Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Rogers Sugar Third Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. After the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session, which will be open only to financial analysts. Instructions will be given at that time on how to queue up. Please note that this call is being recorded today, August 14, 2023, at 8:00 A.M. Eastern Time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mike Walton, President and CEO. Please go ahead, Mr. Walton.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. Thank you all for joining us today. Before we begin, please be reminded that today's call may include forward-looking statements regarding our future operations and expectations. Such statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied today. Please also note that we may refer to some non-GAAP measures in our call. Please refer to the forward-looking disclaimers and non-GAAP measure definitions included in our public filings with the Securities Commission for more information on these items. A replay of this call will be available later today. The replay numbers and passcodes have been provided in our press release. An archive recording of this call will also be available on our website.
Now that the formalities are out of the way, I'd like to start by discussing how we are delivering on our goals with the capacity expansion project we announced today, as well as with our solid quarterly results that once again demonstrate our business is generating consistent, profitable growth. I'll then pass the microphone to Jean-Sébastien Couillard , our VP, Finance and CFO, who can add more detail. Let's start with something we are quite excited about, our investment in upgrading the Eastern Canadian capacity and logistics capabilities. As those who follow us closely will know, our intention is to deliver consistent, profitable growth by concentrating our efforts on supplying the domestic market, which has very strong fundamentals that support long-term demand for our sugar.
These strong fundamentals are part-- particularly evident in Ontario and Quebec, where the food manufacturing industry is expanding to supply domestic consumption as well as export markets. Food manufacturers are building factories in the region to take advantage of Canada's favorable sugar economics and proximity to millions of consumers on both sides of the border. That creates robust long-term demand for the sugar we produce. Given that favorable long-term outlook, we are very excited to announce today that we are proceeding with the expansion of our Eastern Canadian capacity to the optimization of our Montreal plant, as well as investing in our logistic capabilities in Montreal and the Greater Toronto Area. The project includes adding new refining equipment at our Montreal plant, which will increase refining capacity by approximately 20%.
The project also includes construction of a new bulk rail loading section in Montreal to serve increased shipments to the Greater Toronto Area, as well as expansion of our GTA distribution capabilities. I should note here that most construction work in Montreal will be done inside an existing building on site, which will allow production to continue without disruption. We will start construction this fall and expect the new capacity will begin to come on stream about 24 months later. The total investment will be approximately CAD 200 million, which is higher than the CAD 160 million we had previously communicated. J.S. can go into more detail, but the higher number reflects factors such as inflation, exchange rate impacts on equipment we are sourcing from Europe, and more clarity on requirements as we progress from preliminary engineering to detailed engineering planning.
For 135 years, our company has focused on the long term. This investment in our future is in keeping with that philosophy, putting us in an even better position to benefit from strong industry fundamentals in the coming years. By expanding the refining capacity close to our customer base in Eastern Canada and the US, we reduce our reliance on transporting sugar from our Vancouver plant. This will reduce freight costs and improve margins. It will also leave our western capacity available to support our growth opportunities. Importantly, the project also enhances our ability to produce sugar in Canadian-owned and operated facilities in Canadian communities. We also support the long-term growth of the food manufacturing industry in Canada with all the jobs it creates. In short, this project is good for our customers, our shareholders, our local communities, and our industry as a whole.
We are very excited about this next step. Turning to our third quarter results. This is another very solid quarter for the business, in keeping with our focus on delivering consistent, profitable growth. In fact, this is our sixth straight quarter of year-over-year growth in EBITDA. In the quarter, we continued to see strong demand for sugar. Volumes for the quarter were the second highest third quarter volume in our 135-year history, trailing only last year, when we had a one-time event that drove up demand. Improved pricing drove a modest financial improvement from the same period last year, despite the lower volume in the current quarter. Our maple business saw a slight decline in financial performance due to lower volume as a result of reduced demand and unfavorable market dynamics.
offsetting those factors, Maple continues to benefit from higher average selling prices and our investments in automation, which are reducing production costs. Now, looking more specifically at our sugar segment results, volumes were 190,000 metric tonnes in sales, a decrease of 11,900 metric tonnes when compared to the same period last year. In the first nine months of the year, sales totaled more than 579,000 metric tonnes, in line with the same period last year. Last year's quarter was unusually strong due to an unforeseen peak in demand we experienced in the second half of 2022, resulting from disruption that caused tightness in the market that allowed us to capture opportunistic sales. We continue to see firm demand for sugar-containing products across North America and strong volumes in the fourth quarter to date.
