Good morning. Welcome to the video conference of M. Dias Branco with reference to the fourth quarter results of 2023. We have with us Gustavo Lopes Theodozio, Vice-President of Investment and Controlling and Investor Relations Officer, and Fabio Cefaly, New Business and Investor Relations Director. We'd like to inform you that this event is being recorded and that all of the participants will be in a listen-only mode during the company's presentation. After M. Dias Branco's remarks, there will be questions and answer questions for investors and analysts. The translation is available clicking on the interpretation button. For those listening to the video conference in English, the original audio in Portuguese can be muted by clicking on Mute Original Audio at the bottom of the platform. The webcast is also being broadcast simultaneously on YouTube at the address YouTube/ RI MDias.
We'd also like to let you know that any declarations that may be made during this teleconference with relation to the perspectives of business for M. Dias Branco projections and other operational are based on projections and estimates that can only and based on information currently available. They involve risks and uncertainties in premises as they refer to future events and therefore in the circumstances which may or may not occur. Investors should understand that economic conditions of the industry as well as other operational factors may affect the future performance of M. Dias Branco and bring to results that are substantially different than those which are being mentioned today. I'd like to now pass it over to Gustavo who will begin the presentation. Gustavo, please go ahead.
Obrigado.
Good morning. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our results call. I would like to start by thanking our employees and collaborators for their hard work during 2023, always with a great deal of dedication and work and especially discipline in the execution. Thanks to this team and, of course, the support of our stockholders. The company has been transforming itself with the delivery of consistent results in accordance with our plan.
We are more and more certain that besides the hard journey, we're heading in the right direction, seeking excellence, looking for excellence in the commercial presentation and distribution, in the improvement in the level of services and our portfolio, adding more value and new SKUs and also new premium categories, controlling our company's expenses and the cash management and working capital, strengthening our brands, efficiency in our production lines, and maintaining the quality of our products recognized by our consumers. Starting off with the first slide where we see the results, I wanted to point out, first of all, record numbers in the history of M. Dias, both in net revenue as well as EBITDA and cash generation. I'm going to pass to each one of them. Net revenue for 2023 as well as with BRL 10.8 billion with growth of 7% in relation to 2022.
When we look at the quarter, the last quarter of the year, we closed with net revenue of BRL 2.8 billion and EBITDA of BRL 1.4 billion, a record from the history of the company. The company had never been more than BRL 1 billion previously. This represents growth of 59% in relation to 2022 with a delivery of EBITDA of BRL 442 million, representing a growth of 265% in relation to the fourth quarter of 2022. The record net profit in the history of the company of BRL 889 million with a growth of 85% in relation to the same period of 2022.
The EBITDA growing more than the EBITDA we have in percentage terms greatly due to the generation of cash, the company's cash generation, the operation of our operational results, and also a great deal of discipline in working capital, something that we have been working on since 1979, since 2009, which has been very relevant. The record generation in 2022 reached BRL 126 million, generating cash of BRL 584 million. So the results that we're very proud of, and we're going to describe this in more detail as we go along, in a little more detail. Fabio Cefaly, our Director of Investor Relations. I'm going to pass it over to Fabio now. Have a good day. Thank you all. Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Before we go into the details of the numbers, I wanted to exemplify and illustrate some of the initiatives that Gustavo mentioned in his introduction about this process of transformation of M. Dias Branco, which we've been going through. So now starting with the upper left-hand corner, this is the first point in relation to our marketing plans. Marketing has always been focused on selling more and better. Selling more means have more volume, and better means have better margins and a higher average price. So we've been concentrating our efforts in marketing and some of our 20 brands which M. Dias Branco has, highlighting Piraquê, which is our principal premium brand with a premium price. The Piraquê brand was very well recognized during 2023. It won two Gold Lions in Cannes. It grew from 2021 to 2022 and from 2022 to 2023.
Today, it's the principal brand of premium crackers and biscuits in Brazil in this price point. The brand Adria was considered top brand in pasta. We also had the recognition of other brands of M. Dias Branco such as Vitarella. It's important to remember that several years ago, we invested less than 1% of our net revenue in marketing. Today, we've been investing approximately 2% in marketing to sell more and sell better, catching a ride on marketing, the highest value-added items, which are combined with our strategy of launches, which has grown at very high rates. What we call other categories, which is beyond those which are cookies and crackers and pastas and margarines, this group of categories such as snacks, granolas, healthy foods has grown by 31% from 2021 to 2022, 2023, a sign that M.
Dias Branco is able to add items to its portfolio with higher value added and have faster growth in markets that grow quickly, that grow by two digits, double digits year on year. Our core categories such as cookies and crackers have also had an important contribution to the results of 2023. We had a record number in our revenue derived from our launches of new cookies and crackers, BRL 299 million in reference to the launches of 2022 and 2023. All of this growth is based on the volume of revenue would not have been possible without an improvement in our level of service. And here we're talking about delivering to the clients who are the retailers in the time and quantity requested, referring to the OTIF and the Case Fill Rate, Great Place to Work, which we measure our level of service.
