BUSINESS DAY TV: ‘A devastating nine months lies ahead for the industry’
Chris Schutte is the CEO of Astral Foods. BUSINESS DAY TV: With profits at its poultry division less than a 10th of what they were last year it’s no wonder that Astral Foods has posted an overall 50% slump in full-year operating profit. And with only a third of the import quotas utilised by American chicken producers over the last nine months, will 2017 be a year of carnage for the local poultry industry? Joining me now on News Leader is Astral CEO Chris Schutte. Chris ... to some extent this is decimation in the true sense of the word within the poultry division, profits less than a 10th of the R600m-odd they were last year. Is it purely the negative operating leverage of much higher prices and an inability to pass those higher prices through the retail outlets? CHRIS SCHUTTE: That’s exactly the theme for this past year. First of all, the worst drought in our history or since 1904 ... since 1904 so the highest record maize prices at 70% of our input costs. Go and try and recover th...
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