Aryzta grows revenue by 20.1% to €433.9m as people socialise again

Swiss-Irish food group Aryzta grew its revenue 20.1 per cent to €433.9 million in its third quarter as the company said it benefited from a return to normal consumer social activity.

Aryzta, which owns the Cuisine de France brand here and supplies the likes of McDonald’s and Subway, reported strong organic growth of 22.6 per cent in the period. The increase in revenue was driven by volume growth of 15.6 per cent and price improvement of 7 per cent.

Total revenue in the nine months to date increased to €1.3 billion, driven by a strong organic performance of 16.3 per cent, comprising volume growth of 12.7 per cent and a price contribution of 3.6 per cent.

The pricing contribution accelerated significantly to 6.1 per cent in the quarter as the company looked to recoup inflationary costs. Through the quarter, pricing increased from 4.7 per cent in February to 7.7 per cent in April. The group said this was “significantly stronger than the 1.6 per cent pricing contribution achieved in the first half of the year”.

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“This reflects the ongoing work to recover widespread inflationary costs,” it said. “Inflationary pressures remain, with limited respite expected in the near term, resulting in more frequent pricing and the use of temporary surcharges.

“In the nine-month period, Aryzta benefited from a return to normal consumer socialisation activity resulting in significant outperformance by food-service, which achieved organic revenue growth of 38.1 per cent, driven by a very strong performance in France.”

Europe performed “very strongly” in the quarter, with 25.6 per cent organic revenue growth. While all markets achieved growth, the performance in France, Germany and Fornetti was “particularly strong”. Europe’s organic growth in the nine months to date was 18 per cent.

The rest of the world achieved solid organic revenue growth of 7.2 per cent, evident across all markets, with Malaysia and Japan both outperforming. The rest of the world achieved an organic growth in the nine months to date of 7.5 per cent.

Aryzta chairman and interim chief executive Urs Jordi said: “While the third-quarter organic growth performance is strongly volume driven, significant progress was also achieved in terms of positive pricing and mix contributions.

“This reflects the continuous engagement with our customers around the widespread inflationary trends through price and increased innovation activity to improve mix contribution.

“We remain fully focused on delivering continuous business performance improvement to ensure we keep abreast of the volatile input environment and its challenges.

“The positive organic volume and price revenue development trend has sustained into the fourth quarter and supports an increase in full-year organic revenue growth guidance to 14-16 per cent.”