in the U.S.A. is really, really incredible, and it's going to. I've just come back from the U.S.A., and it's going to seriously transform this company over time. It's eight times larger than the Australian market.
Just the incremental growth last year in the U.S.A. market in revenue, just the growth in 12 months was larger than the entire Australian market. Just to give you a scale of the opportunity. Different thing to be able to execute on and do really well, but I'm coming to that. They only consume 3 or 4% of California oil. It's mostly imported, exactly the same as Australia 30 years ago. There's no reason why we can't make happen in the U.S.A. what we have here. We're halfway through our 10th harvest, or not halfway, 15% through our first harvest. We definitely have solid foundations and really good momentum there. It's remarkable that almost everything that works there from almost every aspect of our business works here, from growing all the other stuff you'd expect. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
But even on the marketing side, the sales side, talking to the retail buyer, the importance of that point can't be understated. And every time we've diverted away because someone over in the U.S. has said, "Oh, no, no, we're different. We do it this way," well, generally, it doesn't work. And whatever works here, pretty much works there, which is really comforting. And another point is just we've spent hundreds of millions of AUD in the last 12 years redeveloping groves here to pull out varieties that we initially planted in a trial and error because we didn't actually know what was going to work in those early days. Sorry to tell all those people in the room who put all the money in initially. Who thought that we knew everything, but some of those varieties didn't work, one of them particularly.
We've just finished planting the last 271 hectares in Wemen last year. That is the last of our replanting program. Now we've got the varieties that we want, which is going to mean that we don't have to keep sinking capital into the Australian market. But what it does do is that our production will increase by 53% of our mature groves. That makes sense. Sorry, not our production. Our mature grove area will increase by 53% from 4,570 hectares to 7,000 hectares over the next eight years here, if you think of eight years from the ones we just planted this week. The good news is the majority of capital expenditure in Australia is finished. Of course, we have some maintenance CapEx like any business, but the major items of processing plants and redevelopment of groves is done. We're really happy with those varieties.
We've had 26 years or nearly of assessing how well they work. And we'll also get some very good cash flows from those groves here in Australia. Very important to our business because the cost of operating them is not greatly more whether they're mature or immature. So as they mature, we should have better cash flows. And it's around what are we going to do with those cash flows? And really, it's around a two-pronged approach is where we think we would like to take the business, just so everyone's sort of clear on what we're thinking. And one is growing the U.S.A. business, which we see as a very important part, and a bit more importantly than that, a great business opportunity. And also in rewarding shareholders with dividends.
So they're the two areas that we feel that cash should be allocated going forward now that we've got the replanting of those groves in Australia behind us. Finally, on the things that make us slightly different or what shareholders should think about is Leandro talked to this more, but we have for a long time put a huge effort into our sustainability, our environmental footprint, our social outcomes, try to make sure there's no waste. How do we sink more carbon? And more pleasingly, we've developed and adopted a new 2030 sustainability strategy this year. And you're never finished. It's continual, but it's not like we're coming from behind where, "How are we going to offset this?" We're already a net carbon sink, which is a really great position to be in.
We can always do better, and we are trying to do better with zero waste and all the things that are important to having a sustainable business. Now, as shareholders, and I've got a captive audience, there's not a chance that we could have this day without just letting you know what I think you should know about olive oil so that you can tell your friends and keep consuming lots of it. There's only a few points, but one is that extra virgin olive oil is simply the juice of fresh olives. It's the only mainstream cooking oil that hasn't had heat, chemicals and sometimes solvents in the production, which makes it natural and healthy. The consumer value comes from that.
So the freshness of the olives and why we pick and crush each olive within four to six hours is to lock in as many antioxidants and natural minor components as possible because the science is very clear that that's what drives the health benefits. So the more you have of those, the healthier it is for you. And sadly, the industry has a lot of adulteration. And if you don't know and trust the brand you're buying, which is why I think Cobram's just got such a dominant market position, if you don't know and trust that brand and you do your reading, you'll almost certainly get ripped off. So that's great news for us because our whole focus is on quality, and consumers are reading more and more and more.
So it's all around the antioxidants and the freshness, and that drives the consumer value in both health, flavor, and smell. A couple of little updates since 30 June, U.S.A. Olives harvest has started. Leandro's over there. Leandro's wife is working 12 hours a day every day from midnight till midday in the shift. And I don't know too many other CEOs of reasonable size ASX companies who would uproot themselves and their wife to go to Boort for two months when we're harvesting there and then go across the U.S.A. to do the same thing and work flat out in the plant. So it just goes to show the caliber of the guy. But everything seems in line. But it's early days. So the quality and the yield expectations at the moment are good, but it's only done 15%. Weather's looking like it's going to stay pretty good.
Sales in Australia and the U.S.A. since 30 June, very strong, which is pleasing. And the board has declared the dividend of AUD 0.033, 100% franked, to be paid in late November. There'll be more details of that in Sam's slide. And I have had a few questions on why that dividend wasn't increased. And it's really because we've been looking for great land in the U.S.A. for 14 years, and it's been very hard to come across. And we've come across some very good value sort of properties that we thought we just couldn't walk past. So we've sort of probably put a little bit more into that. But it's freehold land for future development, which will drive a lot of value to shareholders.
For the full year, we're having an off year in California, but we expect that to be more than the on year, which was last year, or about the same, one of those two. And this year, we're coming into on year. So we expect a material increase in profit, EBITDA profit this year, which is good news. But of course, we have to deliver on that, and we are in the grove. Production is in agriculture. We have engaged someone externally. We're undertaking external search for another non-executive director, and we hope to have some news on that soon. And on behalf of the board, I would sincerely like to thank our team members, both here in Australia and the U.S.A., but particularly Leandro and Sam. Also, Brent Crosby, who's Head of Sales and Marketing globally. He's actually just come back from the U.S.A. as well.
Ruth Sutherland, who lives at Boort, manages all of our groves and processing across the two major sites and does an incredible job. So go and say hello to Ruth. You might have seen her on some TV ads in the day. Claudia Guillaume, who is, well, she'll be here, I'm sure, but she manages this whole site. So thank you and your team because it just looks fantastic. I'm sure you'll agree when you have a look around. Also, Annabel Godina is our CFO. And we have two people in the U.S.A. who are watching online, but one's Conor Churchett, who was here in Australia for many years living at Boort and Boundary Bend, managing the processing plants, just doing an incredible job over there. He's in charge at the moment. They're harvesting at the plant. They're bottling at our plant with 24 hours a day, three shifts a day.
