In sharp contrast to the global chocolate market, which contracted by more than 2% in volume in 2008/09, Barry Callebaut succeeded in growing its sales volume by 4.1%.
The company attributes its growth to three factors:
The strength of the company’s reporting currency, the Swiss franc, compared to most other currencies had a negative impact on sales revenue, operating profit (Ebit) and net profit for the year.
In local currencies, sales revenue grew by 8.5% and came in at SFr4,880.2m (or +1.3% in SFr). Based on considerable operational improvements as well as tight cost savings programmes, and despite the effect of the anticipated lower combined cocoa ratio, operating profit increased by 9.5% in local currencies.
In Swiss francs, the increase was 2.8% to SFr350.8m. Net profit for the year went up 18.5% in local currencies; in SFr terms, it grew strongly by 10.4% to SFr226.9m.
Juergen B Steinemann, CEO of Barry Callebaut, said: “I’m pleased that we were able to deliver strong top-line and bottom-line growth in the face of a rarely seen global chocolate consumption decline. After reaching a low in winter 2008, growth resumed and regained momentum in the second half of the year. Our growth strategy based on the three pillars of geographic expansion, innovation and cost leadership, coupled with our robust business model, our diversified product offering and ongoing efficiency improvement initiatives, clearly stood the test of the global economic recession.”
Source: Barry Callebaut
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