Ted Harris: So yes, maybe I’ll take a first stab at that. Martin can chime in to add any color, that’s needed. First of all, we are really pleased with our ability to raise prices. That’s been a major focus for us for well over a year. And I think, that’s really it just shows the strength of our market positions that we’ve been able to buy and large offset the cost increases dollar-for-dollar at the expense, as you pointed out as our margin. Historically, we have seen an unfavourable margin lag as costs increase and we raise prices. And historically, we’ve seen a favourable margin lag if you will, as costs decrease. And there’s no reason to expect that won’t happen. We have certainly part of our customer base that is particularly in the Animal Nutrition world is based on contractual situations that have passed through raw material costs.
And so, we have a built-in negative lag when costs are going up, but we also have a built-in positive lag when costs are coming down. So, we do believe that we will see that as we’ve seen it in the past, and are very focused as a company on recapturing that margin. We’re again pleased that we’ve been able to raise prices as we have, and gross margin dollars have increased. But an important part of kind of economic profile, if you will, is our margin profile. And so, we’re determined to take what whatever steps we need to in order to gradually recover that margin to its historical levels.
Martin Bengtsson: And Lee, if I just add a comment or two, I would say, the dollar per-dollar pass-through has a — I mean, has a significant impact on that margin percentage for Q4. For example, it was approximately a 1.5% margin impact just from that dollar-per-dollar pass-through looking on a full-year basis, it’s over three, four percentage points in that pass-through math. And for us to see the margins go back to where we want them to be, and where we expect them to be, you do need to see some easing in the inflationary pressure, which hopefully we’ll see soon. You’re starting to see it, and you’re experiencing already on the chemical side where we’re seeing costs coming down sequentially, but you’re actually still seeing sequentially inflation on the food commodity side.
So, net, net overall for our portfolio, if we look at it sequentially kind of Q4 versus a Q3 there’s no easing yet in terms of the cost picture. And obviously, on a year-over-year basis still significantly up. But the food commodities tend to lag sort of to the chemicals with some delays. So, the fact that the chemicals are coming down should hopefully, mean that the food commodities will also over a period of time here start easing off, and that will help our margins for sure.
Lee Jagoda: Appreciate all the colour. I’ll hop back in the queue.
Operator: Our next question is coming from the line of Ram Selvaraju with H.C. Wainwright. Please proceed with your questions.
Ram Selvaraju: Thanks so much for taking my questions. Just a couple for you, Ted. Could you comment on VitaCholine’s positioning versus other choline based products in the market? And what you think is most likely to drive growth of this brand, particularly in light of the recent Cornell study findings? And secondly, could you give us a sense of what you think long-term directionality is and growth prospects are for the specialty products business, given the growth you saw in the most recently reported period? And then I just had one quick one for Martin. Given the lower than historical effective tax rate in the fourth quarter, is this the most likely appropriate baseline to use going forward? Or should we expect a reversion to what the historical effective tax rate has been? Thank you.
