Rogers Sugar Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Roger Sugar, Inc. Analyst Call, November 28th Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press the star zero for the operator. 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-IFRS measures in our call. Please refer to the forward-looking disclaimers and non-IFRS 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, and an archived recording of this call will also be available on our website. I'll now turn the call over to Mike Walton, President and CEO of Roger Sugar. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Thank you all for joining us today. I'll begin the call today with a look at our strong financial results for the fourth quarter and the full fiscal year of 2024. I will also provide an update on the market conditions we are seeing in the sugar and maple businesses and on the work we are doing to position our company for the long-term success. Then I will turn it over to JS, our Chief Financial Officer, for a review of our financial results. I will conclude with an outlook for fiscal 2025. We have an investor presentation accompanying this call. This presentation is available on the investor section of our website. Our strong results for 2024 demonstrates once again how we are delivering value to our customers and our shareholders through our focus on consistent, profitable, and sustainable growth. This is the philosophy behind our Rogers Refined plan that we have discussed with you in the past few conference calls. As a reminder, the four pillars of Rogers Refined are modernizing and growing in our sugar business, driving profitability in maple, maintaining a strong balance sheet, and advancing our ESG program. We are focusing our efforts and our resources in these key areas because we believe this is the right path to making Roger Sugar a better company and a better investment. Once again, our results for the fourth quarter and the full year 2024 are showing the success of this plan. We are positioning our company to take advantage of the favorable market conditions we see today and in the years ahead as we continue to focus on being an industry-leading supplier for our customers while creating value for our shareholders. Beginning with our fourth quarter results, we are reporting adjusted EBITDA of $38 million. This is an improvement of nearly $10 million compared to the fourth quarter last year. Both the sugar and the maple segments contributed to our Q4 profit growth, We achieved this with the benefit of healthy market-based pricing for our products, combined with strong operational execution and an unwavering focus on customer service. Turning to the full year results, our consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $142 million for 2024, compared with $110 million in 2023. In fact, over the past three years, we have delivered growth in our adjusted EBITDA of more than 55%. This was a direct result of our focus on being a supplier of choice to our sugar and maple customers and driving consistent, sustainable, profitable growth within today's favorable market conditions. Looking more closely at sugar, revenue in our sugar segment grew by almost 7% in the fourth quarter and almost 12% for the full year. This was mainly the result of higher market prices for refining-related activities. Adjusted EBITDA in our sugar segment had year-over-year growth of just under 45% for the quarter and over 25% for the full fiscal year. We delivered these results despite the labor disruption at our Vancouver facility in the first half of the year. As we discussed in our last call, the softness in demand from certain North American food and beverage processors persisted into the fourth quarter. This softness is attributable to inflation in food prices across the board and high prices of certain other commodities such as cocoa. To be clear, the food price inflation we are seeing is part of a global trend. Consumer demand has softened as consumers take time to adjust to the impact of broad-based inflation on their food bills. Overall, The impact on our business was a modest decrease of about 5% in sugar volumes for the fourth quarter. This general softness in demand, combined with the impact of our labour disruption in Vancouver in the first half of the year, contributed to a decrease in sales volume for the full year of approximately 5%. We remain confident in the long-term demand for Canadian sugar. Our experienced leadership team has managed this business through past economic cycles. Once the broader market has had time to absorb the impact of inflationary pressure and input costs, the long-term upward trend in demand for sugar-containing products will resume. Now looking at our maple segment, we saw a strong recovery in 2024 from the challenges seen in 2022 and 23. Sales volume increased by 15% for the quarter and 7% for the full year. A combination of volume growth and strong product pricing led to double-digit increases in revenue for the quarter and the full year compared with 2023. Profitability in the maple segment continued to show the benefit of our earlier investments in operational efficiency. Adjusted EBITDA for the full year grew by over 35% to 18 million. We continued to make progress on our LEED project. This is an important and necessary expansion and upgrade of our Montreal refinery and logistic infrastructure. that will add an estimated 100,000 metric tons to our production capacity in eastern Canada. We have mostly completed the planning and design phases associated with LEAP, and the construction phase has begun. Orders for sugar refining equipment and other related large equipment have been placed with suppliers, and some of that equipment is already on site. When we spoke last quarter, I noted that costs for certain key elements of the project were expected to exceed the initial estimates used in our calculations two years ago when we announced the project. Over the past few months, we have worked with our design and construction partners to gather the necessary data and we've reviewed and updated those calculations. We now estimate the total cost to complete LEAP project will range between 280 and 300 million. Contributors to this cost increase include Evolution in the Design, driven by the complexity of the project, market-based increases in construction costs, and newly implemented safety regulations. Many of these incremental costs are related to challenges associated with the repurposing of a section of the Montreal building for the sugar refining portion of the LEAP project. We have also updated the expected completion date of LEAP to the second half of fiscal 26, a delay of approximately six months from our initial estimate. We remain confident in the investment value, which is supported by the robust economic fundamentals of the sugar industry in Canada. We expect the strong demand seen in recent years, along with the related improved pricing in the market, to largely offset the unfavorable impact of the incremental costs and longer construction schedule for the LEAP project. This is a very strategic investment, providing unparalleled connectedness to the eastern domestic market. It is close to our customers. It has a great rail service and is located at a port that is operating year-round, thus facilitating the procurement of raw sugar. LEAP represents an important growth opportunity for our company and for the food transformation industry in Eastern Canada. Our customers are looking to us to meet their needs for the long term. As they grow, we will grow. So they can be confident of our ability to supply sugar when and where they need it. I'll now turn the call over to J.S.

