Greencore Group reported a steep rise in profits for the six months to the end of March and said it is confident it will deliver a "strong performance" for the full year.
The food group posted a pretax profit of €35.4 million for the six months to March 30th, 2007, against €22.8 million a year earlier a rise of 38 per cent, while revenue from continuing operations rose to €632.7 million from €571.4 million.
Greencore said the convenience foods unit accounted for 80 per cent of group operating profit and had performed strongly, despite an "inflationary environment".
The company said momentum across the group's portfolio remains strong as it enters the seasonally more significant second half and that it expects its full-year adjusted earnings per share to be ahead of the market consensus of 25.8 cents by about 10 per cent.
Overall turnover increased 8.2 per cent to €478 million compared with the same period last year.
However, the company noted that energy inflation of more than 50 per cent had a significant impact on industry performance in 2005 and 2006, particularly for energy-intensive activities such as malt.