Pre-tax profits at the Irish Dairy Board rose more than 10 per cent to €36.5 million last year. The board's managing director, Dr Noel Cawley, described it as one of the best, if the not the best, year ever.
Dr Cawley said the excellent performance of Bord Bainne's subsidiaries overseas was the main factor contributing to the group's satisfactory results in 2003.
While turnover, expressed in local currencies, increased by 4 per cent, a weakening of the dollar and sterling against the euro led to a 4 per cent fall in the group turnover to €1,815 million.
However, Dr Cawley said pre-tax profits had risen by 10.2 per cent to €36.5 million and these strong performances had enabled the board to pay €14.5 million in cash bonuses to its members during the year. He said cash bonuses, including redemptions of loan stock, paid by the board over the past 10 years amounted to more than €90 million.
Dr Cawley also said the group's debt-to-equity ratio was down from 39 per cent in 2002 to 22 per cent last year and members' funds now stood at €305.9 million.
"It was one of the best business years we ever had," he said.
In the US, IDB Inc exceeded its volume sales targets despite a difficult market and the DPI companies were major beneficiaries of an important preferred distributor arrangement with one of the major US retail chains.
He said the DPI was now one of the top two distributors of specialist grocery products in the US and a further distribution deal with another major retail group was about to come into force.
The company, he said, was now involved in the distribution of thousands of specialist products, including Kerrygold butter and cheese. While sales of Kerrygold to the US now stood at 2,500 tonnes, sales could increase to 10,000 tonnes in 10 years.
Across the globe, he said, Kerrygold branded sales had another good year with sales increasing by 5.5 per cent over 2002.
Sales in Germany increased by 2 per cent despite competition from private label and competing brands and the company had targeted the new EU states, especially Poland.
