Despite dropping prices midway through last year, the National Flour Mills (NFM) has reported increased profits for fiscal 2023 compared to 2022.
In the company’s audited summary consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2023, chairman Nigel Romano said the company’s reported profit after tax increased by $28.6 million, from $6.9 million to $35.5 million in 2023.
He explained that in 2023, the company’s revenue increased to $577 million through prudent grain purchasing and other cost management initiatives.
This, he said, led to increased gross profit from $93 million in 2022 to $152 million in 2023 while operating profit also increased by $46.9 million year-on-year from $12.4 million to $59.3 million.
After other flour producers dropped prices last year, NFM reduced flour prices by ten per cent in July last year.
The company had increased prices twice in 2022 amid increase costs as a result of increased grain mainly driven up by the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
In his chairman’s statement, Romano said the company continued to be affected by changes in the global environment, driven by lingering fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
He said these events “continued to influence the way we do business”, adding, “As a food and feed manufacturing company, NFM is particularly vulnerable to the impact of climate change on the yield and price of grains.”
Romano added that the NFM, therefore, remained concerned about the impact of climate change as evidenced by increasing levels of greenhouse gases, rising sea levels and record low Antarctica sea ice, with 2023 being categorised as the warmest year on record.
“Rising temperatures and carbon dioxide levels will negatively affect crop yields posing threats to global food security and the entire agricultural ecosystem,” he added.
