On the shelves of supermarkets, it’s the waltz of labels. Yoghurts, mineral waters, ice creams, pasta or even chopped steaks are seeing their prices rise over the months. A trend that affects more or less the whole planet. This inflation boosts the turnover of agri-food companies. Whether it is Nestlé, Danone, Coca-Cola or Unilever, all have shown a clear jump in their activity since the start of 2022. However, margins are under pressure.
This dynamism even led the French Danone to revise upwards its annual growth forecasts, during the presentation of its half-year results, Wednesday, July 27. The owner of the Evian, Activia or Aptamil brands is now counting on an increase in its turnover of 5% to 6%, in 2022, against an initial estimate of 3% to 5%. In the first half, it jumped, in comparison, by 7.4%, to 13.3 billion euros, of which 6.8% related to the increase in prices. The managing director, Antoine de Saint-Affrique, was delighted to “the strong first-half performance, driven by all geographies and categories, even as [l’entreprise fait] faced with an unprecedented external environment”.
The Swiss group Nestlé followed suit on Thursday, July 28, announcing in turn a revision of its forecasts for 2022. The world leader in the food industry now expects growth of between 7% and 8%, against 5 % previously fixed. With its Purina, Nespresso, Perrier and KitKat brands, it ended the first half with an 8.1% jump in sales, to 45.6 billion Swiss francs (46.7 billion euros), the increase in its rates accounting for 6.5%.
Unilever, known for its Knorr, Magnum and Ben & Jerry’s brands, pushed the price increase slider even higher, to 11.2%, in the second quarter, and posted half-year sales up 8, 1%, to 29.6 billion euros. The consumer giant has warned that this trend is not about to stop. Its CEO, Alan Jope, believes that, even if in recent weeks the price of certain raw materials has eased a little, such as aluminum or palm oil, the peak of inflation should be reached in the second semester. Unilever figures the jump in its costs to 2.6 billion euros in the second part of 2022, compared to the 2 billion euros already borne since January. An invoice that includes the increase in the cost of raw materials, packaging, transport and energy.
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