Case Fill Rate was 84%, and we finished 2023 with 92%. The OTIF, which is the very important indicator, which goes down into the details, we had a 40% rate in, and we closed 2023 with 76%. We had a series of initiatives in the industry to combine efficiency and technology. We called Industry 4.0, which has brought efficiency, relevant gains in productivity for our results. The model of Perfect Store, which reflects everything that Gustavo mentioned about the commercial execution perfect in the point of sale. We have very clear metrics tied to remuneration of the commercial team who are present in stores, represents 70% of our sales of cookies and crackers and pastas and other categories as well.
We already have always heard our stockholders and our minority stockholders, and we increased the payout from 60%-80% and our dividend for the quarter from BRL 0.05 to BRL 0.06 per share. We're known as a Great Place to Work for the first time. In 2023, we implemented in the beginning of 2024 SAP, which is very important to give us more strengthening of our systems architecture. We combined our two factories for healthy snacks, which is Jasmine and Latinex, in the Jasmine factory in Curitiba. We implemented the commercial model, which is much more collaborative between M. Dias and its clients, which is JBP, Joint Business Plan, which is a model which gives more visibility. We have the visibility of at least one year with these questions due to the commercial questions and volumes.
These combined are revisited every two months, which is an overview of some of the initiatives that have been executed by M. Dias Branco in the last three years but which have been relevant for the improvement of our results from the standpoint of volume and margins. Remembering that in the three-year period of 2020-2023, our margins were highly hit by the high increase in the cost of wheat due to the devaluation of the real. So a lot of this growth has not been seen in our results. But now, with the standpoint of commodities and exchange being more stable, we're starting to see these structural improvements appearing in our financial results. So remembering, what's our strategy? Our strategy has three pillars for growth.
One, sell more and better in our current business, which are cookie and cracker business, with growth in this area of Center West, South, and Southeast, defending our area in the defense area, which is the North and Northeast, entering into new categories, which has materialized over recent years such as snacks with Jasmine and with the Latinex brands, and internationally through our exports, through the acquisition of Las Acacias in Uruguay. All of this supported by a continuous program of productivity and efficiency. Going into the details of our results, I want to look at the area of revenue and market share. The first relevant information here is in relation to the two principal markets that M. Dias operates in, which is the cookie and crackers and pastas.
Both showed growth in comparison with the fourth quarter of 2023 from 2022 and also in the comparison of the year of 2022 with the year of 2023. In value, the cookie and cracker market grew by 3%, and the pasta market grew by 11%, cookies and crackers, and the pasta market grew 5% in the quarter and over the year grew by 13%. The area of crackers had a slight reduction year-on-year, but this is because of the change in our size of our packaging which happened in 2022 in almost all of the large players in the market. On the other hand, the pasta brand showed growth both in the quarterly as well as in the annual vision. In units sold, the two markets grew. In average price, the two markets showed increases in average price. The question of stocks for M. Dias Branco.
Dias Branco, which was something that was widely discussed in the third quarter, since we saw in the third quarter of 2023 a reduction in the coverage and stock of the M. Dias Branco items in our clients, we had the expectation of a normalization of this over the fourth quarter. The reality was exactly as we expected. From the third quarter to the fourth quarter, we observed in cookies and crackers a normalization of the coverage of stocks from 34-40 days in the fourth quarter. The same thing was seen in the pasta area, from 39-47 days. From 40-47 is the normal level of stock coverage in our clients.
Net revenue, both in the quarterly as well as the annual vision, net revenue showed growth of 0.2% from the fourth quarter to the fourth quarter of 2023, 7% in the annual vision. We had growth in the volume sold both quarterly as well as annually, 9% in the quarter and 4% on the year. And we had a price drop in the fourth quarter to the fourth quarter of 2023. Part of that falloff referred to the accelerated growth of wheat, especially in the attack areas, to raise the Bento Gonçalves flour mill, and there roughly 3% year-on-year. This growth in revenue, both in value as well as in volume, has a direct correlation with all of the initiatives that I mentioned previously, which are structural initiatives and which will be executed over 2023.
Marketing, which is to sell more and better, the way we invest approximately 2% of our net revenue in marketing, the accelerated growth of higher value-added items grew by 31% on the year and is already BRL 443 million in net revenue, a relevant value observing the total of sales of M. Dias, the reintroduction of low-cost brands for the cash and carry market, which is a movement which we initiated between 2019 and 2020. We had a pause to revisit these items structurally, these brands. And at the end of 2023, we came back with a value proposition which was closer to the growth which we expected for M. Dias Branco, as these are items of low cost and low price without cannibalizing our existing brands.
