Catering and Eating Out
Pulmuone announced on the 16th that its first-quarter revenue for this year rose 12.2% compared to the same period last year to 730 billion won (US$545 million), driven by the expansion of its food service distribution business and the growth of its U.S. subsidiary. Operating profit also increased 101.2% year-on-year to 12.3 billion won (US$9.19 million).
Pulmuone announced its Q1 results on the 15th, revealing that the overall sales increase was led by a 43.2 billion won (US$32.3 million) rise in food service distribution sector sales. The operating profit saw a substantial increase due to the expansion of domestic institutional food services, concessions, rest areas, price increases in the U.S. subsidiary, and reduced logistics costs.
In terms of business sectors, the food manufacturing and distribution business sector saw a 37.5% sales increase in B2B due to improvements in catering facilities and expansion of new channels such as military supply. However, B2C saw a slight decrease in performance compared to last year due to the decrease in home meals following the endemic.
The food service distribution business sector turned to a surplus, with Q1 sales rising 32.0% year-on-year to 178.3 billion won (US$133.3 million) and operating profit increasing by 7.4 billion won to 1.4 billion won (US$1.0 million) due to the overall increase in the catering business with the end of remote work and the recovery of eating-out demand alongside an increase in rest areas and airport users.
Overseas operations, including in the United States, Japan, China, and Vietnam, achieved a 10% increase in Q1 sales compared to the previous year, reaching 147.1 billion won (US$109.9 million), mainly driven by the high sales growth of tofu and Asian noodles in the U.S. subsidiary.
Operating loss was recorded at 65.6 billion won (US$49.0 million), a decrease of 6.4 billion won (US$4.8 million) from the same period last year. It is projected that the loss will continue to improve through internal cost improvement activities, price increases, and stabilization of logistics costs this year.
Meanwhile, Pulmuone's U.S. subsidiary continues to show steady growth in tofu and Asian noodle sales, improving profits through price increases and expansion of local factories. In the Japanese market, it is expected that profits will improve through price increases in tofu and yuba sales along with the continuous growth of tofu bars. In China, they are expanding their product portfolio to include not only plant-oriented foods including tofu but also the frozen category, along with the recovery of pasta (refrigerated noodles) sales. Through this, the plan is to achieve overall sales growth and profit improvement in overseas business.