Astarta Agro Holding, the largest sugar producer in Ukraine, processed 2.7 million tons of sugar beet grown by itself and its agricultural partners at its five sugar factories in 2023-2024 and produced 377.5 thousand tons of sugar.
“The processing season of 2023, which lasted 130 days, was the best in terms of processed raw materials and produced sugar over the past five years,” the agroholding’s press service reported on Facebook.
Summing up the results of the harvesting campaign, Astarta reported that its structural units harvested 200 thousand tons of corn with a yield of 10.35 tons/ha, up 16.2% year-on-year, and 2.2 million tons of sugar beet with a yield of 57.61 tons/ha (+2.6%).
“Longer harvesting periods were caused by several factors: difficult weather conditions: heavy and prolonged precipitation in October-November 2023 caused a delay in harvesting and logistical difficulties in delivering raw materials to processing plants, and thus disrupted the rhythm of some sugar factories. Another important factor was the increase in the yield of late crops: the yields of corn and sugar beet were the highest in the history of the holding’s crops,” Astarta said, adding that it continues to prepare for the spring sowing season.
“Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding operating in eight regions of Ukraine. It includes six sugar factories, agricultural enterprises with a land bank of 220 thousand hectares and dairy farms with 22 thousand cattle, an oil extraction plant in Globyno (Poltava region), seven elevators and a biogas complex.
In the third quarter of 2023, the agricultural holding earned EUR1.24 million in net profit, down 27.7 times compared to the same period in 2022. Astarta’s revenue decreased by 14.4% to EUR104.75 million, gross profit by 2.7 times to EUR26.96 million, operating profit by 7.6 times to EUR6.79 million, and EBITDA by 42.7% to EUR97.25 million.
Due to significantly better performance in the first half of this year compared to the first half of last year, in the first nine months of 2023, net profit decreased by 9.8% to EUR 55.97 million, while revenue increased by 14.8% to EUR 392.00 million. The company’s gross profit increased by 3.0% to EUR 151.91 million, while operating profit decreased by 15.9% to EUR 79.91 million and EBITDA by 10.8% to EUR 116.63 million.
Astarta, the largest sugar producer in Ukraine, has started harvesting sugar beet, for which it has allocated 39 thousand hectares in the 2023 season, the group’s website reports.
According to the report, on September 8, farmers in Vinnytsia region started digging, and agricultural producers in Poltava region will join the harvesting campaign on September 14.
According to preliminary estimates of the agricultural holding’s experts, this year’s yield and quality of sugar beet will be higher and better than last year’s figures.
In preparing for this year’s harvesting campaign and taking into account the experience of previous seasons, Astarta’s team paid special attention to logistics.
“The company has invested in the construction of almost 90 km of field roads. Also, on Astarta’s initiative and in close cooperation with the Poltava Regional Military Administration and the Globyno community, the company is completing the repair of a 25 km section of the Manzhelia-Globyno public road,” the statement said.
To optimize the delivery of raw materials from the field to the warehouses, the agricultural holding has purchased 22 self-propelled loaders.
In addition, Astarta continues to actively implement digital AgriChain products, including the new AgriChainLogistics module to optimize the processes of collection, delivery, storage and processing of raw materials.
“Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding company operating in eight regions of Ukraine. It includes six sugar factories, agricultural enterprises with a land bank of 220 thousand hectares and dairy farms with 22 thousand cattle, an oil extraction plant in Globyno (Poltava region), seven elevators and a biogas complex.
As reported, Astarta earned EUR65.16 million in net profit in 2022, down 46.8% compared to 2021. Last year, the holding’s EBITDA decreased by 23.2% to EUR154.77 million, while revenue increased by 3.8% to EUR510.07 million.
In the first quarter of 2023, the agricultural holding earned EUR16.13 million in net profit, up 6.2 times compared to the first quarter of 2022, its revenue increased by 37.1% to EUR163.55 million, and EBITDA by 63.5% to EUR37.91 million.
The major shareholders of Astarta at the end of the first half of the year were the family of its founder and CEO Viktor Ivanchyk – 40.11% and Fairfax Financial Holdings LTD with subsidiaries – 29.91%.
TAS Agro agrarian group will reduce sowing areas of oilseeds, expand the grain group and start growing sugar beet in season 2023, the company’s press service said.
“Despite the late start of the sowing season caused by weather conditions, all works will be performed in optimal agronomic terms. Modern technological complexes, which increase the accuracy of seeding and increase the productivity of works, are involved in the sowing campaign”, – stated in the press release.
It is specified that the spring sowing campaign in Kirovograd region started with sunflower sowing.
“TAS Agro” is planning to sow 23.3 thousand hectares of corn, 16.1 thousand hectares of sunflower and 11.5 thousand hectares of soybeans in 2023. “Compared to the last year we are going to reduce the area of oil crops and increase the area of grain group. Sowing area in the company as a whole has not changed, but because of food security and market situation this season sugar beet was added to the structure of crops”, – stressed the press service.
