AAK AB (publ)

STO:AAK

Earnings Call Transcript 2018-Q4

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the AAK Q4 2018 Reports. Today, I'm pleased to present CFO, Fredrik Nilsson; and Johan Westman, President and CEO. [Operator Instructions] Speakers, please begin.

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to AAK's investor call for the fourth quarter and the year-end of 2018. This is Johan Westman, President and CEO. And together with me today, I also have our CFO, Fredrik Nilsson, and we will run this presentation together. We are now on Page 2, the agenda for today. So we'll give some comments on the fourth quarter and the year. We'll then look into our business areas and our progress in our company program, The AAK Way. And after that, we will have a Q&A session for you. With that, we're moving into Page 3. As you've seen in the report, we continue to grow organically. We're up 4% year-on-year, and we're also increasing our operating profit, which increased by 10% in the fourth quarter. Most regions and product segments did report earnings growth, and as expected, we were held back a little bit within the Chocolate & Confectionery areas with regards to the lower yield than normal that we have from our raw materials. And we continue to focus on that and, obviously, we are also debottlenecking our operations, as earlier commented. With that, moving into Page 4, highlights from the fourth quarter. We did issue a bond of SEK 1.1 billion to an interest rate of STIBOR plus 105 basis points. We have a total MTN program framework of SEK 4 billion. So we have just started, but a good start. We've had also in the fourth quarter our Capital Market Day, and during this, we presented the AAK strategy and business performance. We also presented our focus on M&A and what is important for us as we go forward. We, as a company, 100% focused on plant-based oils and fats. Also discussed the trends in -- the consumer trends in the world and also how the population is growing, and so forth, in different regions. All in all, we are very well positioned in the plant-based sector. Talked a bit about sustainability as well as about our innovation, our customer co-development approach. We're also glad to see that we, in the quarter, received information about Corporate Knights report over sustainable corporations in the world. And we're proud to see that AAK has been ranked as one of the 100 most sustainable corporations in the world by Corporate Knights. Moving on to Page 5. Few comments on the year. So all in all, 2018, after 4 quarters in a row with earnings growth and organic growth, the full year, obviously, became a year with continued good progress for AAK. And our total operating profit grew by 10% year-on-year, which is completely in line with our management ambition for operating profit. We also see that return on capital employed increased from 15.6% up to 15.8%. And also our margin operating profit per kilo rose up 4% year-on-year. With that, moving into Page 6. Our trends. So basically, the quarter 4 of 2018 really fits well with the historic trend that we have had for our operating profit growth.With that, I will now hand it over to Fredrik Nilsson, our CFO, that will give you a bit more meat to the bone on our financial performance. Fredrik?

[Fredrik Nilsson]

