Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the disclosure of results for the 4th quarter 2022 for Três Tentos. Present with us, we have Mr. Luiz Osório Dumoncel , Director and President for the financial side and investor relations. João Marcelo Dumoncel, Director and Deputy President of Operations. Eduardo Motta, the Manager of Investor Relations there at Três Tentos. We inform that this video conference is being recorded and will be made available on the website. I also point out that for those that require simultaneous translation, we do have that option available. You have a little globe read, called Interpretation on the bottom side of your screen. You can select that. For those listening to the English option, you can mute the original audio if you click on that option, Mute Original Audio.
During the event, all the participants will be but listening the company's presentation and then right after that, we'll start Q&A. Questions may be asked, rather, if you click on Raise Your Hand, and you can also submit them in writing if you click on the Q&A option and write your questions down. Before we proceed, we would like to make it clear that any declarations that may be stated during this presentation with regards to the business prospects of the company, estimations and operating goals, financial goals, and the potential future growth of Três Tentos are mere beliefs and expectations of the company's management based on the current information. These declarations involve risks and uncertainties, and therefore, they depend on circumstances that may or may not occur.
Investors should understand that macroeconomic conditions, ag conditions, and other operating factors may affect the future performance of Três Tentos and lead to results that will perhaps be different than those expressed here. Now I would like to hand it over to Mr. Luiz Osório Dumoncel. Mr. Luiz, please proceed. Good morning, everyone, thank you. We are going to start with these highlights here on the presentation to kickstart. These are the numbers of the fourth quarter 2022, and of course, a closure for the entire year. Três Tentos continues to grow. We are getting near the BRL 7 billion mark. That's the net revenue in BRL. We know that in the past year, it was a tough year. Três Tentos, through its input sectors and in the industry, we withheld that situation.
The Mato Grosso market is contributing with results above the expected in the industry, Mato Grosso is getting near its conclusion. We worked all throughout 2022 with corn. Now at this point, we are working with soybeans in the current season. We are very confident with the company's performance and the Mato Grosso team work. The distribution of BRL 57 million of dividends, that accounts for roughly 10% of the company's net profit. These are some of the highlights that we would like to start our presentation with to give you this information. Moving on to the next slide, let's see some of the operating highlights. We had 9 new stores in 2022, 5 of which were built in Rio Grande do Sul, 4 in Mato Grosso.
We total 57 stores in the end of December. We hired an additional 27 consultants or salespeople, technicians, as we call them, and we reached the mark of 140 consultants out in the field, which are supporting our growth, our tech development in the ag business and the, you know, just the industry as a whole. We added an additional 1,000 tons of day of soybean processing in our plant. Today, Três Tentos is working with 4,000 tons a day, 2,000 of which are in Ijuí and the other two in Cruz Alta, which is a high-tech industry. A very important number for us is in fertilizers, where we have reached our record 240,000 tons of fertilizer sold, which accounts for a 30% growth.
Even though we had a rough patch, high price, logistics difficulties, our ecosystem or our Três Tentos platform is really proving to be very effective. Additionally, we have grown on our originated soybean capacity. Even in a year that was extremely challenging, Três Tentos has originated straight from the growers or even in this year that we worked with the co-ops and tradings, we have originated 1.1 million tons. The majority of that industrialized volume was sold as meal, as biodiesel, and other added value products. From a Mato Grosso perspective, one piece of news that makes us very confident is that MT already represents 13% of our input industry. We are very, very confident with those results coming from Mato Grosso. That leads us to the next slide, which is our financial highlights.
Over here, we can see our net profit on the top left, a growth to the tune of 30%. I bring your attention to something here. The fourth quarter is improving quite a bit, and we are seeing quite the upswing in terms of the company's performance to where we had a growth in our Adjusted gross profit of over 50% and the gross profit at the end reached almost BRL 1.1 billion. EBITDA adjusted also saw a growth of roughly 60%. Net profit, a growth of roughly 35%, which just shows how mature the company is and the ag business is. This company has gone through a lot of transformations in the last couple of years, getting ready for our IPO.
The break in revenue that we see on the left of the slide, we see between the industry and inputs and grains in gray, blue and light blue. This is a breakdown that, you know, emerges as a reflection of this year's scenario. This is the moment that the agribusiness is going through as well as other industries. That balance that Três Tentos has attained really makes us feel very confident. For this much, in the next slide, Marcelo can comment a little bit more on the three main pillars of Três Tentos: inputs, grains, and the industry. Good morning, everyone. Indeed, I think it's worthwhile to mention just how strong the Três Tentos ecosystem is.
