Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Godrej Agrovet Limited Q1 FY 2027 earnings conference call hosted by Anand Rathi. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Nitesh Dood from Anand Rathi. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Thank you, Palak. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the Godrej Agrovet Q1 FY 2027 earnings conference call. From the company, we have with us Mr. Burjis Godrej, Chairman Designate. Mr. Sunil Kataria, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. Mr. S. Varadaraj, Chief Financial Officer, and Mr. Arijit Mukherjee, Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer, Astec LifeSciences. We would like to begin the call with brief opening remarks from the management, following which we will have the forum open for an interactive question-and-answer session. Before we start, I would like to point out that some statements made in today's call may be forward-looking, and a disclaimer to this effect has been included in the earnings presentation shared with you earlier. I would now like to invite Mr. Burjis Godrej to make the initial remarks. Over to you, sir. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Godrej Agrovet Limited's earnings call for the first quarter of financial year 2027. Thank you for joining us today. During Q1 FY 2027, we delivered consolidated sales of INR 2,852 crore, representing year-on-year growth of 10%, despite a challenging operating environment marked by a delayed monsoon and inflationary pressures arising from geopolitical tensions. The quarter saw strong performance in animal nutrition and oil palm, supported by healthy volumes, improved realization, and operating efficiencies. Our Bangladesh joint venture returned to a broad-based growth trajectory, while Astec sustained its operational recovery and continued to be at EBITDA breakeven. Dairy delivered double-digit revenue growth led by value-added products, and Godrej Foods continued to grow its branded portfolio. Crop care, however, was affected by the delayed monsoon and slower kharif sowing, which impacted volumes of key products and overall profitability. Coming to the key financial and business highlights of each of our business segments. The animal nutrition business delivered a strong quarter with revenue growth of 12.6%, driven by robust demand, improved realization, and 15% growth in cattle feed volumes. Profitability improved significantly with reported segment results growing at 29%, and the underlying segment results increasing 36%, reflecting the benefits of strategic sourcing, operating leverage, and continued cost discipline. The oil palm business continued its growth momentum with segment revenue increasing by 28.9% and the segment results growing by 14.4%. Performance was supported by higher CPO and PKO realizations, increased sales volumes, and improved oil extraction efficiency. The fresh fruit bunch volumes remained broadly stable against a strong comparable quarter, which had benefited from the early onset of the monsoon in the previous year. The standalone crop care business was impacted by the significant delay in the monsoon and slower Kharif sowing following a particularly dry June. This affected demand and resulted in lower volumes of key products, predominantly our in-house cotton herbicide segment. Consequently, segment revenue declined by 16.2%, while the reduction in volume also led to a contraction in segment margin. At the same time, our portfolio diversification initiatives in this business continued to gain traction. Ashitaka, our maize herbicide, and Takai, our paddy insecticide, scaled up during the quarter and received encouraging market acceptance. We also launched Ghassnash in the soybean herbicide category. Astec LifeSciences sustained its recovery momentum and continued at EBITDA breakeven, compared with an EBITDA loss of INR 11 crore in Q1 FY 2026. This improvement was driven by margin expansion across both the enterprise and the CDMO category, supported by the turnaround initiatives undertaken over the past year. Revenue was moderately lower due to a change in product mix. The substantial reduction in losses reflects continued progress in the operational recovery of the business. The dairy business has reported revenue growth of 11.4%, led by healthy volume growth in value-added products. The salience of value-added products increased from 42% to 49% of sales, reflecting sustained consumer demand and progress against our portfolio premiumization strategy. Profitability was affected by elevated milk procurement prices arising from industry-wide constraints in milk availability, together with inflation in certain other inputs. We remain focused on calibrated pricing, procurement efficiencies, and cost optimization to mitigate these near-term pressures. Godrej Foods delivered broadly stable revenue despite the planned reduction in live bird volume. Branded volume grew by approximately 6%, while Yummiez volume increased by 22%, in line with our strategy of building a higher quality branded foods portfolio. Profitability was affected by higher input costs and inflationary pressures related to geopolitical disruptions, which were only partly offset through calibrated pricing actions. Our Bangladesh joint venture, ACI Godrej Agrovet, also returned to a strong growth trajectory, delivering double-digit growth in volume, revenue and PBT, supported by broad-based volume expansion and operating leverage. Finally, we maintained our focus on balance sheet efficiency and disciplined capital allocation. Our average net working capital improved significantly year-on-year. This improvement supports our objective of strengthening cash generation and enhancing return on capital employed. [inaudible] We can go ahead. We can go ahead now, yeah. Can we start with the Q&A session, sir? Yeah, we can start it. Yeah. Okay, sir. Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may please press star one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is on the line of Abhijeet Akela from KIE. Please proceed with your question. