Finding new solutions Thinking out of THE BOX and relying on the COLLecTIVE... 3 QUESTIONS TO... CÉDRIC COGNIEZ Presumably you’re channelling Managing Director of this spirit as you draw up the You only joined last June, Agricultural Businesses Cooperative’s new strategic plan, but you’ve known VIVESCIA for a Ma Coop 2030? long time. How do you see the Group Yes, but not just that. I’m already working and its agricultural businesses? Isn’t there a danger that the with our processing businesses on the 2024 harvest will undermine this next steps. We need to think about resilience at every level to manage the Yes, I’ve obviously been keeping an eye momentum? current change within agriculture and on VIVESCIA for many years, since I’ve its food and energy value chains. We spent my career in the agricultural and have to take account of the agronomic, As we all know, the 2024 harvest was not cooperative world. VIVESCIA is a leader organisational and economic dimensions, on its territory, and that inevitably means good. It’s not the first time it’s happened, as well as the sociological side, because people are keeping an eagle eye on what and it won’t be the last. One thing I’ve learned from these recurring spells of we’re already seeing a change in the its Cooperative does! I should add that makeup of our farming community. bad weather is that our Cooperative’s I’m from a family of farmers and I still have very close ties with the agricultural role is above all in how we process The important thing is to stay ahead the harvested grain, to extract the of the curve without losing sight of the community. My decision to join VIVESCIA says a lot about the value and potential maximum value out of it, to market it as Cooperative’s core mission, which is to that I see in the Group, especially in its effectively as possible, and to honour meet our cooperative member-farmers’ very real – and pragmatic – day-to-day our contracts with our customers. I’m Cooperative and its supply chains ! I’m needs, all year round, AND to boost the very impressed by the determination to confident, because everyone who works competitiveness of the Cooperative and for the Cooperative – from the silos tackle head-on the huge challenges posed to the traders – is used to dealing with its subsidiaries in the short, medium by ongoing changes in the agricultural and long term, so we can continue to world, the sheer diversity of the many this kind of situation. They’ve proved it in the past, and will prove it again this serve them as efficiently as possible. To projects under the umbrella of Ma Coop cope with successive crises – each one year. The Cooperative will also act as 2025, and the bullish approach of our a buffer, cushioning the impact so that different from the one before – we have very capable workforce. Some decisions cooperative members can afford to to become even more agile, to think may have been difficult to take – and outside the box and, now more than ever, to come to terms with – on the ground, invest for the 2025 harvest, prepare their but our strategic plan paid off, as we soils and buy seed and fertiliser, without be open to, and rely on, the collective. The TRANSITIONS programme has having to sacrifice next year’s harvest. It can see in the revenue and EBITDA is nonetheless essential to strengthen the proved that the Group has the capacity we generated in 2023-2024. And with ability of farms – all farms – to withstand and the legitimacy to do that. So let’s these good results under our belts, we’re climate change and all the other continue to pool our resources and talent, now deliberating on the future of the both internally and externally, so our challenges we face. The same applies to Cooperative and its subsidiaries as we cooperative members have confidence in the Cooperative, which is also suffering head towards 2030. from the fallout. us and in the future! CONSOLIDATED REPORT 2023-2024 25