The UK arm of the group behind Flora Buttery has seen its gamble pay off after it made the iconic spread 100 per cent vegan, according to newly-filed documents.
Plant-based food specialist Upfield, which in 2018 purchased a host of Unilever brands including Flora, Stork margarine and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, has seen record UK sales as demand for vegan-friendly products rebounded from a slump in 2022.
The British arm of the company increased its turnover to £242m in 2023, up from just under £228m in the year before. As a result the group’s pre-tax profit soared to £18m during the 12 months from £10.5m in 2022.
The group hit headlines in October 2023 when it announced it would make all of its Flora Buttery products suitable for vegans, three years after it changed the original recipe to include buttermilk. Before that Flora had been plant-based due since it was created in 1965.
It announced the change with a campaign encouraging shoppers to “skip the cow” and said the recipe change was in line with its goal of making all of its products plant-based – although it did not clarify a timeline.
How did Flora Buttery’s Dutch owner perform?
In 2022 the Upfield parent company made sales worth €3.4bn, up 18.5 per cent on its 2021 figure, according to its most recent annual report.
This was driven by increases of 23 per cent in its Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa region, 20 per cent increase in its America’s region and 16 per cent in Europe.
The Flora owner said an additional 100m consumers had bought its products during the year and estimated its customer base to be around 305m people, up from 204m in 2022.
Group CEO David Haines said: “We continued to operate in a volatile environment in 2022.
“Against that backdrop, we have pursued our industrial transformation, including the opening of our Food Science Centre in Wageningen, the restructuring of the Nassaukade site, both in the Netherlands, the opening of our plant-based butters and cheese factory in Brantford, Canada, and the takeover of the Cali factory in Colombia.
“As well as enabling us to better serve our customers, this evolution of our products and processes over the last few years has delivered value creation of over €300m euros, driven by increased operational and cost efficiencies.
“Thanks to the power of our brands, recognised and trusted the world over, we managed to protect our business from high input inflation and in turn achieve broad-based top-line growth across all regions, channels and categories, with group net sales increasing by 18.5 per cent at constant currency for the year.”