After two disappointing quarters, Dutch food wholesaler Sligro finally managed to show some growth again. Thanks to the warm summer, comparable sales increased by 3.3 %; including acquisitions, there was even a growth of 11.4 %.
Turnover rose to 591 million euro
Sligro closed its third quarter with a turnover of 591 million euros, bringing the provisional annual total to 1.72 billion (+11.1 %). In the figures for the last quarter, supermarket chain Emté is no longer included as it was sold to Jumbo and Coop in July): they are replaced with those of the distribution deal with Heineken that generated 129 million extra sales this year, of which 43 million in the third quarter.
The food wholesaler is struggling to recruit sufficient staff: “The demand for staff in distribution centres and transport is growing in our own sector and beyond, and this is increasingly causing scarcity and a shortage of capacity”, the company reports in the notes to the quarterly figures. ” The solutions we are using today to absorb these capacity shortages and to allow us to continue to serve our customers in an appropriate way are expensive”, the report continues. How big the impact will be on profit will only be made clear when the group publishes its annual results.
