Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Ridley Corporation Limited, RIC 1H FY 23 presentation. I would now like to turn the call over to Quinton Hildebrand, Managing Director and CEO. Quinton, go ahead.
Thank you very much, good morning to everybody. Thank you for joining us. With me presenting the results today is Richard Betts, Chief Financial Officer of Ridley.
Morning, everyone.
Presentation that we'll be taking you through today was published on the ASX website this morning, along with the other financial disclosures. You should also be able to access this presentation through the open briefing platform. I'll now commence the results presentation starting on page 2 with the FY23 first half financial highlights. I'm pleased to report another successive period of growth, delivering an underlying EBITDA of A$44.1 million, up 13% year on year, an underlying NPAT of A$21 million , up 20% against underlying NPAT in the previous corresponding period. Complementing this earnings growth was a strong cash conversion which included a reduction in the strategic inventory that we'd been holding as there had been pressures in our supply chains and these did ease over the half.
This performance culminated in an underlying ROFE of 12.3%, demonstrating the disciplined capital management that's been deployed within the business. Our leverage ratio lifted marginally to 0.3 times as we committed A$2-3 million to the on-market buyback during this period. Reflecting the confidence in the sustained performance of the company, the board has opted to declare a A$ 0.04 dividend, which is up 18% from the A$ 0.034 in the prior corresponding period. Moving to the next slide, the segment reporting. The Packaged and Ingredient segment delivered an EBITDA before significant items of A$33 million , up 22% on the prior corresponding period, and an EBITDA ROFE of 30.8%.
This was primarily driven by our ingredient recovery business, which continued to access premium markets with differentiated products and also enjoyed higher selling prices for tallows and oils, offsetting the increased costs of manufacturing and the cost of raw materials paid to suppliers. As you know, our feedstock is indexed to finished product prices, we share those gains with our suppliers. We also achieved strong volume uplift in our branded package sales in the traditional rural distribution channels, and increase in sales in the urban pet food markets. With our Narangba extrusion facility operating 24/7, we made a shift in the allocation of capacity to the production of more dog food, which resulted in a decline in our aqua feed sales versus previous corresponding period. Our NovacqPro operations in Thailand continue to make yield improvements, which are offsetting the rising costs.
We saw an increase in the volumes of NovacqPro sold to domestic corn customers during this first half. Moving to the bulk stock feeds slide four. This segment delivered an EBITDA of A$17.9 million million, up 4% on the PCP and an EBITDA ROFE of 31%. During this half, monogastric volumes grew 2%, which we believe is in line with the more modest industry growth during this period. Ruminant sales grew by 9% in a relatively flat market as we gained a number of new customers. As foreshadowed in our disclosures back in November, we expected bulk stock feeds to have a softer half, and that was based on the wet conditions and the delay in the transition to the new grain crop.
As a result of that, we had less opportunity to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities and this impacted on our margins in quarter two. I'm pleased to advise that since we've had plentiful new season grains, our margins have improved. I'll now hand over to Richard Betts, who will take you through the financials in greater detail as well as our capital management.
Thank you, Quinton, again, good morning to everyone. Turning now to page 6 and the profit and loss statement. As Quinton has already noted, the EBITDA of A$ 50.8 million was up A$ 5.1 million or 12.8% on the previous corresponding period. This result was underpinned by the trading performance of our operating segments, which were up 11%, 11.2% on PCP, underpinned by the strong growth in the Packaged Feeds and Ingredients segment. Corporate costs increased slightly in line with inflation and included slightly higher accruals for the short-term incentive scheme. There were no individually significant items in the period compared with the A$ 7.4 million of pre-tax gains in the previous period, which related primarily to the sale of assets, including the Westbury extrusion facility and the old Bendigo and Mooroopna land sale.
Depreciation was slightly down following the sale of the Westbury asset, as mentioned above. This was partially offset by depreciation associated with the reinvestment in our facilities and our growth capital. Finance costs increased on the back of higher interest rates and slightly higher debt levels over the period. The effective tax rate of 28.9% was in line with the prior year. While the reported NPAT has reduced slightly, after eliminating the prior year significant items, including the benefits from the gains of the sale of assets, the underlying NPAT grew by A$ 3.5 million or 20% for the half. Turning to the balance sheet on page 7, inventory which totaled A$ 111 million at December 31. This is a reduction of A$ 7.1 million over the period.
