Pilgrim’s Pride reported a 29 percent drop in net income for the first quarter of fiscal year 2019, while the company’s net sales decreased by less than one percent.
The quarter ended on March 31.
Pilgrim’s Prides’ net income in the first quarter of FY 2019 was $84 million, compared to a net income of $119.4 million for the same period for the previous year. Net sales dropped from $2.75 million in the first quarter of 2018 to $2.5 million for the most recent quarter.
“After a very challenging market in 2018, we experienced a much better environment within our U.S. operations during Q1 particularly in commodity large bird deboning, with demand from retailers and QSR operators rebounding as they recognized the value of chicken,” Pilgrim’s Pride CEO Jayson Penn said in a press release.
“Feature activities normalized to seasonal levels throughout the quarter and the momentum has been sustained into early Q2. Commodity boneless prices have already surpassed levels from a year ago and are close to the five-year average, while wing prices are near historical highs. We have been heavily investing in further differentiating our portfolio to increase our capacities and capabilities to meet customer expectations. The investments in the operations and the focus of our people have yielded an increase in performance, and further growth prospects remain available. We are driving growth while continuing to pursue future opportunities by intensifying our efforts in innovation and marketing. We expect value added, differentiated products to account for a larger portion of our total results over the next few years as we continue to reduce the volatility of our commodity sales mix.
“Market balance dynamics in Mexico were weaker than seasonal in Q1. Better than expected growing conditions and softer demand have impacted prices. Chicken demand was also affected by more availability of imported pork from the U.S. during the quarter but we believe chicken demand can continue to grow in-line with historical rates longer term. The environment has already started to recover in Q2 and prices have begun to react positively, with growing conditions reverting back to normal, demand improving, and competition from pork imports declining. Our Prepared Foods have continued to grow at a double digit rate and are generating great results under both premium Pilgrim’s and Del Dia brands to drive the evolution of our Mexican portfolio towards more differentiated, higher-value products giving us a clear path to margin expansion.”
“In-line with the whole industry, our European operations continued to be impacted by a substantial increase in input costs, including feed ingredients, higher utilities, labor and packaging. These increases were partially offset by cost reduction initiatives, synergies and price adjustments some of which have taken slightly longer than expected to be passed on and reflected in customer contracts. Despite the impact in results, we expect an improvement month over month as we adjust our prices based on key customer’s contracts and expect the full recovery within our pricing models.”
Penn became the global CEO of Pilgrim’s Pride near the conclusion of the most recent quarter. He succeeded retiring CEO Bill Lovette on March 22, although the company stated Lovette would remain available to provide strategic advisory services to Pilgrim’s Pride through July 2020.
