Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Godrej Agrovet Limited Q4 FY 2026 earnings call hosted by ICICI Securities. As a reminder, all participant lines will be on listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Probal Sen from ICICI Securities. Thank you, and over to you.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for making the time and joining us on this Godrej Agrovet Q4 FY 2026 earnings conference call. From the company, we have with us members of the senior management, including Mr. Nadir Godrej, the Chairman of the company, Mr. Burjis Godrej, the Chairman Designate, Mr. Sunil Kataria, the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Mr. S. Varadaraj, the Chief Financial Officer, and Mr. Arijit Mukherjee, the Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of Astec LifeSciences. We would like to begin the call with brief opening remarks from the management, following which we will have the forum open for an interactive Q&A session.
Before we start, I would like to point out that some statements made in today's call may be forward-looking and a disclaimer to this effect has been included in the earnings presentation that the company has shared with you earlier. Without further ado, I would now like to invite Mr. Nadir Godrej to make the initial remarks. Over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I welcome you all to the Godrej Agrovet earnings call. I will begin by briefly commenting on our performance for quarter four fiscal year 2026 and the full year of fiscal year 2026. Godrej Agrovet delivered a strong and consistent performance in quarter four fiscal year 2026, concluding the year on a positive note. For the quarter, consolidated revenues grew to INR 2,333 crore, reflecting a 9% year-on-year growth, while profit before tax, excluding non-recurring and exceptional items, increased by 16.8% to INR 87 crore. This performance was driven by broad-based volume-led growth, disciplined margin management, and a favorable business mix across key segments.
For the full year ended 31st March 2026, the company surpassed an important milestone, with consolidated revenues exceeding INR 10,000 crore, reaching INR 10,233 crore, representing a robust year-on-year growth of 9%. Profit before tax, excluding non-recurring and exceptional items, increased by 17.2% year-on-year to INR 569 crore, reflecting the improved quality of earnings, margin expansion, and strong execution. In addition to earnings growth, FY 2026 also saw a meaningful reduction in working capital, translating into stronger operating cash flows and a tangible improvement in return on capital employed. Let me now briefly walk you through the performance of our key business segments. Animal nutrition delivered another strong quarter, with quarter four volumes growing 15% year-on-year, significantly ahead of industry growth.
Cattle feed volumes increased sharply by 24%, supported by strong performance of new products launched, favorable commodity positions, and continued cost optimization. Margins expanded meaningfully across the portfolio. The oil palm business concluded a landmark year in fiscal year 2026, marked by highest ever area expansion, strong volume growth, and all-time high oil extraction ratio. While quarter four is seasonally weak, margins were largely resilient, aided by improved oil extraction ratios and improved realization. The crop care business remained impacted in quarter four fiscal year 2026 due to carry-forward of inventory in the co-marketing channel, leading to lower volumes of in-house products. This was partially offset by improved sales of selected specialty products. Astec LifeSciences continued its strong turnaround momentum with EBITDA breakeven in fiscal year 2026.
In quarter four fiscal year 2026, both revenue and EBITDA recorded robust year-on-year growth, driven by higher volumes led by the CDMO category, improved realization, and better capacity utilization. Enterprise margins improved further compared to quarter four fiscal year 2025. I would also like to mention that in line with our focus on harnessing group expertise in chemicals, we have recently augmented the Astec board with Mr. Vishal Sharma as Non-Executive Chairperson, Mr. Mathew Eipe as Independent Director. Mr. Arijit Mukherjee, who has been the COO of the business, has joined the board as Executive Director and will be leading the business going forward. These appointments meaningfully strengthen Astec's leadership, and we believe will be instrumental in accelerating growth and unlocking its true potential. Creamline Dairy recorded approximately 5% year-on-year growth in revenues, excluding bulk sales during quarter four fiscal year 2026.
Profitability remained under pressure due to elevated milk procurement costs, though value-added product salience improved to around 40%, up from 38% last year. Godrej Foods Limited continued its strategic shift towards branded offerings. In quarter four FY 2026, EBITDA margins improved significantly, driven by margin expansion in both the Live Bird and Yummiez categories, supported by improved realizations. Branded revenue salience remained above 80% in FY 2026. Overall, FY 2026 was a year of strong performance for Godrej Agrovet, underpinned by disciplined execution, improving business mix, and sustained focus on value-added and branded portfolios. We also made meaningful progress on our sustainability agenda under the Good and Green vision, with leadership positions across climate, water, and renewable energy initiatives. Thank you.
Should we begin the question and answer session?
Yeah, let's do that. Yeah.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We will take our first question from the line of Abhijit Akella from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, and thank you so much for taking my questions. I limit myself to two or three in the first round. First, you know, from the standpoint of FY 2027, the way you're seeing the output for your various segments, would it be possible to offer us some sort of, you know, outlook or guidance regarding what kind of revenue growth, what kind of profitability it might be fair to expect for the year ahead?
Hi, Abhijit. Sunil here. Abhijit, obviously, you know, the direction that, let's say broad guidance that we give for FY 2027 has one overhang of Iran war, which, you know, none of us have anticipated. That's one piece which I would say remains a bit of a variable still, I think, open for everybody as how it pans out currently. Given from the, you know, strong work that we've been doing in the last eight, nine months, overall at a GAVL level, we'd like to focus on getting an early double-digit revenue growth across put together at a consolidated level.
