Recording in progress. of the results of the fourth quarter of 2022. Present here today are Mr. Luciano Quartiero, Director President, Flavio Vargas, CFO and IR Officer, and the company's investor relations team. We would like to inform that this event is being recorded, and all participants will be in the listen-only mode during the company's presentation. At the end, we will open the questions for analysts and investors. We would like to emphasize that any forward-looking statement that might be made during this conference call related to Camil's business outlook, projections, and financial and operating goals are based on the beliefs and assumptions of the company's management, as well as information currently available. They may involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions as they refer to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur.
Investors must understand that such general economic industry conditions and other operating factors may lead to results that differ substantially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. We will start the presentation of Mr. Luciano, followed by Flavio, and at the end, we will open for Q&A in approximately 10 minutes. Thank you.
Hello. Welcome to the comments on the results of the 4th quarter and year of 2022. In this first slide, we bring you an update on Camil's data as one of the most complete platforms of products and leading brands in the food market in Latin America. Camil's size translates the achievement of a successful expansion strategy through acquisitions in the domestic and international markets. We have 1,000 employees in 35 plants in Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Peru and Ecuador, with leading brands in a prominent position in all segments.
On slide 3, we bring you a view of the company by category. In 2022, in Brazil, we added three new categories to the portfolio. We completed one year in the pasta category. We launched coffee and at the end of the year we added cookies. This was another important step towards the diversification of the company with categories that have relevant growth potential and higher added value. Therefore, for the market from now on, our communication will focus on three business fronts: The high turnover segment, which in Brazil consists of the grain and sugar operations, the high value segment with pasta, cookies, coffee and fish, and the international segment. Before talking about the results, I would like to comment on the performance of the new categories in Camil's results. In the pasta operation, we leveraged the synergies announced with the agile integration plan of Santa Amália.
In addition to performing with excellent profitability throughout the year, even despite a very difficult scenario for wheat operations globally. We simplified and repositioned the prices of the pasta portfolio, and as a result, we boosted the profitability of the category, doubling Santa Amália's margin in only one year. Soon after the entry into pasta, we announced the launch of coffee with investments in Café Bom Dia and the launch of Café União, revitalizing one of the most traditional brands in Brazil that was once the market leader in the category. We worked hard to have our coffees reaching the shelves by April of 2022, going from to a current market share close to 5% in the Greater São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro areas. We continue to leverage our growth with the launch of new SKUs to enhance the gain of scale in coffee.
Certainly we cannot fail to highlight our most recent acquisition, the company's entry into cookies with the Mabel brand and the licensing of the Toddy brand for cookies. The entry into cookies reinforces Camil's presence in the Midwest, Northeast and Southeast of Brazil. Contemplating supply synergies with the pasta, commercial and G&A operations. Mabel entered the company with a negative EBITDA margin and in less than four months we've reached the operations turnaround. Now the focus is on continuing to enhance Mabel's profitability to gain scale and relevance in a result that is already proving to be positive and of high value. Internationally, we announced our entry into the Ecuadorian rice market with the acquisition of Dajahu, a leader in the country's aged rice segment.
We also concluded the acquisition of Silcom in Uruguay, entering the Uruguayan domestic market with a relevant position in the healthy products category in the country, responding to a growing demand in consumer habits and also representing our first step into the expansion of new categories in the international segment. All the acquisitions and their excellent results this year achieved fast and efficient integrations, reinforcing our entrepreneurial spirit focused on a strategic growth through the combination of synergies between categories. Now moving on to the financial highlights of the period, we achieved record gross revenues of BRL 11.8 billion and net revenues of BRL 10.2 billion for the year, up 13% year-on-year. In the quarter, we posted gross revenue of BRL 3 billion and BRL 2.5 billion in net revenue, also a double-digit growth.
This is a milestone of a new revenue level for the company, remembering that the part of the acquisitions is not yet included in a full year within our results. Regarding EBITDA, it stood at BRL 157 million in the quarter, with a margin of 6.2%. On the operating side, in terms of volumes, Q4 was impacted by the lower seasonality of the period and also the result from a challenging economic scenario in Latin America, which put pressure on results in the food retail sector. The temporary reduction in purchases by retailers in the period led to lower volumes and consequently lower dilution of fixed costs and expenses, which impacted profitability in the quarter. In the year, we recall that the acquisition of Mabel from an accounting management point of view posted an advantageous purchase gain in the third quarter.
