I actually feel ok about international sales, i expect prices have gone up more than extra freight we are paying (but havent actually compared), international prices will be an ongoing issue though, so i hope they talk about it.
eg. Apparently China has stopped imports due to covid their side in last week or so.
https://salmonbusiness.com/chinese-import-restrictions-hit-salmon-prices/But also, more predictions of high international prices.
https://salmonbusiness.com/historically-the-loss-of-chilean-volumes-has-set-new-price-records-globally-which-will-probably-also-happen-this-time/The current half will be hit by these new lockdowns, restaurants closed, but H2 should have been an improvement on H1, things where starting to get back to normal then, and in any case we have had time to adapt.
We had high inventories at H1 (~$60m more than usual), remember that forklift problem they had that coincided with high international prices, maybe im an optimist, but i cant help but wonder if it was in part caused because they where pulling out all stops to unload at those high prices, if they got the timing right, it should be very good cashflow.
Perhaps the higher inventory we had might have allowed us to do more 'value add' eg smoked etc, but just speculating. The reduction in expenditure on prawn expansion, and some cash leftover from the sale of excess Exmoor land and purchase of mid-farm will also help.
I expect Salmon production should be steady as she goes.
Hitting prawn targets will be pretty important, if there are problems early with production or sales, it could hurt confidence in the growth plans, it would not surprise me if scaling problems appear at some stage, but hopefully not.
We have been fortunate with Covid as far as workplaces go, i doubt we have lost much time at all due to lock-downs.
The plan going forward will be important, feels like we are at a historically significant point for the company, with the expansion, and navigating covid, good management makes a difference when the pressure is on.