Thank you, Johan. And what I would like to highlight on Page 7 is the volume growth. You see it's actually the quarter with the highest volume ever in the history of AAK. So we continue to do really well and continue to grow earnings.Let's move to Page 8, and look a little bit more into the details. We have a positive translation impact in the quarter of SEK 30 million, SEK 10 million is related to Food Ingredients, SEK 4 million related to Chocolate & Confectionery Fats and then we have a small negative in Group Functions. Based on current currency rates, we should expect to see a minor positive impact in the next quarter as well. Let's move on to Page 9, working capital days. You can see the working capital days have increased during the year. Inventories and accounts payables are more less balancing out each other, while we see an increased accounts receivable days of 2, and that's mainly related to the mix where we see more specialty solution and then we see a pressure upwards on our accounts receivable days. Other items have increased 5 days, and this is mainly related to changes in raw material derivatives. With decline in raw material prices, you will get negative cash flow when we're rolled in the hedge portfolio, and then the positive cash flow will come when we are getting paid by the customers. Let's move to Page 10, and raw material prices. As you can see in the chart, the palm and the rapeseed prices have turned in different direction, and the spread has increased during the quarter. The palm oil price has decreased, while the rapeseed oil price has been more stable in the quarter. The lower raw material prices should have a positive cash flow impact in the beginning of the year. However, I would also like to highlight that we have seen a plus 20% increase in the palm oil price over the last month, which will have a negative cash flow impact with a time lag of 6 to 9 months. And finally, regarding the raw material prices, I would also like to remind you that the 10% change in all our raw material prices will have a cash flow impact of SEK 300 million. Let's move to Page 11 and the cash flow. We continue to have a good EBITDA increase in the quarter. It was SEK 57 million in the fourth quarter. Paid interest was flat versus last year. Regarding paid tax, you can see a significant higher paid tax in the fourth quarter 2018 versus 2017, but this is entirely related to timing. You can see that if you look at the full year numbers. Noncash items is mainly related to the mark-to-market impact of our financial instruments as we are using for hedging raw materials. Positive cash flow from working capital in the quarter of SEK 60 million. It's mainly the lower raw material prices that has given us help in the quarter, but that has been partly offsetting by we are also purchasing some strategic raw materials in the fourth quarter. Looking at the investments. The site for maintenance investment, the rate of capital expenditure remains on a high level as we are increasing the capacity of existing facilities. We have previously guided, but the investments for the full year should end around SEK 800 million and it's ended at SEK 720 million. We have not made less investments, it's only timing from a cash flow point of view, and we will have a little bit more carryover with us going into 2019. Let's move to Page 12, our return on capital employed. As Johan mentioned, we continue to improve. And improve the return of capital employed is mainly driven by our increased operating profit. By that, I would like to hand back the microphone to Johan.

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

Thank you, very much, Fredrik. With that, we're moving into Page #13 and a bit more comments on our business areas and industries. For Food Ingredients, we saw a continued strengthening of our operating profits. Our operating profit grew by 7%. This is really based out of an improved margin. As you can see, our operating profit per kilo increased by 6%. In many areas, we do focus on the high value-added products and the mix. So when we see this with a little bit of a lower volume, there is also including a focus on the high value-added solutions versus the low value-added solutions. So we're satisfied with the good growth on operating profit, but then, obviously, we'll continue to focus on organic growth for the right segments, where we are well positioned going forward. We saw a slightly negative volume growth in the quarter for Special Nutrition, and that is worth commenting as well. So really, what that is, is again, it's a mix thing with us selling a bit more concentrated products versus blended finished product. And with that, the volume goes down, but still the EBIT per kilo goes up. So it's a really good mix for us. With that, moving on to quickly Page 14. We can see the trends for Food Ingredients. Volume continuing up and, especially the operating profits really strengthened in the quarter and operating profit per kilo is slightly up. All right. With that, moving into Page 15 and some more comments on Chocolate & Confectionery Fats. Significant volume growth. Here we have seen some spot opportunities with the low-end products for us, so that's really behind that significant volume growth, where the operating profit, you could say, only grew by 3%. But this is back to the comments we have made earlier. So we still see a very strong demand for our high-end solutions. However, nothing has changed really and it is as expected. We are still using our stock of slightly lower quality kernels, which is giving us a lower yield and with that a lower output and higher cost. So in the medium term to long term, we are still very optimistic. We have started and we are implementing our capacity improvements that will come into the later part of the year. We are also now in the season for sourcing new kernels and raw materials for this business. And with that being phased in during the year, we will also -- we're also expecting our yield to go up. With that, let's move on to Page 16. You can see that the cocoa butter price is -- hasn't moved a lot. It's hovering around USD 6,000 per ton or USD 6 per kilo. Page 17 to see the trends for Chocolate & Confectionery Fats, so really the operating profit per kilo decline is linked to the higher costs that we talked about. But in the long term, we do see very good opportunities to turn that curve around. But we have to do the actions that we have in place, and we'll have to get the better raw material in. So we expect improvements by the later part of '19 and then into '20.Page 18, Technical Products & Feed. Really a strong quarter. Organic volume growth, 10% up year-over-year and operating profit, up 61% year-on-year. So really a strong finish to the year for TPF. What is really positive in this industry is that we have been able to do our -- to use our customer co-development approach to really drive a good business for us. So we have moved to a new level, you could say, in profitability. But at the same time, we need to mention that in the quarter, we had a really good product mix, and we also had a very good crushing margin. So that is, to some extent, extraordinary good. But at the same time, we, on a longer-term perspective, we have seen that we have moved up in profit margin, and we are doing really good results with our customer co-development approach. So expect a continued better profit level than the longer-term perspective going back. But at the same time, Q4 was extraordinary good in terms of the crushing margin and product mix. You can see that on Page 19 as well how Q4 is really bouncing up in operating profits and operating profit per kilo. But you also see, what I just mentioned, that in terms of average level, the whole 2009 -- '18 has been a positive move up in the way we do business within TPF. Now a few comments on Page 20 to our AAK Way, the company program that we are running. We have now been doing that for 2 years, and this year, 2019, is the final year in this program. We show a good progress in most of the areas. Now our focus is really on delivering on the targets that was set out in the beginning. It's time to harvest and time to really push forward and make sure that we deliver what we promised. And with that, we're going to get into 2020 in a stronger -- with a stronger backbone in AAK. Page 21. We have a management ambition to grow our EBIT by 10% year-on-year. After 24 months, since this target, we are exactly on plus 10%. So good development over the last 24 months, and we reiterate this target going forward. Page 22, some concluding remarks. As we are positioned in the plant-based industry, we deliver -- we produce and deliver plant-based specialized oils and fats for the food industry. We bring healthy, high value-adding oils and fats solutions to our customers. We're using our customer co-development approach, and we are really recognized by that. In addition, we do see favorable underlying trends in the food industry. We see consumer behaviors being in favor of using more plant-based products. Sustainability, health, focus on nutrition, so in a long-term perspective, we do see that our industry ends in a good position for continued growth going forward. Thus, we do remain prudently optimistic about the future, although keeping in mind some of the challenges we have in Chocolate & Confectionery for the year. But in the long-term perspective, we are prudently optimistic. Thank you very much. With that, let's take some questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Carl Mellerby of SEB.

