Greencore grows

Convenience food manufacturer Greencore has reported headline revenue growth of 46.9% for its third quarter, with core growth on a like-for-like basis of 6.7%.

Year to date, the company’s revenues have grown by a headline 48.8%, with core growth of 8.7%.

The convenience foods division recorded revenue of £277.9m, up 51.2% on the prior year. The legacy Greencore business recorded volume led revenue growth of 6.6% with good growth across the key category businesses. Inclusion of MarketFare from 18 April boosted this growth rate to 12.8%.

The continuing former Uniq businesses also performed well in the period with underlying revenue growth of 7.3%. The revenue decline in the parts of the Uniq desserts business which are being exited or sold was 52.4%. The everyday desserts category at Minsterley was fully exited at the end of June.

The company said that performance across the business in the third quarter was somewhat impacted by weather and the Jubilee celebrations. It experienced strong performance in May in the run up to the Jubilee bank holiday helped by some good weather, whereas demand in June was impacted by inclement weather conditions.

According to Greencore, the integration of Uniq continues to progress in line with expectations. Following the acquisitions of MarketFare on 18 April 2012 and H.C. Schau and Son in late June together with a significant new contract award, the Group said that it now has a business of scale in the US Food to Go market, and that a considerable amount of work is under way to integrate the US businesses.

The company said that its ingredients business performed well during the period and delivered revenue growth of 5.1%.

Greencore said that it continues to perform well despite the challenging and volatile market conditions. Whilst the company does not anticipate any material improvement in the trading environment in the near future, it said that it remains confident in its ability to deliver growth in adjusted earnings per share in line with market expectations.