Thank you for standing by, and Welcome to the SunRice Group FY 2022 Half-Year Financial Results. All participants are in listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. At that time, if you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand over to the conference call host, SunRice CEO, Mr. Rob Gordon, and the company CFO, Mr. Dimitri Courtelis. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and welcome to everyone to this morning's call. We appreciate you taking the time to join us following the release of the financial results from our H1 of financial year 2022. My name is Rob Gordon. I'm the CEO of SunRice, and I'm joined today in Sydney by our CFO, Dimitri Courtelis. Our plan for today's call is to provide an overview of our financial results, then open for questions to all participants who have dialed in. Along with yesterday's announcement, we've also launched an investor presentation on the ASX, which I'd encourage you to read for more details on the results. I'll start today with some high-level commentary before handing over to Dimitri.
The results announced to the market yesterday demonstrate a strong improvement in earnings driven by the return of rice in the Riverina, a progressive turnaround in the performance of key Pacific markets, and the accretive contribution of recent acquisition KJ&Co. Brands. After successfully navigating one of the most difficult periods in our history with the dual challenges of COVID-19 and two consecutive years of extremely low rice production, it's pleasing that we're now seeing a strong recovery in financial performance. Despite the challenges of the past two years, we've continued making investments in strategic and organic growth initiatives, and a number of these are now realizing benefits. We anticipate that in the H2 of financial year 2022, the rebound, which commenced in the H1, will accelerate. However, there are ongoing global supply chain challenges.
Given the improved financial performance and outlook for the remainder of the year, we're pleased to have declared an interim dividend of AUD 0.10 per B-class share. We've also updated the estimated range for the CY 2021 rice pool currently being processed and marketed, and that range has increased to AUD 405-AUD 435 per tonne for medium grain Reiziq. This is despite the Australian rice pool being expected to absorb at least AUD 40 per tonne of unplanned freight costs on a full-year basis. SunRice also made further progress on executing its sustainability strategy in the H1 of financial year 2022, including climate scenario planning as part of our commitment to adoption of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures recommendations.
I'll now go into the results in a little more detail before handing over to Dimitri to step through our segment performance. As we reported yesterday, EBITDA and net profit after tax were AUD 36.9 million and AUD 16.7 million. This is higher than the prior corresponding period, up 32% and 38% respectively. These improved earnings were underpinned by an 11% growth in top-line revenue to AUD 564.8 million. A range of factors enabled the improvement in this financial performance. Firstly, our Australian rice pool business has been able to absorb its share of overhead costs as a consequence of increased crop of 417,000 paddy tonnes harvested earlier in 2021.
This larger crop underpinned the return of larger volumes of Australian rice to premium export markets across the Middle East and Asia in the H1, in contrast with the past two years where those markets were serviced from the International Rice segment. It also lowered the cost base of the Rice Food segment, which relies in part on rice byproducts from the pool. There was also continued positive performance of our International Rice segment, reflecting the group's multi-origin strategy and deep understanding of consumer preferences, which enabled the offering of high-quality products for each of our brands at multiple price points. This sourcing expertise, coupled with nimble commercial initiatives to adapt to market conditions and cost containment discipline, delivered improved profitability in Pacific markets. We also had an accretive contribution from the recently acquired KJ&Co. Brands.
Brands in the Riviana Foods segment and organic growth in its Always Fresh, Fehlbergs, and Roza's Gourmet brands across most categories through innovation and increased ranging with our retail partners. There was upturn in performance in the Rice Food segment, particularly in microwave products, where SunRice gained market share supported by initiatives such as the relaunch of the Our Best Yet microwave pouch range. While performance has improved positively, there have been a number of challenges that the group has managed.
While improvements in seasonal conditions in Australia benefited the group as a whole, these conditions and a range of other factors, including operational challenges, contributed to a slow recovery of the CopRice segment in the H1 of 2022. There are a number of other global challenges, including the ongoing effects of COVID-19 on the economies of countries dependent on tourism, the decimating effect of prolonged lockdowns on the food service sector in New South Wales and Victoria, and the pervasive disruption to the global shipping industry, inflationary pressures on manufacturing inputs, and labor shortages in certain regions.
Shipping in particular has proved a major challenge with impacts on availability of containers, scheduling issues, and unprecedented escalation in freight charges of more than 1,000% in some cases. As a result, SunRice now expects to incur at least AUD 30 million in additional and unplanned freight costs on a full year basis at group level in this full financial year. With that, I'll now hand over to Dimitri to discuss each of our business segments, and then I'll cover off on our outlook before taking your questions.