The size of the packaging, which is a relative factor for the growth of volume, this happened in both pastas between the second and third quarter of 2022. For cookies and crackers over 2022, which gave us better competitiveness for our items. The accelerated growth of flour and meal, the volumes in Brazil grew by 10%. In the attack area, which is the south, southeast, and center west, we observed the growth in volumes of wheat, flour, and meal of 21%, all of this supported by a process of dynamic pricing in line with all of the improvements which have been done, the process of management of the revenue of M. Dias Branco, the capture of prices in cookies and pastas, and the reduction of these volumes in the fourth quarter, and the record contribution in the launches of cookies, which came to BRL 299 million in 2023.
Looking at the portfolio, we removed from the portfolio items of low profitability such as Linha de Campanha , cookies of vanilla, and vitamin milk cookies, revisiting our portfolio, looking simply at the potential for growth with a good margin, the use of working capital to bring more volume, and also several promotional activities to leverage these volumes, especially in the North and Northeast regions of Brazil. To conclude this chapter of revenue, the improvement of the two principal indicators, services, the OTIF, and the OFR, to look at the simplify the launches in the BRL 299 million reais in cookies, the price of cookies for M. Dias, the net revenue per kilo added at BRL 6.1 per kilo in 2023 with certain examples of growth where M.
Dias Branco looking at the average price and the margins, the Leite Maltado Black of Piraquê, the chocolate, with an average price of BRL 28.7 per kilo. All of this work has been on the malted Piraquê, which when we acquired had fewer SKUs and today has a much more complete line of BRL 6.3 per kilo and the Adria brand cookies of BRL 16.5, which was widely discussed in the third quarter of 2023, starting here with biscuits. The volume in biscuits and cookies. The volume in cookies and biscuits also showed and also pastas. We saw an operation both in share volume as well as price. We saw a small contraction of share both in value and in volume, but the two categories of M.
Dias Branco, which represent more than 60% of our revenue, we had a recovery in share from the third to fourth quarter both in value as well as in volume. Looking at the revenue per region, the commercial of M. Dias in defense and attack, we saw growth in the annual vision both in the area of defense where we have more than 50% of our participation in the market in biscuits and pastas and a growth in revenue a little higher in the attack area, this with an increase in average price in both areas and also growth in volume in both areas. Looking at the quarterly vision, we've had an increase in revenue of 1% in the defense area and a slight reduction of 1% in the attack area.
Here, it's important to mention that this falloff in 8% in the attack area has to do with the mix since our business in flour had a growth of 20% in volume in the attack area, which brought more revenue and more to that region. The area of revenue, we're going into the costs and expenses. The first message here, we saw during 2023 a falloff in prices in both principal commodities, wheat and palm oil. The graphs show wheat and palm oil in $ per ton. The red line is the spot price, and the blue price both for oil as well as palm oil is the average price in the M. Dias Branco stock. So on the two ends of December 2022 and December 2023, wheat fell by 28% and palm oil by 32%, which was very important for the recovery of our margins.
What we've seen also in this slide here, the variable cost went from BRL 4.1 in 2022 to BRL 3 in 2023, but the fixed cost was basically stable. The average price also was quite stable with a slight retraction from the second to the third quarter. And then the inflation between variable costs and fixed costs, the recovery of the volumes over 2023, and the management of prices brought us to a gradual recovery of our gross margins to close the year in the fourth quarter of 2023 with 36.3% of gross margin. And for the year, it was 28.5%, and for 2023, 33%. The administrative expenses during 2023 in a rate of between 20%-25% of net revenue, and we closed the year at 20.5% of net revenue. 3 or 4 years ago, M. Dias Branco had a level of SG&A close to 25%.
In this three-year period of increasing costs, volatility, devaluation of the real, the company was very well prepared. We didn't sit there and watch. We made a lot of internal improvements, which are now appearing in the results. And we've been able to maintain our SG&A in the level of 20%-21%. The EBITDA, though, was record, as we mentioned in the beginning. We had a 16% margin, remembering that in the third quarter, we had 16.1%. In the fourth quarter, usually, it's seasonally unfavorable, but due to all the improvements that have been done during the last periods in the recovery of our volumes, we were able to deliver a margin, limit the margin in the fourth quarter close to that of the third quarter. We closed the year with BRL 1.4 billion in EBITDA and a margin of 13.2% for the year.
The profitability followed the EBITDA performance. We had a margin in the fourth quarter above the third quarter of 12.3% for the fourth quarter and 9.5% in the third quarter, BRL 342 million of profit, a record, and also closed the year with BRL 889 million of net profit, a record from M. Dias Branco. Going to the cash generation, debt, and investments, we generated BRL 2.12 billion cash for the year, a historical record from M. Dias due to two things, EBITDA of BRL 1.4 billion and the liberation of working capital of BRL 825 million. In the quarter, we also had the release of working capital close to BRL 100 million. Here's a detail of the three principal lines of working capital, suppliers, clients, and inventories for clients.
