Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the MTY Food Group Inc. Q2 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. If anyone has any difficulties hearing the conference, please press star followed by zero for operator assistance at any time. Before turning the meeting over to management, please be advised that this conference call will contain statements that are forward-looking and subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded on Friday, July eighth, 2022.
I would like to turn the call over to Eric Lefebvre, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for MTY's second quarter conference call for fiscal 2022. The press release in the MD&A with complete financial statements and related notes were issued earlier this morning and are available on our website as well as on SEDAR. During the call, we will be referring to forward-looking statements and to certain numbers that are non-IFRS measures. You can refer to our MD&A for more details. I also remind you that all figures presented on today's call are in Canadian dollars, unless otherwise stated. The much-anticipated lifting of government-imposed restrictions in most of the territories in which we operate allowed our network to operate at near normal capacity. During the second quarter, we gradually regained momentum and reestablished where the baseline is for our business.
All the hard work done by our teammates and franchise partners during the last two years is finally paying off now that the horizon seems, for the most part, clear. We are delighted with our strong performance during the second quarter of 2022. There were multiple highlights, including the system sales reaching CAD 1.1 billion, an increase of 18% year-over-year, the CAD 47.6 million in adjusted EBITDA generated during the quarter, and the quarterly net income attributable to owners rising sharply to CAD 28.6 million. Canadian restaurants, and in particular, casual dining and food court restaurants, were the most heavily impacted by government imposed restrictions and as such benefited the most from the gradual lifting of those restrictions.
Globally, sales realized by casual dining concepts grew nearly CAD 95 million or 107% in the second quarter of 2022. Many of our casual dining concepts have reached or surpassed 2019 levels, and others are inching closer every month. In most cases, we see this as an opportunity as we expect our sales to further pick up as our brands restore normal operating hours and as business people and tourists return to urban areas. The same can be said of our mall and office tower locations, which still lag 2019 materially but are getting a lot closer now that restrictions have been mostly lifted and traffic gradually returns to pre-pandemic levels. Digital sales improved 2% year- over- year to CAD 206.9 million or 20% of total sales.
The increase in casual dining sales in the second quarter inevitably resulted in a slower digital sales for the segment as customer traded take out orders for the dining room experience. Other segments continue to see progression in digital sales, and there is still a lot of room for growth for many of our brands. To add color to the sales metrics just presented, 18 of our top 20 brands realized growth compared to the same quarter last year, averaging 13.7% year-over-year. These brands account for 84% of total sales and continue to perform well. Of note, our smaller brands grew 47% during the same period, showing the power of our diversified portfolio. Another key data point in the second quarter, restaurant closings were at their lowest level in the last 16 quarters at 91 locations.
This was achieved despite one Canadian franchisee closing 22 nontraditional frozen yogurt locations during the second quarter. Although we aim at closing as few restaurants as possible and hope we can do better than that number, this represents a small step in the right direction for MTY. The opening of new locations, which reached 47 in the second quarter, remains under pressure due to supply chain and construction issues. There are, however, encouraging signs these matters are beginning to subside, particularly in the U.S. At the end of the quarter, MTY's network had 6,660 locations in operation, of which 89 were corporate and 6,571 were franchise. The geographical split of MTY's location remains stable compared to Q2 2021 at 54% in the US, 39% in Canada, and 7% international.
Before turning it over to Renée to discuss financial results, I would like to say a word about mergers and acquisitions. MTY finds itself in a great position to take advantage of opportunities that will arise in the future. As mentioned in our previous quarterly calls, the deal flow has become gradually more active and the valuations seem to be reverting towards their historical values, although they are not there yet. MTY remains disciplined in its approach and will only transact under the right circumstances. That can sometimes mean letting go of brands we would love to add to our portfolio but that are selling for a price we are not willing to pay. Mergers and acquisitions tend to come in waves, and our patience has generally paid off and resulted in superior returns for our shareholders.
We expect history to repeat itself when it comes to our ability to realize transactions, and we hope to produce returns that will reward our shareholders for their patience in the future. Our available liquidity exceeds CAD 300 million, and as before, our capital allocation preference is to invest in great brands we can add to our portfolio. I will now turn the call over to Renée, who will discuss MTY's financial results in greater detail.
