SANTA PAULA, CA - Calavo’s first quarter results for 2015 are in, and the company is reporting a sharp incline from last year's numbers.

“Calavo began fiscal 2015 in strong form, posting substantial growth in revenues, gross margin and net income,” Lee E. Cole, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, said, according to a press release. “Indicative of the fundamental strength in our respective business units, operating income in the fiscal 2015 first quarter rose over 50 percent from last year’s first quarter before accounting for RFG contingent consideration—a very positive performance.”

Revenues in the most recent quarter increased by 15.8 percent, from $168.2 million in last year’s initial quarter to $194.8 million this quarter. Gross margin grew 30.5 percent to $17.8 million, equivalent to 9.1 percent of revenues, from $13.6 million or 8.1 percent of revenues in the corresponding 2014 fiscal quarter.

Other first quarter highlights include:

• Net income grew to $5.3 million versus a net loss of $1.8 million one year earlier, including Renaissance Food Group, LLC non-cash operating expenses of $5.4 million; excluding amount, fiscal 2014 net income totaled $4.0 million.
• Earnings per share equals 31 cents, which compares with a net loss of 11 cents in the first quarter of last year, including non-cash operating expense of 34 cents per share; excluding amount, fiscal 2014 EPS equaled 25 cents.
• CEO Cole reaffirmed forecast for record revenues and EPS in the fiscal year 2015.

“In Calavo’s Fresh business segment, we did an excellent job of sourcing and marketing Mexican-grown avocados, packing substantially more units in this year’s first quarter from one year earlier which contributed to the overall company gross margin gains,” Cole said. “The revenue trend line in the RFG business segment, as expected and previously announced, continued its steady upward advance in the most-recent period. And Calavo Foods produced and sold significantly more fresh-avocados, while doing an outstanding job of managing fruit and production costs.”

The positive numbers, though a good boost for the company, are not taking its eyes off of what is still left to be done.

“While the excellent first-quarter net income and per-share results are gratifying, increased selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expense in the RFG business segment constrained a Calavo bottom line that otherwise would have been even greater. The higher RFG costs for SG&A relate to investment in business-development and capacity-building initiatives which we expect to generate incremental revenue and profit contribution later this year,” Cole said, according to the report.

Overall, the numbers indicate a strong start to the company’s larger goals of breaking record revenues when the year is out.

Calavo