I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Raul Cavazos, Gruma's Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, sir.
Thanks, Laura. Good morning, and welcome to our second quarter 2021 conference call. As always, we are very appreciative of your time and for giving us the opportunity to share our results with you. The tortilla business, whose footprint is based mainly in the United States and Europe, has seen a return shift towards the food service channel as it has been recovering, mirroring the progress in the vaccination effort across the world, resulting in food and leisure establishments reopening their doors to the public. As for the retail channel, it is showing remarkable growth in Europe and resilience in the U.S., given the strong client base we have been building over the past few years. That said, it has slowed down slightly in this region relative to last year's remarkable performance, although it is still well beyond our historical metrics.
In fact, according to IRI Consumer Panel, Gruma has been identified in the upper tier of top brands in the U.S. to have significantly penetrated the market in 2020 and retain more than 50% of gains in 2021. We are excited about this news and are confident that our strong client base will help us further grow our franchises and the presence of the tortilla across the country while increasing profitability. Similar to what happened to volumes in the tortilla business in the U.S., the high activity in our corn operations last year was challenging to replicate given the additional demand at the dawn of the pandemic. This effect has been similar across all the regions in our global corn flour operations.
Revenues during the quarter were hindered mostly by the strong Mexican peso versus the U.S. dollar, and to a lesser extent, by the change in sales mix of both the tortilla as well as the corn flour operations. Nevertheless, in Europe, we have a solid performance, while prices increased in Mexico during the first half of 2021. Please keep in mind, however, that excluding the appreciation of the peso compared with the second quarter of 2020, net sales would have grown 3.5%. The volatility seen in the price of the corn has hit all players in our industry. We have seen fluctuations in our consolidated COGS figures that, in addition to the strength of Mexican peso and the high cost of labor relative to the strong demand in the U.S., have temporarily and slightly hindered our EBITDA margin growth.
EBITDA stood at MXN 3,716 million, representing an 8% decline, while our EBITDA margin decreased 10 basis points to 16.6%. Again, in line with net sales, excluding the appreciation of the peso compared with the second quarter of 2020, EBITDA would have grown 3.5%. Even with the price of corn at the level it is today and the volume dynamics I just mentioned, I still want to highlight the notable trend that we are on relative to our historical performance. In the U.S., analyzing today's performance and demand, we will be growing at a CAGR close to 10% in sales at our tortilla retail channel in the period since 2019 through the end of this year, again, on an annualized basis. This is compared to our historical 3% and 8% versus 3% in overall tortilla sales during the same period of time.
Following the same line of thoughts, our consolidated financial annualized indicators also point to a very stable growth trend of 15% in EBITDA and in net sales since 2019. This serves as a great indicator for us that the strategy we put forward a few years ago with regards to innovation and adaptation to cultural and lifestyle trends has been successful. In view of our long history in this industry, we remain confident given the temporary nature of the price of the corn. In addition to our plans to further increase sales prices where and when it is warranted, coupled with the normalization of the cost of labor in the next few months, we will generate revenues and a normalized level of EBITDA margin that will help us sustain this trend of operational success I just mentioned. Let's talk a little bit about our subsidiaries.
In the U.S., sales volume remained flat, showcasing a leading effect between volumes sold at the tortilla business, which decreased 1.8%. That saw our corn flour milling business, which increased 2%. The higher comparison against last year, given the pandemic effect on demand, in addition to a change in the sales mix of tortilla products toward the food service channel, generated a marginal 1% decrease in net sales relative to a year ago, which was the strongest quarter we have had in the company's history. We remain confident about our future performance in the region given the market dynamics that we have seen related to our tortilla operations. We have been successful in retaining the majority of the client base we generated in 2020, as I mentioned earlier.
In addition to that, our focus on continuous innovation on products that match consumer lifestyle changes, such as our Better For You product line, will further growth across the U.S. as people keep discovering the benefit and versatility of that tortilla. Higher material costs other than grains, as well as higher labor expenses as a result of the pandemic, increased costs, and as a consequence, EBITDA decreased 6%, and the EBITDA margin declined 100 basis points to 18.3% from 19.3%. At GIMSA, sales volume decreased 2%. As with other regions, the comparison base of last year, where we had a sharp drop in demand from the pandemic effect on consumer behavior, set a high bar to be overcome this year. Net sales increased 2% as the price increases, which we have been communicating since the start of the year, have been taking effect with our operations.