We had an increase of 5 days from 55 in the third quarter to 60 days in the fourth quarter, which is what, as you mentioned in the beginning, we had several initiatives, one-offs to offering better periods to certain clients with a counterpart with the volume. But it was more than compensated by the management with suppliers, which went from 50 last year to 59 days this year, remembering that 4 years ago, we had approximately 20 days' term from our suppliers. One of the other areas where we developed a great deal over recent years, our inventories went from 85 days to 64 days in 2023.
Due to the growth of our base, the growth of our revenue, the growth of our EBITDA, and the liberation of working capital, we closed the year with a net cash position of -BRL 74 million, with a leverage of 0.1x, which gave us a triple A rating from Fitch, which is the highest Fitch rating. Debt that we have, 76%, is long-term debt. We invested this year BRL 367 million in CapEx, part maintenance and another part related to the implementation of the SAP system, which already began in the beginning of 2024. M. Dias went up 9.6%. The value of our stock went up by 9.6%.
For the sixth year, we were recognized and won the transparency program of the ANEFAC for excellence, which is important for all analysts and all investors who accompany the company, that it's a guarantee that our financial reporting are excellent, clear, transparent, and quality. Looking at the ESG chapter, there was a series of improvements over the years. In 2023, we ended the year with an MSCI and ESG rating of double A. In 2019, we had triple B. And for the second year in a row, we have a double A rating. In the ISE, we're in the portfolio ISE for the fourth year in a row. The first year was 2020. The CDP, which is an important indicator in relation to greenhouse gases, we closed the year with an A score. In 2020, we had a D.
We are also looking at the ICO2 of the B3 and other important indexes of diversity, women in leadership, the IDiversa of the B3. And also, we entered into the Great Place to Work of the B3, known as a Great Place to Work company for 2023. These are a few of our sustainability indicators, which we accompany quarterly related to the three pillars of sustainability of M. Dias, caring for the planet, believing in people, and strengthening our partnerships, our alliances. All are explained in detail in our report. So before passing it over to the question and answer session, I'm going to talk to Gustavo to close this part of our presentation. Gustavo?
Thank you, Fabio. We conclude here. It's important to remember that the levers that you have been accompanying over recent years continue in 2024.
Talking a little bit about these levers, we have the scaling up the brands, recently acquired brands, which we call cross-selling, both Jasmine as well as Piraquê and Latinex, together with brands that we previously had a very strong presence in the Northeast and are expanding into the South, Southeast, and Center West, such as Vitarella and Finna in the case of domestic flour. We also continue with an arm of innovation, which has been a very, very important work that we've been doing within M. Dias for the last three years with several launches during the years, prioritizing higher value added and better margins for the company. Also, we continue with exclusive brands for the cash and carry market, a model that's slightly different, a little different than the 2019 model. Beyond low price, we are making exclusive products, low-cost items, for instance, both by the packaging.
We changed the packaging. We've changed some formulas compared to our local competitors, the more popular-priced local brands, and consequently, getting to the shelves for the consumers in a more accessible price point, a more competitive price point. Remembering that this strategy of exclusive brands, again, different from in 2019, is that this implementation was not done for all of Brazil. It was only done in certain regions and very surgically where we needed to fight against some local competition who was using more popular-priced brands. So it's a strategy that's very well defined and which places us in the search for growth of market share as we've been commenting during these last quarters. Beyond these, we have the habilitators, the enablers, such as the marketing in the last four years, three, four years.
We went from almost 2% with effective results in relation to the brands, Piraquê, Vitarella, which are clearly recognized from the view of the consumers. And through the research we've been showing during these quarters, prioritizing the commercial excellence, the number of defect, disarrangement, pricing, correct pricing, merchandising that's well adjusted, all of this closer to the retailers and to the execution of the joint business plans. We also, through revenue management and pricing in areas which are relatively new, experimenting, tried by M. Dias, and also at the high level of service, which is an important enabler for our growth, both in a better mix and more qualified mix as well as regional expansion. So we're doing all of this through an office, a transformation office, giving more speed and agility to this process.
This transformation office has the presence of four vice presidents as well as a consultancy, which we recently hired to help us in the correct prioritization of these actions and the control towers and guaranteeing the effective capture of these values. We're also calling this all hands on deck for 2024 based on a regional expansion to the attack area and the execution of a portfolio, adding more value and also offering more impact in the margins of the company. Summarizing, the journey is only beginning. We still see many opportunities. We're in the beginning of the trajectory. There's a lot of upside to come. And with these improvements that you've been accompanying continuously in the hands of the company. So now I'm going to pass this over to the Q&A. Fabio is here with me.
Once again, you're all welcome to our call and this session of questions and answers. I'm going to start the question and answer session for investors and analysts. If you would like to make a question, please hit the raise hand button. If your question has been answered, please lower your hand by clicking on the same button. Our first question comes from Gustavo Troyano from Itaú.
Good morning, Gustavo. Fabio, thank you for the opportunity. There are two points that I would like to explore with you. The first is in relation to the share, which you reported in the quarter, and trying to relate this with the price reduction that we've seen. Also looking more at the cookie and cracker area, what's the price list and the mix and this sequential thing that you mentioned?
