The company behind the Jelly Bean Factory brand saw pretax profits rise to €4.6 million last year.
The increased profits came despite a 7 per cent drop in revenue in a market hit by inflation with the company warning that customers now have “less disposable income to spend”.
The brand’s products are produced at a plant in the IDA business park in Blanchardstown, Co. Dublin, and is part of the Cloetta confectionery business, based in Sweden.
The Stockholm-listed confectionery group is one of the largest sweets businesses in Europe with annual revenue of 8,613 million Swedish Krona (€784 million). It produces Candy King pick’n’mix, Chewits and Jelly Bean Factory sweets for core markets across the Nordics, central Europe and the UK.
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The business in Ireland, formerly known as Aran Candy, was acquired in 2014 for 140 million Swedish Krona. The Jelly Bean Factory branding was continued, but the Irish business was renamed to fall in line with the wider group.
The Irish subsidiary saw an outlier year of profitability, which fell during the “highest ever” year of profits for the wider group.
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The producer’s increased profitability comes amid lower costs of production which fell from €14.1 million in 2023 to just €11 million in 2024. While this coincided with a drop in revenue, from €19.2 million to €17.8 million, the drop in costs outweighed decreased turnover. Exports accounted for more than 90 per cent of the company’s sales.
The company also recorded a sharp 119 per cent increase in its finance income, rising from €613,000 to €1.35 million, as the company made considerable exchange rate gains and brought in strong interest income. It paid an €18 million dividend to its parent company during the year.
The wider sweets group has more than 2,600 employees across 11 countries but sells to more than 60 different markets.
Its Irish business employs 65 people, down slightly from 70 the previous year. It had total staff costs – a combination of wages, pension and social contributions – of €2.96 million in 2024, relatively unchanged from 2023. The company’s directors were paid €105,000, up from €95,000.
The confectionery market is exposed to inflationary pressures through the raw materials needed to produce sweets, the company said in a note attached to its accounts.
It noted that 2024 was a year “marked by inflation” which forced the company to raise its prices to adjust for “higher input, raw material and transportations costs”.
Cloetta Ireland’s directors further noted that a “robust” pricing strategy which would allow the company to recover inflationary costs from its customers “is a basic staple and critical component” in offsetting the impact of rising costs.
The company further noted that “some re-engineering for value is inevitable” as it seeks to “continue to represent good value for money to a consumer with perhaps now less disposable income to spend.”