Thank you, Eric, and good morning, everyone. As previously mentioned, MTY delivered a strong financial performance in the second quarter of 2022, which was marked by the removal of most government imposed restrictions in Canada related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the removal of vaccine passports and indoor seating capacity limitations. This has allowed our franchisees and their staff to return their focus back to serving their customers the food they love. Company revenues increased 20% year-over-year to reach CAD 162.5 million in the second quarter, mainly due to a 46% surge in revenue from franchise locations in Canada and a 32% improvement in food processing, distribution, and retail revenue north of the border.
The retail segment revenues increased 23% year-over-year as we launched new products across Canada and continued to aggressively promote and sell our existing product lines. While the distribution and food processing segment revenues increased by 56%, driven largely by the Le Comptoir - Tartares & Cocktails acquisition, as well as the reopening of the network we supply. Altogether, revenue in Canada grew 42% in the second quarter of 2022, while revenue in the U.S. and international segment declined by 1%. The slight drop in overall revenues in the U.S. was mostly due to the franchising of multiple Papa Murphy's corporate locations in the second half of 2021, which was offset by a 6% increase in revenues in the franchising segment. Adjusted EBITDA improved 10% year-over-year to CAD 47.6 million in the second quarter of 2022.
The Canadian franchising segment contributed CAD 5.2 million to the increase in EBITDA, with much of this improvement coming from recurring revenue streams as system sales increased 55% year-over-year. Most of the increase in system sales in Canada was generated by the casual dining segment, which generated growth of 117% as indoor dining became more accessible, while the QSR segment generated system sales growth of 46%. Globally, mall and street locations generated year-over-year growth of 61% and 13% respectively. Comparable to last quarter, our franchising segment margin saw a slight decrease from 56% to 53%. This continues to be partly due to the company no longer qualifying for the government wage subsidy, as well as an inflation impact on wages and other expenses.
As mentioned by Eric, net income attributable to owners rose sharply to reach CAD 28.6 million or CAD 1.17 per diluted share in the second quarter of 2022, compared to CAD 23 million or CAD 0.93 per diluted share in the same period last year, representing a 24% increase. Turning to liquidity and capital resources. Cash flow from operations amounted to CAD 30.7 million in the second quarter of 2022, compared to CAD 29.5 million in the second quarter of 2021. Free cash flows totaled CAD 26 million or CAD 1.06 per diluted share in the second quarter of 2022, compared to CAD 27.5 million or CAD 1.11 per diluted share in the same period last year. The slight drop stemming from higher additions to property, plant and equipment and intangible assets.
In terms of capital allocation during the second quarter of 2022, we reimbursed CAD 12.1 million of long-term debt and paid CAD 5.1 million in dividends to shareholders. We continue to aggressively repay our debt to open up available liquidity for future acquisitions. This is also helping reduce our interest expense, which saw a significant decrease for the quarter of over CAD 1 million year over year. At quarter end, long-term debt, mainly in the form of bank facilities and holdbacks on the acquisition, stood at CAD 348.9 million. We also closed the quarter with a cash position of CAD 56.2 million. With that, I'd like to thank you for your time, and we will now open the line for questions. Operator?
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question at this time, please press star followed by one on your touchtone phone. You will then hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request. If you would like to withdraw from the question queue, please press star followed by two. If you're using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please lift the handset before pressing any keys. Please go ahead and press star one now if you do have a question. Your first question will be from Monica Li at CIBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking my questions this morning. Just the first one on openings versus closures. Is there any reason to think that the closures will ramp back up after this quarter? On the openings, when do you anticipate you'll be back to more of a normal pace of openings without some of the supply chain construction issues?
Yeah. Well, I'll start with the openings and apologize if the sound is not great. We're in scramble mode with the Rogers outage this morning.
Yeah.
In terms of the openings, I think it's still going to take a quarter or two before it comes back. You know, there's a number of buildings that were supposed to be delivered to us that are late also from landlords. Possession has not been on time. We are building stores as we speak, and we anticipate that Q3 is going to be better than Q2 in terms of store openings. In terms of closures, we're pretty happy with where we landed in Q2. As mentioned, during the call, we had the 22 closures from one partner in movie theaters.
Obviously, we don't like to see 22 locations go this way, but it's a one-off and it's something that can't really repeat itself.
