Editorial
Dear producers,
At the beginning of June, our Annual General Meeting was held against a backdrop still marked by challenges. I'd like to take this opportunity to highlight the key points that were shared, as they directly concern our common future.
A complicated 2024, but positive signs
Our industrial facilities suffered a number of breakdowns in 2024, severely impacting our production capacity and hence our sales. Sales came to 504 million francs, down 4% on 2023 (525 million). However, our net income, although still negative at 16.9 million, improved by 16% thanks to tighter cost management. More than ever, this improvement bears witness to the efforts made at all levels of the company.
Another very encouraging point is that we have succeeded in significantly strengthening our cash position, with an improvement of 22.4 million francs. This new room for manoeuvre will enable us to invest in modernizing our production facilities, in order to produce more and better.
Active enhancement of your milk
In 2024, 60.25% of milk collected came from our affiliated producers. The remainder is purchased from pools and partners. Here's how this milk is processed in our plants:
- 63% are used to manufacture butter and powder,
- 15% for creams,
- 10% for cheeses,
- 10% in milk cartons,
- 2% in condensed milk and yogurts.
Our sales by product family reflect this breakdown:
- 32.6% for butter,
- 24.4% for fresh products (milk, yogurts, dairy drinks),
- 23% for cheeses,
- 17.3% for powders.
Investments for the future
Faced with the urgent need to modernize our industrial base, several major investments were recently approved by our Board of Directors. These decisions are part of a strategic vision for 2030, structured around five main pillars:
- Confirm our key segments of butter, powders, cheeses, milk and dairy beverages, cream and yogurts.
- Strengthen our core business: high value-added powders, in strong demand, and butter, where Cremo is a long-standing player. At the same time, we are going to strengthen our cheese activities, with the reinforcement of maturing activities at our Guin site, which offers new opportunities following the discontinuation of Emmentaler, and which will be modernized.
- Orienting our production towards health and well-being: we are going to invest in Research & Development to develop new products related to health and well-being. Some of these are already under development, and we'll be able to talk about them in the coming months and years.
- Enhancing the value of our brands: Cremo, Mazot, Lattesso, Valdor, Choky - all names with potential that we want to develop further and enrich with new brands.
- Rethinking distribution: in addition to mass retailing, we rely on our subsidiary Le Petit Crémier to better reach end customers.
Transformation in progress
Over the past 24 months, we've already come a long way. After an initial phase of analysis (2023) and stabilization (2024), we are now in a phase of optimization (2025-2027): improved profitability, better cost management, refocusing on our core business, and evolution of our corporate culture towards greater performance and agility.
We are now launching the 4th phase: acceleration. It involves greater investment, the launch of new products, a reinforced marketing effort, and increased international development, and should lead us to financial equilibrium and better market positioning.
I'll come back to these projects in more detail in a future issue. In the meantime, I would like to thank you sincerely for your commitment, for your trust, and for the quality of the milk you deliver to us day after day. We will succeed in this transformation together.
I wish you a wonderful summer!
Yours sincerely, Ralph Perroud