Good afternoon, Sebastian, and welcome to Commodity Conversations. Please tell me about yourself and your career to date.

I’m half American, half Norwegian. I hold Norwegian citizenship. I grew up in the UK and studied business, international relations and communication there and in Norway. After graduating, I moved to Washington, where I gained my first professional experience at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, followed by the US Congress.

There, at CSIS, I worked on trade and industrial policy, including how the US could develop policies to strengthen its manufacturing competitiveness, particularly in environmental technologies.

After that, I worked for the US International Trade Administration in the US embassies in London and Oslo. In both, I helped American companies with trade barriers and to gain market access to the UK, Norway, and the EU.

Then I left US government service and moved into European activities. As a Norwegian, I worked at the European Free Trade Association, a much smaller organisation than the EU, for Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein. There, I worked in the EEA Coordination Division, helping administer the agreement providing participation in the Single Market for Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. In 2006, I moved into consulting with Kreab. My day job has been building and running the market access team, covering trade/competition and issues such as sanctions, subsidies, regulation, anti-dumping and subsidy cases, circumvention, and safeguard measures, as well as state aid, anti-trust and merger clearance.

Please tell me about Kreab. What is it, and what do you do?

Kreab is a strategic communications consultancy. We advise our clients on financial and corporate communications and public affairs. I’m the global head of the public affairs practice.

That means reaching out to policymakers, tracking and analysing policy development, and participating in consultation opportunities on behalf of our clients, while respecting policymakers’ objectives.

Some policies have unintended consequences. We often deal with the unintended consequences of policy proposals, where those who write them don’t always recognise the full implications.

We’re in 30 countries, including now Switzerland, working in financial comms, corporate comms, or public affairs, helping our clients communicate on complex matters and making them understandable to decision-makers and stakeholders.

There is an old joke: the U.S. innovates, China copies, and Europe regulates. I am not sure that China copies anymore, but is Brussels waking up to the need to become more competitive?

There is now an attempt to simplify the regulatory landscape for business, but that doesn’t mean they’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

The reporting requirements under EU legislation have created a significant workload for companies to gather and present information. Some of the larger companies might cope with it, but many of the medium-sized and smaller companies said, “This is too much for us. Is there a way we can simplify these procedures, change some of the thresholds for needing to report, and lighten the load a little bit?”

Most companies we work with said, “We’re not in disagreement with the overall objectives, but it is too much to take on all at once.”

I think the President of the European Commission got the message and introduced these omnibus acts to simplify some of the onerous legislation and requirements.

Does Kreab help companies navigate EU regulations, or focus on trying to change them?

You’ve got to try and understand what the objective of the EU is in legislating this. Often, it’s to protect consumers and the environment, make the single market work more efficiently, or level the playing field so that all businesses operate with the same rule book, which to the greatest extent possible should provide homogenous market conditions. It is better to deal with one set of EU rules, than 27 different national rules.

It usually has a logical reason. But the people who write the legislation aren’t necessarily the ones who have worked in the industries that have to implement it.

One good thing about the EU is that it’s very open to hearing from industry and civil society stakeholders. But you have to know which of the 40,000 EU officials at the European Commission are the right people to talk to. What is the chain this proposal will go through? Who else will have influence over this legislation?

One mistake is talking only to the person holding the pen or only to the Commission. The various Directorates-General can have different views on an individual policy proposal, because their missions differ slightly. Make sure you talk to all of the offices that provide input to the policy formulation process.

You need people who know the various processes for decision making, who can find their way around the institutions on behalf of the clients to be able to get messages that resonate through to the right people at the optimal time.

Commodity trading companies complain about the compliance costs required to remain operational. How could they reduce the regulatory burden?

It is important to talk to the regulators as early as possible, when the idea of regulating is first voiced. That isn’t when a Commission proposal has been written and sent to the European Parliament. You need to get in when it’s just a glimmer of an idea in the head of somebody, and say to them, “I understand what you’re trying to do here. Let’s have a chat because this is what it’s gonna look like on the ground.”

If you could ask the European Commission for one thing right now, what would it be?

The rate of legislation has accelerated a lot. Not just the number of acts that are proposed at any given time, but also the pace at which they are promulgated. The problem is that the time available for impact assessment and consultation has been squeezed, sometimes too much.

If I could ask the Commission for one thing, I would say, “Please make sure you build in enough time for consultation and for proper in-depth impact assessment, because the negative consequences of not doing are serious.”

What is the current status of EUDR? When is it due to come into force?

 The EUDR has been postponed twice but is now set to be enforced for large and medium-sized operators from 30 December 2026, followed by micro and small operators from 30 June 2027.

We have advised clients in sectors in countries that have a large base of smallholders that face significant challenges in meeting the geolocation requirements. But even for countries with more concentrated sectors, the file caused uncertainty how to prove that someone is entitled to use a land or how to trace goods that are traded in bulk and mixed along the supply chain, such as soy.

It is important that the EU listens to these stakeholders, in particular from developing and emerging countries, because it otherwise risks excluding them from supply chains.

There was a lot of media coverage a while back about Poland and Ukrainian agricultural exports to the EU. Has that issue been resolved?

When Russia blockaded Ukraine’s Black Sea ports in 2022, much of this trade had to be redirected either into the EU market or across EU territory to European ports, usually at huge discounts harming the Ukrainian farmers. The EU responded quickly through its Solidarity Lanes initiative, simplifying customs and phytosanitary procedures, while temporarily suspending agricultural tariffs and import quotas. These measures helped keep the sector afloat during the critical first two years of the war.

However, the ensuing increase in Ukrainian imports and transit soon provoked a fierce backlash among EU farmers, especially in neighbouring Member States such as Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. Their concerns centred on falling local prices, congested grain storage and pressure on freight capacity. Governments in these countries subsequently imposed unilateral bans on certain Ukrainian agricultural imports, while continuing to allow transit.

Unfortunately, the situation remains unresolved, with bans still in place, their illegal status under the EU law still not challenged by Brussels. As the September EU Agrifish Council discussions showed, Poland and other countries are reluctant to do more to help Ukraine’s agri transit via their territories, while the European Commission seems to be unable to offer Ukraine any other meaningful means of helping the sector reach the global markets.

The US is becoming more aggressive with tariffs and trade. How is that affecting your commodity trading clients? Are they having to rethink everything?

There was, and I think there still is, considerable confusion.

One of the biggest impacts of Trump’s abandonment of free trade was that all the other trading partners in the world, particularly the advanced economies and the advanced agricultural producers, thought, “We can’t get our products into the U.S. now. Let’s get our products into other markets.”

Tariff walls go up everywhere, because everyone’s saying, “There’s a whole lot of product now that can’t get to a huge market anymore. It’s gonna come flooding towards us.”

People have to deal with that knock-on effect, on top of the original protection imposed by the US. It can become a vicious circle.

Is trade now another weapon in warfare?

It’s certainly a political tool, especially the way Trump is using it. I’m not sure the rest of the world wants to use it that way.

But trade has always been, to a certain extent, a political tool. You could strengthen your relationships with a country by signing a free trade agreement, an expression of goodwill, as long as both sides have compatible trade interests.

What is new is the extent to which trade policy is being weaponised for non-trade and economic purposes. Of course, it’s been used before, but to the extent that it’s being used now, we’ve reached a new level.

Is the traditional multilateral trading system for commodities dead?

I hope not, but it’s struggling.

The Appellate Body in the WTO hasn’t functioned for a long time, but there are workarounds. Resolving commodity trade disputes has become harder,

I would say the multilateral trading system is weakened. I’m not going to put the “Do not resuscitate” sign on it. That’s up to politicians.

What we have seen is a proliferation of preferential bilateral and regional trade agreements. For smaller or less developed commodity exporting economies, this may not be so great. They can have less leverage against the more powerful and diversified trading partners with whom they are negotiating and end up with rather one-sided agreements. Whereas the multilateral approach to trade liberalisation supposedly raises the level of market access for everyone.

Let’s move on to the Geneva Commodity Show. What messages would you like to convey to the audience?

Find ways to communicate with policymakers, whether they’re in Brussels or Washington, in the member states, or in Delhi, Brasilia, Bern, Maputo, Tokyo or Beijing. Find a way to get your view across, build alliances with people who share your interests, and get in early.

People think it’s impossible to do this, but it really isn’t. You normally end up with a good compromise you can live with, not a slam-dunk win.

What do you hope to gain from the event?

I’d like to improve my knowledge of the commodity trading business by being around the industry and hearing the conversations. It will refresh my understanding of the sector’s key concerns.

Thank you, Sebastian. I look forward to welcoming you to the panel on 5th November, alongside Pedro Nonay and Philip Ryan.

©Commodity Conversations® 2026

The second edition of The Sugar Casino is now available on Amazon

A Guest Blog by Charl Van Zyl from Meridian Macro

Diesel is still stretched, nitrogen has calmed, and phosphate has not. What eight months of data say about how the Gulf shock is feeding into wheat, maize and sugar.

When the war with Iran began on February 28, most of the market’s attention went to crude. That made sense. Roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and LNG normally moves through the Strait of Hormuz, and Brent went from $71 a barrel on February 27 to $138 on April 7, by the EIA’s daily spot series.

But the strait carries more than oil. Producers in Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain account for 34% of global urea trade, 18% of MAP and DAP trade, 23% of ammonia trade and 49% of sulfur trade, according to the International Fertilizer Association’s 2026 outlook. Farmers do not buy crude. They buy diesel and fertiliser. So the question for anyone who trades or eats grain and sugar is how that input shock travels into crop prices, and how long it takes.

I am a data analyst, so I went back to the numbers. My answer is that the shock arrived in three waves, that each wave behaved differently, and that the common assumption of a long, slow lag from inputs to food is not what the history shows.

Wave one: diesel, the cost nobody can skip

A farmer can delay a fertiliser purchase. A farmer cannot harvest, haul or dry grain without diesel. That makes diesel the first and least avoidable channel.

Diesel has pulled away from crude since Hormuz closed. US Gulf Coast diesel vs Brent, US$ per barrel, daily spot. Source: EIA via FRED, as of Oct 20, 2026.

The chart shows something more important than the oil spike itself. Diesel did not just follow crude up. It pulled away from it. On February 27 a barrel of Gulf Coast diesel cost $34 more than a barrel of Brent. On October 20 the gap was $93, almost four times its 2025 average of $24. The chart alone cannot say why, but the pattern points to a shortage of refined fuel, not just of crude.

At the pump the effect is blunt. The EIA’s US average retail diesel price was $6.28 a gallon in the week of October 19, up 73% from a year earlier and 65% above the last reading before the war. In Europe the bigger farm-input story is gas. The World Bank’s TTF benchmark averaged $25.42 per MMBtu in September, up 126% from February. That matters for food because natural gas is typically 60% to 80% of the cost of making nitrogen fertiliser, per the IFA.

Wave two: nitrogen spiked, then let go

The fertiliser shock was fast and violent. The World Bank’s urea benchmark, priced f.o.b. Middle East, averaged $472 a tonne in February and $857 in April. Outbound fertiliser shipments through the strait came to a near standstill, according to the WTO. The IFA counted 800,000 tonnes of urea sitting on 17 ships west of Hormuz at the end of April, and the International Trade Centre later estimated that urea exports from Hormuz-dependent economies fell 83% by volume in April compared with a year earlier.

Then the price let go. By June urea had fallen back to $453, and in September it averaged $408, below its February level. The WTO’s July review of fertiliser trade noted the same thing, saying urea had “almost reverted to pre-war levels” after doubling. I cannot cleanly separate the reasons, but a June ceasefire briefly eased shipping, and the WTO notes China later allowed limited urea exports under a quota.

The shock moved from energy to fertiliser to crops. % change in monthly average price vs February 2026. Source: World Bank Pink Sheet, EIA and IMF via FRED, data to Sep 2026.

The heatmap is the clearest way I have found to see the sequence. Read it top to bottom and left to right. In April, urea was up 82% from February while maize was up 2% and sugar was down 1%. By September, the colours had moved down the table. Urea was 14% below its February level, but wheat was up 35%, raw sugar up 26% and maize up 14%. Diesel was still up 69% and European gas up 126%.

It is tempting to read that as a neat chain, with expensive fertiliser in spring becoming expensive grain in autumn. I think that is only part of the story, and I come back to it below.

Wave three: phosphate, the input that stayed expensive

Nitrogen grabbed the headlines. Phosphate is where the cost has stuck.

