Premium Brands, the co-owner of Canada-based Clearwater Seafoods, posted increased sales and profit last year, and the company made "solid progress" on key metrics, according to its CEO.
In 2021, the company saw its revenue grow from the previous year by 21.2 percent to $4.9 billion (€4.9 billion).
Premium Brands posted a 37.8 percent increase in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation (EBITDA) in 2021 to $430.7 million (€430 million) "driven by both organic growth and acquisition initiative," said Premium CEO George Paleologou in a letter to shareholders.
The holding company includes dozens of food brands operating in both the foodservice and retail sectors.
In seafood its operations include Clearwater Seafoods, Hub City Fisheries, C2C Premium Seafood, Diana's Seafood, Frandon Seafood, Ready Seafood, Allseas, and Starboard.
One area where Premium brands sees room for growth is in its seafood category, "where per capita consumption is accelerating and there is tremendous white space for the development of value-added branded products," he said.
While the company increased its return on net assets (RONA) by 10 percent in 2021, that return was below the target of 15 percent set for the year, with seafood investments, in part, accounting for the dip.
Over the last two years Premium Brands said it has invested over $650 million (€649 million) into the seafood market segment.
"The downside is that we are in the early stages of our seafood business plan and as a result the return we are generating on recent investments is well below our 15 percent target," he said.
But, he said, the "lower rate was planned for and as we execute our various value-added and branded initiatives, leveraging our unique platform that combines harvesting, procurement, manufacturing, marketing and distribution, we expect to far exceed our 15 percent target over the long term."
The CEO added the company is focused on 10-year investment timeline and has not improved its results through easy solutions such as laying off "core groups of employees, cutting back on innovation, cheapening product formulations or pursuing non-core product opportunities."
"Over the years we have seen many food companies go down this path, both in good and bad times, with the common result being that it never ends well – we often see this mistake being made by private equity groups that are new to the food space," he said.
He added 2021 proved the most challenging in his 35-year career, citing ongoing impacts of the pandemic on foodservice, cruise line and airline sales channels, as well as inflation, labor shortages and supply chain disruptions also affecting Premium's bottom line.
"While we could easily boost our RONA through short-term focused strategies, we do the opposite and continue to invest in our people, supply chains and operations with a razor-sharp focus on maximizing long-term value creation."
