Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and I would like to welcome you to Alicorp's Q4 2023 Results Conference Call on the 16th of February, 2024. At this time, all participant lines are on listen-only mode. The format of the call today will be presentation by the management and IR team, followed by a question-and-answer session. So without further ado, I would now like to pass the line to Mr. Misael Álvarez. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you and good morning, everyone. Welcome, and thanks for joining us today. Speaking to you is Misael Álvarez, Director of Strategy Portfolio and Investor Relations. As presenters today, we will have Mr. Manuel Romero, Deputy CEO and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Álvaro Rojas, Vice President of Marketing Consumer Goods Peru and COE of Marketing Consumer Goods Peru, and other members of the senior management team who will join us during the Q&A section. Today, we will be discussing the Q4 2023 results after the financial results and earnings report were issued on Thursday. If you have not received a copy of the earnings report, please visit us at www.alicorp.com.pe, where you will also find the webcast presentation to accompany our discussion during this call. Please be advised that today's call is for investors and analysts only. Therefore, questions from the media will not be taken.
If you are a member of the media and wish to direct any question to a company, please contact our team directly after the call. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that forward-looking statements may be made during this conference call. These forward-looking statements are based on several assumptions and factors that could change, causing actual reports to materially differ from current expectations. We ask that you refer to the disclaimer located in the earnings release prior to making an investment decision. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Manuel Romero, Deputy CEO and CFO of Alicorp. Manuel, please go ahead.
Thank you, Misael. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining Alicorp's Q4 2023 Earnings Call today. I would like to start by introducing you to the three new members of our top management team, followed by our consolidated and business unit's financial results, and then we will go through our leverage indicators. At the end, before the Q&A section, I will take the floor again for an update on our guidance for 2024. Let's discuss the top management incorporation on slide number five. In December, we announced the incorporation of three new members of our top management team. Álvaro Correa has been appointed as the new CEO of Alicorp and will join the company on March 1st.
With over 30 years of professional experience, he has served as Deputy CEO of Credicorp, CEO of Pacífico Seguros, CEO of Atlantic Security Bank, and CFO of Credicorp and Banco de Crédito del Perú, and more recently as Chairman of Prima AFP and COSAPI, and as member of CONFIEP Executive Committee. Álvaro is an industrial engineer and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. Additionally, Vinicius Barbosa joined Alicorp's Executive Committee as Vice President of Supply Chain. Vinicius is an industrial engineer with more than 30 years of professional experience, including a long career at AB InBev and lately at BRF. Furthermore, Fabricio Vargas has been appointed as Vitapro's General Manager starting February 1st. Fabricio holds a bachelor's degree in zootechnics and has more than 16 years of professional experience with the animal nutrition business and has been leading our shrimp business in Ecuador since 2014.
I would like to especially thank Hugo Carrillo for all the years of work and dedication to Alicorp and Vitapro, and wish him the best in his new chapter of his life. Now, let's review our consolidated adjusted gross profit on slide number seven. Before going through our financial results, we would like to advise that the following figures are being presented on a pro forma basis. These adjusted figures exclude non-recurring impacts incurred during their respective periods, and for the crushing business, given that FX arbitrage opportunities in Bolivia are becoming recurrent given the gap between the official and spot FX, we are presenting these FX gains as part of our crush margin. We believe that these adjusted figures represent the performance of our businesses in a more accurate way. You can find a summary of all the adjustments in the footnotes and in the appendix for your reference.
Our consolidated adjusted gross profit amounted to PEN 714 million, increasing 7% year-over-year. This was mainly explained by the performance of our Consumer Goods Peru, International Businesses, B2B, and crushing units. This was partially offset by Aquafeed. Excluding the crushing business, adjusted gross profit amounted to PEN 640 million, and gross profit per metric ton reached PEN 1,260, increasing 11% and 27% respectively. We are delivering a second consecutive quarter with relevant growth rates in terms of adjusted gross profit, excluding crushing, as a result of the changes in our strategy implemented back in the Q2 of last year. Let's now review our consolidated adjusted EBITDA on slide number eight. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA reached PEN 403 million, a 10% year-over-year increase explained by the performance of Consumer Goods Peru, International Businesses, B2B, and crushing.
Excluding the crushing business, adjusted EBITDA amounted to PEN 357 million, and adjusted EBITDA per metric ton reached PEN 702 , increasing 23% and 41% year-over-year respectively. Similarly, this is the second consecutive quarter with more than 20% year-over-year growth in terms of adjusted EBITDA, excluding crushing, in which our consumer goods Peru and B2B businesses grew more than PEN 100 million year-over-year, and our international businesses grew almost PEN 35 million. Now, let me pass the floor over to Álvaro, who will discuss in greater detail the operating results for our consumer goods Peru business.
