• Hormel Foods H1 sales up 4.2%
  • Operating, net profit gains
  • Cautious on bird flu impact

Hormel Foods has booked a jump in half-year sales and earnings but warned its Jennie-O Turkey business will be "significantly challenged" by the impact of bird flu.

The company said sales increased 4.2% to US$4.67bn for the period to 26 April. Top-line expansion was propelled by 33.3% growth at its speciality foods unit, including the recently-acquired CytoSport Holdings, as well as a 12.7% increase in Jennie-O Turkey sales.

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Operating profit rose 18.7% to $555m. Hormel revealed a near-50% jump in operating earnings at Jennie-O while refrigerated foods operating profit increased 34.4%. Net earnings increased to $352.8m, up from $295.1m in the comparable period of last year.

Despite the strong first-half performance, Hormel guided towards the lower end of its full-year earnings range of $2.50-2.60 per share, citing the risk presented by the avian influenza outbreak that has hit the mid-western US.

CEO Jeffrey Ettinger said: "While we enjoyed an excellent first half, we expect Jennie-O Turkey Store to be significantly challenged going forward due to the impacts of avian influenza on our turkey supply chain."

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