Bonduelle has reported an almost 16% jump in first-quarter sales on the back of currency fluctuations and its recent acquisition of mushroom producer France Champignon.
The French vegetable group, which bought the mushroom business in April, said sales for the three months to the end of September were up 15.7% at EUR419.8m (US$597.4m). The company said 8.9 percentage points of the growth came from France Champignon, with 4.7 percentage points coming from foreign exchange.
Stripping out the impact of France Champignon’s sales and currency fluctuation, revenue increased 2.1%. On that basis, sales in Europe rose 1.2% and climbed elsewhere by 4.5%.
Last month, Bonduelle’s shares slumped after the company forecast falling profits for this fiscal year. Today, Bonduelle confirmed its full-year operating-profit forecast of EUR70-75m for the year – down from last year’s EUR101.8m.
Shares in Bonduelle were up 0.6% at EUR64.10 at 13:10 CET today.
