Welcome to the presentation of the fourth quarter and full year 2022 for Aker BioMarine, where myself and the CFO, Katrine, will take you through the highlights and the financials from the quarter and the year. At the end of the session, we will host a Q&A part where you can already now start to send in your questions to ir@akerbiomarine.com. For the fourth quarter and for 2022 as a whole, we saw growth in revenues for Aker BioMarine. We saw significant improvement in the EBITDA margin and the belonging EBITDA. Also both for the fourth quarter and for the full year, we reported positive net results. That is an important milestone for Aker BioMarine to finally be in black numbers.
Snapshot of the business in 2022, we had a very strong development of the Krill segment or the animal health and nutrition business. For the Superba business or the human health and nutrition segment, we saw the turnaround starting to happening, nevertheless, 2022 was a weak year for Superba. On the branded side, we saw good growth in Kori, almost doubling its revenues in 2022, while the Lang business was stable, excuse me, as we transitioned the old management and previous owners out and got new management on new structure in to get onto the journey of accelerated growth from 2023 and beyond. During the quarter, Aker BioMarine has initiated an improvement program across our ingredient and corporate part of business. The aim of the improvement program is to streamline and optimize the way we do business.
We will share more details of the program later in the presentation, but we expect to realize more than $20 million in annual recurring effects from the program. In the fourth quarter, we delivered $79 million in revenue, up from $76 million in the same quarter last year. On the EBITDA, we delivered $21 million in EBITDA, up from $7 million the same quarter last year. The improvement in EBITDA is mainly driven by strong harvesting and strong development in the Krill Aqua segment. For the full year, we delivered $277 million in revenue, with 6% growth from the year before, and had significant improvement in EBITDA, up from $48 million in 2021 to now $69 million in 2022, driven by the same reasons as for the fourth quarter.
Harvesting for Aker BioMarine in 2022 has been okay. We harvested 52,000 tons and produced 52,000 tons of product on board our vessel during the year. That is 19% more than what we did last year. You combine that with a more or less stable cost base, you have a significant drop in COGS and improvement on our margin across our products. For the fourth quarter, we produced 2,000 tons. We were expecting to produce 5,000 tons, the shortfall was as a result of vessels coming 3 to 4 weeks later out of shipyard for maintenance and upgrade during the fourth quarter. 2023 season has started well. We, so far this year, we are harvesting on par with the Q1 last year, which was especially strong.
It's looking very promising for a good harvesting season in 2023. The drone that we're waiting delivery for is expected now to be delivered in June this year. We have canceled the contract with Kongsberg after numerous delays and are now working directly with suppliers of Kongsberg and have a robust plan for the drone to be delivered by June. In the Krill with Q segment, we see strong demand across all markets, but especially in the shrimp markets in Asia, we see positive and very positive development. I think that's a sign of strength, given that the shrimp prices in 2022 was quite low. We saw 27% growth for the Krill with Q segment during 2022, driven both by significant growth in both volume and in prices.
In the fourth quarter, we also got approval for our Krill Aqua ingredient for the Canadian market. Together with approval we got for US in the summer, we can now cover the full North American region, which is an important region for salmon. We're starting to see a shift in the aquaculture segment in terms of evaluating the sustainability credentials of Aker BioMarine. Sustainability has been a focus for our business since the inception of the company, but it's only now where we're starting to see a real impact on our business. We added to our sustainability credentials during the fourth quarter, where a scientific report evaluated most of the fisheries in the world and concluded Aker BioMarine's krill fishing to be the cleanest fishery in the world.
The way they measure this is by bycatch, meaning that the bycatch from our fishery is the lowest there is. For the first quarter of 2023, we expect to continue good growth on volumes, and we expect to hold the prices that increased the second half of 2022. For Superba, we are about to turn around the Superba business. You can see it on the graph to the right, how we are improving the sales quarter by quarter throughout the whole 2022. We were expecting an approval in Korea with POs connected to it of about $3 million in the fourth quarter. That did not happen. We expect the approval to come in March, and later in the presentation, I will give more details about the processes in Korea.
