Posts

One of the great things about writing this blog is meeting interesting people and learning about different businesses. However, after more than forty years following the sector, I rarely encounter a company I have never heard of, especially one as big as Sovena. Shame on me!

Sovena Group is one of the largest Portuguese agribusiness holding companies, covering the entire value chain from the fields on the farm to the shelves in the supermarket with brands such as Oliveira da Serra, Andorinha, Fula and Olivari, amongst others. The origin of this group dates to 1871 when Alfredo da Silva founded Companhia União Fabril (CUF), and today, after many acquisitions, mergers, and divestitures, this family-run group is led by the fifth-generation descendant, Jorge de Mello.

The company has four interrelated business areas: olive oil, olives, vegetable oil, and biodiesel. It has also recently invested in healthy foods and snacks by acquiring Centazzi, owner of the brand Salutem. It has factories in Portugal, Spain, the USA, Colombia, and Angola and operates farms in Argentina, Morocco, Spain, and Portugal.

Oilseed crushing is still the company’s core business. Miguel oversees the division from the company’s headquarters in Lisbon. He is responsible for the supply chain for the group’s commodities division, from production up to the refined oils for everything that is not olive oil: sunflower, soy, rapeseed, avocado, and specialty oils.

He describes his role as ‘trading around an asset’.

“We are an industrial company with a trading arm to enhance profitability,” he told me over a video call. “We look at the spreads between the different oils and sometimes arbitrage between them, but we don’t take speculative positions on FOB Brazil or Argentina. If I cannot buy seeds in Spain or import them, I might buy them in France or Romania and exit those positions when I purchase the physicals to execute the cargoes to our plants.”

“Sunflowers are our main commodity, but we don’t have a futures market. The closest we have is the Six Ports (1) for sun oil and the FOB Dutch mill for the rape oil or the Matif for the rapeseed.

“So, your primary objective is not to make money trading,” I suggested, “but to keep your factories supplied and running.”

“Yes,” he replied, “but not at any cost.

“There is no point running a plant at capacity if we cannot earn a margin that at least contributes to fixed costs. We look at the market every day and calculate our replacement costs. What is the oil worth? What are the seeds? What is our margin? Can we lock in that margin by selling the oil and the meals to the domestic or export markets?

“Importing seeds doesn’t make sense if we are not making $1 above our variable costs. Instead, we can import oil, refine it, and bottle it. I won’t put seeds into the plant pipeline just because I have an asset to run.

“We are the brand leaders in Portugal, with around 45 per cent of the market, so we have a responsibility to meet our needs. We treat our private-label customers the same way. If we commit to delivering oil, we will do whatever it takes to ensure the customer has it.”

Miguel began his career in 1996 with Continental Grain in Geneva, working on soybean execution. He had always wanted to be a trader, and Conti offered him a trainee trader position just before Cargill bought the company in 1999. Sadly, Cargill told Miguel he would have to stay in operations. He left to take a position in freight brokerage, hoping that some freight experience would help him reach his objective of becoming a trader.

“When Bunge opened an office in Geneva three years later, they asked him to join them, along with many of his ex-colleagues from Continental. He started on veg oil execution but moved on to the Black Sea grain desk, originating wheat, corn, and barley from Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria.

As mentioned above, Bunge has a toll crush agreement with Sovena in Lisbon. In 2007, Sovena sought someone to handle their soft seed crush operations in Lisbon. He took the position and stayed with the company for four years before rejoining Bunge to manage their crush and food operations in Italy. He then accepted the challenge of building and operating the EMEA high oleic sunflower value chain from Hungary. He then rejoined Sovena in 2017.

I asked Miguel how he managed during and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“My hair turned white on 23rd February 2022,” he answered. “Before the Russian invasion, Ukraine supplied 85 per cent of the sun oil imports into Europe.

“We got alternative supplies, mainly from Romania and Bulgaria. The resilience and the capacity of Ukrainian suppliers to work around different supply routes were unbelievable. Over the past three years, the country has done a fantastic job by exporting directly from their ports or via transhipment into the Danube into smaller ports or through Constanza or Poland.

“Unfortunately, I don’t know whether they can continue doing that. You’ve seen the pushback from neighbouring countries, such as Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria, over Ukrainian imports. The farmers in these countries want to ban imports. It will become challenging if Ukraine cannot fully reopen its ports.

“Ukraine was once the leading producer of sunflower seeds. In the years leading up to the war, annual production increased from 10 to 17 million tonnes. It has since fallen back to 14.5 million. At the same time, Russia increased production to 18 million tonnes when it had always been a couple of million tonnes behind Ukraine.

“We also imported sunflower seeds from a project in Argentina where, with our local partners, we rent land and produce sunflowers. By leveraging our production and buying from third parties, we assembled around 50,000 tonnes of Argentinian seeds that we imported into Europe. That year, we did about 45 to 50 per cent of Argentinian seed exports.

“Today, we manage about 12,000 hectares of land with our partner on sunflower production. We are not farmers and don’t trade the other crops in the field rotation. Our Argentine partner manages around 100,000 hectares, and we put sunflowers in that rotation.

“Argentina crushes most of its seed production, about 3.5 – 4 million tonnes, and exports the oil as crude or refined. We were interested in growing seeds near the port, south of Buenos Aires, and exporting them to supply our European plants.

“As I mentioned above, we only import seeds into our European crush plants if it makes economic sense. If it doesn’t, we stop our plants and import oil. It is the same thing with Argentina but in reverse. If it makes sense to export seeds, we do, but if we get better prices, we sell them locally. We have done both over the past few years.

“We have tried to do some kind of toll crush agreement in Argentina to test if exporting the oil instead of the seeds would make sense. It’s tricky as you’re competing with the big grain groups, and they will not give you crush capacity for free. From an economic point of view, it’s challenging to make sense of crushing at somebody else’s plant.

“Our plant in Lisbon is located at the port, and we have about 14 meters of draft. We can take Panamax or Capesize vessels, up to 100,000 tonnes. We have two crush plants on our Lisbon site, one dedicated to soybeans and the other to soft seeds. We also have another soft seed crush plant in Spain, near Cordoba and manage a 3^rd one in north Spain via a JV with our partner ACOR.

“Soybeans are not our core business; the driver is meal production, not oil. We are a vegetable oil company. We have a toll crush agreement with Bunge on beans, where we manage the soybean crush plant industrially and they manage the commercial side.

“We also partner with Bunge in rapeseed/canola crush, handled via a joint-venture company called BioColza.

“Bunge markets our rapeseed meal into the Portuguese market as it is mid-protein and closer to the soybean meal market, and we manage the oil flow. On Sunflowers, we manage 100 per cent of the operation.

“About 80 per cent of our meal production goes into the domestic market, but we also export to northern Europe. If I’m crushing at 100 per cent sunflower seed capacity, I have to export meal as the domestic market is too small. It goes entirely to animal feed.”

“What’s your biggest challenge?” I asked Miguel. “What keeps you awake at night?”