Well, thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. My part of the presentation begins on slide 11. As Mike said in his remarks, we delivered strong financial results throughout 2024. The fourth quarter was no different, with positive revenues and profit growth in both our business segments. Consolidated revenues for the quarter were $333 million, an increase of 8% compared with the fourth quarter of 2023. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA increased by almost 35% during that period to over $38 million. For the full year, revenues increased by almost 12% to $1.2 billion compared with $1.1 billion in 2023. Both our sugar and maple segments reported double-digit growth in revenues year over year. As Mike said, consolidated adjusted EBITDA for the full year increased by over 25% to $142 million. The maple segment accounted for almost 20% of our total revenues, consistent with last year, and 13% of consolidated adjusted EBITDA. Consolidated adjusted net earnings for the full year were $67 million, or $0.56 per share, compared with 45 million, or 42 cents per share in 2023. The EPS number for 2024 includes the impact of the equity issue done in the second quarter, which increased our share outstanding by about 22%. Our strong business results drove an increase of 60% in our full-year free cash flow to 73 million, compared with 46 million in 2023. Now let's look at the individual business segments, starting with sugar. Adjusted EBITDA for the sugar segment increased to 34 million in the fourth quarter compared to 24 million in the same period last year. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA increased to 124 million from 98 million in fiscal 2023. Revenues in our sugar segment were 273 million in the fourth quarter compared with $256 million for the same period last year. For the full year, revenues in our sugar segment were just under $1 billion, an increase of 12% from 2023, mainly related to improved pricing, including the benefit of higher world sugar commodity prices partially offset by lower volume sold. Adjusted gross margin per ton of sugar was $217 in the quarter and $222 for the full year, representing an increase of $61 and $51 per ton, respectively. These favorable variances were due to higher pricing, partially offset by higher production costs. The higher production costs were mainly related to increased maintenance activities in Montreal and Tabor and market-based cost pressures. Administration and selling costs were higher for the quarter and the year, mainly due to market-based increases in compensation and benefit costs, as well as an increase in share-based compensation expense. Now let's move on to the maple segment, where we are reporting strong financial results for a fifth straight quarter. Maple results benefited from higher volumes and improved selling prices. Revenues increased by more than 15% during the quarter and more than 10% for the full year. Adjusted gross margin for this segment improved to 10.3% in fiscal 2024. Adjusted EBITDA in Maple was slightly lower than last year for the fourth quarter due to non-recurring items. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA in the Maple segment was $18 million compared with $13 million in 2023. The strong results of our maple segment seen over the last few quarters reflect the benefits of higher selling prices and higher volumes, as well as the investment in operational improvements implemented over the last two years. Our total capex for the year for both segments, excluding expenditures associated with the LEED project, amounted to $32.5 million. This represents an increase of $6.5 million over 2023, reflecting incremental work done on our aging infrastructures in Montreal. Regarding our lead project, we have spent 53 million thus far, including 42 million in fiscal 2024. Looking more globally at our financial metrics, we continue on our path to maintain a strong balance sheet. Our strong financial performance through the year has translated into a significant uplift in our free cash flow for the year. For 2024, Free cash flow was $73 million, an increase of $28 million over last year. We also executed a successful equity issue in the second quarter, receiving net proceeds of $113 million in support of the financing plan of our LEED project. Our financing plan for the LEED project is scalable, allowing us to meet the incremental expected construction costs Mike has highlighted earlier on. We continue to plan to fund this project through a combination of debt, equity, our existing revolving credit facilities, and internally generated capital. We also have access to funds through two secured loans with Investee Small Quebec. Considering our current liquidity and the timing related to the LEAP-related expenditures, we intend to repay our six-series convertible debentures, which matured in December 2024, using a combination of available cash and or our revolving credit facilities. We will assess the need for future similar financing in the second quarter of fiscal 2025 while also considering the upcoming maturity of the seven series convertible debentures in June 2025. Finally, we have maintained our regular distribution to shareholders this quarter with a dividend of $0.09 per share. With that, I will turn the call back over to Mike to provide a summary and outlook for 2025. Thank you, J.S.