Trends affecting the business continued into the 3rd quarter, with adjusted gross margin improving as a result of strong demand for quality sugar and improved pricing. The benefit of higher selling prices was partly offset by inflationary pressures on operating costs, as well as lower sugar volumes. I'd like to say a few words about our Taber beet crop. You may have seen some of the news about poor growing conditions in Alberta from drought. It is important to note that our beet crop is minimally impacted by these poor weather conditions, because most of our acres have access to irrigation. We believe at this point, we will have enough water available to us to allow for normal growing conditions. Our beets have been planted. While it is still very early predict, we expect our crop to produce normal yields.
Additionally, last quarter, I mentioned we have increased production at our Montreal and Vancouver cane facilities to augment production from Taber, to continue meeting our commitments to our customers and serve increased overall demand. Our plants are running very well, and we continue to use our multiple refiners across the country to ensure uninterrupted supply. Also, we are pleased to see the settlement of the Vancouver Port labor dispute. We were fortunate that we saw no impact on our operations, as we had ample raw sugar on hand on the dock that carried us through. Turning to our outlook. As a result of market dynamics and the timing of export sales, we now anticipate 2023 volumes of 800,000 metric tonnes, down slightly from our previous forecast of 805,000 metric tonnes.
At the beginning of the year, we set out our expectations with our goal of supporting domestic market, with increases in industrial demand more than offsetting the planned decline in exports. However, timing of contracted volume being pulled by our domestic customers does not always line up perfectly with the completion of our export commitments. As always, we will take advantage of opportunistic export sales when supply and price conditions align. In summary, demand is strong, and we have not seen any losses in our market share. We continue to be well-positioned to service the growing food and beverage manufacturing sectors across Canada. As I noted in a previous quarter, we are currently very satisfied with our sugar volume. We remain focused on improved pricing and delivering improved results. Now, turning to the Maple segment.
Adjusted EBITDA declined slightly in the third quarter, largely due to lower sales volumes driven by consumer spending. Despite lower sales volumes and inflationary pressures, adjusted gross margin improved by 130 basis points compared to the same period last year, as we see the benefits of an improved average selling price and reduced costs due to our automation projects. As I mentioned last quarter, the automation projects for bottling operations at two of our Maple plants both came online during the second quarter, with an immediate impact on reducing variable costs. We see the contribution to improved financial performance in our adjusted gross margin and expect this contribution to continue for the remainder of 2023 and beyond. We continue to pursue additional projects where we see opportunities. As I usually do, I want to say a few words about our employees.
They are essential to delivering reliable, high-quality sugar and maple products. We would not be steadily growing the business without their dedication. We had a strong start to the year. I want to thank them for their commitment. Now I turn it over to J.S. to provide more information on the current quarter, as well as an update on the financing status of the capacity project.
Thank you, Mike. Good morning, everyone. Before I speak to our strong third quarter results, I would like to take a few minutes to discuss the financing of our Eastern Canada capacity and logistics expansion project. As Mike mentioned, the total investment of this important initiative is estimated at approximately CAD 200 million. We are in the process of evaluating several financing options, with the objective of aligning the financing plan of this project to our current capitalization profile and credit fundamentals. As such, our financing plan will include a combination of debt and equity or equity-like options. Later today, the Provincial Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy, Mr. Pierre Fitzgibbon, is expected to join us at our Montreal office to formally announce the support of the Quebec government for our project.
This support will be in the form of project-based secured loans from Investissement Québec, for an amount up to CAD 65 million. As you will have seen in our third quarter regulatory filing, the board of directors of Rogers has approved a filing of a short form base shelf prospectus in connection with expected financing and initiatives over the next 25 months. This document has been filed with the securities authorities this morning and will provide us flexibility to manage our capitalization needs in the near future. As the project advances, we will continue to evaluate our financing options and will update the market at the appropriate time. The key point I would like to reiterate is that we are undertaking this growth investment in a way that ensures our capitalization structure remains stable throughout the project construction phases and once operational.
