2020 Leaderboard: Kerry Finds Success With Wellness

Kerry's taste and nutrition division saw strong numbers in nutrition and wellness thanks to increasing consumer demand for healthy foods.
Kerry's taste and nutrition division saw strong numbers in nutrition and wellness thanks to increasing consumer demand for healthy foods.

Kerry

Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland

2019 Sales: €7.2 billiona

Wellness isn’t just good for the individual—it’s also good for business. Kerry’s FY2019 illustrates this, with the company’s taste and nutrition division finding success at the intersection: delivering customers flavorful solutions with nutritional benefits.

Overall, the company’s taste and nutrition division saw strength in its nutrition and wellbeing technology portfolio, driven by consumers’ demand for great tasting foods with nutritional attributes. This demand also drove sales in its fermented ingredients, broad specialty protein portfolio, probiotics, botanicals and extracts.

“Consumers want great taste, including authentic, natural and local taste experiences. They want enhanced nutrition for better health and overall wellbeing, and they expect more convenient and affordable options to match today’s on-the-go and digital lifestyles,” said the company in its 2019 financial report. “Consumers are demanding that these experiences are produced and delivered without compromise, in ways that are good for people and the planet. Products are increasingly required to reflect consumers’ values on sustainability and provide additional fulfilment by creating positive outcomes beyond the consumption occasion.”

To further deliver these solutions, the company undertook several acquisitions. In the United States, these included Fleischmann’s, while across the Atlantic, the acquisition of Pevesa Biotech—a specialist in plant protein isolates and hydrolysates based in Spain—expanded nutrition applications.

The company expanded in China, upgrading its SIAS facility in the greater Beijing region, and expanded its program at the Nantong facility. A facility in Tumkur, India was opened to serve the expanding South West Asia market, while the acquisition of AATCO at the end of 2018 expanded its reach in the Middle East region.

Footnote:

aPer Kerry’s 2019 annual results.

Edmond ScanlonEdmond Scanlon

CEO, Kerry

To what would you attribute Kerry’s successes in 2019?

We had another good year in 2019 with revenues growing by 10%, trading profit by 12% with very good organic volume growth of 10% in developing markets and 2% in developed markets. Key to our success was our customer centric business model, our broad technology foundation across taste and nutrition and our clear leadership position in integrated solutions. We combine these capabilities with our local approach to help customers meet the local consumer needs across the globe. To give some context, we estimate that every day, more than one billion products are consumed that contain a Kerry solution.  

Our customer centric business model is helping customers as they seek to address rapidly evolving consumer needs. We are in the midst of a consumer led revolution with people demanding more from the products they buy, and they want their needs met now. They want food with enhanced nutrition, better taste experiences, products they can trust and more personalized, convenient and affordable options to match their on-the-go and digital lifestyles. These demands are leading our customers to transform how they operate, and they are looking for their suppliers to do more to help them win in today’s world. Our customer centric business model helps customers meet these demands and move at pace from the ideation phase of a new product development all the way to the product launch.

Our broad technology foundation across taste and nutrition plays an important role, but what is most important is knowing how you put these technologies together. This is key and this is where we excel. On integrated solutions we have developed a leading capability over the last 25 years that is proving a real value add to customers in today’s world.

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