Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Camil Day 2021. This video conference is being recorded and the replay can be accessed on the company's IR website. The presentations are also available for download on the IR website in the Financial Information menu, under Presentations and Conference Calls. We would like to inform you that all participants will be on listen-only mode during the presentation. Then we will start the Q&A session, where you may raise your hand and open the microphone to ask the questions. Further instructions will be provided before the Q&A. Before proceeding, let me take this opportunity to reinforce that forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Camil's management and current information available to the company. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties as they relate to future events, and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur.
Investors, analysts, and journalists should note that events related to the macroeconomic environment, the industry, and other factors may cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. Present here with us are Mr. Luciano Quartiero, CEO of the company, and Mr. Flavio Vargas, CFO and Investor Relations Officer, other officers in the company's investor relations, M&A, and ESG team. To begin, I would like now to give the floor to Mr. Luciano Quartiero, CEO, who will start the presentation.
We nurture relationships that make our lives tastier every day? We are Camil Alimentos, one of the largest food companies in Latin America, with operations in five countries including Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, and Ecuador, with more than 30 brands in our portfolio and leadership positions in all countries and market categories. We've been present in the lives of consumers since 1963.
Camil Alimentos has been in the market for 60 years, and it started in the grain segment in Brazil. Since then, it has been building brands and products and growing the company into new countries and categories. Today, Camil is consolidated as one of the largest food multinationals in Latin America, with a strong presence in the everyday life of consumers and several brands in the rice, beans, sugar, canned fish, pasta, and coffee categories, and other added-value products. With over 7,000 employees in Latin America, we work every day to bring quality products to our consumers, delivering safety and strengthening the connection with our consumers, thus contributing to the differentiation of our products, which is a priority for the company. By building strong brands, this strategy allows us to capture a brand premium in the markets where we operate, and it's an important pillar for the company.
The quality of the products, coupled with our well-executed marketing strategy, puts us in a prominent position in all countries of operation. Among our main brands, we highlight Camil. In Brazil, Camil is a category leader in rice. The Camil brand offers the most complete grains portfolio on the market, with different types of rice and beans, in addition to lentils, chickpea, peas and soybean, and fresh and whole grain products, and ready-to-eat products with a communication strategy focused on supporting the consumer journey of Brazilians. The brand reinforces the importance of daily home cooking with tips and weekly recipes being recognized by Brazilians as a top-of-mind brand and several other awards. União.
União is recognized as a highly renowned brand and is the leader in the refined sugar and a national heritage, providing unique moments to Brazilians through delicious recipes that have been sweetening people's lives for over 110 years. With the most encompassing portfolio in the market in sweetening solutions, the brand carries a line of cake mixes and other high added-value products, being also recognized by Brazilians as a top-of-mind brand and several other awards. Coqueiro. For over 80 years operating in Brazil, Coqueiro offers products that contribute to a healthier, practical, and tastier meal. With a portfolio consisting of tuna and sardines, in addition to filets, sauces, and spreads, the brand focuses on a communication that supports the daily life of people with tips and recipes that bring more possibilities to the table of Brazilians. Santa Amália Alimentos.
The most recent acquisition of Camil Alimentos marked the entry in the pasta category in Brazil. Santa Amália was acquired by the company in 2021 and makes up a portfolio with outstanding brands and absolute leadership in the category in the state of Minas Gerais. Santa Amália has top-of-mind brands that represents a geographical complementarity with great growth potential for Camil and its categories. International. SAMAN. The main rice processor in Uruguay. SAMAN has 48% market share and has a state-of-the-art industrial and technological infrastructure that allows the company to process and manage the entire rice cycle from production to commercialization. Tucapel.
With operations earmarked for the domestic market and a traditional brand in the country, Tucapel was voted the most valuable rice brand in Chile in 2020, reinforcing Camil's commitment to quality and the recognition of our consumers in all the regions we operate in Latin America. Costeño. Camil's operations in Peru focuses on the sale of packaged goods in the domestic market. Costeño has a long track record and a large portfolio of products that makes it one of the best-known brands by Peruvians in rice. Rico Arroz, Dajahu, the most recent international acquisition by Camil. Dajahu enters the Ecuador market with a leadership position in aged rice and as a top ten company in the food industry in the country.
From mergers and acquisitions, other brands were added to the portfolio due to their relevance and strong presence in specific regions of the country. Therefore, the company's portfolio becomes more complete, efficient and competitive, guaranteeing scale to the operation and ensuring service to all consumer niches. Our growth strategy does not stop here. Over the last 20 years, we have implemented a successful strategy to grow through strategic acquisitions, both in the domestic and international markets, in order to grow our portfolio of brands, categories of products and geographic areas. In 2021, we began the journey into one more country and its additional categories in Brazil with the acquisition of Santa Amália and the use of the brand Café Seleto.
As one of the largest food companies in Latin America, Camil reinforces its commitment to generating a positive and permanent impact to its business and the society at large. Integrating environmental, social, and governance aspects into our business strategy reflects sustainable development of the role that Camil wants to play with its relationships. For that reason, we are up to speed with best practices in clean and innovative energy sources because this is a priority for Camil. In 2021, 95% of the energy used in the industrial units of the company in Brazil came from renewable sources. Approximately 40%, therefore, is produced by the company itself through energy generated from biomass from rice husk.
In order to increase its utilization, we are developing the project for a new thermoelectric power plant in Brazil with the capacity to consume up to 100% of our current generation. Responsibility, trust and proximity are all part of our values. Our corporate purpose is based on the fact that each individual makes a difference in someone else's life, and we strive to nurture relationships that bring more flavor to everybody's everyday life. That is why our partnerships with stakeholders are so important to our recipe for success. We thank our partners, employees and above all, the consumer. Without your preference, we wouldn't come this far. We are increasingly confident that the company is on the right track to anticipate trends and strengthen its position in the food industry in South America. Camil.
Hello, everybody. Good morning to all of you.
It's an honor and a great pleasure to open such a special Camil Day with so many new things about our company. The news are really good and promising, and for that very reason, I'm not going to report them alone. Today, I am joined by all of the officers of the company, and after my introduction, they will highlight the main achievements, and they will also tell you about Camil's next steps. Well, to start off, I would like to say that in these almost 60 years in which Camil has been feeding the population of Latin America, we learned a lot. One of the lessons learned have a lot to do with consumer habits. During these years, we learned to identify some challenges and also to anticipate some trends in the international food market.
Today, consumers really appreciate a combination that involves healthiness, access, distribution, and sustainability to reach different niches of consumers, in addition to convenience and practicality. Speaking about different niches, look at the combination of these dishes. What is the image that they convey to you? For us at Camil, it's almost inevitable to look at them and not think about the fact that we are responsible for producing a lot of what is there, and we are talking about variety to cater to several different food diets. We're talking about a company that goes far beyond just rice and beans. We understand that we had to diversify. We had to be increasingly closer to people's lives and tables, from the first bite, then dessert until the last sip of coffee, which ends the typical meal of the people of Latin America.
It's precisely for being part of this process as a whole that we gave our most recent step. We are no longer a company solely dedicated to grains since its inception in 1963 to become, in 2021, a food platform to Latin America. Today, we have 29 plants and leadership operations in five countries of Latin America, being Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Peru and Ecuador, where we arrived just a few months ago after a recent acquisition. This entire ecosystem consists of approximately 7,000 employees gathering sound and well-recognized brands in the rice, beans, sugar, and canned fish categories. How did we promote this transformation? How were we able to go through this journey with this new level? This is an answer that has to do with our structural pillars.
Quality and sales, efficiency and growth, all of that supported by our main purpose and all of the people involved in our context. If we start with the first pillar, which is quality and sales, it becomes clear that the fact that we have strong and top-of-mind brands makes a lot of difference. It's because of that if we want to strengthen a resilient and defensive business model, regardless of any kind of external crisis, we have to keep providing quality and excellent services in addition to execution and sales. As our purpose says, we are present in the everyday lives of consumers, and their confidence in our products is really crucial to our business, and certainly, the numbers are here to prove it.
With this care in terms of quality and with the diversification of the portfolio, considering the last results published, Camil was able to reach over two million tons of products marketed in the last 12 months of the second quarter of 2021. Here is our gross revenue for the same period, which reached BRL 9.5 billion. I would just like to remind you that we haven't yet consolidated our most recent acquisitions that will be present in our results as of the third quarter of 2021. In the second pillar, we have efficiency and growth. We believe that efficiency should be present in every kind of, you know, operation, and this is how we can strengthen our competitiveness further. What does efficiency mean for Camil? It means everything that works in an integrated fashion and at a low cost.
