Tarlton Beetroot Business Plan — Financial Assumptions

Every yield, price, cost and funding assumption behind the model, and where the sensitivities concentrate.

Section 22 of 37

Financial Assumptions

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Every number in the financial statements derives from the assumptions on this page. They are stated in full so that a reader can disagree with them precisely.

Macroeconomic and tax

Table 32 Macroeconomic assumptions

Assumption	Value	Basis
Food and vegetable price escalation	5.2%	Long-run South African food CPI, applied to all revenue lines
Cost escalation	5.8%	Applied to labour, energy, inputs and overhead; deliberately set above revenue escalation
Prime lending rate	10.50%	Current South African prime; held flat across the horizon
Mortgage bond margin	prime + 1.50%	180-month amortisation with 12 months interest-only
Asset finance margin	prime + 2.25%	60-month amortisation
Overdraft margin	prime + 4.00%	Assumed cost of the unarranged working capital shortfall
Corporate tax rate	27%	South African corporate rate
Farming capital allowance	50 / 30 / 20	First Schedule paragraph 12(1); accelerates deduction against an 8 to 10 year book life, creating the deferred tax liability
Assessed loss utilisation cap	80% / R1m floor	Section 20(1)(a) as amended; means cash tax remains nil across the horizon while book tax does not
Land appreciation	5.5%	Applied to the Phase 2 land value for exit purposes only; no revaluation in the accounts

Operating assumptions

Table 33 Field cost build-up per beetroot hectare-cycle, FY2028 real terms

Line	R per ha-cycle	Comment
Seed (precision-graded hybrid)	9 360
Fertiliser, lime and boron correction	15 800
Crop protection	6 900
Irrigation energy	9 870
Water use charges and levies	1 450
Mechanisation, fuel and field repairs	7 600
Field labour (establish, weed, harvest)	26 500
Crop insurance (hail and multi-peril)	3 900
Agronomy, soil and leaf analysis	2 100
Sundry field costs	2 600
Total field cost	86 080	Excludes post-harvest, which is applied per kilogram by channel

Figure 1. Field cost composition per hectare-cycle.

Table 34 Price and channel assumptions, FY2028 real terms

Channel	Gross R/kg	Y1 mix	Y3 mix	Y5 mix	Post-harvest R/kg
Formal retail pre-pack	9.80	0%	28%	46%	2.74
Municipal market	7.20	72%	38%	22%	0.98
Informal wholesale	5.20	20%	19%	17%	0.48
Processing and outgrade	2.40	8%	15%	15%	0.35

Market channel realisation is stated after a 7.5 per cent agent commission and a 5.0 per cent market levy. Retail and processing prices are delivered prices. Yields build from 38 tonnes per hectare-cycle in Year 1 to 54 in Year 5, against a documented South African commercial range of 40 to 60 tonnes under good irrigation management.

Figure 2. Blended net realisation per kilogram and channel mix by year.

Figure 3. Year 5 unit economics: from gross price to margin per kilogram.