Thank you, Manuel. Let's move on to the performance of our consumer goods Peru unit on slide 10. Volume in the Q4 decreased 10% compared to 2022, impacted by market contractions due to Peru's economic context and by the successful execution of the company's new business strategy, which is focused on our core brands and the traditional channel, intentionally reducing our share in low-profit price tiers. Regarding market dynamics, we observed several contractions between 2022 and 2023 in categories such as pasta, down 4%; edible oils, down 5%; cookies, down 10%; and mayonnaise, down 5%. Regarding our new business strategy, and as mentioned in previous calls, we are now focused on driving growth spearheaded by our six emblematic brands and capturing volume that contributes greater value to the company.
Moreover, we have strengthened our efforts and investments in the traditional channel, where we are seeing strong results as our core brands have grown 7% in the Q4 2023 versus the period before we implemented this new strategy. This has led us to improve our sales mix in this channel by one percentage point and reach a 77% mix in core volume, up seven percentage points, both in Q 4 2023 compared to the same period of 2022. Although the Q4 2023 delivers a 10% volume reduction compared to Q4 2022, focusing on our emblematic brands has enabled us to achieve a remarkable increase of 29% in adjusted gross profit compared to the same period of 2022. Moreover, our adjusted gross profit per metric ton has increased 44% over the same periods.
Additionally, now that we have stabilized our volume platform, our plan is to accelerate growth in volume and market share in these already identified higher-value segments. Finally, adjusted EBITDA increased 78% year-over-year in the Q4 2023, mainly driven by higher gross profit despite an increase in SG&A expenses compared to last year, which is explained by marketing investments in our core brands to generate tiering up and administrative expenses reallocation. Now, I'll pass the floor over to Manuel, who will cover the B2B international businesses crushing and Aquafeed units, as well as our liquidity and debt metrics.
Thank you, Álvaro. Moving on to B2B, despite the continuous market challenges as a result of the economic situation reducing out-of-home consumption for the second consecutive quarter, we increased our volume sold when compared to 2022, achieving 1.3% increase. This was mainly driven by a recovery in market share in core categories such as edible oils, flour, and shortenings. We remain focused on sustaining healthy gross margins with a year-over-year increase of 5.8 percentage points in the Q4 of 2023, mainly explained by lower cost pressures due to lower international commodity prices. As a result, adjusted gross profit per metric ton reached PEN 795, which represents a strong increase of 21% year-over-year despite lower revenue. Adjusted EBITDA in the Q4 amounted to PEN 82 million, a year-over-year increase of 42% compared to the Q4 of 2022.
On a full-year basis, adjusted EBITDA reached PEN 301 million, a 20% increase compared to 2022. Let's move on to the performance of international businesses and crushing on slide 11. Adjusted EBITDA in international businesses registered another positive performance in the Q4 , reaching PEN 24 million, a year-over-year increase of PEN 34 million. This result is mainly explained by Bolivia, which registered a PEN 30 million increase mainly due to the performance of edible oils, as we are experiencing less cost pressure from commodities and prioritizing higher-value volume. Moreover, in Bolivia, our home care platform and categories such as shortenings and margarines continue to contribute positively to the generation of EBITDA.
Other geographies registered a PEN 5 million year-over-year increase in adjusted EBITDA in the Q4 , mainly explained by higher gross profit, while in Ecuador, we managed to improve gross margin in 5.7 percentage points and adjusted gross profit per metric ton in 16%, as we are now prioritizing core categories. Moving on to crushing, during the Q4 , we achieved a record in volume sold of soybean meal. As a result, volume sold to third parties increased by 18% compared to last year. As a reminder, we are including exchange rate arbitrage in our pro forma figures. During the Q4 , we registered $6 million due to these arbitrage opportunities, positively impacting our cash flow generation. On a full-year basis, we generated $22 million.
Going forward, we expect these gains to continue putting pressure on accounting operating margins, as competitors are also including these FX gains as part of their crushing margins. Regarding adjusted EBITDA, including the aforementioned FX gains, amounted to $11 million in the Q4 , $9 million less than the same period of 2022. This was mainly explained by the impacts of the drop of soybean oil international prices. It is important to mention that in early 2023, we had impacts due to the blockages in the Desaguadero, which negatively impacted our EBITDA by roughly $18 million, of which $10 million were related to hedging rollovers, which were strictly related to those blockages. Although this was a one-time event, it has not been considered as non-recurring and therefore as an adjustment to the results.
Let's move on to slide 12 for an update on the Aquafeed business. The global shrimp industry continued to be challenged with low prices throughout the fourth quarter. Worldwide shrimp hit its lowest price towards the end of the fourth quarter, causing many farmers to sell below cost. The impact of the global crisis is reflected in the negative trend we see in the value of Ecuadorian shrimp exports, which decreased 7% in 2023 versus 2022. In this context, farmers are shifting to lower-tier feed, aiming for large discounts and lenient commercial terms. In terms of business performance, adjusted gross profit in the Q4 decreased 43% year-over-year, explained by a reduction in volume sold in both of our feed business units, the tiering down of our portfolio, and price reductions due to the aggressive competitive dynamic.