We have been stressing this point for some time now, and this ecosystem, it is precisely just like it was said before, it's a combination of three segments that are quite important and complementary, which is inputs, grain origination, as we call it, and the industrialization of soybeans that we do, or the processing of soybeans. First of all, from an inputs perspective, we can see that there has been a very substantial revenue growth. The company has grown 65% in the year, 61% in the quarter and 65% in the year. There is a major highlight here. Obviously, we increased our coverage area. We have now 9 new stores, so we can cover greater ground. With this contribution, as it was said before, we now have Mato Grosso contributing to the picture.
That was really a positive surprise for us, just how welcoming the state was and just how easy it was for us to penetrate in that market, which is a very tough market competitively. At this moment, we are having some good results for the company, even above what we expected and what we had planned for that state. Now, from a farmer's perspective, farmers are investing more and more on technology and yield. The yield that we see on the different agencies' reports reflects that investment. You know, Brazil is harvesting more. We are seeing better yields. Of course, there's been some increases on the acreage as well. This growth that Três Tentos has had in 2022, this growth really happened despite the decrease on the input price.
We are seeing a market that early in 2022 saw higher prices, and these prices sort of dwindled slowly through the year. Even that has not, you know, put us in a position to be less competitive. That has not made us less active in the market. Obviously, we had this growth, and this growth comes a lot from the areas we cover and the hectares we treat, which is our yardstick. It's the way we measure our penetration. That increase in revenue, of course, comes with a margin. That margin accompanies the growth. We have had a very stable margin year in, year out, and that, of course, made us quite happy.
We were really satisfied with this outcome, especially considering the unstable scenario that we have faced at some points in some segments of the input industry. Really, this was a year that was marked by a strong growth and by a margin that has maintained on some very healthy levels. The next segment, which is our grain trading segment, this is, shall we say, the second stage of the Três Tentos ecosystem. We have some very positive highlights as well. We have said this before on some other reports. For those that keep tabs on the market, you know that the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul was punished with a very severe drought in the 2021, 2022 season. It was very tough, and that was what we worked with on the 2022 season for soybeans.
That this crop failure has given us a smaller share on the trading segment for soybeans. We managed to export less soybeans because obviously drought was a factor and the soybeans that were harvested on 2022 went especially for industrialization. Our objective was to stay with our plan. We wanted to crush and process more soybeans. The surplus, which traditionally is commercialized as grains for exportation at Três Tentos, that volume was lower this year. However, the highlight and the good news is that we had a good increase on two other crops that Três Tentos works with, which is corn and wheat. As we said, we provide inputs to the farmer and these crops right here, corn and wheat, have had some very substantial results.
They almost offset the drop in the soybeans for 2022. In terms of revenue, we had good results. There is a strong growth on wheat, especially in Rio Grande do Sul, corn as well, but primarily wheat in the south. There was also a contribution from corn, like I said, in the southern state. Três Tentos also was a part of the safrinha corn, which is the second crop of corn in Mato Grosso. That just shows the power of having this combination of being able to complement different sectors and give more stability to our business. Also speaking about profit and margin, we had an improvement, especially because of these products. You see, these are products that when you analyze our margin mix, they become even healthier for the company compared to the soybean trading.
This is a trading that is more competitive, that is more adjusted. From a corn and wheat perspective, Três Tentos has a more competitive position due to the input provision, due to the services we render. With that situation, we can attain better outcomes. In the third segment, which is the industry segment, we have also had a very challenging year on that front, especially with regards to biodiesel. We had a stable 10% diesel biodiesel mixture throughout the year. However, we had a very important compensation that came from the volumes and the margins of meal. We had a considerable improvement in our profitability throughout the year, which translated quite well on the fourth quarter. That shows again, just the power behind the industry of meal in Rio Grande do Sul and in Brazil.
Meal becomes a good underpinning for the internal market as well as the exportation. We also had an increase on our capacity in the Cruz Alta plants. Now Três Tentos, in the last quarter and a little bit of the third quarter, Três Tentos is began to work with the full capacity, 2,000 tons in Cruz Alta and 2,000 tons in the other plant. In the fourth quarter, we were able to recover a little bit of our margin, which improved our annual margin. We have very good expectations that we are going to see the industry yielding even better results in 2023 and moving forward, especially because there is an estimation to increase the mixture rate. As of April, according to our legislation, that mixture should be 15% for commercial diesel.
It's mandatory for that to be 15% biodiesel on the mix. Throughout the year, there would be a very important increase in the market, which absolutely would help us see better margins. From a meal perspective, like I said, in the fourth quarter, and the perspective for 2023, is that we're going to see a lot of activity in this market. From an operating perspective, we also have the, you know, the industry that is going to give us an increase on capacity and volume, and that is also going to have a positive reflection from a revenue perspective. With this scenario, when you consider the adjusted numbers and the estimation for 2023, we hope to continue on this upward trajectory. That should be a good generator for margins and profits. Yes, João.
