Tuna products from Calvo. (Photo: Calvo)

Grupo Calvo increases turnover in 2017, but its gross profit falls

SPAIN
Thursday, May 17, 2018, 02:20 (GMT + 9)

Grupo Calvo managed to increase its global sales last year, thus consolidating a decade of growth, but the higher costs of raw material in Brazil had a negative impact on its operating profits.

The international food group recorded a 7.5 per cent increase in its global sales during 2017, compared to the previous year, to EUR 618.3 million, and the volume of sales of finished products grew by 1.7 per cent, to 102,971 tonnes.

However, its normal gross operating profit (EBITDA) was reduced by 6 per cent to EUR 62 million.

"Despite the pressure on the results at its Brazilian subsidiary Gomes da Costa due to the scarcity of local raw materials (mainly sardines) and the depreciation of the Brazilian currency, which implied an increase in its imports, the group increased or maintained the volume of sales and its market share in all countries where it is present," the company said in a statement.

The Managing Director of the Group, Mané Calvo, highlights in particular "the sustained and balanced growth as a trend of recent years", as well as "the excellent financial health" of the company, "in an increasingly complex national and international competitive environment" for food companies, and especially for those manufacturing canned products. "

"Our brands continue to grow and generate stable sales in a sustained and sustainable manner, this is allowing us to invest in updating our plants and processes while reducing the level of our debt to minimum," he adds.

The group indicates that it closed 2017 with a net debt of 1.49 times the normalized EBITDA, which puts it at EUR 92.4 million, and that it had an "especially positive" evolution in Spain, where it achieved market share increases in almost all segments of canned fish.

In addition, it assures that the commitment to innovation ensures that "it is bearing fruit as a growth lever" and that the launch of the new 'ecoline' with a first product of handline caught tuna in olive oil with an ecological certificate, and the consolidation of light tuna, introduced in 2016, "have contributed to reinforce the brand's leadership in the tuna category".

Calvo Group is carrying out an "important" investment project in its production facility in Carballo (A Coruña) focusing, as it explains, on the increase of productive capacity and the search for improvements in operational efficiency.

On the other hand, the group claims its "new steps" in the framework of corporate social responsibility, with the creation of a new responsible purchasing system in collaboration with the Business Social Compliance Initiative, and with the certification of its entire tuna fleet under the 'Responsible Fishing Tuna' standard of AENOR, which assesses environmental, social and labour aspects.

Speaking to the newspaper Expansión, Alberto Encinas, general director of the European division of the Calvo Group, stressed that "the year 2017 was the second best in the history of the company", and did not rule out a possible return to Mercadona, after abandoning its shelves in 2009.

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