The Barry Callebaut Group, one of the world’s leading manufacturer of high-quality chocolate and cocoa products, announced that it increased its sales volume by 6.3% to over 2 million tonnes in the fiscal year 2017/18, ended 31 August 2018.
The group said that this growth is ‘significantly above the growth rate of the global chocolate confectionery market (1.8%).
Growth was driven by strong contributions from all key growth drivers, such as emerging markets (9.1%), gourmet & specialties (7.7%) and outsourcing (5.6%).
Global cocoa achieved a solid volume growth of 3.9%.
Smart Growth
Sales revenue was flat, growing just 0.1% in local currencies (2.1% in CHF), at HF 6,948.4 million (€6,072.2 million), as a result of lower raw material prices, which the Group passes on to its customers for a large part of its business.
Gross profit improved by 17.2% in local currencies (20.7% in CHF) to CHF 1,157.1 million (€1,011.2 million). This increase was driven by volume growth and a better product and customer mix across all Regions and Product Groups.
“I am delighted to announce a set of very strong results. The consistent execution of our ‘smart growth’ strategy enabled all our Regions and Product Groups to contribute to top- and bottom-line, delivering on our mid-term guidance,” CEO Antoine de Saint-Affrique said.
“The continued execution of our ‘smart growth’ strategy, good visibility on volume growth and healthy global demand give us confidence that we are well on track to achieve our mid-term guidance.”
Barry Callebaut’s sales volume in region Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) increased by 6.8% to 925,144 tonnes while the chocolate confectionery market grew by 1.9%.
In Western Europe, sales volume growth was strong as a result of good growth within both food manufacturers and gourmet.
© 2018 Checkout – your source for the latest Irish retail news. Article by Aidan O’Sullivan. Click subscribe to sign up for the Checkout print edition.
