Food cultures and enzymes helps growth at Chr Hansen

Three business areas have helped Chr. Hansen group to improve growth in its second quarter figures.

Food cultures and enzymes 5%, Health & Nutrition 8% and Natural Colors 1%,have lift organic revenue growth in the first six months of 2019/20 to 3%.

CEO Mauricio Graber said: “Food cultures & enzymes delivered solid organic growth as we continue to deliver advanced technology that can help our customers innovate, improve food quality, reduce waste and drive down costs. Especially innovative dairy enzymes, like CHY-MAX Supreme and Nola Fit are doing very well, and bioprotection grew approximately 15% in Q2.

“In Health & Nutrition, Animal Health continued to perform strongly driven by Bovamine Dairy probiotics; and Human Health also delivered solid growth. Natural Colors showed positive growth, despite continued negative raw material price impacts and challenging market conditions, as growth and profitability of Fruitmax was strong.”

The company said the Covid-19 outbreak in China did not have a material impact on business in Q2, however, “it is clear that we will see both favourable and unfavourable impacts in the second half of the year”, as the virus has spread globally.

Chr. Hansen added it has so far managed to have all its production sites running at normal operations and has also continued to deliver on customer commitments.

Based on the business performance in the first part of the year, it expects to maintain its guidance for the full year, although subject to greater macroeconomic uncertainty due to COVID-19.