We're pretty satisfied with where we landed. Obviously, it's still too many closures, and we'd like all our stores to stay open. It's a reality of a network the size of ours. There are still going to be closures, but we hope to be able to continue to control it as good as we can in the future and hopefully balance closures and openings in the near future.
Okay, great. That's really helpful. On operating hours on an aggregate kind of level across the system, either relative to pre-pandemic or your own expectations, are the labor shortages continuing to have an impact, and are you able to incentivize franchisees to open for additional hours now?
Yeah. Labor shortages continue to have an impact. There's no doubt about it. We have some restaurants that, you know, for example, operated breakfast, lunch, and dinner and now have removed, for example, breakfast. We still operate with the two main day parts, but if you lose one day part, for the franchisee and in the current circumstances, I think they find their profitability with the two day parts they have remaining. As a franchisor, because we take a percentage of the top line, obviously it's not ideal for us. We understand that our franchisees' profitability and our franchisees' operations need to be, you know, the primary factor here. We're still missing some operating hours.
We have fewer restaurants now that need to close for a day or two a week. There are still a few exceptions to that, but it doesn't happen as much as it happened a few months ago.
Understood. Okay, great. On inflation, are any of your banners seeing greater resistance to price increases? In general, do you view your portfolio as being more advantageous, because of the skew towards quick service, so possibly benefit from a trade down?
Yeah. Well, I don't necessarily believe in trade down. I think people either go to the restaurant or they don't. As far as inflation is concerned, we do have a few brands that are more value oriented, that will obviously become more price sensitive. We need to be careful about what we put as far as price increases. If we do have price increases we need to put through, we need to be careful how we approach them and on what products. You know, not all brands are equal.
We have some brands that are extremely resilient and will take a lot of price increases and some other brands where, you know, it's a little bit more sensitive, and we need to be careful if we don't want to cause a massive decline in traffic. It's a fine line we're walking here for all the brands. We need to try to maintain the margins for our franchisees as much as possible, but we also need to maintain traffic. It's an art more than a science, and it really needs to be brand by brand and, you know, whether it's street or mall or office tower, will also make a difference in how much a price we can put through.
It's really an art, and we need to go almost store by store to get the right pricing strategy.
Okay, that's great color. Just one last one for me, if I can. Does your approach to capital allocation, maybe favor debt repayment a little bit more with interest rates rising due to the floating debt structure?
Yeah. Well, for sure, debt repayment and all the repayments we've done in the past two years are paying off now with interest rates going up. We're saving a lot of money. That being said, our preference remains to make good accretive acquisitions that we can add to our portfolio. That's still top priority. That's our preference. As mentioned earlier, we need to make sure that we make acquisitions for the right reasons and under the right circumstances. We're patient.
While we're not doing acquisitions, you know, our preference will go to debt repayments and build that dry powder and also avoid, if we have a wave of acquisitions, going to too much leverage that would become more expensive in terms of interest and debt service costs.
Okay, great. That's helpful. That's all for me. Thanks.
Thank you. Next question will be from Michael Glen at Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Maybe just to start on the capital allocation, can you just run us through any thoughts on how you think about the buyback? You were fairly active in 1Q. Doesn't look like you're active in 2Q. You renewed the NCIB recently. Like, what sort of metrics or when do you become active and when do you hold back? Like, I'm just trying to understand the philosophy there a little better.
Yeah. Well, it's a discussion we have at the board level, you know, regularly. It's really, again, it really depends on circumstances with interest rates going one way or the other with availability of potential targets going one way or the other. We need to balance it with a certain set of metrics and factors we have internally. You know, it's open discussion, and we decide if we want to invest more in buybacks or if we want to build a treasure chest, if we want to try to reduce debt so we can reduce our interest costs. I mean, there's no set metrics. I'd like to give you a type of one-size-fits-all type of scenario where we buy back or we don't.
It's really a little bit more sensitive than that. It's based on discussions on and a great number of factors that need to be weighed in.
Okay. In terms of the labor situation at the MTY level, are you at the right level right now? Do you need to add people? I know it's a competitive labor environment out there. Is MTY corporate having any challenges in terms of retaining staff, and is there competition for your people?
