Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Tiger Brands' Interim Results presentation for the six months ended March 2023. I'm Nicky Catrakilis-Wagner, responsible for Investor Relations at Tiger Brands. We also welcome those who have joined us on the webcast. I would particularly like to welcome you to the Sensorium. It's a brand-new, state-of-the-art, multipurpose center dedicated to innovation. It will enhance our research and development facilities, category pilot plants at the manufacturing sites, and people capability to future-proof the business. It includes a laboratory, a functional pantry, a test kitchen, and a sensory room. For those of you who are in the room, you'll be taken on a tour of the facility following the presentation. Coming back to the presentation, the agenda will follow the same format as we follow every results cycle. We'll begin with opening remarks from CEO, Noel Doyle.
Deepa Sita, the CFO, will provide a financial overview, and the chief growth officers will cover the operational aspects of their respective portfolios. In terms of the operational reviews, you'll be familiar with Yokesh Maharaj, who heads up Grains, and Thushen Govender, responsible for consumer brands. We're also introducing Polycarp Igathe, who was appointed Chief Growth Officer for the Rest of Africa. After which Noel will conclude the presentation, and we'll open it up to Q&A. Before we begin, I draw your attention to the forward-looking statement. With that, I'll hand over to CEO, Noel Doyle.
Thanks, Nicky. Thank you and good morning. Thank you for joining us, either virtually or at our premises. I'm gonna do a very brief overview, then we'll get into the nuts and bolts of the business before we do a wrap-up. I think really, I'm not going to dwell on the top half of this slide, which covers the consumer environment, and the macroeconomic environment. One can see from the stats that we've highlighted that it's certainly becoming ever more challenging in an environment that has not been easy, certainly for the last number of years, in terms of what we are seeing in terms of consumer behavior and consumer disposable income.
What that's translating into in terms of consumer sentiment and consumer wallet, is the kind of dynamic that is set out in the bottom half of the slide, where you're seeing a shift in consumption towards sort of the center of plate carbohydrate, if you like, which is where you're seeing some growth, and where margins for us, have been particularly challenged in this period, and an accelerating trend of volume decline across many of the other categories. This really reflects the variability of consumer spend and the extent to which discretionary spend is being eliminated in favor of the very basics across our target market.
The stats that you see here are stats for modern trade, but based on a triangulation of different data available to us, I don't think that the trend is markedly different. We think that if you look at the wholesale and traditional trade sector, the trends are probably more pronounced in that space. When you look at our performance, I mean, it's very clear that in terms of return on effort, there's nothing reflected in terms of the poor results that you see, the disappointing result for this six months, in terms of our returns. Whilst in the background, we've had very good progress, in terms of ongoing improvements in our efficiencies, in reducing wastage, and we're ahead of our target in terms of cost savings initiatives for this year.
There's been some offset with the cost of load shedding, which we'll go into in detail. Because of that consumer environment, quite a lot of pricing constraints in terms of trying to maximize or optimize the value/volume equation. A feature of the results, which we'll unpack in more detail, is the significant underperformance of or disappointing level of performance of both our rice and grocery business, where we really saw towards the end of this period a significant change in the trajectory of those businesses. On the positive side, within the portfolio, apart from some of the individual domestic segments, which we will take you through, we've been pleased with the sustained progress in export.
When you look at our share performance, our volume share looks better than this graph. The value share, I think, is a better sort of reflection of the overall health of our performance in the market. There's been a good performance, you know, over the last 12 months, 6 months and 3 months in terms of our value share, that has really come from an overweighting in our milling, retail, and wholesale business and in our rice business, where, as we'll cover in a bit more detail, we had actually much tighter margins than we anticipated, and where we're seeing much higher levels of price sensitivity.
You know, the brands overall, in terms of our market shares compared to where we were at the half year, we're pleased with the share performances, but those positive performances have come at the expense of compression in pricing and margins, as a consequence of the environment that we've outlined and which you're all familiar with. At this point, I'm gonna hand over to Deepa, who will take you through the detail of the financials.
Thank you, Noel. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, both in the room as well as virtually. Yeah, I think, you know, as Noel indicated, it certainly has been a challenging six months for us. The first half performance is reflective, where we've seen some recovery in volumes in some of our key segments. However, these were certainly offset by category-specific headwinds that we'll talk to shortly. In essence, we have certainly seen a high operating cost margin, and that's largely been driven out of the impact of the implications of load shedding, et cetera.
In terms of our highlights for the 6 months, we have seen some period and period volume improvement come through in terms of our key segments, such as bakeries, snacks and treats, personal care, as well as in terms of our export business overall. The revenue management program that I've spoken to quite extensively in a number of our previous results presentations, continued to gain traction in many of our areas. Some of the more recent examples include the discount dispersions that we see in our bakeries category, as well as SKU prioritization in the groceries category, which saw up to 25% rationalization come through.
Cost saving, as Noel indicated, is tracking ahead of target, despite the high input cost inflation that we continue to see from a procurement point of view. Specific headwinds, Tushin will talk to the headwinds that we've seen in the grocery category. Certainly, those volumes have been disappointing in the last six months. We saw poor price volume management in the rice category, which became apparent to us as we were finalizing our half-year results. That's as a result of the billing cycles that had been completed, where we noticed the poor price volume management that had come through. Increase in cost push pressures, like I said earlier on, load shedding continues to have an impact on our business.
The total impact for the H1 was ZAR 76 million, with an incremental energy cost of ZAR 48 million for H1. We also saw some headwinds come through in working capital investment, albeit some through deliberate stock build in our inventory, both in raw materials as well as finished goods. As well as some issues that have come through in the debtors collection, which I'll talk to shortly. Despite the cost savings ending ahead of the target, the underrecoveries and pricing constraints that we've seen in a number of our categories has certainly resulted in gross margin compression. Having a look at the snapshot of our results, certainly a disappointing result for H1 in what can be only deemed as a very challenging environment.
We saw total revenue from continuing operations increase by 16% to ZAR 19.4 billion. This was largely driven by price inflation of 17% and a volume decline of 1%. The volumes held steady, as I indicated in the previous slide, in the domestic business. This was driven by strong recoveries that we saw come through in bakeries, our snacks and treats business, personal care, as well as good performances seen in sorghum breakfast, rice beverages, as well as the out-of-home categories. The volume declines that were recorded were in our flour to retail and wholesale customers. We saw declines come through in the sorghum beverages, the groceries business, as well as baby, where we saw also a marginal decline come through in the home care business.
The firm recovery that we saw come through in export volumes was partially offset by the significant decline that we saw come through in our deciduous fruit business. Gross margins have certainly been impacted, declining from 29.2% to 27%, and that's largely driven by the high input cost inflation, as well as the impact that we've seen come through in load shedding. The group operating income before the impairments and non-operational items decreased by 9% to ZAR 1.4 billion. It is important to call out that the prior year period did see the benefit of our insurance proceeds, which amounted to ZAR 161 million in the prior year, and that was related to the product recall, as well as the civil unrest, which took place in July 2021.
For comparative purposes, the insurance proceeds in the current financial year amount to ZAR 20 million. Excluding the impact of these proceeds, the group operating income would have actually declined by 2% versus the 9% noted on the slide. The group's effective tax rate, before non-operational items and income before associates, slightly increased to 29.7% from the 29.6% that we reported last year. The income from associates increased by 51% to ZAR 275 million. That was largely driven by a strong top-line performance, particularly in the Carozzi business, as well as the benefits that we saw come through from favorable currency translations. National Foods also reported a satisfactory result in the H1.
Earnings per share increased by 2% to ZAR 7.49 per share, compared to ZAR 7.33 last year, while headline earnings per share increased marginally to ZAR 7.31, compared to ZAR 7.28 in the prior year. In terms of declaration of interim dividend, we are declaring an interim dividend, which is flat on last year, at ZAR 3.26 per share. As I've indicated, the total revenue was certainly boosted by price inflation, while volumes were supported by recoveries in the key segments which I've spoken to. We saw 17% at a total level, a price inflation, offset by the 1%, partially offset by the 1% volume decline.
In terms of domestic revenue, that increased by 16% to ZAR 17.3 billion, that was driven entirely by price inflation and volume, which remained flat. The exports and international revenue was driven by price inflation of 15%, Forex at 4%, volume decline of 9%. As indicated, that decline was predominantly driven by the deciduous fruit business. Just looking at a snapshot of our income statement. Despite the strong revenue growth that we saw come through, the first half performance was certainly impacted by the challenging operating environment in which we were operating, that was largely driven by the prolonged load shedding that we saw come through during H1.
