CFO ForFarmers makes surprising transfer

ForFarmers has announced that CFO Roeland Tjebbes will leave the listed feed company at the end of this year. In the new year, Tjebbes will start working for Kramp, a wholesaler of agricultural parts. The announced departure of Tjebbes comes at a surprising time. 

Tjebbes will remain affiliated with ForFarmers until the end of this year. In the meantime, a successor can be found, for which the search has started immediately. At first glance, the transfer from ForFarmers with a turnover of €3,3 billion to the family business Kramp from Varsseveld cannot immediately be seen as a promotion. Yet Kramp is by no means a small player, given that the turnover in 2022 was more than € 1 billion. This resulted in a net profit of just under €60 million. The company is also active internationally with a series of subsidiaries in Eastern Europe and also in the United States. In contrast to ForFarmers, Kramp operates more under the radar and it may be a conscious choice on Tjebbes' part to work more in the shadows. Tjebbes himself speaks of a difficult decision to leave ForFarmers. 

Tjebbes took office in March 2020 and has therefore only been with ForFarmers for a relatively short time. Before that, he worked at food companies such as Hoogtweg, A-ware and Vion.

Challenging times
ForFarmers was and is facing major challenges, given that the results of the animal feed group have been under pressure for some time. The past few years have undoubtedly been challenging for Tjebbes, but that also brought opportunities to profile himself. This he did. After all, in the first CEO-less period he was the most advanced pawn within management and showed leadership. In addition, he is responsible for the acquisition team and ForFarmers is certainly not standing still on that point. In recent months, the company left Belgium and scaled up in Poland. In that respect, his departure comes as a surprise. 

With the appointment of Pieter Wolleswinkel as CEO and Rob Kiers as COO, ForFarmers seemed to have the management back on track, but now there will be another change soon. 

Wouter Job

Wouter Baan is editor-in-chief of Boerenbusiness. He also focuses on dairy, pig and meat markets. He also follows (business) developments within agribusiness and interviews CEOs and policymakers.

w.baan@boerenbusiness. Nl

© DCA Market Intelligence. This market information is subject to copyright. It is not permitted to reproduce, distribute, disseminate or make the content available to third parties for compensation, in any form, without the express written permission of DCA Market Intelligence.