Johannesburg – The Tiger brand provided strong results for the six months ended March 31, 2025.
This was achieved through a continuous focus on promoting consumer value, implementing key strategic priorities, and ongoing focus on logistics optimization, value engineering and continuous improvement initiatives in factory efficiency.
This result reflects the ability of management to accelerate growth in difficult operational environments, which occur despite a constrained consumer environment.
“Despite early signs of an economic recovery that provides much-needed relief, consumers are under pressure and continue to seek value in their food baskets,” said Tjaart Kruger, CEO of Tiger Brands.
“Our revised strategy and operating model, which puts consumers at the heart of everything we do, ensures that we consistently drive affordability across our portfolio.
“The macroeconomic environment is likely to remain challenging, but the results provided in the first half of the year show that there is real momentum in implementing the strategy.
“We will focus on driving efficiency and pursue a deliberate growth platform to further improve product affordability and ensure sustainable growth.”
Overall revenues outperformed 2% year-on-year at R18.5 billion, due to a price inflation rate of 2.1% and relatively flat volumes.
On a similar basis, excluding the impact of decommissioned sectors and products, the underlying volume increased 2.6% in the first half, with price inflation rate of 1.4%.
This volume growth was driven by Tiger Brands' culinary business unit, the intentional volume recovery initiative, and notable recovery in other categories: milling and baking, snacks, snacks and drinks.
Total margin continued on an upward trajectory, increasing on a comparable basis, rising from 28.5% in the previous year to 29.6%.
This increase was driven by increased bare margins due to price deflation in key product categories and savings in factory efficiency and valuable engineering in recipes and packaging.
The group's operating profit for the first half rose by 29.9% to R1.8 billion, due to top line growth, logistics optimization savings and other continuous improvement initiatives.
The sale of the baby welfare business created a non-operating profit of R455 million after tax, and the after-tax profit from the disposal of Carozzi SA, a semester Mpresa, in the first half, was R304 million.
The total revenue received for these transactions was R4.4 billion, with the remaining 0.6 billion being received in April 2025.
Revenue from associates fell 15% to R337 million, primarily as a result of the conclusion of the Empersa Scarrotzi SA disposal in February 2025.
In the first half of the year, major advances were made in portfolio optimization, and the momentum of non-core disposal continued.
“There was a careful consideration and detailed analysis of strategic and economic fits as we formed our future portfolio,” Kruger said.
Other considerations included competitive positioning, evolving consumers and macroeconomic landscapes, determining the categories in which Tiger Band brands have sustainable competitiveness and “right wing.”
These parts of the portfolio were no longer considered to be the core of the future competitiveness of the business, but were taken into consideration.
In May 2025, the Tiger brand concluded a business agreement to dispose of its Langeberg & Ashton Foods (LAF) business.
Related: Tiger Brand sells deciduous canned fruit business, Langieberg and Ashton Foods – Brush
Five years after the Tiger brand announced its intended exit, the sale was established by a newly established company (NewCo), founded by a capable and dedicated consortium of Ashton fruit producers cooperatives, and a development financial institution that supports job creation mandate, improving lives and transition to Net Zero.
As part of the sale, the Tiger brand is committed to R150 million to establishing a community trust that benefits the wider Langeberg community through its socioeconomic development initiative.
The Community Trust will ultimately hold beneficial profits equivalent to a 10% stake in NewCo, and the consortium will maintain a balance of fairness.
The success of this sale will ensure the sustainability of South Africa's defoliated fruit industry, which will improve the livelihoods of Langeberg and Ashton Foods employees and the wider communities in these areas.
Tiger Brands is also developing sales of Randfontein Maize Milling Operations.
With the evolution of the competitiveness of the local corn market and the increasing establishment of local flour millers, the corn category has been identified as no longer at the core of the Tiger brand's future.
The corn business is sold at wheat plants and is located on the same manufacturing site, which encourages simpler and faster transactions.
Disposing of wheat mills optimizes the footprint of Tiger branded wheat milling and provides improved conversion costs.
On May 12, 2025, Tiger Brand announced that, with the support and agreement of the company, QBE Insurance Group Limited, the leading reinsurer carrying out the main acts of listeriosis class action lawsuits, has allowed the insurance company's attorneys to provide a settlement to those who received a particular name who caused damages as a result of Lister6-STIT418 (aR16-STIT418) as a result of Lister6-STIT418 (aR16-STIT418) (ST6).
Related: Listeriosis Class Action Lawsuit: Tiger Brand makes payment offer, no details revealed – Brush
The offer of settlement made on April 25, 2025 against the plaintiff's lawyer represents an important step towards resolving the listeriosis case.
The involvement of a statutory representative of the parties continues to ensure the prompt or agreed upon offer of compensatory damages and timely implementation of settlements.
The Tiger brand and its insurance companies are still committed to finding a fair resolution to a listeriosis class action lawsuit as soon as possible.
As mentioned before, the Tiger brand has product liability insurance coverage suitable for groups of that size.
The company has declared a provisional dividend of 415 cents per share for the six months ended March 31, 2025, as well as a special dividend of 116.00,000 cents per share for the same period.
