Irish fruit distributor Fyffes said 2001 had started well after the banana industry's toughest year in 2000 dented the group's profits.
Pre-tax profits fell to euro 31.2 million euros in the 14 months to December 31st, compared with euro 83.1 million in the 12 months to October 31st, 1999, but turnover increased to euro 2.2 billion from euro 1.9 billion.
"The worldwide banana industry experienced its toughest year in 2000. Fyffes' performance was similarly affected and we saw a reversal of the strong growth trends of recent years," said chairman Mr Neil McCann in a statement.
Fyffes is the second largest importer of bananas in the European Union and the leading supplier to Irish, British, Danish, Dutch and Spanish markets. It said difficult trading conditions had been caused mainly by the oversupply of bananas on European markets and the high value of the dollar versus the euro.
A restructuring of the group's business, which involved a number of operation closures and 200 job losses, would deliver total cost savings of around euro 20 million per year, the company said.
In January the company announced it was scaling back its much trumpeted e-commerce operation worldoffruit.com, which had propelled the shares to a high of euro 4.0 a year ago.
The shares closed yesterday at euro 0.94 in Dublin.