Barry Kalebaut, the world’s largest supplier of chocolate to the food industry, warned on Thursday that another rise in cocoa reduced profits, which made investors drop their shares.
The Swiss group also reduced its annual sales forecast after net profit declined by 60 percent to 30.5 million francs ($ 36.9 million) in the first half of its fiscal year to February.
The company’s shares were plunged by 21.5 percent on the Swiss Stock Exchange to 828 francs.
It states that cocoa prices on average average 95 percent a year earlier, citing a “speculative purchase”, as well as “unfavorable weather” that affect some crops without additional parts.
“The intensive volatility of cocoa -folk prices had a significant impact on the industry, customer behavior and our financial indicators,” Barry Kalebaut said in a statement.
It states that the increase in the prices transferred to food producers was weighed at the request, noting that some customers postponed orders, and the total sales decreased by 4.7 percent to 1.08 million tons.
The plan to reduce the cost of 250 million francs was also detained per year.
“Cocoa Fasol and tariff uncertainty has created a perfect storm,” said Jean-Philip Bertshi, Vontobel analyst, citing US President Donald Trump.
“However, in recent weeks, the price of cocoa -folk has decreased significantly with a maximum of 9,000 pounds ($ 11,640 per ton) to the end of January to the current level of 6000 pounds,” he said.
Originally this story was presented on Fortune.com
https://fortune.com/img-assets/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/GettyImages-849347478-e1744363008616.jpg?resize=1200,600
2025-04-11 09:28:00
AFP
