Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining today's call on the Full-year Results 2020 for Newlat Food S.p.A. Joining me today are Angelo Mastrolia, our Chairman , Giuseppe Mastrolia, Chief Commercial Officer and Deputy CEO, Fabio Fazzari, Group Financial Director, and Rocco Sergi, CFO. Before starting, I would like to remind you that this presentation may contain certain forward-looking statements that are neither historical results nor financial and operational performance of the company and its subsidiaries. These forward-looking statements are based on Newlat Food's current expectations and projections about the future events. So we'll start off with a little overview of 2020. So 2020 has been an eventful year for Newlat Food, and we've had not only us, but those who were in the different unexpected situations to cope with.
We're really proud to have taken advantage of this year in which we grew and in which we were able to actually close a very important acquisition, which was the CLI acquisition. In 2020, in fact, we acquired a controlling stake in Centrale del Latte d'Italia, and this acquisition allowed us to reach over EUR 500 million in revenues. And we also became the third largest operator in the milk and dairy sector in Italy, and we also acquired a significant market share in different really important regions in Italy. Another important milestone of this last year was that we were able to integrate the CLI group very efficiently. We had a reduction in admin costs, and we also were able to improve the procurement conditions of the milk and dairy materials and to cross-sell our products into different regions.
We, as you will see, we had an extremely good result and an extremely well-performing year in both Newlat Food and CLI. We also signed, as you may know, a few baby food contracts, one in particular, which is extremely important in terms of size. These contracts altogether will help saturate the spare capacity in the Ozzano Taro factory. We also launched and designed, and we are planning to launch over 10 new products. We launched around almost 20 new products, which you will see a little bit more on later on. Giuseppe will show you. In Q4, we also signed an agreement with the Tuscan milk farmers to fix the price of milk at EUR 36.36 per liter. This is an exceptional agreement that we have reached, which was never agreed on before, which no one ever did before us.
We think that this is replicable with other farmers in other regions. This will give us more of a stable and more predictable price base for the milk raw material. We also had a very good year in terms of revenues in Germany, especially in the pasta segment, in which we sold more than almost 10,000 more extra tons versus 2019 in pasta in Germany. We were also very successful in launching the Delverde brand, which was now sold in more than seven retailers all over Germany. We also wanted to highlight that although it doesn't show sometimes, we are really passionate about decreasing CO2 emissions. This year, we also received a certificate from DB Cargo , which is one of our transport companies that we work with. We increased our train transportation.
Instead of using lorries, we used trains, and this helped us avoid around 502 tons of CO2 by transporting from Italy to Germany, especially from the Sansepolcro to Germany. Now we go on to the financial highlights. So in terms of revenues, the pro forma revenues, which we are looking at in this particular presentation, were particularly good. So we had EUR 516.9 million in revenues and an increase of 3.2% versus the 2019 results. We had a very good growth in pasta, bakery, and special products. And as I already mentioned, we had a really good growth in Germany, in which we grew 10.6%. EBITDA was also extremely performing, and we increased our adjusted EBITDA by 44.1% versus 2019. And EBITDA margin was 10%. So adjusted EBITDA margin was 10%. So we reached our infamous goal of double-digit margins.
We had very good margins in bakery in particular and dairy and in special products. We also confirmed our ability to generate free cash flow by generating EUR 44.1 million of free cash flow, excluding M&A. And we had an EBITDA FCF conversion of 88.8%. Net income was reported. Net income was EUR 38.4 million. This, of course, has an effect of the negative goodwill arising from business combinations. So we had an adjusted net income of around EUR 14.5 million always in terms of pro forma revenues. And net financial position was heavily improved. We went from negative EUR 38.1 million in the full year 2019 on a pro forma basis again to EUR 5.2 million in 2020. And if we disregard the IFRS 16 liabilities, our position was even better, and it was EUR 24.2 million or so positive cash for us.
Now I will leave the word to Giuseppe Mastrolia, who will introduce you to the commercial initiatives that we had in 2020 and that we will launch in 2021 as well.
