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For the first time in over twenty years, Ter Beke has suffered a loss. Due to the Covid crisis, consumers mainly cooked at home, which came at the expense of the fresh food group’s ready meals.
Dioxin affair
Last year, Ter Beke’s total turnover decreased by 1.5 per cent to 717 million euros. The operational result (EBIT) fell by a fifth and amounted to 4.8 million euros. The Belgian-based company made a net loss of 2.5 million euros, its first loss since 1999 when the dioxin affair hit the group hard.
The loss is partly due to the restructuring that Ter Beke carried out in the Netherlands and Belgium, reports Belgian newspaper De Tijd. In addition, the high price of pork affected the company. In the United Kingdom especially, the closure of the hospitality industry as a result of the Covid crisis also weighed on the ready meals department. Through its British subsidiary KK Fine Foods, Ter Beke is a key supplier to pubs. The ready meal division has been the group’s most profitable for years, but last year that profit fell from 25 to 19 million euros. “During the crisis, consumers are cooking more at home and therefore, are buying fewer ready meals”, the company said in this regard.
Despite the disappointing figures, Ter Beke reduced its debt burden to around 100 million euros. For the current year, the company expects a higher EBITDA. It is currently unknown who the new CEO will be. At the beginning of this year, current CEO Francis Kint announced that he would leave the food company on 30 June.