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for taking my questions. The first set of questions I had was on the oil palm business. If you could please share your outlook for the volume growth in this business over a three to five year horizon, given the fact that your plantations are gradually maturing over the next coming years. That was one. Can we expect double-digit volume growth? Any expectations there? Number two, on the value addition angle that you're working on in this segment. Any metrics you could share there in terms of the amount invested in the valuation capacities, asset turns, margins or return on capital on this investment? Finally, just putting it all together, what sort of EBITDA growth maybe can one expect in this segment over the next three to five years? Last year you've done something like INR 426 crore of EBITDA. Seems like this year could be around INR 500, over a three to five year horizon, where could this number realistically go to? Thank you so much. Hi, Abhijeet. This is Sunil here. Abhijeet, on the oil palm business, obviously this business has been doing very well for us, overall, as you see, there has been a sustained momentum in this business. On the FFB volume growth projections for let's say next four to five years, which is what is our long-range period as we have defined right now. I would say, we can look for a growth in FFB volume of high single digit to early double digit growth. I'm being conservative on this, I'll be very honest, because there can be some one-off year in this on the weather pattern sometimes. Yes, I believe we'll target double digit. If I have to be a little conservative, I would say high single digit to early double digit for sure. That I think is the volume growth projections clearly on this. Because this business has a lot of multiple pillars of growth which are going behind it in terms of volume growth. I'll break out three of them. One is first and foremost, that we are in the middle of a very large area expansion drive. Last year we added some 17,000 hectares, and this year again, we are on track to do the same. In fact, as we talk of the first quarter, we have been ahead of our internal plans of area expansion. Obviously, all this will fold into the LRP growth rates, that's something one. Secondly, we are doing a geographic diversification, which is from now getting into the states of Telangana and Northeast in a very aggressive manner. In fact, our entire LRP plan of moving from roughly around 80,000 hectares to roughly around 150,000 hectares, which is close to doubling, is going to come a lot from these new geographies. That's I think the second plus variable for us. Third, I think, which I had earlier mentioned also that this is a business which has got a very sharp demographic dividend, as we call it now, built in. Roughly 50- odd% of our plantations today are in the juvenile stage, which is zero to four years. They will start coming into the early productive age of four years plus, and then they will reach the peak of eight years and they become the most productive. That's a very significant bumper which happens in this business. The fourth is, we continue to do pretty well on our efficiencies, which lead to best in class OERs. If I put this together, I think this business is poised on a CAGR basis for a very strong momentum. In terms of the investment in CapEx, I think the second answer on this would be, there is other important variable panning out in this business, which I think would lead to a structural shift of this business even further. In fact, the four parts which I talked about are all in the upstream. I call them even they are structural shifts for us. I think there's another larger structural shift which will happen parallel, which is that we are going to make this business over the LRP period from a pure upstream business to a full integrated value-added business from upstream to downstream. That process has started. We just last month rolled out India's first integrated palm oil complex in Khammam. We started the first stage, which has started with a nursery and a CPO processing mill. In a couple of years, we're talking 18 months-24 months, if everything goes right, we should have a seed garden, which is very important for future genetic work. Then there will be a refinery also which is coming up. The second one, which is slated for rollout in end August, early September, is our first refinery of specialty fats. That starts by and large in early part of the second half or it's in September itself. That gives us the ability as it scales up over the years to convert a lot of our palm oil into value-added differentiated products. We become a full-fledged player from upstream to downstream. Now that downstream, when we start converting into specialty fats, actually takes us into beyond palm oils into a quasi FMCG food ingredient player, B2B, where we will be giving products which are additions to food industries on the FMCG side, which is chocolate, bakery, et cetera. That's a very significant value add. We expect this downstream business when fully scaled up, should add roughly around close to 200 basis points to our overall EBITDA profile. That's the second part of the question. The third is on the CapEx. Ladies and gentlemen, the line for the management has been dropped. Please wait while we reconnect them. Ladies and gentlemen, the line for the management has been reconnected. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Okay. Continuing from where I left. The question was on the CapEx and the ROCEs behind these new assets. We have a tight filter on this very clearly. This is a high ROCE business for us. Nothing crosses our bridge broadly until we are doing an IRR of around 16%-18%, and this meets that bridge for us. I hope I have answered all the questions related to oil palm. No, that's really helpful. Thank you so much for that, Sunil. The second one I just had was on the crop protection business and then one overall as well. Given the soft start to the year for crop protection, the domestic part. What sort of numbers can we expect for this upcoming year? Should we expect some sort of recovery given that you have an easy base as well for the remaining three quarters? Astec, how are you seeing things? There was a revenue decline, but moderation in the losses, but how do you see things on that front? Finally, at the overall console level, I remember last quarter we had guided to something like mid-teens PBT growth for fiscal 2027 for the consolidated company. Do we still think that is something achievable? That's one question. I have four parts to it, Abhijeet. Let me answer it one by one. On the crop care. The start has been tough primarily because India has seen one of the worst June in last century. That's multiple theories. Some people are saying it's 100 years old, driest June. Some say it's even worse. This June turned out to be a 40% deficit. The crops itself could not be sown. Our business comes into play when the crop gets sown, first of all. That's one largest variable which played out in this thing. Second is that