Continuing to provide a strong return to our shareholder while maintaining our good credit fundamentals are priorities for us. As Mike noted, the anticipated investment, total approximately $200 million, is greater than the amount of $160 million previously communicated about a year ago. The increase in our estimate is due to several factors that were assessed during the detailed planning and engineering evaluation stages. For example, our detailed analysis showed that we needed to upgrade the power supply of the whole plant to accommodate the incremental production. Furthermore, our initial estimate was impacted by several global economic factors, such as the recent inflationary cost pressures and the reduction in value of the Canadian dollar, as several pieces of equipment will originate from Europe.
Our analysis shows that the expected margin of the new capacity should more than offset the increase in our estimated construction costs and provide a financial return similar to what we are currently generating from our sugar segment. We plan and invest for the long term, and we are very excited about this project as the added capacity will position us for long-term growth and allow us to maintain our position as the leading sugar supplier in Canada. Now I will turn to our third quarter 2023 results. Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA was CAD 23.7 million, up CAD 0.6 million from the same quarter last year, as our sugar segment continued to drive improved performance. We expect sugar demand and pricing to remain strong for the remainder of fiscal 2023, despite lower volumes in the quarter and inflationary pressures on cost.
For maple, we expect the challenging market environment to remain through 2023. Let's continue my remarks with a review of the sugar segment. Adjusted EBITDA in the sugar segment was CAD 20.7 million in the third quarter, up 4% from the same quarter last year. Our total sales volume was down 6% compared to the same period last year. As you might recall, in the second half of 2022, the market was experiencing supply tightness that led to an unforeseen peak in demand in our industrial segment during that period. That makes for a difficult comparable on a quarter-to-quarter basis. However, we saw that underlying demand was strong in 2023, as the total sales volume was our second highest third quarter on record. Our improvement in Adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was driven by increased pricing on refining activities.
This was partially offset by higher production costs and lower sales volume. Adjusted gross margin increased in the quarter by CAD 2.3 million or 8% from the same quarter last year. On a per unit basis, adjusted gross margin increased by approximately CAD 21 to CAD 159 per metric tonne, driven by higher pricing from strong domestic demand. Distribution costs increased by CAD 1.8 million from prior year period, mainly due to incremental logistical costs incurred to move sugar from our Western facilities to support the Eastern demand, as well as the lower than expected production in Taber. Administration and selling expenditures were down slightly compared to prior year quarter due to lower compensation costs attributable mainly to lower share-based compensation expense. Looking ahead, we have slightly reduced our 2023 sales volume expectations to 800,000 metric tonnes.
This still represents an increase of 5,000 metric tonnes over our fiscal 2022 volume, which was our highest sales volume year on record. In fiscal 2023, our consumer volumes are expected to remain stable, while liquid volumes are expected to increase by 1%, driven by continued strong demand. Our largest segment, industrial, is expected to increase by 2% as demand for sugar-containing products remains firm. As we reassess our segment variances for 2023, we now expect export volume to decrease by 9%. While we continue to focus our sales on capturing the strong economics available in the Canadian market, we will sell into key markets where available and when we can be opportunistic.
Additionally, out of an abundance of caution, we have begun importing a limited volume of refined white sugar from Central America to ensure we can mitigate the shortfall of our current year Taber crop and support the needs of the Canadian domestic market. We continue to believe in the strength of the underlying North American demand for refined sugar. Our view is bolstered by our competitive advantages and favorable market dynamics across all our customer segments. We continue to expect increased pricing to support our financial results and largely mitigate the ongoing inflationary pressures. I will now move to our maple segment. In the third quarter, our maple segment continued to be negatively impacted by inflationary pressures and lower global demand for maple syrup. Adjusted EBITDA at CAD 3 million was slightly lower than the same quarter last year and below our initial expectations.
Lower volumes and higher costs more than offset the benefit of recent favorable pricing actions. We are beginning to see the positive impacts of improved purchasing and production automation. The initiatives we put forward in recent months are driving efficiencies and mitigating some of the impacts of ongoing inflationary pressures related to energy and labor. As a result, our adjusted gross margin improved to 9.5% in the current quarter. For the remainder of 2023, we continue to expect the maple business sales volume to be challenged as we factor the impact of global reduction in market demand for maple syrup. We anticipate this challenge to be mitigated in part by negotiated price increases with key customers and lower production costs driven by automation and recently negotiated supply agreements for packaging material. Before closing, I would like to highlight a few other related financial items.
