Barry Callebaut increases sales despite lower volumes

The world’s largest chocolate group sold 2.28 million tonnes of chocolate last fiscal year © Keystone / Walter Bieri

Zurich-based chocolate manufacturer Barry Callebaut sold less chocolate in the fiscal year 2022/23 than in the previous year. Thanks to price increases, sales still went up. The company now wants to increase the dividend by one franc to CHF29 ($32).

The world’s largest chocolate group sold 2.28 million tonnes of chocolate in the fiscal year that ended at the end of August, it announced on Wednesday. That is 1.1% less than in the previous year. Barry Callebaut attributed the drop to the salmonella incident in Wieze, Belgium, in the previous year, but also to weaker customer demand and rising raw material prices. Barry Callebaut had targeted “flat volume growth” for the full year.

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Sales in local currency increased by 9.7% to CHF8.5 billion, while in Swiss francs the increase was still 4.7%. For the company, however, sales are less indicative of business performance than sales volume. This is because Barry Callebaut has a so-called cost-plus model. This means that the company passes on price changes – for example for raw materials such as cocoa or for energy and transport – to industrial customers.

Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), which excludes one-off effects such as the costs for the Wieze incident in the previous year, increased by 5.6% to CHF659.4 million. Barry Callebaut said the strong performance of its global cocoa business was the main contributor.

The bottom line was a net profit of CHF443.1 million. This is 22.8% more than in the previous year. Shareholders are to participate in this in the form of a higher dividend of CHF29 per share. In the previous year, there was a payout of CHF28.

With the figures presented, the company more or less met analysts’ expectations. They had hoped for a higher dividend of CHF30.52.

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