We are pleased with our results for 2024, especially considering the significant complexity added to the business from the Vancouver refinery labor disruption. Following a year of strong performance in revenue, profitability, and free cash flow, we look forward to a consistent and stable financial performance in 2025. Looking at sugar volumes specifically, despite the volume softness in the last half of fiscal 2024, we anticipate an eventual continuation of the historic rate of demand growth for sugar in the market. Our current outlook is for sales volume of 800,000 metric tons in 2025. This is consistent with our expectation for 2024 prior to the impact of the labor disruption in Vancouver. At our Tabor facility, we are in the processing stage of the 2024 sugar beet harvest and expect to produce between 105 and 110,000 metric tons of beet sugar from this facility. Although it is early in the process, the campaign is going well thus far. We expect 2025 profitability in our sugar segment to be in line with 2024. Market-based pressure on operating costs should be largely mitigated by the strength in product pricing that we continue to observe in the market, as well as by our own operational excellence. We also expect continued strength in our maple segment results in 2025, following the market recovery of 2024. We had a strong maple crop in 2024, which will support the current market demand. We expect spending on CapEx to fall between 25 and 30 million for the year across our business segments, excluding the expenditures related to our LEAP project. This will be an important year for our LEAP project, as the majority of the construction work will take place in 2025. Spending is expected to be in the range of $120 million in fiscal 2025. As J.S. said earlier, we have a financing plan in place to meet this demand for capital, and we are excited about the work we are doing to position this company for long-term growth. With a year of strong performance behind us, our financing is in place, our expansion project well underway, and we are looking ahead to 2025 with confidence. I am grateful for the support and contributions of our board, our management team, and thankful to all of our employees for their hard work throughout the year. To our valued customers and business partners, we appreciate your support and look forward to continuing to serve you in the years to come. Thank you again for joining us on the call today and for your interest in Roger Sugar. I'll now ask the operator to poll for questions.

Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press the star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press the star followed by the number two. Once again, please press the star one to ask a question. Your first question comes from the line of Michael Van Elst with TD Cohen. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. I'd like to start off with the North American demand outlook for refined sugar. It was down slightly, you said, and that doesn't look like it's changing in the short term, but you expect it to start to increase. I'm actually interested And when you're starting to expecting to see more sugar containing product capacity amongst your customers in Canada, you know, so that, you know, I'm talking about the capacity that ends up getting shipped back down to the U.S.

Good morning, Michael. Morning. Yeah, we're seeing, we're looking, of course, as we've got decades of experience in this, Looking long-term at the growth back into the Canadian market for SCPs, as you're referring to, for going to other markets, especially the U.S. We're suffering like everybody is globally in shrink inflation and food inflation. And so that's created a bit of a softness in demand we saw coming out of 2024. That will probably continue somewhat through to the end of this calendar quarter. And our analysis shows those numbers starting to recover in 2025. And some of that is supported, you know, specifically to the point you raised. Some of the customers that announced new plants and have built new plants in Canada, those plants will start coming on stream mid-2025. So we see the recovery from a couple of factors.

So if that's the case, why are you not expecting an improvement in volumes excluding the strike rate? from last year?

Well, I think, it's Jeff here, Mike. I think we're looking at this and there's still a lot of things in the air. And so for us, 800,000 is pretty much operating at capacity. So it's very difficult for us to increase the current capacity that we have and going forward until we have the LEAP project on producing. And so that's why when we look at putting our outlook we kind of had to pretty much stay with what we had in the past because there's not that much more capacity that we have in order to increase our volume.

