1 month ago
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Ice cream maker Caribbean Cream Limited, which trades as Kremi, reported a rare net loss for its third quarter due to higher cost of goods, write-offs and rain.
“The company has the added benefit of the new cold room, where we are positioned to supply the market with a wide variety of ice cream and novelties to meet market demand. With the continued rainfall over the last several months, sales for the third quarter were, however, curtailed,” CEO Christopher Clarke and Chairman Dr Matthew Clarke reported to stockholders.
The downturn has occurred amid an expansion drive at the ice cream company. Kremi invested $420 million on its plant upgrade over the past two years, with $93 million of that figure spent over nine months to November.
During the third quarter, revenue rose by 9.0 per cent to $686 million, but the cost of doing business rose at a faster pace of 27 per cent, to $498 million.
“The high cost of sales was due to an increase of the maintenance of our manufacturing equipment and a write-off of inventory,” the company directors said.
Kremi ended the quarter with losses of $31.7 million, compared to $25.6 million profit a year earlier.
The revenue for the nine months was $2.2 billion, up from $1.9 billion in the corresponding period last year.
Profit fell to $2.1 million from $36 million in the prior year, which Kremi blamed on “increasing costs and write offs”. The inventory balance rose by 12 per cent, and trade and other receivables virtually doubled to $230 million due to a higher volume of credit sales at the end of the quarter.
English (US) ·