While inventory was increased by the impact of higher raw material input costs, we were able to reduce our physical inventory as we gained greater confidence in the underlying supply chain environment, and therefore elected to carry less inventory to manage that supply chain. Receivables also grew slightly on the back of the impact of higher raw material costs. However, the debtors' days remained in line with 30 June 2022. Property plant and equipment grew as a result of the reinvestment in our asset base and the continued investment in Boost and debottlenecking solutions in our mills. The movement in payables is in line with the movement in inventory and receivables associated with the higher raw material input costs. Net debt increased to A$ 25.7 million, an increase of only A$ 2.8 million.
This primarily related to the A$ 2.9 million outlay for the share buyback that was implemented in the half. Turning now to page 8 and the working capital summary. As noted on the previous page, the net movement in working capital was a positive A$ 10.7 million, with the negative impact of rising raw material costs being more than offset by the volume reduction of strategic inventory previously held to ensure we were able to manage the challenging supply chains that existed in the previous 12 months. Even with the challenging macro environment, debtors remain well controlled. On page 9 of the presentation, we have identified the key items driving the strong cash result. Operating cash flow of A$ 56.5 million was significantly above the prior period on the back of the improved operating result and disciplined working capital management.
CapEx during the period of A$ 15.2 million, although higher than the PCP, aligned to our capital allocation model, with maintenance capital being prioritized to ensure the quality of our asset base is maintained. During the period, the business spent A$ 7.1 million to acquire shares required for the long-term incentive program. The payment of these incentives to management aligned to the total shareholder return of 78% for the three-year period of the scheme and the achievement of the required returns on the funds employed metric. Net tax payments over the period totaled A$ 17.1 million, an increase of A$ 10.2 million over the previous period. The difference related primarily to a catch-up of tax payments for the FY22 tax period.
The dividend paid of A$ 0.04 a share resulted in a cash outflow of A$ 12.8 million or A$ 6.2 million higher than the PCP. The items mentioned above were all funded out of cash from operations, and as discussed earlier, the movement in debt during the period related to the previously announced share buyback. On page 10 is an overview of Project Boost. This is the project to manage a series of smaller projects that total approximately A$ 15 million with paybacks of less than 3 years that are expected to deliver an annualized earnings benefit when fully implemented of A$ 9 million. Good progress was made in relation to the delivery of these projects with a total of A$ 14.2 million or 95% of the forecast expenditure now approved and A$ 8.2 million spent to date.
Pleasingly, of the projects approved, the expected annualized benefits are A$ 8.7 million, which will be delivered as part of our growth plan that Quinton Hildebrand will discuss later in the presentation. On page 11 is the capital allocation model, which we have been presenting for a number of periods now, which drives the behaviors under which we allocate our available capital with the aim of consistently delivering strong total shareholder returns. During the period, we continued to deliver against this model, with the key highlights being maintenance capital was 53% of depreciation and capital approvals progressed to a point that gives us confidence that we will be in line with our committed range at June 30.
The share buyback began with A$ 2.9 million of shares purchased during the period, which increased our leverage ratio slightly to 0.3 times. The strong cash flow and disciplined capital management enabled the interim dividend to be increased to A$ 0.04, an increase of 18%. The consolidation of the above, resulting in a TSR for the 12-month period of 37%, which is well above our targeted level of 15%. That concludes the overview of the key financial slides. I'll now hand back to Quinton, who will run through the progress against our growth plan.
Thanks, Richard. Just moving to slide 13. In the first half, we got stuck into our FY23/25 growth plan. The growth plan that we announced back at the end of May 2022. Our work in this half is really focused on working on the sustainability pathway, which is the foundation stone to the plan, and also on the key optimization and growth initiatives that are labeled on the right-hand side of the slide. I don't intend to go through the growth plan in much detail today, but just for context, and before I provide an update, I've included the next two slides, which just give us the high-level summary.
On page 14 is the bulk stock feeds plan, which is focused on increasing our market share within the strategy to continue improving our customer experience, winning business, getting higher utilization, and debottlenecking of our existing plants. All of that will drive through that virtuous cycle and the flywheel effect to generate earnings. If we move to slide 15, the summary on the Packaged Feeds and Ingredients reporting segment, as we know, this consists of four business units. The Ingredient Recovery strategy is about climbing the wall of value. The packaged product business has a particular focus on growing our share in the companion animal. In the aqua feed, differentiating ourselves on sustainability solutions within the tropical aqua species. Finally, commercializing Novacq as we scale up production and expand sales internationally.
