Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Scales Corporation Full- Year Results Conference Call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Andy Borland, Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and welcome to the Scales full -year results announcement for the year ending 31 December 2021. With me today is our CFO, Steve Kennelly. Earlier this morning, we launched our results with the NZX, which included a presentation pack that we'll base our comments on during this call. Steve and I'll run through the slides, then we'll take questions, and if you've got any further questions after the call, we'll be available for the rest of the day. The agenda for today's slide pack is we'll touch on the year's highlights, sustainability in the group, the financials for both the group and the divisions, aspects of capital management, governance, and finally, the outlook for the current year. Turning to slide four and a summary of the year.
Scales' diversified strategy underpinned an outstanding result for the year, with statutory profit for the year of NZD 36.9 million, up 39%. Underlying NPAT attributable to shareholders of NZD 29.7 million was also ahead of last year, and our underlying NPAT of NZD 39.8 million was a record result, up 20%. Underlying EBITDA was NZD 73.8 million, 15% ahead of last year. Please note, as with our interim results, we've amended our definition of underlying, in line with current market practice, so that now includes the effects of IFRS 16 leases. Whilst Horticulture's export volumes were down 7% on the prior year, its underlying EBITDA was only down 4%, aided by strong end market pricing. The Mr Apple team's efforts to pick and pack the harvest was outstanding, given the uncertainties it faced around labor availability.
Food Ingredients generated an exceptional underlying EBITDA of NZD 35.1 million, an increase of 52% on last year. It continued to benefit from the strong global demand for pet food, along with its geographical and protein diversification strategy. The strategic benefit provided by Logistics continued in the second half of the year, particularly in relation to the ongoing supply chain difficulties. The next slide highlights a selection of key numbers for the group on the operational side. Horticulture exported just under 5 million cartons of apples. Food Ingredients sold almost 150,000 metric tons of pet food ingredients. Scales Logistics managed over 30,000 TEU equivalents. On the financial side, we recorded record revenue of almost NZD 515 million. ROCE was 13.8%, noting that this calculation has been amended for the effects of IFRS 16.
We continued to declare and paid NZD 0.19 dividend per share, and our balance sheet remains strong, with NZD 82 million of net cash available for investment. Turning to slide 6. While 2021 continued to present a number of challenges, our team rose to the challenge. Some highlights included the ongoing courage of our staff to work through lockdowns and red traffic light settings, and we commend them on their unwavering commitment. Their safety and wellbeing is the board and management team's top priority. Despite difficulties in obtaining RSE workers, the Mr Apple team made an extraordinary effort to pick, pack, and export the harvest in full and on time to global markets. Food Ingredients continued its extraordinary growth, and I'll speak to that in more detail later. Scales Logistics proved its strategic worth to the group, ensuring sufficient containers were obtained for its export customers.
Despite uncertainty in both local and worldwide markets, Scales exceeded its revised earnings guidance for the year. Moving on to sustainability and an update on COVID-19. Two years of being an essential business throughout the COVID-19 pandemic has put pressure on the entire team. We continued to operate throughout the 2021 lockdowns and continued to operate in a red setting using our pandemic preparedness policies. COVID-19 continues to present challenges from labor availability through to market access and logistics, and unfortunately, we expect these challenges will remain through this year. With that in mind, I can't stress how important health and safety is to our group from a physical, mental, and emotional viewpoint. A selection of some of the health and safety initiatives are noted on the slide, including new contact tracing technology as part of our COVID-19 response planning.
Of particular note is that we're partnering with Mentemia, a platform that provides tools and techniques for mental wellbeing. This included teams from Mr Apple attending workshops held over Zoom by Sir John Kirwan, a co-founder of Mentemia, and Dr. Fiona Crichton, a health psychology expert. We're eager to embed mental health and wellbeing into our daily working lives and look forward to seeing the impact that has on our staff. It has also been a busy year from an environmental point of view, and some of those projects, both big and small, are listed on this slide. One of our bigger projects last year was our new Whakatu Coolstore, and we're proud to note that not only does the Coolstore provide operating and financial efficiencies, it also provides environmental efficiencies, such as a reduction on the movement of our freight.
