Letter from the Chairman and CEO – seizing opportunities in a challenging environment

Dear customers, partners, and colleagues,

We would like to start this letter with an expression of sincere thanks: the trustful collaboration with you has never been more appreciated than during these dynamic times. “Creating tomorrow together” is a deeply rooted credo of Bühler – and together we have achieved reasonable results in 2021 and strengthened our financial stability for the future.

For us, 2021 was marked by the clear objective to support and provide service to our customers, at all times, irrespective of the many challenges of the year – be it the ongoing pandemic or its implications such as travel restrictions, raw material shortages in global supply chains, logistic bottlenecks, and shifts in customer buying behavior. 

Fulfilling contracts on schedule and keeping your plants running with our services was of utmost importance to us. Our global network of Bühler offices, manufacturing sites, service stations and Application & Training Centers has, yet again, proven to be a key enabler for our reliability. Furthermore, health and safety – not only of Bühler employees, but also of employees of our customers and partners – remained our priority No. 1, and due to the respective measures implemented globally, we were able to keep operations up and running at any point throughout the year. This enabled us to service, install, and commission the plants of our customers globally, despite the ever-changing restrictions our teams faced in the more than 140 countries in which we are active. New digital tools smartly applied throughout our platforms were instrumental to this task.  

2021 was also the year where we brought innovations to the next level: in all our businesses, in food- and feed-processing, as well as in technical material processing. The pandemic offered many new opportunities in markets, technologies, and consumer habits and we have seen big shifts in preference and demand. Our creative experts in all business areas and regional organizations were successful in launching a record number of innovative technologies, products, and services, and it is owed to them that Bühler was able to create a competitive edge in all the key markets in which we are active. We are very aware of the fact that this would not have been possible without the unwavering support of our partners and customers around the world.  

Bühler solutions not only stand for the next level of performance and value for our customers, but also for a next step in living our purpose of “innovations for a better world”. They all create impact in our endeavor to have solutions ready to multiply by 2025 that will reduce energy, water, and waste by 50% in the value chains of our customers.  

Despite the challenging environment, we are happy to report considerable improvements in orders and have a backlog of nearly CHF 1.94 billion, up 27.2% from 2020. Due to the time lag between orders and delivery – which is the nature of our engineering business – we expect our profitability to improve in 2022.  

And for all of these reasons, mentioned above, we are looking optimistically into the future. We wish to express our sincere gratitude to our customers, employees, bondholders, business partners, and owners for their ongoing trust and support.  

We are excited to continue our journey of successful, trustful, and sustainable collaboration with you for the years to come. 

With best personal regards and thanks,

Yours sincerely,