Croatian company Podravka posts record year in their 70-year history

25 February 2019 – Croatian food processing and pharmaceutical company the Podravka Group has achieved the best business results in its more than 70-year history, the company said in a statement on Monday. 

In 2018, the group posted sales revenues of HRK 4.2 billion, up 3% on the year, with net profits reaching a record-high HRK 205.7 million, against HRK 18.2 million in 2017. The price of Podravka stock rose by 38.9%. 

This year marks the best ever business results in Podravka’s history with the achievement the result of organic sales growth with the simultaneous control of operating costs, further confirming the successful operations of the Podravka Group in the past year.

“The new vision of Podravka that began with organisational changes and formation of new business programmes has completely met the expectations for the year 2018. Concentrating on our traditional markets and increasing the dynamics of innovation cycles in key brands and categories has brought us the best operating results in our long history. Today we can say with certainty that in key operating parameters, Podravka is fully competitive with companies on the international market,” stated Marin Pucar, Chairman of the Podravka Management Board when announcing the operating results for the past year.

In the last year, the net profits of the Podravka Group totalled HRK 205.7 million, a highly significant growth over one year earlier, when profits totalled HRK 18.2 million.

Sales revenues of the Podravka Group totalled HRK 4232.1 million, representing almost 3% growth over the year before, while profits without the influence of currency differences were assessed at 4.2% higher. Following from the strong sales and marketing activities, innovations in the production portfolio and expansion of distribution of certain categories on specific markets, a strong growth in sales revenues was achieved in both business segments – Food and Pharmaceuticals – in the total amount of HRK 121 million.

The Food segment achieved HRK 3335.3 million in sales revenues, which is an increase of 2.8% or HRK 91.6 million over the year before. Without the influence of currency differences, this growth would be assessed at 3.6% higher. 

The highest growth of 8.7 % was achieved by the programme Children’s food, desserts and snacks, while the programme Žito and Lagris achieved growth of 5.7%, the programme Fish achieved 3.3% and the programme Cuisine 1.5% growth over the year before.

The second segment of the Podravka Group – Pharmaceuticals – achieved revenues of HRK 896.9 million, representing growth of 3.4% and HRK 29.4 million over the year before, while this growth would be 6.4% higher without the influence of the currency differences. 

The Pharmaceuticals own brands achieved growth of 2.5%, primarily due to the continuation of growing demand on the Russian market, and expansion of distribution on the markets of the Central Europe region. In the most significant category, Prescription medications, sales revenues increased by 2.1%, while the Over-the-counter segment achieved a sales revenue increase of 5.4%.

Podravka products can be found in more than fifty countries on all five continents.