DAP, a staple phosphate fertiliser, averaged $627 a tonne in February and $801 in September, up 28%. Unlike urea it never gave back the gain. Sulfur is one likely reason. Phosphate plants need sulfuric acid, and almost half of the world’s traded sulfur normally leaves through Hormuz. The WTO also notes that Türkiye introduced a temporary ban on sulfur exports and that China tightened controls on urea and sulfuric acid, so restrictions elsewhere added to the squeeze.

The cleanest way to see what this means for a farmer is to ignore the dollar price and ask how much crop it takes to buy a tonne of fertiliser.

Nitrogen is affordable again. Phosphate is not. Tonnes of US maize needed to buy one tonne of fertiliser, monthly. Source: World Bank Pink Sheet, Meridian Macro calculation.

In April a tonne of urea cost the same as 4.0 tonnes of US maize, the most expensive reading since at least 2010 and above the November 2021 peak of 3.62 during the last fertiliser crisis. By September the ratio was 1.70, almost exactly its 2010 to 2026 average of 1.62. For nitrogen, the farmer’s terms of trade are back to normal, helped by the fact that maize itself got dearer.

Phosphate tells the opposite story. A tonne of DAP cost 3.34 tonnes of maize in September, against an average of 2.28. That is above the November 2021 peak of 2.92. To be fair to the data, phosphate was already stretched before the war. The ratio hit a sample high of 4.29 in August 2025, when DAP was expensive and maize was cheap, well before Hormuz was in the news. It had eased to 2.99 by February. The war pushed it back up to 3.98 in June, and it has not returned to normal since.

Why does that matter for crop prices? If farmers respond to expensive phosphate by applying less of it, any effect on yields would show up over seasons, not weeks. Exposure is uneven. The WTO identifies 18 economies that combine heavy import dependence with heavy reliance on Gulf nitrogen, including Brazil, Kenya, Tanzania and Sri Lanka, and says India sourced almost two-thirds of its nitrogen fertiliser imports from the Gulf.

Sugar: the oil link runs through ethanol, and the weather is louder

Sugar is the most interesting case because its link to Hormuz is not mainly fertiliser. It is fuel.

Brazil’s Centre-South mills can turn cane into either sugar or ethanol. When oil is expensive, ethanol pays better and mills shift cane away from sugar, which tightens the world market. That is happening this season. The consultancy Datagro expects the Centre-South sugar mix to fall to 46.7% of cane in 2026/27 from 50.4% last season, with sugar output down 5% to 38.42M tonnes and total ethanol output up 10.4% to 37.2B litres, Reuters reported on October 26.

But it would be wrong to put sugar’s rally mainly on Hormuz. The FAO’s sugar index averaged 114.0 points in September, up 14.7% from a year earlier and at its highest since April 2025. The FAO attributes the rise mainly to a smaller EU beet crop, lower expected output in Thailand, below-normal rain in India as El Niño strengthens, and heavy rain slowing the harvest in Brazil. Datagro counts 28.6 harvest days lost to rain in Brazil this season against a historical average of 13.6. Brazil’s own fuel policy also blunts the oil signal. Datagro’s Plinio Nastari said gasoline subsidies and Petrobras price controls have kept ethanol demand from rising further.

So oil is a real tailwind for sugar this year, through the cane mix. Weather is the bigger driver. Front-month raw sugar futures on ICE closed at 19.10 US cents a pound on Monday, October 26.

Grains: pass-through is fast, not slow

For wheat and maize, the FAO is explicit that Hormuz is one of several drivers. Its cereal index averaged 122.8 points in September, up 17.2% year on year, with maize at its highest in more than three years. The FAO cites lower US yields, reduced Brazilian export availability and Black Sea logistics, and adds that Hormuz shipping uncertainty “kept concerns about fuel, fertilizer and freight costs elevated”, especially for biofuel feedstocks such as maize.

That brings me back to the lag. A common view is that input shocks reach crop prices with a long delay, because fertiliser bought this spring shapes the harvest next year. I tested that with 20 years of World Bank and IMF monthly data.

History says the pass-through is fast, not slow. Correlation of year-on-year % changes in Brent or urea with crop prices k months later, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026. Source: World Bank Pink Sheet, IMF via FRED, Meridian Macro calculation.

The result is clear. The year-on-year change in Brent has a correlation of 0.61 with the change in US wheat prices in the same month, and 0.56 with maize. Six months later those correlations have roughly halved, to 0.32 and 0.28, and after a year they are close to zero. Urea shows the same shape, 0.52 for maize at no lag and 0.03 after 12 months. Correlation is not causation, and 2006 to 2026 includes two big common shocks, 2008 and 2022, that pushed everything up together. But the pattern says grain markets tend to price energy and fertiliser costs at the same time, not with a long delay.

Sugar is the outlier. Its link to Brent is weaker, 0.35 at no lag, and turns slightly negative after six months. Urea and sugar barely move together at all. That fits the ethanol story. Oil affects sugar through the cane mix, not through fertiliser bills.

So why did grains rally months after urea peaked this year? My read is that this autumn’s gains have more to do with weather, yields and the Black Sea than with a delayed fertiliser bill. Grains did respond in spring, but modestly, with wheat up 9% by April. The bigger moves came later, from other sources.

What most people get wrong

The first mistake is to treat “fertiliser” as one price. Nitrogen and phosphate have gone in opposite directions since April, and a farmer’s decision depends on which one their crop needs.

The second is to assume a long, predictable lag from inputs to food. The data says markets price the shock quickly. The slower channel is through yields, and that will show up in production data next year, not in futures charts this month.

The third is to blame Hormuz for everything. Diesel and fertiliser costs are real, but the FAO’s own commentary puts weather, El Niño and the Black Sea ahead of the Gulf for this autumn’s moves in sugar and cereals.

What to watch

1. The Gulf Coast diesel premium. A sustained fall from $90 a barrel toward the $30s would be the clearest sign that Gulf refined product flows are normalising.
2. DAP vs maize. A drop in the ratio toward 2.3 would mean the phosphate squeeze is easing for next season’s planting.
3. The FAO Food Price Index on November 6. It will show whether the cereal and sugar gains held in October.
4. UNICA’s fortnightly cane reports. Any move in Brazil’s sugar mix back toward 50% would weaken the oil link to sugar.
5. Daily Hormuz transits. Traffic remains far below its pre-war level by every public count I have seen. A visible pickup would matter more for fertiliser than any statement.

The bottom line

Hormuz did reach the farm gate, but not as a single wave. Diesel is still about 65% above its pre-war level and still the cost farmers cannot avoid. Nitrogen spiked and then normalised. Phosphate has stayed expensive relative to what crops earn. Grain prices have historically priced these costs within months, and sugar takes its cue from oil through ethanol rather than fertiliser. If the strait reopens properly, the diesel premium should be the first thing to fall. Phosphate is likely to stay the slowest to heal.

Analysis only, not investment advice.

Charl Van Zyl is a data analyst who writes Meridian Macro, a weekly read on where geopolitics meets markets, built on charts and sourced data. Subscribe free at https://meridianmacroweekly.substack.com

Shipping, Trading and the Value of a Network

Good morning, Richard, and welcome to Commodity Conversations. You began your career in rice trading, particularly in shipments to West Africa. What did that experience teach you about shipping that a textbook couldn’t?

Rice is a commodity where anything that can go wrong will. It is unusual because you can take a handful of rice, boil it, and feed a family. It is ready to eat without any further preparation.

At the time, we were a team of 15, moving a million tonnes of rice per year. It was an interesting environment, and I learned an incredible amount during the first three years of my career.

I started in IT, then moved into execution, shipping, voyage chartering and operations. I also handled insurance and legal disputes and travelled to West and East Africa to resolve issues. Looking back, I don’t understand how I managed all that in three years. It formed much of my underlying knowledge and experience.

I then spent four years at a more structured company, ASCOT, handling shipping operations for another million tonnes per year. Because nobody else handled insurance, I took that on, along with legal disputes.

ASCOT was part of Addax. I was quite sociable with people across the larger company, which laid the foundation for my network later in my career. Anyone’s career is built on a network and knowledge. You cannot get anywhere without both.

I understand you teach. Where do you teach, and what do you teach?

I teach at the Haute École de Gestion in Geneva. My students are enrolled in a bachelor’s programme in international business management. In their final year, they can specialise in commodity trading.

We focus on commodity trading each Friday. I teach in partnership with Julie Noller, a carbon-credit trader. She teaches in the morning: trading, middle office, risk, derivatives and hedging. I teach in the afternoon: everything physical, including Incoterms, contracts and charter parties.

I also teach a commodity-trading fundamentals course with SUISSENÉGOCE, the Swiss trading and shipping association. It is a two-day course that traces an imaginary trade from A to Z and covers all the key elements. Each intake has 20 people, and the courses are always fully booked, with a waiting list.

I also teach companies directly. I might be in Abu Dhabi or teaching online, with participants in Mauritius, Pointe-Noire and Dubai on the same course.

It is a mix of structured university teaching, association courses, and bespoke company training: shipping, charter parties, contracts, insurance claims, and letters of credit—basically anything that isn’t pure trading.

How much of your working time does teaching take?

Probably about 40 per cent. It is difficult to say because it includes time in front of the class, as well as preparation, which can take longer.

What was the biggest challenge you faced when managing shipping operations at ASCOT, and how does it influence what you teach today?

Two things: time pressures and cultural differences. We bought mainly in Asia and sold in West Africa, so we needed fundamentally different ways of dealing with people.

If you dealt with the Asians as you did with the West Africans, they would clam up. If you dealt with the West Africans as you did with the Asians, they would not listen. Individual countries also differed.

That helped me realise that you have to understand someone’s motivations before you can convince them to do something.

The other lesson was the importance of getting things done quickly but precisely. You cannot hang around; you have to act. But doing something to 90 per cent can be the same as doing nothing. If somebody has to pick up the last 10 per cent, they may have to start from scratch. If you are going to do something, do it to the end.

What prompted you to establish HR Maritime in 2008?

In early 2007, I was seeking a new challenge. I had been working in shipping operations for some time and was speaking to various companies. I always knew I wanted to be the boss and make decisions. But at every company I considered, that position was still a long way off.

Do you see your company as a link between physical commodity traders and shipping companies?

People see me as an intermediary, but I am not. I work on behalf of my client, reinforcing their capacity or filling any gaps in their understanding.

I spend as much time on purchase and sale contracts as on shipping. If there is contamination on board a vessel, is that shipping or trading? It is difficult to draw the line.

I also have a shipowning client. When I write their emails, I have to pause and remind myself: I am on the owner’s side now.

A company like Cargill may not need my consulting or claims services, but it might need training to address a specific gap. Training tends to be for larger and medium-sized companies; consulting, advisory work and claims handling tend to be for medium-sized and smaller companies.

All I do is plug a gap. There are plenty of gaps because what we do is complex. Being an expert in all the moving parts is very tricky.

Does the growth of trading companies’ shipping operations change that role?

Whether you are a voyage or a time charterer, you will have shipping claims. They might be demurrage or consumption claims, but there will always be areas where people need advice.

The trading companies are growing and have greater capacity. When they charter vessels on a time charter, the trading company often charters on a voyage charter from its internal shipping entity. This adds layers of complexity that have to be considered and managed internally.

Traders, or sometimes operations managers, tend to bring me in. Operations people may be less convinced that outside assistance is required. But a trader might need an answer within ten minutes and often has the confidence that i can provide this, considering the various angles but not sugar coating it. If the answer is that the trader is wrong, I don’t hesitate to say so. They know they can get that reactivity and honesty from me. I jump in when needed and step out when I’m not; however, I am always a phone call away.

How is AI changing shipping and the relationship between shipowners and traders?

Everyone is working in their own silo, behind their city walls. I do not currently see much use of AI for collaboration. That will come, but in rare cases, people see it more as a competitive advantage.

I have seen plenty of people trying to solve the chartering question: how do we connect shipowners with charterers? I haven’t seen a system make much progress. I spent a year consulting for one in 2016, and it never went anywhere.

We are seeing both sides use AI extensively, including in voyage optimisation. But charter parties remain extremely disorganised documents with far too little thought put into drafting and eventual consequences. I am not sure whether this is an opportunity for AI or simply a need for clearer contracts.

Will AI take over chartering, or will we still need the human element?

We can use AI for lower-complexity tasks, but we still need people to manage it. I would be shocked if AI were independently chartering vessels within the next 20 years, although predictions about AI are difficult.

Chartering and trading involve a great deal of personal interaction. Contracts also vary widely. If everything were standardised, big companies would tweak it and make money off those using the standard version.

But AI can do impressive things. I use it to review charter parties and claims.

