Agri-food

The agri-food market is estimated at more than 160 billion euros, more than 500,000 jobs at stake, and generating a commercial profit of 9 billion euros! Agribusiness is the first industrial sector in France both in terms of employment and sales turnover.
Although this sector has weathered the economic downturn, it is subject to strong structural pressures caused by the volatility of agricultural commodity crisis, and very often exposed to severe stresses with the mass retail sector and the farming community.

Our fields of expertise for the agribusiness sector

For many years, Crowe Avvens has maintained a reference expertise in the agri-food sector by acting over the whole supply chain and in all trades, either in audit as well as chartered accounting and consulting.

• Upstream with customer references in the seed industry,
• Middle with the agricultural production sector : farmers, winegrowers, notably Champagne producers,
• Downstream with:
  • SOs (Storage Operators) organizing the collection of raw agricultural material and their disposal or distribution to the primary processing industries,
  • Primary and final processing industries, from raw material to the final customer and the distribution networks
• The “retail” sector, as we consulting or audit services in the mass retail as well as the fast-food industry.

A specific technical expertise to serve a specific activity sector

In the course of time we extended a particular technical expertise to meet the many difficulties found in the agri-food sector, notably:

• The companies in this sector constantly need to hedge on the regulated raw material markets in order to maintain their margins. To face this, we are familiar with the accounting regulations for qualification of the operations and with various hedging or speculation strategies (future and derivatives) on the commodity markets,
• Stock/inventory assessment for SOs and related internal audit/control procedures,
• Internal audit/control procedures management, contributing to traceability,
• Accounting process for stock derecognition and deconsolidation,
• Stock/inventory valuation in compliance with statutory requirements (DLUO, DLC, etc.),
• Impact of environmental regulations on annual accounts, analysis of the reports from inspection bodies and associated accounting treatment,
• Assessment of provisions for gift cards and deferred rebates on all advertising operations in the mass retail sector,
• Validation of provisions for year-end or campaign completion rebates.

Finally, whatever our clients’ activity sector, we privilege interpersonal contact throughout our mission in the interest of our clients and with available, stable and high-level contact persons, obviously subject to the confidentiality level required by Law.

To learn more about our firm, services and teams in Lyon, Saint-Etienne and Paris, contact us.