[Carl Mellerby]

My first one related to the CCF division and the bottlenecks that you're experiencing there. Can you comment anything on when we can expect those to be easing? And also on M&A, you're answering 2019 with a very solid balance sheet, so I was wondering if you could comment on the M&A pipeline as well as comment on what geographies you find the most interesting right now for future potential M&A. And then finally, if you can give us some comments on the development towards TROPICAO as well as senior and medical nutrition.

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

Thank you very much. Let's start with the CCF. Yes, and as mentioned, we do see the capacity that we are investing and the increases really expected in the later part, which is really end of Q3 and in Q4. At the same time, we're obviously doing debottlenecking and process improvements as we speak. So we are improving as we speak, but the real lift in capacity should come by the end of the year. And then keep in mind that our total output again is dependent on the capacity, but also on the raw material yield. So also as we shift in better kernels, we will also get more output, but that also is forecasted to take to Q3, Q4. Then to your question on M&A. M&A is in focus for us. We believe that M&A can really serve our purpose by acquiring us into more speciality as well as new and bolt-on acquisitions for continued geographical expansion like we have done in the past. The regions that we focus on, obviously, we want to grow our global footprint. But really, there is a lot of untapped potential in Asia, India, China, Southeast Asia, also in Europe and in some of the market that we are already -- some of the countries that we are already, we're seeing really good opportunities for continued organic growth with acquisitions. And with those acquisitions, we see it as also way to get more capacity. And from that, grow organically. But with regards to medical nutrition and product development, we are coming from a low base. So our focus has been and our high volume is really within infant nutrition. We do our development within senior nutrition and medical. Going forward, the whole nutrition space is of key interest for us, but we are gearing up, and we need to learn more about the certain subsegments in order to be more precise in how we invest going forward. But that is -- so we're starting up from a low level, but medical nutrition is play a part of that focus.

