Ma­jor­i­ty state-owned com­pa­ny Na­tion­al Flour Mills (NFM) yes­ter­day de­clared af­ter-tax prof­it of $44.18 mil­lion for the year end­ed De­cem­ber 31, 2024, a 24.62 per cent in­crease over the $35.45 mil­lion it record­ed in 2023.

In it­sau­dit­ed sum­ma­ry con­sol­i­dat­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments for 2024, NFM re­port­ed rev­enue of $523.40 mil­lion, a drop of 9.34 per cent com­pared to the rev­enue of $577.33 mil­lion the com­pa­ny record­ed in its 2023 fi­nan­cial year.

NFM re­port­ed cost of sales of $362.23 mil­lion in 2024, which was 14.82 per cent less than $425.28 mil­lion in 2023. The com­pa­ny's re­duc­tion in its cost of sales re­sult­ed in gross prof­it of $161.17 mil­lion, which was an im­prove­ment of 6 per cent com­pared to the $152.05 mil­lion in 2023.

The grain-milling com­pa­ny re­port­ed prof­it be­fore tax of $62.89 mil­lion in 2024, an in­crease of 15.92 per cent com­pared to $54.25 mil­lion re­port­ed in 2023.

NFM chair­man, Ash­meer Mo­hamed, said the com­pa­ny's con­tin­ued in­vest­ment in plant mod­erni­sa­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly the ac­qui­si­tion of new pack­ag­ing equip­ment, led to an in­crease in to­tal as­sets from $447 mil­lion to $471 mil­lion

In pro­vid­ing an overview of the grains mar­ket and glob­al econ­o­my, Mo­hamed said that through­out 2024, NFM op­er­at­ed in a chal­leng­ing glob­al eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment char­ac­terised by on­go­ing geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions, evolv­ing in­ter­na­tion­al trade poli­cies and cli­mate change im­pacts.

"The new­ly ar­tic­u­lat­ed US for­eign pol­i­cy, in­clud­ing po­ten­tial wide­spread tar­iffs, may fur­ther desta­bilise glob­al food prices. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the with­draw­al of the Unit­ed States from the Paris Agree­ment and re­newed em­pha­sis on fos­sil fu­els could un­der­mine glob­al cli­mate ob­jec­tives and in­ten­si­fy en­vi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges af­fect­ing agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tiv­i­ty world­wide," said the NFM chair­man.

He said these de­vel­op­ments, cou­pled with es­ca­lat­ing glob­al con­flicts and strin­gent im­mi­gra­tion poli­cies af­fect­ing agri­cul­tur­al labour, pose sig­nif­i­cant risks to glob­al food se­cu­ri­ty and price sta­bil­i­ty.

"NFM re­mains cog­nizant of these po­ten­tial im­pacts and strate­gi­cal­ly pre­pares to mit­i­gate as­so­ci­at­ed risks to sus­tain prof­itabil­i­ty," said Mo­hamed.

Build­ing up­on its sub­stan­tial in­vest­ments in mod­erni­sa­tion and ca­pac­i­ty ex­pan­sion, Mo­hammed said NFM aims to grow its mar­ket pres­ence re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

“In­creas­ing our ex­ports is es­sen­tial to our strate­gic vi­sion, as we aim to be­come a lead­ing for­eign ex­change earn­er through our flour, feed, pet food, and dry-mix prod­uct lines. Our dry-mix prod­ucts al­ready have a strong foothold in Caribbean mar­kets, the Unit­ed States, and Cana­da, and we in­tend to ac­tive­ly pur­sue fur­ther op­por­tu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in di­as­po­ra com­mu­ni­ties abroad,” he added.