given the dependence of Hitweed on the way rainfall plays out spatially as well as temporally. That has been also erratic. June has been better, July has been better. That errativity has been unpredictable. I would say yes, there has been a hit in the quarter one, which has very clearly come because of this weather pattern. What we are going to do is we expect July turning out to be definitely better, compared to the way we were last year. In terms of base that you're talking about. There is definitely much better growth panning out in July versus last year July. We will be in a position to take a call on overall business how much it can recover, to be very honest, by end of September. The reason for that is, that is by when we'll have a pretty decent handle on how, let's say, the cotton herbicide season has gone, which is a very significant part of our business in terms of profitability and revenue. While it is still sketchy and it is still unclear, I think we should be able to give you a sense of this more by September end. There are certain pieces, coming to the second part, given that there's a soft base. Yes, I would like to add some things which I think could be positive for us in the coming second half. One is, yes, there's a softer base at play. The second is there are some four or five things which are new for us, which were not there last year. Which I'm hoping will play out positively for us in the second half. One is, let me start with last year, India had seen very abnormal rains happening in October and November, which had impacted our chili and grape product seasons also, which is Combine and Gracia. The way pattern is going right now, we don't expect October, November to have unseasonal rain, and it should be a normal October, November. We, A, expect that both our strong products of Gracia and Combine actually would do well this year given the way weather pattern is playing out. Second is the chili prices, which is what Gracia is targeted at, are looking reasonably firm right now. That's a good indicator because as you know, the prices are firm, the acreage goes up, the farmers are more interested in applying branded insecticide products. That is another indicator which, as it plays out, I'm very hopeful that the second half will get a bump up of that. Third part is there are new additions to our portfolio as part of our diversification drive. As we have said in earlier discussion, that over the LRP, this business in five years will be a very different business in terms of its dependence on multiple crops. We want to get out of that. As part of that, the first maize herbicide has got off to a rollicking start for us. We have rolled out Ashitaka full-fledged this season, and I am happy to share that we have gone beyond our initial internal plans and it is done very well for us. We have a small Ashitaka season coming up in South again in quarter three, so we are having that as an opportunity. Another new product which we have just started rolling out right now is another insecticide product, which is Takai. It is scaling up. It is a product which pans out around five, six months. It doesn't have one big window of seasonality like cotton herbicide has. It should play out and scale up given our capabilities of distribution marketing over the next five months, which was not there in the base last year. The third is we have rolled out a soybean herbicide, which is Ghassnash, which again has multiple areas of application. That again should play out as a new product innovation for us. If you see, there are one, better weather patterns for some of our two large products of the second half. Then I think there are three new interventions that we have in our portfolio. This, along with the subdued base of last year, gives me hope that we would do a decent recovery. What that recovery exactly would be, I think depends on how the overall assessment of first half we can take. Give us time till September-end to take a real point of view on that. But there are lot of positives in this business as we enter the second half. That was a crop care answer. The other one on the Astec, what I would do is I have got Arijit also with me who is the Chief Operating Officer of Astec. Arijit, maybe if you can come in and answer Abhijeet's question on that. Sure. Abhijeet, in the last earning call, we gave our revenue projections of around 20%. Now after Q1, we are confident that our growth will be now at least full-year basis, it will be more than 20%. So you can consider our now guidance to be at least more than 20%. Whatever is the 8% or 9% dip in Q1, we will cover up in the coming quarters. Regarding CDMO, now CDMO is also dependent on little bit change in the demand and production shift of the customers. Now we are seeing a little bit shift from H1 to H2, though the orders are there and the orders and discussions are going on. So we will see more of the shift in terms of H2. But overall, for the year, its salience will be around 50%, 52%. That is from my side. Did I miss anything? No, I think. Yeah. Abhijeet, maybe the last question you have to ask for is overall guidance for the year, right? Again, little early, right? We had given a guidance of roughly around mid-teens. Again, I said a lot will depend on the assessment we can take on the crop care business impact towards the second half. I think one thing we're still pretty confident of is that we'll be able to target a double-digit growth still. Now, where will that double-digit end up in the range? I think I'll be in a better position to tell by the end of quarter two. Okay. Thank you so much. That's really helpful. Just one last thing for Arijit. Arijit, revenue growth, I got 20% +. Anything on the margins that you might be able to comment? Margin for CDMO margins is intact, and in terms of enterprise margin for the first quarter, we had a little bit of advantage. This one advantage was because we were having some low-priced raw material and also because of the war and other changes, finished goods prices increased. I think last one month, the prices are slowly coming down, so margin is coming back to the normal. CDMO will always be at a higher side, and it is intact. It is broken. Okay. Thank you so much. I'll come back in the queue for any more. Sure. Thank you, sir. The next question is from the line of Probal Sen from ICICI Securities. Please proceed with your question. Thank you for the opportunity. Good afternoon, sir. Just wanted to expand a bit on the palm oil business strategy shift that you spoke about. Just wanted to understand whether it will require any additional investment