In summary, we intend to expand our efficiency by taking a very careful look, by reducing costs and expenses, and we also seek for gains of scale in our supply chain. We strive to have, you know, modern plants and a good logistics grid through our entire coverage. Today, we are one of the largest food companies in Latin America, and this is due to our focus in identifying growth opportunities, also to conduct strategic acquisitions and also to integrate them into our business model in a fast way and always by increasing operating efficiency. All of that was done through benefiting from synergies, rationalizing costs and expenses, and through economies of scale as more brands, products, distribution centers, and plants were then included into our business model. Our most recent acquisitions just reinforce our commitment.
We announced the entry of the Ecuadorian rice with the acquisition of Dajahu. The assets acquired in Ecuador is one of the leading companies in Ecuador with a very significant market share and a very good growth potential. The operation is aligned with the company's strategy, and they also represent a very important step towards Camil's expansion in Latin America and into new geographies. Camil and IFC just signed a mandate letter to fund 100% of the acquisition in Ecuador. This reinforces our commitment to fund, you know, in an efficient and cheap way, and this is aligned with our ESG commitment. In domestic terms, we did the same. In addition to rice, beans, sugar, and fish, we also entered into a new business with Santa Amália.
Santa Amália is one of the most traditional pasta companies in the country, and they're also leaders in the state of Minas Gerais with important brands in the pasta categories. The geographic complementarity also reinforces the acquisition strategy of the company. We have leadership position, you know, in many regions of the country with our traditional categories, and we also see great potential to grow in other geographies in the country. Recently, in Brazil, we announced the acquisition of the Seleto coffee brand. This operation is aligned with the company's strategy to acquire products with high turnover of dry grocery products. This also brings good opportunities to grow our portfolio in Brazil. Now, moving to another relevant topic to our business, which is ESG, certainly, we have to mention all of the people involved in our industry. We work based on sound and trustworthy relationships.
Also, we support our business through a very good ESG culture focused on efficiency and safety, and we try to make a difference in people's lives. To give more transparency to our actions, to our stakeholders, in 2021, we published an ESG report that allows us to share actions, practices, and also many other activities where the company is very active. Our company now has ESG metrics for all of the officers, and we had the involvement of over 80 people. All of them, they operate in ESG working groups with members from all of the different categories and countries where we operate. These groups report their actions to the board and to the ESG and Ethics Committee that consists of shareholders and also members of the board, which do the monitoring and also give support throughout this journey.
This pillar that places people in the core of the company, engaging them and involving them in our strategic base, has been crucial to our growth trajectory. Certainly, that's why we are ranked among the five most relevant companies in the people management sector of Valor Carreira. This is not the only award that we received. Just yesterday, we received an award for being the best company in the food and beverage sector from Globo Rural magazine. Our commitment to provide excellent products remains top of mind in the minds of people in the market, and this makes us all very proud. This also indicates that our entire positioning that I just told you about shows that the company is on the right track.
Between 2020 and 2021, we also received awards for our brands as Camil's and União top-of-mind brands. We were equally awarded in regards to a good relationship and excellent execution. In addition to some other highlights as the best in the stock exchange from InfoMoney Award and also other awards after we became a listed company from the Institutional Investor. This response from the market and the response from our consumers and partners stems from our very assertive strategy that allows us to position Camil among one of the best food companies in Latin America. We are always ready to be a consolidator of the food industry. We also manage to operate with excellence through our competitive advantages that contemplate leading brands and brands that are highly recognized in Latin America. In addition to that, we have a very broad and efficient distribution platform.
We have a very sound and resilient business model, in addition to our capacity to identify, acquire, and successfully integrate our strategic acquisitions. As you could tell, we are now in a new growth cycle. In order not to give you a big spoiler, I would like to invite all of the officers to tell you how we are focusing on the development of the company. We want to become a consolidated food platform for Latin America. I'll come back to you shortly. See you soon.
Hello, I am Flavio Vargas. I am the CFO and Investor Relations Officer of Camil. Now, adding to what Luciano just presented, I would like to highlight a few points that are really relevant to the officers of the company. I usually ask and tell everyone that we have to be increasingly focused on efficiency.
We have to help the operating part of the company seeking for further efficiencies. On the financial side, we have to ensure a capital structure and also adequate funding, which is of utmost importance if we want to promote growth and generate value. In order to do that, we have to use resources related to our strong history of cash generation and a long-term debt structure at a very low cost in relation to the rest of the market. This generates consistent growth and sustainable growth. By doing so, we will continue to maintain a very strong financial discipline to promote this organic growth, while at the same time, we promote organic growth that generates more value. In summary, this is how the financial executive board of the company drives the pillar that Luciano just talked about, the pillar of efficiency and growth.
Since 2017, we started Camil's financial journey. We worked very hard in the company's liability management when we issued debentures that extended the profile of our debt, while at the same time brought about a very consistent cost reduction. Today, our financial covenants are 3.5 x our net debt over EBITDA. Here, we work very closely together to keep our leverage up to 3 x our net debt in accordance with the annual numbers from February. Moreover, I would like to also show you something about our most recent, you know, funding. That was a debenture in Brazil of BRL 650 million in two series. One of the series of BRL 150 million received a Green Seal, and that was for the construction of our newest cogeneration plant of renewable energy.
This plant reinforces our ESG environmental commitment that works with energy efficiency and the better destination of waste as it will be further explained by our operations officer. The other series includes a capital raise for the company, a working capital raise, given the fact that we grew our operations and made new acquisitions in Brazil like Santa Amália. This also represented a capital, you know, increase of BRL 410 million just concluded in the third quarter of 2021. We also worked through IFC in funding of our acquisition in Ecuador of approximately BRL 36 million. This mandate letter and the due diligence process that we have together with IFC reinforces our commitment with ESG and, you know, longer debt term and at a low cost. The conclusion of this transaction will take place in Ecuador.
In terms of value generation, we also work in the conclusion of our fifth buyback program. We already approved a new program which is already in force in the market. With that, we will have six buyback programs in total. The focus is to increase return to shareholders and to add more value to the company. With operations starting in 2018, we fulfilled the balance of the stock option program of the company. We also had a direct transaction with Warburg Pincus where they acquired 30.6 million shares, and that was later canceled in 2019. Today, our capital structure consists of 67% held by Camil Investimentos and individual positions from controllers, 2% in treasury shares and managers, and the remaining is free float.
In free float, we have 59% of our shares held by foreign investors and 41% in the hands of local shareholders. Moreover, I would like to highlight that we went from 3,000 CPFs in our shareholding base in 2017 to over 50,000 this year. This is an important achievement because our consumers are now also part of our shareholder base because we saw a migration from people who invested in fixed income and are now entering into the stock exchange market. Together with growth and value generation, we remain focused on efficiency, sales, and sales support in line with the pillars we just mentioned.
The integration of all of the M&A transactions remain a challenge, but through our IT system, we want to have a more agile pricing, and we have a totally engaged team focused on making Camil a more competitive company, totally integrated and agile, always focusing on integration and sales. Without losing sight of new business opportunities, we are still seeking to expand inorganically, focusing on the consolidation of the grains market in Latin America, growing into new categories of products like dry groceries in Brazil and also abroad. Also, we want to grow our business into new geographies. This is already a know-how we have because we are good to find good synergies in businesses which are essential to generate further value.
In terms of ESG and people, we promoted an integrated management with our own governance structure, and we are working into several management fronts in the company to identify and minimize risks, while at the same time, we potentialize opportunities. We just published our first ESG report that brings more transparency, reinstated all of our missions, and the fact that we are really taking care of the people around us. We also monitor the impact of our operations, which is integrated to our strategic planning. Our IR department is now responsible for the ESG strategy of the company and also the drafting of the report, having as a base some areas, number one to create a verticalized strategy where different areas and multidisciplinary teams participate and also place ESG in the everyday lives of our business decisions instead of consolidating this topic in a single department.
Secondly, we want to turn ESG into focused actions, things that really make a difference to our business around all of the people that are involved in our context. This is how we build, in addition to the report, our sustainability policy that permeates all of the different categories in countries where we operate. With this set of factors and guidelines from the different executive boards, we reinstated our position that ensures sound and sustainable growth of our operations. This is how we entered into a new cycle full of opportunities and challenges. Regardless of challenging external scenarios in the countries where we operate, we prepared a good defensive portfolio to expedite the constant growth of the company. Thank you all very much for your attention. Thank you all for joining us today. We will now proceed with the presentation.
