Greenyard: heavy losses and accumulating debts

Belgian fruit and vegetable producer Greenyard has suffered a heavy loss in the past financial year. As a result, the company’s debt load also increased.

Listeria and hot summer

The company’s turnover fell 4.3 % to 3.9 billion euros, as sales suffered from the long, hot summer and growing competition, which put pressure on prices. In addition, there was the listeria infection in Hungary, forcing Greenyard to issue a massive recall action.

All of these factors affected the company’s profitability: the adjusted operating profit ended at 64.5 million euros, a drop of almost 50 %. Non-recurring expenses and devaluations caused Greenyard to end up with a net loss of 237.7 million euros. Meanwhile, debts increased from 419 to 456 million euros in the past financial year. Due to the lower gross operating profit, the company’s debt ratio has now increased to 7.1. Greenyard’s goal is now to reduce that debt ratio back to 3 by the end of March 2022.

Earlier this year, the concern also made a deal with the banks, and was given a timeframe of 15 months to execute its transformation plan in order to reduce debts. Greenyard claims that the transformation plan is on schedule: for this year, the company is expecting a positive effect on the EBITDA margin of 20 million euros. Meanwhile, Greenyard also managed to sell its ‘listeria’ plant in Hungary to the producer of Croky Chips.