Glanbia sees ‘improving trends’ despite Covid challenge

Glanbia has reported an increase in overall revenue in the third quarter despite the challenging conditions, but its performance nutrition business continues to struggle.

In an interim statement for the nine months ending October 3rd, the Kilkenny-based group said it was witnessing “improving trends” despite the challenges of the pandemic.

The company said like-for-like revenues for the period had risen 3.1 per cent. This was driven by price growth of 4.8 per cent, which offset a volume decline of 1.7 per cent.

The price growth reflected “strong cheese markets” in its Glanbia nutritionals division, which saw revenue growth of nearly 11 per cent.

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To capitalise on the strength of the nutritionals market in the US, Glanbia opened a new $470 million (€396m) cheese and whey plant in Michigan earlier this month.

The group's performance nutrition division, which sells protein powders to gym-goers, saw revenue decline by 13.9 per cent in the first nine months , driven in the main by volume declines in North America.

“Year to date decline was primarily driven by the disruption associated with the Covid-19 pandemic in the second quarter, which reduced volumes in international markets and the speciality and distributor channels in North America,” it said.

The group’s billion euro protein business has been hit hard by the pandemic.

Nonetheless, the company said trends in the global performance nutrition market had picked up in the third quarter as routes-to-market in international regions gradually reopened and prices lifted.

“Through the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic the Glanbia portfolio has been resilient, particularly the Glanbia nutritionals segment and our joint ventures,” said managing director Siobhán Talbot.

“In the third quarter trends in Glanbia performance nutrition improved significantly with an increase in revenues and margins versus the second quarter as markets gradually reopened and trading patterns improved.

“The group has continued to focus on improving its financial position while maintaining investment in growth; with all key strategic projects on track and the acquisition of Foodarom closing in the third quarter,”said Ms Talbot.