Some of these increases were put through in the quarter, so have yet to see the full effect reflecting on our price. Similar to other companies in our segment, the highest price of corn has indeed impacted our operations. EBITDA was 5% lower, and EBITDA margin declined 130 basis points to 15% from 16.3%. As of June, we have seen that our profitability has been restored, and we have finished implementing the price increases which we communicated during the first half of the year. In Europe, sales volume declined 1%, in spite of a solid performance of the tortilla business, both from our retail effort in the region, which has been accelerated progressively, and our pace recovery at our food service channel, which had been hit by the pandemic effect last year. Our corn milling operations were hindered by price of corn.
Some regions are highly price-sensitive, decreasing volumes sold by 15%. Nevertheless, our strong effort in terms of market penetration in the retail segment, in addition to our food service segment recovery and a high-margin sales mix in the Mediterranean corn market, enabled us to grow sales by 36%, which was also reflected in EBITDA growth. EBITDA was fully supported by MXN 6 million in gain in the sales of a piece of real estate. Lastly, in Central America, volumes sold mirrored those of other corn flour-focused business in other regions. Decreased 7% compared to last year as volume were driven by government welfare food programs, coupled with the pandemic holding effect, setting a high basis of comparison. This created an 18% net sales decrease in peso terms, driven also by the effect of the stronger Mexican peso.
EBITDA decreased 49% to MXN 88 million, and the EBITDA margin fell 420 basis points to 7.3% from 11.5%. At our other subsidiaries, operating income increased MXN 154 million to MXN 232 million due to a very strong performance at Gruma Asia and Oceania during the quarter, in addition to higher CapEx resources. In terms of our CapEx during the quarter, we invested approximately $53 million in capacity expansion at our new plants in Indiana, Omaha, Spain, and Mexico, as well as in wastewater treatment systems at our corn flour plants in Evansville, Indiana, and Edinburg, Texas. In closing, I want to assure our shareholders that as always, we are working hard to deliver results through a strategy focused on profitability, and through the continuous implementation of that strategy, we expect great results ahead for our company.
With that, I would like to open the call for questions for our listeners today. Laura, could you open up the call for questions, please?
Thank you, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, if you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touch tone phone. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the star followed by the two. If you're using speaker equipment, you will need to lift the handset before making your selection. Our first question comes from the line of Isabella Simonato with Bank of America. You may proceed with your question.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. I have two questions that are somewhat correlated, right? First, how do you feel about the annual guidance after the first half is concluded? I mean, what are the opportunities and risks you see for each division in the second half of the year? In line with that, specifically in the U.S., you mentioned labor costs are impacting margins during the quarter. This pressure is expected to continue in the coming quarters. What are the alternatives here to offset this going forward? Thank you.
Thank you, Isabella. Of course. Well, talking a little bit about the guidance, of course, it's a little bit hard to sustain the guidance we gave you in the last conference calls. Of course, we've been challenging this first half of the year and you've seen a kind of reductions in some of our figures. In order to update this guidance, what I want to tell you is that in Gruma Corp in the U.S., in terms of volumes, we are expecting to be flat. From flat to minus 1% by the full -year. We are expecting that it will be really hard to recover the volumes lost during the first half. Of course, since we are also announcing price increases for the second half, there may be another support. Not sure a question may be related from you or some other.
We are not sure what will be the impact on the volumes, but talking about that maybe flat to -1% is going to be a good number. In terms of sales, we are talking about 2%-3% higher. Of course, that will be because of the price increase that we are expecting to implement during the rest of the year. In terms of EBITDA margin, we are expecting to be flat this whole year. We are expecting to recover what we are short in this first half, and we are expecting to recover this EBITDA margin by the end of the year.
If we talk about GIMSA, volumes we were talking about 1% to 2%, however, because of lack of sales to some governmental programs during this first half of the year, and as well as because of the revision in the growth support from the government for some programs. We are expecting to be flat by the end of the year in terms of volumes. Since we also already implement another price increase starting July the 1st, we are expecting to be in terms of net sales in the high single digits in growth for the full- year. In terms of EBITDA margins, since also we are expecting to have a higher tax component in the second half, we are expecting something in between. We were talking about minus 100 basis points compared last year.
