International specialist retail meat packing business, Hilton Food Group, has provided a trading update for the 28 weeks ending 16th July 2017, which demonstrated continuing growth through additional volumes and close cooperation with retail partners.
Hilton’s performance has been in line with the board’s expectations and has also benefitted from the strength of currencies in which it operates relative to sterling, which in turn has offset the impact of start-up costs.
The trading update also highlights that the group has made good progress in a number of markets. In the UK, turnover has continued to grow compared to last year, which reflects the higher raw material process and some trading up, as well as a good barbecue season.
The Swedish and Irish groups have also experienced encouraging growth for the first half of the period, with Sweden launching a new packaging format which extends shelf life and Ireland has expanded the Ocado range.
Holland still remains a challenging market, the trading report has outlined, and in central Europe the performance in the first half has been adversely affected by new product start-up costs as well as challenging market conditions.
In Australia, Hilton has seen double-digit volume growth from the joint venture covering Bunbury and Victoria in the first half, and has recently opened an Innovation Centre at the Victoria facility to support new product development.
The business in Portugal is continuing to show good progress too, as Hilton has executed against the scheduled development plan, whilst processing significant volumes, which have more than offset the impact of start-up costs.
Hilton highlighted that given its financial position, it will continue to explore investment opportunities and to grow the business in both domestic and overseas markets.
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
