Good morning and a warm welcome to our digital new food conference today. We are very excited to have several companies from the space present themselves, and we are going to cover a wide array of aspects in the food industry, starting all the way from crop breeding to food delivery. We will kick off this event with KWS SAAT, the leading crop breeding company focused on developing and distributing seeds. We recently started coverage of KWS, and I will supply the link to our research shortly in the chat box below. The company will be presented by Peter Vogt, who is Head of Investor Relations. Before I hand over to Peter, a few housekeeping issues. First of all, we will record this presentation.
If you have any questions, please enter them by writing into the chat box on the lower right-hand side of your screen, and the presentation and Q&A will last 30 minutes. With this in mind, Peter, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Holger, and good morning, everyone. Thank you also for hosting this nice conference. It's actually kind of a coincidence that we are number one here in the schedule kicking off this day, because no matter if you talk about new food or established food, we believe everything starts with a seed. KWS, as a seed breeding company, is exactly there. We are breeding seeds for the worldwide agriculture. Today, I want to talk about the new things that we are developing in our portfolio, specifically looking at our vegetables business. Before I do that, I would like to start a bit with an overview of KWS very shortly, and then dive into the topic of vegetable seeds. As you may know, we have been there for a while, since 1856.
In the meantime, we have become one of the leading seed breeding companies in the world with EUR 1.7 billion sales annually. I would like to pick two elements here of the slides shown, one being that we cover 11 out of the most important crops worldwide. We believe in crop diversity. We are not just concentrating on one big thing like corn or soybean. We believe in diversity, not only from a portfolio perspective, but also from a perspective of crop rotation, which is extremely important these days for preserving soils and biodiversity as well. The second element I would like to highlight here is the EUR 326 million that we are spending in research and development. You may have the association of agriculture as a very basic thing, but in fact, our business is high-tech. It's innovation.
We are targeting nothing less than improving crops and adapting seeds to a changing environment. As we are all aware, the environment is changing, and that's why, rapidly, and that's why I think the challenges and the need for adapting seeds is higher than ever. A quick look on our history, and I don't want to go through the different phases, but I would like to highlight that we have started very early with certain things where we still have leading positions in the market. If you look at sugar beet, and I think this is what KWS is known for, kind of the global market leader or the market leader in that space. We have entered other areas in the course of our history, starting with cereals in the 1920s, with corn in the late 1950s.
You could say the new kid on the block in this concert is the vegetables business, which I will talk about later in more detail. Just a quick look to give you a better understanding of the market. There are not so many significant seed breeding companies out there anymore. There has been quite a process of consolidation. KWS is nowadays number six in the world. If you look at the pure-play seed companies, there is actually only one listed pure-play seed company in the Western world, which is KWS. All the other companies that you see here, Bayer, Corteva, and BASF, all have a sizable chemicals business in their portfolio. Vilmorin, a French company, which used to be publicly listed also until 2023, is also a seed company but has left the stock market. In Europe, we have an even stronger position, number two after Corteva.
I think this is important and shows also our strengths in terms of regional diversification. KWS in Europe is quite a big name. On the right side, this is the market everyone is fighting for with some big elements in it, corn and soybean, the dominating crops in North and South America. You could say niche, but still in size and development, really interesting. One of those interesting niches we discovered is vegetables. We have started a process five years ago to develop our portfolio in this direction and become a significant player in the vegetable seed arena. Just for those who are not aware of our business, I think this is a slide which is very important to understand. We have extremely high seasonality in our business.
This comes with the fact that we are delivering our seeds, especially in one quarter before the sowing season in the northern hemisphere, so North America and Europe. In three quarters, we do a little bit of sales and the negative result. In one quarter, our third quarter, we do around 60% of our annual sales and more than 100% of our annual EBIT. Extremely seasonal for us, the Q3 is the most important one. This is what we work for, to make sure that we can supply the necessary demand in the market in the specific time frame. KWS has been extremely successful over the last couple of years with a sales CAGR of around 10%, and the profitability CAGR is even higher. This was due to our extremely successful variety portfolio, but also in general, very good conditions in the agro-commodity market.