[Carl Mellerby]

And anything worth mentioning on TROPICAO?

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

Yes, we continue to push forward. The ramp up or the industrialization of that has been taking somewhat longer time, but we do have customers that are trying this as we speak. So depending on how those trials will develop, we will see how that will progress going forward. But it's a bit too early to give any better forecast.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Heidi Vesterinen of Exane BNP Paribas.

[Heidi Maria Vesterinen, Financial Analyst]

Just 3 questions, please. I think last quarter, you were talking about some weakness in the U.S., and I think we saw, on the other day that Fuji Oil is talking about weakness in that market. So could you update us on that, please? And then second question, could we have a comment on Brexit? I know that your production is close to your customers, but you probably are shipping maybe raw material into the country. So I mean, if there are tariffs, would you get impacted? And then another one, for Fredrik, I suppose. With the IFRS 16 implementation, is that going to impact your EBIT or EBIT per kilo this year?

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

Thank you very much, Heidi. Taking the U.S. question first. Yes, we have mentioned that and to be maybe more precise on the U.S. So when we compare our targets and our internal plan, we saw a weakness in the U.S., and we did not grow as much as we wanted year-on-year in the U.S. U.S. is still a profitable and really good business for us. So got to see that with a bit of perspective. So what we have seen is that in the later part of Q3 and Q4, we floored it a bit, so got to stable level and saw some positive momentum based on where we were in Q1 and the beginning of Q3. But not any significant movement, but I will say stable development in the fairly okay Q4. So we don't see any massive weakness, but still weaker than our ambition. And for Brexit, yes, that is in focus for us, so we are operating in the U.K. We are producing in the U.K. We are sourcing from the outside, and majority of what we need in order to operate and sell and ship to our customers in the U.K. is coming from either within U.K. or outside EU. So from a helicopter view, we're really in good shape. Then, obviously, the devil is in the details, so we need to have everything in order to be able to operate. So that is where our focus is on the few raw materials that we need and also with the risk of higher administration and so forth. We are preparing ourselves. We have mitigation plans, and we feel ready. We feel that we are in a really good position. But at the same time, we don't know until whatever happens, happens. So we feel prepared for Brexit. And then, Fredrik, over to you, for IFRS 16.

[Fredrik Nilsson]

Thank you, Johan. And first of all, I would like to just inform that there will be a lease liability in the balance sheet going into 2019 of around SEK 900 million. And as all companies using IFRS accounting standards, that will be a small positive -- there will be a small positive for AAK when we are going in and starting to use IFRS 16 from January 1. But it will not be a material positive impact on the EBIT line. But there will be a small positive impact from 1st of January.

[Operator]

And next question comes from the line of Kenneth Toll of Carnegie.

[Kenneth Toll Johansson, Financial Analyst]

So I have a question on the...

[Operator]

Kenneth, your line is very quiet. Are you able to adjust the mouthpiece or speak a little bit louder?

[Kenneth Toll Johansson, Financial Analyst]

Okay. Hope this is better. Great. Yes, so a question on Chocolate & Confectionery Fats, you still have these capacity constraints on the high-end side of the product range. But on the other hand, you had a very strong volume development on the sort of mid and lower range. Do you see this continuing into the first and second quarter?

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

So yes, you're completely correct. But a fair share of this was taking opportunities, spot opportunities. So we don't see that significant growth continuing in that, and it isn't really our strategy either to grow the low value-added solutions. But once in a while, we take spot opportunities to lower the plants when we have that opportunity, but our focus is still to bring value added to our customers and bring it -- bring up the EBIT per kilo.

