Maple Leaf Foods will expand its offerings of raised without antibiotics (RWA) and organic poultry during the second quarter of 2019, the company’s CEO, Michael H. McCain said.
Speaking on May 2 during the earnings call for the company’s first quarter of fiscal year 2019, McCain said expanding its “sustainable meats” like RWA and organic poultry is part of its ambition to become the most sustainable protein company in the world.
“(Maple Leaf Foods is) making strategic investments in attractive and growing areas that build on our market leadership, provide new avenues of growth and creates value for our shareholders over time,” McCain said.
Maple Leaf Foods is set to launch its first retail organic poultry advertisement during the second quarter, for the Maple Leaf Organic line. The company will be working with “various retailers” across Canada on that launch.
When asked by one analyst about how the company’s recent acquisition of two Cericola Farms poultry plants and their associated supply factored in, he said the company noticed Cericola had a “very significant underutilization in their investment in sustainable meat, both RWA and specifically organic.”
“When we went into it, we saw that as an opportunity, because we had the marketing capability to correct that,” he said.
Maple Leaf Foods will also build on its organic and RWA production with the construction of a new value-added poultry facility in London, Ontario. The company has got the “green light to start laying foundations” for that plant, and it expects to be breaking ground on it as scheduled.
Financial results
On the call, McCain also addressed the company’s financial results for the first three months of the 2019 fiscal year, which ended March 31. Maple Leaf Foods reported a jump in net earnings, going from CA$27.9 million (US$20.7 million) to CA$50.1 million (US$37.2 million) on a year-over-year basis.
Its sales were up 11 percent for the quarter, reaching CA$907.1 million (US$673.5 million).
"Our first quarter of 2019 is headlined by higher sales growth, fueled by recent acquisitions, combined with some in-quarter margin compression as we invested in that growth," McCain stated
