West Cork cheesemakers, Carbery Group, have reported a 22.7% rise in turnover for last year.
The Group said that its turnover for the year up to December 31, 2017, went up to €417.3m from €340m in the previous year.
It left them with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), of €41.8m, up from €37m in 2016, and an operating profit before interest, tax, amortization and exceptional items (EBITA) of €31m, up from €27.1m in 2016.
Jason Hawkins, Chief Executive Officer, Carbery Group said that the positive results were achieved as a result of strong trading performance across all three of Carbery’s strategic business platforms of Dairy, Nutrition and Taste.
Mr Hawkins said: “Our Dairy business performed well on the back of strong dairy markets and continuing growth in our milk supply.
“Carbery’s Nutritional Ingredients platform continued to drive growth across new products, customers and markets, and Synergy, our international Taste business, once again delivered a very strong performance with growth across all key markets.”
Mr Hawkins noted that, as a result of very strong dairy markets and a good business performance, Carbery was able to continue to pay a leading milk price to its supplier shareholders during 2017.
In addition, at the end of the year, the board declared a 1 cent per liter bonus for 2017 milk.
Supplies of milk to Carbery’s processing facility in Ballineen increased by 8.2% to 509 million liters in 2017, and are up 28% since the removal of quotas.