This year, and we have reported our Q3 figures two weeks ago, this year looked a bit different with lower acreages in some areas of our portfolio driven by low agro-commodity prices. We kept our sales stable this year and delivered robust profits despite significant headwinds. I think this shows also the robustness of our business concept and our setup that even in difficult times, we are able to deliver good results. So much about KWS in general. Now I would like to start talking a bit more about vegetables. Vegetables, I mentioned, are quite a sizable part of the seeds business and for many aspects, a very interesting market. This relates to about EUR 7 billion out of that pie. You could say the third biggest market in the seed arena. Why is vegetables so interesting?
First, we have seen over the last decades a huge increase in vegetables consumption. Due to changes in diets and kind of the consciousness of a more healthy diet, this trend is continuing. Maybe not at the strong pace that we have seen here in the 1980s and especially the 1980s and 1990s, but still a growing market combined with a growing number of people living on Earth. This provides a significant underlying demand. In the last couple of years, the vegetable seed market has grown in the high single-digit percentage range. We expect this is going to continue with a growth of 5% to 7% going forward. Vegetable seeds is also very attractive from a profitability point of view. Companies in this area earn really very profitable margins with 20% EBIT and higher.
It was an attractive area, but we did not have much of kind of history in the vegetables. In 2019, we decided to acquire a leading company, especially in two crops, a Dutch company named Pop Vriend, to enter that market and to build our vegetables business from there. Pop Vriend has been and is still the market leader in spinach seeds and has also a seed business for beans, Swiss chard, and red beet. The more interesting crops are the ones on the lower side of the slide, the fruity crops, tomato, pepper, cucumber, melon, and watermelon. This was, so to say, the starting point for us, taking an existing business and starting from a presence in the vegetable market to grow into also those areas. Just to give you an idea of the size of the addressable market, about EUR 7 billion in total size vegetable seeds.
If you look at the different crops I mentioned, the four field crops and the five main fruity crops in this area, we're talking about a market potential of EUR 3.5 billion, which is quite significant for an opportunity for a company like KWS. Tomato is not a tomato. There are also, with other crops, you see a huge differentiation. Be it the product type, be it the region, be it consumer preferences with regard to color, processability, taste. It is a very diverse universe and place. We are addressing those with distinct breeding programs that we have set up. How did we do that? As a newcomer, you have to, first of all, lay the foundation to really start breeding. What it takes to start breeding is people, breeders. You need land, and you need seeds.
What we did in the last couple of years, we built the infrastructure necessary to be successful in the future in that area. Especially in the hotspots of vegetable seed breeding, which is Southern Europe and Middle and South America, we built breeding stations, hired breeding personnel, and started breeding. Very important here to mention that we now have in all regions that we are targeting for the time being the necessary resources to kind of pursue our programs and to come to first results. Starting five years ago, you may wonder when is the time that we are seeing products coming out of it. It is actually now. We are expecting the first varieties out of that program coming out of our own breeding activities coming to market this year. We are not only in the kind of preparation of breeding phase anymore.
We are already preparing for commercialization of the new products going forward. This costs us a little bit of money because we have to build resources for future business. If you look at the picture here, we see on the left side an existing business coming out of the Pop Vriend business and a small business with tomatoes already of EUR 62 million in the last year with a nice underlying profitability of above 20% EBIT, EUR 14 million out of that business was a profit. We invested, on the other hand, EUR 29 million in building those resources and also including an effect on the purchase price allocation of the previous acquisitions. This segment is making losses. This is going to continue until we are seeing the top line grow.
