Belgium-based Greenyard says that it has returned to profitable growth and is raiding its adjusted EBITDA guidance for the first half of the fiscal year.

On August 27 Greenyard announced a firm sales increase for the first quarter of this fiscal year. This was the third consecutive quarter of sales growth and the profitable growth was mainly due to volume increases.

This sustained sales growth underlines the importance of Greenyard’s long-term customer relationships and reaffirms the company’s regained strength. 

Not only sales have increased since then, but Greenyard says it also continues to work on a structural improvement of its margin, profitability and cash flow.

The company's adjusted EBITDA-margin increased compared to the same period last year. An improvement of margin in the Fresh segment of more than 25% compared to the same period last year largely contributed to this result.

The development of Greenyard’s partnerships, next to its other long-term commercial relationships, led to a shift towards more services with higher added value. In addition, a better alignment of sourcing flows and further cost control contributed to this improvement.

Based on the currently available information, Greenyard expects its adjusted EBITDA (before application of IFRS 16) for the first half of the fiscal year to amount to approximately €55.0m (versus €47.6m last year).

It is also raising its previously given adjusted EBITDA outlook from €100.0m-105.0m for the full fiscal year to € 106.0m-110.0m. The company also anticipates further positive developments in volumes, costs and margin.

Transformation initiatives

Over the past year and a half Greenyard has carried out several transformation initiatives to revitalize its commercial relationships, improve efficiency, monitor expenditure more strictly and optimise cash flow.

These initiatives have clearly yielded the desired positive results, the company said. With that conclusion, Greenyard can now consider the insights and principles of these initiatives to be part of normal business.

More initiatives will continue to make a positive contribution to profit generation through continuous improvement projects in the coming years. These projects are supported by local management, that was further strengthened in some of these countries during the past year.