Rieber & Søn shines spotlight on Russian strains

By: Dean Best - 30 October 2009 17:49

Scandinavia's food companies have a rather pleasing habit of making their CEOs available at the drop of a hat and, this week, we got to speak to the boss of Norwegian food group Rieber & Søn.

After reporting a mixed set of nine-month and third-quarter numbers on Thursday (29 October), Rieber & Søn CEO Patrik Andersson walked us through the group's performance and recent moves to reshape the business.

You can read more of our interview with Andersson here but it was interesting to note his comments on Russia, a market in which Rieber & Søn has a significant presence.

We've discussed Russia's travails on these pages before but Andersson offered some numbers that illustrated just how the downturn over there has hit his business.

"If my calculations are right, I think we are down on volume 25-30% in the quarter," Andersson admitted.

That's a steep drop. But, given the turbulent economic conditions in Russia, Rieber & Søn is unlikely to be alone.