Australia: Loss of private label contract hits iconic pie maker

Patties Foods (Patties), the maker of Australia’s best known pie, Four’N Twenty, has announced that its revenue increased by only 0.9 per cent for the first half of the 2014 financial year.

Australian Food News stated that the company’s results were heavily impacted by of the loss of a major supermarket private label contract.

The company reported that profit margins were slightly reduced and were impacted by capturing value segment growth opportunities, ‘In Home’ channel margin pressure and input cost movements.

It went on to say that, after tax, the net profit of A$8.755 million ($7.891 million) was down 3.3 per cent on the previous corresponding period, which was a 7.5 per cent reduction compared to 2013’s net profit after tax.

Patties Acting Joint CEO Michael Knaap said that, “whilst conditions have been challenging, we continue to see opportunities for improvement in many areas and remain focused to deliver improved earnings.”

Tim Peters, fellow Acting Joint CEO added: “We are continuing to grow and protect our core iconic brands and their market leading positions. We have heightened our focus to innovate high quality products to create consumer demand and are excited by the plans in place for the next twelve months”.

Source: Australian Food News