I wish you all a very good event, and I will get back to you during our Q&A session.
Good morning, everyone. My name is Renata Assessora. I'm the Operations Officer of Camil. I cover logistics and the industrial side of Camil. Today, we will talk about the main highlights of 2020 in my area, and then I'll talk about our challenges and initiatives that we have for the coming years, and I will refer to something new. There is something new that I will tell you today. Talking about operations in 2020, all of the actions of the company are based on three pillars. One is quality. I'm not only referring to product quality, but I'm also talking about process, product and processes, operating efficiency and growth.
Within the operations area, when we talk about quality, I think in 2020 we can say that 2020 was a year when we managed to reduce by 25% all of the customer service calls. That means that our product quality excels. Also we recertify one of our plants by FSSC 22000. Within our plants we have BPF certification, which is best manufacturing practices, and we reintroduced the S&OP process in the company. The process was not robust enough in the company, so we gave a step backwards. We deployed systems and management and now we are on our sixth cycle with better quality of information and make more assertive decisions.
In terms of operating efficiency, now we focus on the development of productivity and the deployment of a methodology that many of you are aware of, which is OEE, which has to do with the availability of our assets. We have already two plants running with this model where we seek for, you know, more efficiency to optimize and maximize the use of our assets. This is a trend that we want to roll out to some other plants. Now we are in the process of rolling out in a third plant and we will give continuity to that process in the company. We were able to promote a substantial reduction in energy consumption and we increased the use of clean energy. We will give you more details about that later on. We also reduce our delivery lead time.
In São Paulo, we were able to reduce almost two days of our lead time, and we are promoting a large study that will allow us to be more productive, more efficient at a lower cost and a lower delivery time. Looking at the size of the minimum order and, you know, within the cost of serving, freight is one of the things that impacts that item the most. There was also an increase in our service level. We reached record levels at Camil. We had an increase of over 20 percentage points in terms of our service. This proves that we improved the quality of our service and we also, in terms of our logistic grid, I talked to you about that in another Camil day. I talked about a system that uses AI to improve our logistic grid.
We put together a virtual logistic grid within the system. With that, we were able to optimize freight production cost, the cost of raw material, allocating that to the best product, to the best plans and of course, using margins. This is a continuous process. We do that every single month in order to do all of the allocations based on the S&OP numbers. Now talking about growth, which is another pillar. A few days ago, we inaugurated our new unit in the state of São Paulo, located in the municipality of Osasco. That is a plant that uses state-of-the-art technology. Therefore, we already start with OEE technology already in place. The ramp up of the plant has started less than three months ago, and in this very short period of time, we already beat many other production records.
It's very nice to see how the process is developing and how people are evolving within that plant. We use the people from the old site that was in the city of São Paulo. They were all transferred to the municipality of Osasco, so they are part of this evolution. We also expanded our sugar line in Recife. Now also we expanded the capacity of drying rice so that we can receive faster and larger volumes. We also internalize our production of pouches, and we invested a lot in training of our leaders throughout the year 2020. Because without good people, well trained and focused and determined to produce good results, we will not achieve our objectives. Now, when we look at the next item, which is QA, you know, we're still talking about the same pillars, quality, efficiency and growth.
Within quality, we are seeking to standardize and maintain our routines. We already did a lot, but we still believe that there are still some things that could be standardized. For the routines to be well, you know, to run well, we have to do more. That's why we are evolving, also introducing some new methodologies in some plants, which is HACCP, which is an additional step that will allow us to move forward in this, you know, growth journey. Now in terms of deliveries, I talked about the quality of processes, so more and more we have to reduce our delivery lead time. We are, you know, we have a very good experience in São Paulo, and we're going to roll out into other places. In terms of efficiency, we are putting a lot of focus on the routing.
In this routing process, we also incorporated tracking. By the end of the year, all of our units, except the south, all of the trucks will be tracked since, you know, they leave São Paulo. That means a major evolution in the process of monitoring deliveries. We will give an additional step in terms of the cost of serving. Using analytics and artificial intelligence, we will be able to monitor, think per micro region, and with that we will be able to leverage our process. We will continue our rollout of the OEE project with the intent of maximizing our assets at a lower cost and the automation of our PCP process.
We want to have local, you know, scheduling with a corporate rollout that will allow us to reduce setup time, and as a consequence, we will increase production in the units. In regards to growth, we continue to seek further expansion and increase our production capacity. We already have a plant to be approved, I think, in the next coming months. This plant will be one of our largest grain producer in Latin America. We have another DC coming in the pipeline. We are already talking about the increase in the mix to increase the capacity for that mix recall. Then we have Camil Energias Renováveis. Camil Energias Renováveis, it was a recently inaugurated company. That's a company where we want to place all of our renewable energy initiatives, be it, you know, wind farm, biomass, or solar energy.
All of the different renewable energies will be incorporated by Camil Energias Renováveis. To give a last highlight to this last item, I think one important thing, you know, going forward is also the construction of another thermoelectric plant at Camil. This thermoelectric will have a capacity for 10 MW. It should be ready in the midst of 2023. With that, we will become self-sufficient in terms of generating renewable energy for the group. We'll be able to use this energy in-house or even resell that energy through the free market system. This plant will have state-of-the-art equipment to be able to achieve high levels of efficiency and high levels of sustainability. I would like to highlight as well that this project, I mean, is a result of our first ventures with the Green Seal. This was the instrument used to fund that project.
With that, we are now part of a very competitive market. When we talk about ESG and everything else that we've been talking about before, because our department also talks about ESG, we are the E part of ESG. This is a large project and one of the main focus in the committees is that we want to have a very successful plant. This plant is, you know, runs on biomass. Today, just to give you an idea, 95% of all of our energies already come from renewable sources through the free market process. We buy energy that is generated through wind farms and also solar energy. 43% of this energy is generated in-house. With this new plant, we will be able to generate up to 100% of that energy in-house.
Certainly, we will be able to then operate almost 100% on, based on renewable energy. I'm sure that we will be very successful with this undertaking. This is what we had so far. We want to do more with less, and this is the way forward in terms of overcoming the challenges.
Hello, good morning. I'm very pleased to be here with you today. I am Daniel Cappadona. I am the Commercial and Marketing Officer at Camil Alimentos. I have more than 28 years of experience working with, you know, trade and marketing in several countries in Latin America, working in the beverage industry and dairy products in large multinational companies like Danone, Coca-Cola and Lactalis. I've been in Brazil for 11 years, working for Lactalis and Coca-Cola in the last five years.
I'm very pleased to join you here today in this event. I'm very convinced that the company, I mean this, the moment of this company is very important because we are in this journey of acquisitions. We are expanding the categories, and we're getting into new product platforms. Camil wants to be more and more a company that can take to Brazilian households and to our customers a very integrated solution, you know, in the grains category with rice and beans, with fish, with sardines and tuna, and with the pasta category with the last acquisition of Santa Amália, with the sugar. In the sugar area, we have the União brand.
It's important that we can increasingly become a solution in the customer journey where we are present since the, you know, starting with breakfast all the way to, through dinner, and our products are present in thousands of households in Brazil. Right now, I would like to share with you a little bit of our working strategy and in the different platforms where we operate. 2021, a challenging year for our consumers, and Camil Alimentos, driven by the passion to feed relationships, focused on encouraging people to eat well through various recipes, taking more flavor and nutrition to the table of Brazilians. Camil, with the renewal of Rita Lobo's contract as the brand ambassador, we developed a plan to provide constant content, being present on social media and YouTube, teaching practical and delicious recipes with rice, beans, and other grains like lentils, chickpeas, and peas.
In addition to Rita Lobo, several renowned influencers also participated in our communications, demonstrating the versatility of the grains in our everyday meals. We immediately heard from consumers. We received two awards from Folha de S.Paulo as the brand that supported people the most during the pandemic, and top-of-mind brand in beans in 2021. After all, the best meal is the one you eat at home. Home cooking is Camil. Coqueiro. With a daring brand strategy, we base our contents on recipes that inspire new uses for tuna and sardines. With the slogan, "Coqueiro yields more possibilities on your table," our purpose was to expand the many uses of our products through the preparation of unique and practical recipes prepared by Juliana Paes and many other influencers that turned the roulette in the action called Create and Recreate Coqueiro. Coqueiro yields more possibilities on your table. União.