Could you describe a particularly challenging assignment?

One involved an Angolan shipowner whose vessel was managed by a Greek ship manager. I ended up taking charge of the whole matter, to the point that the owner sent me money, which I released to the manager. The vessel went into dry dock. I went to Split, Croatia, to visit it and meet the manager, then to Piraeus to audit the office. It was really interesting.

What I like about complex projects is that I learn something. Essentially, I’m paid hourly to learn, which I find fascinating.

Another case involved ethanol loaded in Peru. There were five or six sampling points, with issues related to higher alcohols and acidity. It looked as though the higher-alcohol problem came from the load port, while the acidity came from the vessel. Multiple parties were involved, and there were questions about how the testing was conducted. Now, if you ask me about acidity or higher alcohols, I know far more than I did before.

Often, I am behind the scenes, writing emails and advising the client: “We are on the right track. Hold course.”

How much of the cost of vessel delays could we avoid with better contracts, documentation, and communication?

You have to divide the conversation into two categories. First, why is the vessel delayed? Is it due to poor organisation at the port, too many vessels, an unexpected arrival time, or a vessel too big for the intended berth? Second, where does the cost fall? On the supplier, the charterer, or the shipowner?

On the first question, good organisation can make a big difference. One client discharges gasoil and gasoline at Pointe-Noire and rarely experiences delays. Other trading companies might wait one, two or three weeks. This company has people on the ground who ensure everything is ready before the vessel arrives.

Then comes apportioning the cost. You need clear evidence gathered during the operation. By the time you negotiate the claim, the information is already set. It requires collaboration between the trader who agrees to the deal, the people issuing the contract, operations, and claims. Operations must ensure everything runs smoothly and produces or obtains the right documentation. Claims people must understand the issues and have the evidence to argue them.

If you streamline that, you can save millions. But once the delay has occurred, the money has already been spent. It becomes a question of whose pocket it comes from.

Is your job always to contest the claim?

Sometimes, my job is to be brutally honest with my clients and tell them their position is extremely weak. I say, “Your argument has too many holes. You are wasting your time and money. Drop the item, pay the money, walk away and focus on deals where you are making money.”

What is the most common shipping mistake traders make?

There are many types of traders. Some buy and sell and treat everything else as operations. Others oversee everything across the chain.

Understanding contractual terms and their consequences makes a big difference. But you also have to consider the price. If you secure better terms, the price may be worse. From an operations perspective, it is easy to say, “You should negotiate better terms.” But how much do those terms cost?

Traders could benefit from a better understanding of the financial consequences of their agreements. If they give something away, what does it cost? If they understand that and accept it, that is fine. It is their job. The problem is giving something away without understanding the consequences.

You have been involved in promoting electronic bills of lading. Why haven’t they taken off?

It is a journey. One of my students wrote a thesis on electronic bills of lading and ended his defence by asking why they had failed. I asked whether, in 2019, it would have been accurate to say that artificial intelligence had failed.

Bills of lading are complex documents that mean different things to different people. For banks, they serve as collateral. A bank lending against them seeks to secure that collateral anywhere in the world. For trading companies, reduced handling costs help, but they are only one of many available improvements. Faster payment benefits the recipient, but not necessarily the payer. A trader is in the middle, doing both.

For shipowners, these are complex legal documents, backed by about 150 years of jurisprudence. Electronic bills of lading have a much shorter legal history.

We are getting there, and I think adoption may happen without us noticing. Covantis has adopted Secro’s electronic bills of lading, and agricultural companies have started using them with less fanfare than you might expect.

I should disclose that I have a vested interest: I actively promoted Secro’s eBL and was compensated in shares. The real reward for my work would be seeing inefficiency decrease as eBLs and other digital documents are adopted. But I also know this isn’t the most urgent problem to solve.

Where do you see the greatest benefit of digitisation?

Data integration. Start with the contract, then build the documentary instructions, followed by the letter of credit and the bill of lading.

If we need to discharge against a letter of indemnity, we should be able to click on the bill to generate it. The indemnity could be transmitted on the same platform, making the process more valuable and secure. Then the documentary presentation follows, and everything flows.

Trading has many moving parts. Each service provider takes its slice of the pie and focuses on it, without necessarily understanding what it affects next door.

Electronic bills of lading are great, but they are not the only documents in a letter of credit. For true integration, all the pieces must align.

What is the most pressing problem the industry needs to address?

I am not sure there is one. There are a billion things we could do better. We could gain a lot by talking across industries—agriculture and energy, for example—and sharing lessons learned. We tend to focus on what is different instead of what is the same.

Everyone brings their own baggage and perspective. A trader sees things from a trading perspective; someone in operations sees them from an operations perspective. Everyone thinks their part is the most important piece of the puzzle. I am not sure there is a single most important part.

That brings us nicely to the Commodity Show. You have recently joined as a partner. What prompted you to get involved?

Many events are created by people in the events industry. They are skilled at organising events but do not necessarily understand the business. The business has an opportunity to create an event.

We are not just cross-commodity; we are cross-functional. We cover agriculture, metals and energy, as well as trading, operations, human resources and finance.

The idea is not to bring everyone into one massive mix. Instead, we want, for example, a legal panel across commodities, an HR panel across commodities, and other panels focused on a particular sector.

What do you hope people will gain from attending the event?

Knowledge and networking opportunities for newcomers and established people.

We spend so much time on daily business that we do not take the opportunity to chat. But chatting is not wasted time. Someone randomly mentions a problem, and someone else says, “We already encountered the same situation, and this is how we solved it.”

There is no formal mechanism for that exchange. The more opportunities we create for unplanned interactions, the better the industry becomes.

How will you assess whether the event was successful?

If people leave having enjoyed it, built relationships, found an opportunity at a new company, or identified talent they need, that is success for me. It is difficult to measure, but financial results aren’t the only criterion.

What advice would you give to someone already in the sector or planning to join it?

Never miss an opportunity to help someone. It will pay off, though you never know when—five, ten, twenty or thirty years later. Our careers are long. Someone you helped without much thought may come back ten years later.

That goes back to the network: build it, work on it, and focus on the long term.

Last question: You are flying to Senegal in a couple of hours. What will you do there?

After several years with SOS Méditerranée, I helped establish the Foundation for Humanitarian Action at Sea in 2024. The initiative brings together the shipping and humanitarian sectors, with representation from the International Chamber of Shipping and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. It focuses on migrant sea routes in the Mediterranean, East and West Africa, the Caribbean and Southeast Asia.

We regularly hold regional meetings that bring together search-and-rescue authorities to coordinate their efforts and identify support needs. I am travelling to Senegal for our regional meeting there.

Our guiding principle is that, regardless of debates over migration, people should not die at sea. Merchant vessels often undertake rescues without the equipment, design or training required, putting everyone involved at risk. We aim to help fill that training gap.

Thank you, Richard, for your time and input.

©CommodityConversations®2026

Could you please tell me your current role and responsibilities at Balrampur Chini Mills?

I am the Executive Director of Balrampur Chini Mills. My responsibilities include: the new PLA bioplastics project; farmer relations; cane procurement and development; communications and media relations; and new technologies and R&D. I am also involved in sugar manufacturing, though not on a day-to-day basis.

As a fourth-generation leader, you follow in the footsteps of your late grandmother, Padma Shri Meenakshi Saraogi (‘Madamji’), a true industry icon. What did you learn from her management style, and why is she such an inspiration to you?

What I admire most is her grit: the confidence to jump in and not stop until the job was done; not giving up until what she set out to do was completed.

Picture 1980: an Indian housewife who had never worked before, a Hindi literature major, with a 14-year-old son and a seven-year-old daughter. She left a comfortable, affluent life in Calcutta to turn around a struggling sugar mill in Balrampur. At that time, even fruit and bread had to be brought from Lucknow, three hours away.

She did not stop there. She put up all our greenfield projects, and during the first season of every greenfield, brownfield or project phase, she was physically present throughout. For most people, that would be nerve-racking and intimidating; for her, it was simply how she ticked.

She showed me that nothing can limit you except yourself. If you really want to do something, just do it.

Is entrepreneurship inherited and absorbed through family life, or can it be taught? Where does your entrepreneurial drive come from?

I do not think it was taught to me in a traditional way. Children do not always learn what you tell them; they learn what they see. I grew up with a strong sense of responsibility: making sure you took care of your people and their concerns, whether big or small. Everything mattered to my grandmother and my father.

To me, entrepreneurship is about picking the right people, taking care of them and enabling them to perform, while performing yourself in the process. I think you can learn it, but only through real-life observation rather than simply by imparting knowledge or going to college.

You attended Scripps College in California. Did you absorb some of the Californian can-do business culture there?

Not really. I studied liberal arts and majored in art and dance, so it had nothing to do with business. But I learned a valuable skill: a US college education taught me that I can read anything and make sense of it, whether it is boring or highly complicated.

We had pages and pages of reading every day—history, art history, civil movements, and literature. I took a course on James Joyce’s Ulysses, which was a crazy book to get through. If I could get through that, an agreement or a court order is easy. I am indebted to that education for teaching me how to work through complex material.

You spent six and a half years in the restaurant business before joining the family company. What did you learn there that helps you now?

I learned two important skills.

First, do not stress about what you cannot control. In restaurants, weather, broken equipment, travel disruptions, or COVID can suddenly affect everything. I learned to move from “Oh my God, what am I going to do?” to “What can we do?” That helped when I joined Balrampur; the weather was poor, and red rot had affected our best cane variety. Untimely rain was ruining crops. I could not control the weather or the disease, but I could focus on the actions available to us.

Second, I learned how to deal with government offices. A restaurant in Calcutta needs around 13 licences. My family had no business there, so I handled the process myself: the paperwork, the waiting, and dealing with everyone from junior staff to senior officials. It took more than a year. It taught me about India’s bureaucratic culture, the value of perseverance, and that nothing is impossible. Things may take time, but if you keep pushing, they happen. I would not trade that experience for anything.

You have previously stated that over the past ten years you have increased cane farmers’ incomes by more than 50 per cent. How did you achieve that?

By helping them become entrepreneurs and providing them with agricultural equipment and new lines of work. In the past five years alone, we have distributed tens of thousands of pieces of equipment.

Our biggest achievement is building enough trust for farmers to try what we ask without fearing they will be penalised. That credibility enables us to create change quickly. It is very hard to replace varieties and agricultural practices passed down through generations, but this is essential to increasing value across the sugar chain.

We have set up a tissue-culture lab that produces new sugarcane varieties and enables rapid multiplication. I believe we are the only company in India doing this. We can replace entire varieties across our ecosystem in three to four years. That is unheard of, and it happens only because of trust. It is an unsung yet central part of the business.

Sustainability is clearly important to you. How are you making your processes more environmentally sustainable?

We have never bought a tonne of coal—at least not in the past 40 years. We are fully powered by renewable energy. But sustainability is broader than energy.

We have also focused on water. In four factories, we use no groundwater to produce sugar. Across the sugar side, none of our factories needs to extract groundwater because sugarcane is 70 per cent water. We use large-scale purification and water-polishing units, and we are working to reduce groundwater extraction to zero.

On the farm side, we are reducing the chemical load. Farmers often over-fertilise or apply insecticides when they are not needed. For the past five years, we have been developing mechanical and biological controls for all crops, so there is always a mechanical or biological option, and chemicals can be phased out. It takes time, but reducing chemicals is better for the environment, health and all crops in the area, not only sugarcane.

Within our plants, we implement energy-saving projects every year. This reduces environmental impact and actual costs, because we need less bagasse to run the plant. The bagasse can then be sold or used for something else.

Are your new cane varieties more drought-resistant and less reliant on irrigation?

Our issue is the opposite. In Balrampur, we face little drought risk; we look for flood- or waterlogging-tolerant varieties. Around 35 per cent of our cane grows in waterlogging areas, which we define as areas where water stagnates for more than a month.

Flowing floodwater can bring nutrients and be beneficial, as long as it stays below the cane’s neck. The real problem is stagnant water, which becomes a breeding ground for everything. That is the climate challenge specific to our area.

When you joined the family business, whose idea was it to move into PLA (polylactic acid) bioplastics?

It was my idea. My father is a conservative, traditional businessman, and it took four years to convince him and the senior management team. There were many questions, what-ifs, and crossed Ts and dotted Is. In their hearts, I think people wanted it too, but they wanted to make sure all the holes and leaks were plugged.

I am happy it happened that way, because the timing now seems right. But it was definitely my idea.

How did you come up with the idea?

