Meat processing giant Danish Crown shrugged off the effects of currency volatility and challenges faced by its UK business Tulip to post record revenues of 62 billion Danish Krone (£7.5 billion) during the 2016/17 financial year.
The farmers’ co-operative, which also owns bacon brand Danepak, and is Europe’s largest pork processor, saw sales climb by just under 2 billion DKK during the 12 months to 62.02 billion DKK, according to its latest accounts for the year to 30 September, primarily due to an increase in pork commodity prices.
This came despite also having to contend with the well-documented difficulties faced by Tulip - which reported a 9% drop in sales for the year to 30 September 2016 and saw operating profit fall by more than £40m into a loss of £21.8m.
Danish Crown also enjoyed record operating profits of 2.5 billion DKK, buoyed by the sale of US subsidiary Plumrose.
Despite conceding the business’s earnings were “not what we’d like them to be”, group CEO Jais Valeur said he was “very satisfied” with the results.
“Each and every day, our 25,000 employees deliver a solid performance to create the necessary foundation for the growth we must achieve, despite the fact that the year has also brought new challenges,” he added.
Referring to Tulip, Valeur said he was “pleased to confirm that we have very quickly completed a successful turnaround”, adding that towards the end of the financial year the supplier had returned back into the black.
Following the results, Danish Crown was recommending a total payment of 1.45 billion DKK back to the co-op’s 7,166 farmer owners.
“We are today a financially strong company,” added Danish Crown chairman Erik Bredholt. “This is largely due to the confidence which Danish Crown’s co-operative members have shown in the company for a number of years.”
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