If you could give us also repeat a little bit about the launches of the exclusive brands for cash and carry already in the P&L. If you could explain this price reduction with this new mix or if it's something that will come more into the first quarter of 2024, understand this dynamic of mix and volume in the cookie and cracker area. If you can explain a little bit if this variation or we see a convergence of these prices with the cost of M. Dias falling as we go into the first quarter to see these prices of M. Dias converging with the spot market.
Hi, Gustavo. Thank you for your question. This is Gustavo speaking. As we have been commenting, we have done this movement of looking for market share in a way that is very granular and without making anything crazy.
There has been no reduction in price lists in the fourth quarter. We should see, in fact, a retraction of prices in the first quarter of 2024. This lower average price is a result of mix, and I'll explain what that represents and a few actions, promotional activities, which are surgical in certain regions without compromising our margins, the gross margins of the company, margins which, as you have seen, were improved. And then it was better in this quarter than it was in the third quarter. So let's look at the mix question first. We need to point out that the evolution of the exclusive brands, they've already had an effect on the P&L in the fourth quarter. We already have 4 principal brands in the principal cash and carries and one specific cash and carry regional, an important regional cash and carry.
The objective, once again, is to fight against the low-priced local brands. And here, when I talk about exclusive brands, private labels, they're very much related to the categories of the higher volume items, these SKUs, which generate market share or loss of market share. So to be more specific, we're about crackers, Maria crackers, Maizena crackers, and in the case of pastas, the common pastas, the day-to-day pastas. So there's an impact on these sales, the higher volume items of exclusive brands, and also the impact within these categories. The categories which have most grown are those with lower prices. So this has an important effect on the mix. It was exactly these categories which made it possible for M. Dias to lose market share. An important point is that these sales of these categories were higher, but they did not represent a reduction in the other categories.
We continued to grow in the higher value added categories, both in the Piraquê brand as well as in certain specific categories such as the wafers. However, the volumes of these categories in the exclusive brands were not enough to compensate the growth of the premium brands. This is the first point. The second point is there was, in fact, a higher level of sales in the flour area. Even though it has a margin which has a healthy margin, it still generates an important effect on the mix and the P&L of the company compared to other categories. Talking about prices specifically, there were several actions in this point of sale in the fourth quarter which were higher than in the third quarter. However, looking forward at the price list, we have not added any price list reducing prices.
On the contrary, we've already had a first list in 2024 with the increase due to several ICMS levels going up in several states. So we see this effect affecting prices in the first quarter of 2024. Going into the subject of the cost of wheat, the price of wheat, there's no signal. There's no yellow signal. There's no specific worry. We should see the timing of the cost of this cost through the P&L. You should see this average price in our inventory converging with the market price in the next quarter. There's no change in marks or mix or importation from other countries as that we have been reporting from previously. It's now time for harvest in the Southern Hemisphere. These purchases are being made here in Brazil and in Argentina and new purchase coming from there, for example.
Thank you, Gustavo.
That's very clear.
Next question is from Pedro Fonseca of XP.
Hi, Gustavo. Fabio, thank you for taking my question. I wanted to go into a little bit the point of the level of services. We've seen evolution, very significant evolution in the fill rate, especially in the OTIF. Fabio mentioned that there were several measures that the industry took. But it'd be interesting if you could give us a little more color over the principal drivers of this. And thinking about 2024, how much these indicators still have to go, how much room there is for improvement, and what's the potential in volume that the improvement of these service indicators can bring, thinking about 2024.
And the second point that I wanted to mention, to take advantage since you're speaking about Gustavo's question, how is the market responding in the first quarter, these price increases that you mentioned and the question of the ICMS increases in terms of volume and market share? And in the first quarter, also in the first quarter, if the recovery of inventories, which we saw in the fourth quarter on the part of retailers, how's that going in the first quarter? Thank you. Those would be my two questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Pedro. Logistics, for example, it's being done for some time. And we've been talking about this, a consultancy to look at some improvements in that. We see that there's space for improvement in the level of service. Basically, everything begins with this integrated of supply and demand, production costs.
We see that as the correct product in stock and the adequate mix and the correct DC and the items of São Paulo, as far as it has a demand for this item even in Rio Grande do Sul. The first big evolution starts with integrated planning of production, distribution, and commercial area. That's the way in which these items have come from the purchasers in a more assertive way and the stocks that are being distributed. So there's an important change also in the logistics operators who were not delivering at the levels which we thought was correct. We look at that in that sense. And there are two upsides. One is level of service.
The preview, as you mentioned in previous calls, the provision, the projection is that at the end of this journey, we will be able to bring in 1 more sale this year, more sales volume this year between BRL 800 million and BRL 1 billion over a horizon of 5 years. So that's in the last 3 years as well. Last 3 years as well. So there's 2 more years to go. Beyond this upside in the majority in the level of service and consequently giving more availability on the shelf for our consumers of our items, there's also a theme which the company has not pressured. The focus is service levels. And there's also a theme of the optimization of costs, of logistics costs. So that will be for the second level, the second part of this project.
