AAK’s new strategic direction
The closing of 2019 marked the end of our company
program The AAK Way. To identify new opportunities
for future growth, we have over the past year reviewed
our market and our capabilities to define AAK’s strategic
direction going forward.
Our assessment shows favorable market and
consumer trends and new opportunities for continued
profitable growth. We are building on a very strong
historical performance, and although we will preserve
the DNA of our company we will, going forward, prioritize
and operate our business somewhat differently.
Acknowledging that different industries are characterized
by different market dynamics, it is important to
differentiate our approach to each of them. Therefore,
we have identified four different portfolio roles: “Invest
in continued growth”, “Bet for the future”, “Optimize
performance”, and “Maintain current strategy”
Financially, we believe that the strategy supports
our ambition of an average 10 percent year-over-year
operating profit growth combined with a good and
consistent earnings per share improvement.
Invest in continued growth
Our strong historical growth in Chocolate
&
Confectionery Fats has been made possible by industry
leading application knowledge and an ability to offer
customers the best solutions. Strengthening our key
supply chains and capacities within customer innovation
will enable us to capture the growth in high-value
applications.
In Special Nutrition, high-quality solutions tailored
to our customers’ needs have over the past decade
enabled high growth rates. A strong innovation pipeline
and investments in our ability to serve important
markets such as China is key to continue the growth.
We will enable the continued growth of these two
industries by ensuring the necessary investments in
new value propositions and a reliable supply of key
products.
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Chocolate &
Confectionery Fats Special Nutrition
Optimize performance
Bakery Dairy Foodservice
The overall bakery and dairy markets are characterized
by more standard solutions with a strong focus on
cost of ingredients and less opportunities for further
premiumization of AAK’s offering. However, some