This effect, together with the operating result for the period, resulted in an EBITDA of BRL 920 million, up 14% year-on-year with a margin of 9%. Excluding the non-recurring items of Q3, EBITDA in a year came to BRL 778 million with a margin of 7.6%. After the integrations and acquisitions of the period, the company focused on efficiency projects on a higher added value product mix, also on our ability to boost sales with our cross-selling strategy, leveraging sales across the different categories. Turning to our operating results by segment. High turnover, which is characterized by the grain and sugar categories in Brazil, was the most impacted by this more challenging scenario of temporary slowdown in purchases by retailers.
In the results that shows the high turnover, the greatest impact came from sugar, with a greater drop in volumes and prices due to a more competitive scenario in competitors' prices. With this sugar scenario and the temporary reduction in customer purchases of grains, we had a 10% volume decrease in the year. It is worth pointing out that we did not notice major variations in consumer behavior, which reinforces the thesis that this is a temporary effect on sales in the period. This volume effect was partially offset by the growth in grain prices, which remained at high levels during the period.
In the high value category in Brazil, which includes fish, pasta, cookies, and coffee, volume increased by 47% in the quarter and 138% in the year due to the entry of the new coffee and cookies categories in the period, also an excellent result in fish volumes. To give you a little bit more detail on each of these segments, fish is a category that recovered from the sardine stock-out of 2021, in addition to resuming its historical profitability, reported volume above historical levels for the period. Cookies entered the company on November 1st, Q4 was the first quarter in which we reported the results of the operation as a whole, which was still in the process of integration and turnaround.
In coffee, the category was launched at the end of March 2022, and we continue to experience monthly growth and gains in market share. We are launching new SKUs to drive volumes and scale up the category in the new year, such as roasted and ground coffee in vacuum packaging and also 250-gram pouch packaging for certain markets. Pasta had a reduction in volumes due to the price repositioning carried out in the category's low pricing brand, as well as our efforts to reduce SKUs that were less profitable in the portfolio. With this, even with lower volumes in the category, we were able to double the pasta EBITDA margin since the acquisition, showing excellent profitability in the year and in the quarter. In the international area, we posted volume growth, mostly attributed to the increase in exports from Uruguay.
In the quarter, we had an expected drop due to the temporary mismatch of exports in the country. This movement is typical of the Uruguayan business model that this year concentrated its exports mainly in the 2nd quarter. In Peru and Chile, the volume of packaged rice sales and profitability continued to be pressured by the political and economic scenario of these countries. In Ecuador, sales volume dropped in the quarter, the country's profitability has been showing good results with the focus on efficiency actions and commercial structure. The gain of scale we have presented to you and the agile integration of the acquisitions were part of the major achievements of the period.
Facing a challenging macro context and the challenges imposed by the acquisitions in the last fiscal year, I would like to give special thanks this year to our team of Camil employees for their dedication, as well as the trust of our shareholders, board members, customers, and other partners. With a robust platform of strong brands, leadership positioning, and market know-how, we begin a new cycle, increasingly confident that the company is on the right path to anticipate trends and strengthen its position as a consolidator in the food sector in South America. Now, to provide more details about our financial performance, I will turn the floor to Flavio. Please go ahead, Flavio.
Thank you, Luciano. Good morning, everyone. Starting the analysis of the financial performance for the quarter, we achieved BRL 2.5 billion in net revenue for the quarter, up 11% year-on-year.
Cost of goods sold also increased due to prices and the entry into the new categories. As a result, our gross profit was BRL 481 million, 13% higher than the last year, with a margin of 19% for the quarter. SG&A was 16.5% of net revenue for the period. Remembering that, as mentioned by Luciano, we had the acquisitions, the new acquisitions in the period, while the revenue and sales volume of part of these acquisitions are still being incorporated into the company's results. Besides the acquisitions, we had an increase in freight and personnel costs in the period. In other operating revenues, there was the impact of accounting adjustments related to the acquisition of Mabel and the effect of the debt forgiveness of Café Bom Dia.
