In 2011, our portfolio of franchise territories across Latin America delivered double-digit top- and bottom-line growth in the face of a challenging commodity cost environment and global market volatility. For the year, our total revenues rose 20.5% to Ps. 124.715 billion. Our gross profit increased 19.4% to Ps. 57.227 billion, and our income from operations increased 18.0% to Ps. 20.152 billion.
Consumer Focus
Consumer-driven innovation is a key element of our company’s DNA. Through our devotion to innovation, we capitalize on our flexibility to serve the diverse, constantly evolving preferences and practices of our more than 210 million consumers across Latin America each and every day.
Together with our partner, The Coca-Cola Company, in 2011 we introduced a number of new products and presentations to stimulate and satisfy consumer demand in multiple beverage categories. Among our portfolio of innovative new products, we launched Reserva del Valle, a premium line of cranberry fruit juices that responds to consumers’ growing desire for anti-oxidant beverages. This “super fruit” drink is currently marketed in all of our Mexican franchise territories, and we expect to take advantage of opportunities to offer this product in other countries, especially Brazil, where consumer demand for such functional beverages is significant.
In the non-carbonated flavor category, we worked with The Coca-Cola Company to leverage the remarkable success of our Valle Frut orangeade, which is now the fourth largest brand in Mexico—with sales of close to 40 million unit cases in 2011. Given this category’s ample potential, as well as consumers’ demonstrated demand for natural alternatives to flavored beverages, we extended this brand by adding two new flavors, grape and apple. Altogether, Valle Frut grape, apple, and orangeade accounted for the majority of our non-carbonated beverage volumes in Mexico for 2011.
On the packaging front, we continued to provide our consumers with a growing array of imaginative alternatives. For Frutsi, a “fantasy” fruit drink for children, we introduced a novel 200-milliliter HDPF (High Density Polyurethane Foam) bottle in the shape of a Lego® block. This new presentation is designed to further enhance this product’s appeal as the leader in Mexico’s children’s drink segment. Moreover, for our bottled water products, we recently began offering a new eco-friendly 20-ounce extra light PET container for our customers and consumers in Brazil and Mexico. This environmentally attractive presentation is 75% of the weight of a regular sparkling beverage PET bottle. Furthermore, to reinforce our presence in Costa Rica’s sparkling beverage category, we rolled out a compelling new 350-milliliter PET bottle for brand Coca-Cola with a different shape than our traditional bottles; a considerable success among our consumers, this presentation alone is responsible for more than 25% of our sparkling beverages volume growth in the Central America region in 2011.
Looking forward, our flexibility to anticipate consumers’ evolving needs, to adapt our portfolio to specific markets, and to successfully enter new categories and markets that capitalize on an ever increasing number of consumption occasions will continue to play an essential role in our ability to innovate, grow, and stay at the forefront of our industry.
Consumer-driven innovation is a key element of our company’s DNA. Through our devotion to innovation, we capitalize on our flexibility to serve the diverse, constantly evolving preferences and practices of our more than 210 million consumers across Latin America each and every day.
Together with our partner, The Coca-Cola Company, in 2011 we introduced a number of new products and presentations to stimulate and satisfy consumer demand in multiple beverage categories. Among our portfolio of innovative new products, we launched Reserva del Valle, a premium line of cranberry fruit juices that responds to consumers’ growing desire for anti-oxidant beverages. This “super fruit” drink is currently marketed in all of our Mexican franchise territories, and we expect to take advantage of opportunities to offer this product in other countries, especially Brazil, where consumer demand for such functional beverages is significant.
In the non-carbonated flavor category, we worked with The Coca-Cola Company to leverage the remarkable success of our Valle Frut orangeade, which is now the fourth largest brand in Mexico—with sales of close to 40 million unit cases in 2011. Given this category’s ample potential, as well as consumers’ demonstrated demand for natural alternatives to flavored beverages, we extended this brand by adding two new flavors, grape and apple. Altogether, Valle Frut grape, apple, and orangeade accounted for the majority of our non-carbonated beverage volumes in Mexico for 2011.
On the packaging front, we continued to provide our consumers with a growing array of imaginative alternatives. For Frutsi, a “fantasy” fruit drink for children, we introduced a novel 200-milliliter HDPF (High Density Polyurethane Foam) bottle in the shape of a Lego® block. This new presentation is designed to further enhance this product’s appeal as the leader in Mexico’s children’s drink segment. Moreover, for our bottled water products, we recently began offering a new eco-friendly 20-ounce extra light PET container for our customers and consumers in Brazil and Mexico. This environmentally attractive presentation is 75% of the weight of a regular sparkling beverage PET bottle. Furthermore, to reinforce our presence in Costa Rica’s sparkling beverage category, we rolled out a compelling new 350-milliliter PET bottle for brand Coca-Cola with a different shape than our traditional bottles; a considerable success among our consumers, this presentation alone is responsible for more than 25% of our sparkling beverages volume growth in the Central America region in 2011.
Looking forward, our flexibility to anticipate consumers’ evolving needs, to adapt our portfolio to specific markets, and to successfully enter new categories and markets that capitalize on an ever increasing number of consumption occasions will continue to play an essential role in our ability to innovate, grow, and stay at the forefront of our industry.
Reinforcing our position in Costa Rica's sparkling beverage category, we introduced a compelling new 350-milliliter PET bottle for brand Coca-Cola with a different shape than our traditional bottles. This new presentation is a substantial success among our consumers.
For Frutsi we introduced a novel bottle in the shape of a Lego® block.