We're planting, I don't know, 200 hectares of groves or something. There's just so much going on, and this guy is an absolute gem. And our best people, I can say, without thinking out of offending too many people, over in the U.S.A. have come from here. And the other person I'd like to mention is Nico Urban, who was head of sales here in Australia, national sales, and he's moved to the States to be head of sales and marketing, uprooted his wife and little two-year-old to go and move over there for the business, and is doing an absolutely incredible job. I think that's about it for me. But again, I would like to thank shareholders for coming along today and for your support.
I'll hand over to Sam and Leandro, and then, unfortunately, you're going to have to listen to me again when we get to the formal part of the meeting.
Thank you, Rob, and welcome to everyone to our Lara facility, and welcome to those who are joining us online. My name's Sam Beaton. I'm one of the joint CEOs of Cobram Estate Olives Limited. I'm here to take you through the highlights of our financial year 2024 results and also a commercial update. As Rob touched on, we had a very successful year in FY24, really led by our significant growth in sales and reported olive oil sales of AUD 220 million for the 12 months. This was really driven by a significant increase in packaged goods sales, both here in Australia and in the U.S.A.
From a profit perspective, we reported AUD 66.7 million EBITDA profit and record operating cash flow before interest and tax of AUD 64 million. Moving on to the detail of the profit and loss, and we think and we run our business in three business segments, the first being the Australian olive oil business, second being the U.S.A. olive oil business, and thirdly, our innovation and value add or wellness division. Our Australian business grew EBITDA from AUD 38 million up to AUD 60 million. As Rob touched on, this was a really pleasing result, especially given Australia was in an off-cropping year. The increase was really driven by strong trading throughout the year and the increase in oil value. In the U.S.A., another year of EBITDA profit up from just under AUD 3 million to AUD 5.8 million.
The growth in profitability there was driven by a strong sales result, but also an improvement in product mix. So more of our oil as a percentage went into packaged goods compared to bulk. And innovation and value add is more profit as we continue to focus on adding value to our waste streams and particularly by selling it through B2B channels. Group balance sheet highlights AUD 690 million of reported assets and net assets of AUD 321 million. A couple of things I'd like to highlight on our balance sheet. Firstly is that our trees and irrigation infrastructure are recorded at written-down cost, not at current valuation. We did have a valuation done at 30 June 2024. And if that value was to be on a balance sheet, it'd be AUD 166 million higher. The brands also, as Rob touched on, sit on our books at cost, just over AUD 6.5 million.
Under accounting standards, you can't write up the value of a brand. And the other quick point is the deferred tax liability of AUD 90 million. That relates to historical asset write-ups. So it would only ever be payable if we sold the assets outside of the group. This next chart is on the left-hand side of the bar charts is 2024, 30 June. On the right-hand side is 30 June 2023. It charts our asset value against our borrowings. And the green bar is the AUD 166 million of external valuation that's not on our balance sheet relating to the trees and irrigation infrastructure. The adjusted debt ratio, taking into account these asset values and borrowings, increased slightly from 24.8%- 25.3%. From a cash flow perspective, we report a record operating cash flow of AUD 64 million.
We continue to invest heavily in capital projects, the majority of that in long-term growth projects that we expect will deliver material value to shareholders in the medium to long term. We paid a dividend during the financial year, which was AUD 11.5 million net of the dividend reinvestment plan. At 30 June, we had AUD 42.9 million in available cash, which puts us in a good position to continue to fund growth. This chart here shows or demonstrates our growth in operating cash flow over the last five years. Operating cash flow is much more consistent, or the growth in operating cash flow, than reported profit, which tends to go up and down with our on-and-off crop years. The light green chart is operating cash flow before interest and tax, and the dark green after interest and tax.
We expect this trend to continue because as our Australian groves mature and also as we continue the sustainable growth in the U.S.A. We certainly think that operating cash flow is a really effective and straightforward measure of business performance, and we encourage investors to focus on it. Moving on to sales. So sales across both Australia and the U.S.A. were strong. This is our Australian sales only in packaged goods. The purple bar is branded sales, so Cobram Estate and Red Island, and the green being Red Island. This year, our packaged goods sales increased by 28.1%, up to AUD 142.9 million. Cobram Estate and Red Island, their market share grew to 37.9%, up from 34.8%. In terms of marketing, we continue to invest significantly in marketing Cobram Estate, both here in Australia and in the U.S.A., and really around three key pillars.
The first being awareness, a general awareness of the brand. We then spend a lot of money on education. So educating consumers around our high-quality extra virgin olive oil and its amazing health benefits, and also the versatility of extra virgin olive oil. And then thirdly, on advocacy. So we work with a number of partners on this. This slide is really trying to show the growth in yield from our Australian groves. So on the left-hand side, we've got the average from 2025 from our Australian groves. So the 7,000 hectares of our own and 1,000 hectares of third-party growers that we have long-term arrangements with. Over the last two years, our average yield was 11.5 million L. If all those trees were at full maturity, we'd expect an average yield of around 19-23 million L.
On the right-hand side, the chart charts the growth in yield over eight years against the growth in costs. As you can see, from around year five, costs are relatively fixed on an olive grove, despite the growth in yield over those last three years to maturity. What that means to us is that in the medium term, we're expecting a significant increase in growth in volume from the trees already planted, and on top of that, we would expect a decrease in cost per L, so the combination of those two, we would expect to grow profitability and operating cash flow into the medium term. Moving on to the U.S.A. sales, so this chart has the purple is branded, the green is private label, and the blue on top is our bulk sales.
We had significant growth in the U.S.A. over the last 12 months and a real credit to the team over there for doing a brilliant job. Packaged goods sales, we grew by 78.9% over the year versus FY 2023. We're pleased to say that we're now the number eight brand in the U.S.A., and we're in over 18,000 stores. Just to quickly highlight a couple of stats on the U.S.A. business to remind shareholders, we have just under AUD 190 million of gross assets over in the U.S.A., and as you can see from the chart on the right, we've reported our second year of earnings growth and sales of over AUD 60 million, and we're really pleased with the signs the U.S.A. is showing and the significant growth opportunity that we see ahead.
In terms of trading update, and Rob touched briefly on this, but for the three months to 30 June 2024, compared to the prior period of three months to 30 June 2023, we've seen packaged goods sales continue to grow and well ahead of that period, which is very pleasing in both countries, Australia and the U.S.A. Growth in Australian sales has been driven by both price and units sold, and we continue to see that strong demand, and in the U.S.A., we're seeing increased ranging or increased distribution points, increased ranging within existing stores, and also an increase in sales rates. From a cost perspective, our major input costs are pleasingly continuing to stabilize, particularly around the key ones of fertilizer, labor, fuel, water, and electricity.