in the sense that will our CapEx run rate sort of go up to sort of make this diversification or this integrated facility that we are putting up already covers the kind of flexible packaging and customized products that we're basically looking to launch as part of the moving towards the B2B consumer-facing initiative that you just spoke about. No, thank you, Probal. Probal, in any case, we have given a guidance of roughly around INR 300- odd crore- INR 350 crore of overall CapEx at a business level. All these are assumed already in this. This is no new investment. It is a very planned investment which is going in phases over the maybe three, four quarters. It's part of the initial assumption that we have given in the guidance we have given. That is very clear. The two key investments which have happened right now or are happening right now, one is the integrated complex, which is already kicked off. First phase of that is kicked off this year. The second phase would come in maybe the later on part. The other one is specialty fats. All covered under the broad INR 300 crore-INR 350 crore of CapEx and all working at a healthy IRR rate that we've talked of. Understood, sir. The second question I had was with respect to probably the relative underperformance of the dairy and frozen foods business. Obviously, there has been a fairly noticeable shift in terms of the share of branded products. What kind of pricing pressure did you see in Q1, and has the environment changed at all in Q2, in the early half of Q2 from what we have seen? How can we sort of look at this business going forward, dairy and foods? Okay. Yeah. Let me actually take the foods business, and I would like to take a little time to give a little bit of clarification on the food business to all the stakeholders on the call. Actually, our Godrej Foods business is doing exceptionally well. Somehow maybe we have not been able to maybe picture it, maybe give a right guidance or clarity in the way numbers are coming out. I would like to delayer it a bit on this. There are three parts to this Godrej Foods business or the frozen food business. One is live bird part. One is what we call within branded, but our branded has two parts to it. One is the B2B part of the business, which is where we supply to the players like KFC, food service restaurants, et cetera. The third part is pure consumer business, which is like any other foods consumer business, which is Yummiez as well as the Real Good consumer part of it business. Clearly, the strategic shift which we have talked of, we are going to live bird trading down completely over the next three to four years. It will remain only a back-end supply chain for our B2B and B2C businesses. That's one shift. Whatever way you're going to see the numbers, in cumulative numbers, that planned de-growth of 15%-20% every quarter, every year would happen till we make it zero. Or zero, I would say maybe marginalized maybe INR 20 crore-INR 30 crore over the five-year period. The second part is what we are focusing on between the balance part of B2B and B2C. Our truly branded business, which we are focused now is branded B2C business, which is different from what till now we've been calling branded, which B2B and B2C both have been there. The entire shift is to genuinely become a proper frozen food or protein-forward food company in this business, where the B2C business scales up to a very significant level. That business, which is Yummiez as well as Real Good B2C business, actually is growing at a rate of 20%+ every quarter. We grew at 23%-24% last year. We have in this quarter again grown at a 28% volume growth, even on a growth of last year. This is a business where all investments are going in. We can talk maybe separately if required at more detail on this. There is huge amount of NPD pipeline which is coming into play, and I'll talk about a few NPDs. There is advertising investment going behind this play, and there is little bit of more investments going behind on our plants on automation to build these facilities forward. The intent finally is that we will have a big mass scale salience coming out of our B2C businesses. Interestingly, this business itself now has reached 32% salience of the total Godrej Foods business. While we see this business growing at 28% volume and roughly around 20% value, overall growth seeing something like 1%-2%, and there's a question, I think, which is following up on this, because we are doing a planned de-growth in live bird business. I think if we have to really put a true value to this business, the true value of this business is that this is going to become a B2C foods company, which in the future scheme of things, it should reach something around, I think 65% or 70% of this company should be finally at the end of LRP period, a B2C company with a very healthy margin. The only difference is we'll be in investment phase, and just like any other classical FMCG company which goes into investment phase, I would say within three to four years, we should see overall maybe EBITDA plus advertisement together till this business is fully scaled up. That's the strength of that business. The NPDs which we are investing behind, we have done a very large-scale expansion of new products under Yummiez nugget product itself. There is products like Crispy Bites and many more products which are coming with interesting additions of sauces which are going behind it. It's like actually becoming a full cuisine product. Secondly, we have rolled out a new category, which we believe has a huge potential over a period of years. It's a category creation job, which is momos, frozen momos, because India has a very large street food segment of momos. We have rolled out chicken momos and chicken cheese momos around four months back. In another three to four months, we are looking at rolling out veg momos, so that opens a veg segment for us. This will be a gradual climb like any other category creation, but it opens up a completely new portfolio for us. The third is, we are betting heavily now on frozen chicken. The frozen chicken travels anywhere in the country versus fresh chicken, which doesn't travel beyond a few kilometers. We believe that frozen chicken is an opportunity, which again is a category creation job, is a classical marketing and distribution category creation job, which if invested behind, can over a period of time become a significant category where unbranded chicken to branded chicken can happen. We have an advantage there because we control the entire supply chain and quality and processing of chicken. It actually