Due to the reduction in volumes in the period, EBITDA for the quarter came to BRL 157 million, with a margin of 6.2%. Net income was BRL 16 million, impacted mainly by the financial result, with an increase in financial expenses due to the increase in interest rates between the periods. For the year, net revenue for the quarter totaled BRL 10.2 billion, a 13% growth compared to the previous year. COGS also grew due to prices and entry into the new categories. As a result, our gross profit was BRL 2.1 billion, up 19% year-on-year, with a margin of 21% for the year. SG&A was 16.1% in the net revenue for the period.
We had non-recurring effects in the year of BRL 142 million, including provisions that impacted the third quarter, the third quarter's SG&A and the revenue related to the advantageous purchase of the Mabel acquisition and the provision for the transfer of the cookies industrial asset from PepsiCo's plant in Sorocaba to the cookies plant in Goiânia. EBITDA for the year came to BRL 920 million, up 14% with a margin of 9%. Excluding the non-recurring effects mentioned above, EBITDA totaled BRL 778 million, up 8% with a margin of 7.6%. The net financial result showed an expense of BRL 80 million in the quarter and expenses of BRL 209 million in 2022 due to the higher financial expenses resulting from the interest rate growth between the periods.
Taking all of these factors into account, net income was BRL 16 million with a margin of 1% in a quarter and BRL 354 million with a margin of 3.5% in 2022. The company's net debt reached BRL 2.7 billion, with net debt over EBITDA for the last 12 months of 3x in the period. We would like to remind you that the acquisitions entered the balance sheet all at once, impacting both debt and working capital, while the result for the year does not yet contemplate the 12 months of most of the acquisition. CapEx was BRL 99 million in the quarter and BRL 400 million in the year, with Mabel's payment of BRL 177 million in the third quarter, maintenance investments and some expansion projects.
It is worth mentioning the postponement of part of the company's scheduled expansion projects in view of the new interest rate level. Working capital amounted to BRL 2.5 billion, an increase over the previous year with the new acquisitions and a sequential reduction due to the seasonality of grains in the period. Finally, in ESG, we have actions in the sustainability report available to you at CVM and also on the IR website that are consistent with Camil's business planning for the coming years and also in line with our focus on taking actions that are effective in our surroundings. In the year, we highlight the work on ESG culture work in the company with discussions involving working groups and ESG targets for the third year linked to the variable compensation of all the company's officers.
We are focused on the continuity of zero accident projects in work safety, social training projects such as Doce Futuro União, increased use and generation of renewable energy, and progress on climate change initiatives, reporting on our emissions inventory and CDP. To wrap up, as already highlighted by Luciano, we are in a new growth cycle guided by actions focused on leveraging our efficiency and synergies from acquisitions. It was a difficult year due to macro events in the world and in Latin America that impacted the food retail scenario as a whole.
Our business model was defensive, minimizing these effects on our results. Today, we have initiatives aimed at increasing our profitability and exposure to high value categories, as well as resuming sales and profitability of the high turnover category. Both take the company increasingly to a new level of scale and profitability. Well, now we've remained at your disposal for the Q&A in case you have questions. Thank you all very much.
We will now initiate the Q&A session to investors and analysts. In case you want to ask a question, please press the Raise Hand button. If your question has been answered, you can leave the queue by clicking in that icon again. Our first question comes from Guilherme Palhares from Bank of America.
Good morning, Luciano, Flavio, and others. Thank you for this opportunity to ask a question. I have two very quick questions. Luciano, in your remarks, you talked about the retail issue and the fact that this is a temporary effect. Could you please tell us what happened from February onwards, whether you still see the same scenario? Do you think that this is still a very restrictive sell-in scenario?
We don't see any reasons for that to change to another level. Could you please elaborate on the landscape since then? Also, you know, tell us a little bit about your coffee business. I just want to talk about the packaging. We see that this segment is also pursuing this trend in terms of demand from retailers, you know, demanding volume. With the new packaging that we see, both, you know, 250 gram pouches or the vacuum packages, you know, how much of that addressable market you can, you know, you can serve, and how is the coffee market, and how much of the volumes you will be able to allocate? If you could comment on these two topics, I would appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you for your questions. I think the topic of retail, especially when you talk about the high volume category, we had these two effects. Retail as a whole, and I think all the companies are focusing on working capital, and they're looking at areas where things can be improved. In practical terms, I mean, they want to reduce their working capital days, the retailers are very much focused on that. On our last earnings release in the third quarter, we talked about, you know, lower inventories, and we have the feeling that the retail is checking or testing new inventory levels. They are trying to operate with even lower levels of inventory days. This, even considering the rice category with the beginning of the season, there was an expectation of, you know, lower prices, which is usually common in most seasons.
