By Stephen Nakrosis
Rogers Sugar Inc. on Wednesday said it had higher industrial, liquid and exports sales volumes in the third quarter, but also saw lower retail consumer volume.
John Holliday, the president and chief executive of Rogers and Lantic Inc., said, “We were able to mitigate the unfavorable impact of lower consumer retail volume attributable mainly to the timing in demand volatility as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, with higher market-driven industrial, liquid and exports sales volumes.”
He also said, “Over the next quarters, we anticipate a return to a more traditional volume mix and expect our overall performance to align with prior-year levels.”
Sugar
The company reported sales volume of 190,563 metric tons of sugar in the third quarter, up from 172,054 metric tons in the year-ago period.
The company said the volume increase was due to “higher industrial and liquid volumes from higher market driven demand,” and was “partially offset by a reduction in consumer volume.”
“The reduction in consumer volume was due to higher volume purchased in 2020 related to the pantry-loading experienced in the early stage of the Covid-19 pandemic and timing of purchases from retailers who have high inventory of packed sugar,” the company said.
Rogers also said export volume in the quarter increased “due to higher beet sugar sales to the United States and Mexico,” and added, “the increase was largely due to high demand, combined with improved availability of sugar from our Taber facility to fill those orders.”
Maple
The company said it had total sales volume of 11,471 metric tons of maple syrup in the third quarter, below the 14,313 metric tons reported in the year-ago period.
The reduction in orders from retail customers “was mainly attributable to higher volume purchased in 2020 related to the pantry-loading experienced in the early stage of the Covid-19 pandemic and timing of purchases from large retailers who have high inventory of maple syrup due to the volatility of the demand experienced throughout the pandemic.”
The company also said, “we expect demand for maple syrup to increase steadily over the next few quarters as the market stabilizes.”
-Write to Stephen Nakrosis at stephen.nakrosis@wsj.com
