Natural, organic and specialty foods company SunOpta has announced financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 28, 2013.
The company achieved record fourth quarter revenues of $285.2 million, an increase of 5.6%.
Operating income was $5.3 million, or 1.8% of revenues. The full year also saw record results with
annual revenues of $1,181.9 million, an increase of 8.3% and an operating income of $39.1 million, or 3.3% of revenues.
"Fiscal 2013 was a transformational year for SunOpta, marked by a significant operational realignment, changes in leadership, and a re-positioned go-to-market strategy to better position our Company for sustainable long-term growth," said Steve Bromley, chief executive officer of SunOpta. "Our operating income and EBITDA for the fourth quarter are consistent with our preliminary expectations which were previously announced. Although our results for the fourth quarter were disappointing, and some of the operational challenges will continue into the first quarter of 2014, our management team is pleased that our internal re-alignment is now complete and feel the Company is better positioned to capitalize on the strong growth trends in the natural and organic foods industry. Our management team remains focused on our three core strategies of becoming a pure-play natural and organic foods company, growing our value-added consumer products and ingredients portfolio, and leveraging our integrated platform in support of our long-term financial targets."
In the fourth quarter, the company attributed the increase in consolidated revenues to continued growth in consumer packaged categories and increased demand for organic raw materials, which more than offset the effect of lower commodity prices. Excluding the impact of a number of factors including commodity, currency and product rationalizations, consolidated revenues increased approximately 10% and SunOpta Foods revenues increased approximately 12% versus the prior year.