High levels of inflation and the impact of the interest rates on consumer confidence and disposable income also affected the consumer behavior, where we saw consumers certainly shifting to more value-added value products, and that, in turn, also affected our volume as well as our basket mix overall. As I've indicated, although the cost-saving initiatives and supply chain efficiencies are delivering ahead of plan for half year, these were unfortunately not enough to offset the high input cost inflations that we are seeing come through from a procurement point of view, as well as the further impact of the load shedding that I've spoken to. Just for comparative purposes, the load shedding amounted to ZAR 76 million, as I've indicated.
Comparative to the prior year, amounted to ZAR 12 million, so quite a significant impact in terms of the year-on-year movement in terms of load shedding costs. Operating income was impacted by, like I said, the proceeds of the insurance in the prior year. Sustained marketing investment in terms of our billion rand brands, as well as the increased distribution, which was led by the geographic mix, reduced direct deliveries, as well as the increase in fuel costs compared to the prior year.
We also saw an increase in net financing costs for the year that increased to ZAR 94 million versus the ZAR 34 million in the prior year. That was largely driven by the impact on the opening cash balance as a result of the ZAR 1.5 billion share buyback that took place last year, increase in working capital requirements, as well as the higher interest rate hikes that we saw come through during H1. Foreign exchange loss was reported at ZAR 15 million. That was largely as a result of the strengthening of the rand against the major currencies, which did affect our translation of our foreign currency cash balances. As noted, the income from associates were strong, mainly as a result of the strong top-line performances that we saw in Carozzi.
Overall, a disappointing result at ZAR 1.18 billion versus the prior year at ZAR 1.23 billion in terms of profit after tax. I'll just give you a very top-line performance in terms of each of the categories, because my colleagues will go through the detail. Effectively, all the domestic businesses recorded revenue growth, which were underpinned primarily by price. In terms of the grains business, while we continued to see progress in the wheat to bread value chain, these gains were more than offset by the challenging performances in the balance of the portfolio, which again, were exacerbated by the incremental cost of load shedding, which amounted to ZAR 37 million in this particular category.
Revenue increased by 22% to ZAR 9 billion, reflecting average price inflation of 22% for the category, with volumes remaining flat. Operating income declined by 19% to ZAR 343 million you see on your screen. In terms of the consumer brands business, all the segments delivered top-line growth, with a particular strong performance coming through from Snacks and Treats, as the business recovered from the industrial action that was noted in the prior year, in the same period. The Out of Home and Beverages businesses also achieved strong growth, while Groceries and the Baby business were impacted by the lower category demand. Overall, this category revenue segment increased by 10%, comprising of price inflation of 10%, while volumes also remained unchanged in this particular category.
The operating income declined by 15% to ZAR 555 million. That was driven by predominantly the underperformance seen in Groceries and the Baby category. Home and Personal Care, overall revenue in HPC increased by 16% to ZAR 1.3 billion. That was primarily driven by the performance in our personal care business. This, together with the enhanced factory performances that we saw come through in this category, resulted in operating income increasing by 21% to the ZAR 256 million reported. The export international business increased revenue by 10% to ZAR 2.1 billion, primarily driven out of improved performances coming through in our export businesses, as well as Chococam.
In turn, the operating income for this business increased to ZAR 163 million from ZAR 64 million that we saw come through in the prior year. Just shifting focus in terms of our cash flow situation, the closing net debt position for the year end, for the half year ended at ZAR 1.7 billion, which is indicative of the significant investment that we've placed in working capital, as well as the low opening balances, coming through as a result of the ZAR 1.5 billion share buyback that took place in the prior year. Cash generated from operations declined to ZAR 305 million, in comparison to ZAR 517 million in the prior year.
This was largely driven, like I said, by a significant increase in investment in working capital, and this was as a result of an increase in trade and other receivables, as well as an increase in our inventory balance. In terms of the inventory balance, this was impacted by inflation, in all categories, as well as some deliberate increases in stockholding in some of our categories, which include in finished goods, peanut butter, in preparation for the site relocation, as well as increased stockholding in our HPC business as a result of an implementation of a significant CapEx in that particular business. We also saw the need to increase stock holdings in certain of our raw material business, raw material sectors, such as sugar, gelatin, and tomato paste.
Gelatin and tomato paste, particularly being impacted by supply chain constraints globally and the need for us to hold stock as a result of delays being experienced at the harbor, et cetera. A number of those items have been deliberate increases in our stock holdings. Cash flow was further impacted by the dividend paid, which was declared at the end of last year, amounting to ZAR 1.1 billion. The tax paid amounting to ZAR 462 million, as well as the capital expenditure year-to-date, amounting to ZAR 448 million, in terms of our investment to date. Just having a look at the CapEx performance.
Year to date, we have indicated a capital expenditure project amounting to ZAR 1.1 billion that has already been approved, that's been expected to filter into the rest of H2, bringing our total CapEx for the year to an amount of ZAR 1.3 billion. Most significant items over the last 10 years that you'll note on the screen, significant improvements and investment in our bakeries. We saw a new development in the Durban bakery, our Bellville bakery, new build, as well as the Henneman mill revamp that we saw come through. In other grains, we saw investment in the new mill in Jungle, as well as the extruder and packing line investment in the King Foods business.
Groceries also saw quite a significant investment in terms of new fillers, packaging, equipment, as well as bean blanchers, and then also the mayonnaise blancher relocation in Jo'burg that took place. Like I indicated previously, HPC continues to see investment in terms of automation, as well as investment in our baby category in terms of pouch lines overall. No different to most players in the industry, we've spent a significant amount of money and investment in the investment of generators, and the creation of alternative energy solutions, to compensate for the significant load shedding that we're experiencing. As I've previously indicated, the digital journey continues to gain focus and momentum. You know, this entire initiative is focused on identifying efficiency opportunities through automation across our business.
We saw an investment come through in warehouse management in some of our categories and warehouses, demand planning and forecasting solution, which is currently being deployed, as well as investment in a procurement tool, which is currently underway, which we expect to see significant volume unlock through improved management of supplier, supply and supplier risk, as well as the ability to run RFPs, RFQs, and the likes of e-auctions, et cetera. That continues to gain focus and momentum. In conclusion, for my section of the presentation, I think it would be good to just look in terms of what our expectations are going forward.
We do expect that the challenging environment will continue, and what will be very critical for us is to remain focused on execution in what can be deemed as an increasingly difficult environment. We expect the current headwinds to persist. You know, we expect load shedding to continue at high levels. We expect to see ongoing supply chain constraints, both globally as well as locally, as local suppliers also battle with the load shedding. Inflation is unlikely to abate in the near future, and we also expect continued Rand volatility, which will also impact us both from an import as well as export perspective. We also expect to see that the consumers remain value conscious, looking for affordable options, as disposable income remains constrained.
In terms of our mitigating strategies, in operating in this environment, we'll continue to invest in automation and innovation to optimize efficiencies. Procurement focus in terms of obtaining better pricing and creating cost competitiveness for the business. Driving continuous improvements, which would include the likes of recipes, packaging, specifications, et cetera. Time and motion studies are underway at key sites to also identify opportunities in that space. Improve working capital, which will continue to gain our focus, particularly in debt collection, in times where we're seeing liquidity certainly being impacted by the impact in their respective businesses as well.
As well as improved working capital management from an inventory point of view, as we start seeing normalization come through in finished goods, particularly in peanut butter, as well as the HPC business. Lastly, we'll continue to focus on the revenue management program that has certainly served us well in the last couple of periods. Also focusing on the next phase of the revenue management project, compared to what we've already communicated in the past. On that note, I'm going to hand over to Yokesh to take us through more detail on the grains category. Thank you.
Thanks, Deepa. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'll speak to you about the grains business and get straight into it. At an overall level, revenue increased 22% to ZAR 9 billion, primarily driven by price inflation, while our volumes remained flat. We had satisfactory performances in our mill bake, and this is a narrow definition of our wheat to bread value chain. This was disappointingly offset by our rice business, and I'll speak to you a bit more in detail on that. To a lesser extent, by our sorghum-based beverages, maize and pasta business. Our maize business did see a significant inflation in Q1 due to export demand out of East Africa and Mexico. That since corrected itself, and in H2, we're seeing significant margin improvement in our maize business.
