FDBusiness.com

Cocoa producer Barry Callebaut has announced a strong start to the year with sales volume up 6.4%, and sales revenue up 13.3% in local currencies (3.8% in CHF). The company says it saw broad-based growth, and positive contributions from all key growth drivers.

“The good growth momentum from the fourth quarter 2014/15 continued and we had a strong start to our new fiscal year with broad-based sales volume growth and positive contributions from all key growth drivers,” said Antoine de Saint-Affrique, CEO of the Barry Callebaut Group. “Our focus on ‘smart growth’, i.e. a balance between volume growth and enhanced profitability as well as cash flow generation, is gradually being implemented, and our transformation projects are well on track.”

The company’s results come against a backdrop of what it says was a 3.7% decline1 of the global chocolate confectionery market in the period under review.

“While the cocoa products market remains challenging this fiscal year in terms of profitability, our business model is proving robust with a broad-based and strongly performing chocolate and compound business,” said de Saint-Affrique. “Together with our focus on ‘smart growth’, we are confident that we are able to continue to consistently outperform the market.”

Strategic milestones in the first 3 months of fiscal year 2015/16 included the signing of a contract to acquire the commercial beverages vending activities of FrieslandCampina Kievit in order to further expand its value-added Specialties business in Europe, becoming a leading supplier of vending powder mixes.

Barry Callebaut also signed a licensing agreement with Naturex, who will bring Barry Callebaut’s approved EFSA health claim on cocoa extracts to the food supplement market, thereby commercialising one of Barry Callebaut’s key innovation projects of recent years.

Barry Callebaut is among the world’s largest cocoa producers and grinders, with an average annual production of 1.7 million tonnes of cocoa. It was created in 1996 through the merging of the Belgian chocolate producer Callebaut and the French company Cacao Barry. It is currently based in Zürich, Switzerland, and operates in 30 countries worldwide.