Barry Callebaut has reported an 8.4% rise in sales revenue in its latest financial results.
In the nine-month period for the fiscal year 2011/12, the global cocoa and chocolate producer increased sales volumes by 6.6% to over one million tonnes, with a 6.5% rise in the first three months of 2012.
Juergen Steinemann, chief executive officer at Barry Callebaut, said: “We are very satisfied with the overall strong growth in all of our regions and across all of our product groups given the challenging market environment in Western Europe.
“Our project ‘Spring’ – to review all our customer-related structures and processes in Western Europe, our additional sustainability initiative ‘Cocoa Horizons’, as well as the implementation of the recent long-term partnership agreements are all well on track."
In Europe, Barry Callebaut said it had outperformed the current chocolate confectionery market (+1.7%), reporting 3.7% volume growth to 531,439 tonnes.
In Western Europe, the main growth driver was Barry Callebaut’s food manufacturers’ products business, where the company saw higher demand in chocolate specialty products.
Its gourmet and specialty products business reported good growth, but the company said that Europe as a whole had been affected by the economic situation in Southern Europe.
Barry Callebaut’s Eastern Europe region achieved double-digit growth, both in its food manufacturers’ products and gourmet business, with sales revenue in the region up by 4% to CHF1.7bn (£1.1bn).
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