I was looking for ways to add value to our product and by-products. After training, when I joined, I had two responsibilities: cane, which was the biggest vacuum after my grandmother left the business, and adding value.

I was researching online—what was possible and what other countries and companies were doing—and found a clear bottle with French writing that said, “I’m made from sugarcane.” That set me off down the rabbit hole.

Initially, I thought PLA (polylactic acid) bioplastic was made from bagasse and that it might require a ₹50 crore investment. I thought we could set up ten small units, one at each mill: good for the environment and everything. Then I discovered the scale was closer to ₹3,000 crore—about $324 million at the time. It began simply, but it was a good start.

You want more than 50 per cent of your company’s revenue to come from non-sugar sources. Is this achievable across the Indian sugar-milling sector, or are bioplastics only a supplementary revenue stream?

We need to zoom out a little. PLA is technically complex and energy-intensive. I decided that we would not use fossil-based energy in this plant. To be energy-independent, a company needs its own biomass and, in my view, probably four or five mills. Biomass can be bought, but it is always better to have your own energy source. I would not recommend this model to a company with only one mill.

For larger groups, this is repeatable. India consumes around 5 million tonnes of single-use plastics. If even 20 per cent were shifted to PLA, it would require around 1 million tonnes of PLA and approximately 1.7 million tonnes of sugar. That is manageable for the country.

We are starting with 80,000 tonnes. Over the long term, I believe there is headroom for around 2 million tonnes of sugar to be used in PLA and other bioplastics, alongside perhaps 3.5 million tonnes diverted to ethanol—provided we navigate the current variety transition, unusual rainfall and climate challenges, and develop more climate-resilient varieties. This can work for sugar, farmers and the environment.

How is the project progressing?

We are on track. We will begin commissioning the lactic-acid side in October, with PLA to follow in November and December. Commissioning should be complete within the year, and from January we hope to have product from the new plant in the market.

What has been the most difficult operational issue to resolve?

Transporting imported equipment. The disruption in West Asia meant shipments that should have passed through Suez had to go around the Cape of Good Hope, increasing costs and time. We also had a vessel break down near the Cape.

Then came the challenge of moving the equipment in India. Some columns are 40 metres long and very wide. Length is manageable, but turning radii and height restrictions are much harder to navigate. We have had to open and restore electrical lines, dismantle and rebuild railway crossings, lift footbridges, and, in some places, dig under roads. It could be a movie.

People now know the route the equipment will take. Children leave schools and people leave their homes to wave; they make reels with music in the background. We have around ten very large pieces of equipment from China and Europe. The sea voyage can take a month, but moving the equipment to the plant in India can take six months.

Let’s now move to bioplastic demand. Is PLA biodegradable?

‘Biodegradable’ is a complex term. It depends on where and under what conditions. The most widely accepted standard is industrial compostability. Europe, India, the US and international standards all address biodegradation under industrial composting conditions.

We also needed to understand what happens if the material is littered, and we worked with the Indian government to test this. In Indian climatic conditions, it should break down in under five years if littered. In a landfill, it should break down in one summer season because conditions are hotter and more humid than in Europe. We do not want to promote littering, but India is not an easy place for collection, segregation and recycling, so we have to know what happens in the real world.

India is highly price-sensitive, so we have focused on regulation first, then on scaling and lowering prices.

One major opportunity is packaging for chewing tobacco. Small sachets have been a major source of litter; in 2011 the Supreme Court banned plastic packaging for this purpose, but aluminium foil with paper became the alternative and does not degrade. We have developed a PLA-based solution that degrades in under three years. This is under consideration at the highest levels of government and could account for more than half of our plant capacity.

A second opportunity is small water bottles—500 ml and below. Hotels, offices and events increasingly do not want conventional plastic bottles, but glass is heavy, fragile and creates painful reverse logistics. We have made the case for small bottles to transition to PLA in Uttar Pradesh, where we are setting up.

Both Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra have incentive policies for bioplastics. Maharashtra has set a target of 200,000 tonnes of PLA and other bioplastics, with ₹25,000 crore over five years. Uttar Pradesh has also announced a bioplastics cluster next to our plant, which will reduce transport costs. The governments are interested and excited. The path is regulation first; once scale rises and prices fall, the industry should need less support.

Will you export PLA or focus on the domestic market?

My preference is the domestic market. A great deal of global plastic conversion already takes place in India, particularly in flexible packaging. I would like India to add another step of value before exporting, rather than exporting PLA directly.

What sugar feedstock will you use?

There are three options. We will start with refined, sulphur-free sugar because it is the cleanest. We can also use raw sugar, and our testing has been very good. The third option, which I want to move to within four to six months, is fine liquor before sugar crystallisation. That saves energy, time, processing, bagging and granulation.

Does your integration from fields to final product make you more competitive?

We have two key advantages.

First, we don’t need to transport sugar or energy feedstock: everything is highly local. That is a significant saving, especially when fuel prices are high.

Second, ours will be the lowest-carbon-footprint PLA ever produced because we don’t use any fossil-based inputs in the plant and transport is minimal.

Can you use corn as a feedstock, and how competitive would it be?

Yes. China and the US produce PLA from corn. Within about a year to a year and a half after start-up, we should be able to produce from grains, including corn and rice. Policy will continue to shift as PLA grows in India, so we need to be ready to use whatever feedstock is most appropriate.

Ethanol taught us that you cannot rely on a single feedstock. Weather changes everything. At present, sugar and grain are broadly at cost parity, with one or the other sometimes slightly higher.

The longer-term opportunity lies in other biomass feedstocks, including cellulosic agricultural residues that farmers often burn. We are working on splitting cellulosic feedstocks into hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin. The challenge is to create scalable value for lignin.

Our mandate is to identify ways lignin might reduce chemical use in plantations—for example, as a fertiliser or insecticide substitute. The work is progressing, but it will take at least a year to develop a viable technology and perhaps seven years to commercialise. I want us to be ready not only for grain but also for third-generation feedstocks: first generation now, then leapfrog to third generation.

How will you incentivise biomass supply and transport it to the plant economically?

It is straightforward and already planned. We do not expect farmers to bring the material to us. Third-party local entrepreneurs use baling machines to bale residues, load them onto trucks, and transport them to the plant. We direct them to the fields, and they collect residue field by field.

We have already begun this system because our thermic fluid heater—a boiler for oil rather than steam, required for one process—is fired by agricultural residue. Farmers are happy for us to clear their fields while they stay at home.

Second-generation ethanol has struggled because breaking down bagasse is both expensive and difficult. What does that mean for your second- and third-generation plans?

The cost is certainly there. The key is lignin. If we can add enough value to lignin, it could offset part of the cost. But from a pure-cost perspective, I do not see second-generation processes reaching cost parity soon—perhaps not for two decades unless there is a major breakthrough.

Bagasse is roughly one-third cellulose, one-third hemicellulose and one-third lignin, though the proportions vary. You can ferment cellulose and hemicellulose to produce ethanol, but lignin is generally just burned for energy. That is where the problem lies.

If lignin could serve as an insecticide or fertiliser substitute, the economics would improve. We have access to 550,000 farmers and potentially many more beyond cane growers, so we could establish a distribution market for such products.

Would using corn enable year-round operation?

We can already operate year-round using stored sugar. Other feedstocks would provide the next level of flexibility. As we expand, we may choose among sugar, grains and other inputs, depending on crop conditions, climate and cost.

Do you wish you had studied chemical engineering rather than the arts?

Chemical engineering is where my heart, mind and soul gravitate. But I am glad I did not study it formally, because that gives you a superpower: you do not know what is supposedly impossible, so you ask, “But why not?”

Sometimes people forget why something was ruled out, and when they look again, they realise it may be possible. I have had extensive practical chemical engineering training. I understand the sugar process, ethanol and PLA. Chemical plants are variations on fermentation, distillation, polymerisation, separation, putting things together and taking them apart.

Do you see a future in which Balramphur drops ‘Chini’ (Hindi for ‘Sugar’) from its name to reflect a biochemical identity?

I would not change ‘Chini’. It is the building block of chemistry. Without it, we do not have a biosource. Even if we move to grain, starch is still sugar.

I am also sentimentally attached to the name. It is generational: I have been visiting the plant since I was one. It is my grandmother’s legacy and my father’s life’s work. I would retain the name and add verticals and brands. Our PLA brand is BioYug—yug means era—the era of biomanufacturing.

In ten years, what would you like to be able to tell me then?

First, we have doubled PLA capacity. Second, we are making—or well on the way to making—at least one more biochemical or bioplastic molecule. I have five possibilities in the running now, so some should be commercialised by then. Third, I would like third-generation agricultural-residue products to see the light of day.

If I can tell you those three things in ten years, I will be happy.

I am confident you will get there! Thank you, Avantika, for your time and input.

©Commodity Conversations®2026

The second edition of my book, The Sugar Casino, will be published in September.

A Guest Article by Pedro Nonay

This was originally published in Spanish in El Español, and the author has translated it into English with the aid of AI.

“When we had all the answers, they changed the questions.” — Mario Benedetti

For decades, we built models, theories, and certainties about how global commodity trade worked: efficiency, specialisation, supply chain integration. Today, those answers no longer fit the questions posed by the new geopolitical chessboard. This article proposes a sequential journey through these new paradigms and their cascading effects on agricultural markets. We are witnessing the birth of the “Geo-commodity“ world.

1. The new order: from military power to commercial-technological power

Global leadership has shifted its centre of gravity. It is no longer measured solely by military capability, but by commercial, technological, and financial power. In this transition, the United States and China mark the point where an established power meets an emerging one — the scenario Graham Allison termed “the Thucydides Trap”: the historically most dangerous inflexion point, when a rising power challenges the dominant one.

The result is a fragmented, asymmetric world, where blocs, alliances, and spheres of influence replace the linear globalisation of the past three decades. Yet even amid fragmentation, one element governs all relationships: interdependence. No one can fully disconnect from anyone else. Competition and mutual need coexist.

2. The “BI” moment

We live in what could be called a “BI” moment: bipolar, biglobal, bilateral, binary. In the commodities arena, that prefix also signals the rise of bio-energy, a symptom of a broader phenomenon: the “-ISM effect” — protectionism, nationalism, sovereigntism. All sectors, including food, are fortifying their defences in the name of national sovereignty.

This marks a significant conceptual shift: today, food matters more for reasons of national security — the paradigm of the 1970s and 80s — than for the sustainability discourse that dominated the last decade. Food is once again seen as a strategic weapon, not merely a resource to be optimised.

3. Cascading effects on commodities

3.1 Supply security over cost efficiency. The strategic priority is no longer to produce at the lowest possible cost, but to ensure that supply arrives. For now, sovereignty is achieved more by stockpiling what others produce efficiently. Feeding the world becomes an instrument of geopolitical control. One figure illustrates the point: 36 countries depend on imports for more than 50% of their bread wheat — the basis of bread and pita, an essential staple — and Russia (with Ukraine playing a marginal role) is the leading supplier of that raw material. Whoever controls that grain controls part of those countries’ social stability.

3.2 From just-in-time to just-in-case. Logistics logic has shifted paradigmatically to avoid falling into “just-too-late.” Bottlenecks become the true catalysts of price volatility: the Bosphorus Strait is to agriculture what the Strait of Hormuz is to energy. A blockage, real or perceived, triggers volatility.

3.3 Bio-energy, or biofuels, is the intersection where commodity families such as energy, agriculture, and metals converge. It is the meeting point of food and energy, governed by “national security.” It becomes the wildcard in the new commodities paradigm.

3.4 Asymmetry in production costs. Global agriculture today faces a deeply unequal cost structure, driven by energy and fertiliser prices. Whoever has cheap access to both gains a structural competitive advantage; whoever does not remains exposed to international price cycles.

4. Economics: growth, supply, and demand

Geopolitical uncertainty reduces global growth and, with it, commodity demand — which is further pressured by persistent inflation. Harvests, meanwhile, continue to outpace demand, already weakened by a demographic slowdown. Structurally, this does not point to an upward price trend. But logistics and geopolitics can generate localized supply squeezes that move the market, even when underlying fundamentals don’t justify it.

5. Freight: the hidden cost of fragmentation

Maritime shipping faithfully reflects this new reality: route changes, rising fuel prices, higher insurance premiums, and general inefficiency, all of which translate into more expensive freight. Add to this the growing risk of the “dark fleet” — fleets operating outside standard regulatory frameworks — a direct consequence of a fragmenting world and the sanctions regime. Freight is no longer a simple logistics cost; it has become a geopolitical thermometer.