Hello. First of all, these are several commercial initiatives of 2021 that we are running. So first thing is that we are working on several projects in all the segments. We never stopped currently with the R&D and with the development of new products and business development with the organic growth of our portfolio of products and our baseline of customers. Because, as you know, Newlat has a mission that is always to diversify the customer base, finding new opportunities and new customers all over the world. So going into the single commercial initiatives, one that is really good and appreciated on the Italian market that will help us to consolidate, to try to achieve the first position as a rusk producer. So is the Bifetta Launch, what we call the Bifetta Launch, is a pre-portioned pack that was launched in the second half of 2021.
In April 2021, all the major retailers in Italy, Esselunga, Coop, Conad, Selex, these represent roughly more than 40% of the market share in Italy, listed the new product, the Bifetta. Our goal in terms of distribution is to gain as much as possible, more than 80% of distribution within one year, and to grab some new positioning on the shelf and new market share from our competitors in the next year. As you know, all the Bifetta, so all the rusk business and bakery business are business with high marginality. That's why we are trying to focus our effort here in Italy on this segment. As a secondary initiative, I can tell to the listener that we launched to increase the price positioning and to improve our awareness in terms of brand.
Because this year, Polenghi brand represents 150 years of history in Italy, and it is the most ancient brand in the milk business in Italy. And we launched for this birthday the 100% milk from Lombardy region. What does it mean? That we collect and pack the milk from Lombardy region direct to the supermarkets within 24 hours, with the traceability of all the raw material from the farmers to the finished product. And Benedetta, you can go on to page eight. What I can tell is that I'm really proud, and I'm really waiting for it because it will be a really important news for all the retailers and all the markets. It's the first infant product under a milk company name that is Mukki. We already have in our hands the brand Mukki Bimbo.
And so we are developing, and we will launch in September 2021 the first 100% organic recipe from Tuscany milk for babies in two versions. Here you can see the liquid one, but we will focus our strength even on the powdered milk for babies. And this is the only product that is 100% from Italian milk and especially organic, coming only from the region of Tuscany. And just as a showcase to the buyers, the idea is really well appreciated by the main retailers. And so we think and we hope that we can generate goodwill. It will create a strong awareness on the brand Mukki that will be distributed all over Italy and will improve our positioning and our marginality more and more in that segment with our own product.
Then you see, as you know, we are pushing as much as possible with Delverde in Germany. We successfully launched in more than seven biggest retailers. You see some examples of what we are doing in the point of sales. So we are trying to achieve new consumers through marketing activity directly in the shops with some sampling, with some creativity idea that can help the consumer to buy more than the traditional purchasing of pasta. So you can see two initiatives, and we are listed in some customers that are REWE, Globus, Klaas & Kock, Citti, Bartels- Langness, and so on. So on the other end, of course, we are trying to get into the main top retailer in terms of positioning because Delverde, as you know, is our most premium product in the portfolio that we have. Then Benedetta, you can go on.
Still on milk, we have two products that were launched in the second half of 2020. One is the 100% pure pack Mugello that is a pack done 100% plastic-free. It's all in carbon neutral and paper packaging. And this is a selection of milk that comes from a specific area of Tuscany. The same we have done with the Latte del Parco from Salerno area, in which we choose just some farmers that respect our technical requirements to fulfill the request of being more fresh and more healthy on the table of our consumer in Salerno and in Florence. And of course, as a philosophy for the brand in general. As I already mentioned before, we have the anniversary of Polenghi this year. So I was born in 1870, and 2020 was the 150th anniversary of Polenghi.
We are launching the new restyling that represents for us what we call the new spring of Polenghi because the flower comes in the spring. For this spring, we will launch the new idea of packaging UHT fresh and all the Polenghi line. Benedetta, you can go on. It's coming next month, the first Mukki Special Donna that is a milk for women. It is absolutely not commercialized in all the European countries. Our R&D department made a really important and committed job about Mukki Donna because you cannot find any alternative on the market like this. What is it? It's a lactose-free and low-fat milk with vitamins, magnesium, iron, and folic acid, as you can read. It is a fresh product.