First, we're going to improve the services, and then we're going to look at the costs further ahead. It's a little bit what we've done in the area of services. Remember that all of this comes around because of the qualification of ours. We have Leonardo Prado as the Director of Logistics who was in Australia. Recently, we hired the supply chain Vice President who was in Solar, Uchoa, who went through Danone and Cargill. And we have a whole team of planning which came together with these two professionals. So we've seen a relevant restructuring both in the line of people and processes and also technology with new systems, routing, and so forth, which is starting to show its effects. But it all begins with people.
Looking a little bit, answering your second question as far as how these new prices have been received, we don't see any pushback—no consumers, neither from consumers nor from the trade. This improvement of the ICMS rates in the middle class, depending on the region, on category, but close to 2% as the average pass-through in prices. Nothing so relevant. But the volume is very stable. We've seen no pushback from the industry, from the stores. So this new price list should go into effect with no problem over the first quarter of 2024.
Very good, Gustavo. Thank you very much. Mrs.
Fabio, just to add one thing to Gustavo's information and the second point about pricing, we have not seen in the market any pressure for the reduction of prices, which is a little bit of what we've seen in the IPCA of biscuits and pastas in January.
Share at the beginning of the year, as you mentioned, we've already seen in cookies and crackers that we continue gaining share. As we gain share from the third to fourth quarter and from the fourth quarter to the beginning of this year, we are continuing to expand our market share position in cookies and crackers.
Thank you, Gustavo.
The next question comes from Thiago Duarte from BTG Pactual.
Hi. Good morning, Gustavo. Fabio, thank you for the opportunity.
I wanted to take out of this discussion, which covers a lot of the discussions about a better agenda of services, of good points of service, as Gustavo mentioned, to increase the sequence of these prices in the third to fourth quarter. I use this continuous deflation of costs that we saw during the last year and see the space to continue. In the measure that as much as you can, if you could open up for us a little bit to understand your expectations in relation to, as we've seen in February, can we imagine with all that's happening that we've seen and you brought a lot of favorable vectors for profitability of the company in this call so far, can we imagine based on that with some conviction in sequential improvements in margins in this first half of 2024 as we saw in 2023?
I wanted to see what you could tell us about that, this discussion as far as the continuous search for recovery of market share, if we can hear your opinion on these two items, both on share gains as well as additional margin gains. My second question is about the question of cash flow. Are you well set up in relation to last year with the lower level of leverage as you mentioned, as you completed in the year?
We wanted to hear a little bit more about the question of gross in the end of December. Would you imagine to expect the separation of payout or the question of M&A, any relevant M&As that are on the horizon? We have a then in this M&A area that heats up and then it cools off. I wanted to hear with you how you look at that in that aspect.
Finally, just one last follow-up of this discussion of the reintroduction of several brands in the cash and carry area. I wanted to understand if at the end of the day, this means an increase in the number of SKUs of the company, a reversion of this tendency that you have announced in the program of adjusting your portfolio in the past, or no, if this is just a one-time, a one-off that we can continue to think about the number of brands and SKUs offered by the company. Those are my three questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Tiago. I'm going to start with your last question. We will increase the number of SKUs. These are new brands. And so as I mentioned, we've done differently from what we did in the past. This introduction of the brands is being done in a different way.
A change in packaging and of the weights of these packages, the size of these packages, or SKUs with traditional brands. There is an important change to make the company more competitive in that market. Also as such, naturally, we have an increase in the number of SKUs. This doesn't mean that the company is not continuing to be concerned with the utilization of SKUs that are adequate for its operation. It's an increase, well thought out, which is being managed closely. Remembering that together with the introduction of these exclusive brands, we have the JBP done together, the joint business plan together with the retailers, which as a rule, these will be additional volumes. The addition of these new SKUs cannot steal volume from the current SKUs. There's a whole series of business plan and the point of sale.
You have extra points, islands close to the checkouts, which will help us to leverage additional volumes, which is what happened in the fourth quarter, not in detriment to our margins in general, our image in general. Going back to your first question, what's the perspectives for 2024 as far as the shares and so forth? We see a cost, as you're right. It's cooling off. So we should see an expansion of margins in relation to the previous year, no doubt. We can't say too much about future results, but margin expansion should continue. What we've been saying here is passing through that moment of the pandemic and after the war and the perfect storm globally and a more stable world, all of these actions of improvements and transformation that we've seen in the company will be more clearly visible in the results.
That's what we're going to start to see now. This will bring us to an improvement, a continuous improvement in margins. We're going to leave that 9% in the middle of all that confusion. We've been delivering at the close of 2024 margins of 3.1%. Our perspective, the company is not going to be happy while we don't deliver a beat that margin between 15%-20%. We have the perspective in the short term to normalize what was the average of M. Dias, which is an EBITDA margin of approximately 16%. This is our direction going forward. All of this together with gains in market share, with consciousness of a structured way, with coherently and doing it in a way that we will not lose profitability. This is a principal concept.
