Monde Nissin Corp. on Monday said its core net income fell more than 11 percent to P1.87 billion from the previous year’s P2.12 billion due to the weak performance of its alternative meat business.
The food and beverage company’s reported income declined 17 percent to P1.9 billion from the previous year’s P2.33 billion.
Gross revenues grew 9 percent to P20.04 billion from the previous year’s P18.29 billion due to the strong growth of domestic noodles sales.
Sales from its Asia Pacific branded food and beverage (BFB) went up by 15 percent on a comparable basis to P16.52 billion from the previous P14.32 billion, mainly driven by volume growth and price increases in all categories. The domestic business grew 15 percent on a comparable basis year-on-year to P15.5 billion as all categories exhibited strong growth.
International revenue increased by 18 percent to P1 billion due robust growth in all categories.
“The APAC BFB business saw strong topline growth across all of our categories during the first quarter with our noodles business, achieving double-digit quarter-on-quarter growth and volumes ahead of where we were last year. Moreover, the past four-week market share ending in March is at 68 percent, 200 basis points above where we were prior to last year’s selective recall in the EU [European Union].
I am also happy to report that we are now beginning to see margin improvement as our higher cost commodity lock-ins have started to expire and we expect further margin improvement as the year progresses,” Henry Soesanto, the company’s CEO, said.
“The meat alternative category continues to face strong headwinds. Last quarter, we discussed the steps that we were taking to right-size our United States business to better reflect current market realities. We are now similarly addressing our United Kingdom business, restructuring it to better weather the current category conditions while remaining agile and ready to benefit when the market for meat alternatives.”
Meat alternative revenue declined by 4 percent on an organic basis due to the continued category headwinds.
On a reported basis, revenue for the first quarter declined by 6 percent year-on-year to P3.5 billion and by 15 percent compared to the previous quarter. Sales from the UK and the US declined 2 percent and 33 percent on an organic basis, respectively, due to the challenging retail market. The foodservice segment grew 4 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, the company said.