New products central to Kerry €5bn growth

INNOVATION and new products in every sector from food ingredients, bakery, soft drinks and syrups were central to the 2010 sales growth of 9.7% to €5 billion unveiled by Kerry Group.

New products released last year included new Cheese String Spaghetti, a new cheese string snack for the French and Dutch markets, as well as flavourings and ingredients in numerous global coffee chain stores and syrups in premium market leading ice creams.

In 2010, Kerry also expanded the global market positioning of Sheffield Bio-Science, the group’s pharma ingredients business which develops excipient and cell nutrition products for pharmaceutical, nutritional and bio-technology applications. A major player in the excipient (coatings for medicines/tablets) market, Kerry is also making ongoing investment to support global customers and regional customers in Latin American and Asia-Pacific markets, gaining good results in Brazil, China and India.

“Excipients are the coating on the tablets, the delivery system for the active pharma ingredients,” said Frank Hayes, Kerry’s director of corporate affairs. “We are in five of the top 10 blockbuster applications worldwide.” The multi-tiered group has seen sizeable growth in sectors such as ‘cleaner labelling’, ie the production of ingredients that ensure food products minimise their E-numbers, etc. Its ingredients business has also grown and Kerry is also the number one producer of chilled readymade meals in Britain.

Kerry’s R&D investment of €156m would have gained relatively little attention in the release of results yesterday. However, the group says this figure is central to explaining the other stats.

Top-line figures were: Sales revenue up 9.7% to €5bn; up 5.5% in continuing business volumes; Trading profit up 11.3% to €470m; Ingredients and Flavours up 50 basis points to 10.9%; Consumer Foods up 40 points to 7.5%; Earnings per share up 16.8% to 194.5 cent; Final dividend per share of 20 cent (Total 2010 dividend up 15.2% to 28.8 cent); Free cash flow of €305m (2009: €367m).