So fresh to drink and to bring to work and to gym for the and can give to the consumer all the vitamins and nutritional facts that they need for the day-by-day routine during this stressing period. Another important launch that will be in June is a UHT product done under the brand Mukki. That is, you understand, is the brand that is going on the special milks. We choose as the representative of our special milks. And this is sport milk, really interesting. We call it training. And we have on 100 ml of product, 25 grams of protein. So it's a source of BCAA and essential amino acids. It's lactose-free, and it has really low calories. The product is already tested. It will be UHT, and we will compare with other big players.
But we are sure that our traceability of 100% Italian milk, it's only topic, is the only opportunity that we can give to the consumer. Okay? Then we can go to some new launch. We are launching now under the brand Mukki, but under even the other brands. The first 100% natural yogurt in recyclable paper. It's all recyclable, so from the cup to the top. And it's a unique product. And some retailers already asked us if we want to produce for them this kind of packaging. And this is still thanks to our R&D department that we developed this new production. Of course, going and we'll have 100% Tuscany milk. Lactose-free mascarpone. We are launching and we want to gain a strong market share from IRI data. This lactose-free product is growing plus 48%, but it's a niche.
Polenghi, as the second player in Italy for the mascarpone, is necessary that can fight on this segment as well. We will launch it in May 2021. We decided as a group to optimize the cost and the distribution to use one unique brand for the vegetable drinks that is called Puro Veg. It means vegetarian heart. We have four different drinks that will be distributed all over Italy through our distribution center. It's soy, rice, oat, and almond milk. We think that with this, the new brand could achieve a good market share on the market. Benedetta, you can go on. As you see from the last Buitoni-Delverde contract amendment with Nestlé to gain more market share for Delverde as soon as possible. We put in an agreement with Nestlé, the brand on top of Buitoni.
And so we will have on the market the two positioning. So the positioning of Buitoni, that is medium-height positioning with this product. And then we will have the classic Delverde made in Fara San Martino that is our super premium pasta that have another positioning. Of course, we underline our region that is Tuscany origin. Toscana nowadays is a brand more than Delverde and more than Buitoni. And that's why we want to underline that Toscana is something that is really important on our packaging. And this product will be on the shelf in April, May 2021. Okay? So you can see that we made some changes. So it's more aesthetically pleasing packaging compared with the original one. It's a new darker green that is more elegant as from consumer research that we made through our marketing department.
And then we will try to follow on our philosophy that is called the Puro Gusto philosophy. It means pure taste from water, from wheat, from what we produce that is really interesting. Then we have new formats and cooking time easily to find. Okay? Then we can go on, Benedetta. Then we have an industrial overview.
Yes, now Fabio.
Yes, good afternoon, everybody. We also would like to give you an update, an overview about the industrial structure and the potential that we have since we received a lot of questions about how you can face an increase in demand, how you can face an increase in raw material price, etc. We would like to show you, first of all, what is the current situation for the different production we have in terms of total capacity, the utilization, and as you can see, we still have around 40% of spare capacity around the different production. With the acquisition of CLI, we improve our situation in milk and dairy in the sense that the spare capacity has been reduced. But as you can see, we still have around 37%.
This is a situation that creates for us interesting opportunities in the sense that, as we can see in the next slide, if we want to use a famous Beatles song, we can say that all we need is volume in the sense that we have a current structure of fixed and variable costs that allow us to improve our profitability very soon. This chart represents the potential increase that we could have in terms of profitability, assuming 2% of volume growth per year, obviously on the basis of all the other variables fixed. In this case, you can see that only with a volume increase, we could have progressively passing from the 60% of spare capacity to the 72%, an adjustment of the portion of variable and fixed costs, and a progressive improvement of profitability.
This is also to answer to the question that we received, "What could be your normalized profitability level?" If we close our spare capacity only for this reason, we could reach more than 11% of EBIT margin. And this, I think, that is an interesting picture also because if you can assume that we need to face a year with a lot of volatility for raw material, this is not the case, but just for an example, we have a lot of room to manage this unexpected volatility only managing volume inside our company. The next slide is substantially give you the same message, but it's focused on Ozzano Taro plant. You saw in the previous slide, we show you that Ozzano Taro is 60% of spare capacity. It's the plant that could give us additional efficiency, increasing volumes.