Other projects include a soil health project to help us understand our impact on the ecosystem and an in-house carbon footprint assessment undertaken from MBIE New Zealand, and receipt of a report from AUT on the potential carbon sequestration of apple trees. I'll now pass over to Steve to comment on the group financial performance.
Thanks, Andy. The table on slide 11 summarizes our underlying and reported results for the Group. As in our interim presentation, we've included the effects of IFRS 16 leases within our underlying results, with comparative figures updated accordingly. Group recorded record revenue up 9% on last year. This was primarily due to an increase in Food Ingredients revenue. Underlying EBITDA increased 15% to NZD 73.8 million compared to 2020, also primarily due to an excellent performance by the Food Ingredients division. Underlying NPAT was up 20% on 2020 to NZD 39.8 million, with underlying NPAT attributable to shareholders up 8% to NZD 29.7 million, which was above our previously advised revised guidance range.
Reported profit for the year was also up with a 39% increase, and earnings per share were NZD 0.191 per share, a 27% increase on last year. Turning to slide 12 and our group 5-year performance graphs for revenue, underlying EBITDA, and underlying NPAT attributable to shareholders. As noted in previous years, the historic results haven't been adjusted to reflect changes in group structure from M&A activity in 2018 and 2019. In addition, the earnings for 2017 and 2018 haven't been adjusted to include the effects of IFRS 16. Slide 13 summarizes our half-yearly divisional performance, and as in 2020, highlights the seasonality experienced by the horticulture division in particular. A couple of comments here. Horticulture experienced lower export volumes, although this was partially offset by strong end market pricing.
Diversified markets and varieties also helped to mitigate the effect of lower volumes. Food Ingredients had an excellent performance, benefiting from ongoing global growth in pet food demand, as well as changes in product origin, mix, and margin. Logistics had a strong year despite the reported logistics and supply chain difficulties. Moving on to slide 14 and charts of the five-year underlying EBITDA trends for our divisions, and the main highlight here is the growth in the Food Ingredients division over the last few years. Slides 15 and 16 provide a summary of our financial position. The movement in capital employed mainly reflects capital expenditure, primarily at Mr Apple and the revaluation of land and buildings. Other movements relate to an increase in working capital, which is in line with our increase in revenue, and a decrease in other assets due to the revaluation of FX derivatives.
Slide 16 continues to show a strong net cash position at 31 December of over NZD 82 million, a movement of around NZD 15.5 million compared to 2020. The movement in cash relates primarily to the investment in the new Whakatu Cool store. I'll now hand back to Andy to update you on divisional performance.
Thanks, Steve. Slide 18 summarizes the financial results of the horticulture division, which was an outstanding performance in a difficult environment. Revenue was in line with last year, with only a slight decrease in underlying EBITDA. This was a very strong result given the significant market uncertainty, supply chain challenges, and lower fruit volume. Strong pricing helped to mitigate cost pressures, and we continue to benefit from our diversification of both markets and varieties. As previously mentioned, the Mr Apple team was able to successfully pick and pack the entire harvest, although volumes were affected by inclement weather and our planned orchard redevelopment. Export packout was in line with last year. As we've noted in earlier presentations, RSE workers have a vital role to play in our business.
While we were able to supplement the deficit in RSE workers during harvest time with New Zealand and working holiday scheme workers, the future ability to recruit RSE workers will be essential in order to support our growth plans. It's also significant to note that the importance of the scheme extends to the workers themselves. Together with their whānau and communities, the skills acquired and wages earned are of huge significance to all involved. During the year, we commenced our multi-year investment and automation plan to increase productivity and sustain margins with the installation of tray denesting machines at the Whakatu packhouse. This complements the commissioning of the Whakatu Cool store in February 2021, which has already provided financial and operating efficiencies.