“For the last couple of years, many things!” he replied. We deal mainly with sunflower seeds, so what has happened in the Black Sea over the past two years has been very worrying.

“Looking forward, the US elections in November could dramatically affect US support for Ukraine. It could be a game changer for the sun oil market.

“And in the long term, we are concerned about climate change’s impact on agricultural production.”

Sovena owns olive oil plantations and has about 7,000 hectares of olive groves between Portugal and Morocco – 6,000 in Portugal and 1,000 in Morocco. Still, the quantity of olive oil they produce from their olive groves does not even cover 10 per cent of their needs. The company buys olive oil from third parties and co-ops around the globe to supply their needs in the US and Brazil. Sovena owns Brazil’s leading brand and is the market leader in extra virgin olive oil.

Until a couple of years ago, global olive oil production was about 3 million tonnes, with half of that coming from Spain. For the last two years, Spain has only produced half of its potential.

“It has made it more challenging for us to originate,” Miguel told me. “It has also increased our working capital needs. About three years ago, olive oil was worth around €3,000 per tonne. It has since tripled in price. Today, a truckload of extra virgin olive oil is worth about €250,000.

“The recent rains in Spain have been excellent, and we have replenished most of the water reservoirs. So, we should be able to return to a more usual olive oil scenario. Unfortunately, it’s too early to be too confident because a late frost or too much heat during the summer could still impact production.

“Climate change will result in more of these extreme weather events in the future,” Miguel added. “However, climate change should open opportunities for other regions to grow olives, not only concentrating on the Mediterranean. We see that, for example, in South America, Argentina, and Brazil.”

• Six ports are a cash assessment reflecting the value of crude sunflower oil loading on a FOB 6 ports (Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Ghent, Dunkirk, or Dieppe) basis for forward periods from the month ahead to twelve months ahead.

© Commodity Conversations ® 2024

This is an excerpt from my new book, Commodity Professionals—The People Behind the Trade, now available on Amazon.

Last September, I interviewed Maryana Yarmolenko Stober, the President of the Swiss chapter of WISTA (Women in Shipping and Trading Association). We discussed a joint report that WISTA Switzerland and PWC Switzerland had published on gender equality within the Swiss shipping and trading sectors. The two organisations recently published a second report, and I wasn’t surprised when Maryana contacted me for a follow-up discussion.

I was, however, surprised that she wanted to talk about a different project, Through Ana’s Eyes, that WISTA has put together in partnership with Equity Commons. This US company uses virtual reality technology to train people on equity and equality.

Together, they have developed a virtual reality experience where participants can feel what it is like to be a woman in a commercial position at a trading company.

Maryana told me she hopes “the experience will allow both genders to better understand each other and for organisations to take a more thought-through approach and actionable steps towards equity in their workplace.”

I recently read Jan Morris’ book Conundrum. Jan was an English journalist and author who, in 1976, was one of the first people to have a sex change operation from man to woman. What I found fascinating was that her old male friends treated her differently as a woman. They talked down to her. They mansplained things. They excluded her from conversations.

Jan was one of the first people to experience this implicit bias directly. I asked Maryana if this was what WISTA Switzerland and Equity Commons were trying to achieve with Through Anna’s Eyes, letting men experience how they treat women.

“It’s similar,” she told me, “But it lasts less than five minutes. It’s not permanent, and you don’t have to go through a painful operation first!”

WISTA Switzerland and Equity Commons will host an event to showcase the technology on Tuesday, 30th April, open to the public. They will hold a private event for HR departments and senior executives earlier in the day. The content will be the same for the two sessions, but the first discussion will focus more on HR. They will have 20 headsets available, so they may have to do it in 2 or 3 rounds. After everyone has had the experience, there will be a roundtable discussion.

“We are an NGO promoting women’s leadership, and we already provide training to our members on this topic,” Maryana told me. “This is our first event using virtual reality headsets. We look forward to seeing how it goes and how much interest we attract. But yes, we hope to be able to develop it.”

When I first joined the business in the 1970s, it primarily consisted of men drinking too much alcohol and behaving badly. The industry has changed dramatically since then, and I wondered why, half a century later, we still needed Through Ana’s Eyes.

“It’s a good question,” Maryana answered. “We have now completed two research studies with PWC Switzerland, and they both show that Swiss commodity trading and shipping remains a male-dominated industry, especially the higher you look in the hierarchy.

“Our findings show that male respondents are more likely to perceive equality than female respondents. This gap is evident across all levels of trading companies. It is particularly pronounced in areas such as promotion, where more women disagree that promotions are equally accessible to both genders.

“At the non-management level, women perceive less access to mentorship and professional development, suggesting a need for targeted engagement and growth opportunities. Furthermore, female respondents report experiencing subtle forms of discrimination, known as micro-behaviours, more frequently than men, highlighting an area for companies to address in fostering a more inclusive work environment.

“So yes,” she continued. “The problem persists in Switzerland and elsewhere. Our report shows progress, but we still have far to go.”

My next question was why.

“Men in senior management think they’re being fair regarding promotion,” she explained. “But they’re not. They’re promoting men more than women without realising it.

“Men sometimes ask whether we are saying that they should promote women just because they are women. That is not what we are saying. We are saying women should have precisely the same promotion opportunities as men.

“These opportunities start early in their careers when women access mentorship, professional development, and exciting projects that later lead to promotions. This first step has to be equal.”

I began to understand the problem: men perceive the workplace as equal, while women don’t. Senior male manager managers aren’t aware of their bias. If they get a choice between an equally qualified woman and a man, their natural bias is to promote the man. But they don’t realise it.

“That is why it is important to make people aware that we all have biases,” Maryana told me. “Biases are normal. We all have them. We just need to understand how to react to them.”

Women in the commodity business tend to be concentrated in the legal, communications, HR, and operations departments. The trading desk remains the last bastion of male dominance. When I asked traders why they think this is the case, some replied that men are better traders. They argued that women have a smaller risk appetite and make worse risk assessments than men.

“Research shows that women are not worse traders than men,” Maryana said. “It has more to do with the social pressure trading roles place on women. They are traditionally structured in a way that requires traders to be available 24/7, giving little flexibility regarding working hours and other personal arrangements.

“Women tend to carry more responsibilities at home than men and trading jobs don’t fit well with those other responsibilities.”

The event will be held at the InterContinental, Chemin du Petit Saconnex 7-9, 1209, Geneva, from 18:00 to 20:00. For further details, please contact president@wista–swiss.com.

© Commodity Conversations® 2024

1/ Michael, you are the Managing Partner at HFW Switzerland and a Shipping and Trading Specialist Solicitor. What messages will you give delegates when you speak at the GrainCom24 Geneva conference in May?

I will discuss market disruptions, sanctions, navigating the rapidly evolving risk environment, and the challenges and opportunities posed by electronic bills of lading.