We are expecting now in between -100, -150 basis points for the full- year. In Europe, we were talking about 2% growth. Given last year low volumes base, we expect a strong double-digit growth in the tortilla business and also contraction in the corn flour business. We are expecting to be higher than this 2%, maybe going to be in the high single-digits growth. Just to give you an idea, in the tortilla business we grew in volumes about 45% during the second quarter of the year compared with last year. We are expecting a double-digit growth for same volume. In terms of net sales, we are expecting also double-digit growth for the European division. In terms of EBITDA margin, we are expecting something about 7%, and we want to keep this margin.
We are expecting to be a little bit lower, we want to be a little bit conservative, giving you the same guidance we gave you last quarter. Central America is a little bit different. In Central America, we are expecting a single-digit reduction in volumes. Last year there was a program, the actual program were very active last year. This year has been slowing down, even we are replacing those sales with the direct consumer, we are expecting to be a little bit lower in volumes compared with last year, as well as in this mid-single digit reductions on net sales. In EBITDA, we are expecting something between 100 and 150 basis points lower than last year in terms of EBITDA margin. Now, all in all, talking about the consolidated figures, what we are expecting in terms of volumes is going to be basically flat compared with 2020.
That would be remarkable for us since last year has been by far the highest volume sold by the company. After this is a very good 2020. It'll be flat during the year. That implies that the effort of the company to have new sales volumes is quite remarkable. In terms of sales, we are expecting low single digits. This is going to be even with price increases. Keep in mind the effect on the exchange rate of the Mexican peso, the strongest peso we have during this year. If you compare those figures in dollar terms, you're going to see that we've been growing in all the indicators since 2019 or 2018 to now. We've been growing consistently in terms of absolute dollars in the company.
Talking about the margins, the EBITDA margin for the year, we are expecting to be something between flat and 50 basis points lower than last year. This is the only guidance that we want to share with you for this full- year. At the light of these first half figures, we already believe you, and maybe it will depend about how we are not taking into consideration, let's say, a reactivation of lockdowns because of the resume of this pandemic. We are not expecting to have any kind of important reductions because as of today, the activities are being recovered. In terms of labor cost, what happens because of the pandemic, we have some people which have been infected or is not assisting to the company on some of the areas.
What we've been doing is have a certain, let's say, additional cost with the pending shifts just to supply the whole demand. As a right of these issues, what we've been doing is we are launching a new strategy supported by we are contacting regional authorities, launching new conditions to attract new people. We are expecting that during this second half, we will be basically stabilize the labor cost of the company. The overtime we've been paying, maybe that we will pay as usual but not as much as we did during this period of time. We are expecting that in the second half of the year, basically stabilize the cost of the labor, particularly in Gruma Corp.
This is super helpful. Thank you very much.
Sure, it's all right, thank you.
Our next question comes to the line of Benjamin Theurer with Barclays. You may proceed with your question, Ben.
Yeah. Thank you very much, and good morning. Just following up a little bit on the outlook. I remember last quarter you gave us an update on your hedges on the corn side, if I remember right, it was somewhere in the 450 range. Can you give us an update where you stand right now and how far out you're currently hedged and what your expectations are in terms of where commodity prices are heading, just looking beyond 2021 and what your expectations are maybe for next year? Thank you.
Sure. Well, let me tell you that we already hedged the full corn for 2021. Actually, we already hedged the full corn for Grumaco for 2022, as well as about 80% of the wheat for the full half of 2022, also in Grumaco. Even we already hedged the price, the cost of the corn for the second half of the year here in Mexico. At the 100% requirements, we already have the 100% requirements of the corn for the second half of the year and 50% of 2023, excuse me, as well as 50% of the cost of the corn for the second half of 2023 in Mexico. Hedges are higher, they're going high. At this point in time, I don't want to disclose because we already are working on the price increase implementation.
We already announced price increases. We are in the process to be approved by all of our clients. In Mexico, we increased pricing beginning July by MXN 1,550 per ton, which implied about 14%. It was already implemented. Of course, keep in mind that we always ask a month just to implement this price increase. What I can tell you is that with this hedging that we already did for this first half of 2022, since we already hedged the price of the corn, and we already hedged about 40% of the sugar that we are expecting to have finally the opportunity to hedge the remaining amount in USD. We are expecting to denote these prices 2023 gives, or if we do that, it's going to be as light a price increase.
