Profit of manufacturing company Caribbean Flavours & Fragrances Limited (CFF) climbed to a six-year high for the financial year ended December 31, 2023, on revenues which also swelled to record numbers.

The company, which spent the past few years deepening its business in the Caribbean region, made $132 million in profit for FY 2023 while revenues climbed to $900 million. The closest CFF came to that performance was in 2018 when it made $115.8 million in profit and $674.2 million in revenues.

Then in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, CFF reserved 20 per cent of its manufacturing capabilities to the production of hand sanitisers in a bid to fulfil rising demand for the product.

CFF has long been in the business of supplying fragrances for foods, household cleaning, cosmetics, deodorants, soaps, haircare, and bath products. However, last year, it added a new product targeted at the baked-goods market across the region.

“This improvement was driven by the continuous refinement of our sales approach strategy, which had a direct focus on closing new business deals, availing new products to our various partners and the deepening of our sales strategies in the various markets that we serve,” chairman of the company Howard Mitchell said.

Regionally, Caribbean Flavours also sells its products in St Kitts-Nevis, Grenada, Suriname, Canada, and the Dominican Republic and is working to secure market share in Guyana and Cuba.

Overall, sales of the company were up 16.65 per cent over 2022, while profit climbed 120 per cent year on year. The company has been vocal in its plans to triple its earnings outside of Jamaica to 30 per cent. Business from the Caribbean region now accounts for less than 20 per cent of revenues.

CFF managed to report a solid performance despite challenges the company said it had with inventory. To maintain good stock, CFF said it became more aggressive in its purchase orders to ensure adequate stock of raw materials amid global supply chain shortages and logistics challenges.

“However, this strategy in some instances negatively impacted the company financially as the diversification of suppliers and high carrying amounts of inventory resulted in some levels of stock losses due to expirations and a reduction in demand from our customers,” the company said.

CFF is one of several local manufacturing companies that were faced with destocking challenges last year as they struggled to offload excess inventory that stemmed from shortages in 2021 and logistics challenges in 2022.

As at December 31, 2023, CFF was carrying $217 million in inventory, up from $179 million in the prior year.