So the ice cream has been selling well (and it has) but at a loss. Obviously shareholders could do with someone actually discussing what's going on with sales generally.
And once again a statement from the Board that makes no words of encouragement. Obviously a statement like this could have been accompanied by news on other activities in order to provide better context for this particular statement. Once again we have a statement that some might expect to impact the share price and yet it is brief and full of questions. Why do they do that with these statements? I really wish I knew.
Why was it called "moving forward"? Did the ice cream create all that extra loss by itself, or is the rest of the business part of this? Did they move to the ice cream premises to save money and therefore close down the ice cream, or was it just that the ice cream lost money so they realised they could gain money by moving premises?
Clearly the matters contained in the statement are not good news, but they are lacking in context and I will wait for the next company report before reading too much into it, as these interim statements have not proved to be the best statements to react to. At this time last year, a statement might have been read to indicated the company was out of cash and would have to write off it's intellectual property.
If we are to take this statement as providing a balanced view of the company's situation - and actually nothing in it invites us to take that view - then the central conundrum of Blis remains front and centre. How come the stuff can sell so well here in NZ and yet overseas parties seemingly can't replicate that?
The company has shown itself to have a dedicated core of shareholders, and excellent products. I'm not going to blow with the wind on this, but others no doubt will be unhappy. They may treat Blis differently than when PEB recently announced a $3m half year loss, which statement was greeted with glee! Go figure.
(As a footnote, I will genuinely be gutted to lose access to the ice cream. There isn't an ice cream available that can touch it.)