Along with the way our PBT has improved this year, we'd like to again target, let's say a mid, strong double digit, mid-teens kind of a PBT growth also for the next year. That's a broad directional, overall growth that we would like to gun for. Between the businesses, I think animal nutrition business has done a very strong showing across. Also, before that, I think the entire revenue growth for us, by and large, we are focused on driving through underlying volume growth. That's another large piece that will play out for us. We are focused on getting volume-driven, revenue growth.
In terms of businesses, I think first of all, Animal Nutrition quickly, the business has been doing pretty well across led by cattle feed and even some other feed businesses. That's something momentum continues. We would like to again go for a double-digit growth in revenue, led by volume, in Animal Nutrition business as we would like to call it now. Similarly, for our Crop Care business, the next year is likely a year which we'd like to go for a recovery, and that's what we are calling as a year of recovery for this.
At the same time, one piece I want to just point out is that the recovery of the Crop Care business, we would start, we'll start seeing it coming back fully from quarter two onward because the last year also there's a co-marketing base inventory which is sitting in our Q1 base of last year. That will play out in this Q1 for CCB business or the Crop Care business. Otherwise, we'll go for very strong recovery in both bottom line and top line, and it will be again a very high double-digit numbers that will happen in the Crop Care business. In Chemical business, the journey continues toward increasing value-added portfolio further.
The, the pressure points will be, I think, on the milk procurement prices, which we expect it to cool down somewhere from quarter two gradually, and then the broad direction is that quarter two onwards, the milk prices should kind of normalize. The Godrej Foods part, again, in the value-added piece, which is primarily the branded piece, again, the focus is very clearly to drive double-digit growth, the momentum that we already built for ourselves, that is again going to continue. Live Bird continues to keep coming down for us, and, that's where we'll keep on investing in both these businesses behind advertising to ensure that there's a strong double-digit volume growth happening. Oil Palm, on a very, very strong footing right now. Again, looking for another year of double-digit volume growth in Oil Palm, early double digit.
We have done some exceptional work on oil extraction ratio. We definitely see some more work happening there. We have done a record area expansion this year. Next year, we're gunning for even beating that record on area expansion. I think I have covered animal nutrition and Astec. On the Astec business, I think Arijit would come in between on specific questions, but broad direction, let me just give you that, we have seen a strong comeback led by CDMO. Pipeline funnels are looking pretty good. We expect that momentum to continue with a clear focus on CDMO-led growth happening. We have become a bit breakeven this year, and we will expect that journey to continue going forward.
Overall, all in all, there is momentum that is there in the business. We expect the momentum to continue across all parts of our business. With some businesses which have taken a beating, getting into a recovery mode.
No, thank you for that, Sunil. That's really helpful. Just one or two follow-ups, if I may. One is on the palm oil business. You mentioned that all of the top-line growth is, you know, targeted to be driven by volume expansion, but at the same time, you're seeing fairly strong palm oil prices at this point in time. Is that all over and above this guidance that we are kind of, you know, looking at? What is your outlook for palm oil prices? I mean, do you see them remaining firm here for the foreseeable future, or how do you see the trajectory?
Okay. This is where I'll give my a bit point, and then I'll ask NBG to also step in. First of all, I think, you know, the way there are certain kind of palm oil modeling that had happened pre-Iran war. Where the output for the year on palm oil was actually a little bearish this year. Let me tell you, when I had gone to, you know, Malaysia, the conference which really the palm oil conference which happens, which gives a kind of outlook. This one looking like a little bearish year. Then this war happened. Obviously now all models have gone a bit haywire on palm oil. For me, to be very honest, to say that what is the year-long outlook on palm oil, I think we are right now playing it quarter to quarter, honestly, you know.
It's very, very difficult to give you a very long-term point of view. I would say we'll take it by the quarter. Maybe I'll express NBG. If NBG wants to also give any sense of what his take on this is right now. Mr. Godrej.
Sure.
Would you like to-
Yes. I will also mention that a lot depends on what happens in the Middle East. Palm oil prices are strongly correlated with crude oil prices because of the connection through biodiesel. Therefore, a lot will depend on that. I would also like to say that if the Middle East war continues, it will probably be bad for the crop protection business, but good for oil palm. For Agrovet overall, the impact either way may not be very great.
Thank you, Abhijit.
Got it. Yeah. Thank you so much. If I may ask one last one before I return the queue, please.
Sure.
Just on the Astec business, you know, obviously with all this management kind of restructuring that has recently happened, or should I say just, you know, changes at the senior management level, would really appreciate some color from, you know, the promoters or senior management regarding the way forward for Astec as well as the overall chemicals business of the Godrej Group.
I will ask this, yeah. Maybe Burjis, I would ask Burjis to give a few points on this, and then I will also step in with that. Burjis, over to you.
Yes. Hi, Abhijit. This is Burjis speaking. I just wanna say that we do believe that Astec has very strong underlying potential, and this is supported by Godrej Industries Group's very deep chemical experience and manufacturing expertise. We did make some recent management and board changes, which reflect our intent to leverage this expertise more effectively and accelerate value creation and synergies. The board is strengthened with the induction of Mr. Sharma as chairman and Mr. Mathew Eipe on the board, whose sectoral experience we believe will materially benefit Astec. Arijit Mukherjee has been closely involved with Astec's operations as COO for over a decade, will now drive the business forward as an executive director.
Sunil and I will continue on the board, and this will ensure continuity, and we are very confident that leveraging the group expertise will be the starting point for an accelerated scale-up of this business.