We expect, and this also gives you a bit of a flavor, what are the time frames we are looking at. We are expecting to reach break even for that business only in the early 2030s. There is quite a way to go. Those are planned expenses we are making. We are used to do that. In breeding, you need a long breeze because it takes a while to finally have a product at hand. This picture gives you an idea of how long it can take. In vegetable breeding, I think we are a bit faster. Starting from scratch, developing or breeding a new variety can take up to 8-10 years. This is the horizon we have in mind. We are willing to invest in that business because of the good outlook and the good prospects in this area.
As KWS has shown in the past several times that we are able to reach our goals over time, we are quite confident that this will be also the case for the vegetables business going forward. This concludes my presentation. Thank you for your attention. Now I am happy to take your questions.
Thank you so much. We do have a few questions already, some of which I already answered in the course of your presentation. The two questions that I have here are focusing on the, not surprisingly, vegetable business. One question is addressing the long-term growth potential. You have already said how big the market is. I think it was EUR 7 billion, out of which EUR 3.5 billion you can address. The question was, what impact this has on your overall long-term growth scenario when it comes to revenues and margins?
You discussed the margin break even, which you are planning for the early 2030s. Can you be a little more specific, maybe also on what top line you would expect to go break even in this business?
Yeah. Maybe differentiating a bit between top line and bottom line. Top line, this is expected to grow from today on. We have bought this business at a higher sales level. Corona came in between. This portfolio that we acquired was, you could say, a bit vulnerable to what happened during COVID. Now we are at the level that we are seeing growth again. This year, double digit. We expect to continue based on the existing portfolio and also with the new varieties coming to the market. We expect to see a growth also in the next years. What is the level of profitability? Let's say, what's the level of sales we need to reach break even? This depends a bit how you kind of how you plan, let's say, depends on your ambitions that you have.
Do you want to be at a 100 or 150 million company or go further? The ultimate goal is to reach 5% market share for us during the 2030s, probably in the late 2030s. That translates to about EUR 250 million-EUR 300 million. Break even will be reached earlier. If we reach, let's say, the level of EUR 300 million at the end of the next decade, this will come with a, let's say, we're planning for a margin at the 20% that I mentioned. Early 2030s, break even, and then growing into profits in the course of the 2030s, which is from now on, for you, it's a long time, maybe. Yeah. On the other hand, this is how we look at businesses. We look at the long, we have a very long view on that.
This gives us, let's say, the opportunity to grow also our business or total business in 10 years and going forward.
You've already touched on the next question during your presentation as well. However, maybe you can be a little more specific. Key drivers that make the vegetable seed market attractive for you? Is it urbanization, healthy eating habits, food security?
It's all of those. I would also add another aspect, which is, let's say, the market dynamics. We are seeing a lot of, let's say, smaller, you could say, mom-and-pop breeders trying their best to come up with good varieties. KWS, with its R&D power, we believe we can make a difference there and distinguish ourselves. With our background and our knowledge about breeding, can really build a portfolio there. There is the market, the market trends, the characteristics of the business, so high profitability, high growth, and a good understanding of how things need to be developed to be successful.
Thank you. Megatrends. We have, on the one hand, the megatrend of food, of course, and growing population. On the other hand, the megatrend of climate change. Those two somewhat belong together, I would say. The question reads, how is climate change impacting your product development? How are you responding to these challenges and opportunities strategically? An add-on to this question would be, how does KWS plan to leverage new technology such as genome editing and digital agriculture in this context?
This is a great question because this is the engine. You mentioned those drivers, climate change. This is the engine of our business. Think of, for example, a variety, a cereal crop that you're seeing on the fields. There is, let's say, a phase of drought, three or four weeks that we are seeing even in middle of Europe, not only in Southern Europe. Those crops need to be kind of robust enough to stand those phases. For example, drought tolerability is a major topic in seed breeding that we are addressing. We are trying to find those crops that tolerate drought and low irrigation better than the others. Yeah. Thinking of disease resistance. With a changing climate, new diseases are coming to the market or coming to the fields, biotic or non-biotic.