For the first quarter of 2023, we expect to continue the positive growth trajectory for Superba as the sales acceleration plan is being implemented and starting to realize results. To give you some more details of what's happened on the sales acceleration plan in the fourth quarter, the key highlights is that we have now carved out China as a separate business unit so that we can focus resources to capitalize on the growing opportunities we see in the Chinese market. We had strong growth in 2022, despite that the country was locked down for most of the year. Now the country is fully open and outlook for good economic growth in China is promising, and we want to make sure that we have enough focus and resources to take out and accelerate the opportunities that we see in the Chinese market.
We have also now established distributors in some markets in Europe and in some of the Southeast Asian markets for Superba to cover the smallest and medium-sized customers. This is to get a broader reach out to customers and prospects, and also at the same time focus our own resources on the largest opportunities and customers. We see the pipeline continuing to build strongly for Superba and it's getting converted to new business every month as we go along. We started already to see a reflection of strong turnaround in the Australian market in 2022. We had 15% growth in 2022 in Australia compared to 2021. Also mentioned earlier, the positive development in China and also happy to report that the momentum with the US customers is very positive these days.
On the science and innovation side, we're rolling out now PA+ and LYSOVETA commercially. We also got another major Superba study published in the fourth quarter. That was a study that demonstrated how Superba Krill Oil can slow down aging processes. The study got broad media coverage, including NRK here in Norway and also broad outlets internationally. On the regulatory side, I want to give a little deep dive into Korea since it's such an important event for the development of Superba. As you all remember, in 2022, the regulation for krill oil in Korea changed, meaning that you could no longer sell and market krill oil in Korea without meeting those new requirements set by the government.
Immediately, Aker BioMarine started together with our local partner to compile all the historical studies we have for Superba together with statistical analysis together with analytical methods to document the quality of the product, as well as conducting local clinical studies in Korea to back up the data we have internationally. That file was completed and final in the summer of 2022, it was handled by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety that also checked that all the requirements for an approval was met. We were scheduled to come into a review board that's going to give the final formal approval of the application in September. That review did not happen therefore we didn't get approval in September as we originally had expected. The next review board was in November where our application was handled.
In the review board sits, politicians and governors in Korea. In the review of our application, one member of the board had a relative small comment to some of the statistical analysis that we had on one study. We had to go back and answer out those comments and questions. That has now been done. We have completed the application with the asked for or requested analysis. Again, those analysis have now been reviewed by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. We have now scheduled for review and approval again in March with the same board. Given that it's been through the same board once before, and we have also now answered out the questions I got, we expect to get the approval in March.
As mentioned earlier, we have purchase orders in the size of about $3 million ready to go the moment we get the approval. We also got another approval in Korea at the end of December. This was for an approval of a formulation mainly consisting of krill oil but also some other ingredients. The approval is only for that exact formulation. Neither we or our local partner, which was another partner than our main partner in Korea, did not expect that to get approved. As a result, the commercialization plans were not created and prepared. Those commercialization plans are being prepared right now. Therefore we have not sold any products on the back of that approval either. I'd like to emphasize is that it's the approval that we get in March which is the key one for us to achieve.
On the brand side, we had stable revenues in totality for the fourth quarter. As mentioned, Lang has been through this transition phase and has won important contracts during 2022 that will give us good growth coming into 2023. Lang also increased their prices at the end of third quarter, improving the margins in the fourth quarter. For Kori, if you look at the chart in the middle, you can see the development in market share for Kori in the US market. As you can see, it's been steadily growing from 0 in the launch in the summer of 2020 to about 12% today. Also, on a weekly basis, we are getting data from the cashier systems at the retailers, so we can actually measure how much of Kori is being sold out of stores on a weekly basis.
In January, we saw sales of Kori being 93% higher than in January 2022. We see positive and good development for Kori. As a little icing on the cake, Kori also achieved an award from the Drug Channel at the end of 2022 for all the great work Kori's been doing to increase the awareness of omega-3 through that channel. I mentioned in the beginning of my presentation that we have initiated an improvement program in Aker BioMarine. Given that we have had many years of strong growth in Aker BioMarine from 2015 to 2020, it's natural that you build up suboptimal structure, suboptimal processes, and suboptimal costs.
