Barry Callebaut BARN.S said on Wednesday it would appoint former Unilever ULVR.L boss Hein Schumacher as its chief executive officer and reported first-quarter results showing it sold less of its cocoa products than expected.

The chocolate maker said CEO Peter Feld would leave his role on January 26 "to pursue other career opportunities" after less than three years on the job.

The CEO change signals the business is still not developing as hoped, analysts from Zuercher Kantonalbank said in a note to investors.

One of the world's top cocoa processors, which supplies chocolate for Magnum MICCT.AS ice creams and Nestle's NESN.S KitKat bars, said its sales volume fell 9.9% to 509,401 metric tons in the first quarter that ran from September to November.

Analysts were expecting 512,000 tons on average in a company-provided poll.

Shares of the company, which also confirmed its outlook for the financial year, were trading 3.4% higher at 0957 GMT, a move that analysts attributed largely to the CEO change.

"The appointment of Hein Schumacher lands like a small bombshell," Vontobel analysts wrote.

BIG CHANGES

Talking to analysts on a call, Chairman Patrick De Maeseneire said Barry Callebaut was undergoing the biggest transformation in its history, having been unable to foresee the volatile geopolitical situation and record cocoa prices that have shaken the market.

"People often forget the right leader is in the right position at the right time. And the right time is often forgotten. And doing a transformation requires a certain profile of leader," he said.

He however denied the company was exploring a separation of its global cocoa unit from the rest of the group, as reported by Reuters last month.

"They are hiring a guy that has experience in spinning off certain businesses, so I think they are paying for that," AlphaValue analyst Filippo Ercole Piva told Reuters, noting that Schumacher was also behind the separation of Unilever's ice-cream business Magnum.

INDUSTRY RELATIONSHIPS

Barry Callebaut's change of leadership is the latest of several for leading consumer companies over the last 18 months.

Schumacher, a Dutch national ousted by Unilever in February 2025, will benefit from already having deep industry relationships with Barry's key customers, Vontobel said in a note.

Feld began his role as CEO in April 2023 and has steered the company through high cocoa prices, to which Barry is more exposed than consumer-facing firms, and a subsequent fall in demand.

The latest quarterly data on cocoa grind, a proxy for chocolate demand, showed a slump in Asia and fell 8.3% year-on-year in Europe, which represents roughly two-fifths of Barry's revenue.

Barry buys cocoa beans that it processes into cocoa butter and powder. Manufacturers then use its product to produce chocolate and candy which is sold to consumers directly.

After three cuts to the company's volume guidance last year, it guided in November for a mid-single-digit percentage decline in sales of cocoa products in 2025/26.

Barry Callebaut's revenue rises, but its volumes fall https://reut.rs/3LHXKxM

Barry Callebaut's shares performance under Feld's leadership https://reut.rs/4sRyg22

-Paolo Laudani and Danny Callaghan/Reuters