Convenience food group Greencore has reported revenues for the year-to-date of £986.3 million (€1.38bn), up 4.2 per cent compared to the same period in 2014.
On a like-for-like basis, revenues were up 4.7 per cent, the group said.
In its third quarter, which covers the 13 weeks to June 26th, revenues were up 6.2 per cent to £346.5 million (€487.5m) versus the prior year.
In an interim statement issued on Tuesday the company said its convenience food division recorded year-to-date revenues of £946.6 million, 5.4 per cent higher than the prior year on both a reported and a like-for-like basis.
For its third quarter, the division posted revenues of £331.9 million, 6.9 per cent higher than the prior year on a reported basis and up 6.3 per cent on a like-for-like basis.
In the UK, like-for-like revenue was 4 per cent higher in the third quarter with the group saying its ‘food to go’ business continued to experience good growth. In the US, like-for-like revenue was 22.1 per cent higher than the prior year. This was driven principally by the roll-out of new lines with our principal customers, Greencore said.
The company’s ingredients and property division, which now represents less than 5 per cent of group activity, recorded revenues of £14.6 million in the third quarter, 4.4 per cent higher on a constant currency basis and 8.2 per cent lower in actual currency.
Greencore said its financial position remained strong. It said however that the core UK grocery retail market remains challenging and that the combination of modest deflation in ingredients and packaging costs, together with price investment by grocery retailers, had resulted in value growth lagging behind volume in a number of its product markets.
“The group remains focused on delivering exceptional standards for its customers and on the execution of complex capacity increase projects in both the UK and US. We remain confident in our ability to deliver adjusted earnings per share (EPS) growth for the financial year within the range of market expectations,” it said.
