Profit climbs at Spain's Ebro Foods as lockdowns force consumers to dine in
28/04/2021 12:48
MADRID, April 28 (Reuters) - Spain's Ebro Foods EBRO.MC
reported a 10.6% rise in first-quarter net profit on Wednesday
as lockdowns and restrictions on restaurant opening hours pushed
more people to eat at home.
The owner of brands such as Tilda rice and Garofalo pasta
said profit reached 52.8 million euros ($63.72 million), up from
47.8 million a year earlier, also helped by the sale of its
Canadian pasta brand Catelli for 165 million Canadian dollars
($133 million).
Sales dropped 8.7% over the same period to 697.2 million
euros, which Ebro attributed to the distorting effects of panic
buying during the early days of the pandemic last year.
The company, which describes itself as the world's
second-biggest vendor of packaged rice, had to rearrange its
production last year to meet unusually high peaks in demand for
rice and pasta.
Despite the solid quarterly profit, Ebro pointed to higher
freight and raw-material costs, a flagging economy and increased
competition among suppliers as potential difficulties in the
coming year.
($1 = 0.8286 euros)
($1 = 1.2390 Canadian dollars)
(Reporting by Nathan Allen, editing by Andrei Khalip)
((n.allen@thomsonreuters.com; +34 617 792 131;))