The grains business did incur total load shedding cost impact of ZAR 37 million, at a net basis of ZAR 51 million total in terms of generator fuel. This was also impacted by the knock-on effects of what we refer to as water shedding. This is where the water infrastructure subsequently fails when the lights or electricity comes back on, primarily impacting our Germiston and Secunda bakeries. In our bakeries, our focus was on volume recovery to maximize the wheat value chain. This led to margin improvement at a 16% level year-on-year for the H1 reporting period. Other grains, as I mentioned, was affected by suboptimal price volume management in the rice category, which was particularly disappointing, and as Deepa Sita mentioned, came to light during the latest billing period.
We had significant volume growth in the rice category at the expense of margin. Overall, though, from a grains perspective, the market share movements that you do see on the slide reflect a consumer's preference to lower-cost carbohydrates. To speak to you about milling and baking specifically, revenue increased 23%, influenced by price inflation of 21% and volume growth of 2%. Our bakeries in particular benefited from the successful execution of our volume recovery strategy, particularly with our retail customers in the top-end grocers. However, as I mentioned, operating income was significantly impacted by the cost of prolonged load shedding and the knock-on effects of water supply as a result. I'm pleased to report, though, that Albany did reflect share gains ahead of the market, primarily driven by our white bread.
It's important to note that in H2, the bread volumes are a bit more challenging, as inflation stays stubbornly high and the industry scrambles to full volume in the respective facility. The maize category was impacted by significant raw material costs, suppressed by-product pricing, as we had additional rain and surplus of felled feed, lower volumes, and higher conversion costs. The sorghum-based breakfast business delivered a muted performance, primarily driven by the high sorghum prices, which we saw increase circa 35% year-on-year from our exit FY 2022 position. This is a result of lower plantings in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as additional rainfall, which favors plantings in the soy crop as opposed to the sorghum crop.
At SAFEX prices today, sorghum is more than double the price of maize on a ZAR per ton basis, which points to the challenges that we face in this category, as sorghum beverages primarily services the needs of lower LSM consumer. I'll speak to more about this later on. Looking ahead, we're gonna be focused on bread volume recovery in the general trade, which are slightly behind the market, while maintaining our strong position in the top-end grocer. We will be launching, in this quarter, the new positioning for the Albany brand proposition, which I spoke to you about during the results presentations. We're focusing on our CapEx rollout at our respective bakeries to improve OEEs across the board, and also looking at the optimum mix between, in sorghum beverages, between volume and value to sustain this category.
Moving to other grains, strong top-line growth was delivered, but profitability, as I mentioned, was impacted by the unfavorable mix and higher conversion costs. Despite market share growth ahead of the category, rice profitability was impacted by suboptimal price volume management. As stated, this led to an erosion of margins and significantly impacted the profitability of the rice category. Although the oat-based breakfast, which is Jungle, and the pasta business delivered revenue growth, this was primarily driven by price inflation. Operating income was adversely impacted by product mix, high raw material prices, and increased conversion costs due to load shedding. Oats, in particular, saw raw material prices increase circa 20% between our average FY 2022 prices and our current prices. This led to us taking price in market to protect margin in this category and subsequent volume declines.
The overall breakfast category is in decline. Looking ahead, we have targeted promotions in pasta to improve our volumes and mix. We continue to invest in our pasta plant to improve our quality and build equity. We are looking carefully to improve the price volume ratio in rice, with sustained marketing support to our newly launched innovation in crisps and rice cakes. We will optimize the mix between our core oats and value-added products in our breakfast category as consumers continue to have more breakfast on the go. Margins are expected to improve in H2 in our rice category as a result of the pricing interventions we have put in place. However, the one thing I would like to caution is the divergence of the Thai and Indian rice pricing.
We do see when this gets in excess of $70 a ton, FOB, we see a slowdown in Thai rice, which obviously constitutes our Aunt Caroline and Tastic ranges, with the influx of Indian rice into the country. We will monitor this closely and put mitigation practices in place to optimize price and volume in this category. If we look at our innovations, and I spoke to you at our results presentation in February around this, a big part of the grains business is to introduce value-added innovations, both for the consumer and that are margin accretive to us at Tiger Brands.
I must say that the Albany wraps, the rice cakes and crisps, our new Tinkies innovation, together with our Crunchalots Fillows in Jungle, and our cereal bars in the Jungle category, continue to do well received by customers and consumers, and ahead of our own expectations in terms of planning for these innovations. Finally, if I look at the priorities for the second half of the year, we will focus on the new Albany brand proposition. We will be rolling out a improved strategy, improved recipe for our bread, which has been successfully trialed in our Western Cape bakery in Bellville. We have focused CapEx rollout at our bakeries, as mentioned, to improve our OEEs and focus on our bread volume recovery, particularly in the general trade, while we look to sustain our position in the top-end grocer.
Our pasta business will focus on promotional activity, we will look to roll out our new category proposition in our new Afro-Italian proposition. In rice, as I mentioned, we will implement a revised pricing strategy as we look to reset our margins and do expect some margin recovery in H2. Finally, in sorghum beverages, we look at balancing volume with price management to maximize the profitability within a segment that's primarily focused on the lower LSM. With that, I'll hand over to Thushen.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'll cover the operational performance in the later slides as we get into the divisions. I thought I'll just spend some time on this slide, painting the operational context, in particular, groceries and baby, where we saw a significant drop-off in the last few weeks of trading in H1. What's obvious from what Noel presented in the first few slides, we have a consumer under significant pressure, the significant socioeconomic pressures that they deal with, the increase in inflation with the spillover effect of the Eskom challenges. Disposable incomes are generally at an all-time low. Generally, there's been downtrading across all of the categories. You know, you find consumers moving into the commodity-type products. You see private label, particularly in groceries, increasing share, as well as in.
the baby category and cheaper products generally. In the wholesale environment, we've found that, you know, when our baked beans is sitting off promo at ZAR 16.99, when you have a competing product or a cheaper alternative at below ZAR 10, it becomes an easy choice for the consumer. In this environment, the elasticities are increasing because the consumer choice is constrained by their disposable income. No. Okay, there we go. We're back. Thank you. This was the slide I covered. The other things to call out here was, I think, if you look across snacks and treats, excellent performance of the recovery from our industrial action as we regained distribution points. Beverages as well, driven by innovation, nice recoveries, and the dilutable portfolio recovering from the significant inflation we've seen in the prior year.
We've managed to deal with the price-volume margin equation quite nicely in that category, as our revenue management principles came to bear. Home care, pest, and saw some recovery despite a slow start to the season, but the balance of home care also delivered pleasing result under the Jeyes brands. You've seen those share gains there as well. In personal care, as Deepa mentioned, it was certainly ahead of expectation as we continue our journey of reducing the dependency on our seasonal product, Ingram's Camphor Cream. Our innovation strategy remains on point. I spoke to this a few presentations ago, and really, it's off the back of the growth platforms we've seen in global consumer trends: health and nutrition, convenience, and most importantly, in this market, value.
You see the Energade Zero being launched, which helped us with some share recovery in the last few weeks. Convenience coming through in our Mrs Balls and tomato sauce PET range. I'll talk through the value propositions later under groceries. If you consider the health and well-being, we've about to launch a reduced sugar range or relaunch our reduced sugar range in tomato sauce, and then we have a reduced oil range up and coming in our innovation pipeline under the mayo category. These trends remain on point, and our innovation continues along this line, but more on the value propositions a little later. Just to reemphasize the point on those last few weeks of trading that hit us, in particular in the groceries category, as well as baby, to an extent.
Over the 12 months, you saw volume regression in culinary, and this is the market, by the way, at around 4.3. This doubled to a negative 8% over the 3-month period, March, ending March. It took us by surprise, that's for sure. The extent of trading down into basic commodities or cheap private label offerings. As you can see, across every one of our categories, the volume regression is intensifying. I'd like to call out, in particular, the canned products, canned veg products that are decreasing even more significantly if you work out that delta. As you know, the KOO baked beans has been the heartland of the culinary business or the groceries business for some time, and the canned food category is certainly being impacted by what we see in the market.
