Revenue within the Food North America division at Aryzta A.G. rose 3% to €361.1 million ($380.3 million) in the third quarter ended April 30. For the nine months ended April 30 sales were up more than 8% to €1,101.6 million ($1,160.4 million).
“Food North America revenue grew by 3.4% in the quarter to €361.1 million, with favorable currency movements of 0.3% and acquisitions contributing 3.2% growth in the period,” the company said in a June 4 trading update. “Underlying revenue declined 0.1% in the quarter. Consistent with Aryzta’s H1 guidance, this decline was due primarily to the exit from the D.S.D. business in the region. Excluding the decline in the D.S.D. business, underlying growth would have been 1.5% in the quarter.”
Aryzta said its focus in North America, which includes La Brea Bakery, is on leveraging the Aryzta North America transformation “to deliver further growth, as a result of the aligned business and new product customization and development.”
Total Food Group sales rose nearly 4% during the quarter to €748.6 million ($788.2 million), while Total Group sales climbed to €1,176.6 million from €1,174.2 million.
“Revenue growth in Food was a satisfactory 3.6% in the quarter,” said Owen Killian, chief executive officer. “However, underlying revenue was impacted by some volume loss following price increases in Europe and the discontinuing of direct store distribution in the U.S. Both of these issues were anticipated in our H1 announcement. The acquisition of Klemme completed during the period, which helps our channel diversification and strategic positioning in Europe.”
Aryzta said it is focused on becoming “customer-centric” through the substantial completion of its Aryzta Transformation Initiative (A.T.I.) program by July 2014. The company said it also intends to address channel imbalances to improve its strategic positioning.
