COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Dairy producer Arla’s sales for the first half of the year rose by 13% though sales of its key products such as Lurpak butter and Castello cheese fell.
“High commodity prices and geopolitical uncertainty continued to weigh on consumer sentiment, resulting in a modest decline in branded volumes,” Arla CEO Peder Tuborgh said in a statement.
Its revenue for the January-June period grew to 7.5 billion euros ($8.78 billion) from 6.6 billion euros last year but the company saw a 1.5% decline in its sales of branded products, which include the Arla brand, Lurpak, Puck, Castello and Starbucks, compared to last year.
Arla said it expected the situation to improve in the second half of the year.
Global milk production has begun to recover from a slump, Arla said, due to factors such as improved weather conditions, contributing to a slight softening of global dairy commodity prices, it added.
Arla, which competes with companies like Danone and Nestle in the dairy industry, is owned by more than 8,000 dairy farmers in Denmark, Sweden, Britain, Germany, Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands.
($1 = 0.8542 euros)
(Reporting by Soren Jeppesen, editing by Terje Solsvik)
