Venky's India posted a mixed set of Q1 earnings. Revenue is up 100 percent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, but there is a sharp contraction on the margin front. The YoY revenues were up 100 percent at Rs 1,085 crore versus Rs 542 crore, while EBITDA was up 10 percent at Rs 79 crore compared to Rs 72 crore in the same period last year. However, YoY gross margins were down at 19.3 percent as compared to 31.8 percent and EBITDA margins were down 7.3 percent against 13.3 percent. Profit after tax was up 17 percent YoY.

Prasanna Pedgaonkar, General Manager-Poultry at Venky's India, spoke about the quarterly performance and the price outlook in an interview with CNBC-TV18.

Looking at segment-wise performance, he said, “We have a well-diversified portfolio -- thanks to the efforts taken by Venky’s team over the last few years to make sure that the volatility of a section comes down and the non-volatile section goes up.”“We are having approximately 65-70 percent of non-volatile section and around 30-35 percent of the volatile section. Under volatile section comes poultry, which is always dominated by the input prices. Input prices like that of soya have gone up almost 100 percent from Rs 40 the price has reached Rs 80 and the pressure was visible in profits of poultry section,” he said, adding that despite 100 percent increase in surprise, poultry was not in the red and it can get back to green.

Right now the soya situation is such that everyday NCDEX soya is in lower circuit but thanks to the decision by the government wherein the ministry has cleared the proposal for import of 15 lakh tonnes, which is expected into Indian market soon. In addition to that the new soya crop is expected at the end of August or first week of September. The 15 lakh metric tonnes of soya that is getting imported is 25 percent of India’s soya requirement for poultry,” added Pedgaonkar.

“Today for India, USD 1,200 to 1,300 per tonne is the price of soya and with this import the price would drastically come to USD 500 to USD 600 per tonne, and that will reduce input cost of soya by almost 50 percent, which is a reality and it is going to happen within no time,” said Pedgaonkar.

For the full interview, watch the accompanying video

(Edited by : Bivekananda Biswas)