Swedish confectionery supplier Candyking Holding has appointed a new CEO in an attempt to regain lost ground in the Nordic countries.
The current CEO, Fredrik von Oelreich, will be handing over the reins to Swedish entrepreneur Dani Evanoff with immediate effect.
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Evanoff, who founded the confectionery company Godisprinsen (Candy Prince), which was acquired by Candyking in 2008, was part of Candyking’s group management team for a number of years. He has since launched a number of new FMCG concepts outside Candyking.
“We have not had the development anticipated in the Nordics and we see a need for change in order to regain market share,” said Bernt Lindberg, chairman of Candyking’s board of directors.
In recent years Candyking has undertaken a restructuring operation in difficult market conditions, during which time the company said it has enjoyed “stable growth” in markets outside Sweden, and new product concepts have been developed, including the relaunch of Parrots natural snacks, the company noted.
In 2015, Candyking saw its losses widen after losing contracts in Sweden and Norway.
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By GlobalDataLosses hit SEK317.3m (US$37.3m), up from SEK67m a year earlier. Candyking reported an EBIT loss of SEK266m compared with a profit a year earlier of SEK53.9m.
Losses were attributed to non-recurring items such as the write down of goodwill and costs related to the write down of displays in Sweden and Norway following non-renewed contracts.
Excluding these one-offs, underlying EBIT fell to SEK39.8m from SEK69.3m.
Sales for the period fell on weaker volumes due to the lost customer contracts in Sweden and Finland. “Strong sales growth” in Denmark and Norway could only partially offset the impact.
Evanoff insisted: “We will again become our customers’ first choice for pick-and-mix candy as well as other confectionery and snacks products. We have the infrastructure, the brand and soon also the speed to challenge competition for both pick-and-mix and prepacked products. It will be my and my team’s main task to regain the confidence of the Nordic customers”.
Candyking was founded in 1984 and is the leading supplier of pick-and-mix in the Nordic region, the UK, Ireland and Poland. It has more than 8,000 outlets, and the company is also a leading pick-and-mix supplier of natural snacks in Sweden and Finland under the Parrot‘s brand.