I think that I was, yeah, I was thinking to myself just how good it is to see the points connecting within the Três Tentos ecosystem. All the work that was done on the three pillars that the company works with really reflects on our EBITDA growth, on our adjusted EBITDA on 22, and our expansion as well. Right here, I wanna bring something to the discussion. I would like us to look back 2 or 3 years ago to the pre-IPO Três Tentos. Três Tentos was, you know, and also during the IPO and right after the IPO, we still talk about it because that still has an impact on non-recurrent expenditures, as the slide shows us here. There's been a fantastic growth overall in the company in those 3 years.
We are attaining good margins, we are attaining good outcomes, and we have this EBITDA of 9%. We are confident, and we can see in the 4th quarter, you know, some of the recurrent expenditures saw an important decrease, and this is what we see moving forward. You know, as Três Tentos becomes more mature and as we develop more, we are not going to stop growing. We're going to continue to grow responsibly. Today, again, we are attaining results. We are reaping the benefits because we have invested, and we will continue investing moving forward. On this slide, I think it's important for us to point something out. I mean, João Marcelo, Eduardo, and myself want to stress the importance of our team.
Our recognition goes to this amazing team that is out there working from the very planning stage with farmers out in the farm with so much dedication and all the way to the harvest. We see Três Tentos' customers harvesting more, suffering less crop failure, being more competitive, and that yields results on all three sectors. Again, the industry sector, the input sector, grain trading, and the industry. Yeah, we are so happy and so satisfied. We're pleased with this result and confident, and we just want to acknowledge the very outstanding job that our team puts in every day. Again, this is a joy to us. Moving on to the next slide, I just wanna bring your attention to one of Três Tentos characteristics. Três Tentos has a strong cash generation, and we will continue to do that. This is our commitment.
We want to make sure that you can see that is basically the net profit of Três Tentos. That's the bottom line of Três Tentos. That puts us in a very strong position to continue expanding with responsibility. On the next slide. Now we can hand it over to Eduardo so we can so he can talk a little bit about the return that Três Tentos sees. Well, I think it's worth pointing out something about the company. We have made some very important investment in 2022 that are yet to mature. I think it's worth mentioning that we invested over BRL 700 million in 2022. We have concluded the year with some very elevated return levels.
We are very satisfied with this result, and our expectation is that we are going to see the company going back on track to its historic levels. As we see in this combination with our three segments, and we want to stay at a very high return level. A little bit about investment. I want to call João to comment further on that, to say a little about what happened in 2022. Yes, without question. I mean, the highlights are for sure the stores that we opened in Rio Grande do Sul and in Mato Grosso are as MT. That's what we are reporting. I mean, that's the first leverage for growth in our company. Obviously we have industrial investment. The picture that you see here is the Vera industry one week ago, so our work is almost done.
We have the project nearly 85% completed. Yeah, it's in the tail end of the process. We are already receiving soybeans in this facility. From an operating perspective, we are already receiving grains, and we are building our stocks, our inventory to be able to process those soybeans. We are receiving the grains during harvest, which is happening right now. Through this new plant, we're going to have an increase, 2,600 tons a day of additional soybeans being processed. There's going to be a very substantial biodiesel increase, as you can see, which is going to increase our capacity in 60% and is going to nearly double our capacity to produce biodiesel. These are some of the highlights. These are the investments that the company is making in its infrastructure.
Throughout 2023, we're going to start seeing some very positive impacts on our bottom line. At this point, folks, I would like to highlight our dividend distribution. You saw a little bit of that on our first slide, our highlights. In my vision, as we are looking through the numbers and analyzing the results and going through the slides one by one, I think it's worthwhile to emphasize just how powerful the agribusiness is, just how strong this business is in Brazil. Três Tentos has a responsibility. We are a company that has been growing year in, year out since we were founded, and we're going to continue to grow, always in a responsible fashion, but also with a work that is very focused on improving performance. Generating results is key.
We have to continue to grow, to continue to strengthen the company and improve our governance moving forward. Obviously, we're going to do that responsibly, and we do our distribution of dividends responsibly so the shareholder can feel confident that they, you know, that they are working with a long-term company. We are in it for the long run. We have prospects, and we have a very promising future. That long-term view is what gets us excited. It's what gets us up in the morning and makes us stronger moving forward. Again, we are very pleased to see these results. In the more challenging years, which are sure to come, everyone says that there is no easy year or tough year in agriculture. Years are always different. Três Tentos is ready.
It's in a position to face those different years, so to speak. 2023 could be a El Niño year. In other words, rain is going to go normal for a period, probably for a cycle. We are very optimistic with this prospect. By the way, João, Marcelo, and Eduardo, I invite you to go to the next slide, which is our prospects. Again, we are very pleased with the results considering the three underpinnings of the company, which is inputs, grains, and the industry. More and more, these pillars are well established. They are more synergistic, which impacts the results. Marcelo, do you have any comments here? Absolutely. Again, I think we have to point out just how strong the ecosystem is.