I want to spend some time explaining this, and as I said, most of this really hit us in the last few weeks of trading and was largely unexpected. The point to also call out is many of the issues that faced us in the category are exogenous in nature. We've had supply chain complexities, which I'll talk to, and also exacerbated by the Eskom challenges. We've had the high inflation that hit us across the board, as well as volume regression in key channels. Let's start with the volume regression. Across most of the retailers, modern trade, independents, and wholesale, those categories are under pressure. However, in the wholesale and independents channel, we've seen a more significant drop-off there because those particular consumers that shop that channel are under more pressure from a disposable income perspective.
There were various other challenges from some of our retailers that you know of. As a consequence, trying to drive price and volume growth in this context was virtually impossible. We've managed to take some price, but obviously, it had that consequential impact on volumes, and there's a bit of a mix effect sitting there as well. The supply chain issues are quite a concern, and let me start with the first bucket. The first bucket is really the vagaries of the agri supply in this current year. We've had a shortage of small white beans, we've had a shortage of vinegar, we've had a shortage of tomato paste in the early part of the season, and we've had a shortage of value-added beans.
This is as a consequence of the yields not being where it was expected and as well as the quality. In many cases, we've had to reject the quality, like peanuts, for example. When the crop arrives, you reject it. It's difficult to reorganize your labor in a week and say, "Go home. There's no work today." Your factory is sitting, standing, waiting for this agri to come in or this agri supply to come in, and because of the quality rejections or the lack of crop, we've had the underrecoveries that you see there impacting us. The other major challenge was Eskom. We can Eskom-proof Tiger with the best of generators, with the diesel tanks, but ultimately, if the entire ecosystem is not Eskom-proofed, I'll have factories standing, a factory standing.
We've seen that with vinegar, where we actually sent our engineers to our supplier to try and assist with some of their power challenges, generator challenges. It's okay to solve the Tiger issue. But you've got to solve the supply issue and their supplier. If that entire ecosystem isn't working optimally, I'm gonna have face these sort of challenges that I referred to. Cost inflation across the board: packaging, glass, paste out of China, it was at an all-time high. Agri materials, peanuts, small white beans, because of the shortages, at an all-time high. In some cases, within these independent channels, when, you know, the consumer is most impacted, you've seen over a two-year period, my KVIs more than 20% in those channels. Across retail as well, but most impacted by those particular consumers.
That talks to the volume regression that I mentioned earlier on in the independence channel. I'm hoping this gives you some context on what hit this business, and it certainly took us by surprise, the speed of the drop-off in terms of consumer demand. I spent some time talking through the issues. Let me just chat a bit about going forward and what this means for the business. We've had some leadership changes, and I'm pleased to say we've appointed an FD, who will be joining in June. We're at the tail end of our interviews for an MD, and I'm hoping that will be resolved pretty quickly. Putting the right people behind our most complex and our most branded portfolio is absolutely crucial for us. We didn't want to rush that, we made sure we went and found the right individuals.
The other focus in the more immediate short term will be driving distribution gains with our secondary lines. You know, we've put a scorecard in place for our salespeople. Don't just drive the KVIs. Make sure you get the basket mix into the right channels with the right press pack architecture, 'cause that's where the profitability lies, not in trading with the KVIs. If you look at our promotional activity in store across all channels, combo deals, trying to promote secondary lines, are also coming to the fore. I've spoken to you the last time around on fast-tracking innovation for a value economy.
We've made some good progress on mayonnaise with the Kasi range. I'm pleased to say in the coming months, with some modifications at our Boksburg facility, we'll be able to launch a 700 gram PET Kasi product in a large format to act as a tier 2 product to the Crosse & Blackwell glass range. Across each of our major lines, mayo, tomato sauce, peanut butter, what was the other one? Beans. We've had to apply ourselves to what does a value proposition look like in this current constrained environment. I spoke to you about mayonnaise. Tomato sauce, in the coming months, you'll see some activity there as well, 'cause we can't take the market leading All Gold and impact a recipe that's 100 years old. Here, we had to think cleverly. We've got the largest paste or the most...
the highest paste concentrate in the market, 32% Brix upwards, and most of the competitors are below 20 or around 20. You don't wanna mess around with the All Gold recipe, so we've considered a tier two brand in that space, and it should be coming to your shelf in the coming months. Beans, we're having to revisit the Hugo's range that we've had historically. Then we spoke about peanut butter at the last roadshow, where the new peanut butter facility gives us the capability to launch a PET format. Move the dependency away from the glass range of Black Cat, and then also blend the product to a 50% peanut butter, peanut ratio. Most of the competitors on shelf are 50% and lower. Black Cat peanut butter is around 90%.
These are the value engineering or value proposition initiatives that we have to fast-track, considering the significant drop-off in the market. Supply chain is also quite critical, making sure there's efficiencies across the supply chain, making sure we're cost competitive. We've now looking at a time and motion study at our Boksburg facility, where we have just under 1,000 employees. We're revisiting our shift structures. We have to prepare and gear up for a low volume environment, so we have to revisit demand, our S&OP cycle, and the shifts that's gonna drive the production. We're looking at that. The other aspect is automation. We've looked at some CapEx to automate the end of line on, in our canned veg facility, which will also bring labor savings to the fore.
Across the entire supply chain, there's a plan to reduce costs, which we are trying to fast-track in this current environment. A little bit of good news. We've managed to see some good recovery off the back of the industrial action that we in the prior year. Although it was slightly behind expectations, I must admit. We did shut down the facility in Q1 to redesign some of our systems, as well as of our quality regime, to make sure we continue to put the safest products on shelf for our consumers. There is a bit of a drag on the recoveries. The good thing about this portfolio, it's well suited to all LSM profiles, making sure you've got a premium range under your slabs, under your TV bar, all the way to an affordable proposition of the Wonder Bar and the smoothies.
With this recovery in the business, the focus is on making sure we have the right product in the right channel and driving activation accordingly. Asset care also remains a critical focus. We're cognizant of the fact that we have an aged facility. We've intensified our maintenance regime, engaging with OEMs, having the right critical spares at the facility, and ultimately, where required, investing in renewing our lines, but at the same time, applying ourselves year again to efficiency and automation. We're about to automate one of our packaging lines, which will allow us to not only reduce headcount, but participate a lot more in occasions. We've been sorely short as the South African brand during Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, 'cause we just didn't have the pack format to feature for these special occasions.
With this new equipment about to be commissioned, we'll be able to put some nice, exciting assortments on shelf. The other point I'd like to close off on this slide is, the breadth and depth of this portfolio is quite significant. We participate in gums and jellies, candies, chocolates. It's difficult to be an innovator in every single aspect of this portfolio. We've reached out to a few global players, two in particular, and had conversations on how we step change our innovation. I'm hoping at least one of them gets concretized in the coming months, which will be a game changer in our chocolate business. Moving on to beverages, just a few points here. We hit some major inflation, as you know, with our Oros range last year, 20 odd % increase in inflation. We've had to cost engineer the product.
We've looked across the value chain, identified some savings in the packaging, the logistics, the facilities, and managed to invest some back into price to remain competitive. On sports nutrition, we lost some ground, 'cause in the previous year, our competitor was not in market due to some supply chain challenges. They now came back into the market. However, in the last few weeks, as I mentioned, we're gaining quick ground with our innovation under the Energade Zero as we gain distribution. Very quickly, looking ahead, drive on-the-go consumption as well as on-premise consumption, going deep into HoReCa channels, making sure we have the right amount of, or the right product in the right channel. We've also investing quite significantly behind cold availability, with mini fridges that we can also place into the general trade to ensure we have cold availability across all channels.
We spoke to the regression in this category. The main reason is basket penetration has reduced as shoppers are trading out of the category into general product solutions. When they buy a cereal, they're buying it for the whole family, not just a specialized cereal for baby. When they buy a lotion, they buy it for the entire family, not just a baby lotion. That trading out of the category into general product solutions is impacting this particular category. Looking ahead, year again, it's about value propositions.
We're revisiting some of our products, being offered under Purity, looking at maize-based offerings, which could possibly help reduce costs or will help reduce costs so that we can get to the right price points, also exploring an Ace Baby and doing some U&A research around whether that brand can stick in this category. On home care, there was a slow recovery in the pest season because it hit us later than expected. However, the margins held quite nicely, given that there was quite a bit of inflation that was built in from the prior year. The balance of home care did exceptionally well with the relaunch of Jeyes, there's opportunity here to, again, to drive this further in the wholesale and independent space.