However, in the U.S., as I told you, we already hedged the rest of the 2021 and the whole 2022 corn, as well as 80% of the first half of 2023 on wheat. What we already did is that we made the exercise of these cost increases to assure the cost of the company, we already take into consideration not only the cost of these commodities, but the cost increase in some other materials and some other inputs we require in the processes.
We already launched or made the communications to price increases in both businesses, corn flour and tortilla, in this quarter. For corn flour, we are announcing price increases beginning August 15. For the tortilla and the fresh segment, we are expecting to have this price increase by September 1st, and for retail by the end of September.
Those price increases already include all these cost increases. As you can imagine, because of commercial topics and because we are sensitive to information available for our competitors, I cannot open or tell you what are the percentages we are expecting to increase. What I can tell you is that most of our clients are quite comprehensive of that. They know very well what is happening in the market, not only in the commodity side, but also in some other materials, as well as in distribution and transportation. They are quite conscious of those cost increases. All these price increase is taking into consideration all these cost increases. When the company feel quite comfortable that they will be accepted because we are very much sustained and supported this price increase.
We are expecting that all of our clients will accept these price increases. By the end of the year, we are expecting to recover this additional cost and recover those margins for the company.
Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Sure.
Our next question comes from the line of Felipe Ucros with Scotiabank. You may proceed with your question.
Thank you. Good morning, Raul, Rogelio, Adolfo. Just a quick one on my end, and it relates to price volume elasticity in the U.S. I just wanted to ask you about what the consumer elasticity is on tortilla, in particular in the U.S. I'm calculating that in order to maintain the EBITDA margins in the U.S., the price increases would have to be around double digits to offset the pressure in early 2022. The first question is, have you ever increased the prices that much in the U.S.? The second one is, what do you expect as a reaction from the consumer? Because it's very clear that the consumer is highly inelastic in Mexico, just wondering how the consumer usually reacts in the U.S. It's been a long time since you raised prices. Thank you.
Sure, Felipe. Well, talking about that price increase, it would be your estimation, of course, that you are different than us. Again, I can tell you, we are evaluating internally, maybe in the next conference call, we can discuss about what the percentages of price increases we implemented, but not at this point in time. We understand it because we cannot release information at this point in time because our competitors will take advantage of that. No, we are a little far from our estimations of price increases. Our price increases calculations, again, includes the recovery of all the cost increases as well as recovery margins for the company. In terms of what will be the, let's say, the behavior of the consumer in the U.S. because of these price increases, we cannot tell you at this point in time.
We are not expecting to have any major impact since this is not only for tortilla, but is for all the industry and all the big commodities. We are not talking about only corn, we're talking about everything in the lineup. Everything is more expensive, all the producers are increasing prices, they're going to be the option. What I can tell you is, since the company embarked in the product development, particularly on the Better For You, you have seen an important switch from regular products to Better For You products, paying more. That can give you an idea about what we can expect. The consumer is expecting to pay more to the extent you provide the high quality and add value products. That's okay. We are not expecting to have any kind of disruption on the consumers.
However, this is something that maybe we can talk a little bit more about that in the next conference call, just to launch the products implemented and operations with them.
No, that's very clear, Raul. Thanks a lot for the color.
Sure, Roberto. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Luis Willard with GBM. You may proceed with your question.
Hi, Rogelio, Raul, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. It's regarding for cash flow and especially working capital this quarter. Can you walk us through the dynamic that you saw regarding your working capital management this quarter and so far in 2021, and how do you see this evolving in the rest of the year? In the same line, how do you feel about CapEx for the full- year? Thank you.
Sure. This second quarter, it was a little bit different because we have an important recovery from working capital since last year, that food service companies in the U.S. asked Gruma Corp. for additional period time, for additional term for the payment because of the situation they were having. Of course, we convened with them, and we agreed to extend that period of payment. In this second quarter, we have an important recovery in working capital because of the reversion, particularly on the accounts receivables. We have a very good income on that. For the rest of the year, we already bought the corn from Mexico. We will manage in a very good way, as always we've been doing that. Gruma Corp., talking about the corn and talking about the wheat also, we are doing well.
We are not expecting important amounts of requirements of working capital for the company to extend in the same level. Keep in mind that in the U.S., we basically purchase the full corn in 1 corn harvest. Let's say from September to October, November, basically, we already finished some small parts of the corn during March. However, the price of the corn is maintained in some cases in the silos of our suppliers, and they are providing us the corn when we are requiring that. We have not any kind of issue in that case, and as well as in Mexico, we already hedged the full corn that we would require for this 2nd quarter to have enough corn to finalize the year. Of course, we have some import corn that we will have during September and October.