There's been a crucial role that Três Tentos has played in 2022 was no different considering all the challenges we had. Considering the 2023 prospects, again, I think we are charging forward with a solid plan. Our plan is underway. It's being executed. We are very confident about it. We are taking firm steps. We are very determined. We have a great team behind us. With that, I think we are definitely going to deliver the results. In some cases, we can even over-deliver. Right. In this last slide before we go to Q&A, what I can tell you is that. The investment that farmers have in technology is crucial. Farmers are more and more hungry for knowledge. They wanna look for better yields. They wanna look for better and larger investments in their infrastructure, in applying their inputs.
Also they want to acquire better seeds, better genetics. With the fertilizer, with crop protection, they really strive to get better yields and better seasons. That's what takes us from the inputs to the grain side and from the grain side to the industry. It's a natural process. Again, we are very excited about the future. Perhaps we can conclude this call at this point and go to Q&A. What do you think? Yeah. At this moment, we're going to start our Q&A session. Questions may be submitted in writing or via voice. You can raise your hand on Zoom. The little hand is available. You can click on it on the bottom side. At this moment, you can activate your microphone.
To submit your questions in writing, all you'll have to do is click on the Q&A option and type in your question. Let's get to the first question from Pedro Luiz Fonseca, who is an analyst from XP. Pedro, we're going to enable your audio so you can ask your question. Go ahead, Pedro. Good morning, Luiz, João Marcelo, Eduardo. Congrats on the good year. I just wanna touch on two aspects. First, the grain business. I think it's very clear where the upside came from in the margins of the fourth quarter because you had a better mix. What I wanna know is that, is it possible for us to perhaps estimate our, you know, your margins moving forward? Can they be higher than the historical leverage due to the increase on your share in corn, especially because you are getting active in Mato Grosso?
Can we perhaps estimate margins above the historical leverage? My second point is this. It's about the diversification strategy. As you verticalize your strategy, you have had some great results. I wanna know if you want to focus more on exportation, maybe with direct contracts with foreign customers. That would be my second question. Thank you. Thank you, Pedro. Thanks for your question. I'm going to start answering. Also I wanna open up the door for Eduardo and João Marcelo to comment. With regards to the corn and wheat margins, yes, we believe that there will be a positive increase, and we are actually going through a period, like I said, we have cycles in agriculture. It's not even Mato Grosso and Rio Grande do Sul agriculture, not even just Brazil agriculture, but globally.
At this point, we have this armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which are two leading producers of wheat. Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul, and the state of Paraná, you know, Brazil has had a fantastic season, and we are getting a reputation for wheat exportation in many destinations, and that opens up the door for the international market more and more. Even though Brazil has achieved its self-sufficiency, which is 12, 13 tons of wheat per year, even as we reach this self-sufficiency, we will continue to export. In this, considering this trend, I mean, Três Tentos has some very important perspectives. When it comes to corn, our efforts are being undertaken in a very careful way, so we can arrive at some very important corn destinations, knowing that China is one major corn importer.
That has fantastic growth, and they are going to continue to be more and more relevant on importing corn. Três Tentos has been getting ready. Now, in the end of 2022, we started our trading. Now we have professionals that are focused on opening up these markets. They are preparing the ships so that they can reach the destinations. With that, we can be competitive in Mato Grosso, not only in soybeans, which we would be automatically with our industry, but also trading soybeans and also focusing on the second crop of corn in Mato Grosso and Rio Grande do Sul corn whenever the opportunity comes up. With regards to diversification, as far as diversifying our business, Três Tentos really has this as a model.
Everything that we can add as far as value, anything we can do for the growers is what we want to do. We really want to deliver the very best product, the very best service, and the best results to our farmers. All of that is to be done with a lot of governance, with a lot of confidence, like I said before, and we wanna generate better and better results so the company can continue very strongly. With that, we can start adding more products to our portfolio and being more competitive. We have the customer's attention. What is our responsibility now? We share this with all of our Três Tentos team. Not only do we not want to lose the attention of our 20,000 farmer customers, but we wanna be more and more relevant to them. Our meaning, our purpose is very clear.
Great, Luiz. Thank you so much. Congratulations to everyone. Thank you. Moving forward, next question from Mateus, an analyst from UBS. Mateus, we're going to enable your audio. Please ask your question. Good morning, Luiz, João, Eduardo. Thank you for taking my question. Congratulations on the great quarter and the great year. I just want to understand a little more about the development of your market share on retail. Can you give us the market share you had on 21 and 22 on retail, that is? My second question, still on the same token, is about the ramp-up and the maturing of your stores. How is that developing considering a growth average by region? Have you seen a good gain of share? Do you believe that a store market share will continue at around 12%?
