Smart Balance has cut its outlook for the year, saying the past two months have been “particularly challenging”.
For the full year of 2010, the US food maker now expects net sales to rise by 2-4% and its cash operating income to be flat with last year.
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The company previously expected growth in the mid-teens for both net sales and cash operating income in 2010.
Smart Balance said ongoing macroeconomic softness, consumer price sensitivity for premium-priced products, heightened promotional activity in the spreads category and slower than anticipated growth for new products had affected the business.
For the second quarter of 2010, the company expects a 6-7% decline in net sales versus a year earlier.
However, Smart Balance said it expects net sales to strengthen considerably in the second half of 2010, with current expectations for growth in the range of 5-10% as compared to the same period last year.
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By GlobalDataChairman and CEO Stephen Hughes said: “We have made significant progress in building our strategic platform for growth over the past three years, despite the extraordinarily challenging economic environment we have encountered during the past 18 months. While our growth trajectory has slowed somewhat, given these headwinds, we have successfully started the roll-out of our three-tier strategy in the spreads category and launched our expansion into the dairy case, both of which we expect to enable us to continue to drive significant growth over time.”