6. Finance: the dollar under pressure, but still on its throne

On the financial front, sanctions, BRICS, crypto-assets, stablecoins, interest rates, and alternatives to SWIFT are shaping a system that is evolving faster, becoming less costly, and gradually eroding the dollar’s role as a payment instrument. However, the dollar retains its dominance as a reserve instrument. The transition is not a sudden replacement but a gradual erosion of functions — not of status.

Conclusion: the anatomy of the interconnected market

To understand this new map, it helps to think of the global market as a human body. Energy is the circulatory system: it irrigates all economic activity. Agriculture is the digestive system: it transforms inputs into sustenance. Finance is the brain: it processes information and makes decisions. Geopolitics is the nervous system: it transmits warning signals and coordinates responses. And climate is the skin: the first frontier of contact with the outside world, the most exposed and the most visible.

A problem in any of these systems is, sooner or later, reflected in the others. An energy shock affects fertiliser costs; geopolitical tension alters freight; a financial decision changes appetite for agricultural risk. One cannot understand the anatomy of a single part without understanding the anatomy of the whole.

Thus, a “geo-commodity” is a raw material for which geopolitical risk ceases to be an external variable in pricing and becomes a constitutive part of its value.

When the questions change, as Benedetti said, the first task is not to rush towards new answers but to understand the entire organism that generates them. That is, today, the true exercise for those of us who analyse commodity markets.

After a 30-year career at the world’s largest trading companies, including Cargill, Bunge, Wilmar and Engelhart, Philip has set up Rhino, a consultancy, to share his market experience and expertise with producers, consumers and hedge funds. For my first question, I asked him how the four trading houses he had worked for differed. 

Bunge and Cargill were culturally aligned and relied heavily on communication across different parts of the business. They consistently focused on internal analytics, believing that their market edge would come from proprietary research and trading acumen.

Wilmar was more of a typical Asian trading house, with dominant leaders centralising much of the decision-making. Again, we relied heavily on physicals and fundamentals when making our trading decisions.

When I joined in 2021, Engelhart had already exited its physical businesses. We operated as a fund, relying on a combination of fundamental and quantitative analysis. We probably spent half our time on fundamentals and analytics, and the other half on interpreting data and trading from a more ‘quantamental’ perspective.

Cargill has exited physical sugar trading and now trades only derivatives. Was it a good decision?

When I was at Cargill through 2012, it was a dominant player in the industry, with a very large physical presence and assets—more at destination than at origin. The model changed after 2012. It still traded physicals but sold its assets, so it no longer had those to trade around. The company became much leaner, with a smaller footprint and lower costs.

Whether that was good or bad is difficult to judge. In today’s sugar market, it is hard to be anything other than a lean structure trading primarily in futures, or a relatively large structure with a presence across many physical markets and some assets. Once Cargill decided to step away from assets, it was probably right for them to step back from physical trading as well.

 Can you trade physical sugar without assets?

You can trade physicals without assets, but you then become more of a price taker, making it harder to find leverage in the market.

If you have assets—particularly refinery assets and storage—you can use them to build programmes in either raws or whites. You can adjust your pace, use storage flexibility, and trade more aggressively around deliveries and expiries.

Assets give you the opportunity to build leverage around futures expiries. You can still trade physicals without assets, but your position in the delivery game is weaker. You rely on third parties to build destination books and to participate in the futures market.

In my experience, assets are more valuable at destination than at origin for a trading book. At origin, logistics pressures often make it difficult to build flexibility and optionality into those assets. Elevation can become a burden when you are obliged to run at a set pace each month.

You may have some built-in flexibility, but take-or-pay commitments can require you to run elevation whether or not you have a destination for the sugar.

 Tell me about Rhino. First, where does the name come from?

It is a play on my surname and was my nickname, dating back to when I worked in Australia. We have bulls, bears and, occasionally, buffaloes—thanks to you. So I thought: why not add a rhino to the mix?

We are an information and consulting firm. We support clients by providing a trading framework and actionable insights across the global sugar market, particularly white sugar.

There is a huge amount of information in the market today, but more information does not always make hedging and pricing decisions easier. We help our clients filter the noise, explain what the information means, identify the implications, and create a simplified framework for decision-making.

We aim to help clients understand the risk of the market moving against them, the potential opportunities available to them, and the main drivers of price risk.

How has the market changed since you started in sugar 30 years ago?

When I started as a futures trader at Cargill, volumes were relatively low, and participants were mainly commercial. Our edge came from receiving information on key origins and destinations before other market participants, thanks to our local operations and global presence. We did not have social media or the internet to relay information as they do today.

Funds existed, but they were relatively small and predictable. They would buy or sell over two or three days; once they were done, they were finished. Today, the market’s composition has changed entirely. Speculators are much larger.

Fundamentals remain an important input and continue to shape the market’s medium- to long-term direction. However, speculative flows often dwarf commercial flows in the short term. Sugar can become correlated with crude oil or energy one week, and with currencies or other soft commodities the next. Correlations come and go with no logic or foresight. Politics and global macro developments can also shape short-term movements.

A commodity trader needs to understand and anticipate how macroeconomic factors may influence the market. That means traders probably hold positions for shorter periods and take fewer highly leveraged bets than before.

As the market adage goes, “Markets can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent.”

Who are these speculators?

Let’s start with the CTAs, the Commodity Trading Advisors. They are much more important than they used to be, with assets under management about 10 times what they were 20 years ago.

There are two broad types of CTAs: discretionary and systematic. Discretionary CTAs are where people understand market fundamentals and trade accordingly. These are closer to the traditional CTAs of old.

Almost all growth over the past 20 years has come from systematic CTAs. Around 85% of CTA assets under management today are systematic. These firms employ people who build backward-looking models using tools such as moving averages and breakout levels to determine when to buy or sell.

Essentially, their models buy when markets appear to be strengthening—for example, when shorter-term averages cross longer-term averages—and sell when the opposite occurs. As signals strengthen, they scale into positions.

These funds trade across perhaps 25 or 30 commodities simultaneously. They trade without emotion. They do not necessarily know or care about the underlying fundamentals; their models tell them whether to buy or sell, and orders may be executed automatically.

They can lose money in half of their markets and still be successful if their gains in the other half are larger. They tend to make good money in trending markets and get chopped around in range-bound markets. Historically, gains in trends have often outweighed losses in range-bound markets.

To what extent are commodity markets now being traded by computers?

High-frequency trading firms can account for a significant share of daily volume—well over half in some cases.

CTAs are harder to measure, but estimates suggest that a fully deployed CTA position in sugar may be around 50,000 to 60,000 lots. If CTAs move from an extended short position to long, or vice versa, that could mean more than 100,000 lots of potential buying or selling over several days.

What about index funds—the traditional long-only ‘whales’? Are they still relevant?

They are less interesting and less relevant than CTAs, simply because they tend to be large, long and static.

There is some adjustment during the year, particularly at year-end when indices rebalance across commodities. There is also activity around the roll at futures expiry, creating liquidity and perhaps opportunities for the trade to scalp. However, their influence is probably much lower than that of CTAs, as they simply go long and sit there. Their position moves up and down somewhat, but they do not enter and exit frequently.

What about the traditional trade houses?

They still matter and retain an edge because they understand physical markets and convergence games around expiry in ways that indices, black boxes and high-frequency traders do not. However, traders are human and trade emotionally. The key for a trade house is to understand where, when and how to play.

Trade houses have at times been beaten up by getting large flat-price moves wrong when black boxes have engaged strongly in one direction. That may not be the game they should play hardest. They need to pick and choose their battles.

What is the hardest part of being a physical sugar trader?

Excluding the act of buying and selling itself, the toughest situation is taking a large position and finding that you are wrong because circumstances, crops or supply-and-demand balances have shifted.

In futures, if your position is appropriate for market liquidity, you can usually enter and exit relatively easily. In physicals, exit liquidity can be very difficult to find. The biggest challenge for physical traders is when they want to turn a position because they see values turning against them is finding exit liquidity.

Can you make money trading physical sugar without taking a position?

It is challenging to achieve a back-to-back margin on raw sugar. You cannot easily buy sugar in Brazil and sell it to a refiner in China or the Middle East for a meaningful back-to-back profit.

In whites, pockets of opportunity remain. Traders with strong destination relationships can create value. Some companies excel in containers, running relatively small positions while generating consistent margins.

On raws, you need to build positions. Your edge lies in combining a futures view with cash.

Are regional players taking market share from traditional trade houses?

On whites, yes, we have seen regional or specialised players gain market share by building relationships and doing it well.

Raw sugar still appears to be dominated by global companies with access to large destination entities.

Are state-owned companies becoming more involved in sugar trading, as they have in grain markets?

Not really. If anything, sugar has moved away from state participation and more towards private companies.

Sugar consumption is stagnant, while sugarcane ethanol faces growing competition from other feedstocks. How are producers responding?

It is a difficult environment; producers are suffering. Sugar prices have consistently been below production costs across most origins.

Brazilian mills enjoyed strong margins, returns and free cash flow two or three years ago. Today, cash flows are negative. Over the cycle, it can still be a positive-cash-flow business. The challenge is ensuring that when times are good, companies reduce debt rather than simply reinvesting all cash flow in expansion. Otherwise, they can struggle with debt when the cycle turns down.

Brazil used to be the main regulator: when sugar prices were low, the cane mix would shift significantly towards ethanol. But Brazilian corn ethanol has expanded rapidly and is now displacing the equivalent of perhaps 15–16 million tonnes of sugar in ethanol terms. That trend is likely to continue.

Is there a future for EU sugar producers?

Absolutely. Europe is a huge market.

If Europe were a single producer, it would likely produce almost enough sugar to meet domestic demand—but not quite enough. That would force imports and allow domestic prices to trade at import parity, perhaps 750–800 euros per tonne at current levels.

The question is whether exports should be its focus. Crop planning is difficult because yields are uncertain, and producers need sufficient acreage to guarantee domestic supply. Over time, Europe may reduce production slightly and see domestic prices remain consistently higher.

Is the sugar market fundamentally in structural surplus, with occasional weather-related shortages?

On a production-and-consumption basis, the answer is probably ‘no’.

However, the answer may be yes on a trade-flow basis, as stocks can often be exported relatively easily once prices rise. For example, during the recent rally, Egypt destocked significantly, China released sugar, and Vietnam sold sugar. This was not necessarily additional production; it was existing stock becoming available to the trade.

When there is a slight tightness on a production-consumption basis and prices rally, surplus stocks from many countries can be exported.

The ratoon nature of cane also matters. When there is a true deficit, and prices rise enough to incentivise more production—as in 2022—we see acreage expansion, increased fertiliser use and a relatively quick supply response. We saw something like a 15 million-tonne increase in production over a couple of years, which is significant.

Once that expansion occurs, sugar moves from origin to destination and is stored somewhere. It can then re-emerge when prices rise during a short-term production-consumption deficit.

So the market is not structurally in surplus on a production-consumption basis. But it often holds enough stocks that, from a trade-flow perspective, it is rarely truly short. Prices can draw that sugar out.

What does the future hold for the sugar market? 

Some of the major trends over the past five to 10 years are likely to continue.

First, sugar consumption is unlikely to grow anywhere near as fast as it once did. We see this in Europe, the United States and other developed markets. We also see the impact of new weight-loss drugs, with people cutting back on carbohydrates.

Historically, the industry needed to increase production consistently, perhaps by 7–8 million tonnes every five years, just to keep pace with consumption. That may no longer be necessary.

Second, climate change has made the weather more volatile and less predictable. Heat, drought, erratic rainfall, El Niño and other weather effects can wreak havoc with production.

Third, deglobalisation may lead to more regionalised world trade. Supply-chain disruptions—such as a closure of the Strait of Hormuz—show how much food moves through strategically important regions. Countries may begin to hold mandated stocks of key foodstuffs and strategic grains. They may also seek to develop more regional supply chains, particularly for white sugar.

Brazil and Thailand may remain dominant origins for raws, while whites may increasingly flow through regional destination refineries.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the world has generally pursued deliberate destocking at destination because supply chains appeared resilient. Recent geopolitical events may change that. The move toward greater destination stocks and more regional supply chains could be a significant structural shift. Fourth, sugarcane should continue to lose market share to corn in ethanol production.

What would you say to a young graduate considering a career in physical sugar trading: Great idea, or are you mad?

This is not the best time to be a sugar trader, as margins and value creation are under pressure everywhere. But that is cyclical.

There will be moments again when physical trading offers more value and interesting convergence plays in raws and whites. Sugar remains a great commodity market. It is liquid, based on an FOB contract that is relatively easy to understand, and has multiple deliveries throughout the year.

