Black Hawk, Vitapet revenue jumps to help Ebos to record revenue

16th February 2022 By Staff Reporter | news@foodticker.co.nz | @foodtickernz

Strong sales of its premium pet food brands has boosted revenue at Ebos Group’s animal care division to A$274m for the six months to December 2021, up 12.4% on the previous corresponding period.

Black Hawk sales revenue jumped almost 20%, says owner Ebos.

Earnings before interest and tax jumped 14.9% at the Australasian company’s Animal Care business to A$35.5m.

“The Animal Care segment continues to benefit from the strength of our trusted brands and leading market positions, combined with the strong tailwinds of the Australian and New Zealand pet care markets,” said the company today.

“Our key brands, Black Hawk and Vitapet, both recorded strong increases in revenue, up 19.6% and 9.8% respectively.

“Black Hawk continues to increase its market share in New Zealand and Vitapet maintained its leading market position in both Australia and New Zealand, benefiting from continued marketing investment.”

Ebos said the commissioning of its new A$80m ‘state of the art’ pet food manufacturing facility at Parkes, New South Wales had commenced and was scheduled for completion by the end of FY22.

“The new facility will facilitate insource manufacturing of Black Hawk as well as accelerate new product development opportunities,” the company said, with the full commercial benefits of its investment in the factory expected in FY24.

The NZX- and ASX-listed firm said net profit after tax jumped 15.3% to A$109.3m on revenue up 12.8% to A$5.25bn.

Ebos chief executive John Cullity said he was pleased “to report another record result for Ebos on the back of particularly strong revenue growth across our key Healthcare and Animal Care segments”.

“Both segments continued their strong growth trajectory, reinforcing the value of our diverse portfolio of businesses and the successful execution of our strategy of pursuing both organic and inorganic growth.”

The company declared an interim dividend of NZ47 cents per share, up 10.6% on the same period in the previous year.