It's a competitive environment now, and it's certainly hard to hire great people. It's hard to retain great people. Hopefully, you know, our teammates are at MTY because they're passionate about what we do and they like the environment they work in. It's a tough environment. We did lose a few people here and there, as is not unusual. There's always a few vacant positions. In this case, we tend to hire a little bit more and, you know, allow some of our departments to go slightly overstaffed just in case we lose some people because there's a little bit more volatility on the market.
I would say that on average, I think we're fully staffed. Obviously there's the vacancy here and there, but on average, we're faring pretty well.
Okay. Eric, you've been CEO, it's coming up on four years now, and it's safe to say you've had to navigate some pretty unexpected operating conditions. Like, as you look from this point forward, in your opening remarks, you talked about things sort of getting back to something that looks more, as a normal operating environment. What are your priorities and goals for the company over the next three to five years? What would you like MTY to look like in the next three to five years?
Well, the priorities really haven't changed. If you asked me what the priorities were three years ago before COVID happened, I would've said, well, we want to do good accretive mergers and acquisitions. We want to have good transactions that will benefit our shareholders, and we want to grow organically. The strategy hasn't changed, the goals haven't changed. Obviously how we get there might be slightly different today, because, you know, a certain number of metrics and parameters have changed in how we can get there. It's really the same it was. We want to achieve good returns on investments for our franchisees. We want to achieve organic growth. We want to have good same store sales.
We want to have positive unit counts. We want to have good mergers and acquisitions. The strategy really hasn't changed. If you ask me about the type of stores we'd like to add and where we want to be playing, what's the playing field for us, I would say that there are good chains in malls, there are good chains in office towers, there are good chains on the street, there are good chains in non-traditional areas. Again, we're happy to be where we need to be for each chain. Again, if there's a lot of competition or if there's, you know, whatever other sets of factors are thrown at us, if we're best in what we do, then everything's gonna go smoothly.
If we're not best, then we need to work a little harder to get there.
Okay. Thanks for taking the questions.
Thank you. Next question will be from Vishal Shreedhar at National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Just wondering, what you're seeing in terms of, customer health and, trends at your restaurants? Even if you could break it down to us by, a type of concept or geography? You know, there's a lot of macro concerns, so wondering if you're seeing any of that pressure unfold through the quarter or post-quarter?
Yeah. Well, in terms of consumer health and volume, I would say that, you know, so far so good. There's a lot of talks about different economic parameters. Is there a recession coming or whatever? Right now it looks like discretionary income is still there. Customers are still coming to our restaurants during the quarter and after the quarter. You know, the traffic is going well. The trends are favorable to us, and we're not seeing a slowdown caused by any economic factors at the moment. If anything, we're, you know, struggling to cope with demand more than we're struggling to attract customers.
Okay. Thanks for that color. With respect to near-term growth drivers, with network locations down, obviously it's difficult for investors to understand the acquisition outlook and when that will manifest, what would you point to as the key near-term growth drivers for MTY?
There's still room for us to grow existing stores back to 2019 levels. You look at our malls, for example, we're still down compared to pre-pandemic levels. There's room for us to go back to normal levels. Even casual dining, we have a few concepts that are, you know, that comping significantly over 2019, but we do have a few concepts also where we have opportunities. I'm thinking of our concepts that are in California, where, you know, the recovery has been a little bit slower. Just that is going to generate growth by itself. It's up to us to be best in class and to attract customers so we can generate organic growth. M&A is unpredictable.
We know eventually we're gonna have good transactions we're gonna be able to to bring to the finish line, but there's no guarantee as to when that's going to happen. In the meantime, we need to focus on our existing network, on our existing franchisees. We need to make them as profitable as possible. We need to make our existing franchisees want to have a second or a third or a fourth store and give them a reason to invest reinvest their profits into more MTY outlets. Then the rest is gonna come natural.
Okay. You've highlighted same-store sales growth as a key priority for management. When does MTY look to reinstate that metric for investors to view?
Yeah. We want to be careful. We do calculate it internally. The metric is still extremely misleading, because of the pauses and, you know, where we had to shut down and reopen and then, halfway in between where we have some restrictions but not full restrictions. To present same-store sales now would still be misleading. We have an opportunity to present it in Q3, because it's gonna be for the most part comparable, but then we'd have to stop again for Q4 and Q1, because of restrictions that were reimposed last year. Most likely, same-store sales would probably come back in Q2 of 2023, assuming there will be no more shutdowns or other sanitary measures imposed on us.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please slowly press star followed by one on your touchtone phone. Your next question will be from Derek Lessard at TD. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. Good morning, Eric, and congrats on a good quarter. I just maybe wanted to drill down a little bit more on the inflation topic, particularly, and consumer behavior, particularly as it relates to your bigger banners like Cold Stone Creamery or Papa Murphy's. Just wondering if you've seen more pressure on Cold Stone given some of the higher price points that might be in that banner.