[Kenneth Toll Johansson, Financial Analyst]

Great. Then also on the Technical Products & Feed, the results were very strong. And you mentioned in your presentation that you're -- that the company has sort of found a new way of doing business on that side. And we've clearly seen the EBIT effect from that. Do you believe that, that new way of doing business could continue for years ahead as well? Or is it also more spot business?

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

Very relevant question. So as you -- I think, you know, the TPF business is really taking some more residuals and fractions that we get from our other operations and then doing the best with that. What is really promising that we have really an ambitious, passionate and really strong business development team that focus on our customer co-development approach in these segments. And we've been able to drive some business here and open up new segments. For example, the candle business. So yes, we will continue to do that in the same manner that we are in our other industries. So yes, we will continue to do that. I think you can expect us to be able to find good business opportunities with this approach. But at the same time, it's a lower volume segment with a little bit lower margins in total and then dependent a bit on the crushing margin and so forth. So I think you can expect an improvement going forward. That is clearly our focus, but maybe not bank on significant improvement.

[Operator]

And our next question comes from the line of Oskar Lindstrom of Danske Bank.

[Oskar Lindstrom, Senior Analyst]

So 3 questions from my side. The first one concerns the CCF division and the lower yields, due to the lower quality kernels. What was the total impact on EBIT from this in 2018? Yes, that's the first question.

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

That's a good question. We are not on that level in our reporting, but it had a significant impact. You can see it in our results and results per kilo. But we're not reporting that level of detail to give you that specific answer. But the only thing we do know is that as that improve, our total cost of production is also improving.

[Oskar Lindstrom, Senior Analyst]

Okay. And as I understood from your presentation here earlier, I mean, we should expect that to continue, for what, the first half of the year? And then -- I mean, what is the shift? Is it very sudden? Like you get on the new batch in Q3? Or how will this...

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

Literally -- yes, it's a good question. We can be as precise as we can. We basically have -- so we are sourcing once a year when the crop is there for shea kernels, all right? So what we have in stock today is the stock that we know, and we know the quality, we know it's yielding lower. And then we have just almost finished the sourcing of -- from this season that we will use during the later part of the year and into 2020. And then we're sourcing again with the next crop and the next crop. That is how it works. So in theory, we could take in all the new kernels and use them. And then for a period of time, we would have high yields, but we will still then have our stock left, or we can use more of the low-quality stock and you'll see even lower yield. What we're doing is that we're blending now good kernels with the stock of kernels yielding a bit lower. And I should say that they are not low quality from an end product perspective. They are delivering the same customer quality. It's the yield that is lower. So the reason why we can be specific and say that it will take Q1, Q2 and a bit into Q3 is that we know that our plan is to use the stock that we have and mix it in with the new kernels that we get. And then hopefully when we have replenished that by Q3, then we are in a situation with better yielding kernels as we go forward. At the moment, it's clearly lower than normal if you take a 5-year perspective.

[Oskar Lindstrom, Senior Analyst]

And my second question is the - is there any change in the competitive landscape or in the behavior of your customers or in the external environment that you think investor should be aware of?

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

In a helicopter perspective, all in all for our business?

[Oskar Lindstrom, Senior Analyst]

Well, I was more thinking any events during the fourth quarter here or the beginning of 2019 that you would like to highlight, yes.

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

Not really. Not any dramatic shift, but I would reiterate that what we do see and with a somewhat rapid movement in the market is that there is a clear interest from consumers in sustainability, health, nutrition, diet, flexitarian diets. If only a small portion of us change 1 meal or 2 meals a week from an animal-based dinner to a vegetable-based dinner, plant-based dinner, that's a massive change. So that is why we're saying that in a long-term perspective, we feel that we're in a really strong position. So you could say that is not a Q4 comment, but it is shifting quite rapidly the focus or the demand for these kind of solutions. And we also see that investments in that segments from the -- our customers, you could say, the producers of plant-based solutions. We do see investments from private equity, from large corporations buying into that segment. And, obviously, we follow that closely. And for us, that is a segment to serve and very interesting one to serve.

