Finance director Tom Atherton said that adjusted profit before tax was up 19% to £19.1m ($24.1m).
“Whilst we’re heading into an inflationary period now, the first half was characterized by deflation, and you can see that in the revenue number, which fell 7% to £190m ($240m),” Atherton said.
“Despite that, we managed to improve our profitability.”
‘Industry leading statistic’
Mark Allen, chief executive, said that the company’s four key brands are continuing to perform well in a challenging marketplace, with strong volume growth for Clover, Country Life and Frylight and a successful launch of new branding and packaging for Cathedral City.
“Profits are up around 20%, our brands are growing at around 2% in volume terms, and we started production of our galacto-oligosaccharides and demineralized whey down at Davidstow,” Allen said.
“This six months, around about 13% of our sales are from products that we developed in the last three years. That’s an industry leading statistic.”
New developments
Allen said that the investment at Davidstow has opened up attractive opportunities in high-margin, global infant formula markets as well as the potential to develop new functional ingredients.
“We’ve got a number of interesting developments,” Allen said.
“In cheese we’re looking at our spreadable range, we’re also looking at convenient snacking food on the go and we’re looking at the reformulation of some of our spreads to make them even more healthy.”
Allen said that the full year expectations remain unchanged.