Strengthening the purpose of the brand to transform people's days into a sweeter world, we split our communication strategy into two moments. Early in the harvest season, we focused on the celebration moments of the 110th anniversary of the brand with reels created for the campaign and a promotion that offered consumers with a digital book with União recipes. In the second half, in response to the social and economic context of this year, we launched the confectionery school, Doce Futuro União, offering online courses on confectionery techniques, finances, and marketing to help consumers who want to have a business and also sell their sweets, transforming their future in this challenging moment.
Throughout its history, the leading sugar brand in Brazil always created technical and inspirational content in the preparation of sweets in a very pioneer way to promote good relationships with consumers, and this has promoted the essence of the brand. Recognition came through top-of-mind awards as the most renowned brand of sugar and the most remembered brand in the Northeast. União, 110 years, you know, transforming your days. That's not all. We also activated the communication of all of our other brands with diversified content on social media using influencers and activations in different stores in Brazil. We also launched the new Casa do Sabor. Integrated to our new Osasco plant, this new space has an experimental kitchen, space to record content, and meeting rooms in an area totally dedicated to the creation of amazing recipes from different brands.
Like, by doing so, we consolidate our purpose to feed relationships through our brands, taking more flavor and nutrition to all Brazilians. Now, speaking about the commercial aspect, whenever we talk about the commercial aspect, let's split it in three very strategic pillars: customers, the team, and consumers. When we talk about customers, we have to be increasingly closer to our customers, always trying to understand their needs. With that in mind, we try to build business plans that are sound and sustainable and being present, you know, with a 360-degree vision. We have to understand the needs of our customers and also it's important that we build up a plan that can more and more leverage our sales and leverage our development together with our customers.
We, Camil Alimentos, can be the leverage to boost this growth in all of our platforms and categories within customers through proximity, through a better understanding of the needs of our customers, and also by building combined plans with weekly, monthly, or quarterly reviews, so as to ensure that our strategic planning is really being effectively put in place, be it on the virtual platform, on virtual platforms in the marketplace of our customers, and also in the brick-and-mortar stores from different customers and different distribution customers of all of the different channels throughout our continental Brazil. Now, when we talk about the team, historically at Camil today, and also in the future of Camil, the human aspect was and will always be a determining factor to the success of this organization.
About that, together with our management team, we have a plan to preserve our talents and also to constantly train and recycle all of our teams, so they can have a better understanding of our customers, they can establish better connections between our strategic marketing plans, you know, vis-à-vis our clients in order to have a better execution. The stores, the different communication channels and e-commerce to integrate all of our strategic plan, our brand strategy in a more efficient way. More and more we want to be more professionals, and this involves training, development, a constant concern on the part of our organization to maintain our teams motivated. They are motivated through constant training, constant development, and also through the achievements that Camil has been achieving, and the growth and development of products.
I'm very proud, as the leader of the commercial team, I am very proud of the company we have today. We are very proud of our journey of many different achievements and everything that we've been doing together with our customers. Now, speaking about the consumer, that's an extremely important pillar. In this case, we have to listen to our consumers. We have to understand them. This is something we do by focusing on all of the information that we collect from our different platforms or companies that tell us about changes in consumer habit. We are very attentive to our consumers to see how they are seeing the new habits of these consumers. Consumers may differ per category, per platform. They are also different depending on the channel and geographic region of the country.
Well, Brazil is a large country, so there are many complexities for us, Camil Alimentos. We have to understand consumers well. It's important that consumers have the product at the right price when they want it and where they want it, the right moment with, you know, at the fair price, with good visibility. It's important that consumers can make an intelligent choice, and that we can cater to their consumer needs. It's important that we can feed the Brazilian households. After that, I would like to say that we enter the phase of commercial execution. Here we are talking about quality and execution. We talk about quality and execution being a journey. Execution and execution excellence has a beginning, but it doesn't have an end, because every day we are faced with a new challenge and new opportunities.
Every day we have to work carefully because this is a process of continuous improvement. This journey of execution excellence involves four pillars, and we think of these pillars as being very strategic. The first important pillar is availability of our product portfolio all over Brazil throughout all of our commercialization channels. It's important that we have a previous understanding of the ideal assortment per channel, per category, per geographic area, so that we can be present in all of the buying decisions of our consumers, be it on virtual or physical stores, and according to our strategic communications plan, because this is in tune with our understanding of what consumers want. The second point is visibility.
We have to have a very clear portfolio, and we have a very clear plan, and we know, you know, exactly our need in terms of giving more visibility to our products, to our brands, to our categories. Once again, in all of these commercialization platforms, be it through virtual stores or physical stores, in every single channel, in all of the geographies, we have to ensure greater visibility of our brands, the execution and positioning of our brands according to the understanding of consumer needs. A third pillar, which is also very important in our country, where 30% of the sales of consumer goods comes through product promotions.
With this pillar, what we understand as being commercial activation is something very important because after, you know, we have the right assortment, we give it more visibility and then we do all of the trade and marketing promotion. We have to give more visibility to promote our products in such a way that our consumers will prefer our products. No matter the category, in all of our categories, we just want to be top of mind for our consumers. We have to activate, you know, extra points or work across categories. The last item, the fourth item, is to ensure very clear pricing, fair price. As part of our commercial policy and strategy per brand, per product, per category, per channel, and per geographic area of Brazil.
With that, we will be able to reach out to all consumers with a very clear strategy based on their needs and type of consumers, one, two, and three, with all of our brands, all of our categories. These are four pillars that have to be visited every day. We are working very diligently in all of these four pillars, working together with our clients and partners so that more and more we will be able to improve our commercial execution. With that, we will have a better communication, a clear communication with our consumers. This is just a summary, just a very quick view and general view of our brand management through our marketing efforts, our commercial management, through our commercial department and our teams. This involves a collaborative work with all of the other areas of the company.
There is a very strong integration, and this is an organization where we are all very pleased to work in. It's nice that we can reap the benefits of all this work and all of our efforts. With that, more and more, we can provide Brazilians with an integrated solution from morning to evening, outside or inside the home. It's important that we can be part of the emotions of Brazilian families. We want to be, you know, a part of what this country experiences, bringing our brands, our products, our work, our efforts through our teams and our customers as well. Thank you very much. Now I'll give the floor to our colleague, André Ziglia, who will then give you an overview about the supply area. It was a great pleasure to be with you today. Thank you. Boom.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. My name is André Ziglia. I am Supply and Comex Officer. I would like to give you an overview about our area. We believe that this year we are faced with two major challenges. We have to continue increasing our efficiency in our supply chain, in addition to improving the relationship we have with our vendors. I mean, with all the learnings we had last year because of COVID, that unfortunately is not over yet, we saw an increase in the price of commodities, but then we had the stock out of several items. Because of all of that, we had to develop new suppliers because some old suppliers had some stock out issues. They had some problems of lead time, especially indirect suppliers that worked with imported goods.
Therefore, because of that, we had to develop some other 5,000 suppliers, both domestic, you know, in Brazil and abroad, both for raw material of direct and indirect goods. Our platform of prepayment of receivables has been, you know, very popular. Together with that, we also talked about our new ESG policy, and we were very pleased with that work because it was very successful. Now, still speaking about relationship, with the support from the people in management team, with our IT program, we were able to transform the careers of many people with professionals even now, you know, escalating to coordinating positions and managing positions. Therefore, we have now new blood in the company, a lot of young people that are very, you know, come with a lot of innovation and new ideas.
At the same time, we introduced a program to retain the older people and more experienced people. They are collaborating with us, so certainly, this is an intelligence that is part of the company and we cannot afford to lose. In terms of raw material, I mean, we added new things, but that's not all. We need people with experience. This combination of trainees with people with more experience, it's a combination that has proven to be very good, has been very successful. We have been able to enhance relationships and also, you know, the experience. Talking about supply, you know, and raw material, in the fish area, in terms of investments, we are helping the growers in the case of grains, et cetera, and the fishermen as well. This financial aid also brought about new technologies.
We assisted growers, you know, with new technical services, and this can also attract new suppliers. This, by the same token, this strengthens our purpose to add more value to our chain. Still speaking about relationship, and just to finish with that part, I would like to say that we strengthen our ties with vendors through all of the actions that I mentioned before, ESG actions, you know, aid with technology, and we are just feeding our partnership with our, you know, suppliers. We have a much better relationship with our suppliers. Now speaking about efficiency, last year. We had problems with diesel oil because there was a huge increase in the price of diesel oil, up to 42% increase. This increased our distribution freight.