Yeah. And one more thing which I just want to add here on this, Abhijit, is that in terms of structure, it is too premature for us to comment on the same, you know. We are in the process of evaluating what is the most optimal structure and how it will go forward. I think maybe over a period of next two, three quarters, once we have a bit more clarity in our minds and thought process, we'll come back to all of you on that. For now, we just want to ensure that the interest of all minority shareholders will be protected, and our endeavor is actually to make sure that we enhance shareholder value for everyone. I think give us a bit more time.
I think as we are more clear, we'll come back to you over the coming two, three quarters.
Okay, sure. My apologies, but just a last two, if I, if I may just squeeze in before I return, you know, for more. On the animal feed side of things, the volume growth seems to have accelerated quite sharply in the last few quarters. What's behind this and how do you see that going forward also, are margins expected to stabilize, and if so, what are the drivers behind that? That was one piece on the animal feed business. The other was just with regard to your outlook for CapEx, working capital and free cash flow for the year ahead. You know, what should we pencil in for each of these items, and what are the proposed uses of any surplus cash that you might generate? Thank you so much.
Okay. I think on the animal nutrition business, I think it's a mix of some very, very strong execution which has been happening and some environmental support. Let me first say the little bit part of the environmental support, I would not say that played the biggest role, is the fact that when milk procurement prices remain so elevated, it does become a kind of a positive trigger for shift from unbranded to branded compound feed business, because the farmers see the benefits of the income which they're generating from a better higher milk yield. That obviously is one thing which we've seen in the last seven, eight months, which has impacted our Creamline Dairy business very negatively, but that's something which plays positively in this part of the business.
Having said that, I think there have been two, three some very fundamental execution levers that we have pressed. One, first and foremost, I think, there has been a strong work across some key geographies that we have focused on. We have done very well in S-west, which has always been our stronghold, but we have done a also very focused work towards East and Central India, which have maybe been a bit of a, traditionally, a weaker part of our business. That we have started seeing some gains in this. Obviously, this business, it's very difficult to get an instant equivalent, share gain report, but our hunch is that we have started making some share gains out of these two other geographies that we've started focusing on. That's one thing which has happened.
Secondly, there are some products that we had launched, you know, a few quarters back and some in the last quarter, which I think started giving us some gains. These products are aimed at more, you know, higher end or what we call as the type one products, which are targeted at higher yield, you know, animals. Again, while I won't call it premiumization in that sense right now, but that is a focus, you know, I would say a little bit more value-added part of the business which we're trying to push to grow. That is the second piece which has very clearly happened.
I would also want to call out that our R&D has done some very strong work in terms of also, you know, reconfiguring certain cost structures in our, you know, raw material prices, raw material component here, which also has given us some benefits in the margin expansion. So I think put together these three, four things are something which are, you know, played out for us pretty well over in the animals nutrition business.
May I add something, Sunil?
Yeah, yeah. Yes, NBG.
Yeah. I would like to add that Sunil has brought a lot of focus on the sales organization and the marketing organization. We always had very strong R&D, but now we are focusing it more directly on the consumer. As a result, we have developed these new products. I think these initiatives will continue. We have the potential of helping the farmers greatly by making better quality feed, which gives more production from the animals at a lower cost. We will drive our R&D knowledge with better marketing to satisfy the farmer and grow the business.
Thank you, NBG. I think Varadaraj also wants to take on the question on that cash flow and working capital.
Yeah. Abhijit, in terms of animal nutrition, before I move to the cash flow, in terms of the segment margin improvement which we saw, part of the reason for the improvement in segment margin in Q4 is that includes the pet food business income of around INR 9.5 crores. Now, this is, this is a, we sort of take care of the back end or the manufacturing business of the pet food. The front end is, taken care by.
GCPL.
GCPL, Godrej Pet Care Food business. The back end is sort of taken care of by us. That's a line of business for us in a small way, the manufacturing.
In a way, I would just add in here. In a way, it's a new stream of operations for us. You can say it's actually a kind of a new category expansion work for us at the back end. Whereas this business area is moving forward, we are also going to get some a strong income coming out of this business.
Yeah. Right. Consequently, unfortunately, what has happened is the way we have sort of structured this arrangement, it sort of sits in the other income line. That is the reason why you don't see it in the normal space. That's one reason why the segmental results for the animal nutrition business has gone up. In terms of the cash flow, you know, we expect that for the full year of FY 2027, we'll be sort of after taking care of the CapEx requirement of the year, which is close to INR 400 crores, we should be left with around INR 100 core- INR 125 crore cash surplus, which should be there. Yeah.
In terms of CapEx, I think the CapEx requirements would be in the coming years. First of all, out of our overall CapEx, which was in the range of around INR 350 odd crores, roughly around 75%-80% of that CapEx would be growth CapEx for us. We are pretty clear in my mind that the entire capital allocation would be towards high growth businesses, and that is where the entire CapEx is going through. If I remember correctly, correct me, Amit, if I'm wrong, roughly around I think 50 % odd of our CapEx.
Yes.
Deployment is going towards oil palm.
Oil palm.
Oil palm business.
Oil palm business.
Correct.
Yeah, that's right.
Yep. Sorry, just to clarify this, pet food business of, INR 9.5 crore, the income there. This is the profit we are talking about, is it? Or the revenue?
Yeah, this is the profit.
Yeah, this is the profit. Yeah.
This is an additional stream of income for us going forward.
Yes. What would the corresponding revenue pertaining to that be?
Revenue doesn't come to us because revenue doesn't, See, we are manufacturing this product for them, right?
Yeah.