For the update on our progress on the growth plan, on slide 16, I just wanted to update you on how we're doubling down on this plan, and have announced internally within the business, a transition to a new organizational structure which will sharpen our focus on the execution of this growth plan. The key drivers for this change are to service our growth in our monogastric volumes with a dedicated resource, to resource the growth in our ruminant business, to grow the packaged and aqua sales by optimizing our extrusion capabilities, to integrate our Narangba and Townsville operations, and to provide capability for future developments for future development of the company. All of this is to be achieved without adding any overhead cost. In the next couple of slides, I'll just provide some of the rationale for this realignment.
On page seventeen, just for context, monogastric volumes account for about three-quarters of our bulk stockfeeds volumes, and they're an important part of the business, bringing scale to our operations. However, they do have a different servicing model with many of the customers, the bulk of the volume being large corporates, and they have different and mostly pass-through pricing models. In order to better service these customers, we're gonna place our five large volume monogastric mills into a dedicated monogastric business unit, which is to be led by a new COO with monogastric experience. We expect that this business unit will continue expanding as the customers grow, and we're facilitating this growth with three debottlenecking projects in FY23 that'll increase our capacity by more than 10%.
The remaining 8 mills, split into Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland, will be focused on growing our ruminant sales, and here we're also debottlenecking 2 of our largest ruminant mills to accommodate this growth. Ridley DIRECT will continue to support our growth aspirations in both these mono and ruminant sectors. The regional structure of the ruminant business unit will absorb the packaged product and the aqua businesses and be run by our former bulk stock feed COO, and the rationale for integrating ruminant, packaged, and aqua is outlined on page 18. This makes sense because the packaged and aqua products are produced by the mills within this business unit.
As mentioned earlier, our extrusion facility is operating 24/7, and so it's best to have these two business units, so Narangba producing dog food and aqua feed, it's important to have that under one leader who can maximize the returns from this facility. By bringing together these packaged logistics operations, we also expect to deliver some supply chain benefits to Ridley and our customers. The ingredient recovery business unit is not impacted by these organizational changes and is making good progress on the growth plan, securing access to storage, to tallow storage to facilitate higher value exports and additional meal storage with blending capability to increase optionality.
With the rising cost of energy, we've accelerated investments in both Laverton and Maroota to reduce our energy use within the Ingredient Recovery business unit. I hope this gives you sufficient insights into our approach one half into a three-year growth plan. On the next slide, we've repeated a summary of our investment proposition. Firstly, the macro demand outlook is positive. Australian farm gate output is forecast to continue increasing. Ridley is market leader in the animal nutrition sector, and this provides us with scale benefits and the capacity to employ specialists and adopt technology as we continue differentiating our offering and margins. We believe Ridley can have a competitive advantage in our sector as expectations rise in the area of sustainability. Ridley's geographical spread, multi-species offering, customer mix, and disciplined risk management provide earnings resilience through weather, disease, and market cycles.
Finally, we have a well-defined growth plan, a strong balance sheet, and a disciplined approach to capital allocation, which positions Ridley to execute on our growth opportunities that create shareholder value. Which brings us to the outlook statements on page 21. Second half earnings, EBITDA before significant items, are expected to improve on the previous corresponding period, with the business well-positioned to grow earnings through the momentum in the underlying business segments, increased asset utilization from debottlenecking solutions, and the ongoing delivery of the growth plan. Cash generation is expected to support maintenance capital, investment for growth, dividends, and the continuation of the share buyback. Whilst macroeconomic conditions are challenging, the business is taking proactive steps to reduce the potential impact of inflationary pressures. That concludes our presentation for this morning, and thanks to everybody for staying on till the end of the presentation.
I'll now hand back to the moderator who can take your questions.
The floor is now open for your questions. To ask a question at this time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If at any point you would like to withdraw from the queue, please press star one again. You will be provided the opportunity to ask one question and one further follow-up question. We will take a moment to render our roster. Our first question comes from the line of James Ferrier from Wilsons. Please proceed.
Thank you. Morning, Quinton and Richard. Congratulations on the result. Thanks for your time. Can I first of all ask you about.
Morning, James.
Morning. Can I first of all ask you about the margins in the bulk segment? I guess if it's possible, can you isolate the disruption to margins in the second quarter from the crop transition, old to new, and the impact on merchandising there? You've referenced the volume growth in that segment, I'm just curious to understand what the underlying trend rate was around earnings growth in the bulk segment relative to that growth rate. Are you still seeing operating leverage and earnings growing faster than volumes if you isolate the margin disruption?