Thank you, Rob, and good morning to everyone joining us on the call this morning. The first segment I will discuss is our Australian rice pool business, which is aligned to our A Class shareholders and deals with the receival, the milling, marketing, and the selling of Riverina rice. Improved water availability at lower prices resulted in a 417,000 crop that was harvested in 2021, which was almost ten times the size of last year's crop of only 45,000 tons. This supported a strong increase in revenue to AUD 89.9 million and saw our Riverina mills ramped up in the H1 of this year, providing positive employment outcomes. The larger crop has underpinned the return of Australian rice to premium export markets across the Middle East and Asia in the H1.
While these markets were primarily supplied from the International Rice segment in the last two years during the drought. The return of Riverina rice also delivered benefits to CopRice and Rice Food segments as they rely in part on inputs and by-products from the rice pool. The rice pool is once again able to absorb its overheads and will deliver a naturally determined paddy price this year. Now, this contrasts with the rice pool losses incurred in the last two years, with this upside to become more apparent in the full year results, as AUD 19 million of the AUD 22.1 million loss in the rice pool segment in FY 2021 was incurred in the H2 of last year.
As Rob highlighted, the paddy price range for the 2021 crop has also been upgraded despite a range of volatile factors. I will now move on to our International Rice segment, which sources, processes, and markets rice to global markets as well as into Australia when varieties cannot be grown here or when supply is low. Revenue was AUD 253.7 million, down on the AUD 271.4 million reported in the prior corresponding period, with net profit before tax of AUD 2 million and EBITDA of AUD 16.8 million, both up from AUD 7.9 million and AUD 13.5 million in the H1 of FY 2021.
The return of key premium markets to Australian rice in the current year and the non-repeat of government food security initiatives at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the prior period drove a decrease in the volumes and the revenues in the H1 of this financial year. Strong brand performance and a range of successful initiatives to grow sales, increase prices, and contain costs in the key Pacific markets, as well as the segment continuing to successfully build on its multi-origin, multi-market focus and capability led to improved profitability. In total, the segment sourced from nine countries to supply 34 destination markets.
Difficult economic conditions, in part due to COVID-19, unfavorable foreign exchange movements, and aggressive competition, however, continued to hamper revenue and profitability in the key Pacific markets. The rapid disruptions to global shipping and the escalation in freight rates also put further pressure on margins. International Rice continued to deploy strategic initiatives in the H1, and with global supply chains fully operational, the segment is primed to focus on further expansion as part of our overall multi-origin, multi-price strategy.
Turning now to our Rice Food business, which manufactures, markets and distributes value-added rice products. Revenue was AUD 53.8 million, up from AUD 48 million in the H1 of last year. Net profit before tax increased from AUD 2 million to AUD 2.6 million, and EBITDA improved from AUD 1.5 million to AUD 3.5 million. Data availability and lower cost of Australian rice used as an input in a number of the segment's products contributed to the performance uplift in the H1 of this financial year. Innovation and quality improvements resulting from our recent AUD 4.5 million investment in new cooking technology in Leeton also underpinned volume and sales uplifts in the microwave rice category.
Our local manufacturing capability also meant that several categories were able to take advantage of a number of out of stocks from competing private label products sourced offshore for part of the period. The segment also benefited from new product launches from last year, while the prior corresponding period was hampered by their launch costs. To ensure these benefits can be cemented in the longer term, the segment remains focused on identifying and executing strategies that will improve efficiencies, take costs out of the business and further support innovation.
Within Riviana Foods, our specialty gourmet and entertainment food business, revenue has improved significantly from AUD 64.5 million in the prior period to AUD 97.3 million. While net profit before tax has increased from AUD 3.9 million to AUD 5.8 million, and EBITDA has improved from AUD 4.2 million to AUD 6.7 million. The significant uplift in performance has been driven primarily by the accretive acquisition of KJ&Co. Brands and demonstrates the scale and impact of that purchase. KJ&Co . Brands contributed AUD 34.4 million in revenue in the H1 of FY 2022, while its net profit before tax contributed AUD 3 million.
Elsewhere in the segment, there was strong brand performance across most retail categories, including Roza's Gourmet, Always Fresh and Fehlbergs, fueled by higher demand for in-home entertaining during COVID-19. Roza's Gourmet products access mainstream retail for the first time via Woolies in that period, which is expected to provide future growth opportunities. Riviana continues to face challenges, including the ongoing contraction of the food service sector and the disruption to local and global supply chains, which periodically impacted availability of some of the products and put pressure on margins due to freight costs. Internal one-off restructuring costs were also incurred as part of the streamlining of some of the local manufacturing operations in that segment.
