Butterball saw net sales increase for the quarter ending July 3, Seaboard Corporation recently reported.
Seaboard owns a 50 percent share of Butterball, the largest turkey producer in the United States.
According to a Form 10-Q shown on the Seaboard Corporation investor relations website, the company’s turkey segment, which is accounted for using the equity method and represents Seaboard’s investment in Butterball, saw its net sales for the second quarter reach $371 million, an increase from the $327 million reported during the same quarter of fiscal year 2021.
While Seaboard’s turkey segment has consistently operated at a loss during the past few years, the loss for the most recent quarter was not as harsh as it was during the second quarter of 2020. The operating loss narrowed from $24 million to $4 million, while the net loss narrowed from $27 million to $7 million.
According to Seaboard, the decreased loss was “primarily the result of an increase in sales volume and higher feed and plant production costs. Also, interest costs were lower than the same periods in the prior year, primarily due to mark-to-market fluctuations on interest rate swap agreements.”
Looking forward, Seaboard stated on its Form 10-Q that because of the unpredictability of market prices for turkey products, the cost of feed and ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic for future reporting periods, it could not predict whether the turkey segment would be profitable during the remainder of 2021. It added that the uncertainty and the volatility of the commodity grain markets could have a significant impact on profitability.
Seaboard Foods, primarily known as a pork producer, owns about half of Butterball, with the remaining half owned by Goldboro Milling Co. According to the WATTPoultry.com Top Companies Database, Butterball, based in Garner, North Carolina, is the largest turkey producer in the United States, having slaughtered 1.26 billion pounds of live turkeys in 2020.
