Bauli Group closes the 2021/22 fiscal year with growing turnover and publishes its first Sustainability Report

Despite the complex economic context, which has affected the company’s profitability levels, the Group reports positive results and confirms its commitment to responsible and sustainable business

Verona, 17 November 2022 – The Bauli Group closes the fiscal year to 30 June 2022 with consolidated revenues of 550 million euros, up 14.3% compared to the 2020/2021 financial year.

The financial year was characterised by a particularly challenging economic environment due to the pandemic, inflation, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and the explosion of energy prices as well as raw materials prices worldwide.

Turnover increased as a result of the recovery of Christmas volumes, which recovered from the previous year’s volumes marked by Covid, the increase in unit prices from January 2022, and the good performance of the foreign subsidiaries, particularly India, which also confirmed significant growth rates this year. The Group also managed to restore volumes of festive products to pre-pandemic levels (for both Christmas and Easter) and consolidate volumes of daily consumption products.

In spite of particularly complex market conditions, the Bauli Group reacted decisively, through a combined action of containing costs and increasing the prices of some products, such as Easter doves and the main continuous products. However, this action has only partially covered the ever-growing increases in the cost of raw materials, with a consequent reduction in the Group’s net operating result, which stood at about 8 million (down by 10 million).

Il Gruppo si è confermato leader di mercato nelle ricorrenze, dove detiene ben oltre un terzo del mercato a Natale e a Pasqua, continuando inoltre a investire nella diversificazione e innovazione delle proprie linee di business sia per le ricorrenze, sia per i prodotti a uso quotidiano. Nel corso dell’esercizio il Gruppo ha inoltre finalizzato l’acquisizione dell’80% della società Dacasto Gran Pasticceria, produttrice artigianale di lievitati da ricorrenza e biscotti, con sede nel cuneese, in Piemonte.  Insieme a Dacasto l’azienda ha avviato il progetto TUOBauli, per offrire ai consumatori panettoni artigianali su misura.

The Group confirmed its position as market leader in festive products, where it holds well over a third of the market at Christmas and Easter, while continuing to invest in the diversification and innovation of its business lines for both festive and everyday products. During the year, the Group also finalised the acquisition of 80% of the company Dacasto Gran Pasticceria, an artisan producer of recurrence leavened goods and biscuits, based in Cuneo, Piedmont.  Together with Dacasto, the company launched the TUOBauli project, to offer consumers tailor-made artisan panettone cakes.

In the fiscal year, the Group’s capital employed amounted to 252.2 million euros, an increase of 23.3 million compared to the previous year, and is covered by shareholders’ equity of 154 million (up by almost 7 million) and a net financial position of almost 100 million (up by 16.5 million compared to the previous year).

This increase is the result of both the acquisition of Dacasto and the 35 million in industrial investments made during the year, at the end of a multi-year programme aimed in particular at industrial efficiency, ensuring the highest quality of products and workplace safety.

“As for many companies in our productive economic system, the financial year that has just ended marks an absolutely anomalous year. 2022, a historic year in which we celebrated the centenary of our foundation, brought a series of extraordinary difficulties, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, which reminded the markets of how interconnected the dynamics of supply and demand for raw materials are worldwide,” said Michele Bauli, Chairman of the Bauli Group, adding: “Despite the objectively complex context, the solidity and strategy of our Group allow us to go through difficult periods while recording positive and reassuring results. The extreme volatility of the market has made some actions necessary, such as increasing the price of some of our products, to protect the sustainability of the business. However, we believe that this will not affect Christmas sales volumes, which we expect to be substantially stable compared to last year. We are convinced that at Christmas a pandoro or a panettone can never be missing from the table. In this sense, our commitment to consumers, including those who choose us every day with our continuous products, is to focus uncompromisingly on quality. Precisely for this purpose, we invested 35 million euros during the financial year and we will continue to do so in order to continue the tradition of our Group, a Group that has been able to create unique moments of goodness for 100 years”.

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SUSTAINABILITY REPORT

In addition to the Annual Report for the 2021/22 financial year, the Bauli Group has also published, for the first time, the Sustainability Report.

In the document, the Group recounts its values and its commitment to protecting the environment, controlling the supply chain, improving product quality, and caring for the people and the territory in which it operates.

The document is available on the Bauli Group website: https://www.bauligroup.com/en/sustainability-report-2021-2022/.