I mean, this season was different because there was a spike in prices, but the retail, with that desire to reduce their inventories, and on the other hand, we have the market with some price expectation. I mean, the margins are very low, and this certainly impacted the months of January and February. Now, going into March, we went to the other extreme. We came from a very weak month, which was February, because of this dynamic that I just mentioned, and March was a very strong month for the company. Therefore, throughout the months of March and April, that lower sell-in on our parts that occurred in January and February was totally reversed. That was a one-off moment, as I said before. That doesn't mean that the year will not be challenging, because I think that, in general, the purchasing power is lower now.
With everyone that I talk to, we see a reduction on average ticket and the customer going to the stores more often. This is a reflection of a lower purchasing power. I think that the landscape going forward will be more challenging. March and April showed that what happened in January and February was left behind. It's something from the past. Looking at coffee. With coffee, we launched the 250 g pouch. I mean, we had 2 SKUs. One was for 500 g for extra strong coffee and traditional coffee. We introduced the 350 g pouch, and we started with vacuum packages for 250 and 500 g. This new packaging opens new market opportunities because that fills in a gap.
There are regions of Brazil that demand more vacuum packages than pouches. Like in the south of the country, they are more demanding for vacuum packages. With the entrance of new products, I really believe that we will capture further growth going forward. The market was also very hard. Sell-in had a drop in prices throughout the fourth quarter, and this impacted the sell-in of the category as a whole. We have a perception, or we believe that this will change now also throughout this first quarter. I think with that, I answered all of your questions.
Perfect, Luciano. Thank you very much for that clarification. Our next question comes from Gustavo Troyano from Itaú BBA.
Good morning, Luciano and Flavio. Thank you for this opportunity. I would like to talk about two particular points. One, cookies and the acquisition of Mabel.
During your opening remarks, Luciano, you said that the ramp-up process and the profitability of the new business was moving quite well. I just wanna get some color about what has been done in terms of what you sent to us at the beginning of the acquisition. Maybe you said you would optimize your vendor structure, try to optimize prices, and change the mix in the sales channel. What has been done and what is yet to be done in order to extract more value and to increase the profitability of the business? My second question along the same lines, you know, speaking about your high value profitability, how do we compare the profitability of your two segments, high turnover and high value?
Today, where do you expect the premium from high value will be versus the premium from high turnover when you look at more normalized margins? Could you please elaborate a little bit more about these two portfolios and the margins? Okay. Thank you.
Gustavo, thank you for your questions. These are very good questions. I will answer, you know, to the best of my knowledge. Starting with cookies. The company worked very hard in this regard. I mean, supply, with all of the knowledge that we had acquired from Santa Amália, we were able to capture a good cost reduction of the main raw materials. In the case of flour is a very good example of that. We had a significant reduction when compared to prices that the company used to have before the acquisition.
With sugar, we also made relative, you know, we made improvements in relative terms. SG&A that was incorporated by the company. I mean, we didn't acquire any SG&A. We just had the plants with their employees and the machinery. Our SG&A just absorbed this new operation. As for distribution and sales, all of that, I mean, there was a very quick transaction, and that was immediately turned to our team. Today our salesperson sells all categories for high turnover and high value. Throughout the process we also realized that customers had many needs, especially in the cash channel. Camil has a very strong relationship with them, and this helped us to accelerate sales in volumes, you know. Right at the beginning.
At first, we expected to zero out our negative margins in eight or nine months. In February, we reached the breakeven. The negative EBITDA part was solved. We hope that throughout this first quarter we will now reach a positive level. This category operates with historical margins which are above Camil's historical margins. Therefore, now going towards your second question. When you look at high turnover and high value, high turnover historically in the company was around 10-11. In the last few years, we are running more around eight and nine. We expect to recover that level, going back to previous levels. This is the potential that we see for this high turnover category. Now looking at the high value category, we have the pasta category already consolidated. We see the possibility to improve profitability this year.
