Total Produce has reported pre-tax profits of €34.4m for the year to the end of December, a 2.3% increase on the previous year.
Revenues for the year fell by 2.8% to €2.53 billion as the company reported another year of tough conditions in some European markets due to the prolonged impact of the e-coli scare last May. Total said that the effects of the scare lasted longer than anticipated with the market slow to recover.
The fruit and vegetable distributor is recommending an increase of 8.6% in the final dividend to 1.35 per share. Along with the interim dividend of 0.54 cent per share, this brings the total dividend to 1.89 cent per share, an increase of 5% on the 2010 dividend.
During the year, Total Produce invested almost €20m in ''additional business interests'', with most of deals occurring in the second half of the year.
The company said that revenue in its fresh produce division fell by 3.6% to €2.427 billion with adjusted EBITA down 9.5% from €51.5m to €46.6m due the e-coli scare which had a negative impact on the European fresh produce industry from late May onwards. It said that certain salad produce was wrongly blamed as the source of the e-coli outbreak, which caused a major adverse effect on both consumption and prices of salads and fresh produce in general.
However, the division benefited from the strength of the average Swedish krona and Czech krona exchange rates against the euro, although this was partly offset by the weaker sterling rate.
Revenues in its consumer goods and healthfood distribution division rose by 21% to €99m, while EBITA rose to €1.2m from a loss of €0.6m in 2012. The company said the results were helped by the effect of rationalisation costs, some new business and the positive contribution from acquisitions.
Total Produce Chairman Carl McCann said the company's 2011 results were solid. ''With the continued benefit of a good geographic spread of activities across Europe and the full year impact of acquisitions completed in the second half of 2011, the group is targeting adjusted EPS for 2012 in the range of seven to eight cent per share,'' he added.
