Food company Greencore said strong sales growth in convenience foods boosted profits.
Greencore reported full-year profits today of €77.7 million this morning, a 6.4 per cent increase on last year. The convenience foods division performed particularly strongly with like-for-like profits up 16.4 per cent to €67.7 million.
The convenience sector has been earmarked by Greencore as key growth area, and the company has extended its product range with the acquisition of the Oldfields sandwich business.
The company also took one-off charges of over €100 million for the closure of the Mallow sugar plant and the sale of its loss-making UK pizza business.
But sugar profits were hit by intensified EU-wide competition in the run-up to EU reforms of the sugar industry. Sugar reforms are top of the agenda at the farm ministers meeting in Brussels over the next two days.
Although analysts expect only modest changes to the original proposals at this stage, the "blocking minority" of 11 countries will be holding out for some scaling back of the reforms or, more likely, higher compensation.