My last point, which is also related to the same topic. In this maturing, have you experienced some difficulties? I mean, do you expect to have a slower maturity process in Mato Grosso? Do you believe that the stores in Mato Grosso are going to reach the same 12% in market share? Good morning, Mateus. Thank you for your question as well. João Marcelo, you may comment on that also. I think you have the numbers in your head, perhaps because you are closer to that retail side. Thank you, Mateus. With regards to market share, we have a plan for it, and we have shown a growth curve which is expected by the company.
It is a curve that more or less it scales up 2%-2.5% per year from a market share perspective. It becomes stable around the fifth or 6 years, 6th year, around 12% or 15% market share. Of course, there is some fluctuation from market to market. You have markets that are more competitive and larger. In smaller markets, we can actually get even a better result. This is an ascending curve even after the fifth and 6th year. Today the company has stores that are 25 years in the market, and their market share is much higher than that.
Today, our market share, considering the current market at Rio Grande do Sul, where roughly 20% of the stores have less than 3 years of existence, we are able to maintain that market share even as we add new areas at around 12% and 13%. In our eyes, this is a very satisfactory market share because of course the 20% of new stores that are in our portfolio and considering the increase on our coverage for from a Mato Grosso perspective, and we told you about this in the highlights a little bit. Mato Grosso already accounts for 13% of the company's revenue in this first cycle. That was a very positive surprise to us.
Mato Grosso, even though has theoretically more, is more competitive, is really surprising us very positively with the return for farmers and just how welcoming they were to our value proposition, our proposal for assistance, for negotiation, and all of this ecosystem that Três Tentos offers to the growers. This has also been very positive in Mato Grosso, so we are very optimistic in that state on this first cycle. We know that we can get a market share ramp-up that is even above the expected. Thank you. Congrats on the results. Moving on. Next question by Guilherme Palhares, analyst of Bank of America. Guilherme, we're going to enable your audio. Please ask your question at this point. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. My first question is in the same line of Mateus' question, which is about retail.
We have seen the company grow in Mato Grosso. I want to understand a little bit about the difference in the portfolio on the region this, at this moment compared to what you have on Rio Grande do Sul. Also, if you can comment on that, what was the margin performance in that region compared to the legacy business in Rio Grande do Sul? If I may, a second question about the industry business. Obviously, the year was very impacted by the blends and by the mixture of biodiesel. When you look at the Vera plant that is now going operational on 2023, what can we expect as far as capacity, as far as the consolidated capacity of the company from a Mato Grosso and Rio Grande do Sul perspective?
How do you think the year is going to be as far as the capacity? How are you going to look for those better margins? Thank you. Good morning, Palhares, and thank you for your question. I'm going to start by the third question, which is about biodiesel. João Marcelo, you can help me out on answering about the portfolio and the comparative margins. With regards to the biodiesel blend, well, again, we are confident considering the regulation of the country and what is scheduled for March. In March, it's still going to be 10%, the mix, and on April, it's going to be 15%.
The organizations are defending that we should have a gradual increase on that mixture, so we should start April at 12, May, June at 13, and as of June and August, reach 14% and perhaps 15% biodiesel later in the year, in the second semester or even in the next summer crop. We are very optimistic with that and the sector is optimistic. How do we do that and at what speed? This increase of 50% from 10 to 15, this increase is going to be very important and it's going to solidify the demand for distribution and that is going to be done with quality and with security so consumers can use more and more renewable fuels.
With that, we have a vision and we believe that the margins will be better indeed because Mato Grosso works with 1 million liters per day or 1 million cubic meters per day in the state. This is the top producing state in Brazil. For this year, we are looking at 42-43 million tons of soybeans coming from that state and there's going to be an equal amount of corn. This state consumes a lot of diesel and producing biodiesel at the very heart of the Mato Grosso state, which is a producing state, that is going to be close to the distribution, is going to be close to the consumption. Yes, we are confident that the margins for the company will continue to improve and we are very attentive to that.
With regards to the portfolio, there is a change in the Mato Grosso portfolio especially from a corn perspective. The safrinha, which is the second crop of corn, is a very important crop and that really is a game changer for the portfolio when it comes to providing inputs for the safrinha. In soybeans, that's a very similar situation in Rio Grande do Sul. Of course, there are some differences on the region due to the climate, due to the cycles and the crop, but it's a small difference. Rio Grande do Sul, when you compare that to the corn inputs in the safrinha, you have the wheat inputs. The major difference is on this complementary crop. For Mato Grosso is corn and for Rio Grande do Sul is wheat. There is a lot of synergy.
Today, a great deal of our suppliers in Rio Grande do Sul, they also supply inputs for us in Mato Grosso. That gives us, you know, gains in scale and operating gains that are really good to work with with regards to margins. The Mato Grosso market is a more competitive one, so we have negotiations that go for higher tickets. Obviously, these negotiations are a little tougher. They are a little more competitive. Again, I think that we have a good offsetting mechanism because our operating cost is lower in that region. After all, agronomists can take care of more hectares. They can take care of more growers. They can work at a higher ticket and the logistics as well. The logistics is also, you know, serves us better. That creates an offset as far as the margins in operating terms. Very clear.
