Barry Callebaut cuts outlook as chocolate sales volumes melt away

The world's top industrial supplier of chocolate, Barry Callebaut, revised its financial guidance lower on Thursday as the global chocolate market suffered its worst drop in sales volume in a decade, with high prices weighing on consumers.

With cocoa bean prices up 43 percent year-on-year, the company said it suffered a 9.3 percent fall in sales volume in the April to June quarter, compared to the same period last year.

The drop was 6.2 percent for chocolate, worse than the overall 4.2 percent fall in the global market, which it said was the largest quarterly drop in sales volumes in a decade.

Zurich Cantonal Bank analyst Daniel Burki said the quarterly drop in sales volume "was worse than feared".

The company's share price was down nearly 13 percent in late afternoon trading.

Barry Callebaut, whose financial year runs through the end of September, said its nine-month sales volumes were down 6.3 percent, which was worse than the 5.1 percent drop expected by analysts surveyed by Swiss financial news agency AWP.

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While sales volumes have dropped, sales revenue has swelled as Barry Callebaut passes on rising cocoa prices to customers.

Its nine-month sales revenue jumped 49.5 percent to 10.9 billion Swiss francs ($13.7 billion), outpacing the rise in cocoa prices.

But the company reduced its financial guidance to investors, saying it now expects a high-single-digit increase in annual operating profit from recurring operations, down from its previous forecast of a double-digit gain.

Source: AFP