STATEN ISLAND, New York, U.S. – Coffee Holding Co., Inc. (the “Company”) today announced its operating results for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2019. The Company had net loss of $94,598 or ($0.02) per share basic and diluted, for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2019 compared to a net income of $1,059,276, or $0.19 per share basic and diluted for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2018. The decrease was primarily attributable to the reasons described below.
Net sales totaled $86,467,432 for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2019, a decrease of $4,187,862, or 4.6%, from $90,655,294 for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2018. The decrease in net sales reflects the lower selling price of coffee during the year due to the continued depressed price of the green coffee market.
Cost of sales for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2019 was $70,708,100, or 81.8% of net sales, as compared to $75,040,802, or 82.8% of net sales, for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2018. Cost of sales consists primarily of the cost of green coffee and packaging materials and realized and unrealized gains or losses on hedging activity. The decrease in cost of sales was due to the Company’s decreased sales.
Gross profit for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2019 was $15,759,332, an increase of $144,840 from $15,614,492 for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2018. Gross profit as a percentage of net sales increased to 18.2% for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2019 from 17.2% for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2018. The increase in gross profits resulted from a reduction in coffee prices.
Total operating expenses increased by $2,005,474 to $15,218,803 for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2019 from $13,213,329 for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2018. Selling and administrative expenses increased $1,972,378, or 15.7%, to $14,504,707 for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2019 from $12,532,329 for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2018. The primary reasons for this increase was the reflection of a full year of Steep & Brew for fiscal year ended October 31, 2019 as compared to a half year for fiscal year ended October 31, 2018 which accounted for $1,836,803 and the increase in the Company’s freight costs as it increased and expanded its product distribution partially offset by the Company’s continued efforts to reduce overhead.
“Fiscal 2019 proved to be a very challenging year for our company as the combination of depressed coffee prices, tariffs on steel cans and increased transportation costs greatly affected our ability to expand margins and improve profitability. Although our cost of sales decreased by one point during fiscal 2019 compared to fiscal 2018, and our gross profit as a percentage of sales increased by one point during this same period, our operating expenses increased by over $2.0 million, or almost 16%, in fiscal 2019 as compared to fiscal 2018. This increase in our operating expenses heavily weighed on our profits. Therefore, we have decided to make several changes in our overall operations in order to reduce expenses going forward. We have reduced payroll and commission payments in our subsidiary companies, Sonofresco, Optco and Comfort Foods, in order to reduce overhead expenses. In addition, we have begun to streamline our operational procedures at our Steep & Brew, Madison, Wisconsin facility. We believe we can create both logistical and cost saving efficiencies by producing additional product at our Generations facility in Ohio which will allow us to lower both manufacturing and delivery costs, while at the same time eliminating some of the variable overhead expenses and redundancies currently in place at both facilities.
“Our profitability was also negatively impacted by onetime, nonrecurring expenses, which impacted our profits by approximately $0.56 million, or $0.10 cents per share. We also implemented an employee stock option plan during fiscal 2019 at a cost of approximately $0.47 million to the company, which does not include associated legal fees and valuations necessary in conjunction with the employee stock option plan. As mentioned, we were unable to offset these increased costs due to low commodity prices, as our sales decreased by 4.6%, from $90.6 million during fiscal 2018 to $86.5 million during fiscal 2019 despite an increase in our business in all three major areas: green coffee, private label and branded sales,” stated Andrew Gordon, Chief Executive Officer of Coffee Holding.
“During fiscal 2019, we launched our Café Caribe single cup offering and secured distribution for Café Caribe in many of our key markets. We recently began in-house testing of a new version of Café Caribe single cups containing CBD. Our initial results have been encouraging, as the CBD does not alter the flavor profile of the cup. However, we will not undergo a formal major rollout of this product until we are completely comfortable that the uncertain regulatory environment surrounding CBD has settled to a point where we can operate successfully. We are optimistic that clarity on the CBD market is near term, at which time we could potentially introduce CBD into a number of our proprietary brands and private label offerings. Also during fiscal 2019, we began our packaging redesign initiative on our Harmony Bay brand.
“We believe the redesign, with its fresh look, will lift sales and appeal to a younger consumer coffee drinking demographic. This redesign, in conjunction with the launch of additional new items under the Harmony Bay brand, is one of our key initiatives for building sales in our Massachusetts facility during the upcoming months,” stated Mr. Gordon.
“Also, within the next 45 days, we will begin production of an upscale gourmet bagged coffee line for the largest supermarket chain in the New York City Tri-State area, as well as four large pack foodservice whole bean coffees for a large national cash & carry brand. These initiatives are estimated to bring in approximately $3.0 million in revenues to our Comfort Foods facility. On the private label front, we recently extended our contractual relationships with three of our largest customers for a period of one to two years, under mutually acceptable and favorable terms for all parties. The timing of these extensions was extremely fortuitous, as coffee prices have recently risen over the last several months after a prolonged slump where they remained under $1.00 per pound,” continued Mr. Gordon.
“The coffee market has finally ended its two year hibernation in bear market territory. With our sales remaining strong with new and current customers, along with the potential to launch multiple CBD products under our eight proprietary brands, we remain highly optimistic that we can reverse the results of fiscal 2019 during the upcoming year,” concluded Mr. Gordon.