After the end of the sowing season the holding will make additional application of nitrogen fertilizers. The company intends to change the technology of plant nutrition, for which the yield of crops in each field over the past five years has been analyzed. According to the data received, the fields were divided into categories, according to which the yield and nutrition system will be planned. “We will be able to not just save money, but increase the efficiency of the money invested in fertilizers,” the company notes.
Before the war TAS Agro worked 83 thousand hectares in Vinnitsa, Kiev, Kirovograd, Chernigov, Nikolaev, Sumy, Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk regions, was engaged in dairy farming (up to 5.5 thousand cattle), owned six elevators with simultaneous storage capacity of 250 tons.
TAS Group was founded in 1998. The sphere of its business interests covers the financial sector (banking and insurance segments) and pharmacy, as well as industry, real estate, venture projects.
The founder of TAS is Sergiy Tigipko.
Agroindustrial holding Astarta, the largest sugar producer in Ukraine, has completed its 2022 sugar season, which lasted from September to January, with a total of about 2 million tons of sugar beet processed into 282 thousand tons of sugar.
According to the company’s website on Wednesday, the past sugar season was the most difficult in the holding company’s history, although the volume of sugar produced increased by 6% over the 2021 season, and by 25% over the 2020 season.
It is specified that Astarta’s sugar yield from the raw materials last season was 14.26%, while the Ukrainian average was 13.98%, and 99% of the produced sugar corresponds to the highest quality category.
The holding referred to the preliminary data of Ukrtsukor association, according to which Astarta’s share on the Ukrainian sugar production market in 2022 season was 25%.
The sugar producer specified that its planted areas under sugar beet in central and western regions of Ukraine were not significantly affected by military operations, but it faced a number of other challenges.
“Due to increased costs for fertilizers, crop protection products and fuel, sugar beet cultivation costs per hectare have risen. Nearly continuous rains during the harvest period have made both harvesting the crop and transporting it from the fields to processing plants much more difficult. However, Astarta harvested 1.8 million tons of sugar beets in 2022 at a yield of 56 tons/ha,” the holding quoted its director of agricultural products processing Yevgeny Sadovy as saying.
“Astarta stressed that it was able to implement a number of energy-saving projects at its sugar refineries during the war, in particular, a scheme for autonomous power supply to enterprises in case of a power blackout.
“Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding operating in eight regions of Ukraine. It consists of six sugar factories, farms with a land bank of 220 thousand hectares and dairy farms with 22 thousand cattle, oil extraction plant in Globino (Poltava region), seven elevators and biogas complex.
Agricultural holding in 2021 increased net profit 14 times compared with 2020 – up to EUR 122.5 mln, EBITDA – 1.8 times, up to EUR 201.5 mln. Its revenue increased by 18.2% – to EUR 491.35 mln, one third of which (EUR 170 mln) was generated by sugar production and sales.
Agroindustrial holding “Astarta”, the largest sugar producer in Ukraine, plans to process up to 2 million tons of sugar beet, grown at the own enterprise and supplied by the third-party farmers in the current season.
To date, the sugar plants have already produced 241 thousand tons of white sugar from more than 1.7 million tons of beets, and plan to process more than 200 thousand tons more, the holding said in a statement on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
“Astarta” in 2022 began the sugar season on September 16, a total of five sugar refineries of the group were working during the season.
As reported, on December, 9 sugar beet in Ukraine is harvested from 98% of the planned areas, totally 8.9 million tons (+0.3 million tons for the last week) from 177 thousand hectares (+3 thousand hectares).
“Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding, which operates in eight regions of Ukraine. It consists of six sugar factories, agro-farms with land bank of 220 thousand hectares, dairy farms with 22 thousand cattle, oil extraction plant in Globino (Poltava region), seven elevators and biogas complex.
Agroholding increased its net profit in 2021 14 times compared to 2020 – up to EUR 122.5 mln, EBITDA – 1.8 times, up to EUR 201.5 mln. Its revenue increased by 18.2% up to EUR 491.35 mln, one third of which (EUR 170 mln) was generated by sugar production and sales.
Farmers dug 10.6 million tonnes of sugar beet in Ukraine in 2021, which is 2.3 million tonnes (28.7%) more than in 2020 (8.2 million tonnes), according to the Ukrtsukor association.
The average sugar beet yield in Ukraine was 46.9 tonnes per ha, which is 6 tonnes per ha more than in 2020 (40.9 tonnes per ha).
The highest yield is in Lviv region – 55.6 tonnes per ha. The following regions are leading in gross production: Vinnytsia region with 2.4 million tonnes, Khmelnytsky region with 1.5 million tonnes and Poltava region with 1.07 million tonnes.