comes from what we call is our own managed Godrej managed farms. The business has to be seen in this light, that maybe we are at fault that we may not have given this clarity earlier, but this is the shape of this business taking shape. The business that we want to build is growing at 20%+. Understood, sir. If you can just spend a couple of moments on the dairy part as well. Yeah. Now coming to the dairy part. The dairy business is another business which is in a bit of a transformation right now for us. I would say Godrej Foods is in the middle of what I call my strategy a scale up and shift to becoming a majority B2C business. CDPL business is undergoing a bit of a correction and transformation right now. That's the piece, which again is a large strategic piece taking shape. We are doing a bit of a, first of all, consolidation of some geographies. We are very seriously looking at, with a strong lens on, which are the markets which are profitable for us, which are the markets we have right to win, and we are reconstituting our route to market completely. That's going to be roughly around an 18-month exercise- 20-month exercise in our mind, which is kicking off with a pilot in coming month. Then under the leadership of Gaurav, who's the new CEO, we are going to be rolling out this entire route to market transformation that we'll do. That's pillar number one. While the question you have asked is here now, I just want to take the opportunity to give that lens also of a bit of strategy to all the stakeholders. We are again pressing very hard on the value-added portfolio there. Our salience is going up, the shift that we're going to do is we will double down on this value-added growth, and we will make it a little more premium and more profitable. There is some work happening on that because we believe we can command more contribution margins over a period of next 18 months- 24 months on this business if our new NPDs and our investments behind route to market and these products go right. That is a critical third pillar. Coming to the point, the third one which you're talking of is, how is our pricing piece playing out? The two good pieces which again get hidden up in this first quarter of CDPL is CDPL volumes have grown at 8% after quite a few quarters. That is one good sign that we're having, that we have seen a very high single digit, 8% volume growth, which has translated into a 11.5% odd of value growth. This is the first good top-line recovery that we are seeing. We have seen two extraordinary events panning out, one which I believe is a bit long-term and one is one-off. The one-off one let me talk is the Iran war, the Middle East war, which led to LPG inflation and which led to packaging shoot-up linked to crude oil prices. None of us were prepared. We tried to mitigate and pass some of it to the packaging part, the industry did not pass up the full packaging part, and we obviously were constrained by that. That itself is in a very significant part in our P&L. Otherwise, if I were to just take out the packaging impact, our P&L would have a little different look, given that it's a threshold level for us. The second is one, the milk prices. The milk procurement prices have been very inflated over the last four quarters. That we believe will right now stay same over the next two to three quarters. That I think is a bit of a longish play which is happening in the industry. We have all been passing on roughly around 70-odd% of pricing to the market. There is a constraint, which I think everybody is doing a balancing act between consumer acquisition as well as pricing power up. I think 70-odd% is getting passed up there. These two impacts are what you would have seen impacting us in the quarter. We believe the packaging inflation impact led by Middle East will get over by August because of certain inventories everybody's been carrying. I think the milk prices will continue. The way we'll handle this is there may be some impact coming still in the quarter two, we are going to focus on growth. We have done a lot of cost initiative projects internally. I told about that we had done this Project Pi last year. We have continued that. We will try to double down on more cost initiatives to mitigate it over the second half of the year. Again, I think the focus is on driving value-added growth profitably. A big chunk is our RTM transformation, which is going to play out for us in the interim period. These transformations, along with the NPD journey and investments, is going to make CDPL turn into a value-added products company. Understood, sir. Thank you so much for the detailed insight into the businesses. I'll come back if I have more questions. All the best. Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star one now. Participants who wish to ask questions may please press star one at this time. The next question is on the line of Vanshika Jain from Aequitas Investments. Please proceed with your question. Sir, thanks for the opportunity. My first question was regarding the animal feed business. We have seen a huge price increase in the maize prices. How much of that are we able to pass through, and how is it not impacting our volumes, or is there some impact? Commodity prices? The maize prices impact on the volumes and the margins as well. Actually, Vanshika, if you see, I think our teams have kind of managed the overall volatility of commodities, which have played out very erratically and violently, I would say, given the impact it has come from the war to the industry. I think full kudos to our teams. I think our procurement teams and strategic sourcing teams have done a very good job of navigating through, I think some very good skills and abilities that our teams have. I think that's something I would say we have navigated much better than maybe the rest of the industry. That is one part. We have roughly would have passed on roughly around, I think, 60%-70% of this again to the market. If you see despite all that, two things have happened that, A, our volumes have grown. We have clearly last time also told the street here that our focus is going to be the dairy business and the fish business. We are going to be little more selective about the poultry business in making choices in geographies. Clearly our cattle feed business has grown at 15%. Some of our other segments have grown very well. Fish business has grown pretty well, overall leading to a healthy 7% volume growth for us. Some of it is a planned choice-making that we have let go in the unprofitable segments within poultry, geographies within poultry, and those are