DMK Group on course for 2030 despite pandemic

Despite all the unexpected challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, Germany’s DMK Group says it can look back on 2020 as a stable fiscal year. Initial market forecasts for the current year are confident, according to the company.

In a year marked by the pandemic, DMK Group continued to implement and deliver stable results: DMK’s payment performance for its associates evaded the negative market trend. While the industry-wide payout was lower than in 2019, DMK was able to keep the payout price stable in a year-on-year comparison. The total revenue of Germany’s largest dairy is at 5.6 billion, level with the previous year’s (€ 5.8 billion), the equity ratio remains stable at 33.8 %. At 24.9 million euros, earnings almost reached the previous year’s level (24.5 million euros).

By the time the explosion in demand in food retailing – and a simultaneous near collapse in the food service business – occurred during the first lockdown, it was clear that the pandemic would lead to major upheavals in the market and produce far-reaching challenges for the entire supply chain. DMK Group actively steered through the pandemic and reliably fulfilled its mandate to safely supply the population with food products. Despite all the challenges involved, the company has never lost sight of its Vision 2030 and the implementation of important milestones. These included:

• The sale of the ice cream plant in Haaren;
• The sale of the subsidiary Sanotact;
• The complete takeover of DV Nutrition and integration into wheyco (BU Industry);
• The construction of the new plant in Russia (commissioning in 2021);
• The full integration of the Alete brand into BU Baby;
• The reorganisation and modernisation of the entire finance area
• The screening of the purchasing of all services and goods except milk, and the implementation of cost saving potentials.

In following its course, DMK Group considers itself well positioned for future crises, market fluctuations and new opportunities that arise. “2020 has challenged us on the Covid-19 side of things, but has not taken us off course. We are working through the upcoming projects within the framework of our strategy – that’s what we did in 2020 despite the pandemic and that’s what we will do in 2021,” summarises CEO Ingo Müller.

The pandemic will continue to influence the dairy market in 2021 due to changes in consumer behaviour. However, DMK says the current year started better than expected on the product markets: this is a positive surprise given the continued increase in world milk production and a foodservice sector still weakened by hard lockdowns.