• Half-year headline EPS up 18.6%
• Net revenue up 24% to $6 billion

JOHANNESBURG, Feb 21 (Reuters) - South African food services company Bid Corporation (Bidcorp) (BIDJ.J) , opens new tab is stocking buffer inventory to help offset delays caused by disruption to Red Sea shipping and congestion at local ports, its chief executive said.

The company reported an 18.6% jump in half-year headline earnings per share on Wednesday while its net revenue grew 24% to 113.8 billion rand ($6 billion).

South Africa-based Bidcorp has operations across Europe, Australasia and emerging markets like Middle East and China.

"It's a broad spectrum of products that we move from Europe to the rest of the world," CEO Bernard Berson told Reuters, adding that diverting cargo ships was resulting in delivery delays of a few weeks.

"The impact is that shipping costs are higher but they're nowhere close to what they were during the disruptions we had a year ago when there was a shortage of vessels and coming out of COVID, which was much more severe than this."

Bidcorp is stocking buffer inventory to help mitigate the impact.

South African port congestion owing to infrastructure decay and bad weather is stretching out lead times by possibly months, Berson said.

In response the firm is sourcing alternative products for its customers where possible but the major problem is sourcing raw materials which are only imported from certain countries such as ingredients used for isolating casein, he added.

($1 = 18.8729 rand)

https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/south-africas-bidcorp-profit-jumps-186-strong-european-business-2024-02-21/