I will say it’s an exciting time to be in commodities and trading in general. We’ve seen significant supply chain disruptions in the last 3 or 4 years, but tremendous opportunities lie ahead. I’m upbeat about the industry and where we’re heading. It will be challenging, but traders thrive in demanding environments.

Geneva is one of the primary hubs for commodity trading. We are in the heart of the global community, and long may it last.

Traders sometimes get bad press, but Geneva and Switzerland are lucky to have traders. The Swiss like to speak about chocolate and watches, but trading and shipping account for about 3.5 per cent of the Swiss GDP and 20 per cent of Geneva’s GDP. It’s a thriving industry with a great future.

The bonuses and the profits we’ve seen in the trading industry here in Geneva have been eye-watering, but disruption plays to a trader’s strength. Traders thrive on volatility.

2/ What legal lessons can we learn from three recent events: the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the attacks in the Red Sea, and the Baltimore Bridge collapse?

When Russia invaded Ukraine, we had a wave of contract defaults where parties on either side tried to argue force majeure – sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully. We’re still seeing the consequences. Clients have vessels stuck in Ukraine and are fighting with insurers to recover what’s owed under their policies.

The legal lesson is that you must look at your contractual arrangements. War is not a case of force majeure in every case. Force majeure clauses have an event trigger in the case of war, but it has to be in the contract. If it isn’t, you can’t claim it.

The Red Sea has taken the industry by surprise. The Houthis control a vast area in Yemen and are highly organised. All vessels are potentially now at risk in the area.

Owners will only go through the area if the charterer agrees to pay extra war risk premia. Traders can choose between paying the additional freight cost via the Cape or the extra war risk premia of going through the Red Sea.

But it is not a straight choice. An interesting case was published in the UK Supreme Court earlier this year. Pirates hijacked the Polar in 2010, and the owners paid a ransom in excess of the payout the insurers were obliged to pay.

The court grappled with whether the excess was for the charterer’s or owner’s account. The charterers argued they shouldn’t pay the excess, but the court disagreed. It ruled that charterers are liable for General Average (GA)* contributions if they want to go to that region. Under GA, the charterers are liable for an excess over and above the insurance cover.

I can’t say much about the Baltimore Bridge incident because the case is still under investigation.

One general comment: a liability regime does apply, and owners are responsible for their vessels. They can probably limit liability, but they can also be exposed to claims from the state, such as the cost of rebuilding the bridge or the cost of any delays.

The question of liability will turn on what caused the accident. Was it a fortuitous event? Was it caused by the owners’ fault, neglect or want of due diligence to make the ship seaworthy? Were the crew negligent?

Incompetence is not a defence, but negligence is. The owners must recruit a competent crew and update them with the various regulations and training obligations. But if they’ve done that, they are not liable even if the crew is negligent on the day.

This reminds me of a case I handled a few years ago, known in the press as the Philippine boxing incident. In that incident, a vessel ran aground and discharged a cargo of coal on a coral reef. We successfully pleaded negligent navigation, as most of the crew were watching a boxing match on their mobile phones. They had left a junior crew member on the bridge to navigate the ship, and he ran into a coral reef.

3/ What is the difference between maritime law and commercial law?

Most English contract law is based on shipping precedents and principles. England ruled the waves for over a hundred years, and many commercial counterparties prefer to deal on English law terms.

There are some differences. A Bill of Lading is a document that ship owners, traders, and banks know well and use daily. Still, the legal aspects of the Bill of Lading are currently being fought over in the English courts. The legal implications are pretty specific to the shipping business.

So, the answer to your question is that maritime law is mainstream but has some narrow and niche aspects.

4/ What hot maritime and commercial law issues will you raise at the conference?

A series of significant frauds has led to claims under the Bill of Lading against the ship owner for missed delivery.

As a result, people are seriously speaking about moving to electronic bills of lading. They are a hot topic. The UK passed the Electronic Trade Documents Act in 2023, and we hope people will embrace the technology.

Commodity price volatility has been high, encouraging people to default on contracts. For a firm like HFW, these market disruptions have played to our strength as we specialise in disputes.

Sanctions are another hot topic. We have a specialised team dealing with them, and they have been flooded with requests. Can we do the deal? Can we finance this deal? Or, sometimes, can we get out of the deal?

5/ What advice would you give a physical grain trader starting their career, apart from reading the contract?

Challenge is a good thing. When you face a challenge, your life crumbles, and you have sleepless nights, but it’s an experience; you will learn from it and become stronger. So, don’t give up hope and remain positive.

Shipping and trading are challenging sectors, but they are full of opportunities. Never sit back on your laurels. Reinvent yourself daily. Get up early and catch the day.

Note

* General Average is a principle of maritime law that essentially establishes that all sea cargo stakeholders (owner, shipper, etc.) evenly share any damage or losses that may occur due to voluntary sacrifice of part of the vessel or cargo to save the whole in an emergency. (Source)

© Commodity Conversations ® 2024

 

1/ You worked nine years with Cargill, one year with Olam and have been with McDonald Pelz for nearly ten years. Could you tell me about the company?

McDonald Pelz is the world’s largest agricultural brokerage house with offices in ten countries. We cover the supply chain from the farm gate to the consumer, focusing on soybeans, grains, pulses, and oil seeds. The company sees a significant opportunity to connect India to the world market.

In addition to being a physical commodity broker, we act as an information provider. We do crop surveys and economic and market analyses on a subscription basis. If a client wants a specific report on a particular supply chain, we do that on a paid consultancy basis.

2/ What are the issues in India regarding the domestic production of grains and oil seeds?

India has 100 million farmers with an average landholding of 1.43 hectares. Ours is a weather-dependent agriculture system where a slight change in weather leads to a significant spike in local prices. India is the last country in the Northern Hemisphere to plant and harvest wheat. Small temperature changes make a substantial change in wheat production.

Supply is fragmented, and the opportunity to increase production is limited.

3/ How will rising incomes affect food demand?

Average per capita income is around $2,200; we expect it to increase to $5,000 in the next ten years.

In 2008, China’s per capita income was $2,200 per year, and the country imported around 30 million mt of beans. Today, their per capita income is around $14,000, and the country imports around 100 million mt of beans. There is a good correlation between bean imports and per capita incomes.

In contrast, India’s population is 20 per cent Muslim and 80 per cent Hindu. We don’t eat beef or pork. Poultry and pulses will drive the expected 6 to 8 per cent annual growth in protein consumption.

India produces 25 million mt and imports 3 to 4 million mt of pulses annually. The country will become an even more dominant player in pulses worldwide.

We saw a shift from wheat to rice in China as incomes grew. Still, I don’t expect to see the same in India. North India and the central part of the country dominate wheat consumption, while rice is consumed in the coastal areas. I don’t see these preferences changing. I do see a shift from a cereal-based diet to a protein-based diet.

The government will continue to play a role. Imagine you are prime minister of a country with 1.4 billion people and 900 million living in villages with an income of less than $5 a day. India is a democratic country with a free media. A small change in food prices can become a big political issue.

