Levubu Root Business Plan — Key Performance Indicators and Management Dashboard

The yield, seed multiplication, disease and cost indicators monitored per season, with targets and thresholds.

Key Performance Indicators and Management Dashboard

Jump to section

On this page

25.1 Executive KPI performance
25.2 Management dashboard
25.3 Reporting cadence

The measurement framework is built around a simple principle: in a business where the entire year is decided by decisions taken in the first three months, the metrics that matter are leading rather than lagging. Revenue and EBITDA are reported, but they tell management nothing it can still act on. The dashboard is therefore weighted towards agronomic and operational measures that are visible while the crop is still in the ground.

25.1 Executive KPI performance

Figure 32. Executive KPI dashboard showing the trajectory of the twelve metrics the board reviews quarterly.

Key performance indicators	FY2027	FY2028	FY2029	FY2030	FY2031
Revenue growth	n/a	104%	68%	52%	42%
Gross margin	-24.7%	31.6%	38.3%	43.0%	46.3%
EBITDA margin	-63.7%	2.9%	14.5%	23.5%	30.3%
Net margin	-84.7%	-10.7%	1.8%	12.7%	21.8%
Return on invested capital	-31.5%	-3.8%	6.2%	20.2%	39.0%
Return on equity	-66.4%	-10.3%	2.8%	23.3%	36.3%
Yield (tonnes per hectare)	26.0	28.0	30.0	32.0	34.0
Crop loss to disease	12%	11%	10%	9%	8%
Marketable share of harvest	88%	88%	88%	88%	88%
Revenue per planted hectare (R)	403,947	502,017	586,735	668,731	747,365
EBITDA per planted hectare (R)	(257,493)	14,656	85,106	156,891	226,260
Full cost per marketable kg (R)	45.99	30.07	27.87	25.85	24.09
Seed revenue as share of total	18%	23%	25%	25%	25%
Cash conversion cycle (days)	70	92	81	74	69
Peak facility utilisation	0%	0%	58%	71%	65%
Debt service cover ratio	-5.37x	-0.73x	1.39x	2.07x	3.89x
Net debt to EBITDA	n/m	3.08x	1.52x	0.39x	-0.41x

Table 62. Key performance indicators across the plan period, combining financial, operational and agronomic measures.

25.2 Management dashboard

Fourteen metrics are reported to the board. Each has an owner, a target, a review frequency and a stated reason for being on the list. Anything that cannot justify a place under the last column does not belong on a dashboard.

Metric	FY2031 target	Frequency	Owner	Why it is measured
Crop loss to soil-borne disease	8% of planted area	Monthly	Head of Plant Health	The single most damaging variable in the model and the only one visible while the crop is still growing.
Seed block indexing pass rate	100% of lots	Per lot	Head of Plant Health	A failed index means next season’s planted area falls. This is a leading indicator of the following year’s revenue.
Yield per harvested hectare	34 tonnes	Per block	Farm Manager	Block-level rather than farm-level, so that soil, water and management differences are visible and actionable.
Marketable share of harvest	88%	Weekly in season	Packhouse Manager	The difference between fresh and off-grade is R17.20 a kilogram. A one-point movement is worth roughly R0.5m a year.
On-time-in-full delivery	Above 95%	Weekly in season	Commercial Manager	Programme retention is lost to short delivery, not to price.
Arrival temperature compliance	Above 95%	Per consignment	Packhouse Manager	The freshness proposition is only real if the cold chain holds to the shelf.
Full cost per marketable kilogram	Below R16.00	Quarterly	Finance Director	The measure against which import parity is judged. Section 19.4.
Peak facility utilisation	Below 80% of limit	Monthly	Finance Director	The business fails on liquidity before solvency. Headroom in June is the survival metric.
Debt service cover ratio	Above 1.25x	Quarterly	Finance Director	Covenant compliance, meaningful from FY2030 onwards.
EBITDA margin	Above 30%	Quarterly	Managing Director	The consolidated measure of whether scale is translating into operating leverage.
Seed customers retained season on season	Above 85%	Annual	Head of Plant Health	Seed retention validates that the indexing is delivering a real agronomic result on other people’s farms.
Fresh volume with the largest single buyer	Below 60%	Quarterly	Commercial Manager	A board reserved matter. Concentration above this level surrenders the negotiating position.
Water use per tonne produced	Monitored, no target	Monthly	Farm Manager	Water is the binding physical constraint on scale. A target would be premature before three seasons of data.
Lost time injury frequency	Zero tolerance	Monthly	Managing Director	A workforce of 227 doing manual field and packhouse work in a mechanised environment.

Table 63. Management dashboard. Six of the fourteen metrics are agronomic or operational leading indicators rather than financial outcomes.

25.3 Reporting cadence

Weekly in season, July to October. Harvest tonnage by block, marketable share, dispatch, arrival compliance, debtor collection.
Monthly, year-round. Management accounts, facility position and headroom, disease incidence by block, labour and safety.
Quarterly. Full board pack including the dashboard above, covenant certificate, capital programme status and the rolling twelve-month cash forecast.
Annually, in October. Season review, next-season planting plan approved by the board, seed block allocation confirmed, and the reserved matters in Section 13.4 formally tested.

Previous section24. Sensitivity and Scenario Analysis

Next section26. Conclusion