Finnish meat processor reports strong sales growth

According to the Finnish company, net sales figures from 1 January to 31 March totalled €328.4m, with earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of €1.1m, the result of the company reversing the sale of a property.

The group also issued a €50m bond with a fixed interest rate during the first quarter, which will be used to refinance its “general financing needs”.​

Finland​

Sales for the company’s Finland-based operations for Q1 totalled €205.1m and were up by €16.6m year-on-year. While there was also an improvement on EBIT of €1.5m year-on-year, amounting to €6.7m.

Referring to sales in Finland the company said: “Higher sale prices and slightly higher sales volumes also improved EBIT. The prices of meat raw materials continued to rise.”​

Scandinavia​

Net sales for Atria’s Scandinavian operation for January to March this year were €94.2m, an increase of €4.7m year-on-year.  EBIT was €0.2m.

“The prices of meat raw materials have remained high, which impaired EBIT development,”​ said the company

Russia and the Baltics​

Meanwhile, operations in Russia saw net sales in Q1 amount to €27.4m, which was a decrease of 1% year-on-year.

EBIT was also down by €3.1m, which was the result of “improved”​ industrial operations. However, Atria said: “The weakening of primary production profitability, which started in the latter part of last year, continued to impair performance at the beginning of the year.”​

Poor performance continued in the company’s Baltics operation and net sales in Q1 saw a reduction of €0.7m year-on-year, totalling €7.2m, but the company noted that this was a year-on-year improvement of €0.1m.

Appointment​

After posting the results, the company held a “constitutive”​ meeting to appoint new members to its supervisory board.

As a result, Hanni Hyry was elected as chairman and Juhno Anttikoski was re-elected as deputy chairman of the supervisory board.