With the slowdown we have seen the last two years, it was natural to take a really deep dive into how we do business and see how we can optimize those structures, those processes, and those cost pockets. That's what we've been doing the whole autumn of 2022, detailing, analyzing all our processes, all our costs, and the way we do businesses, and identified a number of initiatives to improve the way we do business and reduced our cost. Those initiatives has already started to be implemented, and we expect those initiatives to together bring $20 million or more than $20 million in cash effects within 24 months.
We're gradually implementing those initiatives during 2023, and there we expect half of that impact to be realized during 2023 and the second half in 2024 to get to more than $20 million of savings by the end of 2024 or by 2024. If you look at the initiatives that we are now implementing, we have organized them in four work streams covering the main cost buckets that we have in Aker BioMarine. To take you through some of those examples, in offshore, we are, for instance, already changed the way we are buying fuel. From historically buying it around the Falkland Islands, we now take provider to Brazil to purchase it there. The prices there are significantly lower, and then through that, we get significant lower costs.
We're also looking at how we can reuse the heat we generate in our factories. During the shipyard last year, we installed heat recovery system on board our vessel that will significantly reduce the fuel consumption for running the factory on board Antarctic Sea. On the logistical side, over the many years of Aker BioMarine's development, we have built our logistical network patchwise. Last autumn, we took the opportunity to clean sheet our logistical network and see based on where we're selling today and where we will sell in the future, where is it natural to have our logistical hubs. Through that clean sheeting and through that optimization, we're gonna save significant cost in logistics.
On operational model, which is basically all our employees, and the cost associated to salaries, we have done a significant optimization of the way we're organized, creating synergies, merging teams, and also reducing headcounts, mainly in support functions, and as a result, significantly reducing our salary costs. In supply chain, we have many different initiatives, including looking at how we can source packaging and encapsulation, which are big costs for us, in a smarter and more efficient way. The sum of all these initiatives will again bring more than $20 million in recurring annual effect, and they should also put the company in a good position, in a good structure to get a leverage as we continue to grow in Aker BioMarine as we have always planned to do.
Good morning. I will take you through the financial figures for the quarter. Fourth quarter was a decent quarter, marking the end of a year with solid growth in offshore harvesting and Krill Aqua revenues, while Superba is still behind where we want it to be. Revenue ended up at 4% growth, below our guiding at 8%-12%. Krill Aqua sales were up 22%, Superba was down 29%, Brands were on par with same quarter the year before. Adjusted EBITDA came in as expected at $21 million with a 26% EBITDA margin, well above last year, which was hampered by a significant NRV, the net realizable value adjustments, which is an inventory write-down as a result of too high unit cost.
Net interest-bearing debt is up from Q4 last year due to investments in the protein plant, LYSOVETA development, and shipyard, but marginally down from Q3 2022 as we ended the year with a strong cash position of $22 million. The company was compliant with its leverage covenant for the fourth quarter, reporting below 5 times debt over 12 months EBITDA. A bit more details, starting with the ingredient segment. Ingredient sales for the quarter were on par with same quarter 2021. As stated on the previous page, Krill Aqua sales were up 22% as a result of a price increase of 12% and a volume increase of 8% compared to fourth quarter 2021. Superba, on the other hand, were down 29% compared to Q4, 2021.
The reason being a significant one of sales in the US market in 2021 and a different customer and price mix. Superba was up 22% compared to third quarter 2022, despite no sales to South Korea, as Mats explained earlier. Adjusted EBITDA ended at $16 million for the quarter, up from $5 million same quarter 2021, driven by a strong improvement in the Krill Aqua gross margin as a result of good offshore production, and hence no NRV adjustments. Krill Aqua margin increased in the period from 12% in Q4, 2021 to 41% in Q4, 2022. Superba krill oil gross margin were down from 57% in Q4, 2021 to 48% in Q4, 2022 due to low production in Houston throughout the year, having a negative impact on unit cost and COGS in the subsequent quarters.
