Sales Revenues at Barry Callebaut Lifts Eight Percent Helped by Higher Ingredient Prices

07 Jul 2016 --- Sales revenue at Barry Callebaut was up nearly 8 percent to $5.14bn (5.007 billion Swiss francs) in the nine months to May, helped by higher ingredient prices.

Like its rivals, Barry Callebaut is battling a difficult chocolate market amid weak global demand for chocolate.

Antoine de Saint-Affrique, CEO of the Swiss-based wholesale chocolate maker, said: “Our sales volume continued its strong growth in the third quarter of the current fiscal year. Our chocolate business performed particularly well, despite still sluggish demand for chocolate confectionery.”

“At the same time, we continued to phase out less profitable contracts in the Cocoa business. All our key growth drivers contributed to the good volume momentum.”

Sales revenues were up 7.8 percent helped by higher ingredient prices and a “favorable product mix”.

Sales in the first nine months at the company which supplies chocolate to Hershey and other food giants grew in volume by 4.2 percent to 1,376,650 tons, amid a declining global market.

Growth was fueled by a strong performance in emerging markets and in Gourmet & Specialities.

Across EMEA, sales volume was up 7.7 percent to 610,915 tons while in Americas sales volume increased by 9.9 percent to 373,580 tonnes.

In Asia Pacific, sales volumes were up 13 percent to 59,161 tons in the nine months.

Looking ahead, CEO Antoine de Saint-Affrique, said: “As anticipated at the beginning of the fiscal year, the market conditions remain challenging in the short-term. In that context, we will continue to reduce sales of cocoa products to third parties by phasing out less profitable cocoa agreements, which is impacting short-term growth. Overall, and looking into the next fiscal year, we have a healthy portfolio.”

“Based on the disciplined focus on our ‘smart growth’ approach, i.e. balance between volume growth, enhanced profitability and free cash flow generation, we confirm our mid-term guidance.”