Moving into the financial outlook for the full year, we're expecting the sales momentum to continue for the remaining nine months of the financial year. And certainly, operating cash flow has been very strong for the first three months. We're expecting that to continue as well. As Rob touched on, this year is an on-year for the Australian grove, so we're expecting a significantly higher harvest. The U.S.A. is an off-year, but again, as Rob touched on, our crop in the U.S.A. is expected to be in line, if not better than last year. Leandro will talk more around that. We continue to invest in capital projects. The majority will go into the U.S.A. this year and really around increasing supply of extra virgin olive oil. And given Australia is an on-year, we're expecting a significantly higher EBITDA in FY 2025.
The dividend, so we did formally declare a dividend this morning, and it has been announced, AUD 3.3 per share. The franking is 100%. Last year, it was 70%, so an improvement on last year. The payment date is 28th of November. We are offering a dividend reinvestment plan. If shareholders haven't already elected to participate and they would like to, please make sure you do by the 11th of November 2024. The dividend reinvestment will be offered at a 2.5% discount. That's all I had. We'll have time for questions at the end. Before I hand to Leandro, I'd like to thank him for the amazing support this year and he's a terrific partner, and looking forward to hearing from you.
Good morning. My name is Leandro Ravetti. As Rob said, I've been with the company 23 years, so I can't believe that I was only seven years old when I joined the company. But really, thank you very much to all of you for being with us today, either online or here, surrounded by this beautiful product. I'm sure that as shareholders, you will appreciate that we moved you here this year so we can keep bottling and delivering oil on the other end and we don't miss on half a day of production, given the strong demand. Before I move to my presentation, I would also like to thank you as shareholders, the board, Rob, for your ongoing trust and support on us as executives, and also thanking Sam because it really continues being a pleasure working alongside him as co-CEOs.
To the presentation, as we previously announced, our harvest in Australia in 2024 was completed by the end of June, right on time, receiving about 55,000 tons of fruit, milling it into 10.1 million L of oil. And that quantity of oil is sufficient to guarantee our supply of oil for the packaged goods plan that we have for this financial year. That total quantity of oil in 2024, being an off-year, was 3% higher than the 2022 production that was the previous off-year. What happened during the harvest is that it became quite obvious that the colder and wetter than average conditions that all of Australia, particularly the Eastern Seaboard, suffered in 2023, had a widespread impact in the olive industry, in many other horticultural industries too, but in the olive industry in particular.
That became evident that if we don't consider our production, if we remove the Cobram Estate groves, the Australian industry production of this past year was actually 54% lower than 2023 and 43% lower than the previous off-year. So in the context, the modest increase of 3% has to be seen as quite a positive result. Moving into this year's flowering, the flowering for this 2025 crop has already commenced, with the groves at Boundary Bend being at full bloom this week, and the groves at Boort are going to be at full bloom next week. Fortunately, the weather conditions are quite nice. Over there, very different than what we have here today. The temperatures are more in the mid-high 20s, even low 30s. Clear skies, no rain, nice breezy days, which is exactly what the olive trees need for flowering to have a good fruit set.
We have the photo there of the tiny white flowers of the olives and plenty of that golden dust on the leaves. That's the pollen grains. In the case of the olive trees, the pollen flies with the wind, doesn't need bees, do not rely on bees to guarantee a good fruit set. So there's a big difference between olives and, let's say, other crops like almonds, where we really want those sort of dry, breezy days to get the pollination done. The 2025 crop that, as we said, is expected to be an on-year and significantly higher than the 2024 is shaping up well.
Despite some challenging environmental conditions experienced during spring, with alternating temperatures and some frosts, I'll say that our investment in the frost protection system that we carried over the past five years, investing some AUD 10 million, certainly paid off this year with the more than 180 frost fans protecting vast areas of our farms from what could have been potentially damaging frost. And if we had to put it in dollar terms, those frost fans would have saved us about AUD 30 million-AUD 40 million worth of crop. So quite pleasing to see them working and working well. Plenty going on in the company. And as Rob said, the same is the case in the U.S. I just flew back from the U.S. early this week and flying back tomorrow. It's all happening, but including the start of harvest, only a couple of weeks into the harvest.
And at the same time that we are processing, we have already filtered, bottled, packed, and dispatched over 250,000 L of oil already, so can't get it any fresher than that. The conditions in California during winter and spring have been very good for flower induction and for pollination and fruit set. So very cool, wet winters, zero frost at all, very nice temperatures on the progress. And that's why we upgraded our crop forecast. We were originally expecting 2024 to be an off-year for California, but it's proving to be likely to be more aligned or slightly better than what we had last year that was an on-year until then. And then just to wrap up the presentation, as we normally like to do, I'll touch on the key developments that are linked to our four growth pillars.
Those pillars are actually quite simple, and they focus on us producing more oil from our Australian groves, mainly through efficiency gains and the maturing profile of the trees. Also, continue growing the incredible business that we have in the U.S.A. Continue to focus on growing our branded sales with a relentless focus on increasing the net return per L, and also capitalizing our naturally sustainable position and continue to upcycle our olive oil byproducts. Sam mentioned this quite clearly because the production costs are largely fixed as the trees are maturing. Every bit of oil that links to this first growth pillar flows pretty much directly as profit for us.
It's great to see the fact that our mature area over the next eight years is going to grow by 50% because that means that there's a significant jump in the production, as Sam said, pretty much going up to around the 20 million L range mark, and that will help us to drive a lot of growth and profit over the next year. The two, let's say, investment projects that we have done linked to this has been the redevelopment of the last 271 hectares at Wemen that Rob mentioned, replanting the last bit of that underperforming Barnea variety with better performing varieties, and that's all completed. You see the photos there, trees looking quite nice. The second project was the final or second stage of the expansion of the mill at Boort with the additional equipment.
Last year, since April last year, we've been operating a largely new facility at Boort where we increased our milling capacity from 30 tons an hour to 50 tons an hour. Hopefully, some of you had the opportunity to see it early this year with the official opening of that mill. And now, with the new equipment that we are bringing for the next harvest, that capacity will grow from 50 tons an hour to 100 tons an hour. So we're going to double the capacity of what you have seen over there, making it clearly one of the biggest olive mills in the world. To put in different terms, with that capacity, we are going to be producing up to around 400,000 L of oil every day. So it's actually a pretty significant investment and incredible sight.
Obviously, getting to this point, I definitely also would like to thank Ruth Sutherland, our head of horticulture for, and her teams, both at Boort and Boundary Bend, for successfully managing these pretty complex mega projects, all at the same time that they keep looking after the trees at our groves. The second growth pillar is all about really growing our business in the U.S.A. And I share with Rob the excitement about what is going on there. In the graph to your left or to your right, sorry, what you can see are the locations of those groves. They're all sort of dotted around the southern part of the Sacramento Valley or the northern part of the San Joaquin Valley. But all those groves are quite close to our Woodland facility where we have our mill, our bottling lines, our laboratory, our administration. And they share a common position.
