Nutreco on track towards Ambition 2016

Fish Feed revenue rose to €1,893.1 million in 2012, up 18.2% from €1,601.5 million in 2011. EBITA in Fish Feed was 19.6% higher at €142.0 million compared with €118.7 million in 2011. The increased operating result in 2012 is mostly due to strong demand for salmon feed in Norway and Chile as well as a good performance in aquafeed for other species.

We made significant progress in the first year of our strategy ‘Ambition 2016 – driving sustainable growth.’ In Animal Nutrition, this included the strengthening of our presence in Brazil, a new production plant in Russia, the establishment of two Application and Solution Centres and a clear focus on global branded products in feed additives, young animal feed and animal health. In Fish Feed, we reached agreement to acquire 75% of the leading shrimp and tilapia feed producer in Ecuador, which takes us into a global top-3 position in shrimp feed. This acquisition fully supports our strategy to expand our fish feed business in growth geographies and non-salmonid species whilst maintaining our global leading position in salmon feed. Innovation remains central to our strategy and we have gradually increased our annual R&D budget to EUR 25 million to support the growing need for more sustainable high added value nutritional solutions.

Research is central to the Nutreco strategy, and important steps were taken in 2012 to strengthen capabilities and to implement the science strategy, with a number of new PhDs joining the research teams. Nutreco opened an upgraded Swine Research Centre (in the Netherlands, which will be equipped to investigate the relationship between nutrition and production efficiency, reproduction, and health. Nutreco also launched a new shrimp feed research unit in China and extended the capabilities of rapid near-infrared reflectance (NIR) analysis to guarantee more consistent and higher quality shrimp feed.

Nutreco’s ‘Ambition 2016 – driving sustainable growth’ is to grow and improve profitability by providing innovative and sustainable nutritional solutions for its customers and is expected to result in an EBITA of EUR 400 million by 2016. This will be realised by focusing on a higher added value portfolio of nutritional solutions such as Premix & Feed Specialties and Fish Feed, and by expanding into the growth geographies of Latin America, Russia, China and Southeast Asia, which will see the largest increases in both production and consumption of animal protein food products.