BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - At the beginning of the year, Hellofresh compensated for the subdued demand for cooking boxes with its range of ready meals. "Sales from ready meals already account for a quarter of consolidated sales and we expect this share to increase further in the future," said CEO Dominik Richter in a statement on Thursday. As in the previous months, interest in cooking boxes has slowed. Instead, consumers were asking much more for ready meals, which the Berlin MDax company now also offers in Sweden and Denmark.

Richter is relying heavily on the success of pre-cooked meals: In the current year, sales of ready meals are expected to increase by around 50 percent, according to earlier figures. In its largest single market, the USA, Hellofresh claims 74 percent of the so-called ready-to-eat market with its Factor brand.

Between January and March, group sales increased by 3.8 percent to around 2.07 billion euros. Analysts had hoped for more on average. However, Hellofresh surprised on the operating result adjusted for special effects (EBITDA): earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization fell by almost 75 percent to 16.8 million, mainly due to high costs for marketing and production start-ups. However, this was still significantly more than analysts had feared. The bottom line is that the loss in the first quarter increased from 25.4 million euros to 83.8 million euros./ngu/tih/he