Kerry Group has said it remains confident of achieving growth targets for the full year as it reports a 1.1% increase in revenues for the six months to the end of June.
The company said that profits after tax increased by 12.2% to €117m from €104.6m the same time last year while revenues rose to €2.949 billion from €2.916 billion.
Kerry said its interim dividend increased by over 11% to 12 cent.
It said its global ingredients and flavours technologies and core consumer foods businesses performed well during the six month period.
Results across the company's core ingredients & flavours and consumer foods business segments were very encouraging against the backdrop of a relatively ''sluggish'' overall market environment, especially in developed markets, the company said.
In the group's Irish and UK consumer business, the continuing refocusing on its core branded products has achieved ''satisfactory'' results so far, despite the current competitive, value driven market environment.
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Revenue at its ingredients and flavours business rose by 4.1% to €2.159 billion, while trading profits grew by 11.6% to €239m. The division develops, manufactures and delivers technology-based ingredients and pharma, nutritional and functional ingredients for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical markets.
In its consumer foods division, revenues fell by 5.8% to €830m while trading profit also slipped by 1.8% to €64m. The company said that economic and fiscal pressures continue to impact consumer confidence in the Irish and UK consumer foods markets.
Kerry said that while its products were not affected by the horsemeat scandal earlier this year, confidence in some of its meat categories - including the frozen meals sector - was impacted which resulted in lower sales due to the underlying weakness of the market.
''The group achieved a strong financial performance in the first half of 2013 and continued to invest in
enhancing the quality of our businesses,'' commented the company's chief executive Stan McCarthy.
''Our global ingredients & flavours technologies and core consumer foods businesses are performing well. We remain confident of achieving our growth targets for the full year and delivering 7% to 11% growth in adjusted earnings per share to a range of 250 to 260 cent per share,'' he added.