Our adjusted net earnings for the third quarter were CAD 8.7 million, up from CAD 8.4 million last year. On a per-share basis, that represents CAD 0.08 per share. Free cash flow for the last 12 months was CAD 47.8 million, a slight decrease of CAD 1.6 million compared to the same period last year, mainly related to timing. For 2023, we expect our capital expenditures to be approximately CAD 25 million on various capital projects in sugar and approximately CAD 1 million in maple. The nature of such spending is similar to prior years and focused on initiatives mainly related to improvement of our current facilities and improved business processes. This estimate is separate from the CAD 200 million investment in our Eastern Canada expansion project.
For 2023, we anticipate spending about CAD 10 million in relation to the expansion project, CAD 6.9 million of which has already been spent on the planning and detailed engineering stages. Today, we are also announcing that the board of directors approved the payment of a CAD 0.09 per share dividend in relation to the results of the third quarter. This is consistent with the quarterly dividends paid for the last several years. Overall, the third quarter of 2023 has largely continued with the same trends we have seen since the second half of 2022. In sugar, which represents over 85% of our business, the trends remain favorable as strong sugar demand and market-based pricing increases are expected to continue and provide improved results.
We expect the maple segment to continue to face a challenging business environment for the remainder of 2023, driven by difficult global market conditions. We are very excited about our capacity expansion project that we formally announced today. We believe Canada remains an attractive market for investment in sugar refining and processing of value-added food products containing sugar. This is strong demand for sugar-containing products across North America will help us manage ongoing inflationary pressures. Our company is already well positioned to benefit from those strong trends, and our capacity expansion will allow us to maintain our favorable momentum when the new volume comes on stream in approximately two years. With that, I would like to turn the call back over to the operator for questions.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session for analysts. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by number one on your telephone keypad. If your question has been answered and you would like to withdraw from the queue, please press star followed by number two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift your handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question will come from George Doumet at Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good morning, guys. I just want to get a little bit more information on, on how the ramp-up looks like, 24-month ramp-up looks like. Anything you can share maybe in terms of duplicate costs, potentials for the transition there, and how should we think of maybe the in-incremental contribution of those, I guess, those 100,000 metric tonnes from the EBITDA line down the road? Thanks.
Yes, George, it's J.S. here. It's a good question. We are gonna start construction in the next few weeks. We have actually, we are starting to put orders for long lead items. From a cash flow perspective, I think the use, it's fairly linear over the 24 months. You know, that we're not, I mean, there might be peaks here and there, depending on large pieces of equipment, but we think it's gonna be fairly linear.
From a, from a earnings perspective on the export ton, I think if we look at what we are generating out of our sugar segment, we expecting to generate the same type of return, which is somewhere around the 10%, you know, just a, just a bit north of 10%, which is what we have been getting out of our sugar segment in recent years.
Yeah, thanks for that. I was hoping to get a little bit more color on kind of the lower volume guidance as a sugar business, maybe kind of what led to that, and do you think we, we could perhaps grow volumes next year?
Good morning, George, it's Mike. That's a, that's a great question. You know, it's a minor tweak down from 805 to 800. Trying to sequence contract commitments with export customers and contract commitments with domestic customers isn't a, a total exact science. It's not a softness in the market, it's just a repositioning of volumes against commitments that we have on the books and the timing and sequencing of those. I think the business will continue to grow. That's why we're doing announcing the expansion, we'll continue to leverage all of our manufacturing sites to support the line.
Okay, just one last one, if I may. Again, sticking to the sugar business, are we fully caught up on pricing there? Anything you can tell us between kind of the costs and pricing-wise?
Yeah, on the pricing side, George, as, as contracts come up for renewal, we reflect their new realities in pricing, in each of those negotiations. There's always some coming up and, through the year. I would expect the, the, the cadence to continue that, we're on today, and, and not see us deviating from that.
All right. Thanks for your answers.
Thanks, George.