You may read about the grasshoppers that are influencing or damaging harvests. Make plants resistant against that. With that comes also, let's say, the promise and the ambition also to reduce, let's say, the impact on the environment. If we are able to seed a plant that is resistant against a fungus, for example, or an insect, you do not need chemicals anymore. This is also something that you have to keep in mind, that we are shifting value from the chemical side into our seeds when we are able to develop those resistances. Resistance breeding is a big topic in our R&D portfolio and R&D strategy. This is the future. This is, you could say, a wide field. There are already examples in our portfolio where we managed to do that.
We also could show, let's say, the transfer of value into our seeds, especially in the sugar beet breeding, where we developed resistant crops that exactly did what I described. This is exactly what you mentioned. This is a big engine for our business in general and especially for our R&D.
Thank you. I have a question, which you might have partially touched already. Can you just one more time clarify which regions and crop types currently offer the strongest potential for revenue growth and margin improvement?
We believe that all our businesses have the ability to grow. Yeah. I would not make a distinction here. If you look at, let's say, certain markets, you see different growth expectations. For example, vegetables belong to the one with the highest growth expectations, whereas classic established seeds provide lower growth in the low single-digit range. Yeah. Our general ambition is to provide varieties to the market that allow us to, let's say, grow at a faster pace than the general market is growing.
Of course, you need a balanced portfolio because the one is, even though it's not growing strongly, is having stable margins, whereas the other one is still loss-making and growing into profitability, correct?
Absolutely. If you touch upon, look at vegetables, for example, we look at the portfolio, let's say, with a portfolio view on it. Yeah. Of course, we wished that vegetables would add profits right from day one. This is not reality. We have to make advanced investments to, let's say, harvest at a later point in time. Sometimes it takes, yeah, 10 years to see the results. I could give you a few examples where we are now leading in some areas, crops where we did exactly the same. Also, if you look at how much of our investments in R&D go into vegetables, for example, it is still a small part. Of the EUR 300+ million R&D money, we spend EUR 20+ million in vegetables. That gives you also an understanding how much we dedicate. We do not bet on just one horse.
We also kind of support our other businesses. There is no business where we cut, let's say, development and just leave it out or let it go. So all our business that I described have, let's say, a supporting R&D pipeline behind. That gives us, as you mentioned, Holger, the stability and the balance going forward.
Great. Thanks so much. We're very good on time. We come to the last question, which is detailed because it is addressing one crop in your portfolio, and that's the sugar beet area. It seems like there have been lower crop areas dedicated to sugar beet. Can you just tell us a little about the current demand situation and how you see that developing this year going forward?
Yes. Exactly right. This year, we have seen a decline in acreage. You have to keep in mind that last year, with the high sugar prices, the sugar beet acreage went up actually by the same amount. Actually, we are coming back to a normalized level. We calculate 4.5 million hectares acreage for sugar beet worldwide. This is exactly where we are landing this year. That was driven by kind of the underlying commodity price. Sugar has declined. Also, the stocks available in some markets were fairly high because of the high harvest. It is a kind of cyclical development. We expect that sugar beet acreage will fluctuate around the 4.5 million hectares that I mentioned. We do not think that this is a kind of structural decline in acreage. Sugar beet farming plays an important role.
We believe that will also be in the future. The decline this year, it was a kind of special effect. Other companies would post a decline in sales. We managed to even increase our sales, which shows also the strength of our portfolio in this area. I think that was really a kind of good test to see how robust our business is. Of course, we are not out of the market. We are part of the market. Our assumption going forward is that we will be around the 4.5 million, so stable acreage.
Super. Thanks so much. It's 9:59 A.M. and 45 seconds. Right on time, Peter. Appreciate the insights that you've given us. We will continue with GEA Group. I just posted the link to the next meeting in the chat box. Appreciate you all showing up and showing the interest in KWS SAAT. Once again, the research is available on Research Hub. Thanks so much.
Thank you all. Bye-bye.