With the new contract that we signed last summer, we have the potentials to progressively close this gap. You can see that only assuming a reduction of spare capacity, we have a material improvement of profitability. In the specific case of Ozzano Taro, I have to say that thinking about the new contract, we have two opportunities. One is linked to what this chart shows, the improvement in terms of capacity utilization. The other important point is that we will receive also an additional improvement linked to the mix because the new products included in the contract we signed in the summer are special products with a higher profitability versus all the other products that we have in our portfolio today.
Thank you so much, Fabio. Now we'll go on to the sales breakdown and analysis, so as we previously mentioned, 2020 was a positive year in which we saw an increase of 3.2% in sales, and this year was a different trend, so the first quarter, as you know, the first quarter and the first month of Q2 were impacted by the COVID-19 first breakout, so the first stockpiling and the first panic buying, which increased our sales exponentially, but then throughout Q3 and Q4, we saw a normalization of sales, so we did not see any different behavior from what was usually expected from consumers, then in terms of cost of goods sold, we had a very good year, so we actually decreased again our cost of goods sold, which was around 78.4% of our sales.
And this was mainly attributable to our good management of raw materials and also of finished products. As I said earlier, we also signed an agreement with milk farmers, which will be replicable with other milk farmers around Italy. And this gives us visibility and also stability in our cost base for the next year. So we also expect that the cost of goods sold incidence will be stable or even better in 2021. Then I move on to where those are. Okay. Now it should be okay. Yes. Now here we have a breakdown dividing Newlat Food from Centrale del Latte d'Italia, in which you can see the organic growth quarter by quarter and comparing the periods. So as you can see from the two quadrants, we have very good performance in all the quarters, both in Newlat Food and in Centrale del Latte d'Italia.
Although we did have some shifts, which were caused by, of course, the difficult year in which we saw different trends and different buying behavior. Overall, both Newlat and CLI had a very good year in which we recorded 3.2% and 3.1% organic increase in sales. If we move on to the EBITDA growth throughout the quarters, we see that both companies, again, had a very good increase in EBITDA, which was all organic. In terms of Newlat Food, we had quite a, I would say, different spikes. In the first quarter, we had a spike of 29% increase. Q2 was quite slightly negative but kind of stable. Then we move on to Q3, which we saw a very high increase and a spike of 65% and then a slowdown in Q4.
But overall, this allowed us to reach an overall increase in EBITDA year-on-year of 17%. Of course, with CLI, we had a different starting point, so we had more challenging points to start with. And we had actually an increase of 189% in EBITDA compared to last year. Now we move on to the breakdown by business unit. So the revenues relating to pasta grew by 7.5%. And this was, as we mentioned, thanks to good performance in the German market. Milk products saw a slight increase, but they were quite stable because they were impacted by different trends. One was the increase in sales in the large retailers' channel. But also there was a negative impact of the HoReCa sector, which was heavily impacted by the lockdowns in Italy.
There was also a slight value dilution from these less premium brands because of the decrease in raw material prices, which were reflected into the price. So overall, we had a good performance, but of course, we don't see a huge increase in this segment for these reasons. Bakery products also saw an increase of 9.6%. The higher sales are actually attributable to a very good performance on the market of Crostino Dorato and Crostino Integrale, which are our bread substitute brands. They have been performing really well in the market, and they have consolidated their position as the second brand and the second product on the bread substitute market in Italy. Dairy products saw an increase in 1.3% in the period. This was mainly linked to mascarpone, as always.
We had also an increase in special products of 11.3% as a result of higher sales volumes and also new clients that are slowly coming in, especially in the Ozzano Taro and the baby food segment. Other products decreased by 13.6%. This was linked to the products that we usually commercialize and sell through food service and normal trade like salads and products that we don't produce ourselves. Overall, I would say the weight of the different categories didn't shift particularly. We had an increase in pasta, but there was not a big shift in one direction or the other. So it was pretty stable. In terms of distribution channel, we also had, as expected by the difficult year, we had a very good performance in the large-scale retail distribution channel, which increased by 7.3%. This is, of course, due to the different consumer behavior of 2020.