We believe that when finished, the automation project will result in the Whakatu packhouse being one of the world's most automated apple packhouses and will significantly enhance labor productivity. Mr. Apple also continued to plant and redevelop its orchards, with 35 hectares converted into primarily Dazzle and NZ Prince varieties during winter 2021. This, together with our intensive planting techniques, are expected to help increase prices and yields as the orchards reach commercial scale. We believe the outcomes from these projects will help to sustain our margins. The volume charts on the next slide illustrates Mr Apple's 10-year volume history. While we encountered a decrease in traditional volumes in 2021, due mainly to inclement weather and a decrease in the number of traditional variety orchards, there was a pleasing 6% growth in premium varieties, including significant growth in sales of Dazzle and Posy.
Over the 10-year period, this represents a compound annual growth rate of premium varieties of 14%. Slide 21 provides a summary of horticulture and main KPIs. We achieved an overall increase in pricing. This was due to a combination of reduced end market volumes, better fruit crop sizes for certain varieties, and strong demand for varieties such as Dazzle. Prices were above prior year levels for most varieties, resulting in an overall average increase for both premium and traditional varieties. Total export volumes decreased in 2021 to just under 5 million TCEs, with external grower volumes reflecting a challenging season for Nelson growers. Turning to Slide 22. Pleasingly, we experienced strong growth in our Asia and Middle East markets last year, with them accounting for around 72% of sales, and of that, China comprising around 20%.
As a result, we continue to invest in their branding and marketing strategies, with particular focus on customers in these key markets, in addition to consolidating our early, strong, and growing presence there. As mentioned in our interim presentation, Mr Apple has increased its social media and digital marketing presence, and is actively using these tools to build its brand awareness and conversion with consumers, particularly throughout Asia. We've also added additional marketing resource in New Zealand to help increase and drive brand awareness within the key Asian markets. A number of initiatives are listed on this slide, including the launch of an online game, which has generated around 270,000 QR code scans throughout Asia. Another initiative has been the production of a video telling the story of the Mr Apple character during China's Mid-Autumn Festival, one of their biggest sales opportunities.
We expect this character to feature in more stories in forthcoming seasons. Moving on to Food Ingredients on Slide 24, and its outstanding performance for the year. The division generated significant increase in volumes, revenue, and profitability in 2021, reflecting both the ongoing demand for global pet food and the benefit of a geographical and protein diversification strategy. Domestic markets in both New Zealand and the USA helped to reduce the impact of global supply chain issues. Underlying EBITDA of NZD 35 million, a 52% increase on last year, exceeded the Food Ingredients' long run EBITDA target that we set of NZD 25 million, which in 2018. We will be reviewing the division's future strategy during this year. Profruit volumes also were down slightly on last year's record volumes due to a lower availability of product and yield.
Again, though, a strong domestic market helped negate some of the difficulties in export. Turning to Slide 25. The pet food industry continues to grow, reporting a global pet food production increase of over 8% in 2021, led by 17% increase in the Asia Pacific region. North American markets rose at the second-highest rate of almost 13%. This growth has reinforced our strategy of investigating both internal and external opportunities, a number of which we have been hampered by the inability to travel. As a result of our confidence in the market, and particularly in the USA, John Sainsbury is preparing to relocate to the USA on a permanent basis later this year. John has previously lived and worked in the States, and that, along with his leadership abilities, means he's an excellent candidate for the role.
We believe this will accelerate our ability to develop and invest in new supply and acquisition opportunities. Slide 26 summarizes the results for logistics. The challenges faced by the supply chain and logistics industry are well documented as showing no signs of abating. However, the expertise and experience of the Scales Logistics team have proved strategically important for our other Scales divisions, as well as external customers. An exceptional effort by the team provided a strong result with a 5% increase in revenue and a 17% increase in underlying EBITDA compared to 2020. This was despite a decrease in volumes freighted due to lower apple volumes and reduced sailings. However, pressures are expected to continue with instability in the availability of containers and ships, labor shortages, increased costs, and high demand. Moving on to capital management.
Our return on capital employed, or ROCE, parameters vary according to each division's structure and operations. Horticulture was affected by its level of capital expenditure this year, together with the ongoing revaluation of horticultural land over the last few years. Alternatively, Food Ingredients and Logistics ROCEs have benefited from strong earnings and lower capital requirements. Returns for horticulture are expected to stabilize as its automated motion project is implemented and as the redeveloped orchards reach maturity. Note that the ROCE calculations have been updated with the effects of IFRS 16, and thus the group target ROCE has been adjusted to a rate of 12.5%. Slide 29 summarizes CapEx for the year. We've added an extra category this year which reflects CapEx that helps to sustain our margins. This CapEx includes the Whakatu Coolstore build and our pack house automation project.
