May 15 - Food and beverage company RFM Corporation disclosed yesterday its first quarter results, where it posted net income of P67.3 million, or an increase of 7.6% over the P62.6 million achieved for the same period last year.
RFM Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Robbie Azcarate said that "sales volume growth, coupled with calibrated price increases across the various food and beverage categories to cover cost increases, enabled the company to improve its gross margins."
"Also the implementation of better plant efficiencies and cost management served to temper the adverse consequence of rising costs of domestic raw materials, freight and handling, utilities, and wages", Azcarate said.
He said that RFM was able to contain operating expenses like selling and marketing expenses, which helped in sustaining net income performance.
While food and beverage revenues grew year-on-year, the consolidated revenues of P1.6 billion in the first quarter was 6% lower than the P1.7 billion for the same period last year due to the slowdown in other businesses.
RFM recently disclosed its full year audited income performance of P234 million in 2007, or a growth of 16% over the previous year's level.