Personal care as well, as I mentioned earlier, the balance of the personal care range, we've had good renovation projects under the hair care range, nice innovation under depilatories, and then the functional creams that I spoke to about half a year ago. Essentially, the innovation on this, in this category is on point, and we're managing to drive distribution gains in the category across the channels quite nicely. Looking ahead, the focus would obviously be on the new aerosol line that we're commissioning, and this will give us more capability in innovation and the pesticide, as well as air care. In this category, as well as Baby, we've had some internal moves, so I'm looking forward to those two MDs bringing their respective expertise as well as a fresh perspective to the category. In closing, my last slide on left.
There has been an improvement in global trading conditions. What we noted at the previous presentation, that we were quite nervous about the, whether the pricing is gonna come off, 'cause Greece was not in the market. They had a crop shortage because of the drought about two years ago. They're back in the market, but interestingly enough, pricing on canned fruit held, and we saw some inflation, and you saw the pricing of purees almost double over a two-year period, driven by the demand for fruit juices, in particular in emerging markets. The pricing dynamics, as well as the exchange rate, is supporting what we think would be a credible second half. However, bearing in mind, there are some challenges.
The same cost pushes we saw in culinary, around Eskom, around tin cans, around sugar, has affected this business quite significantly as well, to the tune of ZAR 40 million for those particular items that I called out. As we look ahead, you know, this business has been a question mark in our portfolio for some time. The strategic fit still remains what we've communicated to you. It's an exporter into markets that are non-strategic in nature, mainly dealing in private label. There's a lack of strategic fit, therefore, this asset is being held for sale, and we've reinitiated the sale process. We've commenced with at least one due diligence, which is in progress as we speak, and in the interim, we will continue to manage this business for profit responsibly.
The year ahead is also subject to all the stakeholders coming to the party, 'cause we had a say, we had engagements with labor, the growers in the prior year, which allowed us to continue this business for another season. As we hold this business and contemplate a potential sale, we will also manage it if the outcome with the discussions with stakeholders are favorable. At this point, I'll close and hand over to Noel. Thank you. Polycarp
Let me see. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm very pleased to present the outcomes of our kickstarted and restarted journey of growing again in the continent of Africa and the balance of the continent. My message is really three things, that we are out to take the purpose of this business, which is to nourish and nurture lives across the continent. That nourishment we are doing through targeting and working on the needs by people in Africa to have the right nutrition to, for snackification and also for health. Those three buckets of needs are really required, and that is the demand that we are filling, and we are filling that demand. We are filling that demand with products out of the Tiger basket here, working with key distributors.
If you look at the return on our effort, as Noel would put it, in the last six months, we've ended up with a 25% growth in revenue in the last six months. We are off to a positive start, but that's an early result of a low base. Secondly, we are also profitable. When our CFO presented our numbers Deepa, you clearly saw that we took in a price increase because our ability to price in the price increase told us that we have brand equity. The brands have equity, and consumers in Africa still believe in brands. We were able to land the price increase, but at the same time, grow volume.
That is what you're seeing in the numbers there and an operating margin, which we anticipate to sustain going into the future. The second message around kickstarting our journey is the point around Africa is there's a big opportunity to fetch in Africa. This time, as Tiger Brands, we have learned for, from our lessons, we are going with care and humility, understanding that Africa is a continent that is really changing because it's really urbanizing. A lot of times, the urbanization on the continent is underestimated as a driver of consumer goods when you look at the cities across the country, the continent. The second thing is around the demography. 1.2 billion people, average age 19, they eat five times a day, and they live in cities.
Consumer goods is really a need that is continuing to grow. As we do that, we are very clear that the strength we are bringing is the strength of our brand assets here, the manufacturing assets that we sit with in our headquarter country, which is South Africa, but making them a truly Pan-African business, and then bringing together the entrepreneurial ability of very many key distributors on the continent. Using those key distributors, and what we have seen is a really good return from exports into the Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique geography. Very good return from our efforts in Chococam, really supported by very good market execution in market, fulfilling demand at the right level and executing correctly at the point of purchase with the distributor.
Basically, what you're seeing here is a remediation of operational efficiency and brilliant basics market execution in country. Also, the key remediation has been around our demand forecasting, our sales planning, our logistics, and our factory performance, especially at Davita, that has delivered that. Worth speaking about the risks on the continent. It's a risky continent. It's very easy to... The opportunity needs to be fetched, but there are risks on the continent. I really would like to call out one big risk that you see, the regulatory hurdles that are coming through. We see judicial insecurity in Chococam, where if you look at our books, we're faced with a garnishee order. We are going to continue using the legal route to resolve the matter, but regulatory hurdles continue to be a big challenge.
I'm sure all of us understand the gray listing of South Africa that now demands companies such as ourselves to make sure that all our entrepreneurial partners are compliant. This is expected not just of us, but also the entire market, the ecosystem, including competitors, and that we expect in the short term, as people raise the level of compliance, might affect the rhythm, the pace, the tempo of shipments of goods into the rest of the continent. We are optimistic that we can do it because the relationship of our distributors go back over five to 10 years. Tiger has presented those relationship over time. That is what I would like to speak to. Going forward, we are looking to add growth into wide spaces, especially into the COMESA market, the Common Market for East and Southern Africa.
We are also looking at the ECOWAS, the Western African, especially concentrating on Nigeria. In the EAC region, we are looking at Kenya as a beachhead. We are also adding Angola into the SADC entity within the Southern African region. I'll be happy to take any further questions on that, but really try to show you that our strategy is underpinned by three pillars. The first pillar is market development and brand development with key distributors model, and lastly, inorganic growth. We are very aware that we tried this in the past, we will be pulling back. We are carefully looking and hunting into the future. That is Horizon three.
We are looking to improve competitiveness and drive our growth with exports and also continue to drive the effort we have with Chococam, consolidate our position. It's worth noting to all of you, and all of us in the room, that Chococam is based in Cameroon, but the Chococam revenue, close to 23% of it, and we intend to grow, is exported into the Central African Economic and Monetary Community. That's where we export out of. We are using South Africa to go into SADC, Cameroon to go into the CEMAC region, and the biggest brands that we sell into the continent are basically our condiments and our ingredients. There's a lot of friction between me and fellow growth officers around our Home and Personal Care brands, especially the pesticide doom.
As you know, Africa, there's a big need for that. We are also working around the breakfast cereals, the superfoods, oats, and sorghum that comes out of our Grains business and our meal bake business. Bringing the superfoods to nourish lives, working with entrepreneurs to nurture lives on the continent, and that's really the mission that we have started. Very pleased with the results of the last six months, but we start to see that this growth is off a low base, and there's still a lot of more work to do in an environment where we have to navigate risk carefully. Thank you very much for listening to me. I'll invite Noel to come.
In wrapping up, just gonna talk to the fact that, I suppose if you had an X-ray machine, and you could look beneath the surface, you would see that there has been significant progress, as we've set out here, against our strategic pillars in dealing with some of the exogenous factors, that we have highlighted in the course of the presentation. In terms of our innovation rate is exceeding that of the market. We've had some specific successful innovations. We've cleaned out the innovation pipeline so that we can focus more on larger, more meaningful, big bets and to take complexity out of the organization.
Across the portfolio, you can see that in terms of the market share performances, whilst it is a mixed bag, there have been some very strong performances in some of our businesses. In the engine room of the organization, the efficiencies and the cost savings that we've spoken about and committed to are being delivered across the consumer brands business. That's been assisted, again, by the simplification theme that assists in cost savings. We've reduced over the last two years across the total consumer brands portfolio, SKUs, by 25%, which is quite a significant progress in that regard.
As far as our igniting our people is concerned, we've had positive engagement scores in the last round, and we have filled almost all of the key vacancies that we entered the new financial year with. The CapEx, despite the low rate of disbursement, the fact that we've already approved ZAR 1.1 billion worth of projects is an indication that we're getting momentum in that space. Geared very much in this environment on efficiencies and automation, and where it's end of life, we have looked at capacity. The growth prospects for our Rest of Africa business, while still of a low base, are certainly looking positive, and we're moving in the right direction there. Thushen spoke about, you know, leveraging potential partners.
There are a few larger initiatives which we believe that we can be more effective and where we can de-risk ourselves by partnering with some companies that have global expertise, and we are progressing that, and doing all of that whilst trying to maintain our progress in the ESG environment. Of course, when you don't have the X-ray, what you see is what's on the outside. Quite clearly, and the operating environment that we're in. In our operating environment, you know, the prospects from an external perspective are, we don't think the consumer environment's going to get any better anytime soon. In fact, it will probably deteriorate.