Thanks, James. I suppose just to provide some context, if I go back to first half 2022, which was the prior corresponding period. In that period, we grew 18.6% in bulk stock feeds over 14.6% in its prior comparative year. We had a strong growth in the prior comparative period. In this half, bulk stock feeds achieving 17.9%, you know, is still a strong performance, but not on the, you know, the growth that we would've hoped for and expected given both volume growth and the operational efficiencies that we're driving. I'd describe that to being, you know, in the prior comparative period, we did pretty well at the transition of the old to new season.
You know, we do have, at the margin, opportunity to optimize during the harvest because when the headers are chewing through the crop, you know, we're a good receivable location for quick turnaround of vehicles, et cetera. Going into this year, as we shortened up our position, shortened up our grain position in anticipation of the crop, with the delay due to wet weather and the ongoing delays, we had to, you know, buy more of the old season product that was in storage. That limited our opportunity before the 31st of December to take advantage. You know, we think that that was an impact of, you know, roughly A$ 2 million, A$ 2 million- A$ 3 million.
You know, you see that we have ended up A$ 0.7 million down against the PCP. Given the volume growth and the efficiencies, we would have expected to have been growing. If you add back the A$ 2 million- A$ 3 million, I think hopefully that answers your question.
It does. Thanks, Quinton. That's a very helpful color. Second question is in relation to the the growth initiatives, and perhaps firstly, if you could just reconcile what's being articulated and quantified within Project Boost, and what's included there versus what's incremental in relation to the initiatives that you've outlined on slide 17 and 18.
I assume, James, in terms of what you're talking about is the benefits associated with Boost in the period. You know, what we had called out, obviously the intention is that when Boost is fully implemented, we expect a A$ 9 million annualized run rate. We called out that last year we had about half a million A$ of benefit from the project. In this half, we think that the results were benefited to the extent of about A$ 1.5 million. When you take that to a full year run rate for this year, it's going to be about three and a half million A$ of benefits.
Of the A$ 9 million of benefits associated with Boost, we think by the end of this financial year, we will have seen about A$ 4 million in total having come into our operating results. With the expectation probably of about another A$ 4 million next year and then finally the last A$ 1 million coming in in FY25.
James, I note you referenced slide 17 and 18. You know, if we just go to slide 13, which is the growth plan, the shape of the growth, Boost is incorporated within the growth plan.
Yep. Okay, great. That's helpful clarification. Thanks, Quinton and Richard, thanks for those details on the earnings contribution. Much appreciated.
Our next question comes from the line of Apoorv Sehgal from UBS. Please proceed.
Good morning, Quinton and Richard.
Morning, AP.
Great, great result, guys. Just to try and understand the second half versus first half a bit better. If I'm right about this Project Boost on one hand will give you another A$ 2 million incremental in the second half versus first half. I think you said from one and a half in 1H FY '23 to three and a half for the full year. That's A$ 2 million there.
Correct.
On top of that, with the, sorry, the wet harvest impact, I think on the previous version you might have said A$ 2 million- A$ 3 million. Would I add that as well on in second half 2023 versus the first half? Just wanna check if those aspects are right.
Well, I think, AP, you, as you look at the second half of last year, I'm, in bulk, I'm expecting us to have growth on the second half of last year in the order of about A$ 2 million, which will.
Great.
Yeah. You know, which won't mean +2 on first half numbers. We're in bulk stockfeeds, we're a little stronger in the first half than the second half. That's how I would answer that one. What was the second part of your question?
Oh, I was just clarifying the Boost. I think it is an additional two coming in the second half.
Yeah.
-versus first half. You said one and a half mil A$ first half, three and a half mil A$ full year.
That's correct. Yeah.
I guess then the bulk being A$ 2 million better year-on-year, that is before the benefits of Boost?
The A$ 2 million in terms of year on year would include some benefits associated with Boost.
Yeah.
Because obviously.
Okay. Yeah.
The impacts we had in the first half in terms of the transition from old crop to new crop will have no impact in terms of if you're trying to bridge last year to this year. When you take all of those factors into account, you know, in the second half, as Quinton said, you would expect probably bulk to be up about A$ 2 million on the same period last year, which will include some of the benefits from Boost in that number as well.
Yep, that makes sense. Then just on the supply chain rationalization project that you've talked about in the past, I think there might have meant to be a small contribution in FY23. Just how is that tracking?