Environmentally, they are all located in the foothills of the western side of those valleys with a pretty sheltered position protecting the groves from potentially damaging frost in autumn and spring. But they're also close enough to the delta of the Sacramento River, helping more moderate temperatures during summertime and increasing the oil accumulation potential on those farms. What we can see there on the graphs as well is that the age profile of those trees in the U.S.A. is significantly younger than our trees in Australia. Only 11% of our trees in the U.S.A. are actually mature, and almost 60% of the trees are that young that they haven't even got into production yet. So they are either one or two years old. So plenty of growth there organically.
Over the past few months, we've been lucky to have a few of you visiting us and having the opportunity to see the quality of our assets. I saw Ian today. It was great to have him over there. Anyone from you that would like to see what we have in the U.S., those incredible assets are more than welcome to visit us. We'll be more than proud to show you. But for those that can't, I just wanted to share some photos with you. This is our DeBow Ranch. It's the smallest of our groves. It's the oldest of it. It's a little bit of our experimental farm. This is what we planted nine years ago.
Wanted to test a wide range of varieties and learn as much as we could, not to repeat the issues that we had here with the Barnea before we went forward with any further plantings. And it's now doing quite well. And this is some photos being harvested. This is our Hungry Hollow Ranch. It's the oldest of the fully developed ranches on freehold land. It's about 450 acres now, all up. Not quite six years old yet. It was planted in 2019. And this year, it's having a beautiful crop over and above our long-term average years for mature groves that Rob was mentioning before. So it's very great to see that performance. These are some photos of our Esparto South Ranch. You can see even some of the odd snow that we can get on the hills, making it very picturesque groves.
This is our largest single farm, our Dunnigan Hills Ranch, 470 hectares that have been planted between July 2023 and pretty much now in October and November this year. Especially for the earlier shareholders, to give you a bit of perspective, this farm is almost as big as Joint Venture One, Joint Venture Two, and Joint Venture Three, all put together. Beautiful scale, great location. You can see the differences that you get between winter and summer in the U.S.A. The developments don't stop there. These are some of the images of the 179 hectares that we planted since the end of the last calendar year and July this year, and some of the land that we are preparing that we are about to start planting now.
In this photo to your right, what you can see is the younger grove, the one-year-old grove, and the land next to it that we purchased and developed to keep expanding the scale of one individual site, in this case, the Dunnigan Hills Ranch. We also have a quite strong pipeline of properties for acquisition and development, as Rob mentioned. You can see here how I'm trying to sell Rob the dream under the rainbow when he was over there a couple of weeks ago. The last of the things that I wanted to touch on regarding the U.S. and the projects is linked to the much-needed expansion of our Woodland site. Last year, we expanded our milling capacity. We doubled the milling capacity. We doubled the storage capacity to around 4.5 million L. You see images there of the mill and the tank farm.
To give you a perspective for those that know it now, the mill in Woodland is as big as the mill at Boundary Bend. So it's actually a very large facility in its own right, and now we are progressing with expanding also the bottling capacity and the warehouse capacity for our finished goods in line with the growth in oil availability and sales. I think that if we look back at the last 18 months of our business in the U.S.A., it's truly hard not to be amazed and excited by the scale and the pace of that growth because in that short period of time, we have doubled the planted area. We have doubled the milling capacity. We have doubled our overall size and our branded sale.
We placed Cobram Estate as among the fastest, if not the fastest, growing brand in that amazing, huge market, despite still being constrained by oil supply. It's really exciting, the future of the business over there. And I would also like to thank, like Rob did, our Chief Operating Officer, Conor Churchett, and our Head of Sales and Marketing, Nico Urban, and the extremely hardworking teams. We got a photo there of the whole crew from the U.S., or at least most of them, and hopefully are watching us online because they're doing an incredible job. And right now, they're working literally 24/7 in the field, in the mill, in the bottling line, in the warehouse, and in administration to continue to support that growth. So really well done, guys. Very, very good to see.
And finally, the last of the points that I just wanted to make is related to that sustainability strategy that Rob mentioned. Definitely, since we publicly listed in 2021, we acknowledged the fact that there was a need for us to develop more of a comprehensive plan around sustainability. But to be honest, we didn't want that to be just a box-ticking exercise or just to bring another burden completely unnecessarily on our overheads and our already very busy staff. We just wanted a plan that truly made sense and that was addressing the specific needs of our business, but also the needs of some of our key stakeholders, being that consumer, our key retail partners, our bank. And that's what we hopefully achieved with this strategy. It's quite simple.
It's based around people, looking after our staff, the community where we operate, and our role as educators on healthier eating patterns. And I'll touch on that in a second. Around the planet, looking after greenhouse gas emissions, waste management, responsible use of resources, and around business, particularly focusing around ethical practices and a relentless focus and concentration around safe, quality products. In the case of the education, I think that it has been one of the greatest successes and drivers of the success of our business. It was the fact that we had to educate first all of you about the fact that Australia could produce great extra virgin olive oil, then that California can produce great extra virgin olive oil, and then also that extra virgin olive oil was a fresh product, locally produced. It's going to be fresher. If it's fresher, it's better for you.
And that education continued when we moved into the health aspect. And certainly, as a company, and Dan was a pretty big part of this idea, we put a lot of emphasis on educating healthcare professionals. Since 2015, we had a specific healthcare professional education program where our in-house dietitian, Sian Armstrong, attends conferences, runs webinars, produces specific work. We run a specific website hub for healthcare professionals to continue to educate them around all the great things around extra virgin olive oil. But on top of that, we also support local researchers, professionals, both here and in the U.S.A., that continue to develop knowledge around the use of extra virgin olive oil. And there are some links there with specific examples of research projects that we have supported.
On top of that, we have also funded and developed the unbranded Olive Wellness Institute, which is a repository of a lot of information available, scientific evidence around the wellness, health aspects of olives and olive oil. And it's a great site. It's a great initiative, currently guided by a board of independent experts from all over the world. We're lucky to have Dr. Catherine Itsiopoulos from RMIT, Dr. Simon Poole from the U.K., Dr. Mary Flynn from Brown University, Dr. Tassos Kyriakides from Yale University. They're all helping us to drive this initiative. If you haven't been on their website, I strongly encourage you to get there. In particular, check for that extra virgin olive oil health and nutrition report.