And we also saw an increase in the weight of this particular channel in our revenues. So we were more exposed to large retailers than we used to last year. In terms of B2B partners, we had an increase in sales even here by 3.4%. This is linked to different B2B partners that we have. And we also wanted to highlight that we finally reached an agreement with Cross Green for the next years. In terms of instead of normal trade channel, we saw a slight increase. But again, this is a channel that was impacted by the period, so not a huge increase in this channel. Private label also increased thanks to higher sales volumes in private label. And food service, of course, decreased by 43.3% as a result of lockdowns.
But of course, this did not have a huge impact on our sales because we were not heavily relying on the food service channel. So we did not see an impact on our results. In terms of breakdown by geography, as we mentioned, we had a very good year in terms of geographies. In terms of Germany in particular, we increased by 10.6%. As I said, we launched Delverde in more than seven retailers, as you saw earlier. And we had a very good year in terms of pasta sold in Germany. Italy also was pretty good, and we increased by 1.3%, especially in the longer shelf life products. And other countries also saw an overall increase of 2.8% thanks to an overall increase in demand. Now we move on to EBITDA breakdown by business unit.
Now, as we said, adjusted EBITDA is EUR 51.4 million in 2020, and it was an increase of 44.1% versus 2019. EBITDA margin reached 10%, and we then reached our goal, which we also announced during the IPO period that we wanted to reach a double-digit EBITDA margin, so we reached that. As we mentioned earlier, the best-performing segments in terms of EBITDA margin were bakery, dairy, and special products. Especially bakery here, you can see 17.3%, so it was extremely high compared to our usual average EBITDA and EBITDA margin. We're really happy to have achieved this. This was thanks to our increase in volumes in these value-added products, such as Crostino, as we said earlier, which grew a lot this year, and we also, of course, this was because of sales increase, but also because of supply chain optimization, which helped us increase this particular figure.
Then we also increased extremely in the milk EBITDA margin. So we went from 5% to 9.6%, which was a very good performance. We basically doubled our EBITDA margin here. And we had overall a very good performance in all of our own products and our own categories. So aside from other products, which are the ones that we commercialize, we had a very good performance, and everything was above 8% in EBITDA margin. Now we have an overview of our net working capital and cash conversion cycle. So we had a very good improvement, as you can see on the right-hand side of our net free working capital. So we increased our payables in a way that allowed us, because of our relationships with our clients and with our suppliers, we were able to also maintain a good and even improve our DSO, DPO, and DIO.
We also had a stable inventory. They remained stable despite the increase in revenue. We were really good at managing inventories. Net working capital then basically doubled and was negative by 49.5 million EUR. Now we move on to CapEx. CapEx was 17.5 million EUR in 2020, as opposed to 20.7 million EUR. This, again, is on a pro forma basis with CLI. There was a spike. There was an increase in Q4 in CapEx, which is mainly attributable to the increase in CapEx that was originally planned by CLI, which was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We had to postpone some works, especially the automatic warehouse in Turin, which we are building at the moment, which will also have an impact in the first half of 2021 results figures.
We are also having a few technical investments in the baby food, so in the baby food plant because of the new baby food contracts. And we also have some other investments, which are linked to the plant-based strings that we are launching. And we have a few more initiatives in our head that we want to achieve next year. In terms of free cash flow, so here we have, again, the separate free cash flows of Newlat, CLI, and the Newlat Food consolidated with CLI. So we had a very strong cash conversion in 2020, and it is shown here in the blue lines. So you can see that we had both Newlat and CLI, the very good EBITDA free cash flow conversion post-tax. And we had 91.5% in terms of Newlat Food standalone and 84.2% in terms of CLI EBITDA free cash flow conversion.
So both the companies have been able and have proven to convert EBITDA into free cash flow. So this, again, strengthens our point, which we've been talking about even in the last few earnings calls, in which we said that CLI, on a standalone basis, can start and can implement the leveraging process. As you can see, as you have seen, actually, it's well under way, and we think that the next year's CLI will be able to keep the leveraging without any problem, without any, I would say, Newlat help. And so the overall free cash flow, as we said, is EUR 44.1 million, and the EBITDA free cash flow conversion rate was 88.8% at group level. So very good results. And now we have just a few business outlook points. So we expect that 2021 will see a constant low single-digit revenue growth.