For the ingredient segment as a whole, gross margin was 41%, up from 19% in Q4 2021. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 31%, up from 9% Q4 2021. Moving over to the brand segment. Brand's revenue show little change from Q4 2021, ending at $30 million for the quarter. However, both Lang and Epion were down compared to same quarter 2021, but due to lower sales between the two companies, internal elimination were lower, and hence the same revenue figures is reported for the segment as a total. Epion had a very strong Q4 2021 due to pipe fill into Costco and Sam's Club as a result of the national rollout. Consequently, Lang also had higher sales to Epion in 2021 compared to 2022 in the fourth quarter, which led to higher internal eliminations.
Adjusted EBITDA ended at $2.2 million, slightly down from the $2.6 million in Q4 2021. Gross margin for the segment was 29%, down from 31% in Q4 the year before. Lang improved its gross margin as a result of the price increase across most categories. That was done in third quarter 2022, while Epion's gross margin was down Q4 2022 versus Q4 2021 due to customer mix. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 7%, down from 9% the year before. A few comments on the profit and loss statement. COGS were lower for the quarter due to the high offshore production, driving unit cost and COGS for Aqua down. SG&A was stable, showing good cost control despite certain inflation items in the full year and also in Q4, like freight rates.
Net profit for the quarter was positive $0.2 million. Positive $10 million for the full year. EBITDA adjustments for the quarter includes restructuring cost related to the improvement program that Mats has described earlier, as well as a fair value correction for Aion. Moving on to the balance sheet, drawing your attention to some key items. Small change in property, plant and equipment in the quarter, mainly investments of $10 million in the protein plant over the course of 2022, as well as shipyard end of year. Inventories have increased significantly over the year, with Houston producing first half of the year, coupled with strong offshore production, increasing year-end meal inventory balance. No issues with obsoleteness, and Houston continues its extraction halt for large part of this year as well to further rebalance inventory levels.
Cash amounted to $22 million, including our fuel hedge derivative of $11 million, we had cash and cash equivalents of $33 million end of year. Accounts payable were up as a result of a comprehensive shipyard end of last year. The company showed equity ratio of 46% leaving the year. The cash flow statement. Net cash flow from operations was $19.2 million, significantly up from Q4, 2021. We had a positive change in working capital despite both inventory build-up and higher payables and receivables in the quarter. Cash flow from investments in the quarter included shipyard, protein plant in Ski, Norway, and certain other development projects like the LYSOVETA. Net change in cash for the quarter was $8.9 million.
That concludes the financial section, and I will hand over to Mats to take you through our outlook.
Yes. For the outlook for 2023, Aker BioMarine is changing its practice a bit from how we did it last year. We see that we have some volatility between the quarters in Aker BioMarine. As a result, it's hard to make a right cutoff for a full 2023. Therefore, we just retain our overall long-term growth ambitions as about 15% top-line growth per year. Rather we will demonstrate our trends through actual numbers that we deliver quarter by quarter, and at the same time, give some insight into the following quarter. Now looking into the first quarter of 2023, looking at our operation, we expect the harvesting to be at the same level as it was in the first quarter last year, which was a very good harvesting quarter.
Meaning that we are in good shape on the harvesting side. Katrine has mentioned that we're not expecting to extract any oil in Houston in the 1st quarter, so that we can continue to build down the inventory and transfer that into cash. For Aqua, we expect strong growth in volume in the 1st quarter with stable prices compared to the 2nd half. Meaning that we will see a lift in prices versus what we had in the 2nd quarter last year, and keeping the prices at the same level as we exited in 2022. Because we had high COGS from the 4th quarter with low production, we expect very limited margin in the Krill Aqua segment in the 1st quarter.
For Superba, we expect to continue that positive growth trajectory that we have seen the last four quarters also coming into the first quarter of 2023. As mentioned, we expect to get approval in Korea in March this year. For brands, as mentioned, we have new contracts coming on board. For private label, we expect a good growth in the first quarter compared to the first quarter last year. We also expect strong growth for Cory out of retail. Because we shipped significant volumes in the first quarter last year to fill up Costco and Sam's Club, we don't expect growth from Cory's shipments to retailers in the quarter. Now we'll open for questions. You can send in your questions to ir@akerbiomarine.com.
