Grupo Calvo has published its Annual Report 2016. Outlining key initiatives, milestones and figures derived from the Group’s activity over the course of last year and in the two preceding years, the report was prepared in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) international reporting framework.
According to Victoria Sánchez, Grupo Calvo’s director of Corporate Social Responsibility, “the report is the product of the Grupo Calvo commitment to information transparency, communication with the company’s stakeholders and best practices in responsible reporting. In line with Integrated Reporting guidelines, this report describes Group performance in recent years in the realm of responsible management, as well as the challenges that lie ahead of us”.
The report is available on the newly refreshed Group website at www.grupocalvo.com and outlines the principal lines of Strategic Plan 2020, by means of which the company seeks to consolidate its position as a global food group.
From an economic standpoint, the report underscores the Group’s growth in both sales and profits. The company continues to increase its capacity to generate recurrent income and enhance profitability. In 2016, the Group’s net turnover(1) saw growth of 4.7% and its EBITDA increased by 34% over 2015 to reach a total of 66.3 million euros. Since 2009, Grupo Calvo has quadrupled its EBITDA figure and lowered its debt-to-EBITDA ratio by 24%.
Grupo Calvo’s Chief Executive Officer, Mané Calvo, underscores the path of sustainable and profitable growth the Group has maintained for over a decade and the fact that this growth is taking place even in the most mature markets. “We continue to strengthen our presence in key markets, where we still have leeway to bring our products to a greater number of families. And we keep innovating in more mature markets where we are sector leaders or points of reference”.
From the social responsibility point of view, Annual Report 2016 highlights the growing number of organisations with which the Group collaborates with the aim of enhancing its activities and the sustainability of the business. In 2016, the Group joined the International Pole and Line Foundation (IPNLF), a non-profit entity dedicated to developing local pole and line fisheries, became a member of Forética, a leading organisation in Spain and Latin America devoted to furtherance of Corporate Social Responsibility and signed up to the United Nations Global Compact, thereby consolidating its commitment to responsible management, human rights and the environment.
With a view to strengthening its capacity to assess and monitor the responsible conduct of the company’s suppliers and collaborators throughout the supply chain, Grupo Calvo joined the Foreign Trade Association (FTA) and signed up to the Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI).
In Latin America, Grupo Calvo started working together with the Inter-American Development Bank on the Made in Americas initiative in order to offer new business opportunities to small and medium-sized enterprises operating in the region. And on a more local scale, the Group signed up to the Code of Good Commercial Practices for the Food Trade promoted by Spain’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment.
In its report, Grupo Calvo also describes the 3.5-million-euro investment that has made it possible to build and begin operating a new bio-product factory in Brazil dedicated to exploiting and valorising manufacturing-derived waste. This is one of the Group’s major commitments in the realm of production efficiency and sustainability. Also noteworthy along these lines is the industrial transformation project launched by the company with the aim of achieving operational excellence in all company plants in the coming years. With an investment of 25 million euros over the next four years, project implementation is already under way at the Carballo plant in Spain.
[1] Grupo Calvo currently presents its consolidated financial information in accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standards, whereby the net sales figure for 2016 totals 575.4 million euros, no longer including the accounting item of discounting attributed to sales support. If this accounting item line were to be included for purposes of presenting the historical evolution of sales for previous years, the turnover figure for 2016 stands at 871 million euros.