Your next question will come from Michael van Aelst at TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Just like some help going through the math to get to your 10% return. Because if I look at your gross margin per metric ton for the sugar area, it's about, you know, it's rounded up to CAD 200 per metric ton. That's about CAD 20 million a year. You know. So, and yeah, and then. How do you, if you, if you, how do you come up with your return calculation based on, you know, a CAD 200 per metric ton gross margin?
It's a good question, and, and, part of it is the type of mix and product we're gonna sell with the expansion. This expansion is, is gonna be mainly related to industrial bulk sugar that will be produced in Montreal. It's the Montreal economics that we would be, that we're using. That's how, you know, the return that, that we're talking about here is, is aligned with the economics of the Montreal plant for this type of product.
Okay. Are you saying that the margins on the new business would be higher than the CAD 200?
No, the margin on the new business will be aligned with what we have on our current business.
Okay. Just 'cause, like, if I look at CAD 200 million at CAD 200 a metric tonne, times 100,000 metric tonnes, you get CAD 20 million. Then if you, assuming, I don't know, a 6% interest rate or something along those lines for the CAD 200 million investment, that's CAD 12 million of interest costs, and you got... You had CAD 8 million of free cash flow before taxes. Yeah, that, that's a quite a long payback period, and that's why I don't really come up with that 10%. You talked earlier also about some reducing freight costs from Western Canada. I don't know how much that could help, but what else? You know, what am I missing?
Well, there, there's, there's yeah, there's a few things. There's a few things, Michael. It's good, it's a good question. The, there's obviously the, the absorption costs right now that we have from bringing sugar from the west to the east. There's also a significant portion of our costs that are fixed in nature. We have to look at it from the, the contributing factors of those of those costs that are already basically taking, most of them are taken care of from our current business.
Okay. You're talking within the, within the cost of goods sold, there's, there's some fixed components there?
Yes, we have a significant portion of fixed costs that we will be able to to spread on more production in Montreal.
All right, then you, you talked about current market dynamics for both sugar and then maple, you called them more unfavorable market dynamics. Is this, for maple, I understand prices are higher, so that's, and, you know, inflation is hurting the consumer, so they're probably not buying as much maple syrup. Is there, is it on the sugar side... Well, sorry, on the maple side, let's, let's stay there for now. It also looks like you're trying to, you're taking a higher margin at the expense of lower volumes. Are you losing market share on the maple side?
Yeah. Yeah, Michael, it's Mike-
Sorry, losing market share. Market share, sorry.
Yeah. On the maple side, no, we are not losing market share. The global market is down. Our, our decline in volume is in step with what the global market is down for the very reasons you, you just spoke about, you know, consumer inflation. Maple is seen as a luxury product, and it's probably not the first item they're putting in the basket right now. We're seeing global volume down, and we're in step with that.
Okay. The refined white that you're importing on the sugar side, is that, I guess it makes sense to assume that's gonna come in at a, at a much lower gross profit since you're not doing any of the refining?
Yeah, Michael, and out of an abundance of caution, as you know, in the last couple of years, the domestic market's been very tight. So we've scrambled at times to support the, our domestic customers, and so out of an abundance of caution, we've imported some whites and have it on hand. We're using it in some of our processing now or production, and it will help us ensure that we can meet the needs forecasted or otherwise, of our domestic customers.
Okay. All right, thank you.
Thanks, Michael.
Thanks, Mike.
Your next question will come from Endri Leno at National Bank. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one on the expansion, I just wanted to clarify something, 'cause I mean, we're talking about approximately 24 months, but I think there was a range put in there, 24-36 months. I was wondering what could push this expansion to 36 months out of approximately 24?
Yeah, thanks, Endri. we, we anticipate, I mean, we've been through 14 months of engineering analysis and, and, and construction, detail, analysis, and we're pretty confident in, in what the schedule is that's in front of us. Life can always give you curve balls, and, who knows what they may be. I think what you're looking at on the longer, timeline is perhaps the ramp-up to full production capacity. It won't, you know, like anything, you won't turn the switch on, 24 months from now, and everything runs at 100%. There will be a ramp-up of capacity and output of the expected volumes over that time.
Okay, thanks for the color, Mike. and then related to that, I mean, can you talk a little bit about placing production capacity, and if you can share, I mean, how much you placed or how, how you're thinking about that or any initial discussions? Thanks.
