Europe, Middle East & Africa
Resilience in the Black Sea
Crop failures due to drought in the region in 2020 generated high competition for wheat and corn stocks in early 2021. Measures such as efficient asset utilization and negotiation of input costs helped our teams minimize losses in this challenging context, while increasing margins per ton of product when the new crop arrived.
Strength in Africa & the Middle East
In a challenging environment, with high raw material and freight prices coupled with weak African currencies, the Region delivered a robust performance through good risk management and close coordination with customers. Volumes grew for existing flows and new flows developed over multiple products, including sugar, coffee, rice, grains and oilseeds.
Flexibility in European Distribution Markets
Very high grains, oilseeds and freight costs, combined with a price drop in meat, put pressure on many European clients. In this context, we maximized flexibility between origination and destination, combining shipments, managing risk, sharing market intelligence with customers, staying close to them to accurately anticipate their needs and, as a result, avoiding supplier and customer defaults.
Jan Christoph Kabath
Cluster Head, Africa & Middle East
“In an uncertain context, we achieved strong results across EMEA in 2021, successfully mitigating risks, delivering for customers, investing in new facilities and significantly growing volumes handled. This was enabled first and foremost by the resilience, expertise and commitment of our teams. ”
More Regional Highlights
As part of our growth plans for Côte d’Ivoire, we concluded the construction of two new multi-commodity warehouses in the port of Abidjan, where we also acquired a land plot for the expansion of our existing tank farm for vegetable oils.
LDC significantly increased both import and export volumes in East Africa. Coffee exports grew by more than 30% year-on-year, driven mainly by our recent expansion of operations in Uganda. Grains & Oilseeds imports into East Africa achieved a record level, reaching an increase of more than 50% in wheat versus 2020.
In Turkey, cotton saw record results in the first quarter of 2021 as the sector bounced back from the early effects of the pandemic, leveraging container and freight demand.
Doubled shipped volumes of corn certified by International Sustainability & Carbon Certification (ISCC) from Ukraine to Europe.
Increased volumes of deforestation-free certified soybean meal shipped to France, positioning LDC as a leader in this area.
Developed lecithin sales in Spain and France, reinforced by an exclusive distribution agreement.
Continued benefits to overall volumes from multi-product distribution approach through our Iberian office, which saw our first full cargo of ISCC-certified ethanol.
↑350%
year-on-year increase in corn volumes sold to northern Europe
180,000
coffee trees planted in Uganda and Ethiopia
20%
of soybean meal shipped to France certified deforestation-free
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