Premier Foods sales and profits rise

The group, which is closing its powdered foods factory at Knighton, near Stafford, had a 17.7 per cent rise in revenue to £494.1million.

The pre-tax profit figure grew 38 per cent to £58.1m.

Branded revenue, including Mr Kipling, was up by 15.8 per cent in the half year and there was increased marketing investment across all major brands.

Trading profit for the 2023-2024 financial year is now expected to be in the region of 10 per cent ahead of 2022-2023.

Chief executive Alex Whitehouse said: “We’ve had a really good start to the year, making strong progress against all our strategic pillars. We delivered branded revenue growth of nearly 16 per cent, again maintained our trading profit margins and we continue to grow faster than our markets, gaining 113 basis points of share in our Grocery categories. This performance once again demonstrates the power of our branded growth model and the capabilities of our team.

"New categories revenue increased by 21 per cent, driven by Ambrosia porridge pots and our international business grew by 19%, with Mr Kipling building distribution in the USA and taking further market share in Australia.

“We know how challenging the past year has been for many consumers and so it’s good to see the rate of input cost inflation falling. This has now given us the opportunity to lower promotional prices across a number of our major branded products such as Batchelors Super Noodles and Mr Kipling Slices.”