Yeah. AP, you're right. In Victoria, we have consolidated a number of our transport contracts into larger providers with some payload benefits and cost benefits. Some of that is has already been locked in, and there's more of those to come. I think, you know, in the environment that we're in with, you know, with transport inflationary pressures around transport and the costs there, you know, we're definitely pulling on these initiatives which are giving us benefits. Some of that is going to offset the underlying inflationary components of that. Yes, couple of things. More of these initiatives will happen in the second half.
With our restructure, having all our packaged business, you know, that's the packaged product going through the rural distribution network, the aqua feed business and our ruminant business, that covers all of the packaged product, and that'll give us some rationalization within the flatbed trucking logistics supply chain.
Okay. Thank you. One last question from me, please. Just on Novacq. From memory, I think I'm right in saying the first half's typically cost heavy, and then second half, you try and get the sales through. Just give us, can you give us a feel, please, for the EBITDA loss or contribution in first half and expectations for the second half, please?
You wanna go that?
In relation to Novacq, you are right that we obviously incur the cost in the first half, and in second half we sell the product. What we did see in terms of Novacq though, in the first half was we were able to drive, and we've talked about this in terms of the ongoing improvement, is that we would see efficiency gains. We saw those. Although we still had a loss in the period of about $1.5 million, that loss was improvement on the prior period of about $1 million. We're expecting that full year benefit from Novacq will be in excess of $1 million.
We're starting to see, you know, both the efficiency benefits from yield out of the production process, and we're also expecting to get some incremental volumes in the second half.
Great. That's a A$ 1 million EBITDA for Novacq for the full year?
That's right.
Okay. Awesome. Thank you guys.
Our next question comes from the line of Richard Amlând from CLSA. Please proceed.
Hi, good morning, fellas. Just a couple quick questions from me. Just interested in your observations around the poultry growth. Sorry, can you hear me all right?
Yep.
Yes.
Yep.
Can.
Okay. Okay. Sorry, I got a little crisis there. Just on poultry growth, you guys suggested that it was a little bit slower than perhaps we might have expected. I'm kinda bullish on chickens and just wanted to get your observation on, you know, the outlook for poultry, in terms of what you guys are planning for.
Well, I think typically the poultry sector grown 3%-4% over, you know, a sustained period of time. I don't see that changing in the medium-term outlook. In this half that we've had, and in our in the area of the poultry sector that we supply, and we largely have 100% of the supply of those customers or of the particular customer's region. In the wet weather, wet conditions that impacted, particularly in Victoria, there was some disruption to some of those poultry operators. Across the board, I think volumes were slightly softer in Q2. Our poultry volumes... When we say poultry, it's broiler layer, but it also...
Duck, but it also, you know, it is predominantly broiler. During that period, we saw volumes at, you know, at 2% in this period. I would expect that to come back in the second half.
Okay. Thank you. Just switching over to the ingredients side of the business. Can you just give a bit of a color to, you know, tallow prices and meal prices? They've been rising over the last couple of years, what's driven that? You know, do we expect that that will maintain?
Great. Underlying driver for tallow prices has been the, you know, shift to renewable diesel. Some legislation, both federal and state-based in the U.S. has really, you know, created strong demand for, you know, tallows. And that's having a knock-on impact throughout the world. In fact, some of our product, you know, some product from Australia is going into those, into both Singapore and into the U.S. That's what's driving... That's the fundamentals. You know, through this period, we've seen a significant increase in tallow prices.
Equally, protein prices have been high and, you know, an indicator for that would be to look at the soybean meal prices, and to see where those are trading and, meat protein meals that we sell, you know, track that protein pricing complex. Both tallows and meals have enjoyed strong support. As in this half, we saw strong prices for both. We are seeing domestically an increase in the process numbers through the abattoirs, and that we expect to ramp up a bit more in the second half of this year. That's positive for volumes. It's it probably and in the short term, has taken a little bit of shine off the domestic tallow and meal prices.
you know, the second half pricing may be a little more modest as we get more volumes. As I indicated, there's a price-volume offset there that, you know, that we from our position. If we look going, you know, more medium-term, we think tallow prices will remain firm. We don't see much upside, as in increases, but we also don't see those tallow prices reverting back to anything like where we came from, you know, two years ago.
Thank you. Thank you for that. Just a final question from me on, at this moment. Just regarding the pet foods, can you , just give a bit of discussion around, you know, the efforts that you're making to try and get into the urban pet food manufacturing markets? So, you know, how far penetrated are you? You know, have you serviced customers a really long time, and you , you know, it's incremental growth? Or over the, over the next, you know, five years, you know, is, do you expect, you know, that penetration will increase markedly and there's, you know, substantial volume growth? Just some comments around those, please.
