Israeli food importer G. Willi-Food has posted a steep increase in quarterly and annual profits thanks to an improvement in margins and a comparison with a weaker period last year.
Annual profit from continuing operations increased 686.6% year-on-year, jumping to NIS29.6m (US$7.8m).
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Willi-Food swung to a fourth-quarter profit of NIS8m compared to a net loss of NIS8.6m in the comparable period of last year, the company revealed in a regulatory filing.
Quarterly sales increased 12.4% year-over-year to NIS79.8m. Annual turnover rose 5% to NIS303.5m.
Vice president Gil Hochboin told just-food that the rising profits were primarily the result of improved margins.
“This quarter was a very excellent quarter, but you also need to remember that last year was a disaster. Fourth-quarter gross margins were less than 10%, and now we have improved them to over 30%,” Hochboin said.
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By GlobalDataDuring the fourth quarter, gross margins improved from 7.3% to 30.3%.
For the full year, Willi-Food expanded its gross margin to 27.6% compared to 20.8% in 2008. This, the group emphasised, represents the “highest annual gross margin in the history” of Willi-Food.
Margins benefited from movements in the exchange rate as well as a shift to higher-margin products, Hochboin said.
“We also sold subsidies that gave us only income but no profit – with good sales but extremely poor margins,” he added.
In September, the group offloaded Israeli kosher food exporter YLW Baron International Trading for US$937,500.
Looking to the coming year, Hochboin said he expected a “good” performance with stable margins.
