Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Results Conference of Grupo Nutresa. In this webcast, we are with Carlos Ignacio Gallego, CEO of Grupo Nutresa, José Domingo Penagos, CFO, Diana Bernal, and myself, Katherine Chacón, from the Corporate Finance team. Today, we will present the company's results as of September, followed by a Q&A session. To send your questions, please use the chat that appears on your screen, and also please provide your full name and the institution that you represent. If you wish to see the slides in Spanish instead, please download them from the same screen of the platform. So, let's give the floor to Carlos Ignacio Gallego, the CEO of Grupo Nutresa. Thank you, Katherine. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us in this talk.
To begin, please open slide two, in which we share with you the highlights of the period, and here, we're very pleased to report that Grupo Nutresa was recognized as the third company with the best reputation in Colombia, according to the results of the 2024 Merco Empresas Monitor results. Looking at this on a long-term basis, Grupo Nutresa has been participating for 16 years in a row and occupying positions in the top three of this ranking, so we believe that reputation is a consequence of what we do and reflects how society and our stakeholders see us. In this monitor, the reputational values evaluated are the six listed on the screen, these six values, and we really feel happy to share with you this achievement of the organization.
Now, let's move on, please, to slide three, so we can see the commercial performance of the company in this third quarter of 2024. Sales in Colombia during the third quarter reached COP 2.8 billion, up 0.3%. This is important, and there's a change of trend to what we've seen in the first part of the year, the variation in prices of the period of 6.8% dropping in volumes by 9.1%. It's a decrease in which there is an improvement, and it's something gradual that we're talking about regarding our recovery. The incidence of charging taxes on food and lower dynamics of consumption as a result of a lower purchasing power because of inflation is directly related to this. Per business, if we look at biscuits, it dropped 1.6%, and sales recorded COP 402 billion during the quarter. Coffee dropped in sales 3.9%.
This is a category that has high disbursements, and it's been impacted because of the lower purchasing power of the consumer. Cold cuts dropped 5.1% in sales in a market that also has a contraction because of a lower consumption. Chocolates grew 7.3%, with a better performance in sales in pesos in chocolates and others. Retail food, which is our restaurants business, grew 6.5%, with average tickets growing 3%. Ice cream dropped 12.7%, and amid the impact of the category of ice cream by impulse, pasta dropped 6.3%. And here, we're evidencing a strong dynamic because of the competition in the market that also impacts the commercial performance, and we have low-priced players now. In others, we grew 16.7%, highlighting the performance of third parties. So here, you can see the report of sales in Colombia during the first quarter.
Now, the third quarter, when it comes to international sales, we report revenue of $467 million, up 2.7%, and in Colombian pesos, sales reached COP 1.9 billion, up 3.9%, in which the devaluation of the peso to dollar is of 1.2% in the period. It's also important to tell you that exports from Colombia in the quarter reached $106 million, up 9.1% in dollars. We've always said that there's potential that this is something to be much more developed by Grupo Nutresa. By business, Tresmontes Lucchetti reported a decrease of 5.3% in dollars. However, it's important that in functional currency, it increased 3.2%. Remember that when you express sales in dollars on this bottom graph of slide three, you can see the effect of cross rates of each country where we operate. So the drop in Tres Montes may be of 5.3%.
It has a positive performance in Chile and the U.S., highlighting cold beverages. Biscuits increased 6.7%, especially in the U.S. and Central America. Coffee dropped 11.3% as a result of lower dynamics with the B2B business. Cameron’s Coffee, which is our brand in the U.S., grew 4.2% instead. In chocolates, we reported a growth of 20.5%, with a big increase in sales in the U.S. and in Peru. When it comes to retail food, this grew 3.9%. Cold cuts dropped 8.3% in dollars. As a percentage, you can see 8.3%, but in the graph, you could see that this business has a lower activity internationally by Grupo Nutresa. With cold cuts, we have a lower performance in Panama. In pasta, we have exports, and we've been growing with them. Pasta is the one that's located in Colombia, and we have exports.
Quite dynamic, growing to other geographies, in which I would highlight Mexico. In other, we grew 14.7%, leveraged partly by the results of Belina, which is our pet food business in Costa Rica, which represents $15.4 million of the $22.4 million of others. Now, moving to slide four, we can see here that by combining the growth in Colombia of 0.3% and international of 3.9%, we report total sales during the period of COP 4.7 billion, up 1.8%. Business units with growth of sales in the quarter: chocolates, retail food, biscuits, and other. So it's a quarter that has positively grown and clearly shows a difference with what we've seen in the first and second quarter and the total of the first semester of the year. And this change of the trend is important.
