KUALA LUMPUR: Farm Fresh Bhd, which is enroute to the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia, has posted a revenue of RM116.7mil and profit after tax (PAT) of RM11.8mil for the third quarter financial year ending March 31,2022.
The group reported a decrease in revenue and PAT for the three months ended Dec 31 2021, compared with a revenue of RM128.6mil and PAT of RM14.1mil in the same period in 2020.
This was due to the overall impact of the prolonged Covid-19 pandemic which resulted in dampened economic activity, consumer confidence and levels of household income and the ceasing of raw milk sales by its Australia farm to third parties since the end of September 2021.
The group’s gross profit margin for the three months ended Dec 31 improved to 29% from the 25% recorded in the preceding quarter on the back of the price increases by an average of 5% for its chilled ready-to-drink (RTD) milk products in September 2021 and ambient RTD products in December 2021.
For the nine-month period (ended Dec 31,2021), Farm Fresh registered a cumulative revenue and PAT of RM373.9mil and RM61.3mil respectively, an improvement of 3.0% and 169.7% respectively year on year.
For the nine-month period (ended Dec 31,2021), Farm Fresh registered a cumulative revenue and PAT of RM373.9mil and RM61.3mil respectively, an improvement of 3.0% and 169.7% respectively year on year.
Farm Fresh group managing director and CEO Loi Tuan Ee said in a statement: “The team has worked hard to navigate the challenging environment posed by the pandemic, inflationary pressures from higher input prices, and most recently the uncertainties caused by the Russian military invasion of Ukraine.
“We still managed to register growth during the financial period, as well as contained the impact of rising costs to our bottom line.
“We believe that this tough period shows great resilience of our business, and going forward, with our well laid out strategic plans, the group remains confident in its ability to register long term growth in sales, market share and profitability.
“Specifically, our planned launch of the growing up milk based on a fortified fresh milk formula, which will compete with both powder-based kids’ milk and RTD reconstituted milk-based products, will enable us to further drive growth with our culture of innovation and commitment for producing healthier products for our growing children.”
According to Frost & Sullivan, the powdered milk category in Malaysia has a market size of RM2.3bil in 2020. Farm Fresh is currently formulating a product without any sugar, maltodextrin, preservatives, artificial flavouring and colouring that will be much more beneficial to kids aged from three to 12 years old.
On March 18, Malaysian Rating Corp Bhd affirmed its rating of AA-IS on Farm Fresh’s Islamic medium-term notes programme of RM1bil under the syariah principle of wakalah bi al-istithmar with a stable outlook.
The group is scheduled to be listed on the Main Market on March 22. Farm Fresh’s market capitalisation works out to approximately RM2.5bil based on the final retail price of RM1.35 and its enlarged share capital of 1,857.9mil shares upon listing.