Meal-kit delivery business My Food Bag is reporting strong full year preliminary results, with ample demand as people stayed home.
Photo: Facebook / My Food Bag
In preliminary results announced on Friday the company said underlying profit for the year ended 31 March were up nearly 18 percent to $34.2 million from a year ago, and revenue had risen 1.7 percent to just under $194m.
Chief executive Kevin Bowler said dining from home remained popular in the Covid-19 era.
"We expected some weakness on the prior year given how strong demand had lifted during the first round of Covid lockdowns, but we actually managed to retain a lot of those customers," he said.
Bowler said there was "no doubt" that more people were eating at home because of Covid-19.
"That's really assisted us, I think people are rediscovering a little bit of home cooking and home baking.
"And I think that has also meant that people working from home have a little bit more time to cook," he said.
However, My Food Bag said the last three months of the financial year was challenging due to the Omicron outbreak.
"What it meant was a lot of our suppliers were also struggling to supply us ingredients on time and we were also struggling to have enough staff to pack the boxes," Bowler said.
Inflationary pressure was another challenge the company faced.
"We've been able to recover some of those cost input movements in price increases in the back half of 2021," Bowler said.
He said passing on the cost increases to customers was "always a last resort" but it was something it would continue to consider.
"Mind you, there are always opportunities to look at right through your cost lines and continue to improve the quality of the business so that you can protect the customers from some of these movements in price."
My Food Bag did not provide any guidance for the first half of its 2023 financial year.
