Milling & Baking News - November 15, 2005 - 37

F I N A N C I A L

growth we are seeing in both our route
and non-route businesses," said Charles P.
Pizzi, president and chief executive officer.
"Our sales team delivered strong growth
during July and August and we planned
for that momentum to continue through
September, which historically has been
one of our strongest sales months. We believe that rising gas prices, however, negatively impacted sales volumes in our route
distribution area during September."
The decline prompted the unexpectedly high stale product returns,
but Mr. Pizzi predicted stales would

R E S U L T S

"normalize" in the fourth quarter.
Vincent A. Melchiorre, senior vicepresident and chief marketing officer,
said higher energy and material costs
will lead the company to raise the prices
of its Tastykake brand starting in January. The company also plans to increase
its discount to its independent sales distributors for the first time, he said.
Tasty Baking has expanded its market
area to include all of New York state and
parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut.
These new markets have great potential
for Tasty Baking, Mr. Pizzi said. MBN

Associated British Foods posts
higher sales, profits in '05
LONDON - Associated British Foods
P.L.C. posted increased sales and profits in the fiscal year ended Sept. 17 as
several of its key business segments
- including grocery and ingredient operations - turned in improved results.
U.S. yeast results were disappointing.
A.B.F. profit in fiscal 2005 was £487
million ($848 million), up 13% from
£432 million in fiscal 2004. Group

ress in the year. The combination of the
company's grain trading business with
those of Cargill, Inc. is expected to deliver enhanced performance through
the provision of a more comprehensive
range of products and services, he said.
The company's bakery businesses in
the U.K. and Australia both had difficult years, Mr. Weston said.
"However, in the U.K., the imminent
relaunch of our premium
brand, Kingsmill Gold,
Associated British Foods sales,
and significant improveoperating profit by business
ments to our supply chain
segment
give us confidence for the
future," he said. "In Aus(million £)
Fiscal
Fiscal Fiscal 2005 Fiscal 2004
tralia, our new bakery at
2005
2004
operating
operating
Chullora in Sydney is now
sales
sales
profit
profit
complete and contributing
Grocery
2,608
2,446
188
160
to a much lower cost base.
Primary food
This is a magnificent asset
and agriculture
1,541
1,672
187
189
that will benefit our comIngredients
603
294
72
36
Retail
1,006
858
140
108
pany for years to come."
A.B.F.'s existing ingreturnover was £5,622 million ($9,785 dients businesses underwent a year of
million), up 9% from £5,165 million in change and consolidation during 2005.
the year-ago period.
"S.P.I.'s food polyols business reGroup operating profit was £477 mil- turned to a more normal level of profitlion, a 13% increase from fiscal 2004.
ability after benefiting from spectacular
"To deliver a 14% growth in earn- growth last year, driven by the high
ings in such a competitive environment consumer demand for low-carbohyis very encouraging and reflects the drate products," Mr. Weston said. "Durcontribution from our acquisitions and ing the year, we integrated our existing
further progress in a number of our key bakery ingredients business with our
growth platforms, such as international newly acquired bakers' yeast business,
hot beverages, U.S. branded grocery AB Mauri, and we consolidated the
and Primark, which had an outstand- yeast extracts operation with the rest of
ing performance," said George Weston, our ingredients business. This reorganichief executive officer of A.B.F.
zation has been successful.
Mr. Weston said British Sugar faced
"Our bakers yeast business delivered
difficult market conditions throughout a poor performance in the large U.S.
2005 in both the U.K. and Poland as a market, which masked the very good
result of oversupply of sugar. From an progress made elsewhere. The proboperational perspective, though, the lems in the U.S. will not be cured overbusiness performed well.
night but we have already made good
Mr. Weston noted that A.B.F.'s U.K. progress and expect to be able to report
agriculture business made good prog- better results next year." MBN
bakingbusiness.com / world-grain.com

1900s Era Cookie
Recipe Big Hit in
St. Louis!

ad's Original Scotch Oatmeal
cookies, an old fashioned crisp
cookie, are still baked and sold in a
building that opened in St. Louis,
Missouri in 1912. The business, and its
1900s era oatmeal cookie recipe, has
been in Dad's President Ken Hastey's
family since 1938.
Dad's produces eight varieties of cookies,
but the oatmeal cookies account for 87percent of Dad's production. Every
baking shift starts off with at least 500
pounds of oatmeal. In addition to 300
wholesale accounts in the St. Louis area,
Dad's has a large corporate gift business
and mail order business that ships
nationally.
Customers can still buy cookies in bulk
from the old glass and wood cases at
Dad's. A St. Louis tradition, Dad's customers bring in their children to buy
cookies at the same bakery their grandparents knew. Ken Hastey knows what
creates that kind of loyalty: consistency
in the taste of Dad's oatmeal cookies.
"We still use the original 1900 era recipe
and keep our ingredients in line with
what was available back then," Ken
relates. "Shortenings change, the way of
processing oats changes, but the taste
must remain the same."
When Ken bought Dad's from his uncle
in 1988, he also received this advice:
"Never use anything but International®
B&V® Dry 16-to-1 for Dad's oatmeal
cookies. It's the best product to use
and don't ever change."
Let International ® Bakers Services
keep your classic products consistent.
Contact us toll-free at (800) 345-7175,
by fax at (574) 287-7161, or in writing at
1902 North Sheridan Ave., South Bend,
Indiana 46628. We have the flavors your
customers deserve.

Milling & Baking News, November 15, 2005 / 37

http://www.bakingbusiness.com http://www.world-grain.com

Milling & Baking News - November 15, 2005

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