It has all what you need to know about why no other food comes even close to extra virgin olive oil when it comes down to the prevention and the management of chronic diseases. So if it's all about our heart health, our brain health, our gut health, extra virgin olive oil is truly a unique product. I'll touch also on greenhouse gas emissions. Obviously, I cannot cover the 20 commitments and targets and all the metrics that go with it. I'm just flagging four that I think that are really worthwhile doing. The greenhouse gas emission is certainly one of those. After a fair bit of work for more than three years, we came up with a comprehensive analysis of our scope one, two, and three emissions. For those that are not familiar, I'm trying to make it pretty simple.
Scope 1 and 2 emissions are those emissions that we are directly responsible for: the fuel that our tractors burn, the electricity that we consume to irrigate the olives. Scope 3, all the emissions that we are indirectly responsible for, let's say the energy used to produce the bottles that we use to pack our oil. Even if we include all those emissions that we are indirectly responsible for, still, the carbon that our trees sink in our growth above and below ground is more than enough to offset those emissions, putting us in a net carbon sink position, which is great to see. The other one that I wanted to touch on is related to water.
I think that it's pretty clear, looking at us and Rob and Patricia, that we are farmers at heart and that the responsible use of resources, particularly water, it is definitely in our DNA, and we have done a great job efficiently managing it and developing the Olive.i Q, but also as a business, what we have identified that there was also a risk, and we needed to focus on the potential impact that change, be that climate change or regulation change can actually have in our business, and we continue to have a specific target about increasing the resilience of our business, particularly around water. And these are the two projects that we conducted in this, or at least some of them have been realized in this past financial year. One was achieving a five-gigaL water license to sustainably extract water from a saline aquifer under our Boundary Bend Grove.
That water being saline requires a modular desalination plant being installed to use it, but it would be a great tool to provide a lot of certainty, particularly in years of drought or reduced water allocation. And fortunately, that must be a first one. We won't have to reinvent the wheel with this one because there's already experience of similar horticultural industries already desalinating and successfully utilizing water from that aquifer in the area. So great to see. And a similar thing we have done in the U.S. in terms of, let's say, climate-proofing our operations. We invested about $1 million in a four-kilometer pipeline to bring the water to our Hungry Hollow Grove and the district, allowing that district, including our grove, not to rely all the time on aquifer water and underground water. We can irrigate with surface water from the Clear Lake and Indian Valley reservoirs.
That takes the pressure off the aquifer, making it a lot more sustainable and almost preserving it only for those years with this reduced water allocation. The last bit that I wanted to touch on is on quality. I could be like Rob, giving you the full list of all the awards that we have won or the great scores that we're getting in all the, I don't know, gazillions of audits that we have to cover. I just wanted to touch on this one real example of our commitment to quality. Last year, the International Standard Organization, or ISO, unanimously approved a method to measure squalene in vegetable oils. For those that are not familiar with that, squalene is a very unique antioxidant present in extra virgin olive oil, linked to skin health, immune support, but there was no official method to measure it.
This method, tested and validated for nearly 30 laboratories from 16 different countries, was 100% developed by our Modern Olives laboratory. Extremely proud of this. This would be a very proud achievement for any research organization, let alone a private laboratory. It shows the level of expertise of our chemists, of our lab technicians led by Claudia Guillaume, our head of technical and production, but also our commitment to the industry that probably started many, many years ago when we developed and published the Australian Standard for Olive Oil Quality.
And just making all what I'm saying more credible, we're fortunate to have a lot of independent recognition on these sustainable acts, particularly from organizations like the Australian Financial Review, our retail partners, Coles and Woolworths, that have named us the most sustainable supplier amongst thousands of companies, and also with our sustainability efforts extending to the US, now being certified with the Leading Harvest farming standard. So that brings me to the end of my address. And before I pass it on back to Rob, I would like to also thank very much the team of Sales and Marketing, Claudia Cook from People and Culture, our very busy Lara staff for putting together this AGM that hopefully you will all enjoy today. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Leandro. Now we get to the formal part of the meeting, and I'll rush through this preamble that I need to read pretty quickly so we've got more time for questions. The company secretary has confirmed that the notice of meeting explanatory memorandum dated 2 October 2024 was circulated to shareholders entitled to receive it within the notice period. The matters requiring consideration today are outlined in detail in the notice of meeting explanatory notes. The notice will be taken as read. Before moving to the various resolutions to be considered today, I would now briefly like to outline procedures for today's meetings. In accordance with the company's constitution and as set out in the notice of meeting, we have determined that voting on each of the resolutions will be conducted by a poll rather than a show of hands.
The result of the polls will be declared and released to the ASX later today and will also be published on the Cobram Estate Olives website. The chair of the meeting, and as detailed in the notice of meeting, I will vote where authorized all undirected proxies in favor of each resolution. As mentioned previously, for those attending the meeting in person, you can cast your vote by filling out a paper voting card. If you have any questions, please see a Link Market Services team member at the registration desk just up in that corner where you came in. For those shareholders participating in the meeting via online platform, as mentioned, you can cast your vote using your electronic voting card that you received when you validated your registration.
If you have any questions about casting your vote online, please refer to the online platform guide or call Link Market Services on the number as set out in the guide or the screen in front of you. As I said before, if anyone has a yellow or blue card and wishes to speak, please make your way to the microphone at the appropriate time and identify yourself. The microphones are just here in the middle, and we'll take questions from the floor first, and if you're participating via the online platform, you can submit questions by registering as a shareholder or proxy holder and selecting the Ask a Question tab. If you wish to submit a written question, select General Business or a specific resolution, type in your question, and click Submit. Comments can also be submitted the same way.
If you wish to ask a verbal question via web phone, please select Go to Web Phone, enter your name, and click on the green button, and you'll be connected to the meeting. I think we've got enough ways to ask questions. I will consider the questions submitted via web phone and online after I've taken questions from the floor. Out of fairness to everyone, if I could ask you to limit one question at a time and restrict your questions and comments to the resolution being considered until we get through the formal part of the meeting. I reserve the right as chair to rule questions as not pertaining to the AGM or out of order. There's six items of business today. We'll discuss each of these following time for questions and vote where appropriate. Item number one, financial statements and reports.
The first item of business on the agenda is for discussion purposes only, and it's not a resolution and relates to the 2024 financial statements and reports. However, the board and auditors will certainly take on board any feedback from shareholders. The 2024 annual report contains the company's financial report, director's report, independent auditor's report. A copy of the annual report is available on the Cobram Estate Olives website and was emailed to all shareholders of whom we hold email addresses and sent to shareholders who requested it. The financial statements have been approved by the directors and audited. Noting my earlier comment, I will take the financial statements and report as read. To receive and consider and approve the financial report and the related director's report and auditor's report for the year ended 30 June 2024.
At this time, I would invite shareholders to ask questions and make comments about the management of the company and the financial reports. Is there any questions from the floor? Is there also any questions to the auditor relevant to the conduct of the audit and the preparation or content of the auditor's report?