Okay, so you're just shifting mix around. You're just shifting mix, taking away from export, focusing on domestic customers. And are you getting to a point where you're having to choose between domestic customers as well?

No, not at this point, Michael, because those customers are also ramping up. It's not an on-off switch as the demand starts to recover and new capacity comes on. So we're working closely with our customers, and the numbers we're seeing and the forecasts we have, this gives us the responsibility of the run rate we've put forward. Okay.

And the liquid volumes are down three-quarters in a row, and it seems to be getting – that drop keeps getting larger. Is that – And it says temporary reduction in purchases from customers. But is that expected to stabilize shortly?

Yeah, overall the mix will move about with business opportunities. And as you may recall, about a year ago, a large liquid soft drink bottler in Calgary went back to high fructose corn syrup. And so that would be showing in the numbers. And we've offset those volumes, those intentional kind of lower margin volumes with a stronger domestic price volume product mix.

Okay. And then curious if there's any, what kind of impact you're expecting from the dock worker strike, if at all, for you? And then also... if you could give us your views on the potential risk of if there were to be a 25% import tax into the U.S. and all that business that's being produced here and shipped into the States.

Yeah, thanks, Michael. And your first question on potential issues with dock workers and whatnot, it seems this is our normal course of operating environment the last couple of years between the railway strikes and port strikes and other actions like this. We run intentionally high inventories on RAS at all locations. And as you may recall from earlier conversations as we pivoted this business three years ago, we doubled our on-site storage, for example, in Montreal of RAS. And we keep our pipeline of rail cars more full and more at destination. So from a supply point on both RAS and Refine, these things are more annoying and costly than they are disruptive to actual supply to our customer network. And we can pull from multiple sites. I mean, if we've got a problem in the east, we can pull from the west. If we've got a problem in the west, we can pull from the east. So we've gotten very good at moving sugar around the country and meeting the customer demand when and where they need it. As far as the big wild question of the week, which has made for a very interesting week, I think, for every organization in North America. You know, we've been in business for almost 140 years, and we've seen a lot of things come and go in trade and demand. We'll continue to focus on our business. We'll focus on servicing our customers and meeting our customers' needs and helping them through this as well and see where it settles out. As you know, myself, I've been around over 40 years and been at the table in trade negotiations. I know how these things come and go, and we'll continue to just focus on servicing our customers and monitor it closely. I'm sure there's conversations going on in every boardroom in North America this week.

Yeah, I guess I can imagine. I mean, yeah, I think there's a lot of different views you can have on this one and whether it'll come through or not, but probably just a negotiating tactic. But if it were to go through, does that nullify the benefit of producing product in Canada with the lower Canadian sugar and shipping it back to the U.S.?

Yeah, we don't want to speculate, Michael, because it's just such a massive gap. Let's go back to fundamentals. I always come back to the fundamentals in these kinds of circumstances. The U.S. is a net deficit market. And I know you've covered sugar a long time. And if you think back to the price spikes of the 70s and 80s, driven by demand in the United States, they will not go without sweetener. And it's a significant deficit versus domestic supply. So I don't want to speculate, don't get trapped into making an assumption, but I would believe that over time, this will get some way sorted out, and all the boats are going to rise together regardless. The demand will still be there. It just could be at a higher price.

All right. I'll let somebody else jump in.

Thanks, Michael.

Thanks.

And your next question comes from the line of Stephen McLeod with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, guys. Morning. Good morning. Just a couple of questions. You know, Mike, you mentioned in your prepared remarks just some interesting commentary around consumers, you know, absorbing inflation into their decision making. And I'm just curious kind of how you've seen that evolve over the last, you know, call it 12 to 18 months and sort of where you think we are in terms of the consumer's willingness to or ability to absorb inflation and and return to kind of previous consumption or spending habits?

So, yeah, there's no science in this for sure. We've been through, as I just said to Michael, you know, I've been through world price spikes on sugar costs for many times in my career. Sugar still remains a very low-cost functional ingredient, whether it's for a consumer or for a manufacturer, and there aren't many alternatives that can replace sugar. at the same price and the functionality of sugar. So the sugar consumption will recover as consumers start purchasing. The softness that we see more is on shrink inflation. So just to pick one subject, if you say a chocolate bar, if someone bought a, I don't know, 200-gram chocolate bar was a normal portion, and now they're 175, they're still only buying one, and so pounds of consumption drops. We've seen those in previous spikes in food inflation. you know, for our tenure in this business. And over time, the sizes come back and consumption comes back on a poundage basis. So it's more shrink inflation than cost inflation directly. And I think that will start to play out after we get through the holidays.