If I may do a follow-up. Today, the company has Trifértil, and you have a mixer in your own company. Do you have an intention to take this product to Mato Grosso and to have a mixing operation to cater to your customers on that state? Yes, we are already structuring that. We are already registering the products in there, in that region. We have partnerships with service providers. We do the importation of the raw materials and we do the mixture on companies that are specialized in that. Again, we comprise a portfolio like we do in Rio Grande do Sul. We do reselling with traditional partners that the company works with, which are the major players in the Brazilian market, but we also add to that and we have an alternative to imported products with our brand.
Mato Grosso is definitely going to do that on 2023. Thank you. Have a good day. Thank you. Moving forward, the next question is from Daniel Sasson, analyst from Itaú BBA. Daniel, you may ask your question at this point. Daniel, you may ask your question at this point. It seems that Daniel dropped off. My apologies. I think I had an issue with my audio. Can you hear me now? Yes, Daniel, you may ask your question. Thank you. My first question is about the industry segment. We are seeing meal prices in Mato Grosso at a very high level. We saw that late last year, and it's staying at BRL 3,000 per ton.
Would you please comment on what you think about the price in Mexico and how sustainable you think the importation premiums, which were some of the highlights for the quarter, how sustainable are they? Especially considering the potential crop failure of the Argentinian soybean crop, which we know Argentina is one of the leading meal exporters. Please comment on that. My second question, perhaps a little less obvious, but, you know, some of my previous questions have been answered already. I'm curious about the wheat ethanol projects. Some of the projects were announced throughout 2022, investments to the tune of BRL 1 billion. Of course, this is still in its early stages. We still have a very rough patch in terms of fuels in the country.
Do you believe that the wheat ethanol segment could be a possibility for you to invest at some point? Thank you. Good morning. Thank you so much for your questions. I think I'm going to answer the question about meal, and then Marcelo is in a better position to comment on the ethanol or the possibility of wheat ethanol. Meal, of course, without question, we have seen an improvement on the margins, and we have seen a price improvement in late 2022, and we continue with that trend on 2023. Now in January and early February, we have a positive expectation with regards to the basis because, I mean, the question was almost answered. You know, it's because of the climate issue.
If in Rio Grande do Sul we have a climate challenge that is very specific to the state, it's more serious in some regions of the state than others. In Argentina, that goes for almost the entire country in the cropland. You know, it's a very serious problem on soybeans. They have a very serious crop failure. The Argentinian market works at a 35 million tons level, Argentina accounts for roughly 40% of the meal exported in the world. Today, Brazil accounts for 28%. Argentina has a big importance.
They have less products available. As a consequence, that has an increase on the basis, especially in Rio Grande do Sul, when some ships come and do a top off on Rio Grande do Sul because they are not able to fully load their, their ship on Argentina, so they come to the Rio Grande port, and their destination is Europe and Southeast Asia. Again, we are optimistic, and we are prepared. We are always keeping tabs on that situation. We look at it very carefully, and we are in a growing trend, even though we are responsible about it. Again, I see that this product can be, you know, in the post-pandemic world, in this increase, we are still going to have a 2023 with some inflation problems. We perhaps are going to face some problems around the world.
When the consumption goes back, when the trips that were happening already continue to happen, that is definitely going to lead to a higher protein consumption. When it comes to protein consumption, of course, what comes to mind is soybean meal. We are very confident with that. Perfect. Thank you. Now, with regards to ethanol, just to add on to that, you know, ethanol is something that Três Tentos focuses on. We have this origination base that is very consistent, and it's growing on corn and wheat. Wheat in Rio Grande do Sul, corn in Mato Grosso. This is a topic that is very much present. It's a hot topic, and we are going more in depth into it. We are making projections.
In our analysis, as far as the wheat ethanol is still more competitive than, I mean, the corn ethanol is still more competitive than wheat ethanol, but both are markets that exist, and we believe certainly that in the mid to long term, they're going to be more competitive. That is going to happen just because of the increase in fossil fuels and this necessity to have a cleaner and more sustainable energy matrix. Excellent. Thank you. Continuing on, question by Gabriel Barra, analyst from Citibank. Gabriel, we're going to enable your audio. Please ask your question. Hello, everyone. Luiz, Marcelo, Edu. Well, I have two questions here. First, about inputs. One interesting aspect is that we are coming from a season that had very high ag input prices, and when you look at the graph today, especially to fertilizers, there's been a significant drop in price.