Good afternoon. My name is Norm West. I'm a shareholder and an observer for the Australian Shareholders Association. Firstly, congratulations to the company for the board day. I know it's happened, but it was a very, very interesting day and very enjoyable. Secondly, another comment. You must get the most happy and confident people to organize that parking yet. They need a gong. So that's another staff win for you. And your artistic design of the purple and the green, I think it's very symbolic of the business you run. A question.
Thanks, Norm.
Thank you. You've done very well with the groves and everything else, but earnings per share always result in profits and dividends. Sam mentioned the input cost, and he briefly listed some of them. I just wondered if he could be a little bit more detailed in how the input costs can be driven down and be reflected in the profit.
Yep. Thanks, Norm. And would you like an answer to that question, or you want us to take that on board as something you'd like us to do? Both? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And of course, pretty much the only way to look at input costs is a price per L, because if you spent nothing on the groves, you'd know input costs, but you'd also have no oil, so it wouldn't be very smart. But I might hand over to Sam to just talk about the process of budgeting input costs. And I know that this is always the board sits through a lot of presentations on budgets, analyzing each cost and going through that, but it is a focus. Do you want to? Do you have any more?
No, no. Certainly. I think the input costs that I spoke about during my presentation make up the majority of our budget. I think the comment around decreasing or increasing profitability is more around costs being relatively fixed on a grove, yet the yields are increasing year on year. So we look at it as a cost per L. So when you've got growing production and relatively fixed cost base, then naturally over time you have a decrease in cost per L, which all else being equal will increase our profit margin, drive profit across the group and cash flow.
And thank you, Norm. And Cecilia, thanks for your compliments and your support of always turning up to our events, and we do greatly appreciate it. Is there any questions from the online platform?
We have one question from Henrik Kay, who asks, how about looking at South Africa for future growth? He also would like to wish everyone the best of luck for the future.
Fantastic. Yeah, just the question was around South Africa, and we have looked at that market in detail over time. Leandro's advised quite a few groves there. There's not enough water. In short, I could get Leandro up here to give a whole discussion, but in short, there's not enough water in the areas where olives will grow. And when you go north enough to the Orange River where there is enough water, it's too humid and olives won't grow very well there. So it's very unique where you have hot, dry summers and water. Yes, Jane?
Thank you. My name's Jane Trembath, and I've been a shareholder for a very long time. I just wanted to ask a question about the global olive oil price in light of the drought, I believe, in Spain, and just wondered what impact it is having on our pricing here. Also, I would just like to compliment Rob, having known him for a very long time. He has been the driving force in this company, I believe, and I think we've all been very lucky to have had him here as both executive chairman and now chairman. Thanks.
Thanks very much, Jane. You must be easily pleased. But on your question around price, yeah, and you will have noticed that we've been wronged by the media a lot, why have your price of olive oil gone up, that sort of thing. And it's obviously caused by weather issues, olive oil price being low for a long time, lack of investment in new groves. So when you get a bit of a crisis, it's a lot worse because the price hasn't been there to reward growers enough to plant.
I'm talking about in general, and that the focus on quality hasn't been there by the major brands and marketers of olive oil who, I'd say 10 or so would probably control 80 or 90% of the world's olive oil sales. And extra light and pure, which are completely inferior products made from rotten olives, sell for the same price as extra virgin. So the grower grows good extra virgin, doesn't get paid much more than the bloke that grows, lets them fall on the ground and sweeps them up.
These fundamental issues of adulteration have probably caught the industry out a bit by low prices, growers seeing it as a bit of a secondary thing, bearing in mind we'd be losing money if we weren't so productive and Olive.i Q wasn't so good with, if you look at those stats and think, well, how does anyone else make money, and so the industry has been caught out a bit. Probably it caught us by surprise a little bit that some of the older stocks, and the great thing about our business is that we can really, really control the outflow, so we had, unfortunately, but we've had the retailers on restrictions on how much they can buy for months before the last harvest. We're watching it uber closely now. We only have so much oil.
And there's a lot of flexibility in the system with regards to pricing and promotion. So obviously, when you put the price up, that reduces demand. And when you reduce promotion, it also reduces demand. And things like tins that are a large volume, you wouldn't run a promotion on them if you didn't have enough oil because if you needed to do one or you wanted to reward customers, you could do it on a smaller bottle. I always say, historically, we've put our price up 20% many times in the past, 15% when the price has been like rock bottom. And the buyer of our product, generally speaking, is a completely different buyer. When an imported oil goes on half price, our sales you don't even see it. It's a different buyer.
Now, I'm not saying that them putting their price up and out of stock certainly gave us more demand. There's no questioning that. And we could have sold so much more if we had it. But I sort of don't think, oh, well, look, I see a fair few reports and researchers who go into a lot of detail, which is great around some of these supply-demand things, but we're just not a commodity. I mean, I'm not saying we're not immune, but when we were selling in Cobram in the last year, we could have been getting double the price at gate if we had just exported to Europe for them to sell. That's how crazy the price went. So yes, we put our prices up, but it was still the price has to come back a lot before it impacts here.
The people who have brands were just losing money hand over fist. So there's not like there's going to be all of a sudden this big oversupply of olive oil and that brands are going to be dropping their price. The world's not going to cave in, in my view. I feel that it's been really good for us, more consumers. Retailers seeing that cheap is you better sign up a deal with someone who actually grows the stuff, at least you might get it versus just buying it on the spot market from and lots of things happened during COVID too with countries like Turkey putting export duties on because I'm sorry, that was the war in Ukraine. I think that meant that they weren't getting some of the seed oils in. So yeah, I see it as tailwinds, but it just doesn't bother me.
I mean, even the stuff written up around all the floods at the moment, it's just not going to make one bit of difference to our business, not one. But we're in a global market, but even the quality difference between the extra virgin price and our quality. And if you go to the supermarket or you go to buyers who want quality versus average, it's triple the difference. All these things versus that bottom end of refined oil and whatever that's gone through the roof and poor quality. Of course, it's helped, I won't deny that, but it's not a major deal to us. We might have a few we've got increasing supply. There might be a few more promotions, a bit less price per farm L, but we'll have a lot more L to sell.
And when we produce less L, and this is not understood very well by, I don't think, by the market, but when we produce less L, we get more for it. And when you get a lot more L, you potentially get less for it. So you get a lot of movement within that as well, if that makes sense. So it's overall your price and your volume, and that obviously then drives the result, as everyone knows. Is there any other questions?
We have one other question. It starts with Cobram Estate's. Olive plantations are located in Australia's eastern states and California, regions that have suffered significant bushfires/wildfire events in recent years. In what ways is Cobram Estate considering and managing the risk of these somewhat unpredictable events and protecting the olive grove assets?
