Newsletter Q1 2024

Dear WelMac Circle,

Before we get into this quarters newsletter, I would like to take a moment to commemorate Berend who, to my great regret and sadness, has recently passed away. He was one of our first and largest private investors, chairman of our STAK and I considered him a good friend and advisor. We wouldn’t be where we are today without his support and guidance and I for one will be forever grateful. Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones in these difficult times.

On the farm in South Africa harvest has shifted into next gear, nuts are coming in with greater volumes and we have started harvesting from our first beaumonts, which signifies the busiest part of the season. We can see our first results in terms of volume and quality and we are very happy with the results. It is a bit too early to make accurate estimates for the whole season but we are definitely heading in the right direction. Prices are recovering as well, which of course is great for our final result. Hopefully this trend holds and next year we will be a bit closer to our pre-covid price levels.

We have also been receiving a lot of questions about the NxChange/Bondex listing, we understand the process is a bit complicated, it was for us as well! Hopefully our explanation in this newsletter gives some more insight in the situation. If you have any further questions please feel free to contact us.

Enjoy the read!
Nicolas

2024 Harvest

The season started later than the 2023 season which we believe is climate related. The first part of the season consists of harvesting the early ‘Integ varieties’  followed by the Beaumont variety which is now starting. Note that the Integ variety drops its nuts from the tree when they are ripe, while the Beaumont is sprayed with an organic hormone resulting in the tree dropping its nuts in a very short time frame. This makes the harvesting of the Beaumonts much more efficient and economical.

From the data accumulated to date we note that the mature trees’ yield is in line with their long-term average yield data.

We also have 44ha that started to deliver low volumes as these trees are coming into production. They are still very small and only planted about 4 years ago, they should increase their production every season.
Quality is in line with our historic quality data which is above the regional averages. This is confirmation of the effectiveness of our practises and orchard management.

Marketing

Processing and marketing for the 2024 season is done at a neighbouring factory called Zetmac which is owned by a British operation Maclands. The main reason for the switch is cost and information related, the calculated savings are as follow:
NIS processing: 73%
Kernel processing : 19.5%
Logistics: Depending on market destination but estimated saving is >10%.
Marketing commission: 1 – 2 %
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Marketing: Processing at Zetmac also enables us to be more involved with marketing and we have contracted to deliver nuts to a company called Swiss Gourmet.
Zetmac has their own dedicated marketing team based in Kenya and the UK, we are also going to add volumes to their contracts.
With the process above the payment cycles will be as follow:
NIS (nut in shell): full payment when container leaves the factory or when delivered at destination port and inspected.
Kernel: conditions vary but in general payment is made in full when load is delivered to buyer.
As most of our nuts will be sold NIS, this means a significant improvement in cashflow, as previously final payments sometimes are stalled to far into the next year.

MSM

Macadamia Services Management
https://macsm.org/
MSM is a new online marketing platform that brings sellers and buyers of macadamia together where they can bid on offered stock. It is a fully transparent platform and the expectations are that the industry will make proactive use of this system.
We are in the process of registering on this platform as Welmac is also now a registered exporter of macadamia along with our Euro 1 certification.

Production

Below is a breakdown of the progress made per season in terms of switching over to organic pest and disease control.
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Fertigation

We are cutting back on nitrogen application as the nutrient availability from the regenerative practices increases, but these levels also fluctuate through the season as it is influenced by climate and material breakdown.

The synthetic fertilizer that Welmac uses are natural minerals that have been processed into a water-soluble material that we can use in the fertigation system, it is not a by-product from a chemical process.
Fertigation is calculated through soil and leaf analysis taking harvest volumes into consideration and we basically replace the nutrients that the harvest removed to ensure a new crop is set.

Pest and disease control

Pest and disease control is highly influenced by:

• Climate
• Pest and disease pressure
• Practices from neighboring farms.

The data below indicates the year on year progress made with the implementation of organic pest and disease control. Each season more organic products are being registered for use in macadamia orchards, which helps us as we can only use registered products.

It is clear that Welmac has made remarkable progress from 2021 to 2024 in terms of phasing out the use of synthetic products.
We have changed the fertigation plan slightly by splitting the month into two cycles. The first phase focuses on the fertilizing of the trees and the second phase focuses on soil health. This allows us a full week to dose products that build structure and boost the organic life in the soil. We boost the organic life by providing them with the correct food and inoculating the soil with beneficial microbes. This is part of our long-term regenerative production plan.

