Faster growth in emerging chocolate markets has in a boost in revenues for Swiss chocolate giant Barry Callebaut in the first nine months of its fiscal year.

For the period ended 31 May, sales in local currencies increased 11.7% to CHF 3.92 billion (A$438.2 billion).

Sales volumes for the period came in at 975,044 tonnes, up 8.9% on the prior year.

Key volume growth drivers were “above-average” growth rates in emerging markets, the ongoing implementation of outsourcing contracts and market share gains, Barry Callebaut said.

All regions contributed to the overall strong volume growth, but the most significant growth came from Asia-Pacific, where volumes rose 20.9% and in the Americas, where volumes were up 16.8%.

Juergen Steinemann, CEO of Barry Callebaut, said the company was “very proud” of its significant sales volume growth in the first nine months of the year.

“In the third quarter we managed to further accelerate our pace of growth. We have benefited from our targeted expansion to emerging chocolate markets, such as Eastern Europe, China, Mexico and Brazil, where we inaugurated our first chocolate factory in South America in May 2010,” Steinemann said.

“Starting from our solid foundation in Western Europe and North America, we are now in an even better position to tap the growth potential of the most dynamic chocolate markets in the world,” he added.

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