Sales Increase at Naturex

09 Nov 2016 --- Naturex has reported that sales were up from €94m ($104m) to €98m ($108m) in Q3, helped by an increasing number of customers shifting to natural ingredients.

The French-based plant extract company which makes colorings and flavorings reported that sales at its My Natural Food segment were up 9.1 percent to €51.5m ($56.5m) ,underpinned by the shift towards natural ingredients, particularly for speciality fruit and vegetables. 

For the first nine months, revenues across its My Natural Food division were up 6.9 percent year-on-year to €159.4m ($176m).

Across its My Natural Selfcare unit, sales were €33.5m ($36.6m), up 4.1 percent, driven by a growing momentum for its clinically-substantiated phytoactives product range.

For the nine month, revenues rose by 7.6 percent to €104.6 million ($115m).

By region, across Europe/Africa/Middle East, revenues were €33.6m ($36m) in Q3, up 4.3 percent, driven by shifting customers onto higher priced products.

In North America, revenues came in at €42.7 million ($48m).

A strong contribution from Food & Beverage, however, was masked by the volatility of Nutrition & Health business with the nutraceutical market going through a period of change.

The Latin America and Asia-Pacific regions benefited from positive trends in their respective markets. 

Naturex suffered a tough 2014 enduring four quarters of negative growth, forcing it to reassess and rejig the business in 2015.

Central to this overhaul was introducing its BRIGHT 2020 plan which runs across a raft of areas including sustainability, people & culture, consumer focus, innovation and science, developing markets and set financial targets.

Naturex chief executive Olivier Rigaud said: “The 2016 third quarter's good performance is on track with the roadmap of our Bright 2020 strategic plan.”

“Our commitments in terms of rigour and discipline aimed at simplifying and energising our operating model to achieve strong and lasting growth by 2020 are starting to produce benefits. In these first nine months of 2016, we were successful in combining the rationalisation of our product portfolio and shift to a higher value offering around strategic product categories by implementing a regional commercial governance model that is now complete.”

“We have also focused on increasing efficiencies at our industrial sites and optimising costs in order to generate the operating drivers necessary to improve profitability.”

“With the nutraceutical market going through period of transition, creating volatility in the short-term and impacting performances of some of our customers that have already confirmed postponements of orders until 2017, expectations for the 2016 fourth-quarter are in consequence less favorable.”

“In the upcoming months, particular efforts will be devoted to ramping up our investments in research and innovation but also further streamlining our product references and structuring and optimising our industrial capacities.”