The government must ensure the rural economy’s health by offering farmers high prices and keeping consumer inflation low. It has a thin line to tread.

4/ What is the status of India’s ethanol programme?

The country has a 20 per cent blending target by 2025, but I doubt we will achieve it. We need around 12 billion litres of ethanol to meet our current 12 per cent blending target. Out of that, 50 per cent comes from sugar and 50 per cent from grains. We now use around 15 million mt of grains for ethanol.

In a country like India, the fuel versus food debate will always tend towards food. The government introduced this ethanol policy when we had huge surpluses of wheat and rice. Rising ethanol demand will put pressure on the grain supply. We have imported almost half a million mt of corn this year—a record. In an average year, we are an exporter.

I don’t see the current ethanol policy as sustainable, and I expect the government to eventually say that ethanol can only be made from sugar cane.

5/ What messages will you deliver to the GrainCom24 conference in Geneva?

Probably too many.

One: India’s time has come on the world stage. People are still focusing too much on China, and I fear that they may miss the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that India provides.

Two: South Asia’s agricultural consumption will thrive. It will increasingly tie the region’s two billion people into the world supply chain and significantly impact global trade flows.

Today India imports around 18 million mt of vegetable oil – 80 million mt of bean equivalent. China imports 100 million mt of beans. What would happen to South America’s oil sector if India stopped importing oil and imported beans instead?

India has already had a considerable impact on world agricultural flows. It has not been as pronounced as China’s, but it will grow.

Three: Do not look at India solely as a trading hub but as a country where you can connect and invest. Our food processing industry will grow in leaps and bounds, with immense investment opportunities in processing, branding, and the entire supply chain.

Four: Don’t expect immediate results. Look at a typical horizon of 3 to 5 years.

Five: Government intervention will stay high. They must care for both farmers and consumers. Still, there are opportunities within those constraints. India is a private enterprise success story. The government will always be there, but not as a direct participant.

Six: India is a democratic country with a rule of law. Even without a local language, you can cover the length and breadth of the entire country.

Seven: Act internationally but think locally. When McDonald’s came to India, they had to change their menu to suit Indian tastes. You must do the same.

© Commodity Conversations ® 2024

I met Serge Varsano on a miserably cold and rainy Monday in Paris. I explained that I wanted to interview him for the CEO section of my new book, but he immediately told me that he was not the CEO of Sucden; he was the President of the company’s ‘Directoire’.

The concept of a Directoire dates back to the French Revolution, and the nearest translation is ‘Management Board’. It is an unusual arrangement that less than 5 per cent of French companies follow – and probably unique in trading companies.

In Sucden’s case, the board consists of five people, with each member having a right of veto. Decisions must be unanimous. Every board member must agree before the company undertakes a strategy on the markets or invests in a sector or a person. If, for example, the financial director does not agree, they do not do it.

A supervisory board oversees the management board. Serge explained that although he is the company’s majority shareholder, he operates within certain limits, first with the management board on ‘day-to-day’ trading decisions and, second, with the supervisory board on more strategic decisions. He needs authorization to exceed these limits. They ensure that the group is never put in danger.

Serge introduced the dual system to protect shareholders and the group after the company nearly went bankrupt in 1990. He told me that when Sucden bought Cocoa Barry in 1982,  the company’s best financial and risk controllers moved from the trading side of the business to the industrial side. It left a gap in the trading operation when the company expanded into different commodities such as rice, cotton, and energy.

“Everything exploded at the same time,” he admitted. “We had to sell Cacao Barry and Sogéviandes, owner of the Charal brand, dramatically reduce headcount and concentrate on sugar, our core product.

“Max Benamo, the former president who took over after my father died in 1990, came back to help me,” Serge told me. “We made a lot of money with a whole series of operations worldwide, especially in Russia, Cuba and Brazil. We had an outstanding team, a very tight team.”

“In the 1990s, we began our agroindustrial activities in Russia,” he said, “Buying four beet processing factories and the land with them. In 2010/12, we returned to cocoa and then coffee. Later, we added rice and sea freight by purchasing ships. We are also a market-maker in the London metals market. It is an activity that is doing very well, but it experienced difficult times with the nickel crisis two years ago.

“Brokerage accounts for around 15-20% of our revenue,” he continued. “Our agroindustrial activities account for 30-40% and trading for the rest. But I include distribution in the figure for Russia. I include shipping in the trading.”

Although Sucden bought beet factories and land in Russia, the company did not invest in sugar cane in Brazil. Other trading companies lost a lot of money purchasing Brazilian factories. I asked Serge how he avoided the trap.

“It’s not that we were brilliant,” he admitted. “It was just that we didn’t have the money to do it. It was luck.

“The cane mills were expensive,” he continued. “We never understood why all these people dived in. We didn’t believe in the ethanol stories, and the sugar market was around 11-14 c/lb, which was insufficient to justify the prices. It was hundreds of millions of dollars plus debt.

“We got involved in logistics operations in Brazil with port terminals but did not enter production.”

“But you do production in Russia,” I said. “Do trading and production make a good mix?”

“We do not trade in Russia,” he corrected me. “We sell our sugar locally, especially to major brands like Coca-Cola, Nestlé, etc. We export a little to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. It is not trading; it’s production and distribution.”

Cocoa trading was responsible for a significant portion of the 1990 losses. In preparing for this interview, I reread La Guerre de Cacao. I admit that I didn’t understand everything. I asked Serge if he could explain what happened.

“We were expecting a big harvest and shorted the differentials between the physical and futures markets at £20-30 per tonne. It was a significant operation but nothing extraordinary.

“President Houphouët-Boigny of the Ivory Coast banned exports – he thought the price was too low – and the differentials rose to $300-400 per tonne. We had a huge potential loss on our books. Other traders went to the Ivory Coast to convince the President to reallow exports. He said he preferred to destroy his cocoa rather than export it at such a low price.

“We went to him with a different idea: accept his price and buy 400,000 tonnes, store 200,000 tonnes in Europe for one or two years, and sell 200,000 to our customers. He accepted the operation. For that, we needed FF400 million. The French government had a structural fund that was not fully used, and they wrote a check for FF 400 million to be distributed to the Ivory Coast.

“With the storage cost and the 200,000 tonnes we sold, we emerged from the operation almost unscathed.

“We had asked the President for exclusivity on the deal for a certain time and not to sell to others. However, he sold 400,000 tonnes to Phibros, and the market collapsed. It was a disaster for us. It was also a disaster for Phibros who were long in the market. They exited cocoa soon afterwards.”

“Of the commodities you trade,” I asked, “Which is the most difficult and which is the most fun?”

“Sugar is in our blood and our genes,” he replied. “Sugar is complex because it is a fob contract, unlike coffee or cocoa. You need a robust physical department to trade in sugar. You also need to have a good physicals department for cocoa, but the cocoa is already in Europe when you take delivery.