What that means for us is that in the second half, we think it's going to be quite a challenge to match the prior year's second half performance in terms of our operating income. Certainly not something in freefall, but it's going to be a challenge to get back to that same level of performance. We believe we're well equipped to deal with load shedding, with the caveat, again, that Thushen mentioned, that internally we're certainly well prepared. We've prepared ourselves as well as we possibly can in terms of assessments of supplier and supply risk. That's a partial contributor to some of the working capital moves on the inventory line. We know what we need to do to fix the issues in rice and groceries. Again, to reiterate, the rice issue is very much an internal issue.
The grocery issue is really about speed of response to the external factors and the extent to which we've seen the falloff in demand in that area. In bakeries, we've seen the second six months of last year, the first six months of this year, some positive progress. We need to sustain that momentum. To do that, we've put in place specific initiatives in the general trade, where we've certainly lost traction whilst gaining traction in modern trade. We're gonna continue to focus on our sustaining our export performance. We also have to recognize that in this environment, we will have to recalibrate the investment in growth initiatives, in growth that may not come in an improved environment, that may not come in terms of consumer demand.
We're going to have to, and I've already started, some aggressive reviews on a route and branch basis of both the activities and the costs that drive the activities within the organization. There is no doubt that in this environment, to maintain our competitiveness, the level of cost savings that we've committed to, previously, even though we're meeting them, are not sufficient to deal with the external factor, and we have to accept that reality. We need to proceed with some caution. We don't want to find ourselves in the position that we have in the past, where we have had significant underinvestments in certain aspects of our business, like information technology, for example.
At the same time, we have to confront, what is in front of us and what's likely to be in front of us in terms of a challenging environment. I think we're very clear about what we need to do. We're very clear about what this performance represents for us, as a management team, and have pretty specific actions already underway to address those issues. Certainly, in the case of the two outlying underperforming businesses, to make sure that those businesses are set for a much, much better, financial year 24. Thank you.
Thanks, everybody. If we could just lift the screen and bring the chairs in for management, so we can take it to the Q&A. Okay, we can open it up. If you can just wait for the mic so that the people on the webcast can also hear the questions. Yeah.
Good morning. Thank you, everybody. Shaun Chauke from Nedbank. I've got a couple of questions. I'll just ask two for now. If we do have time, I'll ask follow-up on questions. The first one. Would you say there is a structural increase in demand for snacks, especially given a lot of the innovations we've seen on the shelves on this category coming from you? Is this a function of you gaining market share from peers? If this category in particular, do you see an opportunity for dealer-owned brands, particularly given that there's an opportunity to still price at a premium? We've seen it with the likes of Checkers on the Forage and, you know, Forage and Feast brand, where they're doing premium chocolates.
The second question is, I mean, having seen most of the food cycles, in terms of the consumer challenges, be it across the value chain, commodities, you name it, what would you say is the blueprint to successfully navigate the cycles without being significantly impacted? Or is this environment the most challenging it's ever been, you know, in terms of history for the consumer cycle? Thank you.
Hello, can you hear me? Thank you for that question on snacks and treats. You would have seen from the data there's actually category regression from a volume perspective. In particular, over the last three months, you've seen that hit the category. With regards to the innovation, I think historically, we haven't been that focused on innovation. Innovation is focusing in areas where we've have, firstly, capacity. That's quite important to note. As we drive innovation and excitement in the category to keep the consumer in the category, this given the volume regression and the tough conditions, we're also driving efficiency.
Noel spoke to the SKU rationalization, so the mindset almost needs to be one in, one out, and when it's non-performing, be quite diligent around your category management principles because it's in the best interest of you as well as the retailer, by removing those non-performing SKUs and bringing in some excitement to try and stimulate demand during tough trading conditions. Let me come back to the capacity aspect. We have had some capacity challenges, and we're looking at line investment. In those particular lines, we hold back on significant rates of innovation, focus on the high-margin SKUs, and actually discontinue the low-performing ones, and we become a lot more focused in those instances.
We've also trying to develop, you know, an innovation, offshore innovation pipeline, working with strategic partners, where we can bring in products without the complexity to the supply chain. The last question on the retailer or the brands or dealer-owned brands, we have engaged with our retailers where we do have capacity, and there are two, maybe about one or two guardrails there. Firstly, it has to be margin accretive. Secondly, we obviously need to have the capacity and not sacrifice the brand volumes. Thirdly, there still needs to be a point of differentiation. It can't be the same product on shelf with another brand slapped onto it. We're quite critical on that. We see that as a great opportunity to deepen our strategic alliance and best practice category management principles with the retailer.
The last one on cycles, you wanna take that?
I mean, I'll take that. I'll tell you. Look, this is definitely the most sort of difficult period. I suppose the last 12 to 18 months have been sort of the most unique and challenging set of external circumstances. I think we've had periods of spikes in certain commodities in terms of food price cost push. We've had periods of higher interest rates. It's been a while since we've had anything like this level of inflation. When you combine that with some of the global supply disruptions, as well as, you know, some of the challenges we've had with agricultural crops and the load shedding, it's definitely incredibly challenging, but it's the same environment for everybody in the marketplace.
you know, the blueprint, you know, has to be, you know, absolutely ruthless ability to execute with agility and with speed, and an ability to respond to data. What is different to sort of some of the previous challenges is that data is much more readily and speedily involved, available, and responding, and interpreting that data quickly, is quite key. in this environment, you just cannot afford... You never could, but it's even more of an emphasis now. You can't afford any fat. you really have to be lean muscle. you know, for me, that's the blueprint for operating now.
You're going to have to make sure that whilst you worry about longer-term sustainability, it's important that you survive to be there for the future, rather than worry about the future and see the ground shift underneath you in the short term.
Hi, guys, Vik from RMB Morgan Stanley. I just wanted to know, obviously, there was a 4-month update that was issued on 21st of February.
pretty much said that, you know, there will be strong growth in operating profit, and that operating profit is -2. I think, yeah, Thushen explained that there was an issue with groceries. I mean, I think just in particular, in those 5 weeks, I think, which has been the businesses which have just kind of changed, let's call it diametrically, oppositely, in terms of kind of leading to -2% from a strong growth that you had guided to? I think, yeah, specific. I mean, is it just grains or groceries, or, I mean, is it just across the board that, you know, things changed in those 5 weeks?
Vi, I'll take that question. I think there's been two categories particularly that have impacted us in the last couple of weeks. The one being the fall that we saw in the groceries business, which Tushin spoke quite extensively to. The other one was particularly around the rice business, which as I indicated in the presentation, as a result of the recent billing cycle, what we identified was that there was a poor price-volume management of that particular category. Effectively, the impact of that poor price-volume management came to light in the last week and a half to two weeks as we were trying to finalize the H1 results.
You know, in terms of that shift over the last couple of weeks, it's largely been driven by the impact of the rice business, as well as the volume impact that we saw in groceries.
There has been generally a slowdown as well across other categories in the consumer division. I spoke through the baby category, where you see basket consumption regressing, you know, shoppers trading out of that category and going to general product solutions. If you look at the market dynamics, the 12, the 6, the 3-month, that volume regression is on a trended decline. You know, there'll be maybe one or two blips, but the trading conditions are getting quite tougher as inflation comes to bear and increases, as well as, you know, the socioeconomic conditions that we referred to. It is getting tougher across most of the consumer divisions categories. Yeah.
It's Myron from Mitra. The first question is on the bread side of things for you, Kesha, I suppose. You sort of touched on it, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the post-period end, the competitive behavior, can you talk a little bit more to that? What's happening there, and why... You know, you mentioned people are trying to fill up volumes and things like that. Can you elaborate on that? I have another follow-up.
Thanks. The post-period reporting, and it's just a glimpse of the last few weeks, we have seen quite aggressive discounting taking place, particularly in the general trade, where we've seen an opening of our price points to not necessarily the second competitor, but 3 and 4. It's causing a swing in unit share, volume share, but not necessarily profitable levels across the bread value chain, and I'm talking about the industry in general. A big part of our reset, if you want to call it in the general trade, has been trying to identify where we go, where we play, understand the routes that we go to, understand the price points that we go to, understand the offerings that we put in, i.e., brown bread. Brown bread, white bread, very low, et cetera.