Right. Okay. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. And then just on the revised LEAP project expenses and timing, you know, just curious sort of what your level of confidence is around the revised timing and around the revised costs.

That's a great question, Stephen. And we spent a lot of months looking at this since we gave a heads up last quarter where we're starting to see some drift in the numbers. I think foundationally, it pivots off the same point you just asked about inflation. Our numbers for the LEED project were established two years ago. And so just like we're seeing inflation in food products, we're also experiencing food inflation on the other side. We're not insulated from it either. And so those cost assumptions and analysis that were done were almost two years old. Some of them are now refined. They're more firmed up. More commitments are made. A higher percentage of our contracts are awarded. And our degree of confidence is significantly higher in the number we've put forward now. And, you know, bar none foreseen circumstances, this should be where we deliver the project.

Okay. That's great. Thank you. And then maybe just on the outlook, you know, just thinking about the sugar business, you're guiding to kind of flat – yeah, I mean, effectively a flat gross margin year over year, which is at a new higher, I guess, watermark or benchmark, I would say. So I'm just curious, like – Is that in fact a new high watermark for you in terms of the adjusted gross margin per metric ton in that $220 range, and is that something we can expect even beyond next year as you get the LEAP project moving and benefit from all this new capacity coming online as well?

I think from a growth margin standpoint, if you look over the last two years, the incremental growth margin is somewhere around 40% to 50% increase that we've seen, which is quite strong. Obviously, we're not expecting such increase going forward, but such increase actually helps from an elite perspective in the sense that if you look at the incremental cost we have when we did the first analysis, We obviously didn't use those kind of margin. I think this type of margin is sustainable. Now, we have to bear in mind that the extra capacity coming from LEAP is industrial capacity. So the mix will change a little bit. So I wouldn't add 100,000 tons at this type of margin. So it would slightly be a bit lower on the new capacity. But for the remaining capacity, for what we have, I think we're comfortable with that on a going forward basis. However, you know, we're not expecting the same type of growth that we've seen over the last two years.

Okay. Thanks, JS. And then maybe just finally on Maple, you know, you're still kind of expecting that 10% gross margin rate going forward? Yes. Yes, we are. Great. Okay. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, JS. Appreciate it. Thanks for your comments.

Your next question comes from the line of John Zambaro with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much. Good morning. I wanted to come back to the tariff question. I wonder, as you see the industry in the US, do you think there's an ability for US-based competitors to ramp up production relatively quickly to fill that gap versus consumption?

John, that's a really great hypothetical question. And just to be clear, are you referring to sugar refining specifically or food manufacturing? I suppose both. Yeah. Well, sugar refining is generally running at capacity. There hasn't been a lot of expansion in the U.S. There could be some tweaking to get it up to capacity, to get more capacity into the U.S. market. But in my Humble opinion. Not within three to five years could they even possibly be a self-sufficient supplier in the U.S. market.

And I suppose, I mean, projects are different everywhere, but your experience with LEAP, the timeline for construction, to your comment about three to five years, the timeline of your construction project wouldn't be meaningfully different for anyone in America building at that pace, I assume.

Yeah, that's exactly it. And if it was food manufacturing... And to add capacity even to existing sites in the United States, one could hypothetically realize that they could expand the food manufacturing production lines and capacity, but they've got to have sugar to feed it. So it's a vicious circle. Right.

Okay. Does the volume guide assume any impact of tariffs, or is that separate at the moment?

No, it does not.

Okay. Okay. And then leaving exports aside, you've taken a meaningful level of share in Canada over the past few years. I wonder if you could talk about the potential to gain more share from Canadian customers that are not shipping across the border.

Yeah, I think, John, one important distinction is we have not taken share. We're just taking our share of the growth in the Canadian market. The Canadian market has grown substantially because of SEP trade and population growth. So it is not a share gain. It is a growth in the market and we're all sharing our own piece.

Okay, got it. And then one last one for me on LEAP, just coming back to your level of confidence in the total cost. I wonder if you have firm commitments on the price of equipment and also labor at I don't know how you might frame this, but of the 280 to 300 million total costs, is a certain amount of that effectively locked in at the moment?

