News

February 03, 2010

Porkers Bring Home The Bacon At Cranswick

By Sally White

Porkers are in – Cranswick has just come out with third-quarter trading statement to prove it. The market thought it was a tasty morsel, too, and the pork meat supplier’s share price soared 45p to 800p, a new 12-month high. The shares may have taken a battering as the swine fever panic was at its height, but there was little impact on sales. Just to prove that pork is now really fashionable, Cranswick also announced a joint venture with TV celebrity chef Jamie Oliver to supply his new own-label range with not just pork, but bacon and Italian charcuterie when it is launched in the spring.

In fact, food producers and processors were having a generally good day on the market on Monday, with the sector’s 1.2 per cent rise outperforming all the main London market indices. Cranswick posted a better-than-brokers’-consensus 31 per cent increase in third-quarter revenue. "Cranswick's Q3 IMS reveals sales growth better than we had expected, and underlying margins remaining in line with the first half," says analyst Damian McNeela of Panmure Gordon. The brokers raised their...