Moving on to slide five, here we can talk about the accumulated sales by the end of the third quarter. Accumulated shows a consolidated effect of a challenging quarter that you've seen commercially, although financially the results, I believe, are quite good, and a third quarter that shows better trends. As far as Colombia, we have sales accumulated by the end of September of COP 8.1 billion, dropping 2.7%. Retail food and other present growths in sales. Outside of Colombia, when it comes to international sales, we reached $1.3 billion, growing 0.5%, and in Colombia, this represents COP 5.3 billion, dropping 9.2%, and this is explained in the period we have a revaluation of the exchange rate compared to that of last year. The total exports from Colombia accumulated is $294.1 million when it comes to biscuits, pasta, chocolate, retail food, and other present positive variations.
In Tresmontes Lucchetti, we have a drop of 1.7% in dollars, but the business grew 12.3% in its functional currency because of the currency cross rates that I mentioned. In coffee, we have a variation of -18.2% because of lower sales to B2B clients, and cold cuts were hit because of lower exports from Colombia and lower sales in Panama. On slide six, we can see that by combining the results of Colombia and international, we have total sales of COP 13.5 billion in the period, dropping 5.4%. This decrease is lower if compared to the end of the first quarter, so we do have an improvement because of the leverage made or the weight made comparing this first semester and the first semester of last year. The ones that show the biggest growth are chocolates and retail food and other.
Sales by innovation represent 16.3% of the total revenue during the period. This is a driver that's very important for Nutresa. Innovation is very much related to the commercial results. So remember that innovation for us has to do with processes, services, business models, and we're quite active there. To see sales by regions, please move to slide seven. Sales by region outside of Colombia represent 39.6% of total sales. Colombia represents 60.4%. Colombia is the first geography. Here you can see that the U.S. follows second with 12.4% share of sales, followed by Central America at 10.9%. Next, Chile with 5.8%. This internationalization that we've mentioned is very important for Grupo Nutresa because it allows it to have a risk profile and a range of geographies and categories, and what we can see here is the potential that we have to develop in Colombia and abroad.
Now, to look at the profitability, on slide eight, we share with you the commodities index of Grupo Nutresa. On the left-hand side graph, we have the commodities index, and on the right-hand side of slide eight, we can see the breakdown of the cost, and here, if you combine all the businesses of Grupo Nutresa, you can see the raw materials. By business unit, the composition of this pie may vary. The accumulated or total of the year of this index, it increased 49% and dropped, and in the second quarter of 2024, it dropped. This is because of the prices of cocoa, pork, and coffee mainly, which are raw materials that when you look at them in that pie that we share with you, you can see their importance. These commodities are managed with our hedges seriously.
It's a strategy when we manage the risks of volatility of these raw materials. And we must remember as well that when we talk about this index in dollars, in some cases, the application to the local market also has some impacts on the exchange rates and on local regulations related to tariffs. But this is the performance overall. I'd like to highlight here the diversification that we have of raw materials. We do not depend on only one. And overall, we supply significantly from local suppliers if possible. Now, to refer to other aspects of profitability, let's give the floor to our CFO, José Domingo Penagos. Welcome, José.
Thank you. To all of you, welcome. To talk about the profitability, let's look at slide nine, please, where we can see the EBITDA of the quarter, and we'll provide some comments. Before the figures, it's worth sharing with you overall the efforts made by the company are still focused on boosting the volumes, as Carlos Ignacio mentioned. When we talk about profitability of volumes, it has to do with our capacity to reduce fixed costs and expenses. Also, it's very important to keep in mind when we have major increases of raw material prices, how we can manage them to deliver our products to consumers without them losing their accessibility, and that's something very important for us on our income statement in costs. The commodities are still very volatile, and they, however, show opportunities at specific moments.
The discipline in hedges, more than covering if they go up or down. It's something that we constantly or ongoingly monitor to check the trend of the commodity and look at the expansion of the gross margin in the quarter, and especially in the accumulated. Also, with regards to our vendors, we try to have the best costs possible to ensure the profitability of our company and expenses: administration, sales, fixed, and variable. There, undoubtedly, we have made major efforts and ahead. On our income statement, we can see how we've controlled them, and there we can look at our capability. When we talk about controlling expenses, we can attribute this also to reduce the investments we made in brands and in the market.