Adjusted EBITDA in the Q4 decreased 45% year-over-year, mainly as a result of lower gross profit, partially offset by reductions in SG&A expenses. We expect shrimp prices and farming densities to recover during the H2 of 2024. Moving on to slide 14 to comment on our leverage, debt, and liquidity metrics. Regarding our debt metrics, as our volume stabilized and our profitability our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio posted a relevant decrease.
Ladies and gentlemen, please stand by. Our apologies, ladies and gentlemen. Please stand by. We're reconnecting with the host.
Let's turn to slide 16 to wrap up today's presentation with a glimpse of what we expect for full-year 2024 results. First, I would like to share with you our main assumptions behind our guidance. In 2024, we will continue to consolidate our strategy for our consumer goods Peru unit with special focus on our emblematic brands and our traditional channel, as well as continuing our efforts for revenue management and optimization of categories and brands. Regarding international businesses, the focus in Bolivia will be on optimizing our profitability levels, and in Ecuador, we will focus on four key categories alongside the consolidation of our go-to-market strategy to continue developing our presence within the country. B2B, as mentioned earlier, will seek to gain market share in some categories while maintaining healthy profitability levels.
For our Aquafeed business in Ecuador, we expect a cautious market growth as we anticipate conditions for shrimp to recover mainly during the second half of the year. We also expect to continue improving productivity in our supply chain, consolidating production and storage in larger, more efficient plants and warehouses. Over the past six months, we have seen relevant improvements that should also help our profitability and service levels across all businesses. Taking these factors into account, we expect a low single-digit year-over-year growth for our consolidated revenue. Regarding consolidated adjusted EBITDA excluding crushing, we expect a 13%-18% increase after a challenging 2023. Including the crushing business, we expect our adjusted EBITDA will increase between 17%-22% as crushing margins start recovering. As for our investment for 2024, CapEx is estimated in approximately $76 million.
Excluding our expansion project in Aquafeed would amount to $62 million in line with 2023 levels. For leverage, we estimate a 0.5 times net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio by year-end 2024 on the back of the improvements on our cash flow generation. This concludes our presentation, and we welcome any questions you may have.
Thank you very much. We'll now be moving to the Q&A part of the call. If you have any questions, please press star two on your keypad. That's star two on your keypad for any questions. You may also ask a voice question using the web interface. Once again, star two for any additional questions. Okay. Just once again, star two for any questions. We will give another minute or so for anyone with a question.
Most of this will be easy.
Fabiola Garrido, your line is open, please.
Hello? Sorry?
Yes, hi, Fabiola. We had a question from you. We noted a question earlier.
Oh, yeah?
That your line is open.
Fabiola Garrido from Moody's. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Do you hear me? Sorry?
Yes, we can hear you. Please go ahead.
Sorry, I didn't have any question. I don't know if I pressed a button by mistake.
Okay. No problem. Okay. Just a reminder, if there are any additional questions, please press star two. Okay. We have a question from Mr. Juan José Guzmán from Scotiabank. Please go ahead, sir.
Yes. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for your time for the call. Sorry if you already mentioned this in your remarks. I'd just like to understand how much of the gross margin gains came from your portfolio optimization process and how much of it came from lower commodity costs during the quarter, and what are you expecting on this front for 2024? Thank you very much, guys.
Thank you for your question. I'll pass that question to Álvaro. Basically, what part of the gross margin improvement comes from commodity price reductions versus the portfolio optimization? Thank you.
Okay. Thanks for the question. I would say that around 50% of the better gross margins come from lower commodity prices, and 50% come from portfolio optimization and focusing on our core brands and also on the traditional channels. We have managed to significantly improve our sales mix towards brands with higher gross profit and, in a very complex context, generate tiering up. W e see that as sustainable in the next few months, even though challenges will be high. We are very confident in the strength of our brands and our marketing plans to help us deliver those results.
That's very clear. Thank you very much, guys.
Okay. Thank you very much. We have a text question from Gamze Alpar. If I can read that out to the team, can you please give us some color on the outlook for the crushing business? Thank you.
Yeah. For the crushing business, I'll pass the question to Lucio Estrada.
Thank you for the question. As Manuel explained on the call, we're expecting crushing margins to recover as commodity prices stabilize a little bit for the year. And we are, as always, working extremely close to the farmers, and we expect to be a slight improvement versus previous year.
Okay. Thank you very much for that answer. Just once again, STAR 2. If there are any additional questions, that's STAR 2 for any additional questions. We'll give another moment.
I think we missed a question from Moody's that we weren't able to hear. Could you please repeat the question so we can answer it?
I think that that question was a mistake. We opened the line, but there was no question.
Oh, okay. Okay.
Okay. Just once again, star 2 for any additional questions. You may also ask a voice or a text if you are dialed in via the web.
Okay. Since there are no further questions, I think we're good to end the call. Thank you very much, everyone, for joining.
Thank you very much. This concludes today's conference call. We'll now be closing all the lines. Thank you and goodbye.
Thanks.