I think that's where we are seeing the strongest pinch in terms of consumer spend, not necessarily direct from a shopper perspective, but we have seen an encroachment in some of the mass discounters into the spaza territory that are offering bread and general commodities, or commodities in general, at very aggressive pricing. That's a flavor of what we're facing over the last few weeks. It speaks to, I suppose, a bit of what Noel and Tushin spoke to. I think the squeeze on the consumer, we'll see that accelerate. This latest interest rate hike by the Reserve Bank will put a further pinch in the economy, and the impact of load shedding on our shoppers and consumers is certainly gonna be felt even further as we enter the winter months.
The price, stroke value dynamic is gonna become more and more important in the next 6-12 months.
Thanks. The second question is just a follow-up on the rice question. Sorry, maybe you can explain it like you explained to a 6-year-old. How does the billing cycle not recognized faster within the system?
Effectively, what's happened is that the level of discounting that's been provided from the category to customers was a lot higher than initially anticipated. When we referred to the billing cycle, this came to our attention effectively as the bills were coming through from customers, retailers to us. At that point in time, in the last two weeks, we saw the magnitude of the deals that were actually being provided versus what was originally anticipated. That's what we referred to. There is a significant lag in terms of bills coming through from customers to Tiger Brands versus you know, when the deals are actually provided to or implemented to customers.
In this particular category, well, the parameters that we give into trade were outside mandate. We have quite a strong, robust internal control policy that we, you know, that's followed by every other category, which we've double-checked since. We did investigate in the quarter when we looked at prices, and the anomalies didn't jump out at us until we got the billings back from customers, which raised a flag.
It's very simply, it's a non-compliance with policy at a very senior level. One of the things that we have tried to do in terms of agility is giving more control back to the managing directors and the management teams of the individual categories within guardrails. In this case, those guardrails were breached.
Morning. It's Sumil Seeraj from SBG Securities. Just reading the update on the Grains division, it does look as if that volume strategy in bakeries did pay dividends in this first half compared to the poor base last year. Would that be correct? Because I think there was operating profit growth. Yeah.
16% operating profit growth, and just over 10% volume growth. We brought leverage to the income statement in.
Yeah. I'm guessing it was maize, largely within milling and baking, that pulled back the operating profit growth. Was it largely because of a procurement position?
It was a combination of our procurement position. In maize, we typically aren't as long as we are would be in wheat. At the end of our Q4 last year, we did signal promotional activity to the trade, and at the end of Q4, there was a significant run on the maize prices at a SAFEX level because of the impending imports, exports to East Africa and Mexico, where there was a deficit of white maize. It was a combination of our procurement position. We were shorter than, like I said, typically we would be in meat, and then the actual rally in our Q1. That self-corrected in Q2, and like I say, we're seeing significant margin improvement in our current operating environment.
So then-
We were also impacted by the sorghum beverage business, where, you know, I stated sorghum, at the moment, closer to ZAR 7,000 a ton, compared to white maize at a SAFEX spot price at about ZAR 3,500 a ton. Those were the two businesses.
Sorry, then just the outlook for the second half on that, maize, things have stabilized?
Expecting a significantly improved performance in our maize business. The only caveat I'll put to that is apart from the SAFEX prices in Q1, the by-product prices we were seeing were 30%-40% lower than we anticipated and less than last year. That's a result of two things. One, the higher rainfall, which means there's higher amount of felt available to grazing, and we saw a large amount of imports of grain for feeding from our neighboring countries at substantially lower prices. We are seeing a slight reversal of that in the short term.
Sorry, just one last question while we're on bread. You mentioned Albany's repositioning strategy.
Yeah.
Can you just elaborate? Is that that smaller loaf, the value loaf that you mentioned at last results?
When I spoke about the brand positioning, it's actually about the Albany brand itself. At our results presentation, I spoke about the appointment of a new agency that we did. We've completed what we believe is, I think, a fantastic positioning for the brand positioning. Speaking to the love of Albany and the freshness and the taste, which we hope to go to market in July of this year. I want to speak about the smaller loaf and the value loaf, we have introduced it particularly in outlying areas where we have a presence of less than 20%, and that's work in progress. It's a sunny day loaf, we continue along that trajectory.
Hi, Kobus from Over the Capital. I just have a question that's more about the decision making. When it comes to contract manufacturing or manufacturing for private label, just want to understand the comment you made about incremental margin or it must lift up the margin. You're talking about incremental margin on what's getting through, are you talking about the absorption costing within the factory line that brings up the margin of the entire factory? Is it the group? Is it the division? Can you just elaborate on that a bit, please?
It's, it's at a category specific level that we will ascertain whether it's margin accretive, and it's not just at a naked, margin level. We will look at it at a fully absorbed cost basis to make sure we make a margin. We aren't incrementally costing these products. As I said, you know, there's three dimensions to it, not just the strategic aspect around brand management, but also the commercial rationale behind it. In many cases, you know, depending on the time of the year, depending on the exchange rate, our retailers walk away from us 'cause they can get cheaper imports. In this current cycle, we've seen a deepening of engagement, really, given where the rand is. Comfortable? Yeah.
Morning. Tinashe here from Intellidex. Just a few questions on your outlook. You mentioned that your H1 innovation was at 3.2% versus the market at 2.7%. May you please just elaborate on how you actually measured that in terms of, you know, when you're comparing yourself to the market in terms of innovations?
... particularly on new products that are introduced onto the shelves with a different barcode, over a three-year period.
So-
In the past 3 years. Yeah.
What, is that a look at what's all your competitors or just-?
Correct. Yeah.
Oh, okay.
We take our defined market and compare ourselves with the defined market.
Okay. Okay. Do you think that trend is likely to continue going into the rest of the year, based on what you're seeing right now?
I think for the current year, we would expect to be ahead of the market. The challenge for us is making sure our pipeline is full for 2024 and 2025. For the current year, based on what we've launched and the timing of the launches, I think we're fairly confident that we'll outperform the market in terms of innovation.
Okay. Just, I think you mentioned that in exports, you guys are considering in-country manufacturing capability. I'm just wondering, in terms of some of the risks that are inherent in the markets, some of the markets in the Rest of Africa, I'm wondering just the rationality around that in terms of if it's actually something that's feasible, given, you know, some of the inherent risks. Maybe if you don't mind elaborating on that.
Look, we are quite conscious of those risks, and that's one of the reasons, you know, that we are proceeding with caution. In, in the long run, you know, failing a really effective implementation of the free trade intentions of the African Continental Free Trade Area, you know, manufacturing access South African cost base and shipping it across the country is not likely to give you massive scale. Certainly, what we will do, we will proceed with extreme caution on the front of sort of the food safety and food quality issues in exactly the same sort of way in which we would do it with a local manufacturer.
The other issue that one is very conscious of, is currency remittability, and the fact that generally, well, not generally, in terms of the way we manage our credit, what we export, we know we will get paid for. What we are conscious of, and one of the things that's retarded some of the progress, particularly where we've looked at packing in country, almost kind of semi-knocked down, sort of kit manufacturing, is the issue of having trapped capital in some of those markets. This is, we have to do all the thinking now. We have to proceed with caution. The benefits, in terms of competitiveness on the face of it, can be significant.
That's why you'll find, you know, some people have set up, you know, significant manufacturing sites in a place like Swaziland, which benefits both from COMESA membership as well as SADC membership. It's currency remittability, which obviously isn't an issue in a place like Swaziland, but if you're talking about some of the other geographies, it would be.
Thank you. Just last question on my side. You did mention that load shedding, the cost is obviously gonna be guaranteed, but you're saying that you can't guarantee the recovery of that particular cost. I don't know if I missed it, but did you guys, can you give us a sense of what you think the load shedding cost is gonna be in the second half of the year?
I think, you know, if you, if you have a look at the cost that we've called out for H1 in the region of what, ZAR 76 million, incremental ZAR 48 million, if you just look at the energy increment, I think you'll see nothing less than that in H2. In terms of, you know, where we're operating currently, you know, if you look at H1, we've had a mixture of level two, four, six, I think, you know, effectively, if we continue to go on these boundaries at level 6, I think you're gonna see pretty much a replica of what you're seeing in H1.
effectively, you know, we are preparing, and that's what Noel was talking about, contingency plans, anticipating levels up to stage 8 and stage 10. Those will have, obviously, significant impact on our overall delivery.