Food forest

The progress of our first food forests is looking very positive, we have not interfered with their growth for the past quarter and allowed the “stronger” plants to take their place, the biodiversity of insect life in the system is exceptional with many bees foraging for nectar and other predator insects being seen in the space. If we compare to the areas next to the food forest where there is just grass there is very little insect activity. On just one yellow fennel flower we spotted an ant, two different species of wasp as well as some bees.

In the photos you can see the bananas have established themselves very well. they are the most abundant plants in the system and a lot of them will start producing fruit soon. We also have sugar cane that has started to multiple and is doing very well in the more waterlogged areas which is not suitable for many other plants.

Nursery

with the economic slump in the industry farmers have postponed new developments. We do have sales for small scale developments as well as farmers who replace old non performing orchards. With the macadamia recovering we expect farmers to continue with their initial development plans.
We have had good progress with our avocado tree production with our first smaller batch already sold out, we have dedicated some space in the nursery for Avocado tree production and will continue planting batches.

Staff / HR

Keagan Truter ( Albasini Nursery) - As the production area of Welmac is growing it created an opportunity to give Keagan more exposure on the production side of macadamia. We have added additional responsibilities to his role as nursery manager and he is now actively involved with the fertigation process of the macadamia orchards.

Trichardt Erasmus (Production Manager) - Trichardt completed a soil microbiology course at the university of Stellenbosch which enhanced his understanding of soil science and how to apply regenerative farming practices.

Audits

Department of labor - We received an in-depth audit for the last 5 years from the department of labour to ensure that our business practise follow the labour legislation of South Africa. We did not receive any complaints or concerns from the department.

Globalgap - The GlobalGap audit is scheduled for June 2024 which is the renewal of our curent certificate.
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Financial Audit - The audit from the Dutch auditors was done in the beginning of May and the actual visit of the farm gave the auditor a better understanding of the operation which is always welcome.

Update Nxchange/Bondex  

Nxchange is a regulated trading platform that focuses on facilitating the issuance and trading of securities for (tokenized) securities and digital assets.The InvestmentServices Platform is a modular platform with centralized services where assets can be offered and traded through multiple labels. Nxchange offers carefully selected companies or projects with a sustainable mission such as: SME Bonds,Green Bonds and Sustainable Startups.


Nxchange is currently in a transition phase whereby in the future it will only offerbaskets of shares in different startups. There will be a separate page on the website showing all public and private listings (including WelMac) on the MTF(multilateral trading facility) of Nxchange. Like in the past, investors will be able to trade share certificates through this platform.

In the meantime, together with Bondex, we have created our own branded WelMac venue which can be found via this link. Please note that we are still in the process of updating content and functionality on the venue.

Bondex is a subsidiary of Nxchange. Bondex offers a Stock Exchange allowing issuers to raise capital within their own community and offer a private market to their investors. Together with Nxchange, Bondex can offer a complete solution for capital accumulation, digital onboarding of the shareholder register and trading securities. Bondex uses Nxchange permits here (where necessary).

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Import/listing existing certificates

The share certificates from WelMac’s first investment round have been imported on the exchange platform in July 2021. The share certificates from Welmac’s second investment round have not yet been imported on the exchange platform. This is normally done after the conclusion of the relevant investment round, which in this case would have been at the end of Q1 2024. The main reason this has not yet occurred is a new tariff structure introduced by Nxchange/Bondex which would effectively make it 50% cheaper for us to combine the import of the second investment round with the current round instead of importing them separately.The current investment round will close on 30 June 2024.

As a result of this we have decided to delay the import until the conclusion of the current investment round. This is expected during Q3 of this year. We apologise if this causes any inconvenience, but this is the most economically sound decision as the substantial cost saving benefits all our shareholders.

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Unclaimed accounts / share certificates  

Of the listed certificates various shareholders have not yet officially claimed their certificates/accounts on the platform. The shareholders will be receiving another email reminder from Nxchange/Bondex to claim their account. This is a relatively simple and largely automated process but if you need any assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact Nxchange/Bondex at klantenservice-bondex@nxchange.com or 020-240 4360 for any questions concerning their platform, for anything else you can send us an email on info@welmac.nl.

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