Seed potato trading house HZPC expects a turnover growth of 2022% for the 23/10 financial year compared to last year. In 2021/22, the turnover was €352 million. Gross margin is expected to increase to €66 million compared to €63,9 million last year.
An important impetus for the increase in turnover is the sharply increased international transport costs, with transport costs particularly high in 2022. These have already fallen significantly at the beginning of 2023. The result is growing mainly thanks to license cultivation in other continents, mainly Asia and America. Gerard Backx, CEO of HZPC, said this in a press release. HZPC expects its licensees to trade 16% more volume of HZPC varieties than a year earlier. The volume of seed potatoes traded is expected to increase only slightly.
Sales to North Africa and the Middle East have gone well for HZPC, but in Europe sales are somewhat slow. The reason for this is last summer's drought. Some growers choose to grow other crops with less risk. This is therefore at the expense of seed potato sales.
Despite the many price increases, HZPC managed to keep the increase in operating costs limited to approximately 2%. Thanks to this minimal increase, Ebitda is expected to increase by approximately €1 million. Last year the Ebitda amounted to €13,2 million. However, the trading house is faced with higher financing costs, which means that the net result is expected to be €7 million. Last financial year the net result also amounted to that amount.