I would encourage a young person to enter the sugar market. But I would also say: find a company with good teachers and mentors who can pass on their experience. Picking the right company and individuals is important.

Thank you, Philip, for your time and input.

©CommodityConversations®2026

The second edition of my book, The Sugar Casino, will be published in September.

When I spoke with David in March 2024, he told me about his plans to produce mycoprotein, a protein-rich biomass derived from sugar and sugar waste streams for use in various food and material applications. At the time, his company, Planetary, was building its first plant within the sugar mill in Aarberg, Switzerland. I asked him how things were going.

Our plant, the first industrial mycoprotein production site in Continental Europe and a global blueprint for agro-industrial synergies, was commissioned in 2024: all equipment was delivered and assembled, we completed the first upscaling runs, and we produced the first product. It then took around six months to reach industrial-scale volume and quality. By Q1–Q2 2025, we were fully ready with a commercialisable product and ingredient. From delivery to commissioning of a full-scale industrial fermentation site, with production within 9 months, is probably a world speed record!

We are pleased to see consistent product quality and have never experienced any contamination in the system, which is always an industry-wide concern. Once contamination enters the system, you have to abort production runs.

The initial hypotheses have been confirmed on both the commercial and technical sides. We are investing an additional CHF 5 million in the plant to increase output. The process is working as expected, with no surprises other than the usual growing pains and no unscheduled downtime.

Of course, given our strategic location on the grounds of a sugar mill, we have to adapt to its cadence. There may be cleaning cycles, steam-generator overhauls, or a break after a campaign. There may be operational constraints; however, the synergistic benefits, such as CAPEX efficiency and the availability of feedstock and utilities, far outweigh those restrictions.

Does the plant operate year-round, or only during the beet campaign?

It runs year-round, except perhaps for a few weeks during plant-wide overhauls. We have sized both the utility supplies and the overall infrastructure to operate during the campaign and the off-campaign period. In fact, year-round operation, especially the utilisation of installed assets during off-campaigns, is the synergy that makes this co-location so mutually beneficial.

What feedstocks are you using? Are you using white beet sugar?

White beet sugar is the benchmark feedstock due to its purity. From there, we optimise to realise the full potential of the sucrose value chain: lower-value inputs such as raw, thin, and thick juice, as well as molasses, work equally well within our proprietary fermentation and bioprocess platform, called Bioblocks (TM).

At full production capacity, the use of these sugar side streams and precursors can deliver gross margins on the final protein ingredient of well above 50 per cent, which, in the context of commodity production, is a gold mine, especially when compared to other sugar side-stream valorisation strategies such as ethanol production!

Starch-based feedstocks, such as glucose, as well as food-industry side streams, can also serve as highly effective and cost-effective inputs for our process.

Can you use corn? Would it be economically and technically competitive?

Hydrolysed corn starch delivers glucose—also known as dextrose in the United States. Many fermentation processes rely on dextrose as an input, and we can use it too. In fact, sucrose itself is composed of dextrose and fructose, both of which are metabolised by our microorganisms and converted into protein.

Given the business potential, we have identified a strong, synergistic opportunity in the regional sucrose industry. A few global players largely control corn glucose and dextrose. And whilst those generalist carbohydrate producers present a significant opportunity for large-scale production, we also see opportunities with local, family-owned sugar cane or sugar beet processors in the more fragmented sucrose industry. These regional champions often face individual challenges, and whenever our technology offers an economically compelling solution, they tend to move quickly.

Refined sugar may sometimes have a cost advantage or disadvantage relative to glucose, depending on the region and year. But as you move upstream towards thin juice and sweet water, feedstocks become extremely cost-competitive on a carbohydrate-equivalent basis because less energy is consumed to produce them.

In 2023, you were keen to produce high-quality protein. How does yours compare with other proteins on the market?

Quality has several dimensions. There is organoleptic quality: how the product tastes, looks and feels to a consumer. There is nutritional quality: how the protein and other nutrients are structured. And there are functional properties: how the ingredient behaves when combined with other ingredients.

On the organoleptic side, our mycoprotein is a three-dimensional product. It is almost like dough: you can shape it into different sizes and forms. That makes it extremely versatile compared with powdered protein. It is a bit like cookie or play dough.

It is also very neutral in taste. Pea protein has a pronounced leguminous off-taste, which can be acceptable but often needs masking. Mycoprotein is mild in taste: One of the world’s largest chocolate producers incorporated 30 per cent of planetary mycoprotein into its chocolate. Its master tasters could not detect any difference compared with normal chocolate. This allowed us to produce a high-protein chocolate without animal ingredients while retaining a neutral taste.

The colour is also neutral: bland, white and beige-ish. It can be coloured if desired, making it highly versatile.

What about the nutritional quality of the protein?

In the last interview, we discussed PDCAAS—the protein digestibility-corrected amino acid score —which reflects the nutritional completeness of a protein. Our mycoprotein scores 0.996. A perfect score of 1 is generally associated with milk and eggs. Beef or chicken score around 0.92; pea protein scores around 0.7; and soy is reasonably strong but an allergen.

Mycoprotein is the highest-scoring non-animal, non-milk and non-egg protein on that measure. In the US, any ‘source of protein claims’ must be PDCAAS-adjusted: protein content is multiplied by the actual PDCAAS score. That is a meaningful tailwind for our product.

Another benefit of mycoprotein is its high dietary fibre content, consisting of beta-glucans and chitin. In the context of GLP-1 drugs and shifting consumer preferences, this is increasingly important for promoting gut microbiome activity, cardiometabolic health, and glycaemic control, as GLP-1 medications tend to substantially reduce food intake.

Further nutritional benefits include longevity-supporting compounds such as spermidine and choline.

Given its nutritional diversity, we see mycoprotein more as a superfood or wholesome ingredient than as simply a protein.

You seem to have landed in a sweet spot. On the demand side, carbohydrates are under pressure, while protein and fibre are in demand. On the supply side, sugar companies face stiff competition from corn ethanol. Did you anticipate that?

Of course, it was all planned meticulously from the beginning!

More seriously, in 2022 we recognised that synthetic biology, and fermentation in particular, was having a major moment across food, materials, ingredients, pharmaceuticals and even energy. Many fermentation companies were emerging, but little industrial infrastructure existed to grow microorganisms in large vessels.

Initially, we aimed to be a contract manufacturing organisation, building a large plant capable of producing multiple products in bioreactors. But we quickly realised that no one would bankroll a $150 million facility at an acceptable dilution.

We looked for a more strategic solution and identified upstream and downstream synergies with existing industrial players. Microorganisms need carbohydrates, which come from the sugar and starch industry.

While glucose is commonly used in fermentation, Western Europe is heavily reliant on sucrose and sugar beet. We adapted our bioprocess to metabolise different parts of the sucrose value chain. This has made us competitive with glucose-based fermentation while creating a technical and business playbook that complements the sugar industry.

Do you have any other plants under construction or planned?

We have several partnerships underway. One is with the largest sugar and potato company in the Netherlands. Another is with a publicly listed company in India. We also have partnerships in the United States and other regions. Our strategy is to locate production either where production economics are particularly favourable, such as India or Brazil, or where consumer markets are especially large, such as the US and European protein markets.

How is funding going? Are there plans for an IPO?

We are currently privately funded and remain a private company. We closed a CHF 22 million Series A round in April, bringing total funding to just over CHF 30 million. The funding comprises a mix of equity and debt. We seek to use debt capital when putting steel in the ground, rather than using equity to finance physical infrastructure.

Looking ahead, Planetary is well-positioned to become a strategic partner for large food companies, commodity actors, food processors, or vertically integrated retailers. This position could ultimately lead to either joining forces with a strategic partner or becoming a standalone listed company.

We are not focused solely on producing mycoprotein, even though it is our principal commercial product today. Our infrastructure can produce a range of compounds, including other proteins, colouring agents, fats and lipids, and nutraceuticals. Beyond food, we are also exploring textile and fabric applications, as well as PLA, PHLA and broader plastics applications.

We see ourselves as a full-stack bioeconomy player. We operate the technology and license it to sugar companies and other carbohydrate and starch producers, rather than focusing solely on producing and commercialising mycoprotein.

In 2023, you said the bioeconomy could require one billion tonnes of carbohydrates per year. Do you still stand by that?

I would describe it as a potential rather than a forecast. It was based on a McKinsey study suggesting that up to 70 per cent of the economy’s physical inputs could ultimately be produced using synthetic biology.

By physical inputs, we mean the things people can touch and consume: food, materials and other products. If you convert that potential into a mass-and-energy balance, it could imply consuming roughly one billion tonnes of sugar to produce the projected output. That is around four times current global sugar production, which is about 250 million tonnes.

That scale could be reached only if a substantial share of the corn and molasses currently used as animal feed were redirected to carbohydrate production.

Is it correct that it takes two grams of sugar to make one gram of mycoprotein?

The exact answer depends on whether you are looking at wet product or dry matter, and it cannot be generalised across the bioeconomy.

For mycoprotein, 1 unit of molasses or 0.5 units of sugar yield about 0.75 units of wet mycoprotein. Mycoprotein is about 24 per cent dry matter, so this figure needs to be adjusted when comparing on a dry-matter basis. Different end products—wet mycoprotein, biosynthetically produced plastics, and so on—have different dry-matter contents, so the input-output relationship always depends on the specific application.

You won the WIPO Global Innovation Award in 2025. Tell me about that.

Planetary sells mycoprotein as an ingredient, but we also license our BioBlocks (TM) technology platform to sugar companies and other carbohydrate and starch producers worldwide. They can use our processes to build their own high-value protein-production infrastructure.

Because that technology is both innovative and proprietary, the World Intellectual Property Organisation awarded Planetary the 2025 Global Innovation Award. Only ten companies receive the award each year. It is a welcome recognition of the potential of our full-stack platform approach and of the economic and societal potential of our technology.

Who are your competitors? Are you competing for every deal?

In the narrowest sense—companies in the same region doing the same thing—we are fairly alone. A few other companies are looking to produce mycoprotein in Europe, but they are either not yet at industrial scale or have struggled with the technological foundations. Some invested in infrastructure before fully financing their plants; others failed due to persistent contamination during upstream processing.

In that narrow sense, we would like to see more participants, as it takes multiple parties to create a market. We are not competing in a zero-sum market.

More broadly, we are enriching food formulations and partially replacing animal protein. We are also developing hybrid-meat applications, such as supplementing 80 per cent minced beef with 20 per cent mycoprotein. Other plant proteins, such as pea and soy, also have their own roles and niches. We are not entering the market as a challenger seeking to replace every protein; we are creating new applications where our ingredient fits best.

As I mentioned earlier, sugar producers worldwide are under pressure from stagnant sugar demand and competition from corn-based ethanol. Are the producers pleased to see you when you knock on their door?

Absolutely. A fully functioning fermentation facility—for example, four 50,000-litre bioreactors—can consume up to 10–15 per cent of a host sugar mill’s refined-sugar output, depending on the mill’s size. That represents significant offtake certainty in a commodity market.

We also have greater pricing flexibility than a large consumer-packaged-goods buyer with multiple supply sources and margin pressure. Our mycoprotein delivers a comfortable mid-double-digit gross margin, which allows us to set long-term pricing and service levels with sugar companies and gives confidence that the sugar or side streams will be consumed and incorporated into our products.

Beyond feedstock offtake, the synergies lie in increased utilisation of existing assets and the opening of a whole new product portfolio, which can add commercial flexibility during S&D overhang, price volatility, and policy-driven constraints.

Have you carried out a carbon footprint analysis comparing it with animal proteins?

Yes, the impact on GHG emissions, land use and water use of mycoprotein vs other protein sources has been analysed. The current protein production system is rather inefficient, with 75% of land only producing 18% of global calories.

A kilogram of meat emits over 11 kg of CO2 equivalents, based on the average production of a kg of beef, pork, chicken, and lamb. A comparable unit of Mycoprotein releases 3.70 kg CO2e, a reduction of ~67%.

In terms of land use, 75% of global agricultural land is currently used for livestock value chains. A mycoprotein substitute reduces the per KG land use by over 80% (23.21 m2 of land per kg of meat vs 4 m2 for mycoprotein).

The most apparent impact, however, is the saving of 90% of water (0.53 m3/kg meat vs 0.48 m3/kg of mycoprotein). For comparison, the average meat-attributed water-footprint equivalent consumption per American consumer per year is 750,000 litres, or 5,000 bathtubs.

