Roeland Tjebbes, CFO and ad-interim CEO of ForFarmers:
“The first quarter of 2022 was mainly dominated by the shocking invasion of Ukraine by Russia resulting in awful human suffering. The war also impacts the availability of raw materials, a situation which we are continuously monitoring. Up to now we have succeeded in continuing to supply feed to our customers and based on the current insights we can continue to do so. In line with our previously stated expectations, we could not fully pass on the price increases of raw materials and energy, which were eve higher than expected due to the outbreak of the war. As result, we realised a substantially lower underlying EBITDA in the past quarter despite continued cost savings. Recently, we see some movement in the food chain to make consumers pay for the heavily oppressive energy and fuel costs. It is, however, too soon to draw any conclusions from this. In the meantime, the European agricultural sector is fully committed to continuing to ensure food security in a sustainable way. We contribute to this by providing innovative solutions for livestock farmers to help them improve their production and returns on-farm while decreasing their footprint at the same time. This remains the core of our strategy, of which the review is progressing smoothly. We expect to communicate more about this after the summer, following the appointment of Chris Deen by the general meeting of shareholders.”