Royal FloraHolland’s loss will be much larger this year than in 2022. How large exactly, CFO David van Mechelen won’t say. Last year, the Dutch auction lost EUR 4 million.
The reasons for RFH’s 2023 loss include high energy bills, rising labour costs, increasing interest rates, and drops in supply. Supplier costs are also up. CFO David van Mechelen expects the auction’s loss to be much higher this year than in 2022, when it reached EUR 4 million. At the time, this was caused in part by the divestment of Floriworld, the high energy and labour costs and the losses at Floriway.
Already at the presentation of the annual report on 31 March, Van Mechelen announced that 2023 would not be an easy year for the auction. Given the economic and market conditions: there is less supply, and the auction’s expenditures are increasing. In addition, RFH did not benefit from the lower energy prices. Whereas, in 2022, their energy mix still consisted in part of cheap energy from 2019 and 2020, that was not the case this year.
