Swiss food ingredients group Givaudan said today (16 February) it was “very satisfied” with its performance in 2009, despite reporting a fall in EBITDA.

The flavours to fragrance group saw group sales total CHF3.96bn in 2009, an increase of 1.4% in local currencies but a fall of 3.1% in Swiss francs.

Stripping out foreign exchange and the impact of disposals, sales increased by 1.6%.

“Givaudan’s overall performance in 2009, against the backdrop of a difficult business environment, is a very satisfactory achievement,” said CEO Gilles Andrier.

However, Givaudan’s EBITDA declined from CHF765m in 2008 to CHF758m last year.

On a comparable basis EBITDA was CHF820m, below the CHF842m reported in 2009.

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Operating income, however, increased from CHF379m in 2008 to CHF460m in 2009. On a comparable basis, excluding some CHF65m in integration costs, Givaudan’s operating income increased to CHF525m in 2009 from CHF486m in 2008.

In actual terms, net income increased by 79.3% to CHF199m in 2009. Basic earnings per share increased to CHF25.07 in 2009 from CHF14.98 in the previous year.

Looking ahead, Givaudan said it was “confident” it could to “further outgrow” the underlying market and that it would meet its savings target of CHF200m by 2010.