Yes. One question or a series of questions actually already here from Torkjel Dalan and Herman Dahl at Nordea. First starting with Superba. Good sales for the quarter. Was this mostly an effect of China's inflation regulations and a shift of volumes from third quarter to fourth quarter?
For Superba? No, I wouldn't say that. What we see in fourth quarter is a general development, positive development for Superba across the different markets. As mentioned, we were actually expecting fourth quarter to be even better with approval of Korea coming in. This is a result of the sales acceleration plan that we've been implementing over the last year.
Continuing on Superba. How is the underlying demand, and in what regions, was the demand the strongest?
Good demand in China. In China, a lot of the growth and demand is driven by new brands and new products coming online in the market. We see a very strong development in the Australian market. The 15% growth that we see there is coming from the same products, so it's just more consumers buying krill oil. It's also worth noticing that Australia already before 2022 was the highest krill oil or the biggest krill oil market per capita. I think that's also shows to the potential of krill oil in the global markets as well.
Thank you. As they say, great margins in fourth quarter, what is your overall outlook for EBITDA margin development?
Long term, the EBITDA margin is expected to continue to improve as we are able to realize our operational leverage. We have mainly fixed costs in our operations, so as we are able to grow the top line, the cost should not follow in the same pace. We should continue to see positive development in the EBITDA margin for the company.
Thank you. Are there any costs related to the cancellation of the USV from Kongsberg Maritime?
No, rather on the opposite, it's a penalty, for them to be paid to us, for the delays.
Thank you. Continuing with, still from Nordea. How is the outlook for the Houston plant?
We will most likely not produce first half in 2023 because we have still significant inventory, and we would like to transfer that into cash. I think for now expectation is that at least for the first half of 2023, we will not extract normal Superba in Houston, but we will make PA+ and LYSOVETA.
The last question there on inventory levels. Any targets for reductions there?
For Superba, I guess the question is related to. We would typically aim to build the inventory down to about a year of safety stock.
Okay, thank you. Moving over to a quick question here from Axel Jacobsen at Arctic Securities. You say that the in your guidance for the first quarter on Krill Aqua for 2023, that there will be limited gross margin contribution. Will the margin be on par, you reckon, with first quarter 2022?
Yeah, I won't answer that question specifically. You know, as we reported, the harvest was quite low in Q4, which means that unit cost or COGS from that product produced was very high. That's what gives that limited margin that we have seen in all the first quarters historically as well. What is important to say is that if we are getting a harvest equal to what we saw in first quarter of 2022, we should expect to see the margin improve significantly in the second quarter like we saw last year as well.
Thank you. Last question from Axel. Any guidance on 2023 CapEx?
We will finalize the protein plant now towards the summer this year. That will cover the remaining investments of that plant, which is about $10 million for 2023. Beyond that, we only have planned maintenance CapEx in the pipeline. A n annual level of about, you know, $10 million-$15 million for the shipyard process and around $5 million for the Houston plant. Nothing new development projects in the pipeline as of now. Only finalizing the protein plant, which is the priority.
Thank you. Following up, a question from Ola Trovatn at DNB Markets. Specific here on you have previously stated that Krill oil is not a competitive substitute with fish oil for feed production at the prices we saw on fish oil in 2022. With fish oil prices skyrocketing, at which price point is krill oil a competitive substitute for fish oil?
Yeah. Fish oil prices for in the agriculture market is about $4 a kilo compared to our, let's say, $110-$120, which we are selling Superba for today. I think it needs to be a totally unrealistic future development of fish oil. What we see is that Aquameal, which also has omega-3 in it, you know, the Krill with Q product that we sell, that growing prices for fish oil increases their willingness to pay for our Krill Aqua ingredients. That increase we have seen during 2022 on fish oil represent about $100 in value per ton of krill meal, just the commodity value of the omega-3s.
Okay, thank you. There are no further questions.
Thank you. With that, we conclude today's session. Thank you for tuning in and see you next quarter.