CEO Koen Slippens: 'After experiencing considerable pressure on operations and a globally disrupted supply chain in 2022, 2023 was all about restoring stability. Our basic service provision needed to become better and also more efficient, partly in view of the continuing steep inflation in costs. All things considered, we succeeded, with substantially improved and above all consistent average service levels and on-time delivery.
Our customers needed and continue to need good and reliable service more than ever and we see further opportunities for improvement in this area in 2024. After all, despite the on average great performance in 2023, individual customers experience suboptimal service from time to time, which may be a reason for switching suppliers. Our competitors also struggled with the same issues. We welcomed many new customers, but also saw some leave. On balance, the outcome was positive for us and we gained market share in both markets.
The market is in the grip of change and our customers are increasingly price-sensitive. This is no surprise, seeing as high inflation is confronting them with rising costs in virtually every aspect of their business model. Moreover,
many of our customers saw consumers increasingly pare back spending in the ‘out of home’ channel. As a result, we had to keep a tight rein on pricing policy and support our customers through services and product range choices so that they could continue offering acceptable menu prices despite the price inflation. We believe we amply succeeded but this issue is set to persist into the future and thus demands our continued attention.'