Right now, in challenging markets where they have complex consumptions, we cannot invest so much because we've got to be more sustained to back our brands in the market. So with this background, if we look at an EBITDA on slide nine, it reached COP 602.9 billion, up almost 20%, up almost 19% in the quarter, with an expansion also in the margin compared to the same quarter of last year. And really, it's a better quarter than the two previous ones, and of course, of the previous year. When it comes to the businesses, here you can highlight cold cuts, which grew 76.2% in EBITDA. Biscuits also grew, Tresmontes Lucchetti, pasta, and others. Those business units had good performances, especially with the growth of the magnitude of the EBITDA to churn it here then. Other comments when it comes to each business unit. Our largest is biscuits.
As we said before, the EBITDA grew significantly, almost 45%. Our margin, EBITDA of 13.7%. We have challenges with the commercial dynamics in Colombia, but the proper management of its costs, the main commodities, which although they have volatilities, show growths compared to last year. Here we're talking about wheat, packaging material, oils, and if we add to this the efforts made in expenses, I mean, we're talking about expenses and administration throughout all of the business units, you can see that we have good results in terms of the EBITDA of biscuits. Coffee has a margin of 13% mainly because of the hedge. We talk about the commercial dynamics, but the coverage or hedge of this main raw material, which is coffee, the grain of coffee. Here we see a trend also with this commodity of pressure in prices.
Right now, we have high prices, and they will remain as such on a short-term basis. So we have financial hedges and fixed hedges, and we have good positions. We won't share with you the percentages, of course, but we have good positions of physical hedges with this commodity, which will allow us to face the volatility and the higher price of the spring worldwide. When it comes to cold cuts, the EBITDA grew 76%, a margin almost of 13%. With the same gross margin, we see the benefits, and there's good management of hedges, again, physical and financial. Lower prices in the reference costs. When we talk about cold cuts, of course, we're talking about proteins, pork, chicken. Mainly, those two have a good performance in their cost equation and packaging material.
Raw materials have had windows, and we've known how to capture these opportunities or windows of good prices to enhance our position of hedges. Also, moving on to chocolates, definitely it's challenging in terms of costs. We talked about this in prior webcasts. You are aware how cocoa increased worldwide in the past year, and today it's not at historical record highs. So what is challenging here? The consistency of the hedges. We have levels of hedges, of course, according to the market, not at historical prices. We don't get that anymore, but especially how we manage prices, and there's how we measure business capacity to manage these volatilities, to make proper management of prices by category, by market, and moment to moment. That's why chocolates shows the results that we see here, 10% of its EBITDA. Evidently, it's got a margin of 8% and a trend that's better ahead.
But the cocoa, to share with you, has grown in this comparative 64%. So we've been able to manage this okay. But as Tresmontes Lucchetti, which is our business in Chile and in Mexico, has levels of almost 16%, has grown double-digit, almost 17%, and in local currency, it has good performance and a good management of its prices, a good management of its commodities in each of the countries where it operates, and especially an expense control that's sustained throughout the year to obtain this profitability. Remember, this has been a sustained profitability of this business unit, not only in this quarter. Tresmontes Lucchetti then has been explained, and let's move on to Retail Food. It's a restaurant business with a margin of 19%. It dropped 4%.
It did drop this quarter, and this EBITDA mainly was impacted because of the commercial dynamics, but because of higher costs of raw materials as well. We have good hedges here, but we do have an impact of raw materials in this particular period. Ice cream, double-digit in its margin, and in the growth, it's still healthy with a margin of 20% and a growth that's similar of 23%. It's the result that's sound. It does have challenges commercially, and because of the prices of raw materials, milk is challenging, oils as well, but the performance of ice cream has been good. Pasta has a margin of 11%. It grew significantly, more than 200%, but let's not only focus on this number. It's got a good basis compared to the year before.
And the hedge of wheat is good and sound, but obviously, the commercial impact impacts the capacity to dilute fixed costs and expenses. And lastly, Others, this has to do with distribution, an EBITDA of 9%, and it has grown significantly, 63%. So the quarter evidently has higher performance compared to the first two quarters of the year and compared to the same third quarter of the last year. So we can prudently say that there's a better trend for the rest of the year. On slide 11, the accumulated EBITDA is 13%. Here you can see 13.2% margin and a decrease of almost 6%. All of the businesses present an EBITDA growth, especially of chocolates, and in this case, of this case. Let's talk about the income statement of the quarter and accumulated.
Here you can see on this chart, the structure of profitability of the quarter is much better than in the first two quarters of the year. You can see the growth of revenue and especially of profits operating, which grew, as you can see, 10%. Also an EBITDA that's very sound during this third quarter. Some comments when it comes to this income statement. You can see COP 4.8 billion growing almost 2%. In the cost, there's an improvement, obviously. There's a slight variation in the accumulated of 0.1%, but with this, the gross margin has 90 basis points of improvement, and it represents a gross profit of almost COP 2 billion, growing 4.3%. After the costs, everything has to do with expenses, which has to do with controls, productivity plans implemented this year that will continue next year. They're necessary. Here we're calculating everything as administration, sales, even production.