Yeah, thanks, Endri. The market remains robust, and, and let's not forget that a fair amount of Canadian refined sugar that's is produced in Canada goes into a a sugar-containing product that goes to a foreign export market, United States or Europe. Those markets remain healthy. We're confident with the analysis we've done, some months ago, that this capacity, when it comes on stream, it will be well-placed in the eastern domestic market.
Great, thank you. One last for me, it's on the beet on the beet crop. I, I, I know you mentioned, Mike, that the dry condition in Alberta, I mean, there might be some concerns there, but we've also seen some reports that because of the hotter weather, the crop might actually be better. I was wondering if you can talk a little bit about that. I mean, are you seeing any kind of improvement in yields, and what could that imply for the sugar content of the beets and given your new agreement that you have in there?
Thanks, Endri. Well, as you know, I always like to say Mother Nature remains undefeated, and especially in Canada. What we're seeing so far is a normal crop, and beets love heat, and they love water, and we have both in the, in the west right now for them. So the crop's progressing well. We don't have any signals yet that yields may be different than expected. It's early. We, you know, we're into the final stages of growing and, you know, six weeks from now, we'll start to see some real results as we start to look at the harvest. For now, we're seeing a normal crop with what we, the way we characterize it is we look at five-year average yields, and we're expecting this crop to deliver within that, that parameter.
Great. That's it. Thank you.
Thank you, Endri.
Your next question will come from Nevan Yochim at BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Okay. Thank you. Good morning, guys.
Good morning.
Just a couple of questions here on the expansion project. In terms of the financing, would you expect to fund the balance of that through several transactions as the project transgresses or as the project progresses, or would this be something that you'd do ahead of, of the majority of the spending?
That, that's a good question, Nevan. I think our intent right now will be linked to what the market is, is gonna present. We are positioning ourselves to be able to access the market in a timely manner. I think we've, one of the things we've released today is that we are filing today a short form base shelf prospectus. We will likely access the equity or equity-like market over the next, over the next, while in order to finance portion of it. We've already added an agreement from a debt side with Investissement Québec. There is a press conference here today, where the minister will announce support from IQ for CAD 65 million on our projects, and the rest we intend to use our, our current facilities.
I think to make a long story short, it, it would depend on the market. I think we will do several, sorry, a few, maybe little transaction, but, you know, will be dependent on the nature. Debt will be debt, equity will be equity, and obviously, there's the IQ support that we're announcing today.
Okay. Okay, that's great. Just one more on the project here. Can you sort of frame how much of that capacity would be going to new versus existing customers? I don't know if you guys have already seen or received interest for, like, a certain percentage of it, but any details there would be helpful.
Yeah, thanks. We, we can't give specific guidance on where the sugar is going, but as you've seen in the public announcements from other food manufacturers in, in Quebec and Ontario, existing customers are expanding, existing customers are building new plants, and new, new customers are arriving on the scene. It's a bit of everything. Our analysis tells us that, we won't have, we don't expect any problems in placing this volume when it comes on stream. As you know, we're, we're transferring a fair amount of sugar, every year now, out of Western facilities to support the Eastern market. Obviously, a fair amount of it's already placed, and we've turned off some supply to export markets to free up supply for domestic markets.
All those are pretty good indicators that, what we're doing, should have no trouble finding a home.
Okay, that's helpful. The last one for me, just on the maple business. Nice gross margin expansion there this quarter. Can we assume that this is sort of a new run rate level, like, about 130 BPS expansion? Is that what you're expecting go forward?
Thanks, Nevan. We had it from a margin standpoint, it was a significant improvement this quarter. I think I would just caution here, in the sense that some of it is related to mix. Although we are confident in the positive and the progress we're making from a margin standpoint, I think, as Mike mentioned, this is a market that is slowing down a little bit. From quarter to quarter, depending on which customers are placing some of the orders and the mix of product, there could be some little variation, but we believe we should be better than what we actually posted in the past.
Okay, great. Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Frédéric Tremblay at Desjardins. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning.
Morning, Frédéric.
Maybe as a, as a follow-up to the last question there, if, if the maple market remains soft for a little while here, can you maybe give us an idea of your priorities between, you know, protecting volumes and, and sort of growing margins? I understand that to some extent, you know, they're both linked, but, you know, maybe some color on how you think about volume versus margin moving forward.