Horticulture accounted for the majority of CapEx, with expenditure including orchard redevelopment and completion of the Whakatu Cool store and commencement of the automation project. Significant future horticulture CapEx is likely to concentrate on the opportunities to sustaining margins and increasing efficiencies in the division. Turning to Slide 31 on governance. We've commenced the process around our board succession in conjunction with the specialist governance advisors, We welcomed Xin Xi as our China Resources representative to the board, and also appointed Kelly Brown as our fifth future director. Kelly brings both agriculture and international business expertise to the board table. In addition, Geoff Smith was appointed as Chief Operations and Sustainability Officer at the end of January. He brings a wide range of operational supply chain strategy and investment experience from across the agribusiness industry.
We believe that these appointments serve to strengthen our already robust leadership and senior management group. Moving on to the outlook for 2022, which this year comes with a small caveat. It's imperative for horticulture produce to be harvested and processed in a timely manner in order to provide fresh produce to global markets, and Mr Apple is not exempt from this requirement. While current initiatives are expected to source sufficient labor for the 2022 harvest, we have a number of policies and plans in place to mitigate potential problems that may arise. As with other horticulture businesses, we do remain susceptible to unforeseen events caused by the pandemic. Having noted that, and assuming our harvest is fully picked and packed, and taking account of all factors, the directors have reconfirmed the 2022 guidance as provided on 8th December 2021.
The ranges are underlying net profit attributable to the shareholders of NZD 23.5 million-NZD 28.5 million. Underlying net profit of NZD 30.5 million-NZD 35.5 million. Underlying EBITDA of NZD 62 million-NZD 67 million. In reconfirming this guidance, the directors note horticultural pricing is expected to be in line with 2021. We anticipate a significant increase in shipping and other logistics costs. There's likely to be an ongoing shortage of labor within the agribusiness sector, although we expect to source sufficient labor for the current harvest. It's assumed that the businesses will remain essential within the COVID aspect, and substantial CapEx will be invested in gross margin sustainability initiatives within Mr Apple. It's also noted that while Scales generate an excellent result in 2021, there continues to be significant uncertainty for the year ahead.
We'll focus on minimizing the effects of COVID while stabilizing margins at Mr Apple, taking advantage of growth initiatives within Food Ingredients, and pursuing other investment opportunities. The 2022 harvest has commenced at Mr Apple, with current indications of volumes in line with previous projections and strong demand for varieties such as Posy and Dazzle. As mentioned, availability of seasonal labor continue to be critical to our ability to successfully pick, pack, and export the harvest. A significant increase in both shipping costs and capacity constraints are anticipated. Following completion of the harvest, we plan to progress the Puketapu packhouse automation project, and we expect this will continue into next year. In terms of Scales Logistics, as previously mentioned, difficult supply chain conditions are anticipated for at least for this year.
However, we're confident logistics will continue to provide significant strategic support to its customers, including Mr Apple and Meateor. The outlook for Food Ingredients continue to be positive. Meateor New Zealand, our JV with Alliance, has performed well and is focused on supporting both the domestic pet food industry and its export markets. Value add opportunities are actively being pursued. In Australia, exports have outperformed expectations. However, we note that as of 31 December 2023, we'll no longer have an exclusive ongoing relationship with our existing supplier. Shelby continues on its strong growth path, partly aided by the commissioning of a new plate freezing capacity in the Dodge City facility. As previously mentioned, we're actively exploring other growth opportunities for American operations, with John Sainsbury relocating to The U.S. later this year to move these forward. That ends today's formal presentation.
Although, we point you towards Appendix one of the slide deck, which provides additional financial information and reconciles underlying earnings to reported earnings for each of our divisions as well as the group. We're now happy to take any questions you may have.
