Poultry producer and processor Industrias Bachoco has announced rises in sales and income for the first quarter of 2005.

Net sales in the first quarter were 3.445bn pesos, (US$311m), compared with 3.108bn in the same period of last year. Net income was 501m pesos, compared with 65m a year earlier.

“During this quarter the Mexican economy continued showing positive signs and the poultry industry benefited from more normalized raw material prices and stable supplies in the Mexican poultry markets,” said CEO Cristobal Mondragon.

“The efforts we have made to improve our processes, control our operating expenses and better serve our customers continued to yield favourable returns, and we are very satisfied with the results achieved for this quarter, which improved substantially with respect to the same quarter of 2004,” he said.