Yeah, that's a really good question. And we put heaps of time in it. So we do have insurance, but it's not enough because it's impossible to get. I think we have like AUD 25 million fire insurance. 20, 20 is it? AUD 20 million in fire insurance. But it's not enough if there's a catastrophic fire. Ruth and her team is a lot of work done on just bearing out, so spraying out, burning, disking, slashing, all of those things, all of the vacant areas. Now, groves just aren't a big wall. There's all of the low areas or areas where there's not suitable for planting for soil types and all of those to bear it out. We're just trying to manage that risk. We obviously have fire trucks as well, but the work being put into reducing the fuel load or making there's no fuel load in big areas.
And even in young trees, disking the groves, every third or fourth row to just contain a fire that might be creeping through. All of those things we do, and there's a lot of work put into it, and it's all happening now. We're going to update this morning at the board meeting on that. But certainly, it's a risk, and definitely not saying it's not a risk. It's definitely a risk, and we're very aware of it. Any other questions? Mark?
Octavia, shareholder, congratulations on the year. Just to ask about the U.S. in terms of the mix, you have had third-party growers there on the mix going forward. And just from an accounting perspective, does that mean there'll be more capitalized costs, or how do we account for that if we're actually developing from scratch some of these olive groves as well?
Yeah, happy to answer that. Yeah, and as Leandro touched on, we're developing most of the increased supply is going to come from our own groves in the medium term. When we develop a grove, though, we capitalize costs for the year of planting and then the next four years. And then we depreciate those costs over the next 20 years. The other point with having our own groves compared to third-party groves is that we expect the cost of the olive oil that comes from our own groves to be significantly lower than what we're paying third-party growers. So as a blended cost, then the cost of our oil will come down over time as a higher percentage of the oil comes from our own groves.
Great, thank you. Percentage that comes from other groves? Percentage that comes from?
85%.
Last year was 15% and 85%. And this year is going to be more like 25%.
Yeah, so in terms of percentages, so last year was 15% from our own groves and the rest from third parties. And this year, about 25%.
And the percentage from our own groves will continue to increase with what we're seeing at the moment with our groves being more productive. Any more questions? Okay, we'll move on to item two. And we'll certainly come back at the end, bearing in mind how well we go with time, to more questions. The second item is adoption of the remuneration report. And the remuneration report detailing the company's approach is contained within the 2024 annual report, which is available on the Cobram Estate website. Noting my early comments, I'll take the remuneration report as read.
Further details about the resolution are also contained in the explanatory memorandum and accompanied the notice of meeting. This vote is advisory only, is not binding on directors of the company, although we do want everyone to vote for it. Details of the votes for this item are now on the screen. Noting that each of the directors has a personal interest in their own remuneration from the company, the board unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of adopting the remuneration report. Are there any questions? And we'll go from the floor first. Hasaka, is there anything from the web? Any webcam questions?
No.
Online questions?
No, there are no questions online chat.
Okay. As there's no questions, can you please select for, against or abstain next to item two on the voting card? So item 3A is the next resolution is the election of Non-executive Director David Wills.
David has more than 35 years of financial and professional experience in tax, corporate advisory, and private and family business, specializing in regulatory management, transactions, and dispute resolutions. During his career, he held various roles of partner and managing partner of Arthur Andersen, Ernst & Young, and PWC. In 2017, David was appointed as the managing partner of PWC's worldwide private and family business practice. A global role, he held until his retirement from PWC partnership at the end of 2019. He holds an executive MBA from Melbourne Business School and Bachelor of Economics and Law from the University of Sydney. David is currently a member of the board of the Essendon Football Club and is chair of the Audit Risk and Integrity Committee of the Essendon Football Club. He is a member of the People and Remuneration Committee as well.
David commenced as a non-executive director of CBO on the 3rd of November 2023. He's a member of the Remuneration Nomination Committee and chairs the Audit and Risk Committee at CBO. David, would you like to say a couple of quick words? Please.
Thanks, Rob. I think all of that's interesting, but the fact that I grew up in a family business on the Murray River was probably what captured Rob's imagination. I'd really just like to thank the shareholders for consideration of my directorship. I want to acknowledge the vision of the founders, the legacy that's been created by those that have come before us. And Tim Jonas, thank you very much for all that you have done. My immediate predecessor. Thank you very much, and I look forward to the incredible opportunities that this business and this company can take on. Thank you very much.
Thanks very much, David. And certainly, he's been a terrific member of the board. Even though he's only been 12 months, I'm sure he'll probably see another 20 like Tim did. The directors, with David abstaining, unanimously recommend shareholders vote in favor of this resolution. Are there any questions? Anything from online or webcast?
No questions online.
Okay. As there's no further questions, can you please vote for against abstain next to item 3A on the voting card? The next resolution relates to the re-election of non-executive director Rob McGavin. So seeing I have a conflict, I'll retire and offer myself a re-election, and Craig will run the vote. You worried?
No. Thanks, Rob. It's my honor to stand in front of you and nice to see so many smiling faces that we have come to know and love over a long period of time. So I now turn to the re-election of Rob McGavin as a non-executive director. Rob is the co-founder, as we've heard already a few times. He was the executive chair and Chief Executive Officer of the company until April 2021. Rob has extensive experience in the agribusiness sector and is directly involved in a grazing operation in Western Queensland, a cropping and grazing operation in southwest Victoria. Rob is a board member and chair of the Marcus Oldham College and is also a member of their foundation. I now invite Rob, if he wants to, to briefly address the meeting.
Thank you very much, Craig. I'm absolutely honored to be here and to be lucky enough to be chair and certainly appreciative of anyone who votes for me.
Thanks, Rob. Details of the votes are on the screen, so you can see that 97.96% of the votes lodged so far are in favor. The directors with Rob McGavin abstaining. You unanimously recommend that shareholders vote in favor of this resolution. Are there any questions from the floor? Appears to be none. Hasaka, any questions online?
There are no questions online.
Thank you. As there are no further questions, please select for against or abstain next to item 3B on your voting card. Thank you. I'll now hand back to Rob.
Thanks, Craig. Item 3C is the election of non-executive director Sam Beaton. Sam joined the company in August. Sorry. Oh, sorry. Of executive director Sam Beaton. Sam joined the company in August 2009. Sam's over 24 years' experience in commercial, corporate, and finance roles. Sam began his career with KPMG, where he qualified as a chartered accountant and since then has held senior management roles. Sam has wide experience in financial modelling and analysis, capital management, business and strategy, and planning and execution of business plans. Sam has a Bachelor of Commerce, Accounting and Finance, and a Bachelor of Science, Industrial Organic Chemistry from the University of Melbourne. Sam was appointed Joint CEO, Finance and Commercial of Cobram Estate Olives on 20th of April 2021 and formerly held the role of Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, and Company Secretary. Sam, can you say a couple of words?