Thank you, if you wish to ask a question, please press start one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced, if you wish you cant pull your request, please press star two if you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Joshua Dale with Craigs Investment Partners. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Andy and Steve. First question, just interested in the outlook for Food Ingredients. You've delivered an exceptional performance this year, and you mentioned your confidence around the growth opportunities within this division. Looking at your guidance, if we take the middle of the range, it would imply that the division will track down a bit in FY 2022. Is that just an expectation that the strong run might normalize a bit, and is there any detail you can give us there?
Look, I think you're on the track there. On the right path. You know, it was a very strong result. We're really looking to see whether the trend's going to continue, but you know, in effect, probably expect it to stabilize and track back slightly. It was a significant performer, outstanding result, particularly from Shelby, and yeah, we just feel like yeah, continuing at the same run rate would be great, but yeah, we haven't forecast that.
Great. Thank you. That makes sense. Just on your packhouse automation, in terms of the total level of CapEx for that, you know, are you still looking at somewhere in the vicinity of NZD 25 million-NZD 30 million over the next three or four years?
Yeah. That's our expected CapEx for the full project.
All right. Thanks. Just last question from me. You know, if you look at your results over the last seven or eight years, just on horticulture, you've been able to get good top-line growth, but maintaining margins has been a bit of a struggle. Can you sort of perhaps outline why that has been and, you know, what sort of costs have increased concurrently to compress your margins? 'Cause you know, you're obviously conscious of that with trying to introduce some stabilization to margin within that division.
The key one's the labor. Besides, you know, the increases in the minimum wage have, you know, been well signaled, so we understand them. This last year or two's inflation surge has caused, you know, increase in labor costs. Clearly, the freight rates have taken off as well. Really it's about, you know, recognizing those increases and what can we do about it. You know, the automation, the new plantings of trees that are cheaper, if you like, or cost less to thin, prune and harvest, and higher pricing for the premium variety. There's a number of, you know, actions I suppose we're taking to, you know, hold on or get that margin back as we said we could.
Great. Thank you. That's all from me, and well done on a very strong year.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one. Your next question comes from Christian Bell with Jarden. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, guys. Just a couple of questions from me. For the Mr Apple margin recovery chart that you've provided, are you able to please break down the assumptions that drive that margin recovery? I understand it's automation and premium varieties and stuff like that, but are you able to loosely kind of attribute a percentage to each one of those assumptions, just so we get an idea of kind of what needs, you know, how important each assumption actually is?
It's probably not as easy to do that just off the bat here, Christian, but you know, you think about it, if once done, there's about 80 people in a shift in that Puketapu pack house, and we're hoping that comes down to 30. You know, then the specifics around the, you know, Dazzle's selling at significantly higher prices, as is Posy, than you know, our other varieties. That's the price uptick we're expecting. Those other reds, you know, Envy, NZ Prince, et cetera. I mean, we actually ended up air freighting Posy to China because the price was so good that we're expecting. We're very happy about how that's tracking out.
It's the cost, less cost and the new planting techniques we've got, you know, coming into, you know, the thinning, you know, the pruning and the harvesting. I guess we feel that the freight one is a, you know, not going to stay where it is. You know, if these big shipping companies are making billions and billions of dollars, I mean, we're actually aware of, as you will be, that there's huge new capacity coming into the sea freight market. You know, that has to wash into lower freight rates in the future.
I mean, it kind of the 80 reducing to 30, I mean, it loosely might feel like close to 50% and then a bit of a mix between all the other kind of factors. Is that kind of?
Yeah. Yeah.
-possible?
I mean, it all works in our models. You should try one.
Yep. Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure. Is there any further CapEx required outside of the NZD 25 million-NZD 30 million for the automation project?
Not that we're seeing, but you know, it's just down to you know, we still continue to look at picking platforms. Those sorts of things are still in the market, and people are sort of talking about them, but we can't get them to pick better and more economically than our RSE workers who are extremely efficient system of picking fruit. We think that scheme is an absolute win-win for us and the RSE workers. That is, we believe, the most efficient way of harvesting apples at the moment.
Sorry. The question was more geared towards how much more CapEx on top of the NZD 25 million-NZD 30 million is required to support that track record of margin recovery over the next few years. Like, how much more are you spending on, you know, the redevelopment of orchards and stuff like that?