Yeah. Well, in terms of Cold Stone, I think that's a brand that's relatively resilient. One, the price increases haven't been as bad on Cold Stone as they've been on other brands. The base products for Cold Stone are going up like the rest of products, but we've had a pretty good run and the price increases have not been to the level of other brands. But given the premium nature of Cold Stone, we believe that, you know, it's going to be a brand that will show some good resilience. In the end, the price is only one factor in the experience. If we want to increase prices, we need to understand that expectations of customers will go up accordingly.
Higher prices will command higher expectations, and it's up to us to deliver a really good experience and, you know, to rebalance the value equation. If we offer a really good experience to our customers, you know, the perception of value will be there and customers will be happy to pay a little bit more, but to get that superior experience. This is how we approach price increases. We understand that anytime we increase prices, we increase our responsibility. If we deliver an even better experience, we believe customers will continue to come back. Cold Stone in terms of inflation was okay, not bad, and then it's up to us to deliver the experience, and I believe we are delivering a great experience for Cold Stone.
There's a lot going on for that brand and, you know, it's so proud of everything we're doing. There's a lot of, you know, PR that was done. There's a lot of good appearances we had with this brand and, I think it's a brand that's firing on all cylinders and that will cope a little bit better with inflation. You asked me also about Papa Murphy's. That's a brand that's a little bit more sensitive when it comes to pricing. Obviously, the pizza sector is suffering from a decline in traffic in general. We're not the only ones that are feeling the pinch.
If you look at our competitors, a lot of them are going extremely deep in the value category where they shave their prices by material amounts. We're not necessarily prepared to play in that game where the prices become so low that the franchisees don't make money with every unit they sell. So a little bit more sensitive when it comes to Papa Murphy's. We've also had some issues in terms of supply chain that caused us to have some dough problems in Q1, Q4 last year, Q1 this year. So inflation is not the only factor here. The entire supply chain disruption is causing some problems for the brand. You know, it's up to us to find solutions for all these things.
The dough problem is behind us now. Inflation is still very real for the brand, and we need to find a way to provide value to our customers without discounting our prices too deep. The team is working, doing a great job at coming up with solutions, coming up with new products that we can sell, that we can add to our lineup. You know, sometimes it's just a little add-on like dips are being launched now for our dough.
We believe the dips are gonna be a really hot product where customers will simply add one or two items to their basket. There's a few ways that we can add to our sales and add to our franchisee profitability, and cope with inflation and avoid playing with the extreme value equation.
Thanks. That's a very good color and very helpful. Thanks, Eric. One final one for me. Obviously, you know, if you take your balance sheet's really healthy and you look locked and loaded for potential M&A. You did mention that the market is opening up on that front, but I'm just curious, right now, what's the major impediment to pulling the trigger on any transactions at this moment?
Yeah. Well, these processes take time. We need to we can't rush into these things. We need to do it properly. I mean, it's nothing unusual. If the deal flow came back, you know, once I started seeing the deal flow come back maybe six to nine months ago, the deal flow started to go back to a more normal place. Valuation was still high. Then you start some processes and you start to work on some businesses, and unfortunately, sometimes you're not the buyer or sometimes they pull out of the market if they can't find their price. Then you start over with different companies. These processes take time. There's never a guarantee we're gonna be able to cross the finish line with any of them.
I mean, it's just a matter of time. We need to be patient and disciplined, and eventually it's gonna work out. There's no one single factor that I would call out saying, well, if we can solve that, you know, acquisitions will start flowing. It's just a matter of being patient and you know, being systematic in our approach and good things will happen.
Okay. What's the difference between today's environment versus when you were, I guess, completing more deals on the regular, let's say two, three years or even pre-COVID? Is there a major difference between the two markets or environments?