[Oskar Lindstrom, Senior Analyst]

And the -- I mean, that's a very powerful sort of trend. But another trend is the sort of concerns around palm oil. And I realized -- I mean, you're not a palm oil producer. You're using sourcing as a raw material. But if there were sort of a more rapid shift away from the use of palm oil as a raw material, would that throw a spanner in your works, at least temporarily that -- what would be the impact on your business?

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

Obviously, if something. I personally don't believe it will. But if. This is a question about risk. If there will be a dramatic shift in the use of palm oil, that would impact us negatively as well because that is part of our portfolio. I think it is important to keep in mind that long term, it's important what we do as an industry. And we are heavily involved in the RSPO work and for sustainable palm oil. And palm oil is the most efficient crop that is out there. It's important that we do not continue deforestation and so forth. But really the palm oil itself, once a plantation is established, it's a very efficient crop and it's a good oil to use in the food industry. So with that, but we're also a multi-oil company. We do -- we have several different plants that we source from raw materials in this field. And with that, we feel that we are very well positioned. And in the long term, I do believe that the industry will find a way to balance the current opinions, so to say, to be more fact based and so forth. But -- so with that, we are still optimistic. But yes, in short, it could be massive change. But it could take a parallel. What would happen. Where -- from where will the world source oils and fats if we do a dramatic change. I could row parallel, if we, in the car industry, will automatically shift to electric vehicles overnight. We will probably drive them on not-so-good energy because there is not an infrastructure there. I see the same parallel here that there is not an infrastructure to shift from palm oil immediately, and that needs to take time. We are well positioned with a multi-oil concept. But I also do believe that the palm oil is a very efficient crop, and we need to do the right investments in the world.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Casper Blom of ABG Sundal Collier.

[Casper Blom, Lead Analyst]

I just wanted to maybe follow up on the questions regarding a shea kernels. And I guess not, but yes, is there any chance of starting to use another kind of crop? Or are you working on solutions that would allow to do that, basically to sort of get rid of some of the dependents on this from time to time historically, at least, a bit difficult crop source. That's my first question.

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

Yes. Yes, there are opportunities, and we are in that space. We are investing in R&D and in alternative sources. However, shea is a very good crop for us. And I think it's important not to -- we're trying to be explicit about what it is and why we're not growing faster, but it's really not a big problem really because we have a capacity limit. We have some lower-yielding kernels at stock. But at the end of the day, there's a strong market out there, we are investing for the future. We are securing our supply chain. You could have even swing around and say, it's quite good to be able to lower our plants and to have a demand out there that is high. So I wouldn't over exaggerate this as a problematic crop versus other crops. It's about us continue to investing for more capacity and make sure that we source as good kernels as we can going forward.

[Casper Blom, Lead Analyst]

Okay. Could you maybe elaborate a little bit on what it is you're sort of working on as alternatives?

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

Some of -- there are certain alternatives, but a lot of this work is something that we don't discuss in an investor call. So it's still the major -- it's really the major part, but there are alternatives that we can use in different markets and we are already doing so.

[Casper Blom, Lead Analyst]

Okay, fair enough. And then just a second thing. Within Food Ingredients, you say that Special Nutrition had a negative growth in the quarter. If you could maybe sort of talk a little bit about what parts of Special Nutrition is it that is seeing a negative growth in the quarter? And whether this is a start of a new trend or? Yes, anything here to sort of note.

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

Yes, thank you for that question. So really, I mentioned it briefly, but it's not really a trend shift. We're not concerned. It's more that we -- in our business portfolio, we sell blended products and we also sell concentrate that customers then use in their production. So it's really more a mix shift where the profit is increasing, but the volume was down due to us selling a bit more of the concentrated product versus the blended products.

[Casper Blom, Lead Analyst]

Okay. But you think you will be sort of back to normal again in Q1? It was just this quarter that there was more of the concentrated products sold? Or?