Look, I think that's an ongoing, you know, assessment before us. I mean, particularly upping our spend, which is probably more operationally, but in the marketing and branding story, you know, with the work the team are doing with the, you know, the codes on the apples, the interaction in the market with the consumers, you know, getting closer and more, you know, connectivity with them is a big deal for us. I, you know, I don't think we can be. You know, after the NZD 25 million-NZD 30 million, we'll definitely be, you know, pausing to reassess.
Okay, cool. Just finally on that one, I assume that EBIT margin that you provided is on a post-IFRS basis?
Yes. No, sorry. There's a wee dotted line down there prior to the impact of IFRS 16 on the right at the bottom of that page 19.
I didn't miss it. Cool. I know, it's apple. Then just for the assumptions for horticulture this year, prices being the same, what, why do you think prices will be the same? Also, I assume that the average price will actually be higher than this year just given you know the volume skewed towards the premium varieties.
Yeah. That is probably likely true. You know, we have an annual arm wrestle with our friends in Europe and The U.K. on pricing, the big supermarket chains up there. But yeah, look, we're just saying to our customers to get, you know, look at, look at the increase in our costs and so we're pushing hard for higher pricing. You know, so I guess, you know, that's our overall position is that the 2021 prices were very good. But don't forget we had in that year a quite significant hail event. So, you know, holding the prices at 2021 and not having hail gives us quite a lift as well.
Okay.
To help absorb these cost increases.
I guess just in terms of the guidance range that you've set, what are the assumptions in the bottom part of the range versus the top? Like is the top assuming that you can maybe get higher prices in 2022 than you could in 2021 and perhaps you know less of a stabilization in pet food? Yeah, just interested to get your thoughts there.
Yeah. Look, I think that would be a fair assumption. You know, the bottom of the range would say that, you know, we perhaps, you know, who knows what, you know, what we're gonna get over the next couple of months around the ability to pick the whole crop, for example. You know, we'd be sort of, that would be a bottom of the range thing if our, you know, our last apples couldn't be exported. I mean, we've got the opportunity to get them across to Profruit, but that isn't, you know, that's not why we grow apples.
Yeah. Okay.
You know, it's a bit of disruption with you know a bit of disruption, not massive, with Omicron. The top of the range is, yeah, we're getting strong prices in Asia at the moment. You know, can we average them out across the whole you know sales process around that or the whole globe around you know the European and UK market.
There is some conservatism around actually being able to harvest in the bottom part. It's like
To be fair, you've got to put that caveat is we're in difficult times.
Yeah.
You know, Christian, you know, we don't factor in not harvesting, you know, a big percentage of our crop. We, you know, this model, this guidance range says we've harvested our crop, pick to pack and export it, but there's a bit of leeway around the bottom and the top of the range around pricing probably and volumes.
Cool. Yeah.
Not over a lot. You know, we can't afford to leave 30% of the crop behind, so that's why we're planning to pick and pack the whole crop.
Yeah. Cool. Understood. Sorry, just finally from me, are you able to please give a bit more color on the internal and external opportunities you're looking at for fruit and ingredients?
Internal, as we said in there, look, we're very pleased with the way that Dodge City, it was just commissioned last year and it was already built with a big space in the room to, you know, if it went well, we would put extra plate freezers in.
Mm.
I think there's another six plate freezers going in that room, and we just couldn't be more pleased with the way that our partners there, the NORAM, the group that, you know, obviously built the facility and contract that business for us. Couldn't be more pleased with the way they've, you know, built the thing under COVID conditions, you know, right to budget. We're putting six more plate freezers in there. We've put more, if you like, Beehives, they're called, but they're the things that create the MDM, the machines that we put the bones through.
We've put another beehive in the line at our plant at Amarillo to increase the yield we get from beef. That's sort of, you know, very good internal opportunities. The external ones are looking further into the value chain as we're looking here in New Zealand to say to our customers, "Can we give you the product in a perhaps more manufactured, you know, further value added, form?" They're, I guess, the new opportunities that we'll collaborate with our customers on.
Very cool. Just to be clear, you've actually already put some of those new things in the Shelby facility at the end of last year?