The strong results achieved in the short time since the acquisition of KJ&Co. Brands and Roza's Gourmet demonstrates Riviana's ability to successfully integrate and scale acquired businesses while leveraging its brands, its marketing expertise, and the supply chain partnerships. On CopRice, despite gains in companion animal sales and favorable product mix, a range of factors continued to hamper profitability in our animal nutrition business in the H1 of FY 2022. Top line revenue was up from AUD 53.1 million in the prior corresponding period to AUD 68.5 million. While net profit before tax and EBITDA improved from the H1 of FY 2021, they were still in loss-making territory at AUD -4.5 million and AUD -2.2 million respectively.
Favorable pasture conditions continued to contract the supplementary feed market in the H1, resulting in aggressive price competition and underrecoveries in CopRice's feed mills due to low volume throughput. COVID-19 disrupted the supply chain of ingredients and containers for CopRice's New Zealand mill, while Australia's state border restrictions delayed decommissioning of the Leongatha feed mill in Victoria. CopRice faced some commercial challenges during the transition phase to integrate its mill in New Zealand, which is delaying the realization of the full potential of this investment.
The segment also experienced other operational challenges, including production capacity constraints due to the growing complexity and diversity of CopRice's product portfolio. However, positive signs included the expansion of the profitable companion animal division, the reopening of the feedworks facility in Wangaratta, which is supporting the fast-growing pet food business, and the greater availability of cheaper Australian rice byproducts.
Despite the multiple challenges experienced, CopRice continues to pursue its growth initiatives led by a new leadership team, which it intends to build its multi-region presence with a focus on mill proximity and operational excellence to accelerate the turnaround and to reduce costs. Finally, turning to the Corporate segment, which captures the income and the costs of holding and financing assets that are used by both the rice pool business, represented by A Class shareholders, and the profit businesses, represented by B Class shareholders. Net profit before tax for the period was AUD 1 million, down from AUD 9 million in the prior corresponding period, while EBITDA was down from AUD 14.8 million to AUD 12.1 million.
The return of Riverina Rice in the H1 delivered higher levels of brand and asset financing charges from the Australian rice pool, which, in contrast to the two previous financial years, were fully absorbed by the rice pool business. This provided a significant uplift in B Class shareholder returns in the H1. Asset financing charges were AUD 6.5 million, up from AUD 6.2 million in the prior period, with brand charges at AUD 2 million, up from AUD 1.3 million.
The overall profitability of the segment was, however, impacted by a general increase in overheads to support the execution of the group's 2024 Growth Strategy and a review of the central cost allocations to ensure the various businesses of the group remain competitive when pricing in market. I will now hand back to Rob to cover our outlook for the rest of this financial year and beyond.
Thanks, Dimitri. As I mentioned earlier, we expect the performance in the H2 of this financial year will accelerate through the remainder of the year, despite ongoing supply chain challenges. We'll continue to look for synergies with our recently acquired businesses, so they can deliver additional benefits and contribute positively to consolidated earnings. The significant and rapidly escalating disruptions to the global shipping industry caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors in the H1 are expected to continue into the H2. The group continues to monitor a range of other factors that have the potential to impact the scale of the recovery in full-year revenue and profitability, which includes strong pasture conditions in Eastern Australia and a range of operational challenges which are hampering the pace of CopRice's recovery in the short term.
Now, despite these global challenges, we are pleased that the recovery in the rice pool business is supporting an update to the estimated range for the CY 2021 rice pool to AUD 405-AUD 435 per ton for the medium grain variety called Reiziq. Now, as we look forward to FY 2023, with planting now concluded, the next Riverina rice crop, which is to be harvested from March 2022, is expected to be in excess of 600,000 paddies. Could make it the largest in 5 years if long-term average yields are achieved.
This larger volume of Australian rice will underpin the Australian rice pool's exports to premium markets in the FY 2023, which is expected to support positive returns to our A Class shareholders and growers. The increased availability of Australian rice should also continue to build momentum for the rest of the group and deliver incremental benefits to B Class shareholders. Based on the return to more favorable conditions, the group intends to continue to execute its 2024 Growth Strategy with a focus on new merger and acquisition opportunities, new product initiatives, and various capital projects to support greater diversification and resilience. Thank you. I'll now hand back to the operator.
