Sweet and sour quarter for Kraft Heinz

Kraft Heinz saw its volumes drop by 5 % in the third quarter, but still managed to achieve a small sales growth thanks to a 7 % increase in prices.

Turnover disappoints

Increasing its prices by 7.1% last quarter, the producer of brands like Philadelphia narrowly managed to offset the volume decrease of more than 5 %: sales rose 1 % to 6.57 billion dollars (6.1 billion euros); excluding currency effects and acquisitions, growth would have been 1.7 %. However, analysts were counting on more growth.

Net profit plummeted 42 % to 262 million dollars (240 million euros), although the company attributes that mainly to depreciation and amortisation and higher tax costs. Without those one-off factors, profit would have increased slightly. For the full year, Kraft Heinz is now counting on even more adjusted profit than originally expected.

For full-year sales, on the other hand, the ketchup maker is adjusting forecasts downwards. Instead of growth of between 4 and 6 %, the company is now forecasting a growth of 4 %.