We are the manufacturers of this product, the revenue doesn't belong to us. The profit, it's a payout on the manufacturing fees that happen to us. It's kind of a contract manufacturing kind of arrangement.
Abhijit, as you would appreciate.
The manufacturing part of the business is taken care of by us. You would appreciate that as per our accounting standards, accounting guidelines, we are required to account the entire transaction in a particular manner. That is the reason why we don't see the revenue stream coming in. Yeah.
Okay. Understood. Thank you so much.
Actually this is a good adjacency for us which is developing.
Mm-hmm. Sure. Thank you so much. I'll return for any more in the queue.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Arjun Khanna from Kotak Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. The first question is regarding the impact of monsoons. There is a prediction by Skymet and IMD that we'd probably see below normal monsoons this year. You did talk about the impact of the war on our business. Could you just comment on how you see the outlook for the year, while you did give us a brief interplay with the weaker monsoons segment-wise? Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, we've lost the management connection. Please stay on the line while we reconnect them. Ladies and gentlemen, we have the management team back on the line. Arjun.
Arjun, we lost you in between.
Sure. Sure. I'll just reframe my question again. We did in the opening remarks talk about the impact of the war on our business, and we also given commentary on the outlook for the year. Given that there is a prediction from IMD and Skymet that the monsoons this year would be below normal, below long period average, how do you see that interact with our predictions for the year in terms of volume growth? Which segments do you see positively or negatively impacted due to the same?
Arjun, honestly, you know, we all have a smile on our face when you're asking this question. You know, to be very honest, when we made this whole guidance and this plan, we were still not very sure how the, you know, Skymet and IMD's predictions would pan out. They have obviously become clear to us in the last 30 odd days, especially with IMD giving a, you know, a prediction which is worse than Skymet right now. Honestly, I mean, these numbers don't trigger in a real El Niño impact. At the same time, I think it's very difficult for us to right now put in any part of El Niño because two reasons.
One, all the predictions are saying that June will be pretty normal, and then there'll be a gradual decline with August and September generally becoming pretty bad. The severity will, I think, hit August and September if these predictions were to come right. What this means is that it is not that June, July would still fall within the LPA range as the, you know, meteorology department, you know, describes it. I would say this El Niño will have maybe a two halves to it. That's point one. Second part is, there is always in this El Niño one thing which happens is that how does it play out geographically? Our businesses have all different kinds of SKUs.
Like for example, the crop care production business for us has a pretty decent SKU towards south and west. Now, as of now, if I were to go by this monsoon, it says the only region which is likely to play out normal in the entire El Niño period is south. Now, if that happens, then this El Niño is not exactly El Niño for us in the crop care business, while it may have impact on some other businesses. The third part very clearly is, there is always this probability of a Indian Ocean Dipole or something, you know, developing and then maybe the El Niño, you know, effect could get in a month some kind of a moderated. Honestly, there is clearly a El Niño playing out.
Now, how it plays out in geographies, how it plays out in time period, is a bit of variable which is still very difficult to pick a hard call on. The way we would see it, we would like to stay course on this guidance as of now and, see how we can play it out across, once this El Niño becomes clear by the month. That's where I would say right now.
Sure.
Sunil, do you wanna say something about oil palm and El Niño?
Okay. Yeah. NBG, why don't you pitch in, you know? Yeah. You can pitch in, then I'll add on to that. Yeah.
Right.
And the-
Yeah. We feel that there will not be a very bad impact on oil palm this year, even if the monsoon is poor, because it, oil palm being a tree, it takes a long time to get affected. There could be some effects next year, but we will do a lot of research to see if there are any solutions to prevent bad effects next year as well.
You know, to add on to that, we have, you know, we have certain kind of, in an overall piece on oil palm, we don't expect any impact of El Niño on oil palm plantation business this year. There are certain kind of intervention we have planned to see how to counter El Niño in this year so that it also does not impact us too badly next year. One more thing I want to also add on to oil palm plantation business from a long-term point of view. There is a very interesting thing of, what we are internally calling as demographic dividend, which is playing out for us in this business.
That a lot of, like today roughly around 50% of our trees are in the stage which we call as a juvenile stage, which is zero to four, when they're completely unproductive. As we have been doing a lot of plantations now, over a period of time, starting from this year and next year and then next year, all these juvenile trees start becoming younger trees which become productive. It's almost like typically what India has seen the benefit, and I love this word and I That's why I introduced this team, what our team is saying, "Hey, this business is actually going to see a demographic dividend over the next five years." While what NBG was mentioning that there could first of all, this year has no impact.
If at some stage some impact comes in a year or two, my hunch is that or my reading is that it will be more than made up by our demographic dividend playing out. More and more, part of our business will start coming into a productive stage, and that will more than offset any negative impact which may happen at some year or so. I'm pretty bullish about that. Overall, with the intervention that is playing out, the demographic dividend playing out, overall, I guess the oil palm plantation business should be pretty strong going forward for us.
Perfect. That's good to know. Just a last bit on the animal feed piece, because historically, a poorer monsoon as we saw in 2023, calendar year 2023 or August 2023. If I look at FY 2024, that's the highest ever revenues we have done as a company. If you could just talk about the correlation between our animal feed piece and the monsoons.
Yeah, okay. I mean, normally, I think our correlation is pretty well to what happens to the milk yield, I would say, you know. I think.
Sure.
I think that I would say is a larger variable than anything else in this business.