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

Yes, but that could still be a shift going forward. It's a bit depending on what customers are buying and how they are buying. So I think it's important to look at the profitability. We are not that concerned about volume as long as we do see a good mix shift and selling with a higher profit.

[Casper Blom, Lead Analyst]

Sure. I mean, as long as you make the money, I guess it's fine.

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

Exactly.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Alexandra Barganowski, Nordea.

[Alexandra Barganowski, Analyst]

I have a question regarding your CCF division and whether you could elaborate a little bit on the size of the investments you're making to remove your bottlenecks and to strengthen the supply chain?

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

The size of the investments that we are putting into capacity improvement for CCF, was that your question?

[Alexandra Barganowski, Analyst]

Yes.

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

So during the year, although that's somewhat detailed comment, but in -- we're up some SEK 120 million, Fredrik?

[Fredrik Nilsson]

Something like that [ 1,200 ]

[Alexandra Barganowski, Analyst]

And that's for 2018? Or is that the total amount?

[Fredrik Nilsson]

'18 and '19.

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

'18 and '19. But it's part of it. It's -- again, it attracts a lot of focus at the moment for the right reasons, but it is -- this is a normal debottlenecking, normal investments. It just takes time and the demand came quicker than we -- compared to how we could react.

[Operator]

And our next question comes from the line of Karri Rinta of Handelsbanken.

[Karri Rinta, Research Analyst]

Sorry, these are mostly follow-ups. Firstly, on the infant nutrition. This that you're selling more concentrate versus blended. Does it have any implications on your capacity utilization? Or any sort of maybe investment needs in the future? Secondly, can you say something about Akonino versus InFat volumes in the fourth quarter? And then finally, any change in the demand picture coming from China? That's my first question.

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

Thank you. So with regards to the mix -- a slight mix shift within infant nutrition, now it doesn't impact our production capacity. We have capacity to do the blends, and so forth. It's important that we can produce the concentrate and we can. Long term, this is a growing business, and we are looking at this doing our capacity planning, a long-term planning. And we intend to continue to grow with the market for infant nutrition. With regards to detailed information about what is growing, outgrowing, we're not commenting on Akonino versus InFat. With regards to China, we see our China business in total growing for us within certain segments of -- within Food Ingredients, but also within Infant Nutrition.

[Karri Rinta, Research Analyst]

All right. Then on CCF and the shea kernels and the new crops. So what kind of visibility you have into this year's -- into the new crops? Do you already have sort of a very high visibility that it will be better since you already have most of that in your inventory? Or is there any sort of lingering uncertainty about how the new kernels will be yielding?

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

We're sourcing -- we're starting our sourcing already in September, October with significant volume. So we are already, as we speak and even in Q4, we have been using kernels from the new crop and mixing them with rounds with the older crop. So yes, we have visibility. And with the newer kernels, we get better yields. And lower, with the older kernels. So we do have good visibility and that's why we can be fairly precise on how this works. At the same time is that -- is there an uncertainty? I think it's fair to say that always with a wild crop, there is an uncertainty for years to come. But at the same time, that's how it is.

[Karri Rinta, Research Analyst]

All right, perfect. And then finally, this -- if you look at the CCF versus TPF, you see that the technical product has improved during the period when CCF has had it difficult. Is there any link between these 2? Is TPF in some shape or form benefiting from the difficulties in CCF? Maybe getting some tractions that it typically doesn't get or is it just a coincidence or reflection of the efforts that you have made in the TPF?

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

It's the latter. The reflections of the actions and performance improvement that we've been doing in that business area. They are not linked at all.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] As there are no further questions at this time, I'll hand back to our speakers for the closing comments.

[Johan Westman, President & CEO]

Thank you very much. And with that, we close 2018, and we are fully focused on 2019. Thank you for all your questions, and I wish you a good day and a good weekend. Thank you very much.