Your first question comes from Allan Franklin with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Rob. Hi, Dimitri. Thanks for your time, and well done on the result. Just a couple of questions, if I may. Perhaps the first one just on CopRice, if you could provide any sort of color on the shape of earnings that we might be able to expect, just given byproduct coming back into the business and perhaps any sort of change in outlook of conditions for that business?
Sure. Thanks, Allan. Thanks for your comments. With regards to the CopRice's performance, perhaps we'll split it in two. I might just talk to some of the things that I think have impacted the business and may change, and then may throw to Dimitri for some specific commentary on New Zealand assets. I think it's apparent to most that the very good seasonal conditions for pasture, which you've seen, you know, amongst the wettest summers on record, spring and summers has seen, phenomenal pasture conditions in most of the key areas that we normally sell our complementary feed into.
Growers who've had a couple of years of drought and therefore very high input costs for dairy, cattle, beef, sheep, etc. , and who had actually at the beginning of the drought, been paying a lot for feed, I think have welcomed the opportunity to not have that particular input cost because they can put their livestock out to pasture. We think that's somewhat overdone. We think there's a good argument for a number of those producers to continue to feed complementary feed. That's a farm by farm proposition to make that argument when there's plenty of free feed that they can see from their farm window. I think that has really crimped the opportunity to see sales volumes go up.
It in fact has put a lot of pressure, given that there's a good deal of capacity in the industry, a lot of pressure on margins as price competition has sought to those farmers who are still feeding. Clearly that is an unusual set of circumstances off the back of drought, and we would expect more normal conditions to prevail. I'm certainly not looking to try and embrace further drought conditions.
I think it returns more normal conditions where, you know, particularly in the summer period, pasture dries off and complementary feed is a natural go-to, would see our earnings recover. I think there's a lot of feed being cut. There's a lot of feed still available out there, and I think we're probably gonna see that drag on performance in the H2. I might throw over to Dimitri with regards to some of the integration issues, etc. , that have also this H1 result.
Thanks, Rob, and yes, good morning, Allan. Good to hear from you again. So if we just look at a couple of areas in CopRice. The CapEx expansion in our Leongatha mill took slightly longer than expected due to COVID. Now, we only spent up to AUD 6 million on that acquisition and CapEx upgrade, but we were hoping to get that operationalized a lot quicker than it ended up being because just difficult to get to that mill. Hopefully with that behind us now we can then accelerate that going forward in the next period. With New Zealand shipping costs increasing made it expensive for us to move ingredients from Australia to New Zealand.
It's one of the quite busy and quite expensive channels in the wider shipping program. That's hampered the ability to get some margin growth in New Zealand. With the operational and the CapEx upgrades in New Zealand being delayed again due to COVID, that's delayed the business program that we had envisaged in the first year of owning those operations. A bit of teething issues and challenges over there, but we expect that to be behind us, and we'll grow that moving forward and look to update with more positive results going forward.
I think, Allan, as I think about you know, the recent acquisitions in the CopRice business, clearly what we've done at the low part of the cycle is to buy strategic assets in the right areas at what actually appear to be very attractive asset valuations. What we're seeing is a little bit of a protracted period of good pasture conditions, which is delaying us being able to fill that fresh capacity. So we have an overhang of capacity in this circumstance that should be filled much more easily as conditions improve. That also relates to the investment we made in the byproducts, which is another part of your question.
You'll recall we invested in a rice bran stabilization plant, which we spent close to AUD 11 million installing, just as rice byproducts actually were no longer available. Clearly, those byproducts are now available. We need to persuade and do trials with customers to convert them over to that ingredient. The inability of our technicians to travel to a number of different customers to do pilot plant trials and also those customers not allowing, in many instances, you know, people from other organizations to visit their sites due to COVID restrictions, it's meant that converting people across to that ingredient have also been delayed.
Seeing in these results, again, not just the cost of the additional dairy capacity fully utilized, but also the cost of that rice bran plant, you know, weighing on the result without necessarily return coming through just yet. We do expect, however, that with the lockdowns ending as they are, we're now getting into customers able to work with development teams to get our ingredients incorporated into their products. I think it is just a matter, as we say in the announcement about the pace of the recovery rather than whether there will be a recovery.
