High prices for packaging and top-class fruit shrink earnings

 

Austria's leading preserve manufacturer, A. Darbo AG met its high sales target for 2008: Annual sales increased by + 7.2 percent to 99.7 million euro. "We easily exceeded the target figure and fell just short of the 100 million euro mark," said Klaus Darbo, board chairman of the Tyrolean family company.

 

Klaus Darbo is sure the company can break the "sales barrier" this year. "So far we have seen little to nothing at all of the economic crisis. Consumers are simply not prepared to go without those little everyday pleasures, such as good jams and honey. Because of its traditionally high share of the domestic market, sales of Darbo products grew only very slightly, the company still achieved a sales increase of 5 per cent in 2008. Business in most of the company's 62 export markets was even better.

 

Regrettably, however, Darbo concedes that earnings fell because of the exorbitant increase in prices for top-class fruit and packaging (glass and plastics).  "In our company more than 50 percent of our expenditure goes on high-quality fruit," says Darbo. The company chairman has big plans for 2009. "We want to increase our sales by 6 percent."