“You need a robust global network to trade sugar: Brazil, the Middle East, Thailand, China, etc. Cocoa is mainly produced in Ivory Coast and Ghana and exported to Europe and a little to the United States. Overhead costs are less expensive.

“Coffee is between the two. We are relatively small in coffee, with 7 million bags per year, compared to the big companies, which trade 12 million bags. We are among the leaders in sugar, with around 10 million tonnes per year. We are among the first in cocoa, trading around 100,000 tonnes of beans each year and the equivalent in products.”

Serge Varsano has a reputation for being a speculator. Still, talking with people who know him well, I understood that he built the company on personal relationships and trust, for example, with Cuba and Russia, rather than by taking significant speculative positions on the market.

“I am more of a deal maker than a speculator,” he told me. “My goal has always been to gain the trust of our customers and find solutions for them. Everyone has problems to resolve, whether financial, logistical, or pricing. That is what interests me.”

“Speculation doesn’t interest you?” I asked.

“Not really,” he answered, “Especially on the flat price. We are not very good at the flat price, and we do very little for the size of the group, including cocoa and coffee.  We prefer ‘relative value’ to flat price.”

“Is this Sucden’s secret to success?” I asked.

“No, he replied. “The secret to success in this business is to have great teams and excellent people.

“As I explained earlier, if one of our traders wants to carry out an operation, he must have the management board’s agreement. And if the board agrees, we support the trader 100 per cent. Our decisions are collective. We make mistakes—it happens—but we don’t fire a trader if he loses money on a transaction that we all approved.

“We have a strong team spirit, and our traders have stayed with us for a long time. It is our secret to success. It is our way of trading, our way of managing teams.”

“Each company has its way of working,” I said. “Can partnerships work in trading?

“We have few structural partnerships,” he replied. “We do joint accounts, but for one-off operations. Interests can change in life and business, and getting married structurally is risky. Marrying a producer is challenging because we don’t have the same interests. Traders want to buy as low as possible, and producers want to sell as high as possible. It’s hard always to agree.”

“I imagine it wasn’t easy to take over the company from your father,” I said.

“Contrary to what you might think,” he replied, “It was easy. In 1975, when my father found out he had cancer, he asked me to come back from the United States. I was 20 years old. The market was dropping dramatically from 66 c/lb, and I wondered, ‘What is this thing – what is happening?’

I quickly integrated myself into the company and started doing small businesses. I had contacts in Venezuela, and we made some significant deals with them when the country became an importer in the late 1970s. I worked with my father and Elie Coriat, my father’s right-hand man. My father died in 1980.”

“How are you preparing your two sons to succeed you?” I asked.

“My desk is in the trading room with the traders. My two sons work three metres away, one to my left on sugar and the other to my right on cocoa. It’s nice.

“They participate in the management board meetings. They are not management board members but will officially join when I retire in 3-4 years.”

“What are the biggest challenges they will face?” I asked.

“Grain is our biggest challenge today,” Serge replied. We have just begun grain trading. We are small, with 2 million tonnes this year. We do not have any ambition to compete with the big trading companies, but we will find niches in complicated countries for less common products. We initially aim to distribute in Eastern and Mediterranean countries. Can we stay small? We’ll see, but we might have to move to a higher level one day.

“Russia is another challenge. It is impossible today to predict what will happen. Will it normalize?

“Cocoa is always a challenge. We cannot increase our bean volumes. Exporters have built factories and export products. However, we can expand cocoa products, such as butter and cake. There will be quite a few things to do.

“There is a lot to do in coffee. It’s a complex market at the moment. We had a bad year two years ago, but we slowly began to understand and anticipate the situation and had an honourable result in 2023. This year, 2024, is off to a good start for Arabica.

“Do you need more capital?” I asked.

“We have around $1.5 billion in capital, and our debt is less than our equity. We would need more capital if we wanted to buy factories or grain elevators. Still, we are happy to remain in trading and brokerage in London and agri-food and distribution in Russia. We live well and obtain excellent results relative to our funds.”

“You enjoy doing big deals in sugar, cocoa, etc.,” I said, “But do you get bored when there are no big deals?

“Not at all !” he replied. “It’s always interesting to follow the teams. The markets move constantly; there is rarely a year when nothing happens between sugar, coffee, and cocoa.

“I rarely get bored,” he added. “But I have another great passion, which is show jumping.”

Serge is a keen rider and competes in show jumping at an international level.

“I started at 10-11 years old in Neuilly,” he told me. “I didn’t do badly and was part of the French Junior team. But, I left for the United States at 17 to study, and I never got back on a horse until I was 50.”

“Was it easy to restart?” I asked.

“No, it was challenging,” he replied. “It was easy at first – like golf, the first shot is easy – but it’s hard to do well. Now I’m happy with what I do. I’m having a lot of fun.”

“Do you ride every day?” I asked.

“No! I’m still working,” he replied with a smile. “I ride every Wednesday morning and at the weekends. Competitions usually last four days, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so I sometimes have to take Thursday and Friday off to participate.”

“Are there any similarities between trading and show jumping?” I asked. “You can be an experienced trader or rider and have a good plan, but there is always an element of luck.”

“The two are similar,” he replied. “The stress is about the same between show jumping and trading.

“There is always something you can’t control. You can have a faultless course if you calculate and respect all your horse’s strides.

“Unfortunately, something always happens. The horse can swerve, add, or remove a stride, and, voilà, a bar falls.

“It’s the same in trading! You can calculate everything perfectly, but something unexpected can happen. It might rain too much or not enough, or a delivery might have more sugar than expected. You can make a bad decision; things can go wrong, unexpected things.

“If you make a mistake in trading, you cut the position and start again the next day. It’s the same with show jumping. There is always another competition – another opportunity. It’s the same in trading. The market will always give you another chance.

“So, it’s pretty similar. We never master everything in trading or show jumping. But that is what makes it interesting and fun.”

This is an excerpt from my new book, Commodity Professionals—The People Behind the Trade, now available on Amazon.

1/ Could you tell me a little about Cefetra?

We are a European company and part of the publicly listed BayWa Group, a German company.

Cefetra was initially owned by the Dutch cooperative compound feed producers, which sourced feed ingredients for the country’s compound feed industry. In the 1990s, we expanded that model into the rest of Europe.

The EU produces 160-165 million mt of compound feed annually, but its growth potential is limited.

Highly populated countries in Northwest Europe want to reduce livestock herds to reduce nitrogen emissions. Some project the EU compound feed production to remain unchanged, but we could see a shift within Europe, with production declining in northwest Europe and growing, for example, in Spain, Poland and the Balkans.

Eight years ago, we reviewed our business and decided to move into what we call “Beyond Compound Feed.” We have grown in the food ingredient business and are no longer just a company that sources feed ingredients for the European compound feed industry.

I have been with the company for nearly 16 years and, along with another colleague, am responsible for market research within the Cefetra group. We forecast price direction for the broad range of commodities we trade, including grains, oilseeds, meals, vegetable oils, biofuels, co-products like beet pulp pellets, citrus pellets, and, nowadays, dairy products.

