Barry Callebaut notes ‘exceptional year of unprecedented volatility’ in mixed annual results

The CEO of Barry Callebaut, Peter Feld has noted a “exceptional year of unprecedented volatility,” as it releases its latest annual results for 2024/25, with sales revenues up 49% to CHF 14.8billion, yet volumes were down 6.8% to 2,125,420 tonnes, reports Neill Barston. 

According to the company, its performance remained in line with the rest of the industry, which collectively has faced multiple challenges including heightened cocoa prices (touching $12,000 a tonne on futures markets at the start of 2025), crop diseases in Ivory Coast and Ghana that have impacted on yields, as well as additional key issues of climate change delivering adverse weather conditions.

Furthermore, the ongoing threat of illegal gold mining operations in West Africa have also negatively impacting on crop production from the core producing nations supplying the confectionery trade.

Net profits for the group were notably down 1.3% from CHF 190 million the prior year, to CHF 188 million for 2024/25, which further crystalised the challenging conditions for the business.

According to the company’s research, the wider chocolate market is down 5.2% and cocoa at 12%, which it attributed to ‘customer behavioural shifts and consumption softness’ with economies around the world facing headwinds due to ongoing tariffs and geopolitical conflicts.

Notably, the company also acknowledged as key issue with its Canadian production facilities at Saint-Hyachinthe in Quebec, which cause disruption to supplies in North America for a period of three weeks, that proved a further additional operational challenge for the business. It noted that the problem had been related to issues with its roasting machinery.

Despite testing conditions, the company has just announced a key deal with Planet A for sourcing cocoa alternative products, which the business has asserted will help shorten supply chains, while retaining a focus on quality and taste of snacks and confectionery ranges.

BC Next level
One of the company’s largest initiatives of the past two years since the arrival of its present CEO, has been its digital transformation ‘Next Level project’ – which the company says remains on track, despite some timing setbacks amid wider market conditions. 

According to the Swiss headquartered, it has claimed significant progress on its targets – with a reported 30 initiatives and realised significant cost savings of the total announced CHF 250 million.

As the company observed, this includes elevating its food safety capabilities through initiatives such as the implementation of the BCOS (Barry Callebaut Operating System): which has targeted standardising processes and ways of working to create a more agile manufacturing footprint and set clear KPIs for factories globally.

There have been New factory openings on BCOS in Brantford, Canada and Neemrana, India Global Business Services (GBS): Program completed successfully with four GBS sites, including the establishment of two new fully operational sites in Monterrey, Mexico and Hyderabad, India with the aim to deliver 24/7 best in class service.

It has also introduced  real-time track and trace for all shipments in Europe and North America to provide customers with more transparency, visibility and faster decision making. In addition, the company has secured Successful bond issuances to finance working capital needs and launched a letter of credit facility to replace futures margin calls and enhance liquidity and flexibilit

Peter Feld, CEO of Barry Callebaut Group, commented on the company’s performance in the past year.

He remarked: “The past fiscal year was marked by exceptional and unprecedented volatility in the cocoa and chocolate markets, impacting both Barry Callebaut and our customers. Thanks to the agility of our teams, we took decisive actions in H2 to improve cash generation and significantly reduce leverage, particularly through the adaptation of our cocoa operating model to prioritize returns and the implementation of a group-wide sales and operating planning process.

“At the same time, we are delivering on our BC Next Level investment program with tangible results, moving closer to markets and our customers and simplifying and digitizing BC. These efforts are strengthening our resilience and laying the foundation to further deleverage in 2025/26. With this, we are preparing Barry Callebaut to get back to growth by relentlessly driving our journey to become recognised as the trusted advisor and partner of choice to our customers.”

The improved Net Promoter Score (NPS) versus one year ago shows that we are on the right track. Our way forward is clear: We will be leading in chocolate, growing in cacao coatings (compound solutions), and launching non-cocoa solutions, for example with our today announced partnership with Planet A Foods (ChoViva), which will strengthen our resilience even further, ” adding a note of thanks to employees, customers, shareholders, and partners for their efforts to weather an unprecedented past year.