Yeah, thanks, Rob. I've been with the business for 15 years, as Rob said, 11 and a half as CFO, and the last three and a half as Joint CEO with Leandro. I think I've got a really good understanding of how to add value to this business, or as Rob would say, what moves the needle. Also a good understanding of the risks and how we protect the business against risks or what could go wrong, and certainly honored to continue to serve as a director of Cobram Estate Olives Limited.
Thanks, Sam. Is there any questions? By the way, the directors do recommend, with Sam abstaining, that shareholders vote in favor of this resolution. Is there any questions, Hasaka?
There are no questions online.
Okay. There being no further questions, please now select for against or abstain next to item 3C on your voting paper. Last director coming up, Dr. Joanna McMillan. So item 3D, re-election of Dr. Joanna McMillan as a non-executive director.
Joanna has a PhD, qualified nutrition scientist and lifestyle medicine expert, and accomplished author, speaker, food industry consultant, TV presenter, and media spokesman with a career spanning three decades. She brings a wealth of knowledge and experience. Originally hailing from Scotland, Jo has lived in Australia for 25 years, where she has cultivated a reputation as a leading voice in the field of nutrition and is well recognized and respected by her peers and the public alike for her credible, evidence-based knowledge. She is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and has a special interest in sustainability, holding a certificate in sustainable food production and processing from the University of Cambridge. Joanna has provided consultancy service to Cobram Estate Olives since 2015 and the Australian olive industry since 2013.
She was appointed a non-executive director in May 2021 and is a member of the Safety and Sustainability Committee. And Jo, would you be able to say a couple of words?
Hello. There we go. I'm on now. Thank you, Rob. And nice to be here and to meet all of you. I'm your slightly different director because I'm from a science background rather than executive background, but to me, that really shows the commitment of this company towards understanding, and you've heard from the presentations today about how important nutrition science and science is, and integrity is right at the heart of this company. And I can assure you that I see it, that it lives and breathes throughout the whole company. Nutrition is intricately tied to the quality of extra virgin olive oil.
We don't have the culinary benefits and the deliciousness of extra virgin olive oil without the accompanying health benefits. So understanding and making sure that that is front of mind is a really core part of this company. And it's a really core part of understanding how we continue to grow this business because with cost of living rises, it's really important that we are disseminating to both consumers, but also to retailers and to shareholders to understand exactly why this is such a special food and why it really should be a core part of Australian diets and worldwide where we have access to such important foods. So I thank you for giving me the opportunity to stand again to be part of the board.
It's a great honor to be part of a company that I love so dearly and have been involved with for quite a long time. And I thank my fellow board members as I continue to always learn and to grow with the company. So thank you.
Thanks, Joanna. The details of the vote are on the screen. The directors, with Joanna abstaining, unanimously recommend that shareholders vote in favor of this resolution. Are there any questions from the floor? From the webcast?
No questions online.
Great. There's no further questions. Please select for against abstain next to item 3D on the paper voting card. The item four is renewal of proportional takeover provisions. Detail of the resolution is contained in the explanatory memorandum that accompanied the notice of meeting.
As outlined, clause 22 of the company constitution contains provisions for dealing with members' approval requirements if there was any proportional takeover bid for the company's securities. Part 6.5 subdivision 5C of the Corporations Act provides that these proportional bid provisions cease to apply at the end of three years from their adoption or last renewal, but that they may be renewed by a special resolution of members. The board believes it is appropriate that the proportional bid provisions of the company's constitution, clause 22, be renewed. So this is already in the constitution. It automatically falls out after three years if shareholders don't put it back in, and it effectively protects shareholders in the case of a proportional takeover. The vote's already on the screen, and the board unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of this resolution. Are there any questions from the floor first? Online, Hasaka?
No questions online.
Okay. As there are no further questions, please select for, against, abstain on item four. Item five is to transact any business which may be lawfully brought forward, to transact any business which may be lawfully brought forward. Is there any business brought forward, Hasaka?
No, there is no business brought forward.
Okay. That's good. So we might have a we'll go to general we'll close the poll in, say, five minutes. So if you haven't already done so, can you please vote next to all of the resolutions and just ensure when you leave that you put them in the box. Where are the boxes? Yep. See the tall guy up there with the blue box? That's where the votes need to go. And that will close in five minutes.
But while we do that, we'll have questions, and then we'll have a tour of the facility and lunch. So we're running slightly behind, but that's not a major issue. So is there any other sort of questions or comments or anything that anyone wants to say or advise or jeepers? Everyone must be hungry or busting to see Claudia's shiny facility. Very good. Thank you.
It's good to ask Leandro. I noticed that in the big shots of the California operations, there was no sign of any frost fans. Are they not needed over there at all?
Be careful.
As Rob said, Olive.i Q developed a lot of knowledge over the past 25 years, and one of the things that we put a lot of focus on is understanding the nature of frosts and what would or not affect olive trees. So a lot of effort has gone to selecting properties in specific locations that, due to the positioning that it has, mainly foothills with a lot of cold air drainage, at the moment are not needing frost fans. And we hope that that proves us right over the years.
Thank you. Any other questions? Fantastic. We're all around. We'll have lunch. Please come and say hello. There's gifts for everyone. I don't know where they're picked up, but I'm assuming. I'm going to say, "Where are you?" Oh, so out the gate. So when you're going out the gate, don't forget to get your gift. And the results of today's meeting will be announced on the ASX promptly after the meeting. And Hasaka will close this in about three or four minutes or whenever the five minutes is up or when you get all of your votes into the box. So who's giving the instructions on where to go and who with? You're the way that I know.
Yeah. What we'll do is, if you have your hairnet, if you're lucky enough to have a green hairnet, you'll come with me. And that will be the robust group. And we'll walk out of the door and head towards the left. If you go the red one, you're not so lucky. You're going to get some. And it's going to take us straight no, sorry, straight through the offices first. And then the last group is led by Andrew Burgess that have been with us for a long, long time on the purple group. And it will head straight into the bottling line. So we will all be crossing paths, finishing all, having lunch in the nursery, but we'll get to see all the same things as we go.
We ask you just to stay with the group relatively close together. It is an operational site just to make sure there's no potential safety issues.
Do you want anyone with green just to stand up and follow you now and then we'll do it separately? Yeah. Why doesn't anyone with green, to make this really easy, just stand up and follow Leandro now, and then we'll quickly go Sam next. If you've got green, follow Leandro. You just walk out with your flag, Leandro.