We initially provided research exclusively for Cefetra, but we invested in our team to be good in research tomorrow. We hired data engineers, quants, and biofuel specialists. As the quality of our research increased, we experienced a growth in demand for our research from our supply chain network. Based on this growing demand, we decided to sell some of our market research to external parties under the name of Ceras-Analytics. We launched our platform in October 2022 at the ECE in Valencia.

We offer standardized research on a one-stop-shop platform with weather and crop forecasts and detailed S&D balance sheets for grains, seeds, meals, vegetable oils, and biofuels. We then translate our S&Ds to fundamental fair values. As fundamentals are not the only price drivers, we also provide technical and seasonality analysis—and much more.

We are experimenting with AI and using it to improve specific components of the models, but we want to avoid AI producing a forecast that we can’t explain.

2/ You’re speaking at GrainCom24 in Geneva on the outlook for EU and Black Sea grains and oil seeds. What will you bring to the table?

I attended the conference last year for the first time and felt that although it covered the global markets well, it focused insufficiently on the EU and the Black Sea.

Despite the war in Ukraine, US exports as a percentage of world exports have declined sharply in the last ten years for critical commodities like wheat, corn, and soybeans. Therefore, the US corn and wheat prices depend more on the US domestic situation. The US still plays a crucial role in price-setting, but we must relate it to the international situation and what it means for Europe and the Black Sea.

I aim to translate global events into how they could impact the EU.

3/ What are the current issues facing the European grain and oil seed markets?

Weather and politics are our key focus today. Dutch farmers started protesting in 2019, but since early this year, we have seen widespread protests from farmers across the EU. As a result, we have seen a recent change in EU policies – for example, the proposed import duties on oilseeds, oilseed products and grains from Russia and Belarus and the withdrawal of the ban on certain insecticides.

Weather is getting more extreme in recent years. For example, North EU has been extremely wet since October last year, hampering spring planting and resulting in disappointing winter crop conditions.

4/ Would Trump’s re-election significantly change your price forecasts?

I am a fan of making scenarios. When you make a forecast, you limit yourself to the current status quo. If you create scenarios, you become more open-minded about what might happen and the potential implications.

We have had Trump in office before, so we know what to expect to some extent. In his current campaign, he has already threatened to impose import tariffs on Chinese goods, and it’s not unthinkable that China will retaliate against US agricultural exports, as they did in 2018.

Interestingly, one could argue the Chinese have been building government stocks over the last two years, and that they may have been preparing for an eventual Trump re-election.

Trump is threatening to be less supportive of Ukraine. However, it is not only Trump who is showing less support. We also see less support from some European countries.

The resilience of the Ukrainian people is inspiring. Before the Russian invasion, the country exported 300,000 mt of agricultural products via the EU. Everybody thought they could increase that to one million mt, but they increased it to three million mt. It is truly impressive.

The same applies to the Ukrainian farmers. It is incredible how they managed to grow their crops in the face of immense challenges. The Ukrainian wheat yield last year was close to record.

5/ What are you hoping to get out of the conference?

We are proud of what we do at Ceras-Analytics and would like to share this with a broader audience.

Furthermore, we always like catching up with our network and discussing markets.

© Commodity Conversations ® 2024

 

For the past half-century, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as Greenpeace and Oxfam have played a positive role in alerting public opinion to the damage we are inflicting on our planet and our fellow human beings.

Over time, the NGOs developed a strategy of naming and shaming food companies into cleaning their supply chains. This strategy reached a climax in 2010 with Greenpeace’s campaign against Nestlé’s use of palm oil in their Kit Kat chocolate bars; a short video showed an office worker unwrapping a Kit Kat chocolate bar only to find the severed, bloody finger of an Orangutan.

Agricultural commodities have historically been defined by physical properties: weights, moisture content, foreign matter, broken pieces and other physically verified attributes. Suddenly, consumers began asking commodity traders to address the social and environmental issues in their supply chains and to verify traits they had never verified in the past.

The food supply sector had long argued that governments in producing countries should implement social and environmental standards: no child or slave labour, no deforestation, minimum pollution, etc. It quickly became apparent that many governments—especially in developing countries—could not do this effectively—or at least to the standard now demanded by consumers and NGOs.

The food industry was unsure how to react to these new demands and turned to outside participants for help. Gradually, a range of voluntary sustainability standards and certification agencies emerged, stepping in to fill the role that governments, traders and food companies were ill-equipped to play. The trade houses and the NGOs, most notably WWF, supported and encouraged these agencies.

At Kingsman, we were often involved in developing these standards, particularly in the biofuels sector. When I retired, I was briefly Chairman of Bonsucro, the certification scheme for sugar cane. During this period, I often turned to Melanie Williams for advice.

Melanie has a PhD in chemistry from the University of Cambridge. She got into sustainability after thirteen years in process development in the refinery and chemicals industry (BP and BP Chemicals) and ten years at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory, mainly in certified environmental measurements. For the past ten years, she has worked as an independent sustainability consultant, helping companies implement sustainability schemes and write standards for some schemes themselves.

I contacted Melanie to discuss certification schemes in light of new EU regulations, but first, I asked her to explain what certification schemes do.

“Certification schemes develop sustainability principles and standards containing specific requirements that can be audited for compliance,” she explained. “They train and approve auditing companies to carry out independent audits within the supply chain and certify those who pass those audits.

“Although certification isn’t perfect, it has had a beneficial effect. It allows concerned consumers, NGOs and commentators to ask questions about the provenance of commodities. It has brought the issues of deforestation and people’s rights to a broader audience. It allows consumers to choose more sustainable products.

“ISCC (International Sustainability and Carbon Certification) was launched in about 2011 and is the most significant, meaningful, and influential of the EU-approved biofuel sustainability schemes. It has since expanded into food, feed and materials.

“There are also single commodity schemes, such as RSPO, Bonsucro, and RTRS, and those targeted at higher value food commodities, such as Rain Forest Alliance. (The ITC Standards Map gives a good idea of the scope of the different schemes.)

“The EU is trying to reduce the number of certification systems,” she continued. “They are bringing in a registration requirement that excludes schemes without third-party auditing. However, auditing companies are developing their own standards for responsible agricultural practices and supply chain traceability to comply with the EUDR (The EU Deforestation Regulation).”

“Some argue that complying with certification schemes increases production costs for farmers,” I said. “Will EUDR increase them even further?”

“The EU believes it won’t,” Melanie replied. “The EC (European Commission) argues that increased transparency will reduce the number of operators in the supply chain and free up more money available for farmers. Retailers and supply chain operators will pay for the geolocation data, and taxpayers will fund verification by EU countries.

“It will still leave farmers with extra work, and it may be that only the large farmers can afford to comply,” she added.

“Only a small percentage of agricultural production is certified,” I argued. “Many importers (China, MENA) don’t care about certification, which makes it difficult for certification to gain critical mass. Is the certification industry losing momentum?”