Here is a variation of only 2.6%, and individually, administration is 5.4%, sales dropped even 5.4%, and sales expenses 4.3%, and production expenses 1.8%, so we're always here looking at our capability to dilute these costs to reach the market. When it comes to operating profit, which you can see here, we have financial income because of the hedges with working capital, all the hedges that have to do with working capital. We also have a small revenue reported in other net profits, mainly because of some compensations received in the period. And if you calculate all of these effects mentioned to evaluate the operating profit, we have grown a double-digit, almost 26%. 25.8% is our operating profit of the quarter. And this leads us to an EBITDA that we explained in detail that also grew double-digit with a good magnitude of COP 602 billion.
When it comes to the income statement, we have financial income. Here you can see the operating cash flow of the organization. We do not manage excess, but the operating cash flow has a good size. Financial expenses, which is very important because of its magnitude, reduced almost 15%. Here the structure of our variable debt allows us to capture the decreased interest rates in the different geographies where we operate. Really, in all of this, especially in Colombia, there's been a major reduction of the interest rate, and we've been able to capture it for our financial expenses. Also, we have effects with the exchange rate difference, and this is applied on our working capital, especially with our subsidiaries abroad, in which we have an income of COP 8.5 billion. Here we have a set of investments, what we have in Malaysia and Philippines, operations in Colombia.
Here we have a revenue of COP 800 billion, but our accumulated, or better, expense is bigger. And lastly, in taxes, we're talking about a net profit for the period of COP 211 billion, up 85.3%, which reinforces what we said before. There's better financial dynamics, a better financial performance in the quarter than what we did in the first two quarters, and that gives us a good outlook. Moving on to slide 12, we see the accumulated 2024 income statement as of September. Revenue dropped 5.4%, COP 14 billion because of the impact of profitability. The expansion of the gross margin is 300 basis points, and we're talking about all the plans we've made to have this result. Many things that are discussed here include the concept of all these results are consistency.
Not doing things right away, but having this consistency to expand our 300 basis points is fundamental for the profitability equation of the organization. In expenses, you can see here that the variation is of 0.9%. They're very stable to have an operating profit that grew 4.6%. And the EBITDA that we've mentioned closely of COP 2.8 billion that grew 5.7% above the operating profit. When it comes to our financial income, COP 43 billion. Financial expenses, we already mentioned, dropped during the period because of the interest rates. The accumulated dropped 9%. Differences of exchange, you can see COP 20 billion, which are part of the income statement. Also, the share of profit of associates and joint ventures, you can see that we have a minus because of the operations made. Also, we have a 35% of tax, unlike that of last year.
Lastly, after that tax rate, a net profit for the period of COP 587 billion, dropping 2.6%. This gives a proportion over sales of 4.3%. Definitely, it's a better quarter to think an improvement for the end of the year. Lastly, on slide 13, we can see the consolidated net debt of the group. Here we can talk about cash flow. Firstly, looking at this graph, we have a net debt of COP 3.5 billion, which leads us to an indicator of 1.7 x. The market rates is this, but with it, it's healthy. It's sound. Remember, this 1.7x is achieved after the distribution of dividends in the period. It's practically the same that we had in December 2023. Our exposure to debt is healthy. The CapEx, COP 390 billion to date. Remember the season.
With the execution of the end of the year, surely we will be closer to the budget that we announced at the beginning of the year, returns of investment capital of 3% and a free cash flow of COP 563 billion during the period. It's been a challenging year, but it's sound and healthy. With this, I end the presentation on profitability challenges and cash flow. Let's give the floor again to Carlos Ignacio, who will share with you our outlook for the end of the year, and then we'll have the Q&A session.
Thank you, José Domingo. For the last quarter of this year, we foresee at Grupo Nutresa a gradual improvement of the commercial performance. We already broke a trend, and we will have this new trend positive within and outside of Colombia.
When it comes to profitability, we still see volatility in commodities and currencies that we will manage through our hedges strategy, not only financial but also physical when possible and convenient. With the efficiency and productivity plans, we will have better returns. As José Domingo mentioned, our financial position is sound, so we will have good returns with better net profits. That's our outlook for the rest of this year. Now let's give the floor to Katherine.
Thank you, Carlos Ignacio. For now, we have no questions. With this, we end our webcast of the third quarter 2024 earnings results conference of Grupo Nutresa. Thank you very much for joining us.