Mexican dairy company Grupo Lala recorded strong growth in both net sales and gross profit for the second quarter of the year.
Net sales stood at MXN 14.97 billion ($842.4 million) – 16% higher than the second quarter of 2016 – while gross profit of MXN 5.79 billion ($325.7 million), up 14.6%.
Net income of MXN 1.15 billion ($64.6 million) also represented a 4.3% increase on the same period last year.
Despite the company’s efforts to grow its performance in the US after acquiring the branded business of Laguna Dairy, and its plans for a $30 million dairy production plant in Guatemala, Lala’s CEO said strong second-quarter performance was broadly attributable to its home market.
“I would like to highlight the positive performance of our operation in Mexico in the second quarter of 2017, where sales growth and productivity improvements allowed us to increase total company EBITDA by 11%,” Scot Rank said.
Sales continued to grow ‘at significant rates’, Lala said, fuelled by organic growth in Mexico and Central America as well as inorganic growth from the US – including the acquisition of Laguna Dairy, which added 6.3 points of inorganic growth.
Segment by segment, milk continues to be Grupo Lala’s largest product by volume; it processed MXN 9.05 billion ($509.7 million) in milk sales for the second quarter of the year – up 11.7% on last year. That total includes pasteurised milk, as well as products such as UHT milk and powdered milk which are designed to have a longer shelf-life.
But milk is not the group’s biggest growth driver. The ‘other dairy products’ category – encompassing Lala’s cream, butter, spreads, yogurt, cheese and dessert products – recorded 27.5% growth to top MXN 5 billion. Sales were MXN 5.09 billion ($286.7 million), compared to MXN 4 billion ($225 million) last time.
Beverages, juices, cold cuts and other products accounted for the remaining MXN 820 million ($46.2 million) – up 2.7%, but still only 5.5% of the total portfolio.
For the whole of 2016, Grupo Lala recorded net sales of MXN 53.47 billion ($2.66 billion).
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