conscious choices that we're making. This, if you see as a result, has led to a healthy revenue growth, healthy volume growth. If you see our EBIT margins also have been holding up pretty healthy. Overall, I think this is a journey that is playing out. There is definitely some benefit in this quarter result of us having bought commodity maybe more smartly than others, which may not be exactly structural, but I think there is definitely a structural play which has started panning out for us. Hopefully, that should continue. We are also being helped. What is, in a way, a challenge of CDPL, which is the milk procurement prices. When milk procurement prices are high, it also structurally benefits the animal nutrition industry because then if you are able to give them premium feed, which is actually delivering higher productivity, farmers tend to upgrade to such premium branded products. That is something also which is happening. We have seen our premium products doing pretty well in this last six months as well. At the same time, maybe, I would also take this opportunity to talk about one, again, new disclosure that we're doing and which we've not talked in the past, is within animal nutrition, we have an India business, but we also have a very exciting ACI Godrej Bangladesh business. Oh, yes. That's a business which is coming back, which again, is a focus area for us. That's a business which is on a major turnaround right now. We have a new leadership team in place there. We have started new initiatives in terms of product development there, the first quarter of that turnaround, I think is started. We have driven a very strong double-digit volume value growth across most segments. Wait and watch. I'm pretty hopeful that business doing also strongly for us in the coming years. Okay. Thank you, sir. My next question was regarding the oil palm business. We had flat FFB volumes this quarter, and you said the reason was earlier onset of rain last quarter. What is the volume growth we are seeing in the next quarters, and why has the margin declined this quarter? Full-year basis. Two parts to this. First of all, understand there is a reasonable amount of seasonality which plays between quarters in this business. The jury of this business should be really how do we deliver the year rather than just only quarter-to-quarter, because sometimes these fruit bunches output from trees can vary with showers which happen early or later. Right? The palm tree is pretty receptive to that. Last year, there was very clearly, if you see the whole India had seen very early onset of monsoon, somewhere around April, May itself, early May itself. Which had led to something which had a very high output of FFB in the first quarter. This year, in fact, India has seen the reverse. We've seen the driest quarter. In fact, the palm tree has really, I would say, been very resilient to the driest of Junes, right, and we have still managed to hold on to last year's FFB. That, I think, again, talks of the strength of our work on the ground. That against a very strong early monsoon to a driest of Junes, we have actually managed to hold on to our FFB. I think it's a great work on the extensions, plus it is also part of some of the dividend which starts coming to us every year. Having said that, coming to the second point. The second part, which again, I'll have to reinstate is there. Comes the second part of this business strength is, what are your operating efficiencies? We have actually delivered again a very strong OER this year, right? Which again is better than the OER of the same quarter last year. Which again is the work that we are doing internally. That again talks of the work which is being done by the team in the value chain. The third part I would say is, while the margins may look a little smaller drop here, but I think overall in the year as the season is a bit shifted, we by the end of the year should be able to make up almost this. As of now, no concern in terms of whether this is of anything impact structurally. It's a maybe bit of a phasing of the season. Sir, palm oil prices have been really high this year. As of now, even despite the flat FFB volumes, OER has improved. Why has margins not improved? You're saying we'll recover in the full-year, still, as of quarter one, why have the margins declined on a YoY basis? Okay, I'll tell you this what happens. There is some impacts in every month which sometimes come, is that there is a formula pricing which changes from the government intervention on a month-to-month basis. There's a small impact of some formula which would have come into this quarter, which has happened, which I think we have enough initiatives to mitigate. We don't see this as a structural issue. Again, I'm telling you that this is more of a one-off maybe a quarter of impact. I think we are expecting second and third quarter, which are our peak seasons, to behave differently unless until some varied disasters happen on the El Niño side, which palm trees don't react immediately to this. That is something I still hold on that will do well. The second part on this is that, maybe I forgot to mention, that we still believe that at the end of the year, we'll be able to give around high single digit to double-digit FFB volume growth. That should happen coupled with our OER efficiencies, coupled with some of these mitigation plans that we have and some other initiatives we also have on the value-added side because our specialty fats factory will also start coming into play in the second half of the year. Not full-fledged, not full steam, the early ramp up will happen. I think we should be managing our margins pretty effectively. Okay, sir. Thank you. My next question was regarding the animal feed business only. I've seen the segment liability of the animal feed business have risen drastically in the last year. What is the reason behind that? Are the payables also bloating? What is the EBIT per ton guidance as the maize prices are increasing? Vanshika. Just give me a second. Vanshika, first of all, as I said, obviously, this has been an extraordinarily strong performance for us. If you see our EBIT per ton guidance has always been in the range of around INR 2,100 to, I would say, INR 2,050 to INR 2,200 in that range, INR 2,115 range. We are actually delivered our EBITDA per ton again in this quarter, again, in that range. This is in fact slightly little higher, right? It's a little much higher, I would say. If I were to give a guidance, I think we'll still say you can safely take a guidance of around. Ladies and gentlemen, the line for the management