Yeah, John, on the equipment side and services and supplies, about probably near 90% is locked up and firm. Construction costs, of course, is the next big phase. Those are guidance and estimates with appropriate contingencies that match the complexity of the project. And so we're, you know, as I said earlier, we're as confident as we can be. Given what we know today, we should be able to deliver this project at the numbers we've indicated. Got it. Okay.

I appreciate the call.

Thank you. Thanks, John.

Your next question comes from the line of Zachary Evershed with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Good morning, Zach. Roughly speaking, could you refresh us on what percentage of your sales in Canada are used in SPs that are subsequently exported to the U.S.? ?

Somewhere between 30% and 45% of all refined sugar in Canada ends up in a sugar-containing product that leaves and goes to the United States or Europe or other jurisdictions, but predominantly the United States.

Good color. Thanks. And then you mentioned that you'll be waiting until Q2 to take a look at your options for equity financing and maturing to ventures. What additional information are you hoping to get by that time to influence your decisions?

I think we're going to look at the market. I think we've seen a tendency of interest rates that are coming down. We're also looking at our own liquidity. We're going to look at the pace of spending per lead. Right now, we're quite comfortable with our liquid ease. So as we get into the new year, I would say, which is for us the second quarter, we'll evaluate the best course of action. So we will repay the Series 6 at maturity and then assess the overall need for the following year, also considering the maturity of the Series 7 that's in June 2025.

Thank you very much. And then last question on the guidance for maple volumes. Is that a reflection of consumer sentiment or how much torque do you think there is there on operating leverage?

You're asking about the maple business? Sorry, Zach, I just missed that.

That's right.

Okay. So on the maple business, we've done a great amount of work over the last two years in operational efficiencies. I think we – sometimes we can call it right size of business and looking at different options for all our different production facilities. I wouldn't say there is no more way to – you always strive to get better. But I think from an operational standpoint, we're quite comfortable with our production costs and our production throughput from our Maple facility. So looking at Maple going forward, it's more a question of volume, sales, and pricing.

And Zach, to add to that, we've seen the global demand, which is tracked by many agencies on Maple, because it's a very concentrated supply base. We're seeing growth return in foreign markets, the U.S. and Europe especially, where consumers are coming back to Maple, coming out of the inflationary environment, they're coming back. So we're seeing growth.

Thank you very much. I'll turn it over. Thank you, Zach. Thanks, Zach.

And we have a follow-up question coming from Michael Van Elst with TD Cohen. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Just a few quick ones here. You talked about some non-recurring items in Q4, I think both last year and this year, for the maple side. Can you give us some details on that and what a normalized number would look like?

Yeah, I think the normalized number would be aligned with what we delivered for the year at somewhere just north of 10%. Some of the stuff we had in the fourth quarter are mainly related to old inventories that we had that we had to take care of. So part of our annual review process.

Okay. And do you have price increases already announced for Maple for next year?

Typically, Michael, the pricing increases come out after the negotiation with PPAC for the base cost of the commodity of the syrup, which is in the process now. And we generally line up our negotiations with the sellers a different cycle than sugar, of course, because of the supply. And we will have new price increases that will start somewhere in the first calendar quarter of 2025 once we confirm the base commodity costs.

Okay. And then on the sugar side, so it sounds like kind of stable volume without, you know, and stable margins. So are you, is it basically, are you basically just guiding towards fiscal 24 EBITDA plus the five and a half million roughly from the Vancouver strike for fiscal 25?

I think, I think, you know, our guidance is that, you know, it's probably aligned with those. I think we're more towards like the volume and and then we will not, we will assess, you know, where this volume is going to come from. So I think it will depend on the mix of product that we're going to sell will have an impact. I think one thing about the Vancouver strike, it cannot, it can only be taken at, well, okay, 23 and a half thousand ton. I think there was some lingering effect as well. And then some of the mix has changed since then. So I think we're recapturing all that. I think we're quite comfortable with, with our volume outlook and probably adding a little bit from the recovery from the strike.

Michael, if you go back to a year or so ago, we made our comments that we're quite satisfied with the overall volume that we're delivering in the market right now and we get leap on stream. We're focused on the profitability and sustainable profitability of the business. That's our focus. It's not just pricing, operational excellence And execution against our business metrics is really our focus going forward as we stabilize the business at this new base level. Okay.

All right. Great. Thanks. Good luck.

Thanks, Michael.

Thank you. And I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would like to turn it back to Mike Walton for closing remarks.

Thank you, Operator. Thank you, everybody, for joining us today, and we look forward to updating you in February at our next quarter call. Have a good holiday.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.