ISRAEL: Higher sales boost Strauss profits

By: just-food.com | 18 November 2008

Israeli food group Strauss today (18 November) posted an increase in net profit for the first nine months of the year, boosted by higher sales and capital gains from the sale of a stake in its coffee operations.

The company said that growth in the group's sales and profits have continued despite the challenges in the economic environment.

Net profit for the period amounted to NIS227.5m (US$57.6m) compared to NIS215.1m in the corresponding period last year, an increase of 5.8%.

The group's sales totalled NIS4.7bn, an increase of 6.7% on last year's figure. Organic growth after neutralising the impact of changes in currency exchange rates, and the acquisition and sale of businesses in the first nine months of the year, totalled 8%.

Strauss said it had successfully overcome the "sharp increase" in energy and raw material prices by streamlining all areas of the group's activity and by raising product prices in all markets.

Despite these actions eroding the group's gross profit rate, it led to the improvement of the consolidated operating profit, which reached NIS421m, an increase of 5%.

The management accounting operating profit in the third quarter amounted to NIS156.1m, an increase of 6.4%.

Ofra Strauss, chairperson of Strauss Group, said: "The infrastructure we have built over the past few years has enabled us to successfully contend with a challenging year like this one, while achieving our objectives in all spheres.

"We will continue to do everything required of us in order to continue in this vein, even as the uncertainty in the economic environment increases for all of us."

Sectors: Fresh produce