Mycoprotein is more sustainable not only than beef and chicken but also, in relevant respects, than legumes such as soy and pea. We produce everything on site in a bioreactor. The fermentation process can run on solar energy or cogeneration, yielding a regionally produced protein that does not need to be shipped globally.

That creates a much cleaner supply chain. The environmental case is important given the impact of livestock production, particularly beef production.

Where will future growth come from? Will it come through licensing plants, building plants, or expanding into other food ingredients or plastics?

We need to focus, but we also need to be ambitious. It is really about sequencing our ambition.

In the near term, our commercial priority is to develop a suite of hybrid meat products, ready-to-eat and convenience products, and high-protein/high-fibre applications for sports nutrition and a health-conscious diet.

At the same time, in line with product demand, we are expanding the licensing platform with partners in locations where production has clear systemic cost advantages—such as India or Brazil—or where consumer demand is high—such as Europe or the United States. We want to grow capacity in lockstep with demand and avoid getting ahead of the market.

Over the medium- to long-term, we will expand beyond mycoprotein into other proteins, fats, lipids, and plastics. We call this a ‘land and expand’ strategy: once we have partnered with a carbohydrate producer and built a mycoprotein production site, we can expand into further applications, including yeast, plastics, and other products.

What final message would you like to share with readers?

The bioeconomy holds enormous potential for the carbohydrates industry. The world is changing, and new technologies are enabling us to redesign the products we know through synthetic biology. These synthetic biology processes require carbohydrates as feedstocks.

The sugar industry will continue to experience cycles, policy shifts and evolving consumer demand. In the long term, we believe the world will need to produce far more carbohydrates than it currently expects. Planetary is here to help accelerate that future. SUGAR IS THE NEW OIL!

Thank you, David, for your time and input.

In September, I will publish The Second Edition of The Sugar Casino (Revisted), updated and with the best sugar-related conversations over the past ten years.

© Commodity Conversations® 2026

 

I sometimes mentor young people seeking a career in commodity trading, often giving them practice interviews. I thought it might be of interest to share a recent conversation with Axel de la Roche, who, at 22, is just finishing his finance studies at Leavey School of  Business at Santa Clara University and is seeking a career in commodities. I hope it helps and inspires other young people considering a career in the sector.

JK. Good morning, Axel, and welcome to Commodity Conversations. Please tell me about your studies, your rowing, and why you want to pursue a career in commodity trading.

AR. I chose finance because I knew I wanted to engage with markets and understand how they work, even though I did not have a clear career path when I entered university. Within the business school, finance felt like the most all‑encompassing route, combining exposure to markets and current events with quantitative skills that many students otherwise learn outside the classroom.

Over time, my electives have become more focused on international finance and derivatives; I have taken courses in options and futures trading, as well as in international finance, covering topics such as currency swaps.

Markets fascinate me, as do the logistics and systems that underpin international trade in physical commodities.

I read “The World for Sale” by Javier Blas and Jack Farchy, which proved to be an excellent introduction to the industry. I also read “The King of Oil” by Daniel Ammann, which I found both fascinating and enjoyable. Together, the two books encouraged me to pursue a career in physical commodity trading.

JK. You are at a university in California, where we mostly hear about tech billionaires and the money in tech. Why do you want to go into commodities rather than tech?

AR. Tech feels impersonal to me, with weaker relationship‑building than in commodities. Commodities remain a relationship business at scale; technology plays a major role, but success still hinges on the ability to build and manage relationships and to operate within a comprehensive ecosystem that spans shipping, finance, geopolitics, and even weather.

In tech, you might be hyper‑focused on a small part of a company’s product, whereas in commodities, you work across logistics, markets, risk, and counterparties, which I find far more engaging.

JK. What position are you aiming for? Are you looking to be an operator, a trader, or in finance?

AR. My goal is to become a physical commodities trader running my own book, but I recognise this is not realistic from day one. I want to start at the operational level, learn logistics in detail, then work my way through different parts of a trading house—operations, middle office, finance—before moving into trading. My aim is to build a comprehensive understanding of the business, because from what I have seen, it is impossible to “just jump in” as a trader without years of experience.

JK. Which commodities interest you?

AR. I am particularly interested in soft commodities, especially agricultural products, which is why I reached out to you. I am also interested in metals. Agricultural products are essential because people will always need to eat; they remain fundamental to the world economy. Metals are fascinating because they underpin technological progress—whether in batteries, phones, or other devices—yet many people overlook how central metals and mining are to those innovations.

JK. Do you follow the financial markets or invest in them?

AR. Yes, I manage my own equity portfolio and closely follow financial markets. I have a student subscription to the Financial Times and set alerts for major commodities, key geopolitical developments, and financial markets. This helps me stay informed.

JK. Why should a trading house give you a job rather than someone else?

AR. First, I am good with people; I build rapport quickly, empathise well, and form strong relationships, which is crucial in a relationship‑driven business.

Second, my rowing career, as a full-time Division 1 student-athlete, has hardwired me to compete and endure long, demanding hours in addition to challenging coursework. I am used to pushing through difficult, repetitive, or “boring” work and keeping my head down when things are tough.

Third, I bring an international background: I was born and raised in the United States, but my father is Colombian, and my mother is Swedish. I have travelled extensively and worked in developing countries. Commodities are inherently global, and I am excited, not afraid, to be “out in the bush” at the raw-materials production level, which I see as a core appeal of the business.

JK. There has been debate about whether top‑class athletes make better traders, especially in team sports. To what extent is rowing a team sport?

AR. I see rowing as the ultimate team sport and as highly applicable to real life and any job. You take eight individuals and have to make them move as one, which is especially difficult under extreme physical stress and requires letting go of ego, understanding others, and committing to a goal larger than yourself. If one person makes a mistake, it affects everyone equally, regardless of how well others are doing.

At the same time, rowing is intensely competitive and data‑driven: ergometer tests provide precise, empirical comparisons of performance within the team, fostering constant internal competition for boat positions while still demanding that we come together around shared goals.

Rowing is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I did not expect to row in high school and initially disliked the sport, but embracing it opened doors to Santa Clara University, brought me to California, and allowed me to see a new part of the United States.

It has also taught me a great deal about myself: how to be a good teammate, which qualities hold people back, and how to address my own weaknesses, including work ethic and time management.

Balancing rowing with academics early at university forced me to prioritise—putting rowing and academics first and accepting that I could not simply go out and party all the time—which has been invaluable.

JK. What are you looking for in an employer—something structured and large, or a smaller company with a more opportunistic career path?

AR. At the beginning of my career, I think a large, structured employer would suit me well, as it would offer a clear framework and training.

JK. Now it is your turn to ask me questions.

AR. My first question is: from your vantage point, where do you see commodities heading in terms of technological adoption? While there have been many technological improvements, the physical trading of goods still seems, from my perspective, to operate within systems that have not fundamentally changed in 30‑plus years. Do you think we are close to a significant shift, or will physical trading continue to function much as it does now?

JK: I believe the physical commodity trade will remain relationship- and trust-based, with platforms struggling because people prefer to know their counterparties. Technology will play a more important role in documentary processes, trade finance, payment rails, and tokenisation. It will also play a role in traceability. There have been numerous attempts to build trading platforms, but the core act of trading still depends on human relationships and trust between counterparties.

AR. What are the biggest dangers young people face when entering the business—whether it is naivety, overconfidence about career progression, or something else?

JK. Historically, physical commodity trading was male-dominated and testosterone-driven, with some bullying, but that has improved. There are still not enough female traders, though that will take time to change.

Naivety shouldn’t be a problem if you have done the research to understand what the career involves and are confident it is for you.

Overconfidence is something to be mindful of, especially if you have a good university background, but trading is a humbling occupation. Rowing is a humbling occupation, too!

AR. Given my interests in energy, metals, and agricultural products, do you see significant differences in risk and logistics across these sectors, or are their supply chains fundamentally similar from a trader’s perspective?

JK. Metals and energy are flow commodities, whereas agricultural commodities are seasonal, with only one or two harvests a year. I recently spoke with Doug King, who has a strong preference for flow commodities. You should check out his interview.

Metals and most traditional energy sources are also largely extracted commodities, often with complex political and risk dynamics at the source.

AR. What one thing do you advise me to do to increase my chances of finding a commodity-trading job?

JK. Ask yourself seriously if commodity trading is for you.

To help answer that, learn as much as possible about the sector. Listen to the StrongSource podcast – not just the most recent one, but all of them.

The same applies to the HC Commodities Podcast for a more holistic coverage and a wider range of commodities.

Subscribe to my blog (for free) and read my books. And, if you are interested in sugar, listen to my daughter’s ECRUU podcasts.

Subscribe (for free) to my blogs and read (cheaply on Kindle) all my books.

Follow Samuel Basi on LinkedIn and read his recent book, “The Physical Trade.” To learn more about the extractive commodities, I recommend “The Material World” by Ed Conway.

Oh, and make sure you read Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefevre about the legendary Jesse Livermore.

If your research leaves you wanting to know more, then commodity trading is for you!

But that’s enough questions. I have one last one for you: What should trade houses do to attract more and better candidates?

AR. From my experience, information about opportunities in commodity trading is often closely guarded or difficult to access. It often takes substantial research to find roles and understand how to enter the business, even though opportunities do exist.

I do not think firms should advertise as broadly as large banks do through mass recruitment, but greater visibility into what they are seeking and clearer entry paths for young people would be very helpful. That would still ensure they attract motivated candidates who have done their homework, while making the industry slightly less opaque to outsiders.

JK. Good answer. Thank you, Axel, for agreeing to let me publish this conversation, and I wish you every success in your future career.

© Commodity Conversations®2026

 

 

To start, please tell me about yourself and your career journey so far.

My name is Ben French. I’m based in London and work at Czarnikow as Global Head of the Vive programme. I’ve been with Czarnikow for 15 years, working across bulk, shipping and chartering in the early days, then structuring supply chains for white refined sugar in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly moving South African sugar cross-border into Zimbabwe, Mozambique and East Africa.

I later moved to Singapore for eight years as Czarnikow broadened into a wider multi-commodity supply chain service, and my role expanded accordingly. I remained closely involved in raw and refined sugar while helping to build the multi-commodity approach and to launch Vive in Asia, expanding from an initial Sub-Saharan focus to a service for our industrial and producer clients to align on sustainability.

I come from a farming family in Scotland, studied agriculture, spent some time in shipping, and then returned to agriculture. My only exposure to sugar before Czarnikow was a bit of UK beet farming and a copy of The Sugar Trading Manual sent for my interview.

If you had to explain Vive to a trading desk in 60 seconds, what would you say?

Vive is a multi-commodity sustainability verification programme for commodity supply chains. It began with sugar but now covers multiple commodities, and its core purpose is to help producers align with the sustainability requirements of industrial buyers, regulators, banks, and other stakeholders.

In practical terms, we map the market’s needs for sustainable, regenerative, or carbon-measured products, and then help producers reach that level in a commercially viable way, so that real supply chains of sustainable products can form rather than just one-off certified volumes.

I see on your website that Vive is a joint venture between Czarnikow and Intellync. Our readers will all know Czarnikow, but tell me about Intellync.

When we designed Vive, we sought to avoid any conflict of interest between Czarnikow’s commercial activities and the integrity of sustainability assessments. Czarnikow helps to develop a programme’s strategy and commercial development, but is not involved in conducting or influencing assessments or their outcomes.

Our partner, Intellync, 100% owned by AB Agri (part of Associated British Foods), has extensive experience in building sustainability frameworks and due diligence platforms for supermarkets and industry across sectors such as dairy, tobacco, and cotton. They have no commercial involvement in the commodities themselves, but they have decades of experience extracting, structuring, and verifying data across complex supply chains.

The joint venture combines Czarnikow’s 175 years of market intelligence and agricultural commodity-supply-chain expertise with Intellync’s 25 years of experience in sustainability platforms and verification, enabling Vive to build demand-led, data-driven sustainability solutions that work across complex supply chains, from large, mechanised operations to smallholders.

When Vive was founded, what market gap did Czarnikow identify? Having founded it, what is your USP?

We didn’t set out to replace existing certification schemes but to tackle two specific problems: the pace and precision of change, and the weak commercial link between certification and demand. Many certification efforts across the commodity sector were conducted in isolation from actual supply chains, with producers investing in certification without reliable market access or a tangible commercial return, especially when focused on local or “wet” markets. If that return never materialises, the investment is hard to sustain.

Our aim with Vive was not to certify the entire sugar sector, but to measure success by the number and volume of sustainable supply chains we could help create, in which value flows back along the chain from end user to farmer, miller, and refiner.