Yeah, thanks, Fred. We'll continue to, to manage the maple business such that it gives us the, you know, best returns we can get, while maintaining our market share that we've established when we acquired the businesses. Not, you know, it's a, you know, the market's in a, a volume decline like it is. It's time to be prudent. It's pricing becomes more paramount than than winning all volumes at any cost.
Great. Then maybe switching to sugar. With the capacity that you're gonna free up in, in Vancouver from the Montreal, and Toronto expansion, can you give maybe some color on, on what are some of the opportunities that you're seeing out of the, the Vancouver facility to sort of keep that, that volume going from that, facility? Thanks.
Sure. Thanks, Fred. For decades, Vancouver's been what we refer to internally as a swing plant. We have a crop issue in Taber, or we have an opportunity in an opportunistic market in export, or as we've had for the last two years, needs in the domestic market in Eastern Canada, we ramp up Vancouver, and we move the volume to where the opportunist opportunity is. Having said that, over the next couple of years, for sure, we're gonna continue to rely on Western plants to support the domestic market in Eastern Canada until we get the expansion completed. Post the expansion, there, you know, we continue to see growth in the market.
You know, we're, we're doing what I would say is a, a medium to modest increase in capacity in this expansion we're announcing today. There will be still room for, with the market continues to grow as we expect, there'll still be room for Vancouver to produce more. We have not even tapped into what the potentials are in export markets out of Vancouver because we've been focused on the domestic. I think there's a bright future for all plants, and the, and the cane plants are running well. We've sorted out the logistics well, that we're able to move large volumes of sugar west to east and east to west when we need to efficiently.
Great. Thank you.
Thanks, Fred.
We have a follow-up question from Michael van Aelst at TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you. Back on the expansion, I'm just kind of curious as to, you know, how easy it was or how, or to what degree you found experienced engineers and builders of for this project, given that, you know, I think a lot of the refineries in North America are quite old. I'm not sure what, how much experience there is out there in building new capacity for traditional-type refineries.
That's a great question, Michael. I have to tell you, as you know, I've been in this business just over 44 years, and it's one that keeps me awake at night. I can tell you, myself and the team have traveled the world and met with some of the best sugar refining design companies and production equipment production manufacturers. We spent the right amount of due diligence over 14 months working with some of the top engineering firms and equipment manufacturers to design the right output for us. We're designing a plant for the next 135 years.
We're not short-term players, and when we build plants, when we put equipment in, we make sure we do it with the diligence and the quality that will be durable to last us into decades in the business as we, as is proven by our current track record. We put a lot of diligence into that, Michael, and it's a really important factor for us.
All right. The people that are gonna be building it, do they have any experience building it, or is this, or the people that have engineered, I, you've got these people from Europe, or where are they coming from?
Yeah, we've, yes, without giving you all the details, Michael, but yes, we've had the process design people from Europe involved in designing this project completely. On the process side, we've got a global reputable lead engineering firm that's been helping doing the design. As far as the construction is, we're not building a new building, we're using an existing building, and we've got a good local general contractor that is going to manage that. Someone that lives in our community and is gonna be just as accountable as we are to an outcome.
All right, great. Thank you.
Thanks, Michael.
Ladies and gentlemen, once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 now. We have another follow-up from Endri Leno at National Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for the follow-up. Just a quick one for J.S., perhaps, but are you able to share any of the terms in the IQ loan?
We're not right now, we're not gonna share those terms directly. I think the one thing that I can say here is the terms that we have with IQ are aligned with the commitment of the government for the food chain and to help the food chain industry in Quebec. I think that part of the discussion we've had with them early on, was a long process, and working with them, and they were very receptive, was to secure the food chain in Quebec. They offer us what I believe is something that in some areas is market condition, in some areas shows their commitment to support the food chain industry in Quebec, Endri. That's probably as far as I'll go right now.
Okay. Thank you.
There are no further questions. I will turn the conference back to Mike Walton for any closing remarks.
Thank you, operator, and thank you everyone for attending this exciting day today with consistent quarterly results that we've reported and the announcement for Eastern Canada capacity expansion, and we look forward to updating you in the next quarter. Thanks a lot.
Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude your conference call for this morning. We would like to thank you all for participating and ask you to please disconnect your lines.