Sure. Fair enough. Sir, the second query I had was more bookkeeping. If we look at the other equity line, in our balance sheet for FY 2026, it's substantially lower than FY 2025. Given that you have had good profits, yes, you have paid out dividends. Could you explain the difference of the INR 300+ crores reduction in other equity?
Just give a second.
Okay. Yeah. Arjun, the reason why that is happening is because when in the current year, FY 2025-2026, we acquired the remainder stake in our dairy business.
Dairy piece. Sure. The loss is fair. Understood. Well understood.
Yeah. Okay.
Right.
Okay.
Sure. Thanks. That's it from my side. Wishing you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, we'd like to remind participants, to ask a question, please press star and one on your phone. Next question is from the line of Maneesh Bhadane from 360 ONE Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you, sir, for an opportunity. Sir, my first question is on the Astec LifeSciences part. Like, we earlier used to procure the lot of raw material from China. How much currently we are sourcing from China in percentage terms for the Astec LifeSciences?
Okay. I would ask Arijit to pitch in here. Arijit, over to you.
For last year, the purchase has been in the around 47% of the total imports have come from China.
Okay. Like, we also raising some sort of on the backward integration. How is it going on?
Yeah. Backward integration is in two aspects. One, it is done continuously because all, not only for our own molecules, for other molecules also, we generally go on reviewing what to do with the backward integration. Always a backward integration is not only based on the price, right? Backward also has to generate some long-term value creation. It has to match our assets. It has to match our chemistries also. As of now, what we have done, for most of our enterprise molecules, we are fully backward integrated. In the sense, if there is a supply constraint or the prices goes up or supplies are not there, we can immediately start the backward integration process so that the supplies are not affected.
Similarly, for major of the CDMOs, we talk with the partners, and we are going for a backward integration. It is a continuous, but it all depends on the valuation, on the value creation, so also the cost competitiveness.
Okay, got it. Like, as we all know that the Indian currency is depreciating, given a substantial part that we are importing from China, how we are managing this input cost and, like, what sort of the margin impact we are seeing from this?
Look, in our sort of businesses, say currency management or currency volatility is a part of a structurally we approach to it, right? You have to remember that we are a net exporter. Once ever the depreciation happens and the export realization actually offers a natural hedge to the imports. That is one aspect. Secondly, we manage our imports properly in terms of proper time of, say importing the lot so that the production, there is no too much of inventory build-up. There is also some actions is taken in terms of, with the currencies. Currencies also is there. That in the short term, we usually take care of the currency volatility. Being a net exporter, it has almost neutral to no neutral impact in terms of the overall business' margin.
It does not impact too much in the overall business.
That maybe-
Okay.
I, maybe I would say maybe a little bit that again, this currency volatility is something very difficult to predict. Yeah, I mean, maybe in the short term, if this remains too high, there could be a mild positive benefit for Astec which happen given that we are a net exporter overall, you know. Again, these are things, you know, which, as we know, they're pretty much changing by the month, you know.
Got it. Got it. Sir, it will be valuable if you share the outlook on the product mix like enterprise product versus contract manufacturing going forward, like if you have any targets set in your mind and also onto the domestic exports market, like what will be the contribution going forward?
Arijit, over to you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
In 2026, enterprise constitutes almost 48% of the entire revenue, and CDMOs where CDMOs are the new products constitute around 52%.
Okay.
I think next two years also, it will the ratio-wise it will be the same. A little bit reduction in enterprise will happen only after financial year 2028. In terms of the exports, this year we clocked around 53% of the total revenue through exports. Next year, if we see the enterprise molecules moving up, we should be somewhere between 60% of the revenue coming from exports.
Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it. Sir, in, I think 2022 or 2023, we also launched Samruddhi brand. How is the traction for that brand and in the coming future or, we have any idea to launch any new brand like the Samruddhi brand we launched in 2022, 2023, something like that?
Yeah. Okay. Obviously Samruddhi brand is one brand which led to a complete, you know, disruption in the market of Maharashtra for us in post 2023. As I mentioned in the earlier, you know, answer to Abhijit, that there are a couple more products which have started coming in for us in the last years. One such product which had come in and which is scaling up now pretty well for us is a brand called Dhanlaxmi. That is one piece which has started happening in markets of Maharashtra and Karnataka. Again, it is targeted at the higher yield, milk yield giving animals.
That is again, which is showing us a good traction, and we hope to take that brand further to, you know, across these three states of Maharashtra, Karnataka and one more state. We expect that to become a pretty strong, you know, product for us going forward. In southern markets, we have also upgraded, done a renovation of a product, which is a product from which we earlier used to have called Bypro, which we have upgraded to a new richer product called Bypro Plus. That again, is giving us a pretty decent incremental gains, which are happening in parts of South.
I think, as NBG also mentioned somewhere in the middle, that one clear focus for us going forward in our, all our businesses and while, animal nutrition obviously it comes in that, is that as part of our long-term strategic shift, we are becoming more consumer-centric, we are becoming more market facing and, R&D innovation pipeline across all our businesses will become stronger and stronger.
Thank you so much for answering all the questions. Please stop.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Sumant Kumar from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. My question in crop protection,
Sumant, sorry to interrupt. Can you use your handset mode, please?
Yeah. Can you hear me now?
Yes, please go ahead.
Yeah. Can you talk on new product launches in the coming year, the key segment, and also crop wise in the crop protection segment?
