Blog
5 October 2018
One year on from EU regime reform – a market in transition
A blog by our CEO, Dr Mark Carr
It is one year on since we welcomed a new era in the sugar industry that hailed in the most radical reforms of European sugar market controls in 30 years. The associated changes have reduced the constraints on crop volumes and sugar production, allowed freely negotiated sugar beet prices, and allowed uncapped exports onto the world market. This has led to significant change in the way industry players operate with increases in volume intensifying competition, thereby reducing sugar prices. Trade patterns have been reconfigured to accommodate the resumption of significant exports from Europe onto the world market.
These changes were not a surprise to us at AB Sugar, indeed, we have spent almost a decade preparing ourselves for them. We have well-invested plants and a well-established performance improvement programme across our value chain; from field, factory, packaging, warehousing and logistic operations. We are working together with our growers to ensure both sugar cane and beet are a sustainable and profitable crop, now and in the future. We have invested in our sales and marketing teams to ensure we are providing the right products, in the right places to our markets.
Looking forward, we believe that as one of the world’s largest and most efficient[1] sugar businesses we will continue to grow and prosper in this new era for sugar:
- Getting ever better at what we do through the unique opportunity that comes with operating 24 plants across three continents and leveraging our global technology base to enable us to be ‘best in class’.
- Working in partnership with our growers to sustainably improve productivity on farm for future decades.
- Delivering quality products that meet needs of our customers in response to the many markets around the world. From investing in capability and technology, growing and flexing our products and operations, and meeting ever-changing customer priorities.
- Being prepared for changes in our market environment by engaging with stakeholders to anticipate changes in trade regulation and the market environment across our operations.
- Playing our part in partnerships with like-minded innovative organisations to achieve our common goals and progress towards our 2030 sustainability commitments.
We have a clear focus and will remain resilient and grow through this current period of transition and in the years to come, as we continue to create long-term stakeholder value.
“We have established a strong position within the industry over many years by having the right products in the right markets, strong operational performances through continuously improving productivity and efficiencies of our plants and working with growers to ensure sustainable agricultural practices.”
[1] LMC 2018 Report: Sugar & HFS Production Costs Global Benchmarking