In order to mitigate that risk and reach that 9% increase, we had to mitigate that risk by hiring new carriers at different levels. You know, we think it would be, quote, unquote, "acceptable" that 9% in view of an increase in transportation inflation. When it comes to exports that involves ocean freight, there was an enormous increase in freight all over the world. Many ports were closed, a lot of the merchandise was, you know, sitting in the ports, and that caused a domino effect in the ports. In South America, in particular, one of the continents where the cost of freight increased the most, there was a lot of traffic in the main hubs we have.
One of the ports is the Cartagena port in Colombia, and the other one is the Port of Kingston in Jamaica. There are many containers that were sitting there for a long time, and this hampered our competitiveness, especially in terms of the items for export. Even then, we were able to keep 60 countries in our exports portfolio, and we do believe that once the freight issue improves and competitiveness of the international logistics improves, we will be able to export more and generate, you know, greater export volume. In terms of our actions, we are still focusing on the bids. The company has a very strong purchasing potential. In the centralization that we promoted some years ago, especially in terms of buying indirect goods, we have a very strong negotiation capacity. We are still very, you know, focused on the bids policy.
This has brought about many savings to the company, and we introduced the Ariba system, and that was also a very successful point. Another aspect was the implementation of the market intelligence committees. You know, this is part of the governance, the governance area and the policy of the company. We meet once or twice a week, depending on the product and the dynamics of the product. We also have extraordinary meetings whenever necessary. These meetings allow us to make more assertive decisions to our business. The committee gathers professionals from the entire supply chain. If it's internal market, in the case of rice, for instance, we have people from Rio Grande do Sul, from Tocantins, from Maranhão. In the case of fish, we have people from our international plants, et cetera.
In the committees, we have a lot of capillarity because we get information from all of these stakeholders. We can analyze the market. We can then build a critical mass and position ourselves. We talk about several scenarios like the, you know, harvest season, foreign exchange, you know, trends in the market, the demand, and this has been a very good tool to promote further efficiency. Another important activity is the participation of associations and unions. This is when we gather to talk about the market and to collect information about, you know, tax issues and regulatory issues. This has improved our efficiency. I mean, tax and regulatory areas, you know, that is in the hands of the experts. But we are also, you know, combining unions and other partners. We have several partnership initiatives. We are always looking forward.
We are putting our people out in the field. These partners, our employees or outsourced people who go into the fields, they bring more relationship, they bring information, and they help us with our market committees. Well, during the pandemic, that was not happening, but now we are resuming this activity much more intensely. We also have a partnership with an innovation hub because that will give us access to other technology companies. I would also like to say that the company as a whole has improved its communication and training aspects, and this brought about efficiency gains. We remain focused on our quality pillars, quality, sales, efficiency, and people to promote further actions that can help us to be even more competitive, supporting our growth structure. With that, I would like to thank you for your time, and I wish you all a very good event. Thank you very much.
Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Erika Magalhães. I am People and Management Officer. It's a pleasure for me to talk to you in this Camil Day full of new things, as Luciano said at the beginning. Well, we've seen many advances in terms of finance and products, but we at Camil must say that really, the people are our main asset. This is in what we believe in because the people, they are the ones who lead us towards our objectives. How can we maintain the same level of engagement, especially in the case of Camil, because today we have this huge food platform, and we are present in different countries and in many categories of extreme relevance. We can achieve that through a very strong culture based on sound values which are spread around and experienced daily.
Our values include trust, entrepreneurship, enthusiasm, proximity and responsibility. They are the values that supported our achievements in the past and the most recent ones and the ones we will see now. In this last cycle, we would like to point out some important activities we did, like an intense work and constant work focus on the culture of safety, caring for people, and also focusing on the importance of leadership and the teams. We want to block the unsafe condition and to promote the safe act. With ESG, we focus on, you know, G&G, which is people in management, focusing on health and safety in the workplace. We talked about social investments, diversity and inclusion. We work in different fronts to create awareness about diversity and inclusion.
We have a booklet on diversity and inclusion that allows us to convey the values of Camil, in addition to an extensive work based on a diagnosis about diversity and inclusion in the company. All of our actions were published through the ESG report with several fronts and indicators inspired on GRI, bringing more transparency and reinstated our ambitions, which are transparency and monitoring of the KPIs, bringing more effective actions to everyone involved. This is our priority. The company also maintained its social commitment through rendering support to several other initiatives. I would like to mention Teleton. It's some work we did together with AACD, Christmas Without Hunger with Ação da Cidadania, and CAS VI in the community of Jaraguá Pirituba, in addition to other actions in the communities around our units. Thus, we consolidate our purpose to feed relationship, bringing more flavor and nutrition to all Brazilians.
I would like to highlight the work of our people in management area. Today, we have several projects together with the business areas, and I may highlight the efficiency project done in conjunction with the operations area, the CSC with the financial area, in addition to a pilot project with DuPont at the Barra Bonita unit. All of that also makes us look at people and the fact that we are resuming in-person work. In order for that to happen in a safe manner, we promoted several prevention and communications actions. We motivated vaccination, and we have a vaccine meter. The company is growing, and with all of these important acquisitions made this year, it's also very important that this new platform with new people, new talents, is fully aligned.
For that reason, once again, I would like to highlight the importance of having a well-prepared team with a good action plan to prevent loss of knowledge, loss of the best practices throughout our trajectory. Because we are successful, certainly this is related to our strength, which we call our people. In training and development, I would like to highlight leadership work, where we operate with a focus to train successors. Speaking about succession, I would like to highlight the trainee program. Under the management pillar, I would like to highlight our annual cycle of goals. We have cross-goals, and they are all related to our strategic map, involving the entire company at all the different levels, in addition to the annual cycle of competencies. With that, we conclude the two management pillars, performance and potential.
This is what I have to say, because we do believe that people in management have to be connected to the business in a humanized way, you know, valuing all of the connections among people, working diligently every day to foster development, to co-create, to encourage connection, and to engage everyone in favor of common objectives in a very healthy environment to work on. So this is my message to you. Thank you all very much.
Well, good morning, everyone. I'm Renato Gasteau. I am the LatAm Officer at Camil. I'm the International Officer. I'm very pleased and happy to be here and to talk to you today. Also, I'm here to present some of the highlights of our international operations that currently represent something like 30% of the company's revenue.
We've been growing without losing any relative share within the company, and this is due to many different improvements the company is doing outside the country. In the case of Uruguay, our main company in terms of revenues at LatAm level, we experienced good sales. We come from a year of good sales, and we had increased volumes this year, strong demand in the country, and now we are facing difficulties, and that has to do with logistics of international freight. I think you are aware that there was a lack of organization, especially in terms of containers. There was a migration at first. The routes that usually have a regular frequency going through Uruguay or going through the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, there has been many flaws and there is now a problem of lack of containers.
Because of that, we were not able to fulfill all of our deliveries. We are not in relation to our budget. I mean, we are okay, but maybe we are not growing as expected due to lack of opportunity or a problem of distribution. A consequence of this lower supply was the increase in international freight. They vary between 50% to even 200% increases, and this certainly has an impact on many destinations, and at times, this makes it even impossible for us to sell in some geographies. Luckily, our main destinations are operating regularly. What are we doing to mitigate this problem? What we're doing now is that we are migrating the deliveries.
Instead of using containers, we are using, you know, the bottom part of the vessels, the ships, because sometimes it makes it more difficult for us because we have to have at least a minimum scale to occupy, you know, the boats when it comes to destinations like Europe, Central America and Asia. Thus far, we are doing well because we have been able to overcome the problems. Our expectation is that according to the carriers and operators, the situation may improve in the next coming months, particularly in the first half of 2022. Because on the other hand, you know, on a positive note, we also expect increase in production in that country, and this can increase our raw material supply by about 15%.
After a few successive years in the reduction of the area in Uruguay or the acreage in Uruguay, we had good prices in the first half of the year, and this motivated growers, and they were able to increase acreage. The climate was also very favorable in terms of the rainfall and water supply. Therefore, we are very optimistic for 2022. We will be able to increase our sales volume by maybe 15% higher than this year. On the other hand, once the logistics crisis is over, the international crisis is over, that affects not only us, but it affects the entire international freight. I think that Uruguay is probably, I mean, in Uruguay, the most relevant point is this. Unfortunately or rather fortunately, all of the areas have been planted. We anticipate an increase in supply for next year.
Our business there is directly related to the production because our share in the local market is of approximately 50%. Therefore, it's very important to us because it's a way that we dilute our costs, then we increase our profitability. Scale matters, and scale is directly related to the supply of raw material. Well, we are overcoming the problems of 2021, and our expectation is that 2022 will be a very good year. In terms of other countries, in the case of Chile, our sales are also performing well. Last year, I mean, the end of the period was very difficult in Chile in terms of sales, because at first there was an exaggerated demand caused by the pandemic. In the second half of the year, there was a drop in sales in general.