seems to have dropped. Please hold while we reconnect them. Ladies and gentlemen, the line for the management has been reconnected. Thank you, and over to you, sir. I think some parts, as I said, is strategic closing, but I think we are still holding on to guidance of around INR 2,100 to INR 2,050 to INR 2,150 kind of a EBIT per ton. We are also doing premiumization of our portfolio. We are doing geography expansion of the markets. There are new geographies which have been focused. We have done our NPD pipeline. I think that's are the more structural factors which will play out for us. Sir, my next question was regarding the crop care business. You said in the last con call that we were expecting some kind of recovery in quarter two of this year. Also this year monsoon has impacted our business. Are we seeing some traction there? What is the share of Ashitaka and Takai in our segment in revenue as compared to 3%? Okay. Vanshika, I think I have just answered the first part already in Abhijeet's question. Maybe I'll just recap. As I said that the first quarter obviously impacted as a crazy June which happened. The same quarter also we've seen monsoon play a little erratic. I should be able to give you a sense of the crop care business, as I said, as to what is the likely guidance for the year more by end of quarter two. At the same time, I've said there are so many positives for us in the second half apart from the lower base, which I talked about, those four or five new things that are playing out for us. I think that's where the positive side lies for us in the second half. In terms of what the success of Ashitaka, which has happened till now, okay. I think Takai is early days, I guess Takai rolls out over a period of five, six months, so that months are still starting off. Ashitaka, obviously the first phase of the year's big launch is over. Happy to share that between Ashitaka and Takai put together in the first year itself or the first season itself right now, they will be contributing close to 18%-20% of our Q1 sales here. Okay. Thank you so much, sir. That's all from my side. Thank you, ma'am. The next question is on the line of Arun from Unifi Capital. Please proceed with your question. Yeah. My first question is on the crop care business. How do you see the margins on Ashitaka, Takai, and Ghassnash compared with Hitweed? Where do you see the EBIT margin settling once the diversification matures? EBIT margins for the business you are talking of or Yeah, total business? Crop care. Okay. Just give me a second. Yeah. Just give me a second. Yeah. Okay, on the Ashitaka, Ghassnash, and Takai. One thing is that I would say maybe I would not like to exactly tell the full margins because of certain confidential reasons. Two parts are playing out. First of all, these margins would be lower than Hitweed margins because there's a difference between in-house products and in-licensing products. The profile of margin will be different, right? That is one piece. The second part of the piece is that we also double down as we get scale. Two benefits come our way. One is the scale benefit starts coming our way, even with in-licensing partners. We actually then can get a scale leverage, which we believe will happen once these products become successful as per our plans. B, we are able to drive, again, backend efficiencies ourselves in our operational chain, itself. We do these cost projects, et cetera, which again, we are working on already. As going forward, I would say, not the Hitweed margin because they're different, but still pretty healthy margins which these products will be coming at. These are not generic. These are not specialties. These are pretty healthy, decent margin products for us. That's why we're going to invest behind them and make them bigger for us, because we want this diversification to play out very strongly for us over the next five years. Overall, in terms of EBIT, I think we have had an industry-leading EBIT always. I think, despite it being a tough year till now, we believe we can still hold on to roughly around 26%-27% kind of EBIT margin. Got it. The next question is on the animal nutrition business. The cattle feed has grown by 15%, whereas the segment volume growth is only 7%. Does this mean the other feed businesses are dragging? Is that a deliberate strategy, and how do you see the non-cattle verticals going forward? There's a conscious strategy, as said. We have done a full strategic exercise, as I've been talking about it in the last few months. We have done a full strategic relook at our where to play, how to play, and what to play in every business. We clearly do not want to play in certain geographies of the poultry sector. We're not exiting poultry. We still believe within poultry there is a lot to do, but we'll do it in geographies of our choice. That's the call that we have taken. That's where this whole, the planned de-growth of poultry is visible to you. I can tell you what is happening as a result of this. We are playing poultry in the geographies which we think are worth playing in terms of scope of growth as well as profit margins or contribution margins for us. Yes, some of the growth impact that you're seeing is a planned volume de-growth in the poultry segment. At the same time, our other focus area, whether it is the fish feed, whether it is other feeds like swine feed and the cattle feed, all three are growing pretty healthy for us. In fact, I can give you some other number. Our fish feed volume actually has, t his is what? Fish feed, yeah. 21%. Our overall fish feed business has actually grown at around 20% plus. It is ahead of even cattle feed business. What would be the size of, compared to the total segment, the fish feed business? It is a smallish business right now for us. It contributes to roughly around 7% of our business. Got it. What is the cattle's share in the total business? 