Moy Park posts 10% increase in turnover

Moy Park, the Co Armagh-based food company, has reported a 10 per cent rise in turnover to £1.2 billion for 2013.

Moy Park , which was appointed the European headquarters of Brazilian food processing giant Marfrig last year, also posted a rise in pretax profits to £33.8 million.

Moy Park has grown to become one of the largest poultry producers in Europe and employs more than 11,500 people across 16 production sites in the UK, Ireland, Holland and France.

It is the largest private company in the North.

Moy Park chief executive Janet McCollum said the company had delivered a strong performance despite what she described as “challenging economic and trading conditions” last year.

Buoyant local demand
Ms McCollum said it had also battled with high commodity input costs but had benefitted from an increase in demand for locally-sourced poultry by the major supermarket groups in the UK and Ireland.

“We achieved strong growth across both retail and food-service channels in the UK, Ireland and Continental Europe . . . Moy Park is now Ireland’s leading poultry brand and is purchased by over 50 per cent of households,” she added.

The Northern Ireland company has also worked hard, said Ms McCollum, to captialise on the growing “popularity” of poultry meat among consumers and to expand its fresh poultry and convenience food sales.

She says Moy Park is “well positioned for growth” and plans to continue to increase its market share by investment in farming and operational facilities.

Marfrig’s management report for 2013 highlights the role the Co Armagh company now plays in the global group.

Organic producer
It states that the company's growth strategy is based on increasing sales of higher value retail products and growing food service sales. Marfrig also wants to promote Moy Park's reputation as one of Europe's largest organic chicken producers.

Its latest financial statements show Marfrig’s net revenue grew 14 per cent in 2013 to R$18.75 billion (€6.1 billion), compared to R$16.52 billion (€5.4 billion) in 2012

The group said the revenue growth had been driven by a “solid performance” but it singled out growth of 18 per cent at Moy Park as particularly strong.