Laumont, a Spanish company specialized in the sale and distribution of truffles and mushrooms, has closed its latest fiscal year with a 15% reduction in its turnover compared to the previous one, with a total of about 21 million Euro. The company is blaming this drop on the impact of the pandemic, which they have described as “devastating.”
The company’s results have put an end to the positive trend achieved in recent years. Nevertheless, Laumont remains optimistic, as “a quick improvement was achieved after the slump that the sector suffered from March 2020 onwards.”
The first lockdown forced the company to stop its activity almost completely, since all the fresh products that were being sold were no longer in demand. After a few weeks of uncertainty, and noting the impact that the drop in the demand from the catering sector was having, Laumont gradually restarted up again, considering different expansion strategies in order to recover the lost ground.
On the one hand, after several years of work, the introduction into the retail channel became a reality. This entailed entering the country’s main supermarkets, and even some large supermarkets in European countries such as Germany.
At the same time, the opening of an online sales channel for private consumers (www.laumont.shop) and another for businesses such as restaurants, stores and distributors (www.laumont.es) was also promoted. This channel has also allowed the internationalization of online sales, with sales websites in France, the UK and Italy.
These initiatives, together with the usual export and sales activity in the main national wholesale markets (Mercabarna, Mercamadrid and Mercabilbao), have contributed to the optimization of its own resources and processes. The firm has made a great investment in state-of-the-art machinery to improve control and food safety in the mushroom sorting facility that the company has in Valladolid.
Its manager, Joan Casals, believes that the truffle sector will grow over the next few years. “There are increasingly more plantations and we must be aware that Spain is the world’s main producer of black truffles. The growth of the black truffle supply in the coming years will be positive, since prices will become more affordable and the number of regular consumers of this product, which is so exclusive today, will increase.”
Laumont said that since the beginning of 2021, optimism has returned to the national and international markets, and it predicts that sales will go back to normal levels in the autumn campaign.
Source: revistainforetail.com