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Godiva CEO: 'We adopted an omnichannel strategy'

Godiva CEO Nurtac Afridi joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the chocolate maker's revenue growth amid the pandemic, adapting to resource scarcity, and the company's new multi-channel strategy to keep up with increasing consumer demands.

Video transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

BRIAN SOZZI: 'Tis the season to eat a lot of chocolate. Who better to chat about all things chocolate than Godiva CEO Nurtac Afridi, who took over as the CEO of the 95-year-old chocolate company about one year ago today? Good morning, Nurtac. Nice to see you here. How would you grade the holiday season so far for Godiva?

NURTAC AFRIDI: Good morning, Brian. Holiday season is going very well. As you know, people love eating chocolate, but especially during the holiday season. In the US, 30% of the chocolate consumption happens during this three months. And it's-- it's doing very well for Godiva. And this year, during the first four weeks of the holiday season, we have achieved almost 57% growth. And I believe with our new strategy, we are opening more consumers' eyes to the wonder of Godiva.

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JULIE HYMAN: And Nurtac, it's Julie here. I also want to ask where you guys are doing most of your selling these days. Is it direct to consumer? Is it through various outlets? How is the distribution working?

NURTAC AFRIDI: Julie, our products are loved by everyone. And it's globally. We are operating in more than 100 countries. And as we have seen so much admiration for our chocolates, we ask the question, why should we make-- why shouldn't we make our chocolates available and accessible to more consumers? With that, we adopted an omnichannel strategy. And we took our chocolates to online, to grocery stores, to department stores, to club stores, to licensing partners, to B2B customers. Now it's anywhere, everywhere when our consumers crave for chocolate.

BRIAN SOZZI: We were looking at some prices on just some commodities this morning, Nurtac. And cocoa prices have climbed. Have you had to raise prices just given what you're seeing in the supply chains?

NURTAC AFRIDI: We have seen challenges in the supply chain after the pandemic, during the pandemic as well. Now different countries have different phases of coming, exiting from the pandemic. And another wave is happening globally. And with all this shuffle in the supply chain, we have seen some challenges, including freight charges, storage charges. Having said that, we have seen that trend coming, and we have taken our precautions earlier this year. And we are prepared for the holiday season especially.

While the price increases are happening globally, at the same time, we are looking into our home and making sure that our productivity efficiency levels are improving continuously so that we protect our consumers from this global commodity price increases. Having said that, this is a trend that is happening in all industries globally.

BRIAN SOZZI: Every article-- go ahead, Julie.

JULIE HYMAN: Oh, sorry. Have you guys been changing how and where you've been sourcing your raw materials, your cocoa and sugar and other items?

NURTAC AFRIDI: The biggest raw material for chocolate is cocoa. Cocoa beans are coming from West Africa. We are sourcing our cocoa beans from Ivory Coast. And of course, we will continue to do so. We are very careful about using the highest-quality ingredients because Godiva is synonymous with premium chocolate, and our premium is related to our quality.

We will never sacrifice from the quality ingredients, whether it's the cocoa beans nor the hazelnut, the other ingredients we use, including the packaging. We make sure that we keep the same quality standards regardless of the increase of prices. We would like to maintain our quality, which is guarded by our quality chefs, by our quality department. That's part of our brand's promise.

BRIAN SOZZI: Nurtac, we've seen a lot of your competitors recently diversify their businesses, focus a little more on the salty category, get more into snacks. Is that something you're looking at next year?

NURTAC AFRIDI: Yes, it's a consumer trend, Brian. Exactly. We have had, for many years, chocolate pretzels. And we will continue having that. It used to be sold in different locations for gifting occasions. Now we are taking it to the consumer in a more accessible, available way, taking it also to the young customers as a CPG product. So the pretzels, chocolate-covered pretzels, Godiva covered pretzels are offered to other customers and consumers.

In addition to that, we also have chocolate clusters with different nuts, salty and sweet combinations. Yes, in summary, we are expanding our product portfolio beyond truffles, beyond chocolate. We also have biscuit products now to be launched very soon in a [INAUDIBLE]. Having said that, this is not going to be the end of our innovation. We will continue to try to bring more products to our consumers to expand the wonder of Godiva.

JULIE HYMAN: I'm getting hungry. That's all I know. Thank you so much, Nurtac Afridi, the CEO of Godiva. Appreciate it. And happy holidays to you.