The potato breeding firm Royal HZPC Group anticipates that the July-June fiscal year 2023/2024 will yield results comparable to those of 2022/2023.

Furthermore, Royal HZPC Group CEO Gerard Backx declared his resignation from the potato breeding firm. On September 1, 2024, Hans Huistra, COO of Meatable, will assume Gerard’s responsibilities.

In Europe, particularly in the Netherlands, the 2023 potato crop year delivered low yields per hectare of seed potatoes in seed sizes. The cause of this is a late, rainy spring that was followed by warm, dry months. As a result, Royal HZPC Group can sell a lot fewer tons from Europe than anticipated. This year, a lot of consumers are also purchasing top seed sizes to utilize as seed potatoes. This somewhat offsets the scarcity of supply. In most non-EU nations, this calls for official authorization. Although they are seldom granted, certain exceptions were granted this year. In reality, returns outside of Europe are often greater than average, and Royal HZPC Group is seeing steady growth.

“We expect the total tonnage that we sell and/or is sold by licensees to increase by 3%, despite the decline in direct sales from Europe of over 10%. This includes additional sales of top-of-seed sizes,” Gerard Backx declared.

Particularly in the Americas and Asia, Royal HZPC Group licensees are growing 25% more tonnage under license. Due to rising selling prices and a shift in the proportion of direct sales to tons generated by licensees, turnover is still almost EUR420m, the same as it was the previous year.

“The breeding company anticipates a constant gross margin of EUR71m and constant normal operating costs. However, it expects higher total costs due to possible provisions for hard-to-collect debtors in politically unstable regions of the world. This element causes uncertainty in the expectation of the final result. Royal HZPC Group’s net result is estimated between EUR5m and EUR7m, excluding costs of the Connecting Growers program,” according to a recent press release.

Gerard Backx (1959) expressed to the Supervisory Board (SB) some time ago that he would like to step down as CEO of Royal HZPC Group in 2024. He has led the potato breeding company with heart and soul since 2001.

The SB will appoint Hans Huistra as CEO of Royal HZPC Group on September 1, 2024. Hans was born in Joure in 1968 and is currently the COO of Meatable. He has over thirty years of leadership experience at Unilever, Friesland Campina, Hero, and Fonterra, among others. For the past seven years, he has also been a member of Cosun’s Supervisory Board. Hans has lived and worked in various countries. He has extensive experience in the agricultural and food sectors in Europe, Asia, America, and Africa, in which interaction with farmers has always been of great importance.

Following Hans Huistra’s nomination in September, Gerard will continue to work for Royal HZPC Group for as long as desired.