050625 Conagra Blames Packaged Meat For Profit Fall

Packaged food company ConAgra Foods has reported a fall in profit in the fourth quarter and year ended 29 May 2005, blaming weak results from its packaged meats operations.

Sales for the quarter were $3.7bn for the 13 week quarter, compared with $3.8bn for the equivalent 14 week quarter last year. The company said that if the benefit of the extra week last year were excluded, sales would have been up 4%. Net income for the quarter was $101.9m, compared with $169.3m on the same period last year.

"While several operations posted solid year-over-year profit growth, weak results from the packaged meats operations negatively impacted performance for the retail products and foodservice products segments," the company said.

Sales for the year were $14.6bn. compared with the previous year's sales of $14.1bn. Net income for the year was $641.5m, compared with $811.3m in the previous year.

"Fiscal 2005 was characterized by a solid first half followed by a weak second half," said Bruce Rohde, chairman and chief executive officer. "It was a year of mixed results that identified many things we can and should do better."

"While there were many achievements - brand growth, milestones achieved with R&D and enterprise systems, important team additions, and strong results for Food Ingredients - they were overshadowed by some significant shortcomings, most notably in basic execution within our packaged meats operations," he said. "We furthered many important programs this year as part of our multi-year marketing, operating, and business process improvement initiatives."

Source: just-food.com

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