Nutrition & Health Sales down 8% year on year at €1,696 million, largely as a result of lower product availability EBIT before special items considerably above the 2017 figure due to lower fixed costs and higher margins In the Nutrition & Health division, sales to third parties declined by €148 million to €1,696 million in 2018. This was mainly attributable to lower volumes from the reduced availability of citral-based products. In October 2017, a fire occurred during startup of the citral plant in Ludwigshafen, Germany. As a result, we had to declare Force Majeure for all citral and isoprenol-based aroma ingredients, and consequently for vitamin A, vitamin E and several carotenoid products as well. We were able to gradually lift Force Majeure for almost all affected products in 2018. Sales were weighed down by negative currency effects. Higher sales prices had an offsetting effect. Nutrition & Health – Factors influencing sales Nutrition & Health – Sales by region Location of customer EBIT before special items increased considerably compared with 2017. Insurance refunds for production outages in 2017 and 2018 led to lower fixed costs. Despite higher raw materials prices, we achieved higher margins in the animal nutrition business in particular. The citral plant in Ludwigshafen, Germany, was restarted in April 2018. We started production of citral, citronellol and menthol at our new aroma ingredients complex in Kuantan, Malaysia. back next