Page 58 - Mellby Gård Yearbook 2018–2019

BM AGRI
WITH STABILITY AND GROWTH AS KEY TERMS
BM Agri is a wholesaler of cereals, oilseeds and fertilizers. As a privately- owned company, it is a challenger in a market dominated by member-owned cooperatives. With a strengthened organization, BM Agri will now continue to grow under stable and profitable conditions.
“Few events have affected us and the industry as much as last year’s heat wave. The consequences of last summer’s drought came to overshadow the day-to-day operations well into 2019. The long-term strategy process had to be put on hold as we focused on safeguarding our deliveries to customers and assuring the quality of these deliveries”, says Johan Andersson, shareholder in BM Agri and the company’s MD until October 2019.
BM Agri trades mainly in wheat, malt, fodder grain and rapeseed, purchasing from farmers throughout Sweden. The company maintains very small inventories of its own, collecting directly from the farms instead. This enables cost-efficient and flexible operations and would prove particularly valuable following the 2018 drought.
“Farmers’ harvests were halved and were of poorer quality. Over the country as a whole, the grain harvest was the lowest in more than 60 years. It was impossible for farmers to deliver the produce for which they had been contracted. On the whole, the drought is estimated to have cost them SEK 10 billion in lost income”, says Johan Andersson.
“The poor harvests presented us and our competitors with the same challenge. It became more difficult to provide customers with goods of appropriate quantity and quality. We were better able to adapt to the situation, however, because we are a small organization with relatively low overheads and close relationships with the farmers”, he says.
During a year in which the industry as a whole saw its earnings plunge, BM Agri instead reported a profit of SEK 2.3 million in 2018.
“This is an outcome that we are satisfied with, under the circumstances.”
With 2018 having been difficult for the farmers, 2019 offered them retribution instead. With favourable temperatures and abundant precipitation, harvests in several parts of the country were larger than in a normal year, allowing the entire industry to draw a sigh of relief. By year-end, it is estimated that harvest levels will be slightly more than six million tonnes – which is close to double compared with the extreme preceding year.
During the year, the company took additional steps towards increased digitization, which has become a competitive factor.
“Both suppliers and customers are beginning to impose increasing requirements that we are able to offer user-friendly IT solutions. Being at the forefront of this development is an absolute necessity.”
Several recruitments were also conducted in 2019, to strengthen
the organization for the future. The sales and marketing department was boosted with the addition of Per-Arne Gustavsson – a veteran in the industry, with extensive experience from Lantmännen and most recently as grain manager at Svenska Foder.
“In this industry, relationships are the key to all transactions. The products that we and our competitors sell are often identical. Instead, it is important to understand the circumstances of the suppliers and the needs of the customers to build trust and loyalty. Per-Arne’s skill and understanding of the entire value chain is difficult to surpass. He is a very welcome addition to BM Agri”, says Johan Andersson.
58 | MELLBY GÅRD – YEARBOOK 2018 / 2019