CJ Freshway said in a filing that operating profit on a consolidation basis for the first quarter of this year was 11 billion won on a provisional basis. That was up 3.8% from a year earlier.
According to the Financial Supervisory Service's DART system on the 8th, CJ Freshway's first-quarter revenue on a consolidation basis was 833.9 billion won, up 4.4% from a year earlier. Net income for the period was 3.1 billion won. It rose 95.9% from a year earlier.
Despite an uncertain event schedule and weak domestic demand, food material distribution and food service both grew, driving results, CJ Freshway said. Revenue from the food material distribution business (restaurant ingredients and food raw materials) was 399.9 billion won. Online channel revenue rose 17% from a year earlier. This appears to be the result of not only expanding the product lineup but also advancing logistics services to strengthen online distribution competitiveness.
During the same period, revenue from the food service business (food service ingredients and food service) came to 427.4 billion won. This was the result of the Kitchen-less strategy. Kitchen-less is a model that provides meal services without location constraints, and revenue from flagship services such as "Fresh Meal On" increased 41% from a year earlier, improving margins.
The food service sector also increased large concession channel revenue by 43% from a year earlier through operations such as the Incheon Airport food court. Revenue from food service ingredients centered on kids and school meal channels also expanded.
In particular, in March this year CJ Freshway acquired additional equity in Marketboro, which operates the B2B (business-to-business) food material open-market platform "Sikbom," becoming the largest shareholder with a total 55% stake. Building on this, CJ Freshway plans to accelerate the transition to a platform-based distribution structure and expand its online business.
Lim Sung-cheol, chief financial officer (CFO) of CJ Freshway, said, "Even amid seasonal off-peak conditions and an uncertain external environment, we confirmed balanced growth in the two pillars of distribution and food service and the performance of new growth models centered on online and Kitchen-less," adding, "We will increase execution speed and establish a profitability-centered growth structure going forward."