This growth was driven mainly by the group's vertically integrated natural and organic food operations. Revenues for the quarter ended June 2007 stood at $208 mn, compared to $155.7 mn in the second quarter of the previous year.
Operating income for the same quarter increased to $11,4 mn over $8.7mn for Q2 2006, driven by increases across the SunOpta Food Group.
"We are very pleased with our second quarter results, driven by solid internal growth of over 19 percent within our vertically integrated food operations," said SunOpta president and CEO Steve Bromley. "These earnings are consistent with our expectations for the second quarter and reflect our continued dedication to the growth of our business, both top line and bottom line."
SunOpta operates businesses spanning the sectors of the natural and organic food markets, as well as supplements and beauty markets.
It has three business units. The SunOpta Food Group sources, processes and distributes natural products. The Opta Minerals Group recycles environmentally friendly industrial materials and the SunOpta BioProcess Group engineers and markets proprietary steam explosion technology systems for the pulp, bio-fuel and food processing industries.
For Q2, SunOpta Food Group reported revenues of $189.3 mn compared to $137.3 mn over the same quarter 2006. Growth was attributed to a rebound in sales following a sunflower crop blip. As well, the company reported strong demand for its organic grain, packaged soy milk, food ingredients, and organic frozen fruit products,
In 2006, the company reported that the Food Group's sunflower division suffered losses due to poor genetic selection in its crop, combined with drought weather conditions. As a result the kernel of the sunflower was below size standard and created additional processing costs.
To alleviate the problem the company says it reverted to known genetics and substantially expanded its irrigated growing areas.
The group has been aggressively expanding its fruit supply chain, with the purchase of two fruit processors this year.
In May, SunOpta acquired Mexico-based Congeladora del Rio, which processes fruits including strawberries, peaches, mangos, bananas and melons into individually-quick frozen, block frozen and purees for the foodservice, industrial and retail markets.
This came on the heels of its purchase of fellow Mexican strawberry firm, Baja California Congelados. This addition capacity was said to be in response to increased customer demand.
Last year, SunOpta expanded its presence in superfruits and announced plans to quadruple its sales of the açai berry.
