The Nordzucker Group, Braunschweig, closed the first three months of its financial year 2017/2018 with a profit of €41.5 million, which the company said is a significant improvement on the previous year. This improvement was mainly due to an increase in sugar revenues.

Revenues in the reporting period came to €418 million, an increase of around 5% on the same period a year ago (€398 million). This improvement was mainly due to a significant increase in income from quota and non-quota sugar, even though sales volumes for both were in decline. Revenues from bioethanol were down sharply compared with the previous period, wheras revenues from animal feed and molasses only fell slightly in the reporting period.

Higher revenues enabled Nordzucker to achieve net income for the period of €41.5 million in the first quarter. This represents a significant increase on the same period last year (€16.3 million).

The current financial year is one of transition, Nordzucker said. Competition and volatile market prices due to the influence of the world market on the European market will increase when the sugar market regime comes to an end on 1 October 2017. Despite these factors, Nordzucker says is expecting business to develop well and anticipates earnings that are at least on par with last year. Earnings are projected to fall significantly in the following financial year 2018/2019 due to developments in the world market that are already becoming apparent.