Monde Nissin books lower Q1 profit amid alternative meat business restructuring

MANILA  -Betty Ang’s food manufacturing giant Monde Nissin Corp. saw earnings drop in the first quarter amid the ongoing restructuring of its alternative meat business.

The maker of Lucky Me! instant noodles said its Asia Pacific Branded Food & Beverage segment booked strong sales during the period.

Monde thus closed the quarter with a net income of P1.94 billion, down 17 percent from last year, while revenues climbed 9.5 percent to P20.05 billon. Gross profit slipped 5 percent to P6.1 billion.

“The APAC BFB business saw strong topline growth across all of our categories during the first quarter with our noodles business, achieving double-digit quarter-on-quarter growth and volumes ahead of where we were last year,” Monde CEO Henry Soesanto said in a separate statement.

APAC BFB sales grew 15.4 percent to P16.53 billion while meat alternative revenues slumped 6.2 percent to P3.52 billion.

Monde said earnings were impacted by Quorn’s US division.

“The meat alternative category continues to face strong headwinds. Last quarter, we discussed the steps that we were taking to right-size our US business to better reflect current market realities,” Soesanto said.

“We are now similarly addressing our U.K. business, restructuring it to better weather the current category conditions while remaining agile and ready to benefit when the market for meat alternatives,” he added.