Nutrition & Health

audited
  • Sales down by 3% to €1,932 million after divestitures in pharmaceuticals business
  • Considerable improvement in EBIT before special items, especially through lower fixed costs and higher margins and volumes

Sales to third parties in 2016 declined by €66 million to €1,932 million in the Nutrition & Health division. This slight reduction came from the sale of parts of our pharmaceutical ingredients and services business at the end of September 2015. We were able to raise volumes in all business areas. Demand grew, especially in the pharmaceuticals and animal nutrition businesses. Sales prices overall were also higher than in the previous year, primarily as a result of significant price increases for vitamins in the animal nutrition business. This allowed us to more than compensate for the decline in prices in the flavor and fragrance business brought about by falling raw material costs.

Nutrition & Health – Factors influencing sales
Performance Products – Nutrition & Health – Factors influencing sales (bar chart)
Nutrition & Health – Sales by region
(Location of customer)
Performance Products – Nutrition & Health – Sales by region (pie chart)

EBIT before special items improved considerably compared with 2015 due to substantially reduced fixed costs as well as to higher margins and volumes. The reduction in fixed costs was largely thanks to restructuring measures and improved capacity utilization of our production plants. Special charges were primarily related to measures implemented to increase our competitiveness. Special income arose in part from the sale of the sterol site in Pasadena, Texas, in May 2016.

We concluded the modification of our production plant for polyvinylpyrrolidone in Shanghai, China, in 2016. With our partner, PETRONAS, we completed construction of the new aroma ingredients complex at the integrated chemical site in Kuantan, Malaysia. Production facilities for citral and L-menthol will be gradually started up.