Message From Our CEO

After navigating unprecedented pandemic-related market impacts since 2020, our teams faced new and complex challenges as a result of geopolitical, macroeconomic and environmental uncertainty in 2022. As ever, our priority in this context remained the safety and wellbeing of our people and their families, while keeping essential supply chains moving safely, reliably and responsibly.

Since the start of the Russia-Ukraine crisis in February 2022, resulting supply chain disruptions, ensuing food and energy crises, and concerns over potential global recession, contributed to a volatile and complex market and operating environment for most of LDC’s business lines, compounding the effects of accelerating climate challenges and continued Covid-related impacts. 

In the face of strong headwinds, we were guided by LDC’s mission to bring the right products to the right place, at the right time, remaining focused on keeping essential food, feed, fiber and ingredient supply chains moving.  

Leveraging our global network, market insight and expert risk and compliance management, we continued to keep our people safe, meet commitments to customers worldwide and advance with our strategic growth plans, while securing strong financial and operating results this year again.  

Changing for Growth, Growing for Change 

Aiming to balance strength and leadership in our core business, with evolution for long-term relevance, we continued to reinforce core merchandizing capabilities at both origin and destination, expand downstream and diversify through value-added products and services, and embrace innovation and digitalization to prepare our business for the future. 

In Asia, our Grains & Oilseeds Platform significantly expanded its origination network and capacity with the acquisition of a grains business in Australia, and we broke ground or advanced the construction of strategic facilities such as Fuling Food Industrial Park in Nansha and an additional oilseeds crushing plant in Zhangjiagang, both in China, as well as our joint venture instant coffee plant in Vietnam.  

We also continued to develop and enhance our industrial asset network in the Americas, with storage and logistics expansion in Latin America, from juice to fertilizers and from coffee to cotton, and the inauguration of a new soy liquid lecithin plant at our existing facility in Claypool, Indiana, US, to support the growth of our ingredients business as part of LDC’s new Food & Feed Solutions Platform established in January 2023.  

In parallel, we continued to embrace innovative products, solutions and technologies with the potential to transform food and agricultural production, drive more efficient operations, support commercial decision-making and shape more transparent and sustainable value chains. 

Through our venture capital program and partnerships with innovation accelerators – such as MassChallenge in Switzerland and The Liveability Challenge in Singapore – we connected with and invested in more early-stage companies whose innovations and technologies could disrupt our industry and complement our business activities.  

In the US, we opened a research and development facility as the foundation for our new Plant Proteins business, created to drive LDC’s participation in the growing plant-based foods and beverage market through the development of high-quality protein formulations. 

Our well-established business lines also continued to diversify their portfolio and offer to address consumer trends, such as our new reduced-sugar, high-fiber orange juice and an expanded range of cooking oils.  

Meanwhile, ongoing digitalization efforts across the Group continued to reinforce customer relationships and enhance commercial and operational decision-making, enhancing our service offering through shared data and insights, traceability, customization and more, and empowering our teams with real-time market, industrial and sustainability intelligence and analytics. 

New Strides for Sustainable Development 

Our sustainability journey, central to our business model and transformation roadmap, also accelerated in 2022 – most notably with our commitment to zero deforestation and conversion of native vegetation by 2025, including parameters that go beyond sectoral roadmaps, as well as important groundwork by our Carbon Solutions team to measure our greenhouse gas emissions, as a basis for subsequent target-setting and reporting.  

Sustainability and decarbonization efforts also advanced in specific businesses and geographies – for example, with growing volumes of certified soy processed and shipped, several renewable power purchase agreements, and a successful biofuel trial on LDC’s first carbon neutral juice shipment, among a range of innovative sustainability projects advanced by our Freight Platform. 

At LDC, we also believe our work with farmers is key to promoting responsible practices and creating lasting positive change at the heart of agricultural chains. To help transform coffee grower communities, we launched a new, five-year sustainability strategy for coffee that aims to support the production of certified and verified coffee by thousands of farmers in our global network, while restoring soil health and mitigating climate change through coalition-led investments that support sustainable practices. 

We also continued to collaborate on joint projects to engage, train and empower smallholder farming communities, many of these in collaboration with the Louis Dreyfus Foundation, supporting local communities connected with our operations and activities around the world – for example in India, with our new program to train cotton farmers on more sustainable practices. 

Positive Group Outlook 

All these and many other efforts and achievements have contributed to continued strong performance, with a positive outlook ahead, for the Group, and are reflected in multiple awards and recognitions received in 2022 by our teams, whom I take this opportunity to thank again for their exceptional commitment and resilience.  

Their professionalism, dedication and solidarity enabled LDC to continue delivering for its suppliers, customers, partners and shareholders in a very complex, challenging and uncertain environment.  

Our work does not stop here, as we step up activation of our strategic plans to maintain the positive momentum we have built, adapting to the fundamental shifts we see playing out: evolving consumption trends toward alternative proteins and healthier diet options, digitalization and disruptive innovation in agriculture and food production, and accelerating developments to address the increasingly urgent need for decarbonization and a more sustainable food system amid global climate and macroeconomic uncertainty. 

Our success in these endeavors will depend significantly on the ability of our talented teams to develop, embrace new ideas and skill sets, and work with one mind as we transform together for tomorrow – in 2023 and beyond. 

Michael Gelchie
Chief Executive Officer