The USP is that Vive is a commercially aligned, market-driven programme built around continuous improvement and demand alignment rather than policing the industry against a fixed academic standard. Producers can effectively “stack” criteria under one umbrella to access specific markets, and we benchmark our criteria against major standards and regulations while keeping them practical and applicable.

You describe Vive as a verification, not a certification, model. Why did you go that route?

We chose verification to provide flexibility and speed in a fast‑changing landscape of sustainability requirements, regulations, and methodologies. Verification allows us to adapt the programme to new market needs without multi‑year revision cycles, while still ensuring proper stakeholder engagement and maintaining robust criteria.

Philosophically, we did not set out to police the sector with a rigid standard; instead, we align market needs with what producers can do, and then verify what is actually in place on the ground. Participants enter a continuous improvement journey: we verify governance, policies, and practices against our verification standard rather than simply passing or failing them against a fixed certification threshold.

Our Vive claim level is benchmarked against the requirements of more than 100 major food and beverage companies, a range of EU regulations, and several schemes, including ProTerra, Smartcane BMP, and Bonsucro (via an independent benchmark commissioned by a large beverage company). The criteria are robust, but delivery is more flexible and can be updated. Over time, if regulation in a given commodity or region requires full certification, we would not rule out adding a certification layer alongside verification to ensure we can continue to provide producers with a viable route to market.

On your website, you describe yourselves as fully embedded in the supply chain. What does this look like on a day-to-day basis, and how does it differ from a conventional audit model?

Being embedded means we understand and verify the full chain of custody and traceability from the farm to the final buyer, rather than simply auditing a single node in isolation. For example, sugar supply chains are notoriously complex, with multiple routes to market: a Thai mill selling white sugar directly to an industrial user is very different from a Brazilian VHP mill selling to a trader, then to a refiner, then re‑exporting.

Driving sustainable volume and ensuring value flows back along the chain requires a deep understanding of how commodities move, who handles them, where the risks lie, and how traceability is maintained. Czarnikow itself facilitates the supply of Vive products but is assessed under the same chain-of-custody module as any other business or trader that can trade Vive products.

Across the Vive team, we combine specialists in regenerative agriculture, deforestation, and carbon with decades of hands‑on experience building commodity supply chains. That mixture of technical sustainability expertise and supply chain know‑how is what “embedded” means in practice.

Could you give me an example of how that embedded approach has affected change in practice?

Once we help create a supply chain that is commercially viable and repeatable, the real impact is when it continues without our hand‑holding every transaction. We now see refiners selling significant volumes of Vive products directly to their industrial clients, and those refiners in turn sourcing Vive raw sugar from origins like Brazil at a premium because they see the value.

There is no fixed premium for Vive; we encourage fair value to be negotiated and premiums to be paid when required. Importantly, value can be realised through market access, long‑term contracts, or improved financing, rather than relying exclusively on a headline price uplift. We are also working closely with trade finance providers through Vive Investor Assurance. The cost of capital for farmers and millers is often a more critical lever than a small premium on a fraction of their volume. Banks and private credit funds are keen to channel more working capital into sustainable production.

If we can help producers demonstrate robust, verified ESG performance, that can translate into better financing terms, which are often more meaningful to them than a modest price premium.

Is the system self-financing, or even profitable, for a producer?

That is our goal, but we are cautious about making sweeping promises. In the past, many sustainability programmes claimed that certification would automatically deliver meaningful premiums, yet for a long time the underlying demand was neither strong nor broad enough to justify those claims. We are deliberate in explaining what Vive can and cannot do. Joining the programme is not a magic switch; it requires effort and active engagement from management and commercial teams to unlock benefits through marketing, sales, financing, and customer relationships.

We see two types of participants: those who invest in understanding and leveraging Vive, and those who join and then expect the benefits to arrive automatically. For the first group, we regularly see more than full recovery of participation costs, and in some cases very attractive returns; for the second group, results are naturally more limited. Overall, participants more than cover their costs, but outcomes depend heavily on how proactively they use the programme.

Do you share best practices for productivity at the farm and the mill? Do participants sometimes achieve productivity and cost-reduction gains through your program?

Yes, and that aspect is becoming increasingly important. Our offering to producers has four tiers. First is the core Vive responsible sourcing framework, which is now broadly aligned with what over 100 major food and beverage companies expect in ESG risk coverage and is convergent with global frameworks such as SAI FSA. This baseline already embeds many agronomic and operational best practices; for example, within the farm module, we may guide participants towards soil sampling and more precise fertiliser application, which can improve yields or reduce input costs over time.

Second is our regenerative agriculture module, Vive Regen Ag, developed in response to rising interest in and investment in regenerative practices. Rather than simply ticking off a list of techniques such as minimum tillage or cover cropping, we verify that the right practices are applied in the right context, based on appropriate pre‑implementation analysis, so that “regenerative” does not become an empty marketing claim.

Third is our Vive Climate Action carbon measurement tool, a primary-data-based system certified for any arable crop and widely used in the sugar sector, now covering around 40% of Vive participants. We calculate individual footprints using real farm and mill data, benchmark them against country and regional averages, and highlight hotspots where decarbonisation and efficiency improvements are possible.

Finally, we are developing “smart carbon sourcing” models within supply sheds, enabling mills to identify low-carbon crop streams and connect them with buyers willing to pay a premium for reduced-carbon products. This can catalyse the expansion of best practice across a wider area, and over time it should translate into both lower emissions and better resource efficiency.

Do you put the carbon footprint or the Vive logo on retail packets?

It can be done, but it has not been a major focus. One reason sugar has historically lagged cocoa, coffee, bananas, soy, and palm in the certified or verified share of global production is consumer perception. Products such as coffee and chocolate have strong, distinctive flavours and origin stories, and consumers are accustomed to seeing detailed information on the front of the pack about origin, fair trade, organic status, and so on. Sugar, by contrast, is often seen as a generic ingredient—sucrose—listed in small print on the back rather than as a hero on the front, so there has been less direct consumer pull for sustainability claims on sugar retail packs.

That said, NGO reports such as Oxfam’s “Sugar Rush” in 2013 raised awareness among industrial buyers of social and environmental risks in sugar supply chains, and this has driven much of the current demand from the B2B side. We do see some use of the Vive logo on industrial bags in certain jurisdictions, and it may play a more visible role in non‑food uses of sugar, such as biomaterials or textiles, where consumers are increasingly interested in the sustainability of fibres and materials. But for now, most of the demand we respond to comes from industrial buyers rather than consumers at the supermarket shelf.

Listening to you, Ben, you seem proud of what you’re doing, and rightly so. Is there a project or a supply chain you’re particularly proud of?

We are active in around 25 markets, and each completed Vive supply chain represents a great deal of work and collaboration, so there is pride in each one. The ones that stand out most are those where we have uncovered serious issues and then seen genuine improvement over several years, rather than simply recognising those already performing well.

In parts of Southeast Asia, for example, we have found significant non‑compliances in smallholder supply that clearly failed to meet any global standard. As we are not an NGO that publishes everyone’s shortcomings, mills are more willing to let us in, to get a clear picture of what is happening, and to work with us on remediation rather than retreat. In some cases, mills were genuinely unaware of what was happening at the fringes of their cane supply; after we reported the findings, they implemented farm checks, training, and improved due diligence, and, over time, progressed to the Vive claim level.

From a commercial perspective, I’m also proud of the long, complex supply chains we’ve painstakingly aligned, bringing together farms, mills, traders, refiners, and end users—often convincing the last reluctant actor, such as a refiner, to come on board—so that everyone is “singing from the same song sheet” and a long‑term, repeatable, sustainable partnership is established.

I see from your website that you have numerous buyers supporting the programme. What does that entail?

We are not a paid membership scheme, but we realised early on that when you sit with a mill deep in a cane‑growing region and talk about demand for sustainable products on the other side of the world, it can feel abstract. To bridge that gap, we created the “Buyers Supporting Vive” platform, which is free for buyers. Any buyer who has completed due diligence against our criteria and governance and is comfortable with the programme can sign up to indicate that Vive is an acceptable pathway for them.

There is no obligation to buy Vive products or to grant exclusivity, but it gives producers a clear view of which major buyers recognise the programme and where potential opportunities lie. It has proven powerful in practice: several of the world’s top food and beverage companies have signed up, and we are increasingly seeing interest from sectors beyond food and beverage, such as biofuels and textiles.

Because Vive is multi‑commodity and uses a common carbon calculator and framework across crops such as cane and corn, buyers in biofuels or aviation fuel can compare sustainability performance across feedstocks on a like‑for‑like basis, rather than trying to reconcile different schemes and methodologies.

One of the themes I’ve been writing about recently is that sustainability is now taking a back seat to food security. Are people more interested in food security than in sustainability? Aren’t they essentially the same thing?

In practice, they are deeply intertwined. Food security has its own metrics and debates, but long‑term food security depends on sustainable and increasingly regenerative production: you need resilient yields, functioning ecosystems, and compliant, stable operations to secure supply over decades.

Look, for instance, at parts of the Middle East, where moving freight in and out has become more challenging, and some countries rely on imports for up to 90% of their food needs. Historically, food security strategies often focused on holding stocks at destination, but there is now a shift towards investing upstream in farmland and production to control the timing and reliability of supply more directly.

Once you are investing at origin, you care not only about immediate availability but also about long‑term yield, workforce stability, regulatory compliance, and climate resilience. All of these are closely linked to sustainability practices. Rather than food security replacing sustainability, we see them converging: sustainable, resilient production is a core foundation of food security, not a competing priority.

What role do you expect technologies such as remote sensing, AI analytics, blockchain-style platforms, and traceability to play in the future? How do you see them evolving?

These technologies will be important, but they are only as good as the data they receive and the realities on the ground. There has been a wave of enthusiasm for blockchain and digital platforms, and they can be impressive in terms of visualisation and data handling. However, without robust first-mile data—accurate sourcing, barcoding, warehousing, and trucking information—a beautifully designed platform will still contain weak or incomplete information.

We saw this with the EUDR, where many initial responses focused on building platforms, while we felt the priority should be to get on the ground and work out how to trace products reliably from the first mile. That said, AI and automation have real potential to reduce the cost and time of verification by supporting risk‑based approaches and streamlining data analysis, thereby making robust verification more accessible.

The key caveat is that none of this replaces “boots on the ground”: you still need auditors and specialists to visit operations, talk to people, and look around corners. A system based purely on remote questionnaires and automated inference would be both easier to manipulate and less able to detect issues you did not know to ask about. For us, technology will augment, not replace, high‑quality fieldwork and assurance.

For producers, traders, or buyers who are still on the fence, what is the one step you’d like them to take after this conversation?

There are really two fences: whether to engage with sustainability at all, and which programme to use.

For those still wondering whether to engage, I’d urge them to recognise that regulation and market expectations are steadily moving sustainability from optional to mandatory. Rather than fearing that shift, it helps to see sustainability as another service area where experienced providers can support you—much like price risk management or trade finance—rather than as an extra layer of policing. The resource commitment is often less daunting than people imagine, provided they have the right guidance.

For those choosing between programmes, I would encourage them to look beyond box‑ticking and ask what each programme delivers for their business: how it supports commercial opportunities, aligns with target customers, ensures regulatory compliance, and builds long‑term resilience. Different commodities and markets may require different tools, but the central question is what outcomes you want—market access, financing, risk management—and which programme best helps you achieve them.

Last question: what question should I have asked you but didn’t ask?

I think the missing question is: why are we doing this, both as a company and personally?

From Czarnikow’s perspective, as we evolved from a traditional sugar broker into a broader supply chain services company, sustainability became an essential part of our service set. Our clients increasingly needed robust sustainability data and support, just as they needed risk management, financing, and market analysis, so it was natural that we should build a capability in that area. This has also deepened our relationships with both producers and buyers, moving us away from a narrow “trader” identity towards a partnership that helps them develop their own businesses.

Internally, Vive has been important for culture and recruitment: many of the people joining Czarnikow today want to work for a company that aims to create a positive impact while remaining commercially disciplined, and the programme has become a focal point for this.

On a personal level, I come from a long line of farmers and have spent 15 years in commodity markets, witnessing both excellent and very poor agricultural practices. I feel a responsibility, given my position running Vive, to help steer things in the right direction—towards better-managed farms, better treatment of workers, and more sustainable yields. That “poacher turned gamekeeper” element is a big part of why I do it.

Thank you, Ben, for your time and input.

©Commodity Conversations®2026