Barry Callebaut reports continued strong profit growth

Barry Callebaut,the world’s leading manufacturer of highquality cocoa and chocolate products, announced its halfyear results for the period ended February 28, 2006. Operating profit (EBIT) strongly increased by 10.8% to CHF 177.0 m and net profit (PAT) grew by 11.3% to CHF 112.7 m. EBIT per tonne, the key indicator for operational performance, went up by 12.4% to CHF 320 per tonne,up from CHF 285 per tonne in the same prior-year period.All business units contributed positively to the increase of this ratio. Sales revenue grew by 8.4%, mainly due to increased bean sales, positive exchange rate effects and moderately higher cocoa bean prices. Excluding these effects,Barry Callebaut’s sales revenue slightly decreased. Sales volumes went down by 1.4% mainly due to the discontinuation of unprofitable contracts in the consumer business. Without this, sales volumes and revenue on a comparable basis would have increased.
“Consequence of the company’s growing in-house need for cocoa liquor and butter“
Barry Callebaut achieved results despite expected shifts volumes from the second the third quarter due to Easter being three weeks later than in 2005 and also despite lower sales of semi-finished products as a consequence of the company’s growing inhouse need for cocoa liquor and butter in order to manufacture the quantities of chocolate sold to customers. Patrick De Maeseneire,CEO Barry Callebaut, said:“During the first six months of fiscal year 2005/06 we have been able to further grow our profitability, profitability, and we have made considerable progress in our European consumer business.
Laying of foundation stone for factory in Russia
Zurüch-based Barry Callebaut AG laid the foundation stone for its new state-of-theart chocolate factory located at 60 km from Moscow in Chekhov, Russia, during a special ceremony with local dignitaries. The new factory is scheduled to become operational at the beginning of 2007. The total investment is about€17 m.The production facility will have a capacity of more than 25,000 tonnes and employ about 70 people once it is running at full capacity.
“Russia has the largest market potential”
“We have decided to build this new facility near Moscow to be closer to our rapidly growing customer base in Russia,” said Patrick De Maeseneire, CEO of Barry Callebaut. “In the whole of Europe,Russia has the largest market potential. International market intelligence provider Euromonitor forecasts that,by 2009, the chocolate consumption in Russia will be higher than in the U.K.Russia presents a great market opportunity to us that we‘d like to capture.” Up to now,Barry Callebaut has been the largest importer of industrial and specialty chocolate to Russia from its plant in Poland.“Chocolate sales for us in Russia to national and international food manufacturers as well as chocolatiers and pastry chefs nearly quadrupled between 2000 and 2005. This is what led us to build our own factory now,” said De Maeseneire.