We expect to improve profitability versus 2020. Q1 2020, of course, is not expected to show an increase as opposed to Q1 2020 because of the extraordinary period that was last year, and we will not be benefiting from stockpiling, which happened last year, so we are confident that 2020 overall will be a good year, but of course, we cannot compare to an extraordinary period, which was Q1 2020, and we just want to highlight and remark that we will be focusing on M&A opportunities again. And now we have liquidity of over EUR 300 million, also thanks to the bond issuing that we did last month.
So with this in mind, we think that in the next year, we will be able to even look at opportunities in the market that we weren't looking at before, and we can really find interesting targets and really interesting opportunities to invest in. So that is our key and final message to share with you. And now we can start the Q&A. So if you want to ask a question, just go ahead. Thank you.
Hello, it's Victoria from Société Générale. Can you hear me okay?
Yep.
Hi. Okay. Several questions for me, please. The first one, I just wondered what the driver behind the fall in gross margin in the fourth quarter was versus the nine-month stage. And then my next question is on the milk purchasing contracts that you signed. I just wanted to confirm that they were one-year contracts and also how much of your total milk purchases are from the Tuscany region. And then my next question is, when do sales begin for the new multinational IMF or infant milk formula contract? Do we see sales in the fourth quarter, or will we see them come through in the first quarter of 2021? Please. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Victoria. Now, about the profitability versus the nine months, I have to say that substantially we got an increase, a recovery in terms of organic growth in CLI that achieved a negative performance on organic terms in Q3. And this gave a positive contribution. On the Newlat side, obviously, we came from an extraordinary Q3 in which we achieved a very strong performance on the organic terms. You know, as we show in terms of operating leverage potential that we have, that with a minimum increase in volume, we can generate an important material improvement in profitability. And this was happening in Q3. Obviously, in Q4, the organic performance was more close to a normalized level for our company and for our business. And this created this difference in terms of profitability quarter on quarter.
But what I can tell you is that 2020, in general, in terms of organic growth and in terms of profitability, showed volatility between one quarter and another. And this was driven by external factors. Going forward, and 2021 will be a year with a more stable development in terms of profitability and revenues, more than what we saw in 2020. About the contract with the supplier, we signed and communicated about the agreement that we reached with the supplier in Tuscany. But I can tell you that we are finalizing also the agreement with the other supplier.
Just to give you more feeling and more color about how the situation is, I can tell you that now we are not making pressure on our supplier, but we are receiving pressure to close because after the deal that we announced, all the suppliers are committed to close a deal with us. Also considering the recent development of the milk price, probably this is the good way for all the players, for us and for the suppliers. We are substantially relaxed on this front in the sense that we will close the agreement also with the other, and we will give to the division, milk and dairy, a lot of visibility for the next three years.
About the contract with the new contract that we got in baby food in the summer, what I can tell you is that, as several times Benedetta explained, this is a contract that will cover 37 countries around the world, including China, and is focused on special formulations that we need to adjust to be compliant with the different rules that we find in the different countries. This means that 2021 will be a year, especially in the first half of testing. We are producing prototypes to be sure that the final product is in line and compliant with the rule we have to face and to respect in the different countries. And I think that starting from Q4 this year and next year, we will progressively see the development of the revenue space of this contract.
Thank you. H ello, it's Dario speaking from Exane. Can you hear me?
Hi, D ario.
Yeah. Thank you for taking my questions. I would like to ask, on the M&A side, if you could please detail on which pillars the scouting strategy is based on, and in qualitative terms, the potential targets you are looking at. And then, in light of the impressive performance achieved in the consolidation of CLI, which are the additional synergies you expect, let me say, you are targeting from the lead of your milk and dairy business unit in 2021? Thank you.
Thank you, Dario. About the first question regarding the M&A, our M&A strategy is focused on two main pillars, which are the diversification of our geographic positioning and to continue to diversify the platform in terms of brand and products, and this means that we are also looking for categories that are not included in our portfolio today because the mission of Newlat is to continue to create and improve the profile of multi-brand and multi-product company. On this side, also, the multinational is very important, and this means that we are also looking for some target outside Italy to develop our international revenue base. In terms of quantitative criteria, I have to say that today we are looking for companies if we speak about the basic production, the basic product, with revenues at least of EUR 100 million.