Going back to the area of cash, the two levers to talk about this capital structure is the payout. We've been working hard on that theme and that subject since 2019. You remember that our payout was 40% of distributable. It went to about 60. And we added a fixed distribution over the quarters. Last year, in 2023, we increased from 60%-80% the payout and from 0.5 to 0.6 cents per share in these quarters. So we did an extraordinary distribution of BRL 300 million. And we're accompanying this very closely. We can't talk about the future, but it's clearly the company has evolved in that sense. On the M&A question, we talked in the past that we would start the year to do our homework and scale up our new companies, organize the structures, the operating structures, as Fabio mentioned.
We look at these two factories of Latinex and Jasmine. Even the physical space, we returned a structure that was rented by Latinex. So now just one nota fiscal. There's no more nota fiscal going back and forth. We rationalized a great deal that operation. We're in the correct route, scale up these routes, which we see as a huge potential with much higher margins than M. Dias. The homework, as we mentioned, in 2023, it has been taken care of. It's not done because there's lots to do still. We spoke a little bit about that. But in that sense, yes, it's done.
If it comes back to us in a way that is as the MDB way without going crazy, which has been the story of our acquisition since 2003, a step-by-step approach, things that make sense and that have price multiples acceptable for our market. This is our way of doing things. When I say a total connection with our business plan, eventually, we see which we concentrated in the regions in which we have the intention of moving forward. We're talking about the south region. In the corridors of the company, especially for the next few years. It's not the moment for new acquisitions. And the international market at this moment is not something that we've looked at frequently. The focus is on regional expansion and the improvement of the mix. In the regional expansion, we see an M&A in that direction, which accelerates expansion in these regions.
As commented, M. Dias Branco will be a strong candidate to participate in these opportunities. So we're interested in continuing in growth inorganically and organically. We have a team, which is the Mão na Massa project, the Let's Go project, accelerate this process, organic process, but we're totally attentive to the possibilities that may appear for inorganic growth as well. So this would be very, very important for us, having this cash on hand for any eventual steps that might come along. This idea of heating up and slowing down, if it depended only on M. Dias Branco, it would be really hot. But we have to be careful and agree that we have to agree with the Russians, that it's not always not everything I want to buy or acquire is for sale, etc., or vice versa.
So we have to be patient, keep our feet on the ground, look at the possibilities without going overboard, without pressure, which is what we've always done in our 70-year no craziness in that sense. Okay?
Very good answers. Thank you, Gustavo.
Thank you, Tiago.
The next question comes from Lucas Ferreira from JP Morgan. Olá, pessoal.
Hi. I hope you can hear me. I have a few follow-up questions, two, in reality. First, about volumes and prices in this question of revenue. I remember that you mentioned that part of your strategy would be to lengthen your terms for your clients during this quarter. And what's your perspective that we can have for the beginning of the year? Can you still use this tool of giving longer terms to people to be able to expand your volume, especially in the cash and carry?
About your service units, you mentioned in your last investor day that it was a very important item on the table, something like a month of additional revenue. But the volume in recent years, last two years, and the improvement in the OTIF, we don't see this volume. Is it being captured? We can see that going forward with better volumes and better areas in the service. Or is this through mix, as you mentioned, where we see maybe it's not the whole volume, but the better volume because of pricing and so forth? How do you translate that into better revenue? Vou começar aqui pelo seu primeiro ponto, que é referente à questão dos prazos. Concedemos, sim, prazo adicional para uma parcela dos clientes da nossa receita. A part of our clients for this revenue. And this concession comes into a larger context.
In the JBP model, which is well known in the market, and we've seen this during 2023, that had its kickoff in an event that was done using the Piraquê brand, which we called with some of our clients. And I think you even participated, if I'm not mistaken, the sell- side analyst participated in this model, which happened in São Paulo, in a space which was totally covered with the Piraquê brand. So at this moment, when we concede additional terms to some of our clients, having as a counterpoint the increase in volume that they purchase was something that was very well thought out and within an equation to generate value. At the same time, we use a little bit of our working capital. We also had a counterpoint in the area of volume and the increase of gross margins.
If this concession will be permanent or not, or if it will happen again, depends greatly on each one of these negotiations and how we're going to revisit as our clients do. If this happens again, what I can tell you is that we're going to seek a counterpart in the volume and in the increase of margins. We see what happened in the fourth quarter, and it worked. We conceded an additional period of 15 days to some clients. The total MDS, there was an expansion of average term for 5 days, but we had a counterpart in the increase in volume and increased margins. So it's discussed case by case going forward in the environment of the JBP, the joint business plan, the level of service levels, as Gustavo mentioned in an earlier question, there is some upside.
