French dairy giant Danone has reported a fall in infant formula sales for the first three months of 2019.

Announcing first-quarter results this week, Danone said its specialised nutrition division, which includes medical nutrition and infant nutrition, had sales of €1.83bn in the three months to the end of March 2019. This was up 0.4% on the same period last year.

However, within its specialised nutrition division, Danone said sales of infant nutrition products actually fell during the three-month period, which was a result of a fall in sales in China.

Overall, Danone reported group wide sales €6.14bn for its first quarter of 2019, which is less than 1% ahead of last year

Danone blamed the negative sales growth in China on a very strong comparative period last year, when infant formula sales in China posted 50% growth. The company said it expects its infant formula division to return to sales growth in the second half of the year.

Danone, which operates baby formula plants at Macroom and Wexford in Ireland, said that infant formula sales outside of China delivered mid-single-digit growth. This was mainly driven by higher sales in southeast Asia. Danone said infant formula sales in Europe continue to be negatively affected due to problems facing the company’s Aptamil brand in the UK.

In 2018, Danone changed the recipes of three of its Aptamil baby formulas. However, this resulted in hundreds of complaints from parents in the UK that the revised formulas were making their babies sick.

Aptamil sales in the UK have fallen in the intervening period and Danone says it now has a recovery plan in place.

Dairy

Danone’s dairy and plant-based division recorded a very muted performance in quarter one, with like-for-like sales growing just 0.2% to reach €3.3bn. Sales volumes of dairy and plant-based products actually fell 4% in the period.

The company said its plant-based range of brands, including Alpro, were achieving mid to high single-digit sales growth.

Overall, Danone reported group wide sales €6.14bn for its first quarter of 2019, which is less than 1% ahead of last year. Sales volumes for Danone were down 2.2% for the quarter.

Shares in Danone fell 2% on the back of the results to €68 but have since recovered above the €70 threshold.