It is going to be a very small amount, and we are not expecting any kind of issue on working capital. The second question, talking about the second topic you were asking for, talking about the CapEx. As of today, we have something a little more than maybe $120 or $125 million in CapEx. This CapEx has been really invested mainly in the U.S. and secondly in our European operations. If you remember, I was sharing with you that we were planning to build a new facility in Indianapolis. Some of the contractors we are in the case to build this new facility in Indianapolis, they have been facing kind of issues with people, let's say, with personnel. They are spending a little more than the construction of this, to finalize the construction of this facility.
We were expecting to start operation during Q2 2022. Now we are expecting to start operation by Q4 2022, this facility. We will be letting you a little more our CapEx program for the year. The other facility where we were re-using was to start operations in the Omaha facility that we shut down in 2015. This facility will start operations, we are expecting next August, next month. That will allow us to increase our production capacity as well as to save some money in terms of distribution, since we will produce by the Northeast as well as Midwest. Instead of importing from, let's say, Dallas or California, the product will be provided from Omaha, Nebraska. It's going to be a short distance for that.
For the full- year, if you remember, we were guiding you that we were expecting to invest something about $150 million or something about that. For now, maybe for the rest of the year, we are expecting to spend something about $250 million instead of $225 million-$250 million.
Thank you, Raul. That's very helpful.
Sure.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. One moment while we poll for questions. Our next question comes to the line of Álvaro García with BTG. You may proceed with your question.
Hey, Raul. Hope you're well. I have a couple of follow-ups. Just one very quickly, just the CapEx you figure you just mentioned was $225-$250 for this year.
You're right. That's correct.
Perfect. Just wanted to clarify that. You mentioned in the release, less legal expenses in the U.S. I was wondering if that was a one-time sort of thing or is maybe recurring going forward.
One time. It should be around some, let's say, processes with workers' compensation issues in the state, and we are taking those events. That's a one-time charge.
One time. Okay. Just one on Europe and then one on Mexico. The one on Europe is, you mentioned, profitability seems nice and high, even adjusting for the one-time real estate gain. You mentioned the core Mediterranean region was doing well. Can we assume that sort of your margin there in the Mediterranean region is higher than 2019 levels at the retail level? Is that retail that's really driving that margin this quarter there?
Absolutely. We've had a couple of benefits in that area, let's say, in European operations. One of them is that the pandemic, we took advantage of that in substantially our presence on the retail channel in a lot of, let's say, supermarket chains. Now we have the presence as well as we are providing them some of the private label, that Mission brand is going out. Now you can find out in a lot of countries, in a lot of chains, our Mission brand in Europe. Of course, that allow us to have a better place. Just for you to give you an idea, during that year, the lockdown and the shutdown of the food service business, maybe the mix of our retail and food service was about 70% or 60% on retail and 40% food service.
Even during this year, we are recovering ourselves on food service. We already increased prices, we've been gaining the accounts, the mix is going down a little bit, is more or less 45% retail, 55% food service. Both of them are giving us more money and we are recovering a lot of the ability. Instead of maybe 2018, we have about 80% on food service if you have, 20% only maybe on retail. We are recovering and expecting better results for Europe. We are in the right trend of profitability in St. Louis for your benefit. We are increasing production capacity in our Spain facility with additional production line. We are adding two production lines to produce tortilla with tortilla.
We already have sold those production basically because we are growing in a very good way in the European operations and with a much better profitability for us.
That's wonderful. Just to clarify that number, you mentioned 2018, roughly 80% food service, and then obviously peak of the pandemic, maybe that came down to 30% food service, 70% retail, and then now you're at 45% retail, 55% food service.
Something like that. Right.
Awesome. Wonderful. Thank you very much, Raul.
Sure. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of today's question and answer session. I would like to turn this call back over to Mr. Cavazos for closing remarks.
Okay. Thank you, Laura. Once again, I want to thank all of you guys to be with us today. We really appreciate your time. Please feel free to call us if you have some additional question, with me or Adolfo, we'll be able to address any kind of question you may have. Please stay safe, you and your families. The pandemic is going up again, and we need to be quite careful in order to avoid any kind of risk. God bless you all, and thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes Gruma's second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.