“It is a problem,” she replied. “But the developed world can only control its own production and its imports. There will be more developments, such as the CSDDD (Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive), which will require companies operating in the EU to assess the risk of their suppliers impacting human rights or the environment. It applies to agriculture and other sectors, too. These types of measures should boost the demand for certification.”

“Food companies often leave certification logos off their retail packaging,” I said. “I never understood why.”

“Some don’t want the schemes to gain recognition as this increases the risk that suppliers will ask for a premium,” she replied. “Others don’t want to reduce the visual impact of their corporate logos, or they think too many logos will confuse consumers.”

“Traders often argue that certification reduces trading opportunities and substitution,” I said. “Does it result in a less efficient supply chain?”

“The world is moving towards shorter supply chains in general,” she replied. “Mutual recognition of certification systems increases flexibility, but inevitably, there will be more friction.”

“How can we be sure that production comes from certified farms and not their neighbours?” I asked.

“Geolocation data helps, and some providers offer services to interpret satellite data to show, for instance, land use change. You can prevent other types of fraud with national databases that track transaction volumes between operators.”

“Big companies such as Starbucks and Nestlé set up in-house sustainability programmes,” I said. “Do company-based systems work better than commodity-based ones?”

“Company sustainability programmes can be effective,” she replied, “particularly when the company bears the operational costs. However, I don’t think they are better than independent schemes. Moreover, they will likely disappear when the EU’s Green Claims Directive comes into force, as they are not multi-stakeholder schemes with third-party auditing.”

“Mass balance” was your expression of 2023,” I said. “What does it mean – and why did you choose it?”

“Mass balance describes a system in which sustainable and conventional commodities are mixed during storage, processing, and transport. Some sustainability schemes indicate this with the terms ‘Mix’ or ‘Mixed’, but they are not referring to real mixtures. They have had sustainable content attributed or allocated to the mixture. The sustainable component is not guaranteed to be physically present in the’ Mix’ product.

“Most consumers do not understand this concept. I chose ‘Mass Balance’ as my ‘word of the year’ because consumer brands are becoming more transparent, and the EU will require accuracy in green claims. The words’ Mass Balance’ will increasingly appear on products and packaging.”

“Hopefully, consumers will ask what it means and why their products can’t contain real mixtures. It may prompt brand owners to buy more sustainably certified commodities.”

“The new EU regulations, such as EUDR, exclude mass balance,” I said. They are what I call ‘all-or-nothing regulations.’ Some argue that the mass balance method allows a gradual move to sustainability rather than an all-or-nothing approach. Is that better?”

“The EU has been brave to exclude mass balance,” she replied. “It sends a message that the EU is serious about reducing its impact on the world’s forests, so I hope it succeeds. Also, the EU is a large importer of commodities and has the power to force through change. Time will tell if there are unintended consequences.”

“If you were the world’s dictator,” I asked, “What measures would you take to deal with deforestation, declining biodiversity, and global warming?”

“I would educate and support the world’s women,” she replied. “It would lead to a more just society and population stability. Better decisions happen when politics and business are mixed with an equal representation of both sexes and with people from different backgrounds.”

“Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future?” I asked.

“I am optimistic that we will overcome the challenges of climate change, mainly with new technology but also with some changes in behaviour.”

“Last question,” I said. “What would your 18-year-old self think of your career so far?

“She would be pleased that I had been able to work and pursue my career when childcare was not the norm and some employers discriminated against women. She would also be pleased I was an example to my children.”

© Commodity Conversations® 2024

1/ The media is blaming climate change for the cocoa deficit. But aren’t there other reasons, such as El Nino, disease, lack of land tenure, periods of low prices and a lack of investment in the fields?

The predicted global deficit of 400,000 mt, or 10 per cent of global production, is as large as we have ever seen, but the climate change story is nonsense in cocoa. I’m seriously concerned about climate change in coffee, but it has nothing to do with the problems in cocoa.

El Nino has had a minor impact on the Ecuador crop due to excess rainfall, but we’re talking about a loss of 50,000 mt. El Nino doesn’t explain the problems in West Africa; they result from long-term issues.

Following a price increase, the production area in Ivory Coast and Ghana significantly expanded in 2008-10. However, these trees are now relatively old, and their yields have declined.

The Swollen Shoot Virus is a more significant factor. The disease decimated the crop in Ghana in the 1960s and 1970s, reducing production by 50 per cent at a time when Ghana was the world’s largest producer of cocoa. The Ghanaians are trying to control the current outbreak. Ivory Coast is doing nothing.

We first identified the Swollen Shoot Virus in the Ivory Coast in 2008. It spreads slowly, and once it infects a tree, it will kill it within 5 to 10 years. There is no way to prevent it other than by cutting out infected trees, burning them, and replanting. Ivory Coast has reached a tipping point. We estimate that 25 to 30 per cent of the country’s farms are infected, but it may be more.

When a farmer sees his yields declining, he cuts down the trees and moves on to a different crop or replants with cocoa. The problem is that the disease will infect the new seedlings if you replant without burning the affected trees.

Prices have been stable for the last 10 or 12 years, and with the benefit of hindsight, they’ve been too low. Farm prices need to rise above $3,000 per mt to encourage farmers to invest in fertiliser, tree pruning, or planting new areas.

Farmers in Ivory Coast and Ghana still receive less than $2,000 per mt because the farm price was set at the start of the crop year last October. Ghana and the Ivory Coast should send a signal to their farmers by significantly increasing the price of the mid-crop, which starts in April. Otherwise, farmers will only begin receiving higher prices from October onwards and will only respond once they receive the higher price. The time lags are long in cocoa.

2/ Can anything be done short term?

A new tree takes about three years to produce fruit and 5 to 7 years to reach full maturity. The short-term answer is to invest in better farm care (pruning) and fertiliser use.

Fertiliser use has fallen in the Ivory Coast and Ghana over the last two years because of the high fertiliser price after Russia invaded Ukraine.

We’re seeing the first signs of the Ghanaian government trying to improve yields for the 24/25 crop. They plan to prune trees, spray against disease, and distribute fertiliser. It could be beneficial if they get their act together over the next 3 to 6 months. But the best incentive to better farm care would be to pay the farmers more.

If everything is done correctly at the right time, yields could increase by 30 to 40 per cent. The problem is that the window for applying fertiliser is when the rains return from March to June. Anything later than that will not impact the main crop. You might impact the next mid-crop, but it is much smaller.

Both countries have a central marketing board that fixes the price. The boards sell forward, and this sets the farmer’s price. That’s one of the problems. The 30 per cent drop in production this year has surprised both countries; they found themselves oversold. The governments of Ivory Coast and Ghana never default, but they roll forward the contracts. They’ve had to roll forward low-price sales from last year into next year. It means that they are well sold for 24/25 without being able to take advantage of the higher world prices.

Ghana and Ivory Coast account for 65 per cent of world production and are not yet passing on the higher prices to farmers.