Yeah, sure. Thank you. Now, that is helpful. Perhaps one more question from me. It's fairly broad in nature, but just thinking about the branded conditions in the markets, mostly sort of in retail, Coles and Woolies and the like, but just in terms of how you're finding competition, you know, changes to prices, whether it's inflation and/or shipping costs related. Yeah, I guess sort of how you're finding, is there a snapback of sort of mix into food service channels in recent months? You know, how are you sort of feeling about that sort of branded side of the business more broadly, I guess?
Yeah. I think given the sheer scale and nature of the various challenges, particularly around supply chain, in this H1, we're pleased to see the level of recovery. And I think it talks to the strength of our brand in many markets. You know, on the shipping front, I mean, quite frankly, the shipping situation is chaotic. And I've never seen anything quite like it. I think it is unprecedented. And whilst we've called out a 1000% increase in some of the freight legs, you know, 500% is pretty much the norm across the various shipping freight legs.
When we talk about shipping from nine different countries, clearly all of that means that we're seeing an enormous amount of cost, and we're anticipating more than AUD 30 million of additional cost versus what we had anticipated in this year just in price escalation in the shipping side, which we've had to recover. You know, obviously our retail partners are always very good at representing their own shareholders and consumers when we approach to be able to pass some of those costs on. They're very deliberate and conscientious with regard to assessing that level of cost. We have, and therefore, you know, usually there's something of a lag in uptake in the price we take or offers we put up get executed.
We are pleased to have worked with the retailers to have passed on a number of costs. Therefore we should expect to see those flow more fully in the H1 because that lag has now worked its way through. The strong branded demand, certainly on the KJ&Co. Side, I'd argue that we've seen, you know, when you get Belgian waffles and pizza bases, etc. , in the portfolio and people are locked up at home, it tends to increase demand. Certainly demand has remained strong for our branded rice products.
We've seen a little bit of a windfall on the microwave pouch side where, you know, supply chains, the retailers tend to use product that is imported, and therefore they've seen the same sort of delays and disruption that we see on our exports, they've seen on their imports. As a consequence, we've seen an uptick in our microwave pouch business. Also combined with the fact we've got an improved process that really delivers a great tasting product. That combination's really worked well for us there. I think on the food service side, in the H1, we hadn't anticipated the three-month lockdown in New South Wales, so that's weighed on us.
Yeah, we are seeing, I'm not sure I'd quite describe it as a snapback, but certainly a significant uplift, as the trade restocks, ahead of the festive season, and we see the food service market open up. We believe that, you know, all things being equal, you know, don't wanna call the H2 on COVID because it keeps surprising. You know, we expect to see the food service sector sort of rebuild itself in the H2, and that should help us.
No, perfect. That's all from me. Thanks again.
Thanks, Allan.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Craig Haskins with Eastern Hill Advisors. Please go ahead.
Morning, Rob. Morning, Dimitri. How are you going?
Yeah, well, thanks, Craig. I hope you're well too.
Very well. Just a very quick one. Can you just give a bit more color around the comment around M&A? Then also, obviously, gearing's gonna come down from the 2.3. How do you sort of see, you know, potential sort of M&A capacity? Is there a sort of thinking around sort of debt versus equity in that strategy?
Yeah. Perhaps again, I'll share the answer with Dimitri. You know, we exited last year having spent a reasonable amount of money on KJ&Co. Brands and the acquisitions in the rice segment. The leverage at the year-end therefore reflected all of the debt because obviously, calculated at a point in time, but the EBITDA was only a few months' worth. Therefore, you know, our leverage went up to close to 3. What we've seen, as you know, as we hit the half year is that we've actually had a half year of EBITDA from these businesses. Still got full year benefit in the number, of course.
We've also seen working capital climb as we, in that H1, as we received a crop and paid for the working capital associated with it, which obviously had an impact on increasing the debt. We're pleased that the leverage number has come down the way it has, and we would, all other things being equal, expect to see that drop still further during the H2. Gearing has remained, you know, well within our target range. On the M&A side, therefore, we still think we have ample dry powder. We've got good debt headroom, and we see that leverage number rattling off because it's largely high as a consequence of that timing issue. We'd expect to be able to use our balance sheet for bolt-on acquisitions and you know, increasing in scale.
If you look back over the history of Top End over the last three years, we had a couple of very small acquisitions where we sort of proved out the M&A muscle, the ability to integrate, and we gradually scaled up to you know, the KJ&Co. Being the largest acquisition we've made. You should expect to see us investigate acquisitions of a similar sort of scale and larger over the course of the coming period. With a very strong discipline to make sure that it's earning, it's accretive, and it's absolutely on strategy with regard to the particular segment that we might look to acquire within. Dimitri, do you wanna make a few comments about perhaps the thought about equity and debt ratios into the future?
