Oatly Group has forecast full-year revenue ahead of analysts' estimates, helped by demand for vegan milk alternatives from increasingly health-conscious consumers.
In its first quarterly report after going public in May, the company said it spent heavily to ramp production to meet that demand, and announced an expansion to its Utah processing facility.
Malmö, Sweden-based Oatly, whose early backers included celebrities Oprah Winfrey, Jay Z and former Starbucks Corp head Howard Schultz, makes dairy alternative products that are sold in more than 20 markets across Europe, the United States and China.
'The Most Transformational Year'
Oatly CEO Toni Petersson commented, "2021 represents the most transformational year in our Company’s history with the completion of our successful IPO in May, which has provided us with the capital to fuel new production capacity globally as we scale our business across three continents to meet the robust consumer demand for our leading oat-based brand.
"We are incredibly proud of our global team’s execution with strong growth in new and existing customers, the opening of two new facilities in Ogden, Utah and Singapore, as well as doubling production capacity at our facility in Vlissingen, Netherlands."
Oatly said it expects annual sales to rise at least 64% to $690 million, compared with analysts' estimates of $681.4 million, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Quarterly Highlights
The company reported a 53.3% increase in revenue to $146.2 million for the second quarter ended 30 June.
Gross profit for the quarter amounted to $38.6 million, up from $30.8 million in the same period last year.
The company marked its entry into the Swiss and Irish markets in the quarter.
The company witnessed a $43.5 million loss in EBITDA during the quarter primarily due to non-recurring IPO charges of $7.1 million, share-based compensation costs of $6.6 million, higher employee related expenses, public company costs and other operating expenses.
Recently, a UK court dismissed Oatly’s claims of trademark infringement against British oat milk producer Glebe Farm.
News by Reuters, additional reporting by ESM. For more A-Brands news, click here. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