I mean, the guidance we've given previously is ZAR 250,000 per day for every stage of load shedding. At stage 4, that's ZAR 1 million a day, assuming all our sites are on stage four, and that we're operating sort of flat out on those days. I think that gives you a sense. When you get to load shedding 10, we're really talking about ZAR 2.5 million a day. You know, we have to be nimble and agile in terms of our shift patterns and what we produce in what period of time, which also impacts on some of the stockholding decisions that we make. We want to make sure we've got stock. We want to try and manufacture it in the periods when the incremental cost is at its lowest.
It's difficult because the load shedding schedules are not predictable in terms of the stages. As Deepa said, we would anticipate nothing less than what we've already experienced. In fact, you know, we think it'll be more. We have at least are set up to supply in that environment.
I think if you come back to what Tashien was referring to earlier on, you know, while our sites are sufficiently equipped to at least handle stage six, you know, we're planning for stage eight and stage 10. The bigger risk for us is our vendors, our local vendors, in terms of their ability to sustain those levels of load shedding. You know, at best, we, what we've seen in H1, their capability of, at a stretch, managing up to stage four. As we start getting into stage six, we're certainly being impacted by significant raw material supply, such as the likes of vinegar, et cetera, but more particularly also on packaging.
You know, as soon as you start running into those constraints, you then start feeling the impact of underrecoveries, coming through at each of our sites. You know, in addition to our diesel bill, linked to load shedding, the bigger issue is going to be in terms of sourcing, raw material and packaging.
Just to your question on recoverability of the cost.
Mm-hmm.
Certainly, what we've seen in terms of the market behavior is that because it's almost like a slow poison that leaks into your cost base, it's not a shock, it's not an annual standard increase that the industry experiences. It's not linked to a commodity price cycle. Is that to measure a discrete recovery that industry is making against those costs is quite difficult. Over a period of time, you know, one would expect rational behavior, that there would be an attempt to recover those costs.
I think it's one of those areas where, because of its nature, there's a bigger lag, and it's, you know, it's difficult to go to a customer in the short term with a 1% or 2% increase in cost, which is the kind of impact it might have on your selling prices. It gets rolled into the next cycle of price increases with a lag factor.
Morning. Asvier from Oyster Catcher Investments. Just one for me on rice. Given the large divergence in Indian and Thai rice prices, can you change Tastic and Caroline to Indian rice or even launch an Indian rice brand?
Morning. The way the current legislation in South Africa is set out, the import of Indian rice is actually illegal, we wouldn't participate in that, and I'll cover you that in a second. It's basically because of the pesticide residue at the point of origin, okay? South Africa's rice import rules are governed by EU rules, so we basically adopt that. Like I said, the EU adopts against residue from pesticide, and this doesn't affect human consumption. It affects the bees in India, okay? That's what legislation's targeted at. However, what we do see in a South African environment is an acceleration of Indian rice imports into the country during this period, because of the high convergence.
This, I must stipulate, is current legislation, which has been in place for many, many years, but we do believe that there are talks on a way to relax this. In the latter half of the year, we potentially, if the legislation is relaxed, we would understand whether we could incorporate Indian rice into our portfolio, either as a blend, if it doesn't affect the quality, or as a new brand that we'll introduce.
Mary Jane, clearance.
Get any sort of headlines that aren't accurate. No, it's quite important to state that the pesticide regulations are there, that there's no risk to humans from the consumption of Indian rice, but there are regulations which you could say are very niche and almost obscure, but they are the law of the land, and Tiger complies with the law of the land, in this case. You know, yeah, and in this case, you find that there are a lot of rice imports that are coming in, that aren't necessarily being pulled up on what is a fairly, I would say, obscure, or I don't know what the right word would be, Mary Jane, sort of a very, a very subtle, area of regulation.
You know, we've been through the regulations with a fine-tooth comb, and we're certainly bound by the law of the land.
Any more questions?
Yeah, thank you. Shaun Chauke once again. 2 questions, very similar questions. It's just on the 2 segments. On grains, I understand my question may be theoretical here, but it would be good to get a, you know, understanding. I just wanna get a sense of what level of volume growth was required to keep your operating income flat, given that you saw, you know, a 19% decline despite a 22% price inflation. I understand this may be more art than science in this current environment. Similarly to your consumer brand, where you saw, you know, price inflation of 10%, volumes unchanged, but operating profit declining by about 15%. Thanks.
I'll answer the grains question.
[audio distortion]
Well, I was going to say it's difficult to give a high-level, broad-brush comment, but I'm happy to check category by category on it.
Maybe if I could just add to that. It is quite philosophical in this current trading environment, given the competitive dynamics, you know, some of them going to deep promotional activity, and that impacts your naked margin when you do try to have a competitive price point on shelf. The other point, in particular, with regards to groceries, those underrecoveries, unplanned. When there's a non-supply of agricultural products or when there's a quality challenge, you can't necessarily plan for that. So in your plan, you may have a volume target, but when those underrecoveries hit you know, you're gonna have to sell quite a bit more to recover from your planned position. So it is fairly philosophical 'cause it's a highly dynamic environment.
Competitive activity is quite intense, and then you've got these vagaries of the supply chain that impacts you as well.
[audio distortion]Just a couple from the online. So for Thushen, have you seen any improvement subsequent to reporting on the supply chain issues that affected the grocery division? When you say shifting spend toward essential items and rotating into more affordable options, does this mean that consumers care only about price in this environment than brand?
We have continued to see some supply challenges on the agri side. However, we are going into the new seasons of small white beans, for example, so that should resolve itself. On tomato paste, our balance is gonna improve between import and local 'cause we're coming out of the harvest period of tomatoes, both in Lutzville and Messina, so you'll get a better pricing mix with the local supply. We are seeing an improvement, but there are one or two days where we do experience challenges. You know, as we look at these challenges, we also apply in our mind to a more medium to longer term strategy. Historically, the kuben was traditionally, and that procured from SA. The spec was met to our requirements.
It was our USP, that we were one of the few local products on shelf. And given this challenge that we faced, we're gonna start having to apply our mind to sourcing from elsewhere on the continent, very similarly with peanuts, 'cause I think the volatility of the supply, agri supply space in SA is forcing us to look across our borders. But ultimately, bear in mind, we have done this in the past as well, and it comes with some quality challenges and price volatility that you need to manage very carefully. Therefore, I say it's a more medium to longer term strategy. It's critical that you get the offshore and onshore quality regime absolutely right before you bring it into your facilities. What was the second question?
Moving to essentials, whether they're only about price.
We've done some. You know, we continue, Noel refers to the data, and some of the data points that we diligently review are the price points on, off promo, ourselves, our competitors, by retailer, by channel, and we've run elasticity analysis against that. What you are finding in this current constrained and consumer environment, branded products are moving to a more elastic position, and these were run specifically against our KVIs. As you know, the higher the elasticity, the more price sensitive your consumer is, and as a consequence, if they don't buy the product, which talks to internal elasticity, they move to a cheaper alternative, either being private label or a cheaper product, or just move out of the category in its entirety. Nikki?
Okay, the last question: Are you seeing consumers rotate out into products that don't require appliances, like a freezer or a fridge, due to load shedding?
We haven't necessarily seen a shift in basket specifically as a consequence of load shedding, 'cause you would have thought our ambient products under the groceries division, canned food, et cetera, et cetera, would be a lot more dominant or predominant in the basket composition. Given the high cost push that you've seen against these products, I mean, canned, cost of beans is about 25% more than it was two years ago. Very similarly with tomato sauce, mayonnaise, et cetera. As a consequence, it hasn't changed that purchasing behavior to the extent that we would, just due to the disposable incomes being under pressure and the high inflation rate. I'm sure, Yokesh, on your side.
I just wanna build on that. I think load shedding is one element of what the consumer or shopper is facing at the moment in terms of the suppression in disposable income. What you're seeing, if you switch over to the grains category, is a drive for lower cost carbohydrates. For example, in the maize category, you would have seen an acceleration in purchase and a growth in volumes in that category. Certainly, saw growth in our share, because consumers are making these trade-offs to lower per cost serving purchases.
Okay. The other aspect of what we are seeing is in the out-of-home business. Quick service restaurants do benefit from consumers not cooking at home or eating at home. We are seeing volume uplifts in our out-of-home business as a result of that. That brings us to the end of the presentation. Most of the questions online have already been asked and answered. The replay will be available on the company's website in due course, and Investor Relations is also available if you have any follow-up questions or queries. Thank you and goodbye.