When we begin this journey, the expectation that we had was we'd have an additional month of revenue. And I would say that we're halfway there, perhaps a little more than halfway there. But there are still improvements in the indicators and Case Fill Rate and the OTIF to be captured in the next two years. So yes, there's definitely upside in relation to the level of services. When we increase service levels, we don't leave any money on the table because we're able to attend our clients in the portfolio which they requested and the quantities ordered and in the periods that were agreed to.
Thank you, Fabio.
The next question comes from Laura Hirata from Santander.
Good morning, people. Thank you for taking my question. I wanted to talk about two points. The first is in relation to organic growth.
If you have some extra capacity and if you have space to perhaps do this in hand, new lines and new items, how are you thinking about this in relation to follow-up or perhaps some specific product? And also, I wanted to look at the question of the cash and carry with this strategy that you've shown of entry-level brands. How has been this both in relation to volume as well as the space on the shelf? For me, that's it.
Hi, Laura. This is Fabio speaking. Thank you for your question. Internally, we really like to talk about unused capacity. We call it reserve capacity, something that we have space that we have for the company to grow. And today, we have about 40% of reserve capacity looking at all of the different categories of M. Dias Branco from wheat flour and cookies and pastas and margarines and oils.
So we really don't have to add any CapEx to follow a strategic plan, at least over the next 4-5 years, which involves the recovery of our market share, the growth in volume, and the widening of margins and the increase in the returns as well. So we have a good reserve to recover share in the northeast region. And the recovery of share in the northeast, it works together with the reintroduction of these exclusive brands in the cash and carry channel. There are four brands: Pelaggio, Richester, Estrela, and Pilar. Obviously, they have potential for these brands outside of the northeast. But however, the initial focus in the northeast region, the growth and expansion of market share in the third quarter to the fourth quarter already evidences that this is the way we've chosen. This route we've chosen has given good results.
As we saw in the fourth quarter, there was a question of volume, the widening of market share, the increase in gross margins. So there's lots of value to be captured going forward based on the dilution of our fixed costs, a more relevant dilution of our fixed costs. So I think even Tiago said if there's any upside in the short term due to the falloff in commodities prices. As Gustavo said, yes, there is upside. But there's also some upside in gross margin by a better dilution of our fixed costs. And the use of our reserve capacity is not exclusive for these brands that are low price and low costs. There's a lot of potential to be captured with the accelerated growth of items of higher value added, such as cookies, wafers. And we have the opportunity for a relevant expansion in market share.
And the Piraquê brand, which is one of the brands which has shown accelerated growth in the total of the M. Dias Branco brands, both in the regions that are the more traditional, such as Rio de Janeiro, which are regional areas for Piraquê, and São Paulo, which is important for the growth of that brand, but also in the north and northeast. Prior to the acquisition, Piraquê practically didn't exist in those regions. And today, it already has almost BRL 200 million in revenue from the Piraquê brand in the north and northeast.
So your question makes all the sense in the world. It's something that's a priority for M. Dias Branco to use better our capacity, both in the recovery of market share in the lower value added areas as well as in the expansion of revenue and volume in the items of higher value added. And one does not compete with the other.
Today, we're working in these two opportunities, in both of these opportunities.
Okay. Thank you. That's very clear. If I can make a short follow-up as far as the cash and carry, to understand better, how would you be able to with these exclusive brands, how has this affected your relationship, especially quantitatively as well as shelf space, bargaining power with these stores and so forth?
This is something very positive. It's something important to remember at M. Dias Branco. We mentioned that M. Dias Branco is for everyone. We have a group of brands which permits us, which permits the company to play in all of the price levels in the market, both a brand like Estrela and Pilar, which operates in a lower price level, as well as Vitarella in the medium price range and Piraquê in the higher price range.
So when I deliver a complete portfolio to the client, but in this case, for the cash and carry client, this tends to be favorable from the standpoint of growth and from the standpoint of negotiation with that type of client. So we've seen this positively, the introduction of these brands in this channel. Of course, as Gustavo mentioned previously, there is a learning curve in a way that we have to guarantee that these are products, low price and low cost items, with the current value proposition being delivered.
Very good. Thank you.
Thank you, Laura.
The session of questions and answers is now closed. We'd like to pass the word to Gustavo to make his final considerations.
I want to thank you all for your participation in our call. Fabio, Guilherme, everybody.
We know that as we go in this direction of profitability, growing market share with intelligence, expanding margins, focused on processes and execution, looking at the growth of our portfolio and a number of SKUs, revising RGM and the commercial strategy, using our factory setup, and an increase of our level of services, a series of levers that have already been identified and which are being worked on by our transformation team every single day. We're very, very hopeful about 2024 and continuing on this trajectory, which has been successful so far. We can thank you all. We're at your service to attend any of your needs and whatever you need from us. If you need to go into any further details, please feel free to contact us. Thank you very much. The video conference for M. Dias Branco is now closed.
We thank you for all of your participation. Have a good day.