In this year, we can already draw a comparison, you know, vis-à-vis last year. Sales have improved substantially vis-à-vis last year. Therefore, we believe that within this year, this year alone, Chile should post growth. Even without the pandemic, you know, we will post good growth and despite the consequences of 2020. In Chile, our investments have been concentrated in technology to control process. We've been focusing on training people for, you know, work from a distance. We improved many software, and we improved our training and control mechanisms. That is bringing about good results right now. This year, this year alone, we posted 11% productivity improvement in relation to, you know, tons per man or man ton.
This is based on a series of process controls that were intensified in addition to all of the trainings that are being done. We are promoting training through mobile phones, computer, a lot of online training with a very specific focus. Every area has its own plan in terms of all of the improvements that they want to achieve. All in all, I would say that today, Chile has a very good and lean headcount. People are well trained. In Chile, given the characteristics of the market, I think we will experience some growth, and I would say inorganic growth. This can also add a few more business lines because we believe that in Chile, the company is prepared for new acquisitions, and the market is also very open to that.
We are trying to look for all of these new opportunities, and I'm sure that the opportunities will come, given time. We are pleased with the results and also the economic performance. Chile has been stable with a very good profitability level. Now, going to another country, we will talk about Peru. Peru is experiencing a certain political and economic instability. It started with pre-election, and then there was an election. Well, one president takes over, and then he steps out. The country is politically poorly organized, and this has its impacts on the economy. Because of that, it becomes more difficult for us to grow in such an unstable market.
It's even more difficult for us to maintain some of our main customers because supermarket chains there are suffering with unfair competition due to the fact that there are a lot of informal workforce coming from small mom-and-pop stores. We are facing this new competitive scenario. More importantly, what we are doing, you know, after an in-depth analysis of the local production, which is important because Peru is self-sufficient. There is a production segment in the country located in the eastern area of the country, which would be the rainforest area, the Amazon area. There is an entire region that represents about 30% of the production of the country, and this is an area where we are not present. We are present mostly around the coast and with imports of rice from the Mercosul.
This is the base of our distribution and supply, and we've never been present in this particular region that I mentioned. Now we are paying more attention to that area because, as I said, this region produces a lot of rice, and the level of cost is much lower, and the quality of the product is good as long as, you know, you look at the industrial process, but it's a product that is well accepted in the domestic market. We already defined some investments earmarked for that region. In the city of San Hilarión, in this zone that we call, you know, the rainforest area in the wilderness, we started to invest in an area that we acquired that already had some industrial infrastructure, but it was very fragile. It was just minimal infrastructure.
It was hardly, you know, something that could be operational. We are making investments in three phases. During the first phase, involving $3.3 million, we are now working to improve the drying capacity of rice. We are making improvements to the industrial plant to allow that plant to operate safely and to produce a product aligned with our other brands. I think that plant will start up in January. In this first phase, we will have the possibility to grow about 15% our, in our sales and production capacity. This more importantly will resume our competitiveness because as I was saying, the plant operates at a lower cost. If you compare that to the current reality of the country where consumers have seen their household income to shrink, there's a lot of unemployment.
We also wanna be part of that market. In order to be part of that market, we have to have competitive prices. Therefore, it's important that we work in this region. We are ready for that, and as I was saying, in January, we will start operations. Then based on the actual success of that, we plan to continue to invest in this area and then to grow more and more. Maybe with that, we will be able to reduce our dependence on exports. That will also probably reduce the taxes of local produced products in the country. We will dilute, you know, the exports from other countries. The country is a strong consumer, and this is what interests us the most, and I believe that the country should experience a rebound of its economy in the near future.
Not only we will be able to operate where we're already operating today in more selected products, but also we will be able to compete with more competitive products. I would also say that in terms of Peru, these are the most important factors. The other thing I would like to say is to speak about Ecuador. Ecuador was our most recent acquisition. We acquired the company in mid-September. That's when we acquired the company. Ecuador is a country that is known to have a very high per capita consumption of rice, about 40 kg of rice per capita. So the country has its own production of rice. Our company, we, you know, just acquired the company. The company is quite unique, and that's the fact that the company operates with a rice that is called aged rice. There's aged rice.
Well, it's made through an industrial process that is no magic. It's already an elaborated rice. It accelerates the aging process of the grain. That's the process. Once it's aged, the rice. It's better, it's looser, and that's what consumers prefer, not only consumers in Brazil, but consumers in that region as well. They have a problem there because conventional rice or regular rice, which are usually planted in the country, when it comes to, you know, cooking up the rice, as Ecuador is very high up in comparison to the sea level, and you also have the mountain chain near Quito, the altitude is very high. So there is nothing you can do. The plantation is still producing grains that are clustered together.
This process that has been developed by the company at a local level was not invented because this is in existence for a long time. It's not very much in use because it's very specific for some characteristics. This company ended up by developing their brands. Their main brand is called Rico. This Rico brand is very well-known in the local market, especially because of the cooking characteristics under any situation, be it, you know, at sea level or in high altitudes, because you have a lot of people living in regions of high altitude. Due to strategic decisions of the previous owners of the company, they were not really participating in the distribution channel via supermarkets. In Ecuador, this is not a very relevant channel. There are just small shops.
You know, wholesalers and distributors play a more important role in the general distribution of food inside the country. That is an opportunity for us because we are already analyzing this channel that is very competitive. Some companies want to use that channel as means of distribution, but because of our differentiation and the good name of our brand, our next immediate challenge will be to enter into this distribution channel via supermarkets. Today, as I said, we are not participating on it, but I'm sure that this will be a very good growth opportunity in the short term. Currently, the company has an installed capacity, and considering this aging process and all, of approximately 50,000 tons a year of rice, which means revenues of approximately $40 million annually.
We believe that this is an investment we will have to do right away throughout next year, and that involves the expansion of this industrial capacity to serve this demand that we believe will come together with this new distribution through supermarkets. That's a problem that will be a good problem to solve, which involves growth. The entire acquisition was funded via IFC. Well, the process is not over yet, but this in itself will allow us to initiate, you know, planting and foster our ESG policy and other things that for us in Brazil are very important. In terms of Latin America as well, Camil is also going through these new paths. We are focusing on training, controls, always focusing on efficiency, sales, people, training, and these are the pillars that permeate all of our external policies.
It's the same thing that Camil is doing in Brazil as well. We are very motivated. We are excited, you know, with what the company has been doing in Latin America. We don't want to lose relevance inside the group because the company is investing also in Brazil, and we don't want to lag behind because we want to continue to grow. To do that, we have to seek for further improvements in productivity and in the growth of sales. Whenever we see good opportunities, we will make new investments like that of Ecuador. What I had to tell you right now was all that. Now I think we will proceed with the Q&A session for Luciano and Flavio.
Thank you very much for your attention. Before giving instructions for our Q&A, I would like to call Mr. Luciano Quartiero for his brief remarks.
Thank you very much. Once again, good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us today. I would like to take this opportunity to give you first hand news, which is the relaunching of União Coffee. This has been a major achievement for all of us. During the last call when I announced the entry of the Seleto brand that Camil was very subtly entering in the coffee market. Now with the relaunching of the União Coffee, we will start, you know, introducing a very strong brand that used to be a market leader. This will be, you know, a long journey to regain this market, but we are all very excited with this new launch. This is first hand news. Now with no further ado, let's move to the Q&A session. Thank you.
Thank you, Luciano, very much. Now we will initiate the Q&A session for investors and analysts. In case you have any question, please click in the Raise Hand icon. Or, if your question is answered, you can leave the queue by clicking on the lower hand button. Our first question comes from Mr. Guilherme from Bank of America. You may proceed, sir. Your microphone is on. Just go ahead.
Good morning, Luciano and Flavio. Do you hear me?
Yes, we do hear you.
Thank you for taking my question. In fact, my first question has to do with your new coffee project with Seleto, and now União. Can you please elaborate a little bit more about your sourcing planning of the product, talking about the industrial capacity and coffee sourcing? What are the company's plan vis-à-vis this market looking towards 2022? And also now about Santa Amália.
The company was talking about the capacity to leverage these assets so that you could also introduce Camil's products into the Minas Gerais market and also the fact that you wanted to take Santa Amália to the markets where Camil already holds a leading position. Can you please elaborate a bit more about the leverage of the operating aspect for both Santa Amália and also Camil markets? Thank you.