This will be a challenge for us considering that there will be a drop in raw material. We don't know how much of that will migrate into prices. This will be the first year where we see a drop in prices. We still have some learnings to capture. We see great potential. We see possibilities to increase that further. In terms of coffee, we are still, you know, conquering market share. It's not yet where it should be, but I think that the category should go back to its historical levels. Now looking at cookies. This is a category that operates above Camil's historical level of ten.
I believe that to reach that level, which is above 10, this will certainly depend on volume growth, and this is something that has been happening, and I think is worth mentioning that we are hiring more people to our two cookie plants, precisely with the intent of increasing production. We had an idle capacity of 50% in the plants, so we were prepared to run at 50% capacity of the two plants.
Today we are putting more people because we are selling more. Gustavo, this is what I can tell you about the two brands. High turnover, the purpose, the objective is to go back to that level of 10. High value, when we look at all of the competitors, they are operating above that level of 10. They operate at around 12 or 13. We are going to work diligently to get there in the next coming years.
Thank you, Luciano. That was very clear. Thank you, Gustavo. Our next question comes from Pedro Fonseca from XP. Pedro, you may proceed. Your microphone is on.
Hello, can you hear me now? I'm sorry, my microphone was off.
Pedro, your microphone is chopping. It's turning in and on.
I'm sorry. I just have some technical problems. My first question is just a follow-up on Luciano's answer to Guilherme's question about the first quarter. Luciano said that March was a very strong month for the company, April is also very good. I would just like to learn more about the different categories. Does that mean that there was improvements in all categories or some categories are still lagging behind? I would just like to get some more information about the different categories and an update on the fish segment. I would just like to learn more about your supply situation and this very strong recovery in the fish category. Thinking towards in terms of the year, how much of that could impact the final results for the year for the company?
Thank you for your questions, Pedro. I think while March and April, well, we had a very strong recovery in beans and rice. Sugar, we still struggled with the behavior from our main competitors in terms of their price aggressiveness. The company has been very defensive in sugar. Moving to fish, we have this seasonality of the sales after lent, so therefore the cycle is very strong because of the pre-lent period. In the first quarter we have the effect from after lent. This is within the normality of our seasonality curve and the availability of raw material is okay, so that's no longer an issue. We have a lot of raw material. We have good inventory of raw material for a few months, so we have no concerns with supply at this point. This is a topic when that is in the past.
All of the pains we had with fish in the last few years is no longer here, that's history. When we look at the other categories, cookies. Cookies, we are capturing this growth. Pasta did not recover completely, with coffee we are still in this gradual process that I mentioned. In general, we see a sequential and important improvement, Pedro. Speaking about the international segment, this is very much in line with what we had in the first quarter of last year. I think the difficulty we're having in Chile and Peru, you know, still remains at the same level. Ecuador is going quite well, the same thing goes for Uruguay. In general, this is what I can tell you.
Very good, Luciano. Thank you very much, sorry for my technical problems at the beginning.
Our next question from Lucas Ferreira from JP Morgan.
Hello, good morning. I hope you can hear me well. I have two follow-up questions. My first question, I mean, you said that this was a very challenging year and whether you expect any problems in years of, you know, increasing minimum wages or whether this could have any impact on your numbers. In general, whether you think that, you know, lower inflation could help you in this consumption scenario. My other question is more like an understanding. What would it be necessary for you to resume margins of 10% in a high turnover segment? What would be the most important stages? What is the impediment in terms of margins this year? If you have any expectation of when you would be able to resume to more normalized margins.
Starting with the margins, I would prefer not to give any guidance. The company is doing some constant work seeking for efficiency, cost scale is important to all of our categories, so the company remains working hard in this regard. There is an important aspect which is capturing the synergies from the new categories. The fact that we have pasta, cookies and coffee in a short period of only 14 months, this was an enormous challenge. The operation is not yet running very efficient considering the entry of the new categories. I would say that we still have efficiency gains to be implemented and certainly this will help us to reach that level. Again, I don't want to give you any guidance of when this could happen, but I would just like to emphasize that we are really working on this top-topic.