Yeah. The Dodge City last year with the brand new plate freezers in it. In that we talked about that factory starting, I think, early last year. You know, it's gone very well. Now because it had the room, if you like, the processing room that we operate out of had more room, we're putting six more plate freezers in there. You know, that'll increase our capacity.
Sorry, just to square the circle on that one then. Given that you've kind of got more volume capacity on the back of that, you've got a downturn in Food Ingredients for this year. Is that just if the volumes kind of stay the same. I mean, you've kinda got more capacity for volume. Is it sort of more of a pullback on the pricing in the pet food stuff?
Yeah. Look, I think that's probably that would be something we're thinking about, is you know, during last year, there was some spikes in pricing that, you know, the product was very short. Yeah, we have anticipated, as I said earlier, a return to more normal volumes and pricing.
Okay, cool. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Yeah.
Thank you. Your next question is a follow-up from Joshua Dale with Craigs Investment Partners. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Just another one from me on food ingredients. What's your view on the impact around losing exclusivity with your Australian Ingredient Supply? And how big a threat is that? I get it won't happen for another couple of years, but any detail would be helpful.
Yeah. Look, it's harder to assess at the moment because, you know, we've got ongoing relationship with them. We're doing products that, you know, that were outside the contract anyway, and even, you know, had contracted products that are outside the end of the term. It's really just the contract, as we said. The contract was outdated. It was set up six to seven years ago and, you know, now it's, you know, we're continuing to talk to those suppliers and, you know, expect it to, you know, it'll evolve into something else potentially or, you know, we'll look at our other alternatives in that market.
Sure. Thank you. Maybe just a follow-up. You know, what proportion does the Australian supplier represent, you know, of your overall Food Ingredient Supply? I can't imagine it would be that material given your sort of overweight in New Zealand and The U.S.
Yeah. Look, it's up 20% probably of the volumes.
Okay. That's great. Thank you, very much.
Yeah. Cheers.
Thank you. Your next question comes from David Oxley with ACC. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Morning, guys. I think you might have just answered the question. I was just wanting to understand, just to clarify the implied decline in the food ingredients business, Nutri-Care, from your sort of midpoint of current guidance. You're suggesting volumes stable may track back a little bit, and it's a pricing issue potentially relative to high levels, relative to norms that came through in the year just reported, or is it something else? Just linked to that, are you facing any sort of cost pressure from what you're paying the works or sources, the raw ingredients? Or is that still as it was? Thank you.
I think the overarching thing, David, is. You probably hopefully noticed this over the years, we prefer to err on the side of conservatism rather than optimism. You know, we've had a strong performance from it last year, so it's very difficult to say yeah, it'll just continue on, you know, at that rate. You know, we're continuing to watch the market. We don't expect it to go as well as it did last year out of you know, probably just our nature. The volumes will probably be back a bit 'cause you know, some of our customers, we feel because of COVID and supply chain may have stockpiled a bit. You know, you've got to account to see how that plays out in this year's demand.
I think the pricing in the market is, you know, the one thing it's we're all in this trying to play the game of pass the parcel, you know. You know, the freight companies are asking for whopper increases in container rates, so we're having to just go to our customers and explain that. You know, we're the honest, hardworking middleman that's trying to eke out a modest living.
Yes. Right. Okay, good. Sorry, just a second question, if I may. Just, given CapEx was slightly higher in the second half than expected, have you got any sort of guidance for what the actual number ought to be for FY 2022? Is it one of a similar sort of NZD 60 million-NZD 16 million or same, or does it come back a bit in the current year?
I think the maintenance CapEx should be a similar number, and then the automation will be slightly higher. I'll just have to check exactly what that means in total, David. Perhaps I can come back to you on that one.
Okay. No, that's great. Thanks very much.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one. Your next question is a follow-up from Christian Bell with Jarden. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. I'm sorry. No, it's already been answered.
Thanks, Christian.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Borland for closing remarks.
Well, thanks very much for joining the call, everybody, and we look forward to, you know, updating you later, again later in the year. Yeah, obviously available if you have any other questions for Steve and I. Thanks very much.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.