3/ Swiss chocolate manufacturers were in the news last night saying they won’t increase prices this year. How will the market match demand and supply? Will there be shortages?

Many chocolate manufacturers have forward price cover and wouldn’t usually pass on today’s cocoa prices until the back end of this year. Still, they have other ways of mitigating against price rises.

They could reduce the amount of cocoa in their chocolate or promote filled bars with fillings such as wafers or fruit and nuts. They could still sell the same volume but use less cocoa. We will probably also see some shrinkflation.

Cocoa demand is price inelastic. It’s a recession-proof snack – a luxury but a low-price one. One way or another, we’ve got to reduce the amount of cocoa we consume. The easiest way of doing that is to price chocolate higher than alternatives such as snack food, cereal bars, etc.

The only comparable situation was 1977, when the world ran out of cocoa. The price spiked to a record high of $5,000 per mt in New York. If you apply the US Bureau of Labour Inflation Statistics back to 1977, $5,000 then equals $25,000 now.

4/What’s behind the explosive move in cocoa this year? Is it speculation?

The chickens are coming home to roost. I remember attending an industry event last November and was surprised at how complacent people were. Some felt that cocoa may move to $4,000 per mt, but no more. They thought it was a weather issue and not a structural one. They have probably revised their views this year.

Some physical cocoa users may be forced to buy back their short-term hedges due to margin stress.

The funds have been long cocoa for quite some time but have significantly reduced their positions since the market took off this year. Managed funds are pretty much out of cocoa. You can’t blame hedge funds for squeezing the market. They’ve been doing the opposite.

5/ Three companies, Barry Callebaut, Cargill, and Olam grind two-thirds of the world’s cocoa beans. I have seen suggestions that they control the market and are behind the price rise.

I don’t think they do. Even with this reasonably high concentration, they are price takers rather than price makers. If you look at Barry Callebaut’s share price, for example, you will see that it has fallen significantly in the past twelve months. It should have rocketed if they were controlling the market.

© Commodity Conversations® 2024

Steve Wateridge is the senior coffee and cocoa analyst for Tropical Research Services.

You recently took over as CEO of Agflow. What’s the biggest challenge you have faced so far?

We’ve had several challenges.

One was to revamp our pricing strategy. It was the first thing I identified. CEOs have different backgrounds, but I consider myself a marketing person. I like to sell things. I believe I am sensitive to understanding what clients will be satisfied with. I won’t relent until they are.

I saw that our churn rate was too high, not because the product wasn’t right, but because our pricing was skewed.

I said, let’s look at how we could do our pricing. We need to be entirely transparent about our pricing model because pricing should not depend on who the client is. You can’t charge different people different prices for the same product.  We revised the pricing model, fragmenting everything by product and commodity. If you are looking at soybean meal and only want tenders and quotes, you should pay for that. You shouldn’t pay for the entire platform if you’re not using it.

We also had to improve our customer relations. I told the team we must be the Four Seasons of customer care. I recommended they read a great book, Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy, by Isadore Sharp, the hotel chain’s founder. He understood that a happy customer brings in more customers.

You may have an issue with a product or a product that flops. It’s what happens in business. We don’t live in a fairy tale. But we must communicate correctly with our clients, listen to them, and understand their needs.

We have adapted our approach and have had excellent feedback. We have cut our churn rate by half. We have improved our ease of conversion and shortened the timeline to close.

There have been some tough choices, and we have had to let some people go, but the team must fit correctly. It’s like a football team. Sometimes, it’s not about having only star players. You need players who can play together.

On the personal side, it has been challenging to understand what is essential in the data and what isn’t. It has taken me at least 4 to 6 months to fully understand when people were telling me something had potential when it didn’t.

Businesspeople often invest heavily in marketing the wrong product and ignore a more profitable product that is quietly selling itself. You must identify and focus on the right products. We’re in that phase now.

What is your elevator speech for the company?

You may have heard about some of our competitors, but we have a completely different methodology and are in a blue ocean of our own. We work with a network of more than 150 contributors and can give you a view of what the market is doing at a particular time and place for a specific commodity. Our methodology is our differentiator—it differentiates us from our competitors.

We are not analysts, and we stay as impartial as possible. However, our AI-powered market intelligence chatbot arm drives rapid insights from our database.

Okay, so you’re an accumulator of data which you distribute. I recently interviewed Vosbor and CM Navigator. Are they doing the same thing?

Every company is a little bit different. I don’t think we are competing because the idea driving these companies comes from a different place.

CM Navigator was initially a facilitator for the group and their clients, but it is not, at its core, a technology company. We will compete in certain areas but have the upper hand in the number of commodities. If we go down to the subclass of the subclass, we’re covering about 280 commodities.

Vosbor is different. They are less a data provider than a digital exchange for physical commodities.

How is Agflow using AI now, and how will you use it in the future?

We use AI to parse the data as we receive it, and we have automatic outlier detection. Our technology speeds up the process so that the client gets the data as soon as it arrives.

For the last year and a half, we have been working on a new project, which we will probably launch as Agflow AI. It’s a chatbot, like Chat GPT, that can prompt reports within our database. Our clients can access the reports we aggregate, but instead of reading them all, they will be able to ask the chat box a specific question. We will limit it to our database to ensure it doesn’t hallucinate. It will tell you where it got the information and won’t give you an answer if it doesn’t have the information.

It’s a massive win for us because we see that we will be able to leverage AI in a reliant, constant, and scalable way. We are now linking our entire quotes database to it.

I see a world where clients will have an app and be able to ask questions. We are working to be ready for that. However, the commodities industry is not as fast-paced as some other industries. Clients still ask for an Excel sheet emailed to them every day. We can still do that.

AI isn’t going to give us data; our methodology is still going to do that. AI will help us acquire, clean, and deliver the data to our clients.

Instead of working your way through a table with different origins, delivery months, qualities, and price quotes, AI will do the work for you, and the chat box will answer immediately. It will take time to be 100 per cent reliable, but we will get there.

What do you see as your growth drivers?

I believe price discovery will drive our business forward. Working with many contributors and looking at many bids and offers gives us an edge.  We do not assess our prices in a journalistic way. These are the actual market prices, with an algorithm to create the forward curves. It is a different methodology.

Our basic model is yearly subscriptions. We also have a data services arm that offers consulting services to help small or midsize firms create internal systems to drive insights from their data. We then add in our data. We have had two mandates so far, but it’s not something that we see as a significant lever of growth. We view it as another service that we offer.

We see many new applications for our data. We currently have about 75 clients, including some of the ABCDs, and there is still a large pool of potential clients for our existing services. Our clients, ranging from FMCG companies to hedge funds, are extremely fond of our data because they use it to build the best models.

By the end of Q2 next year, we expect to be in profitable waters. We are close to achieving right now.

© Commodity Conversations®2024

Sacha will present at the Grain Com 24 Conference in Geneva on 14-16 May 2024