In terms of the scenario, any enhance in income is certainly welcome. We feel that food inflation of the lower income brackets was much higher than what the numbers indicate. We have some categories that are seeing some price reduction as and this could be a relief. It's seen as a relief, and this could probably bring some improvements. Internally we are working with the opposite scenario, that the difficulty is still among us, that we have to capture internal efficiencies to improve results. We have to improve our internal efficiency rather than increase our prices. This is the scenario we are working with. I think in general, this is it. We see that this tightening in credit for the C and D class is very, very important.
This reflects on my previous comment when I said that the average ticket of retail is coming down. This is a sign that there is not enough money circulating, but the company then is ready for a tougher year. We're running the risk of being repetitive, but this is it.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you very much. As a reminder for question, just click on the Raise Hand button. Our next question comes from Rodrigo Almeida from Santander.
Good morning, Luciano and Flavio, and the entire team of Camil. I'll try to probably explore some points with you, I will start with Uruguay. I would like to understand how do you see the performance of Uruguay going forward, and also, you know, about Uruguay again, what do you see in terms of difficulties? The second point that I will try to talk to you is on working capital. My question and my difficulty again, is that whenever we talk about the strategy to ramp up the new businesses, how will that behave going forward? Correct me if I'm wrong, between 2.5 or 2.6 of working capital, I just wanna understand how do you see the need to add more working capital as we see the ramp up of these operations.
Mabel seems to be more relevant in this regard, both in terms of input costs and in terms of the entire operation. You know, price and costs may be, you know, at what level you see that reaching and what will be the required working capital going forward.
Thank you, Rodrigo, for your questions. The season in Uruguay was slightly lower and this will bring lower volumes looking at this year. Uruguay sells the available season, crop season. Another issue about Uruguay is that Silcom, our first diversification outside Brazil and in Uruguay is a small operation. They are running according to expected with high EBITDA margins. There are some captures of synergies still domestic. They are not very significant when we look at Camil as a whole, but locally it has been a very interesting operation that is really surpassing our expectations.
When we look at working capital, and I'll just, you know, briefly comment on it and then Flavio will add to my comments. This has been a concern of all companies. Everybody is looking at working capital and the same thing applies to us. We have been challenging ourselves to see what else we can do to make improvements both in terms of deadlines for sales, inventory days, purchases or procurement, et cetera. Cookies, as you said, is bringing some demand. The growth in coffee will also bring additional demand. I would just like to say that Camil is no different than the other companies, but we have to see what we can do to make further improvements.
This is Flavio. Rodrigo, when you look at the working capital evolution in 2022, 2023-- 2021, 2022, 2023, this reflects the acquisition of our new businesses.
You have the ramp up of the coffee business. You also have the acquisition of Mabel, which was a company that we acquired with no working capital. You have the recomposition even similar to an additional investment. Therefore, if we look at the scenario going forward, I think that the evolution of working capital is pretty much normal. I mean, looking at increases in volumes and also looking at the price fluctuations. With that caveat that Luciano mentioned, as you know, we are part of a major change. I mean, The entire chain is looking at working capital and we are doing the same because we want to, you know, focus on the receiving end or receiving deadlines, trying to get some commercial benefits in our working capital management or working capital negotiation.
We are trying to do the same thing on the vendor side, trying to capture some efficiencies and by the same token be more efficient in terms of our whole operation, looking at inventory levels of raw material, packaging and inputs, so that with that we would be able to have a more efficient management. From now on, I mean, going forward you will be able to see business as usual, I mean, more normality in terms of working capital. Perfect. Thank you very much.
We got a question in writing from Model Centers. This greater internal efficiency and increased margin could be also be captured through a higher focus on logistics distribution. Well, certainly this is one of the fronts that we will explore.
We are looking at, you know, reducing expenses, but logistics has been something very important for a company that works with scale, the utilization of distribution centers. This is something that we did with all the acquired companies. We are now redoing that again. Freight cost something that escalated in the past few years. This has been an important number and we are paying attention to it. The structure of our DCs and the DCs that have been acquired is also you know, in our radar. There are still some significant things to be captured going forward. Thank you for your question.
To ask questions, just click on the Raise Hand button. The Q&A session is now concluded. We would like to thank you very much for joining us and have a very good day.