Okay. Your question is with respect to specifically to crop protection business?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Okay. Okay. Maybe for the benefit of everybody, I'll say there are two pieces that we're changing in terms of nomenclature of businesses internally. One is we are moving our animal feed business to We're naming it now animal nutrition business. It's not a name change really because we are shifting the mindset itself of the business as part of our strategic direction to a more benefit-led, innovation-led and, you know, a market-centric model. We believe we would like to shift our mindset to more from a feed to a nutrition. That's one. Similarly, in our crop protection business, we believe that there is a segment of products that we are which we are reasonably strong, which is plant growth regulators, which are about plant nutrition.
Hence, we would like to not only be thinking ourselves as crop protection business, but also as a overall crop care business. That's a second nomenclature change that we're doing. More than just name change, it's also actually a strategic mindset and a strategic direction shift, direction value add that we are doing in these names, you know. That's one thing I just wanted to add in the beginning. Now, in the crop care business, there is one very large strategic shift that we have done. As I mentioned somewhere earlier that we are in the middle of this whole strategy piece, is that we have been very much stuck onto a, what we call as a single point of failure, that we in majority of our businesses.
If you see in our crop care business, we were pretty much very, very centric on being a cotton herbicide-led vertical. Then there was obviously another product of ours, Gracia, which was focused on chilies. If these two seasons go bad, we see what happened was what happened last year for us, which was kind of a, you know, a perfect storm for us. One thing which is going to shift drastically over the next five years is that we are diversifying our portfolio very sharply. Obviously, products take time to come out of this, we are going to move away from two crop segment product to a multi-crop segment product company, so that we'll have more crops coming in our way. We'll have more segments from herbicide to maybe insecticide and fungicide also coming into our play.
This business should in five years be a very different business from what it's today. In the immediate, what you're gonna see a change that in the year of FY 2027, there are two new products that are coming in, which are completely new products altogether into new crop segments. One is something which got launched in the month of December last year, which is Ashitaka, which is our first maize entry. It's a maize herbicide. That will see a major scale up this year. That's one product which is going to be one of our star products. The second is we are entering into a rice plus insecticide segment through a product which is called TAKAI, which is actually a multi-crop insecticide, although its lead application is paddy. This will be a second new entry which will happen for us.
Between these two products itself, we expect. Just to give you maybe a number or direction, I'll give you how we are moving onto this diversification. Last year, since this got launched only towards the latter part of the year, this contributed roughly around 3% of our revenues. Between these two products itself, if everything goes right in terms of weather, season, et cetera, don't play truant, we expect these two products itself to contribute roughly around anywhere between 16%-18% of our business. That's the kind of shift that we'll see roughly around, you know, a four times salient shifting for that, you know, this thing. That would happen for us next year.
Thank you so much.
Yeah.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Aejas Lakhani from Unifi AMC. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Team, my question is for Mr. Godrej. Mr. Godrej, you know, as a, as a institutional shareholder who's been observing your business for 5 + years, you know, we appreciate the breadth of strategic changes that have been underway to try and improve the quality of the business, you know, across lines, from what you've done in share gains and feed to improving margin profiles in palm by doing forward and backward, the restructuring in dairy, the buyout of poultry to speeding up the changes that you've made to clean up the crop protection portfolio. Now the sharper focus towards in-licensing. We appreciate all of those, you know, things that you've been engaging in. If I were to ask you just a next two-year view, just a two-year view, sir.
What should we as investors be looking to understand? Should we be looking at a GAVL which is trying to be more, you know, strategic, sort of from a portfolio restructuring perspective where, you know, business units are being clustered together to unlock probably value through that and improve accountability? Or is it that, you know, given the composite nature of the business and the CapEx requirements which could feed into multiple, it will continue to be one cohesive unit, but it will be more accelerated, more consistent revenue growth, better profiles, better ROC improvements, the same capital allocation discipline. Which one of this is the path that GAVL is likely to take? Thank you.
Aejas, Sunil here. Maybe, let me take a little bit of a shot at this, and then I can ask, you know, NBG and Burjis to also pitch in if required on that. I hear your question loud and clear, that what is it that you're seeing. Also thank you for, you know, noting down some of the shifts that we're making. One fundamental piece over the next two years. See, any transformation takes four, five years to happen fully, and especially in a business like us, which is a multi, you know, segmental business.
The shift that you'll start seeing, which we have already started planning on in the next two years, is that we will move from fundamentally from a commodity-centric thinking to a market customer-facing approach, whatever the nature of the entity itself is right now. That's a fundamental mindset and a capability shift that we're doing. If I were to read out a few points I've put down on the headers for you, what you can expect is that our animal nutrition business will move from a feed business to a nutrition mindset business which is led by innovation, technical services, marketing and sourcing as modes. Our crop care business would move from a product chemistry and patent-focused business to a product innovation, distribution and branding as modes.
Our oil palm business, as I already talked about, from a volume-led upstream player only to a full-fledged differentiated upstream downstream value-added player, which happened. In terms of Astec, from an enterprise business to a very clearly CDMO-focused business. Everything may not play out in the two years because the CDMO funnels take a little longer, so that some part that play out will happen over from FY 2028 onwards, but you will see that shift already started happening. In Godrej Foods, very clearly we are dialing down live birds completely, and over the next three, four years it should just remain maybe a backend of ours, and that becomes a protein-forward, you know, a company which will have many new segments coming in.
In fact, I would like to call out what you would see in the next two years in terms of new, starting this year itself, is we are making entry into two new segments in the foods business. One is we have entered into Momos, which we believe there's a potential to upgrade the streets food business into a branded business. The second one is there is a very piece which I personally think can have a very strong ramp up over the next three to four years in India could be our entry into frozen chicken now. That's another piece which is playing out for us. In CDPL, clearly the value add journey goes forward. We have to make it more and more profitable.
