Dutch fresh produce giant The Greenery has announced a fall in turnover for the year, with sales dropping from €1.3bn to €1.1bn.
The company attributed the decline to the departure of several growers in late 2013, as well as low prices in Europe during 2014. Such low prices were a result of high volumes on the market, a situation exacerbated by the Russian ban.
During the year, The Greenery made major organisational modifications and cuts in operating costs, including the loss of 350 jobs.
“Compared with 2013, the results show great improvement,” the company said in a statement. “Carrying out the necessary changes has allowed a lean core company to emerge. Opting to pursue a retail strategy was a credible decision, which has generated growth potential.”
In 2014, The Greenery saw growth in direct turnover of 13 per cent to retail partners in the Netherlands. Stricter procedures were applied to minimise decay, and steps taken to achieve a high degree of standardisation at the company’s three distribution centres.
“As a result,” it stated, “the number of inter-site shipments could be reduced by 30 per cent. Thanks to these measures, the reliability of delivery to retail customers increased to 99 per cent. By using more of the sorting and packaging capacity at qualified grower locations, 2 per cent more volume was shipped directly from the growers to the customers' distribution centres.”
Within Europe, The Greenery revealed plans to focus on the Netherlands, Germany and the UK and to continue to increase cooperation with retailers in those markets.
Meanwhile, the loss of the Russian market has encouraged the company to expand in new markets such as China. “In 2014, this got off to a good start when the company delivered 247,000 pears there,” The Greenery stated.
