Companies: CWK   

Fully listed sausage and pork producer Cranswick has shrugged aside the foot-and-mouth crisis to produce full-year profits up 26 per cent to £11.7 million on £192.6 million (£157.3 million) of sales. Elliott Davis reports.

With the last five weeks of the year to March coinciding with the start of the foot-and-mouth outbreak, Cranswick (CWK) had to shell out around £300,000 to take precautions against the disease. However, while agricultural businesses, pub operators and even the odd software company had to issue profits warnings, Cranswick easily surpassed market expectations.

Leading the way was the group’s pork products business, which accounted for 63 per cent of all sales. According to chief executive Martin Davey, Cranswick now supplies pork, hams and sausages to ‘each of the major multiples’, holding a 25 per cent share of the premium sausage market.

The company’s agricultural business, which includes the manufacture and sale of animal feeds, also performed strongly, sales rising 50 per cent to £52.3 million. This was achieved despite a 16.5 per cent reduction in the UK’s pig herd.

Chairman Jim Bloom claims ‘the current year has started well’ and Barney Gray of independent broker Beeson Gregory increased his 2002 profits forecast from £12.5 million to £12.7 million. With the shares at an all-time high of 447.5p, Davey remains more cautious, stressing that exceptional costs associated with foot-and-mouth will continue for several months yet.