São Paulo – The sales of Brazilian food processing company BRF increased in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in this year’s Q1. The company has a portfolio that includes brands Sadia and Perdigão. According to information released by the company on Thursday (28) night, revenues with sales to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) reached BRL 1.584 billion (USD 458 million), an increase of 17.9% over the same period of last year. The company also increase sales volume in the region, going up 3.9% to 227,000 tons.
In the results report presentation, the company said that the gain margin in the region was lower. It points out also that despite the “volatile” political and economic context in the Middle East and North Africa, the company continues “committed” with the development of business, with progress in product distribution and improvement of the sales mix.
In 2014, the company opened a plant in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. In this plant, BRF processes foodstuff and sells them to the Arab countries. The company bought local distributors in the last few years. In this year’s first quarter, BRF concluded the purchase of a distributor in Qatar and on April 25 announced the purchase of a distributor in Oman. This last operation, however, doesn’t appear in the balance report yet because it was only concluded in the second quarter.
BRF’s total revenues in Q1 of this year reached BRL 8.1 billion (USD 2.34 billion), an increase of 15.2% over revenues from Q1 2015. According to the company, revenues went up due to the increase of the average price and volumes sold.
In the report, BRF’s global CEO, Pedro Faria, says that this year’s Q1 was “one of the most challenging periods of the last decade”. According to him, while poultry production in Brazil reached record levels, it did pressure prices in the sector. At the same time, the cost of maize went up. In comparison to the period between January and March 2015, net profit declined 97.2% to BRL 39 million (USD 11.29 million).
In the Brazilian market, BRF’s revenues totaled BRL 3.5 billion (USD 1.01 billion). The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions was the main destination for exports, followed by Asia, where BRL registered revenues of BRL 1 billion (USD 289 million), Europe/Eurasia with BRL 958 million (USD 277.54 million), Latin America with BRL 438 million (USD 126.89 million) and Africa with BRL 176 million (USD 50.99 million).
This Friday (29), in the São Paulo stock market (Bovespa), common shares of the company, with voting rights, went up 0.51% at BRL 49.25 (USD 14.26).
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