If we have to negotiate for companies that are focused on special production like free from or like other special products, obviously, in this case, the market is not populated by very big companies, and in this case, we also could value a company that could be with a lower revenue space than the level that I mentioned to you before. In terms of the additional synergies in CLI, yes, of course, we expect to generate additional synergies, and this is the reason why we signed this contract to rent to CLI, Centrale del Latte, the milk and dairy division of Newlat Food. The new synergies are on the industrial side and also on the commercial side, but we don't want to share with you any kind of quantitative indications about this.
What we can tell you is that, yes, of course, we believe that we can generate additional synergies.
Hi, this is Doriana from HSBC. Can you hear me?
Yes. Hi, Doriana.
Hello, everyone, and congratulations for these good results. I just wanted to ask you a little bit more about the expectation for 2021. You indicated revenue volume up a low single digit and continue momentum in margins, which I suspect is coming from the top line improvement. Do you see any volatility in the current months, and do you see any opportunity that I mean, in other words, can you give us a little bit more of a sense of which areas you see performing better than other? And also, can you clarify whether the contract with the milk price fixed at EUR 0.36, what sort of benefits will give you if the market price starts going down? For example, you cannot benefit from that as you have done in the past.
Yes. So about the expectation of 2021, I have to say that our expectations are based on what is the normalized growth for the food business and for the food business, considering what is our geographic diversification today. Considering Italy and Germany at first and also the other contribution. In this sense, we believe that for our business, the normalized level of growth, organic growth, could be at a low single digit level. This is the reason why we share with you this expectation. Obviously, we are in March, only three months. The visibility is low, also considering that the environment is not stable because, as you see around Europe, around the world, there is this big uncertainty, also considering the COVID-19 emergency that doesn't stop. For this reason, we are confident to share with you this level of growth.
The margin improvement is linked to, I think, the same driver of this year in the sense that if we increase volume, as I show you in the slide, we can generate operating leverage. But we expect also that the innovation and the introduction of new products in the market could create benefit also in terms of mix. And this is something that could create an additional positive contribution in terms of profitability. And that's it. There is nothing magic or extraordinary. As I said before, volumes for us are the most important way to continue to generate value because we have an industrial structure that allows us to generate a lot of operating leverage with a minimum volume increase. About the contract that we signed with the supplier in Tuscany for milk, it's true that the trend is still a declining trend.
You know that in raw material, for the nature of the market, we have to expect a rebound, a realignment of the price in general. What we want to avoid is to have volatility. I think that the price that we define in our contract is a fair price, also considering the mix of the raw material inside this average because we are buying in Tuscany also particular high-quality and organic milk. We believe that for us, the most important thing is to avoid volatility and to increase visibility for a company involved in the milk business for which raw materials are around 50%-52% of the cost base. I think that if you neutralize this variable, your capability to do business increases because your visibility increases. This, I think, is the most important thing in managing a company like this.
This is the reason behind this agreement and behind the aim and the commitment we have to close very soon also the other agreement.
[crosstalk] Hi, it's Paola Carboni speaking from Equita SIM. I have a few questions as well. Hi, everybody. Fabio. Yes, first question is actually still on your expectation for 2021. I understand the environment is still very uncertain and volatile. I was wondering if you can share with us what could have been, what would look like the start of the year, so basically the year-to-date trend, if we had to compare it with the 2019 pro forma in order to clean, let's say, from the exceptional base of last year. And also, if you, in any case, have any kind of projection or commitment from your modern trade clients about how the next few months could look like.
So I was wondering if your expectation, together with being based on the normal growth base of the sector, are also grounded on something more specific and more relating to the current business, let's say. Then another question, still on 2021, you have largely spoken about the milk prices. I was wondering, how do you see the picture for whey? And what's the situation for you in terms of sourcing for this also important raw material? And the last one is in terms of working capital. You have managed to offset longer cash-in terms with longer payment terms. What would you expect on both sides for next year, especially if you expect to maintain the improvement you managed to achieve in payables? Thanks.