Thanks, Richard. So our historical base has been in the rural sector, where we have the market leader brand, the Cobber brand. I would say, you know, we're roughly 1/3 of the market share through the rural sector distributed by the Nutrien, Elders, you know, independent networks. We see further growth there. One of the reasons for that is we've even seen in the last three months the withdrawal by some of the major multinational pet food customers, suppliers, withdrawing from that rural sector as they have focused on and had capacity constraints servicing both the domestic retail as well as the international market. We see ongoing growth in our, you know, historical market.
We also, in the recent times, have been supplying quite a lot of the urban chains, the likes of Petstock, who we produce some of their house brands and product through that market. We've been supplying them for, you know, probably five, six years now. There's ongoing growth in that sector and we continue to participate in that. In this current year, sorry, so middle of calendar year 2022, we commenced supply to one of the large retail retailers producing their house brand.
The logic of that was really just to underpin our volumes and our scale and assisted us in investing in a packaging plant at our Queensland extrusion plant, which was the last piece in the platform to give us a what we believe is a strong competitive base in pet food, dry pet food production. We, we produce the meals through our Ingredient Recovery business. We've got a large scale extruder and now, from the middle of this calendar year, we should have commissioned our packing plant. The combination of all of that, you know, was it made sense for us to take on a high volume, simple product for the retail market.
It's not a, you know, it's not a very competitive product, production for us at the moment, given that we are still have a number of manual interventions, whilst we await the commissioning of our new packing line. That's all part of us building our way forward.
I'll proceed.
I have that. Thank you .
Hi. Our final question comes from Blythe Koch from Credit Suisse. Please proceed.
Morning.
Morning.
Quentin, Richard. My first question just, I guess a little bit of follow-up in a way to Richard's last question. I understand the poultry impact as you described it, in the first half. My question is really just how do you see your monogastric volumes on the go forward, in terms of market share gains or growing in line with market? Obviously, you're growing ruminants ahead of markets. I understood previously that you guys had some scope to do more with the big national integrators, and that might potentially see monogastric also growing ahead of market. Just wanted to understand how you see that into medium-term.
Yeah. Well, I think the part of the rationale for the new structure and to have a dedicated monogastric COO is 'cause we see further growth in that. You know, monogastric in terms of the broiler production, we see them continuing to grow and, you know, the 3% to 4% is what we would anticipate. As our customers grow, we'll grow with them. Those customers that we don't supply 100% of their production, we see that we will take a greater portion of their increase than we've had previously. As a result, we see ourselves providing a greater service to the industry and gaining some market share as we get the overflow from some of the integrated poultry producers.
Within the monogastric segment is the, you know, pig customers, and there's been a fair consolidation there. Through those consolidations, we are picking up increasing volume. Yeah, we would see quite, you know, whilst the pig supply has been, you know, modest growth, we are increasing our market share quite significantly in pork.
Got it. Thanks, Quinton. Last one. Just on the comments of a shift in extrusion capacity to pet food resulting in a decline in aqua feed sales. Again, you've already discussed pet food and I guess the growth opportunity there. I'm just wondering, does that signal anything about aqua per se? Is that tactical and you're allocating where the stronger growth is right now? Or are there longer term implications in terms of what's that saying about your view for aqua?
Well, the aqua feed supply is still structurally oversupplied. You know, the three mills in Tasmania and our extrusion facility in Queensland is still has still got significant surplus capacity, and that will prevail for a number of years to come. We see some margin pressure in the aqua feed sector ongoing. We have focused on the, you know, Queensland and Northern Territory customers, because of our geographic advantage, because of our species advantage in prawn with Novacq, and, you know, our barramundi production. You know, whilst others have surplus capacity, they'll continue to, you know, to make sure that those margins are pretty modest.
you know, and we see that ongoing. It is a deliberate optimization to continue to allocate to our dog food production.
That does conclude today's questions. I would now like to turn the call over to Quinton Hildebrand for closing remarks.
Great. Thank you very much. Thank you to those who've asked questions. I sense that we lost a bit of the conversational part of that as we didn't necessarily get to assess that we've answered all of those questions to the full extent. Richard and I will be doing our roadshow in a few weeks time, I'm sure that we could cover any of those unanswered questions. Thank you for your interest in Ridley and thanks for your attendance today.
Thanks, all.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.