Kakuzi Public Limited Company has issued a 25 per cent cautionary loss in net profit for the year ended 31 December 2021 to investors and the general public.
The leading agro-processing firm’s net earnings will be lower than that reported for the year ended 31st December 2020.
According to Nicholas Ng’ang’a, Kakuzi Plc Board Chairman, the profit warning arises from trading information, market forecasts and the preliminary unaudited full-year financial results among other data sources.
The company has attributed the poor performance to a drop in avocado production and lower global market prices in European markets.
“The anticipated drop in full year earnings is as a result as a result of 18 per cent drop in production of Hass Avocado,” stated the company.
“There were also lower global market prices in Hass avocado in its European markets due to an oversully of the fruit from Peru and Columbia, which impacted prices during the same period that the Kakuzi product was also in the market,” added the company.
However, their other crops have performed as expected with an increasingly strong performance from the macadamia business, which validates the investments made into diversification over the years.
The Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed company plans to continue with this diversification strategy so as to mitigate the global market volatility and overreliance on any one product.