Yes, Paola. About the revenues development in 2021, I have to say that joking, we have a lot of things to learn, but one thing we learned very well is that in this kind of uncertainty, we need to be prudent and to avoid sharing any kind of quantitative expectation. For this reason, we align our expectations to what is the natural and the normalized level of growth for the sector and for the market. I have to say that, obviously, we have to face a very challenging comparison base in Q1. This means, as Benedetta showed before, that we expect to have a negative growth in Q1 because it's impossible for our business and also for the typical seasonality in Q1. You are coming out from Christmas season in January. January usually is not a very strong month.
In fact, last year, our performance was mainly linked to March and to the contribution, the extraordinary contribution that we received from the start of the emergency for the COVID-19. This means that Q1 will be negative. We expect to recover in Q2 that was negative last year for Newlat because in June, most of the retailers tried to better manage their working capital. This means that the first half will be a little bit volatile also this year for these adjustments, this realignment, only for comparison reasons. In the second half, we expect to have a more linear and a more normalized situation. This is what I can share with you. We would like to avoid giving any kind of precise indication because it's really not the case considering the environment.
About the second question on wheat, what I can tell you is that we face a big increase of wheat in general at the end of last year. But our portfolio in terms of raw material is changing year by year because our mix of product is changing. And this means that probably in absolute term, our bill in terms of raw material will be higher, but not for an increase of raw material, but also because the mix will be different. And as of today, we do not expect for the next three, four months to have a material negative impact from raw material, neither from packaging, neither from wheat raw material. And for milk, it's not the case also because even if we don't finalize yet the contract with the other supplier, the spot price is going down. So I think that the picture is quite favorable.
In terms of working capital, the simple message is that the improvement that you are seeing today in our accounting won't reverse next year. So this year, we got plus EUR 16 million of cash contribution from working capital. We are not going to have a minus EUR 17 million next year because this is something that is sustainable in the sense that it's a result of several different things. First of all, we align the situation of CLI in terms of days of payable outstanding to our situation. And we got also the opportunity to increase in volumes. We got also the opportunity to get benefit from our supplier. To be honest, this year, we started trying to accelerate the payment, so reducing the average days of payable outstanding for one reason, because especially after the issue of the bond that we have today, around EUR 300 million of cash available.
If there is the possibility to reduce the days payable outstanding, getting important discount on raw material, this is a way that we will follow, especially in the first half. Obviously, we hope to use this cash for M&A, but we want to opportunistically use our position in the first half, in Q1, to get maybe some discounts from our supplier.
Thank you very much.
Can I ask a follow-up question, please?
Yes.
Just looking back at the margins by divisions, I just noticed that there was a whole division improved their EBITDA margin, but the special products, and that should actually be a bit counterintuitive, sorry, it's a bit contradictory vis-à-vis the repricing of the contract that you did at the end of last year, at the end of 2019, if I remember well. Is there any reason that you can share why that particular division did not do as well in terms of margin?
The reason, Doriana, is really simple. It's a division in which we are working hard in terms of additional investments and some other costs related also to adapt the structure of the new production that we have. And this is one of the reasons behind this maybe strange or not linear dynamics. But the baby food division, the special product division, is a work in progress division. It's difficult to expect linear dynamics from this division. What we expect, obviously, is to get the results of these investments in the coming years in which we will have a more linear development.
Can I infer from what you just said that the new contract that you signed is going to be accretive to margin?
Yes. The new contract will be accretive on the margin side for two reasons: the operating leverage and the fact that the profitability on average is better. But you have to take into account that this is a plant and a division in which we invest a lot in terms of R&D because we got, for example, this new formula because we developed this new contract because we develop new formulations, we adapt formulations, etc. We don't capitalize the R&D cost, and this is obviously something that could impact the profitability in the short term, giving you the idea that the movement is not linear.
Okay. Understood. Thank you.
Good. I think that if there are no other questions, we can close the whole year, highlighting, as we always do, that we are available for follow-up or other questions by email, by phone, as you prefer.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks. Bye.
Thank you. Bye. Have a good weekend. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.