Donegal Creameries has reported a big drop in profits for the first half of this year.
The company says the drop is due to tough conditions in the dairy market, lower mushroom profits and adverse foreign exchange movements.
The company reported a pre-tax profit of €862,000, down from just over €4m a year earlier. Revenue, however, rose 13.5% to €68.7m.
An unchanged interim dividend of 7% will be paid.
The company said turnover at its dairy division rose by more than 12% to €31.6m, but there was a loss of almost €1m due to a time lag in passing on increased wholesale prices.
Donegal Creameries said, however, that dairy volumes were growing, and it expected a return to more ‘normal’ levels of profit in 2012.
The company received €1.3m in its share of profits from Monaghan Middlebrook Mushrooms, down €1m from a year earlier, but said it saw this fall as temporary.
Finance costs of €1m also affected profits. These were due to increased borrowing costs and currency movements.
Agri-inputs profits almost doubled to €1.1m, on 12% higher turnover of €24.5m. Produce profits also doubled to almost €600,000, with turnover up 21.6% to €12.1m.
For the rest of the year, Donegal Creameries said it expected to make progress on recovering increased dairy costs, and expected a good performance from the agri-inputs and produce businesses.
Earlier this week Donegaldaily.com revealed how Connacht Gold was considering buying a major share of the Donegal Creameries operation.
Donegal Creameries has refused to comment on these reports.
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