I think the major difference is that before we always had a pipeline of transactions that we were working on at any given point in time. We always had, I don't know, 4 or 5, 6 transactions we were working on, and some of them pan out, some of them don't, and we replace them, and we always had the same number of transactions we're working on. What happened during COVID is that our pipeline dried out completely. We had to restart the pipeline, restart processes and start over. We need to rebuild that pipeline. Again, these transactions take time to happen, so it's not something we can do in a month or two. It's, you know, sometimes it's 6 months, 9 months, it's a year.
You need to be patient and rebuild the pipeline and bring the number of transactions you're working on to a certain level where, you know, you're always gonna have something. I think now we're seeing the deal flow being better, and we have a certain number of transactions that we hope we can make. There's no guarantee that we can cross the finish line. There's no guarantee we can find the right value in these transactions. At least we're rebuilding our pipeline and, yeah, it takes time to do that. Eventually transactions will happen, but we can't guarantee when and what it's going to be.
Yeah. Thanks so much for that, Eric. Again, congrats on a good quarter. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question will be from Nick Corcoran at Acumen. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Just the first question, you mentioned that there's been a recovery in California that's been a bit slower. I'm just wondering what you're seeing on the West Coast and maybe how close the West Coast is to operating pre-pandemic levels.
Yeah. I think we're inching towards normal circumstances. What we're seeing is still, and probably a little bit more on the West Coast than in other places, people are less going back to the office. I think tourism, especially when it comes to California, tourism is an extremely important factor in terms of generating traffic for restaurants. Tourism, I think it's starting to come back. I don't have the exact metrics or measures, but I think we're getting back to a level that's gonna be closer to normal. Hopefully this year there are no major fires or anything that you know impede our ability to go back to normal and California recovers.
It's been a little bit longer for this territory specifically, and we're talking to some of our peers, and although it doesn't help us, they're all feeling the same pinch, and specifically with California. We know we're going in the right direction. We know sales are coming back gradually. We have to be a little bit more patient for that territory. Fortunately, it's a strain on our franchisees because financially, you know, it's now almost two and a half years of difficult economic environment for them. Hopefully we're gonna get back to normal very soon and California will be an important territory for us for future growth again.
Good color. Maybe switching gears, I know real estate has been a bit of a headwind and just finding the right locations. Is the market still tight, and are there any signs that there might be a potential relaxing and you're being able to find locations that you could not have been able to find maybe 6 or 12 months ago?
Yeah. Well, yeah, real estate is, it's a competitive market. There's new types of outlets that are coming up that are not necessarily restaurants that are taking spaces that traditionally would have gone to restaurants. The market remains tight. It's not crazy. I think we can manage the real estate. Obviously, as I mentioned before, some of our landlords, they have sites that they want to build, but instead of taking two years to build a new site, it's taking three years. You know, possession was supposed to happen last year. It hasn't happened yet. Possession is delayed.
Construction, you know, there's ripple effect on, you know, if you have a delay at the onset on one thing, then it has a ripple effect that, you know, becomes exponential at some point. Permitting is taking longer. You know, inspections of buildings are taking longer, so everything takes a few weeks more. We're getting to a point where, you know, we can build stores now, but we need everybody to catch up. Real estate, I think, will become a little bit more available as all these projects get built. For now, it's a tight market, but it's not something we haven't seen before. We just need to cope with the market.
Great. The last question from me is just think about the retail products. Can you maybe give some color on what you're seeing in your portfolio and how it's performing and where you might be able to expand it going forward?
Yeah. That's we're extremely proud of where we are with retail. It's a good success story. We've built it from almost nothing in 2018 to what it is now. You know, it's a tough market and I see our team every day. They're scrambling, you know, they're struggling with price increases and difficulties with shipments and availability of product and everything. But all in all, we have a really good product line. We have a few champion products that are driving a lot of the EBITDA we're generating. With the department, we have some really good innovation also. Now we can, I think, expand geographically.
We have some products that are applicable in other geographies, and it's a matter for us to find suppliers that are able to deliver the volume. More than anything now we're limited by the volume we can produce more than by our ability to get listing. We need to help our suppliers help us. All in all, it's a good product line. We can expand that product line. We have great brands, great ideas. It's certainly a good growth segment for us for the future.
That's great color. Thanks for taking my questions.
Thank you. At this time, we have no further questions. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference. Thank you for attending. We do ask that you please disconnect your lines. Have yourselves a good weekend.