My question is: when you look at the input margins, you're able to keep your margins at very healthy levels in this season, which, you know, resulted in a very important, very good profit this year. My question is: considering this price scenario that is maybe cooling off because of the season and because of the high interest rates, I heard that there's actually a difficulty to transmit this cost to the front lines. What is your take on the margins this year? Now, with the company moving forward, do you believe you're going to stay on the same level? Would you try to recomprise this margin to keep the gross profit growing in 2023? What is your plan for that? What is your take on that? I would really like to hear your comments.
The second question is about the competitive market. There were some questions about market share, about margins and et cetera. We have seen some groups scrambling in this sector. There are some groups, and there are some companies that are sort of advocating that thesis in the market. I'm not going to mention names of competitors, but you know precisely who they are. I would like to hear from you. I mean, what is your take on this consolidation trend, especially in the Midwest of Brazil and the difficulty to penetrate that region? Also you have less leveraging and, you know, you have a more accelerated growth, perhaps. How can you harness that advantage? Yeah, those are my two questions. Okay, Barra, thank you for your question.
I'm going to start by giving you my opinion and João Marcelo, feel free to comment further. I'm sure that we'll probably have similar opinions, but we can add on to each other. With regards to inputs, indeed, we saw high prices in the past season. There was a detachment because we were still suffering with logistics after the pandemic. Because of the Ukraine war, we saw some... You know, those two important players in the world stage, Russia and Ukraine, they are some of the leading fertilizer producers. That made a lot of inputs more expensive, both fertilizers and chemicals. That tightened up the margins for the rural farmer. Today, we are seeing a bit of an improvement in those margins for farmers.
Farmers are already planning to use their inputs in the best way so they can have the best harvests. You know, this is a year where Três Tentos, as we increase our geography, as we increase our area of coverage, and as we increase our share, we know that we will be able to offset a lot of those reductions. We're going to do that with our margins, either because of price or because of the increase in coverage. As we increase our share, we can move on that direction. A lot of our growers are capitalized on that. They are seeing better margins, they are seeing a better cost-to-benefit ratio, so they are going to invest more to harvest more. This is my take with regards to inputs.
As far as the competitive market, consolidation is a reality. Três Tentos sees itself as a market consolidator. We do that in an organic way, we are reaching markets in Mato Grosso and Rio Grande do Sul, we are promoting this consolidation. We are always attentive to some positions that may bring the company to a better level or may help us accelerate our growth and our market share. We always have M&A in our minds, we are very careful. If this happens, we wanna make sure that this is going to be in line with our company. It has to be great value. We look for great teams. We wanna have companies that are knowledgeable about the field, that have growers by their side. With that, we can have some positive results in the company.
João Marcelo may comment further if he wants to. Yes, I think we're very much in line with regards to revenue. We'll definitely have to do that via the increase in market share and our area of coverage in order to offset the losses and continue the growth despite the decrease in prices. Now, with regards to margins, from a percentage perspective, there's not as much pressure on margins. Sometimes higher input price puts more pressure than a price decrease. The challenge is really going to be to grow on our kilo-liter measures. We are very confident about the margins to further answer your question. Our challenge is to maintain the margins that we have been working with because these are historical margins. They date back to many years since the company has been active.
Of course, there is a great deal of challenge down the road, but we don't have any negative expectations in that sense. With regards to competition, just like Luiz said, I believe that consolidation is a reality in our business. It is out there. In our vision, I mean, consolidation really. Sometimes you have local companies that are extremely aggressive in the market that has some important positions, and those get changed by a platform that is larger. There are some very substantial challenges to replace the local company. It is our understanding that competition happens on both sides, both for consolidating markets as well as markets that have some smaller local companies, which is, you know, no small cookie. Again, you have the de-leveraging of our company because of the high interest rates.
This is definitely going to be a decisive factor. We have many competitors that work on different levels of leveraging. Possibly they will struggle a little more to get the results. Great. Thank you, folks. Next question from Thiago Duarte, analyst at BTG Pactual. Thiago, you may ask your question at this point. Hello. Good morning, everyone. Luiz, João Marcelo, thank you so much for the opportunity. I wanna focus on the expansion in Mato Grosso. First, from the following lens. I mean, we look at the growth plan in the state of Mato Grosso. We look at that at the time of the IPO. I think that the schedule is very much in line or even above the expected as your results are. I mean, your results have recognized this.
Those results seem to be very encouraging with regards to, you know, what people expected as far as the risks you were facing. Again, the results are turning out to be quite good. The first question is, you have five stores open, and you have your industry being inaugurated this year, so you are very close to the end, you know, your eight stores plus the industry. My question is, does it make sense for you to start thinking about a new expansion cycle in the Midwest, either via more stores, the industry or whichever model? Again, I think the company's strength is the ecosystem and the integrated platform.