I think this is the largest shift which is, in a way, I've given a headline of a strategy document for you. It is gonna be followed by a cost culture with a mindset shift. Coming back to whether there'll be a restructuring of these businesses, as I said, the models are still taking shape in our minds. We cannot say at what time it will pan out. We talked about that question to Astec is that maybe in a couple of quarters we'll come back and to say how does this whole chemical piece plays out for us. This in a nutshell is my take on that. This is a larger transformation at play.
We have already made portfolio choices also maybe for everybody's benefit, I'll say, on what we don't want to do, which also you'll see in this next two years. For example, the businesses that we're putting up for strategic review right now are our shrimp business, our seeds business, our cattle genetics business. Our Live Bird business obviously is coming down. We are going to take some strategic reviews of this business going forward. This, in a nutshell, is the journey which has started shaking shape. You'll see them executing over two years, maybe the structural pieces will, if any, will play out at that stage. We don't know right now. Anything which, Burjis, you want to add on at this stage?
Yes. Thank you, Sunil. Hi, this is Burjis Godrej speaking. I appreciate your question, and I think the deeper subtext, if I'm correct, is possibly hinting at unlocking shareholder value. I think Sunil has answered the question very well. I'm confident that this approach will lead to good performance and unlocking of shareholder value across GAVL as a whole. We remain open to suggestions, alternative pathways, if you have any, for how to improve performance and how to unlock shareholder value. I welcome your thoughts and suggestions on this topic and you reaching out to us separately to discuss it in more detail. I'll request Mr. Nadir Godrej, if he has any comments.
Yes, this is Nadir Godrej. I would urge you to focus on a longer horizon. In oil palm, there is likely to be rapid growth because, A, is the demographic dividend that Sunil talked about. B is the rapid expansion in acreage that we did both in the fiscal year 2026, and we are likely to do even better in fiscal year 2027. We are producing more and more value-added products, and we have very good technologies for wealth from waste, which will also gain traction, and all these will get magnified by the rapid growth of acreage. I see a very bright future for this. Even for animal nutrition, we should look further out than just two years.
We will have good growth in two years, but just imagine what kind of growth we can have over 10 years.
Thank you, NBG. It is one more point which I think you'd asked for a comment from your end on the return on capital employed. I think, again, if you've seen the last two, three quarters, there's an exceptional work which we've done through a focus on working capital. Our return on capital employed has also moved along with our results from 16% to now 20%, which is a very sharp jump of 4%, which has never happened in our history of our business. As we invest further on growth CapEx, one thing we'll be very sure of in the next two what?
Two or four or five years, in fact, for that time, that we will be very stringent, and we'll keep the discipline very strong on managing working capital and return on capital employed. We have reached 20%. While I wouldn't hazard a guess right on saying how ambitious we can be, right? We will definitely not let this slip away. If, as we find more and more opportunities, we'll only try to improve it further.
Noted, team. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Probal Sen from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity, sir. Just a couple of housekeeping questions first. In terms of the foods business, I think, you obviously mentioned the strategy and the branded savings are going up consistently and maintaining at above 80%. Just as a thought, in terms of the Live Bird business, is there a thought to sort of exiting the Live Bird business altogether? Or does this still provide supply chain benefits and pricing boosts from time to time, depending on the seasonal factors? Just your thoughts on that.
Probal, thanks for the question. One thing is live trading per se is coming down sharply for us and over this next four, five-year period, and I think more accelerated manner. We would not be in the business of selling live birds. That is very clear. That trading we don't want to do. That's out of question for us. What may happen for us, and which I think is, I think could be a very strong moat as we build a business. I mentioned that, you know, we would like to maybe try to build certain categories like a new emerging category of frozen chicken in India. Right. What is happening in this business is that there is a potential of doing a category creation altogether in this business.
That, one of the reasons why fresh chicken never sold was because there's a shelf life of four days. Now, with frozen chicken, the shelf life changes. The work that we've done on product innovation is this chicken is as good as anything on the fresh side. We have now got a structural tailwind which is happening in this industry in the shape of quick commerce, whereby the cold chain also is getting taken care of. We believe that if we go ahead and build this category forward, then one of the biggest moats actually is a control on the raw material supply of this category. Which is where having some presence of Live Bird as a sourcing-
Yes.
Is a damn good, you know, a very good, what do you call it, differentiator. Clearly, no play on Live Bird as a trading stock sales business. We could have this pure play as a back-end supply chain for our future businesses, whether it is Yummiez nuggets which we want to take it forward or whether it is, you know, some of the new categories that we're looking forward.
Yeah. That's it.
Understood, sir. Two more small questions. One was, what was the amount of FFB that was processed this quarter, and what was the ex-extraction ratio just for this quarter?
Okay. The extraction ratio for this quarter, if I remember, was 20.4. Let me just check it again. Just give me a minute.
So, uh-
20.4, if I remember. 1.
It's 20.77.
Sorry, it was 20.77-
Uh.
-was the extraction ratio. This quarter, the overall the number is very small per se. For the oil palm business, the FFB becomes very small. Just to give you example that out of our, you know, 6 lakh 37,000 FFB processed annually, this is just-
Mm-hmm.
-60,000 tons, you know.
Right.
small amount which comes in the sea. It's a very marginal quarter for OPB business per se. The good part is, we were at a 19.766% last year on OER in the same quarter.