Yeah, sure. So obviously getting that balance between debt and equity is going to be key moving forward. When you consider the environment in the last two years, with the pricing we've been able to get away with, particularly with interest rates, it's enabled us to go after those acquisitions, funded by debt, in the context of things. When you consider our dividend yield, and anything between 5%-8% over the last few years, it's actually
Quite expensive when you compare that to debt. Fortunately, we've funded via a pretty low interest rate regime at the moment. As I said, we'd like to obviously get that mix and that balance back into the picture going forward. We feel we're getting ready, and we're quite primed with that shape up. To Rob's point, with leverage coming back to 2.3, again, underpinned by those acquisitions and good to see the assertiveness of the dollar coming through, particularly from KJ&Co. Brands and some other exciting opportunities on the radar.
I think what you'd expect us to see, Craig, or you'd expect to see is that, you know, when you have a look at the KJ&Co. Brands, it sort of is a diversification away from the ag cycle exposure to an extent. I mean, you know, we've managed to find other exposures when buying waffles out of Belgium. But nevertheless, you know, it doesn't have the cyclicality, and therefore we expect it to underpin our earnings in a much more stable extent than perhaps some of the volatility we've seen in some of our more ag exposed sectors.
You know, expect to see us investigate acquisitions that provide more stability of earnings, branded, and, you know, they're the sort of things you'd expect to see us be bringing to the portfolio, and we are active. You know, I think it's no secret that what we're looking to do is to accelerate the business through both organic and acquisitive growth and use the debt headroom we have. When we run out of debt headroom, then that will hopefully lead us to being able to tap the equity markets. Part of the reason we went to the ASX in the first place, bring some liquidity into the register, and therefore give ourselves the ability to, for this to be a long run strategy of acquisitive, not just a short-term thing.
Hopefully with the introduction of the interim dividend on the ASX, that's sending a strong message to the market with, you know, branded written earnings in our business, moving away from the ag cycle and into the place of more consistency of earnings going forward. Pleased to have made that announcement yesterday as well.
Fantastic. Thanks very much for the comprehensive answer. Thank you.
Thanks for your interest, Craig.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. There are no further questions at this time. Pardon me, we have a question from Ian Hardy with Private Portfolio Managers. Please go ahead.
Thanks, guys. A great result. Just a quick question on Riviana Foods. When I back out KJ & Co., the margins for the existing business seem to be under pressure. Is that correct?
Yeah, that's right, Ian. When you consider the exposure to food service, particularly over the last period, primarily driven by COVID, you know, all restaurants and et cetera being shut, the inability to drive further growth in that sector has dampened the results on the standalone Rivy business. When you look at the complementary of that portfolio coming together, we feel that the business is primed to bounce back. Once food service reopens, which we're seeing those positive signs starting to occur, you know, to make up that difference going forward. Primarily driven by that slump in food service.
Yeah. I think I'd add to that, some of the, you know, I mentioned earlier, the, you know, effectively the cost, the inflation and cost pressure with shipping, an awful lot of products 'cause the Riviana business looks for this real provenance positioning of, you know, getting olives from, you know, sort of, you know, Southern European clients where we can get the best possible product. Of course, what it means is that it's quite heavily exposed to this current shipping issue. As the shipping costs hit, we then sought to pass that on to the retail customers, and there's always a bit of a lag.
That in combination with that food service sector being quite badly down, and that's a fair chunk of the business, you know, it's not quite half of the business. We're pleased that the Riviana underlying result has held. In part, that's not just the KJ. It's actually the Roza's Gourmet business starting to really come through as we get fresh listings. Mentioned in the narrative earlier was fresh listings in Woolies, etc . Again, you should expect to see some of these branded businesses that we have that were listed in the independents, gain increased listings in the majors and therefore start to scale the revenue from those acquisitions as well.
Terrific. Thank you.
There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Gordon for closing remarks.
Thanks, operator. Well, look, on behalf of myself, and I'm sure Dimitri, thanks again to everyone for joining this morning's call and for your interest in the business. We really appreciate you taking the time. If I may just wish everyone on the call a really merry Christmas, and let's hope next year has less negative surprises than the last two years and we can actually see some sort of return to normalcy. Merry Christmas to everybody on the call. Thank you.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.