Veganz Group Releases 2023 Annual Report – vegconomist

Veganz Group AG, founded in 2011 in Berlin, with a product portfolio widely available in the DACH region, has published its financial report for 2023.

Despite a “struggle with consumers’ purchasing reluctance and the persistently weak economic development in 2023”, the company highlights in its report a 6% growth in its strategic core categories as it responded to the financial climate with plant-based innovations for brands and private labels, cost reductions, and expansion of production facilities, with the acquisition of the brands and production site of fellow German company Happy Cheeze.

Notably, in 2023 there were successful innovations including Veganz Bluebert and Veganz Mililk®, a highly sustainable 2D printed oat milk disc product, which recently rolled out into Rewe stores.

Optimistic outlook for 2024

Veganz’s ecommerce platform saw a substantial increase, reaching EUR 100,000 in sales within six months. The food retail sector remains the largest contributor to sales, despite a decrease from 64% to 56% of the total, while the drugstore business and discount channel sales grew. The company plans to continue the expansion of its food service offerings and D2C business in 2024.

Focusing primarily on the DACH region, which comprises 93% of its sales, Veganz has increased its gross profit margin to 38.5% in 2023, up from 32.4% the previous year. Looking ahead, Veganz anticipates a slight increase in sales and a further reduction in EBITDA losses for 2024.

In 2023, Veganz continued to invest in building up production capacity, which led to higher depreciation (2023: EUR 1.7 million, previous year: EUR 1.0 million). Accordingly, EBIT and net losses both improved to minus EUR 7.9 million (previous year: minus EUR 13.3 million) and minus EUR 9.5 million (previous year: minus EUR 11.0 million) respectively.

Nevertheless, the strategic product range adjustments led to a deliberate decline in sales for the Veganz Group AG to EUR 16.4 million (previous year: EUR 23.6 million) while EBITDA improved by 49.2% to minus EUR 6.3 million (previous year: minus EUR 12.3 million).

“In 2023 we continued implementing our strategic goals in a coherent way. We consciously gave up sales through the rationalization of our product offering and costs optimization, as well as through the change to a production company. We successfully launched products from our own production facilities, such as Mililk® and Bluebert. Our strategy to increase the profitability through innovations from our own production is successful. Nevertheless, we were still confronted by a market affected by dampened consumer,” stated Jan Bredack, Founder and CEO of the Veganz Group AG.