Barry Calibot, the world’s largest chocolate supplier in the food industry on Thursday, warned that a cocoa prices have increased the profits, prompting investors to empty their shares.
The Swiss group also reduced its annual sales expectations after a 60 percent net profit decreased to 30.5 million francs (36.9 million dollars) in the first half of its financial year until February.
The shares of the company decreased by 21.5 percent on the Swiss Stock Exchange to 828 francs.
She said that the prices of cocoa pills have jumped by 95 percent on average during the period in the previous year, noting “the purchase of speculation” as well as “negative weather” that affects some harvest, without further details.
“Intensive fluctuations in cocoa pills prices had a great impact on industry, customer behavior and financial performance,” Bari Calibut said in a statement.
She said that the price increases were transferred to food manufacturers that were able to obtain the demand, noting that some customers have postponed the requests, as the total sales volumes decreased by 4.7 percent to 1.08 million tons.
A plan to reduce costs was also delayed by 250 million francs for a year.
“The cocoa pill and the customs tariffs have created an ideal storm,” said Jean -Philip Berchi, an analyst at Fontopille, in reference to the US tariff announced by President Donald Trump.
“However, the price of cocoa pills decreased dramatically in the last weeks from the highest from 9000 pounds ($ 11640 per ton) at the end of January to the current level of 6000 pounds,” he said.
This story was originally shown on Fortune.com
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