CO-RO Group 2024 Annual Report & Responsibility Report

In 2024, our fantastic +1,100 employees helped us deliver solid growth in both revenue and profit. We had a particularly good year in Asia and Africa, which, in line with our “Balanced Growth” strategy, helped improve our geographical footprint. We made our highest-ever investments of 280 million DKK as we continued to build our new “One Plant” compound factory in Denmark, expanded our operations in East Africa and went live with our new Sunquick business in Bangladesh.

Our Result
We achieved the highest revenue in the past five years, reaching 1,956 million DKK which is close to matching our all-time record of 1,971 million DKK in 2019 – the year before the massive tax on sweetened beverages was introduced in Saudi and GCC. We grew sales by 6.5% (in comparable currencies) mainly due to strong growth in Asia and Africa, whereas our biggest market, Saudi Arabia, had a challenging year. Although external operating conditions normalized somewhat in 2024, we were challenged by a massive increase in orange juice concentrate prices – one of our largest raw material ingredients.

Through our strong efficiency and value management agenda, we managed to offset the cost increases, which, combined with robust sales growth, ensured satisfactory growth in Adjusted EBIT of 26%. We secured a positive return on our financial investment activities which helped deliver a strong profit for the year of 86 million DKK – more than four times higher than last year. While we are still far from achieving our long-term profit ambition, 2024 was another comeback year after “the Perfect Storm”.

Our Brands
Sunquick had a great year in 2024 with high growth in core markets like Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Iraq, along with the exciting new launch of Sunquick ready-to-drink in Bangladesh. We faced market challenges in other core markets like China and Saudi Arabia, but with new innovations we managed to deliver revenue in line with last year on Sunquick in these markets as well.

Suntop and Suncola had a mixed year with good growth in Africa, but marginal decline in some Middle Eastern markets like Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Jordan, where we had to implement price increases to off-set the high raw material inflation. We received great responses to our new innovations, such as the Suntop Pink Lemonade launch in Egypt and the new “Cool is my game” platform for Suncola.

Sun Lolly had a good year with strong growth in both Europe and Asia. We started local production of Sun Lolly in Saudi Arabia for the Middle East and Africa region, launched Sun Lolly in seven new markets, and successfully introduced two limited edition flavors in Europe.

For more information, view the full Annual Report and Responsibility Report here:

2024 Annual Report

2024 Responsibility Report