Maple Leaf Foods has wrapped up its fourth quarter and 2015 fiscal year with some growth.
It in its Meat Products Group for the fourth quarter, sales of $868.5-million was an increase of 10% from last year, or 7% after adjusting for the impacts of foreign exchange. Company officials say the improvement was due to increased volume in fresh pork and poultry. There was a slight offset by lower selling prices for fresh pork and a slight decline in prepared meats volume.
Adjusted Operating Earnings for the fourth quarter was $54.6-million, compared to a loss of $19.1-million last year.
For the full year, sales in Maple Leaf's Meat Products Group increased 4.5%, or 2.6% after adjusting for the weaker Canadian dollar.
Adjusted Operating Earnings for 2015 increased to $108.4-million compared to a loss of $80.4-million last year. The Company benefited from the flow through of pricing implemented in the second quarter of 2014 to offset the impact of higher raw material costs driven by the outbreak of the PED virus in U.S. hog production herds.
In Maple Leaf's Agribusiness Group, sales in the fourth quarter increased to $4.6-million from $4.3-million last year as a result of higher prices for toll feed and an extra week in the fourth quarter of 2015.
For the full year in 2015, Agribusiness Group sales in 2015 were $15.9-million compared to $21.9-million last year, due to lower external sales volume for feed.
"We are very pleased with our consistent earnings growth in the year and fourth quarter, driven by our commercial performance and continued progress lowering operating costs in our new plant network," says Michael H. McCain, President and CEO. "We are entering 2016 with momentum, confident that the strategic goals of our transformational investments have been met, with only normal ramp-up inefficiencies in a single facility remaining."
