The raw materials market is expected to remain limited in 2023 as well. Driven by inflation and availability, new cost increases will be inevitable. We will therefore continue to focus sharply on controlling our costs in 2023.

The year 2022 proved to be very important for our major digital transformation programme “Intelligent Brewery”. The programme went live for the Lieshout location on October 31st. A great moment made possible by the commitment and involvement of over three hundred employees. We greatly appreciate this and we are extremely proud of them.

Within a few years, we will be working in the same way worldwide. From then on, interchangeable data will allow us to better utilise the scale of our business. The implementation of the programme will be a major efficiency improvement and will enable us to provide even better service to our customers.

Our ambition to become fully circular has not changed. To that end, the Swinkels Circularity Index (SCI) serves as a compass. We fine-tuned our SCI in 2022, thereby increasing the quality of our measurement methodology. We exceeded our goal of 58% circularity in 2022 by achieving a score of 59%. We also focused in 2022 on developing a multi-year approach to achieve our goal of fully circular operations.

The emission-free malting plant in Eemshaven is an example of a project that will make a major contribution to our SCI score. This step in energy transition will require a substantial investment in the coming years, but is of great value to us and to Holland Malt’s customers. In 2022, we continued to shape the transition, enabling us to actually convert our malting plant in Eemshaven in 2023 and operate emission-free from mid-April 2024.

We also committed ourselves in 2022 to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). This includes a commitment to reduce global warming by 1.5 degrees by 2050. This objective is part of our climate strategy, which focuses on reducing our CO₂ emissions. In recent years, we have already made great strides in this regard; since 2019, we have been able to reduce our CO₂ emissions by 37%.

We see the world around us in the same way as we see our own family. We have a social role to fulfil and want to pass on our business to the next generation in a future-oriented way. That social responsibility forms part of our company’s DNA. In the coming years, we wish to further embed it in our company. Not only for our employees, but also for our customers, consumers and other stakeholders. 

The year 2022 was the year when employees could come together again, to work together, win together and raise a glass together. Our winning family culture was felt throughout the company. A good example of this was the weekend when the Intelligent Brewery programme went live in Lieshout. Employees – after months of preparation and sometimes a high workload – worked together to ensure that the process of going live went smoothly. Reaching milestones together and sharing successes; we are proud of this great achievement. This great sense of togetherness is something we wish to hold onto in the coming years.

In 2022, we maintained our new way of working forced on us by the COVID-19 pandemic. All employees with non-workstation bound functions will continue in a hybrid way of working; alternating between office-based and working remotely. We have optimised the work locations of those with workstation bound functions to make working there as pleasant, safe and effective as possible. 

We continuously invest in the quality of work and well-being of our employees. In 2022, we appointed a new Chief People & Culture Officer (CPCO) to the executive team. We are confident that his arrival will help ensure that Swinkels Family Brewers is and will continue to be an appealing employer. Our company is characterised by entrepreneurial minds and we wish to nurture that.

The Intelligent Brewery Programme going live took place in Lieshout in 2022. Now that the foundation is in place, the priority in 2023 is to stabilise and further develop this new platform. We will roll it out to all other parts of our company and will add new functionalities. We are increasingly starting to reap the benefits of our efforts in the digital transformation of our business.

For our winning family culture as well, the focus in 2023 will be on strengthening the foundation. Through leadership programmes we will zoom in on our company’s strengths; entrepreneurship, cooperation and our focus on results. As we believe in the power of our staff we like to invest in their development through training and education.

We will set our target for the circularity score at 62% in 2023. We will also be actively working on our multi-year plan to continue to improve our score and also to be “net zero” by 2050 in terms of CO₂ emissions. Through our initiatives in circularity and sustainability, we comply with the Paris Climate Agreement, European and Dutch legislation, the “Fit for 55” plan and SBTi guidelines.

With our strategic plan, we explicitly choose to invest in order to remain successful in the long term. In addition to investments in machines and buildings, our investments will be aimed at acquisitions, the construction of new breweries and malting plants, and the further expansion of existing business units. Investments in, for example, circularity and the Intelligent Brewery run parallel to this. In the end, we have only one goal; to pass on an even more beautiful company to future generations.