ISRAEL: Frutarom posts Q2 sales, profit growth

By: just-food.com | 19 August 2008

Israeli flavours and ingredients group Frutarom has posted strong profit and sales growth for the second quarter.

Recording a 110% leap in operating profit to nearly US18m, or 13.5% of sales, the company also saw sales grow nearly 45% to $133m.

Gross profit was up 52% to nearly $50m and the company posted a 100% jump in EBITDA to nearly $24m, a margin of 17.9% compared with 12.9% for the same period last year.

The company said that organic growth in the sales of flavours and unique ingredients, combined with the acquisitions of Gewurzmuller, Abaco, Raychan, Adumim and Rad during the second half of 2007, have all had an impact on the results.

"Our results reflect the continued successful implementation of our profitable rapid growth strategy," said Ori Yehudai, Frutarom's president and CEO.

"The continued trend of improvement to profitability is firstly due to the completion of most of the merger process of the acquisitions which, according to plan, began contributing already in the first quarter of the year not only to sales growth but also to the improvement in profit and margin; and secondly due to the steps we took to adjust our products' selling prices to the price rise in raw materials used in our production."

Sectors: Commodities & ingredients

Companies: Frutarom