Guilherme, thank you very much for your questions. Regarding coffee, in the last few years, Camil tried to remove the barriers of União Coffee, while certainly the coffee market had gone through a significant price increase, and it faced many challenges, both on the supply chain and industrialization and price transfers. The União brand that we just relaunched, we understand, I mean, our schedule means that we want to be ready to sell the product within 90 days.
Our next year that starts on March first, we will already initiate with the sale of coffee. In the next 90 days, we will solve all issues related to supply, industrialization, and the remaining of the chain. In regards to Santa Amália, as you well recalled, we have two major objectives, and we are focused on utilizing Camil's current products to boost our distribution using, you know, Santa Amália's distribution strength in Minas Gerais, and we want to use that to leverage Camil's products. We are getting ready for that. Our first objective or our number one mission is to deploy our ERP at Santa Amália. We believe that this will be concluded in the next 30 days. It's been a major challenge for us internally, meaning that we are just turning the system in 90 days.
We have the entire team, Santa Amália's and Camil's, which is now a single team. Everybody is focused on the deployment of the system and the consequent incorporation of the company becoming a single company. Because of that, we will be able to capture all of the operating synergies having a single operations system. By the same token, we've been also looking at some industrial issues and areas where we can have industrial efficiencies in order to increase our production capacity. All of these points are being carefully assessed, and we are putting together an investment plan for the next few months. I must say that in November, our first month of operation, we are very excited. The first month was good. We reached our goal in terms of volume, and some of those synergies that we initially identified became very clear.
They are proven to be correct. It was a very good start. We were already excited, and now we are even more excited with Santa Amália. Perfect. If I could only ask you for a follow-up. Do you have any forecast in terms of investments in these two projects that you could probably share with us in terms of CapEx and what we could see in terms of the market? How big would that be for the company? At Santa Amália, we are just concluding, you know, this assessment. The company wants to have a stake in this market, so we are willing to make significant investments to be more efficient and have cost efficiencies, which is what we have in all of the other operations. This is very crucial if we want to, you know, increase Santa Amália's share.
We believe that all of these investments throughout the next 18 months can be, you know, as much as R$ 100 million . Now, in terms of coffee, and this also involves the two new segments, Camil's appetite remains robust. The company is looking at further acquisitions, both in terms of coffee and roasting companies and also wheat, not only pasta. This is something that, you know, it's really instigating our appetite. These two steps that have already been taken have not yet satisfied our complete appetite in these two segments, in these two categories that are really important.
Perfect. Thank you very much.
As a reminder, for questions, just press raise hand or just raise your hand. Our next question is from Gustavo Troyano from Itaú BBA. Mr. Gustavo, your microphone is on, so you may go ahead.
Good morning, Flavio and Luciano. Good morning. Can you hear me?
Yeah. Good morning. Yes, we can hear you well.
My first question refers to M&As and integration. Since our first talks way back when you had your IPO, the company always combined organic and inorganic growth. What I would like to exploit here is pick your brains about the most recent acquisitions. Luciano just said that the idea is to continue to look at M&As in these two segments: pasta, you know, crackers and coffee. Do you think we could also expect something like that in the short term? 2021 was a very important year for the company because you entered in these two new segments.
Now, looking in the short run, especially considering, you know, the high prices of wheat in dollars and the depreciation of the currency, do you believe that you can take advantage of this moment to continue to grow your footprint in these segments in the short run? This is my first question. Now, still talking about M&A management, I think it would be really appreciated if you could tell us a little bit about the short-term results of Santa Amália, because I think you will have your first quarter of integrated results. I just wanna know whether the results from this business is behaving as expected considering, you know, a higher inflationary moment, and whether we could expect to see some results of of that in the next quarter or whether this impact of cost inflation could be postponed.
The other question is about ESG, and I would like to take advantage of your announcement of yesterday of the new thermal plant. Could you elaborate a bit more about that project and what is the potential cost reduction and expenses of this this investment? I mean, renewable energy is very positive, and this is a very relevant point in all of our discussions, but I would just like to get a better understanding of the economics of the project. Any further view would really be appreciated. Thank you.
Okay. About M&As. I think in some previous quarterly result calls, I usually said that the company is prepared not only for new acquisitions, but also integrations, both on financial and operating terms. The company remains prepared. We do have financial capacity and certainly operationally speaking.
I mean, if Camil could set a pace of acquisitions, it would be interesting if we could do that carefully or with an interval between them, which is the period necessary to integrate the operations and learn how to market, how the market works. Sometimes the pace is set by the sellers. I mean, I briefly said that in both pasta and coffee, we still have a big appetite. If we see any other opportunities in these two segments, the company will certainly evaluate them. Financial capacity is something we have. I mean, the operating part can be a challenge, but I believe that the company is very well prepared to face the challenge. All of the difficulties on, you know, the wheat market, you know, high prices and difficulty to transfer prices.
I understand that, but if there are opportunities, the company will try to participate, you know, and try to be successful. Maybe I can give you an extreme example. If there is an opportunity, you know, coming in the next month, the company will look at it and will evaluate it, even though we focus on the integration of Santa Amália, like I just said. Therefore, this appetite is very strong, and it remains strong. Now, in terms of our cost challenge, cost transfers, as in our categories, each category has its own dynamics. In grains, we have weekly transfers. In sugar, follows a different pace. Fish, also. With pasta, we just took over that operation at the end of October. The first month where we operated this new company was the month of November. Therefore, I think we learned a lot.
Everything that we looked around in this sector, all of the other companies in the industry have a different pace of price transfer when compared to our current categories. Therefore, the company is putting a lot of efforts into that. You know, our supply people, supply team, they are studying that. We do have our learning curve. Unlike other competitors, we do have a big relevance with our customers and partners. We are very relevant to them. Looking at the three current categories, and once we add into that relationship, pasta and coffee, this proximity and this very strong relationship with our partners will expedite the learning of the managerial part of the integration. I'm very confident in this challenge of cost and price transfer. I mean, Camil loves competition and challenges.
We prepared ourselves to face that period, and now it's the time for us to show you what we can do. Now, Flavio will tell you about the numbers of the thermoelectric power plant.
Well, about that, and even giving a step backwards and looking at the investment we are doing in the construction of this new thermoelectric power plant, it is within our ESG context. We did a lot of work in the company because we discussed all of the material aspects and the pillars that we wanted to embrace. The ones that we embraced, one of them is energy efficiency. There is another pillar which involves having a generation energy process that can be sustainable.
Therefore, the project of this new thermal plant, I mean, it really fit the company like a glove because not only we can generate energy through rice husk because that's a waste that sometimes is difficult for us to dispose of. Burning the husk not only allow us to promote sustainable generation, but by the same token, eliminates the problem we had in terms of what we would do with the husk. Because once it burns out, it becomes ash, and then you can dispose of it, you know, much easier. First of all, this topic fits into our platform and the ESG pillars that we have.
Now, when you look at the justification for the investment, we really look at how we would do that investment, whether the investment would be done by ourselves alone or whether we would do that together with a partner. We decided to make the investment on our own. Not only because of governance and the relationship that we would have to engage if we had another partner on the electric side just to operate the platform with us, but also in terms of the return on the investment. How did we structure ourselves? Well, we created a new subsidiary, which is Camil Energias Renováveis and Camil Renewable Energy. The idea is to get funding for that subsidiary with the proceeds that we had from our last issue of debentures when we got BRL 650 million.
BRL 150 million is a debenture with a Green Seal, and the proceeds of these debentures will be used to fund this company. Therefore, in regards to the investment, BRL 150 million, and how much of that we intend to invest, I mean, this is a total investment, both in terms of civil construction, machinery, and equipment. When we calculated the return, especially if you take into account the leverage, I mean, return on equity, the return on equity was very interesting. In terms of the business, we saw this investment. I mean, we are investing this BRL 150 million. This new subsidiary will sell the energy generated. The energy and the steam will be used by Camil.
That will have a fixed price based on the operating cost and also the depreciation and the investment we have to do in addition to the financial cost. In practical terms, the result or the gains is something that we will only learn throughout the operation. To start off, our transfer cost ranged between 20%-30% lower than what would be the cost of energy in the free market. From the start, our transfer cost starts off lower, and by the same token, we can guarantee long-term predictability because we will no longer be subject to fluctuations of energy prices in the free market. We are just, you know, calculating the cost plus depreciation that, you know, we will have to assume. Then there are other costs of the daily operation and maintenance.