Mm-hmm.
Ladies and gentlemen, please stay connected. We've lost the management connection. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for patiently holding the line. We have the management team back online. Probal.
Yes, sir. Apologies, I, you know, we got cut off in the middle. I think you were mentioning a number of somewhere around 20% + extraction.
Yeah.
On a smaller base for this quarter.
Yes. The number was, to be precise, the number was 20.7% on a smaller base. I said the base is so small for us that it just becomes.
Mm-hmm.
You know, the base, for example, is INR 60,000 on a base of INR 6.3 lakhs, you know.
Understood.
Seasonally a very marginal quarter. The good part is that even on a, you know, such a small base, where the leverage really doesn't come in also into play in operating leverage, our OER was pretty much stronger over last year's same quarter.
Right.
That is the direction for which tells you about the how the processes and the productivity parameters have got established by the teams.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
I think that's a very good sign going forward, you know.
One last question, if I may. In terms of dividend policy, the dividend payout obviously has been at fairly healthy levels.
Yeah.
-of around 45%-47% in the last couple of years. Any thoughts in terms of how it will proceed, given that we're definitely expecting mid-teens profitability and EBITDA growth? Is it fair to assume that, you know, with CapEx remaining at, you know, somewhere around, let's say INR 300 crore-INR 350 crore, that this number has the potential to go up as well from here?
Well, honestly, this is something which, you know, very difficult to comment because this is a larger decision which gets taken as the years go, results come in. I would say that we have a very strong policy of giving consistently good dividend, as you just mentioned, the range of 48% odd. I think this is a call which we will take along with promoters every year as the results come by. One thing is very clear that if, obviously, the results are good, I mean, it's always good to, you know, make sure that all the shareholders benefit. I think a call which will take more as the results come in, you know.
Understood, sir. Congrats on a good set of numbers. I'll go back to the operator.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Abhijit Akella from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you so much for the follow-up. Just on Astec, would it be possible to get your thoughts for the year ahead in terms of the growth expectations, you know, across both CDMO as well as enterprise and, yeah, on the profitability as well, EBITDA side?
Yeah. Okay. Abhijit, you would like to pitch in here? Go ahead.
The way the entire industry is behaving is little, is a positive sense because Q4 also you can see the numbers. Q4, the improvement has been both in terms of the volumes and also the price realizations. This is primarily because more or less, the prices have bottomed out. They have bottomed out in the sense that the market prices and the competition from China has more or less stabilized. That is primarily because most of the geographies are showing local demands. Be it China, be it India, the local demands have improved. International supplies should be normal right now. Price realization, I think, has stabilized. Raw material supplies, if you remove, we don't know what will be the impact, long-term impact in terms of Iran war or some other problems coming into. More or less it is stabilized.
I think we should aim, anyway, we should aim around 15% of growth in terms of the top line. CDMO should be growing further, a little bit higher than the CDMO. Margins are intact, both in CDMO and for enterprises. That is much I can say as of now.
Directionally, it is a positive growth both for CDMO and for enterprise business.
Maybe I will, I mean, Arijit may pitch in. I think, one thing which is very clearly looking positive for us on the Astec front is that, I think the work that the team has been doing on the business development side over the last year, I think there are some good early leads emerging for us in the CDMO space, although they're still to come to fruition. I think going forward, this is a business where we'll keep the CDMO percentage doing well in the range of around, you know, 52%-53% plus, kind of salient.
While Abhijit is obviously, you know, talking about, I think, a number of around 15%, but I believe we have a pretty good shot at something in the range of, you know, 20% kind of a number going forward on this, you know.
Got it. Thank you. Just on oil palm, how much of the earnings now come from the value-added side of things, and how do you expect that category to sort of continue to, you know, increase its contribution? Just asking from the context that suppose palm oil prices were to correct, you know, a year down the line. I mean
Yeah.
You know, how do we cushion the impact on our earnings in that business?
Yeah, I think, I think that's a fair question. One part first I'll give you maybe a bit of a context, that the last year, you know, sharp jump of oil palm profitability that we have seen, if I were to purely discount the pricing part of that, you know, 65% or part of that profit, which was 30%, is come because of our internal efforts. That's I think the good context to have. You know, that the pricing play which was abnormal played out last year is still not more than 30 odd percent of our business. That tells you the structural strength of the work which is happening. That is one part.
Second is, yes, as part of our strategy exercise that we have done, one clear direction is how do we get into more and more differentiated value-added play to further insulate ourselves from any of these pricing, you know, volatility or bearishness that may happen. So what is happening is that this year in May itself, we are rolling out our specialty fat refinery also, which will come into full flow from, I would say maybe, let's say second half of the year in flow, full fashion. That will start giving us a very meaningful play in second half onwards into value-added products, which will then go from strength to strength over a period of next long range plan of four to five years.
Our broad direction is that we would like this business to have roughly around 50%- 55% of its portfolio over a period of maybe FY 2031 in that direction, if I were to put, coming out of value-added products. That should give us a very, very significant insulation from any kind of price volatility years which could go down into bearish sense. I think that's a very clear direction. When I said from being a upstream, you know, player to a complete value-added upstream, downstream player, that's the aspiration that we are having for ourselves.
Thank you very much. That's very helpful. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take that as the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to management for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Thank you. I hope we have been able to answer all your questions. If you have any further questions or would like to know more about the company, we would be happy to be of assistance. Thank you once again for taking the time to join us on this call.
Thank you, members of the management team. On behalf of ICICI Securities, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.