Products

The company has continued to expand its product portfolio, designing new ranges to offer the market dozens of new references each year. Many of these focus on wellbeing and health thanks to simple, natural ingredients without flavourings, preservatives or colouring agents and made through a quality supply chain that is constantly monitored with analyses and traceability checks in line with the most up-to-date industry standards.

The Code of Ethics

The company has committed itself to renewing the Code of Ethics, intensifying its listening and dialogue with the stakeholders that revolve around the Group and involving over 300 employees, customers and representatives from the media and research institutes, in order to update the materiality matrix and come ever closer to CSR objectives.

Employees

The Group has implemented several initiatives aimed at improving the well-being of employees, also with a view to enabling the right balance between work and personal life. The new Smart Flexibility Policy was created with this in mind, alongside a constant increase in corporate welfare services, as well as training and development programmes.

The community

Among the various initiatives to support the community, of particular importance is the support provided to the ‘Fondazione Biblioteca Capitolare di Verona’, the oldest library in the world still in operation, a precious place in the heart of Bauli’s hometown. Through the establishment of the ‘Fondazione Biblioteca Capitolare’, the Group contributes to the preservation and enhancement of the treasure it houses.

L’ambiente

L‘impegno per la riduzione degli impatti ambientali ha permesso al Gruppo Bauli di raggiungere risultati importanti, diminuendo le emissioni climalteranti di oltre 1.000 tonnellate di CO2 negli ultimi due anni, grazie a continui investimenti in efficientamento energetico e all’utilizzo di fonti rinnovabili, che oggi rappresentano l’83% dei consumi totali di energia elettrica.

The Environment

The commitment to reducing environmental impact has enabled the Bauli Group to achieve important results, reducing climate-changing emissions by over 1,000 tons of CO2 in the last two years, thanks to continuous investments in energy efficiency and the use of renewable sources, which now account for 83% of total energy consumption.

• Energy consumption

The company has pioneered the adoption of energy-saving solutions such as cogeneration and trigeneration. In addition, the Group constantly monitors parameters related to energy consumption and efficiency through an Energy Committee, made up of the directors of the main production sites and plant technical directors, which has the task of analysing the data collected from the sites and drawing up proposals for improvement through specific investments.

• Packaging

The company has invested in reducing the impact of packaging, optimising the packaging used and choosing recyclable and raw materials from sustainable sources.

Recently, the size of Bauli Croissant packaging has been significantly reduced, an innovation that has allowed a reduction of over 50 tonnes of plastic and 200 tonnes of paper per year, avoiding the circulation of 1,400 vehicles for transport each year, with a reduction of 400 thousand kilometres travelled, equivalent to 386 tonnes of CO2.

For many of the Group’s products, the packaging has been renewed so as to obtain mono-material packaging, in paper or plastic, which, in line with circular economy approaches, allows total recyclability, avoiding undifferentiated disposal. In this direction, and for the first time on the market, on the occasion of Easter 2022 the company proposed the iconic Bauli doves in an entirely sustainable pack, including the handle that replaces the classic fabric lanyard and the ramekin to contain the dove. Thanks to this initiative, the Group has made more than 100,000 kg of ramekins compostable.

Bauli uses recycled paper for 97% of its total paper or cardboard packaging, while for the remaining 3%, subject to regulatory requirements requiring the use of virgin paper, it is studying innovative ways of replacing it.

• Water

The company has equipped itself with a water recovery system, which – together with several actions to combat leaks and raise staff awareness – has resulted in a reduction in water withdrawals compared to last year.

• Waste

Bauli is particularly careful to the correct management of waste thanks to efficient recycling and disposal policies: each factory is equipped with an ecological island, all the workshops in the factories are equipped with bins dedicated to the collection of waste with a disposal code, most of the packaging is recyclable, and separate waste collection has been implemented in the offices for some time. Finally, in a circular economy logic, food waste is distributed and used by the feed industry. The company has also started an activity to eliminate single-use plastic and to reduce waste within its premises.

• Logistics and transport

The Bauli Group is committed to pursuing the optimisation of distances travelled and vehicle saturation through state-of-the-art computerised transport rationalisation tools.

During the last financial year, the empty kilometres avoided thanks to the management of incoming flows amounted to over 54 thousand and about 700 tonnes of carbon dioxide were saved. The company constantly monitors outbound logistics through state-of-the-art software aimed at measuring the climate impact of all vehicles and evaluating alternative and more sustainable transport solutions, such as intermodal transport by rail or sea, which is constantly growing. In its supplier selection process, the company gives preference to those with Euro 6 or LNG-powered vehicles.