The thermal energy business is a different business. The operating margin is very large. You invest a lot to start off, but then later on, the operating margin is quite large, which allows to turn that variable cost into a fixed cost.
Thank you. Thank you very much for the answer. It was very clear. If you allow me one last question, now going back to rice, a recurrent topic. We haven't talked about that yet, but I would like to understand your views about pricing throughout 2022. In addition to the recent depreciation of the Brazilian currency, we believe that maybe the rice exports could have a positive response, you know, probably a spike in prices. I just want an updated view and this dynamic of, you know. Do you think that everything is already reflected in today's price?
Okay, Gustavo, that's a very good question. I would just like to give you three pieces of information just to recall the average prices of the last three years. The average price in 2018 was around 40-42 BRL. When we had the first year of COVID in 2019, the pandemic, there was a lot of volatility, and the price at one point was over 100 BRL, and the average price during the year was between 80-85 BRL. The expectation for 2021 was that the price would range around 80 BRL with lower volatility, which has been the case. I think that the last number I looked at for October, I think the year average was 77-78 BRL. Very close to that 80 number.
Now, looking forward, considering all of the information we have today, it's very challenging for us to draw any estimate. Today, the best estimate from the company is that prices would range around BRL 65. This number could be also impacted by two bullish factors. One is the exchange rate, because there's a lot of uncertainty about the foreign exchange rate, and considering the current level of the exchange rate and that price of BRL 75, I mean, it should be a scenario where there should be a lot of exports, and this would, you know, eliminate that surplus, and there will be some room for higher prices. What impacts that at first are international freight costs, which are extremely high. I think you're all aware there has been an imbalance in this international logistics. Costs and prices are very high.
At first, we believed that things would be reorganized, and then we would resume historical levels along the second half of next year. If this happens, and if freight costs go down, maybe exports will occur earlier, or maybe they will be more intense. So much so as to, you know, balance prices. Today, the expectation is 65%, but there may be impacts from these things that I just mentioned.
Thank you, Luciano. That was very clear.
Thank you, Gustavo.
I would like to remind you that for questions, just press raise hand or raise your hand. We received a written question, and I'll read it out to you. After your recent acquisitions, what about the company's capital structure? Do you think you still have room for new acquisitions? You also talked about a new buyback program, and you recently announced distribution of interest on equity.
Could you please comment on these two things, you know, dividend policy and return to shareholders? Thank you very much.
Flavio, that's with you.
Well, first of all, about buyback and interest on equity. In regards to the buyback program, our objective is to have a certain number of shares in treasury that will be enough to settle, to liquidate the options plan that we have in the company. Throughout our existence, we already concluded five buyback programs. This is our sixth. There was another one in the middle of the road, which was very large, and that's when we bought back the shares from Warburg Pincus . After that buyback program that occurred in 2019, we canceled all shares in treasury.
Since then, we try to maintain this buyback program in such a way as to ensure neutrality in terms of dilution to shareholders. With this new buyback of two million shares, we get very close to what we have in the horizon to exercise, that program. After the end of the program, we will then revisit the need for new buyback programs. Now, in terms of allocation of resources and dividend payout and interest payments, we've been trying to maintain. I mean, as we do not have a written policy, but throughout the past few years, we've been very consistent in terms of paying out 25% of our accounting profit.
I refer to accounting profit because if we were to calculate it based on the adjusted profit, maybe the payout will be much lower because of the reserves that we have to have in place and the reserves for tax incentives and that is removed when you talk about adjusted profit. We try to do a minimum payout of 25%, and more recently, we also make payments of BRL 25 million every quarter. We are also trying to have a higher allocation in the form of interest on equity because we are constantly seeking for further efficiencies.
Whenever we sit down at the end of a period, and when we look at our capital structure, and we see that there is room for a reassessment, then we take the topic to the board, and then we decide whether it makes sense then to make additional payments, additional to that 25%, which has been our practice in the last few years. Especially during times when we were not leveraged enough and we had less visibility in terms of M&As, in order to have our financial optimization, we made additional dividend payments and interest on equity in order to maintain the necessary optimization. Now, looking at our current structure, and even after the acquisition of Santa Amália, our leverage level is very adequate.
BRL 400 million, that was the size of the check for Santa Amália, represents about half a point in our net debt over EBITDA ratio, so that increases a bit. When we run our models and look at our expectation by the end of February, because that's when we have a significant working capital release, and when we look, you know, in the long run, combined with the fact that we have quick leverage, I can certainly tell you that not only we have a good appetite, as Luciano said, because we want to look for other acquisitions on, you know, in the pasta and coffee industries, even outside Brazil. Not only that, but we also have a very robust leverage capacity.
Looking at what we have today in terms of debt and results prediction, I think we can put more than BRL 1 billion in CapEx to fund these acquisitions, while at the same time we maintain a good leverage level, a prudent level that will allow us to fund these new assets.
As a reminder, for questions, just press raise hand button or just raise your hand. We received another question over the chat but button. What is the situation in relation to the packed unit in Chile? Are you looking for other M&A opportunities in the international sector in Chile and even in other countries after the acquisition of Ecuador? Are you looking at other investments abroad?
Well, in relation to the acquisition in Chile, the deal has not been concluded yet.
We've been working closely with the sellers, trying to understand how the business has been responding to the problem they had in relation to the brands and the quality of the products, which forced us to do a recall of the brand and also to readjust the product, while at the same time they had to revisit their go-to market approach. We've been working with them, trying to understand how the scenario is performing and whether they are, you know, recovering their volumes and results. After that, we will be able to sit down with them again and understand whether the transaction will be concluded or not.
This is a process that should last another two or three months until we have more visibility of the transaction after the fact, you know, after what happened, and see whether we can find, you know, a good agreement between the parties and then conclude the deal. I would just like to add one thing. When we looked and evaluated the business back then, there was a lot of synergy in Chile of this category with our operation. What Flavio said about challenges, the company remains interested. In fact, in February or March, this will have an outcome one way or another. Now, regarding our appetite for acquisitions abroad, this is part of our strategy. The company continues to look into other countries in South America, also looking for new categories and new opportunities in the countries where we already operate.
This front of inorganic growth outside Brazil still remains in our radar.
As a reminder, for questions, just press the Raise Hand button or just raise your hand. We received another question over the chat icon. Good morning. How can this higher inflation scenario affecting Camil, and how do you seek to differentiate yourself for the next fiscal year, especially with the new M&A businesses recently announced?
I think that the issue of inflation has always been a challenge. Our different segments, as I said earlier, some of them, you know, in some of them, it's easier for us to transfer prices when compared to others. Probably the inflation topic should be split into different fronts. One is the ability to transfer the increases in raw material.
In some sectors, due to the dynamic of the sector, things happen faster when compared to other sectors. This is a daily challenge. The company has been through other periods, like in the eighties and nineties, where the inflation was much higher. This is something that the company has already acquired a lot of experience to deal with. Another topic related to inflation is the challenge of price increases not related to raw material, like cost of labor and other contracts. This year, the cost increase has been significant, and we believe that for next year, we will still see an inflationary impact on some other costs, and the company will then have to compensate for these increases with efficiency gains. Therefore, for us, cost reduction and efficiency gains are very important to us.
That's why Camil has always sought for gains of scale in all of its categories. The same thing will apply for next year, despite this bigger challenge. We will grow volumes, you know, grow scale to be able to reduce costs and compensate for the spike in costs not related to raw material. In the two new categories, well, I said that this will have to go through a learning curve. We have to understand how price increase transfers work, not only how the market works, but we have to understand the performance and behavior of our, I mean, new competitors in these new categories. What we can do in-house, I mean, we are already working very hard, and we will be able to reap good benefits.
The Q&A session is now concluded. In case your question has not been answered, please leave your name and contact information in the Q&A icon and the IR team of the company will get in touch with you after the event. Now, I would like to turn the floor back to the company for their final remarks.
Well, I just have a very brief message. I think that throughout the presentation, I mean, here, I think we were successful in showing you that we are following a new dynamics. We are no longer solely a grains company. We have several categories, and we are faced with a large challenge. We are entering a new growth cycle. We still have many opportunities to tackle with new categories and also our current categories. Therefore, our motivation for, you know, internal challenge is very high. We're very excited for this coming year of 2022. I mean, as always, there will be difficulties and challenges, but we are more prepared than ever. Thank you so much for joining us, and I wish you a very good week.
Thank you. Camil Day 2021 is now concluded. Thank you very much for joining us, and have a very good day.