Greencore to report good first half like-for-like growth

Food group Greencore will report first-half results tomorrow, with good like-for- like growth expected.

While British supermarket chains like Morrisons are struggling with the migration of consumers to discounters and convenience store formats, Greencore’s UK food-to-go business is benefiting from this migration.

Goodbody Stockbrokers is thus forecasting life-for- like growth of approximately 5 per cent in Greencore’s first-half results this week.

Greencore saw group revenues rise more than 4 per cent in the first quarter of its current financial year.

In a trading update, covering the three months to the end of December, the food group said overall revenue of £331.9 million (€445 million) was generated in the period, marking a 4.4 per cent like-for-like increase.

In that update, Greencore said the construction of a new facility in Rhode Island in the US was nearing completion, with commissioning due to start as planned in its fiscal second quarter.

Year ahead,

In terms of the company’s outlook for the year ahead, it said in January that it remained well placed with strong positions in growing product categories.

“Notwithstanding the challenges of the UK grocery retail market, the business has had a good start to the year with encouraging growth against a strong comparator period last year,” it said.

Meanwhile, Marks and Spencer is due to report full-year earnings on Wednesday.

The retailer has forecast gross margins to widen by 1.5 to 2 percentage points in general-merchandise and by 0.1 to 0.3 percentage points in food.

In April, M&S reported same-store sales growth of 0.7 per cent in its food business, bucking the trend in a grocery market characterised by deflation and intense competition.

It said same-store sales at the non-food unit gained 0.7 per cent in the 13 weeks ended March 28th.

In April, the retailer said full-year operating costs rose about 1.5 per cent, compared with its previous guidance for a 2 per cent increase.