[Press Release] VIVESCIA Group: Consolidated results and highlights for the year ending 30 June 2023
Positive financial results despite a context of high inflation and sluggish consumption:
turnover +20% and EBITDA + 18%
Active pursuit of a CSR policy that tackles the issues of climate change, decarbonisation and biodiversity across multiple value chains and industries: New SBTi climate roadmap defined for 2030 and the launch of the regenerative agriculture programme TRANSITIONS.
In an environment that is still highly volatile and unstable, VIVESCIA Group has maintained its growth while expertly managing the effects of inflation and a slowdown in global consumption. The 2022-2023 financial year saw the launch of a new climate roadmap with a commitment to reducing the carbon footprint of its value chain by 29% by 2030. Many major projects have come to fruition, like the opening of a twenty-third malting plant, located in Mexico, and the launch of TRANSITIONS, an innovative regenerative agriculture programme that aims to support 1,000 farmers from the Cooperative’s territories by 2026.
- The Group’s consolidated turnover reached €4.6 billion, up 20% year-on-year, driven essentially by price effects.
- A robust investment plan was pursued over the past year, with €122 million going to support the Group’s growth and continued transformation.
- The Group’s operating profit (as measured by EBITDA) reached €195 million, up 18% compared to the previous year and ahead of budget forecasts.
- Net debt reached €596 million, which is down compared to the previous year.
DEVELOPMENT: VIVESCIA is investing in industrial capacity and the digital transition
2023 saw the completion of a new malting plant in Meoqui, Mexico, where the first tonnes of malt came off the production line last summer. A €112 million investment, with a capacity of 120,000 tonnes of malt per year, the plant will help Malteurop, already one of the world’s biggest maltsters, to win new business in Mexico with a virtuous process from field to malt. As well as building this malthouse, over the past three years, Malteurop has developed 100% local sourcing thanks to a partnership with some 500 local farmers who produce malting barley.
And many other development projects came to fruition in 2022-2023: A new cold store on Délifrance’s viennoiserie production site in Romans-sur-Isère, France (€12 M), a new wet feed production plant in Pauvres, France, for Néalia (€4,4 million), and a new production line for ARD’s biotechnology business in Pomacle-Bazancourt, France (€8 million).
The 2022-2023 financial year also saw dynamic investment in innovation and digital technologies, like the creation of the Arterre mobile application and the launch of the ArterreShop e-commerce website to facilitate the lives of business owners/farmers – the first of its kind developed by an agricultural cooperative. Grands Moulins de Paris, meanwhile, launched the first marketplace in France devoted to artisan bakers.
CLIMATE: VIVESCIA's commitments
Aligned with the science-based target initiative (SBTi), the Group’s roadmap defines a long-term commitment to carbon neutrality by 2050, with a first step in 2030 being to reduce the carbon footprint of its value chain by 29% (scopes 1, 2, and 3) compared with the benchmark year of 2021, including a 42% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from its direct operations (scope 1 and 2).
VIVESCIA Group submitted its application to SBTi on 1 February 2023, and it aims to certify its objectives by the first quarter of 2024.
In addition to this mitigation roadmap, faced with the already visible impact of climate change, VIVESCIA group is moving forward on the fundamental challenge of adaptation. Adaptation strategies must be prepared in advance so that VIVESCIA’s agricultural and industrial businesses can continue to thrive. In October 2022, VIVESCIA’s agronomic and CSR teams started working with a partner on an initial scope at the level of the Cooperative. The study aimed to understand and measure the impact of changes to three crucial factors (temperatures, rainfall, and sunlight) on 17 different crops and 20 different soil types, to take into account local disparities between the Cooperative’s different regions.
TRANSITIONS: VIVESCIA and its partners are shaking things up with France’s first large-scale, high-impact programme.
Reducing our emissions, adapting our agricultural systems, and finding carbon sinks… Climate change, decarbonisation, and the protection of biodiversity are systemic challenges that require us to change how we think, to innovate, and to work on new forms of cooperation within our agri-food chain.
The agricultural transition is above all about finding solutions to de-risk farming. Changing farming practices on all crops while maintaining yields implies two levels of protection, to ensure farmers’ financial security and the technical reliability of the solutions offered.
Following these observations, and two years of intense work, in September 2023, VIVESCIA and its partners launched TRANSITIONS, a collective project that brings together upstream and downstream stakeholders of plant and grain value chains in an ambitious and innovative programme that provides concrete, systemic agronomic and financial solutions.
The aim is, by 2026, to help nearly 1,000 farmers in north-east France transition to regenerative, productive farming methods that promote soil health and biodiversity to protect the planet and combat climate change. 200 VIVESCIA Cooperative members have committed to the project for three years, starting with the 2024 harvest. The TRANSITIONS programme is now taking its first steps thanks to a committed coalition of financial and institutional partners who share a proactive and positive vision for farming.
Find out more about the TRANSITIONS programme here
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