55%, 56%, cattle. Got it. Also on oil palm business, see, realizations were up 18% this quarter, and the extraction ratio has improved, but as you said, the EBIT margin has fallen from 19% to 17%. It appears the higher CPO prices, they largely are passed to the farmer than to the company. Your thoughts on this, sir? I think I just answered Vanshika's question on the same point. As I said, part of it is due to the certain formula changes which happens sometimes within the quarter itself. I think that played out a bit, which is a pricing formula piece. I think the bigger part of that is the advantages that we get through the OERs and through FFB volume growths. What has played out in this is that our FFB volume growth was flattish, which I've explained again, is a pure seasonal piece because last year was a bumper monsoon, this year's a bumper deficit. Despite that, we were able to hold on to FFB volume. A flattish FFB volume growth, but still overall our oil growth was higher because of the OERs. Coupled with this formula, you're seeing this marginal drop in the segment margin percentage. We are pretty confident that over the course of the quarter, as overall FFB volume grows, we get more scale efficiencies because the factories can also run at more efficiencies as more volume flows in. There are a lot of moving parts in the back end also of this business, that if you get more volume flowing into your business, there are some very fixed overhead which start getting split up of the business. There are those nitty-gritties. I think that will even out for us over the years. Got it. We also wanted to understand how the business segments interact. Cattle feed, dairy, they are inversely linked. High procurement, they hurt Creamline, they seem to drive the cattle feed volumes. Is there any correlation between your cattle feed and crop protection, sir? Have you done any such exercise? Okay. Not that I have done any specific exercise. In recent times, ever since I've joined, no, I have not seen any exercise. Intuitively, the knowledge that resides in the business, we have not come across any direct linkage or correlation between cattle feed and crop care. No, none. Crop care, again, is such a diverse business that within crop care, the segments itself can behave differently. I can tell you the cotton herbicide is a segment which behaves in a very narrow window. It is not about the overall quantum of rain. We have seen that a very crazy amount of heavy rain can also be detrimental, and obviously droughts are no good for any of the crop businesses. That has own very spark handles. Similarly, insecticides behave differently and let's say, maize herbicide behave differently. I would say crop care has no relation to the cattle feed. Crop care has its own patterns within product segments. The synergy that we really see is there are synergies between the milk prices which impact cattle feed and CDPL. In fact, there is one synergy which we have not maybe driven enough, but I don't know whether we can drive at some stage, is whether we can drive some synergies between our back end of our CDPL business and our animal nutrition business, which is a possible future synergy for us. That we have a large-scale farmer network who supply us milk, and they are also ready consumers of animal feed. Very honestly, between the two businesses, we have not driven that synergy till now. Could be a possible work in the LRP period. Got it. On the labor code wage hike, is there any additional provisioning or something that is planned for the next few quarters or all the hikes have already been taken? I'll just ask SV to answer this. Yeah. We have factored in all the impact of the labor code already. We do not expect any additional impact to the business. Okay, thank you. That's it from my end, sir. Thank you, sir. The next question is on the line of Hardik Solanki from ICICI Securities. Please proceed with your question. Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity, sir. Sir, a couple of questions. Number one, as you mentioned about the reason for the decline in crop protection segment, I just want to compare with the other listed peers who have declared their results. Basically, their volumes are in terms of the revenue, they have outgrown much more even in the current environment. Just want to understand whether it's only because of the volume that is flowing through the dealer that has driven their volume, or how is it or why we are lagging behind the whole industry. Hardik, very clearly the segments behave very differently in this. The whole pattern of crops and the placement of products with portfolio within each company is very different. Like I told you that, currently we have that huge concentration of the crop care business historically over the cotton herbicide segment, which over the period of years, let's say in the last couple of years, we have built now the Gracia, which is a chili segment product, insecticide. We've talked of three new launches which are happening, which is gradually going to take us out of the dependence on the cotton herbicide. It's better to compare whether there's an execution issue or whether it's a macro environment question, which is the question you're asking. If we can compare the same segment to same segment performance between companies if that information is available. Right? We try to get that competitive information through our own intelligence. As of we have information, it's not that we have lost out in any form or to any competitive player out there. It is more a macro environment thing, which is playing out for the cotton herbicide right now than anything else. Many of the other players have very other different segments, and that's what our intent is to become a multifaceted crop segment company over the years. Got it. That's clearly helpful. Secondly, as you mentioned that, our oil extraction ratio has improved on year-on-year basis. Can you just help me with the number and along with the absolute FFB volume? Just a second. I'll just see. This year it's going to be 18.8%, huh? 18.8%. Yeah. Our number last year was 18.4% in quarter one, same quarter. This year that number is 18.8%. Okay. That number is flat over last year, which I said I'm pretty happy that it's flat despite the fundamental shifts of the two seasons. One is huge amount of rainfall happening last year, which helped palm trees immediately increase its productivity versus the driest June, which happened that year. I think it's a lot of credit to our teams and the extension work, I think also the demographic dividend which came into handy for us, also, which helped us hold the volumes. We are expecting the season now to shift into the coming quarters. Okay, sir. That's really helpful. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, in the interest of time, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Sunil, sir, for closing comments. This is Burjis Godrej speaking. Thank you. I hope we have been able to answer all your questions. If you have any further questions or would like to know more about the company, we would be happy to be of assistance. Thank you once again for taking the time to join us on this call. Thank you, sir. Thank you. On behalf of Anand Rathi, that concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.