I don't know if it's too early to think about it or if this is already in discussion, and if you can give us maybe a glimpse about the next step for growth, given the good results you've had so far. Furthermore, if I may, I would like to do 2 follow-ups to questions that were asked previously. First, the margins of the input platforms in Mato Grosso. João Marcelo already mentioned that they are a little lower because this is a competitive market. On the other hand, the scale of the platform is much higher. However, when you look at 2022, the consolidated margins for the input business, they don't seem, considering the growth of the market, Mato Grosso share, they don't seem to have suffered in any major way.
I don't know if I can stretch a little bit and try to ask, when you look at this consolidated margin, you know, the gross margin for inputs in the year, 23.7% is the number. Can we at least break down what comes from Mato Grosso and what comes from Rio Grande do Sul to make up this final number? I think that would be an interesting discussion if you could maybe shed some light on that. The second follow-up is this: Our impression is that the maturing process of the stores is doing well, or perhaps is going even faster than what we expected. My question is, can you break down as far as your revenue for inputs, how much comes from the more mature stores and from the stores that have less than three years?
If you can give us an update, it would be great to try and have a yardstick on the maturing curve. Thank you. Thank you, Duarte. Good morning. Well, I can start by trying to answer about the growth schedule and the expansion of the company. Indeed, it's a little ahead of the curve, a little bit above what we estimated. We already have everything outlined. To us, our IPO plan has always stayed, you know, as a first priority. We always wanted to deliver that as a good return for our investors from the get-go. This is absolutely in line, and the results that we are obtaining are really encouraging. We are planning our next steps. We are trying to see when this first expansion stage, it will be concluded.
As we become closer to concluding it, these plans are made in our company. At that point, we're going to share those plans with the market at an appropriate stage. We're going to decide which side we are going. I can tell you that Três Tentos is going to remain with this platform. It's going to remain with this approach, with its customers, its rural farmers in the major ag markets in Brazil. Our presence is going to remain. This expansion cycle is going to happen with the Três Tentos ecosystem. About the margins of Mato Grosso and the maturity of our stores, João Marcelo can maybe help me out to answer. The margins of Mato Grosso, we have our breakdown here, a partial breakdown actually, because there are a lot of negotiations that are joined.
There is a combination, and there is an optimization of suppliers in Mato Grosso and Rio Grande do Sul that gives us a lot of bargaining power. It's around three percentage points less than the average margins of Rio Grande do Sul, speaking of Mato Grosso. Today in the input business, the seeds platform is very important in Rio Grande do Sul. As you know, Três Tentos is a seed producer. We oversee the process from the beginning, from the very planning of the process, from planning the cultivars all the way to selling the Três Tentos brand seeds, and also considering the climate of Mato Grosso. In that place, we cannot produce seeds. In that case, Três Tentos is a reseller, we buy seeds to sell to the market in Mato Grosso.
Of course, that has an impact on margin because we are not as verticalized in that chain. Also from a fertilizer's perspective, due to the geographical location, due to the location of our brand, Trifértil, in that market, we still don't have as big a market or as competitive a market as we do in our Rio Grande do Sul operation. In those two sides, I mean, we are moving towards being more competitive, as we have done here. We are verticalizing a lot of our chain. We are working on that process in Mato Grosso. In our understanding, our margins are going to reduce that difference, to reduce that gap.
If I may add on to that, after João and Luiz, if I can comment on your question with regards to the maturing process of the new stores and a little bit about the breakdown in revenue of these stores and the recent stores. This is an information that makes more sense in comparison when you look at the season, at the overall season. The season is coming to an end, the 2022-2023 season. We are working to make sure that the market can develop as far as our share in those regions, both for Mato Grosso and Rio Grande do Sul, and also looking at the market size and the share of these stores. Very soon, still this year, we're going to disclose more information about it.
Today, we don't have this number because it doesn't make sense for us to look at the fiscal year. We look more at the season year. Yes, I actually forgot about that. That's right. I believe this is going to happen more in the end of the second trimester. The ag year concludes on May 30 in Rio Grande do Sul. The closing of the second quarter will give us that vision for the season year, which is the period that we believe it makes sense to do that analysis. It's very clear. Thank you so much for your answers. There are no more questions, we conclude the Q&A, and we'll hand it over to Mr. Luiz for his final remarks. Thank you.
I wanna say thanks to all of you that have kept tabs on this results disclosure for the fourth quarter and the year of 2022. I just want to reinstate just how confident the company is on this sector. We have a growing demand to where our responsibility to produce foods and to produce renewable energy and all the work we do to support our farmers and the growing presence we have on the financial market in the countryside of Brazil is very important, so Três Tentos has this commitment. Três Tentos really has a more committed team, so this is our recognition. First of all, we wanna recognize our customers and the investors that are with us and the shareholders that really believe in the strength of the agribusiness. Again, I wanna say thanks to everyone, to all of the Três Tentos team that is working with us.
Have a great day. This video conference is now concluded. The Investor Relations department is at your service to answer any further questions. Thank you so much to all the participants. Have an excellent day ahead.