Meal-kit firm HelloFresh has reported a 1.9% year-on-year increase in revenue to approximately €1.83 billion in the third quarter of its financial year.
HelloFresh attributed this performance to year-on-year average order value (AOV) growth of 3.8% on a constant currency basis, offsetting a slight expected decline in group orders.
Group AEBITDA reached €72 million during the quarter with a margin of 3.9% as the company continued to focus on achieving a robust return on investment on its marketing spend.
Third-Quarter Highlights
Revenue in the meal-kit segment fell 9.3% year on year on a constant currency basis to €1.28 billion, reflecting a continuation of the trends from previous quarters, driven by normalisation in the size of new customer cohorts.
AEBITDA for the category increased to €109 million in the third quarter, with a margin of 8.5%.
Dominik Richter, co-founder and CEO of HelloFresh commented, “In meal kits, our focus for the next couple of quarters will be on improving further on an already excellent proposition to our customers, through more meal choice, better value for money and higher service levels.
“We also aim to meaningfully expand free cash flows and profitability for the group, and have taken the first decisive steps, such as being more selective in attracting new customers to our meal kit brands and adjusting our production footprint. We see these steps starting to reflect in the numbers.”
Elsewhere, the ready-to-eat (RTE) product category delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 39.9% on a constant currency basis, to €529 million.
AEBITDA fell to €6.7 million during the quarter with the margin falling 6.7 percentage points to 1.3%.
Richter added, “The biggest growth driver for the group over the next three years, for both revenues and profits, will be our RTE product category.
“Today, we are already the RTE market leader in the US and have developed the product, technology and food manufacturing capabilities to reach many more people around the world with our RTE products.”
Outlook
HelloFresh has cut its its full-year revenue growth outlook to 1.0% and 1.7%, from its previous forecast range of 2% and 8%.
The company aims to focus on 'disciplined marketing investments' in future quarters and intends to spend less on marketing in the fourth quarter compared to last year.
The company has lifted the lower end of its full-year AEBITDA outlook by €10 million and now expects it to range between €360 million and €400 million.
