Profits fall at ADM Agriculture in 2021

Feed and grain trader ADM Agriculture made a pre-tax profit of £5.17m for the year ending 31 December 2021.

This was down from £9.18m in 2020. However, there was a one-off receipt of £3.7m in 2020, so after taking this into account profits fell by about £310,000 year-on-year.

Revenue in 2021 rose above the £1bn mark, to £1.09bn, up from £959.13m during the previous year.

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The UK accounted for £933.75m of the company’s turnover, with Europe accounting for £158.04m, and the rest of the world the remaining £803,000.

Cost of sales increased by £132m on 2020 levels to amount to £1.068bn.

The directors outlined three key performance indicators for the business as sales volume, gross profit, and gross profit after interest. Sales volumes were down by 9% year-on-year totalling almost 4.6m tonnes, while gross profit was up by 9%.

Director Michael Thompson said the company performance had been strong in 2021 and it had managed to produce an excellent result despite increasing operation costs especially for haulage which had increased significantly due to supply issues.

“We have seen the haulage market settle down in 2022 but we are still seeing a year-on-year increase and with fuel prices seeing a significant increase in 2022 we have to expect increased costs in these areas going forward,” said Mr Thompson.

High commodity prices have led to an increase in forward selling by farmers so far in 2022, which has allowed ADM Agriculture to increase its volumes of trade, according to its strategic report.

Brexit has not affected trade, due to the products being traded all being tariff-free with the EU for both imports and exports.

On 31 December 2021, ADM Agriculture held an inventory worth £162.14m and had trade and other receivables valued at £126.34m.