Proactive Investors - Greencore Group PLC (LON:GNC) shares traded on the backfoot in Tuesday’s early deals, despite its broadly robust trading update.
The Dublin-headquartered convenience food manufacturer reported a 10% rise in revenue for its financial year ended 29 September to £1.9 billion.
It noted that the higher revenue largely came via "inflation recovery" efforts and higher manufacturing volumes.
Operating profit (adjusted) was meanwhile reported 5.7% higher to £76.3 million, whilst pre-tax profit was up 13% to £45.2 million.
"In a challenging market environment, we have stabilised the business, and made good strategic progress,” said chief executive Dalton Philips (LON:0LNG).
“The group delivered above-market volume growth, despite exiting a number of low margin contracts.
“We also successfully mitigated and recovered the majority of our input cost inflation through effective operational and commercial initiatives. We are encouraged by our FY23 performance and the progress across the business.“
Philips added: “The group continues to focus on improving profitability and is investing in a number of initiatives focused on both optimising our network and our IT infrastructure, to give us the platform for future growth.
“Our stronger balance sheet provides the financial flexibility to underpin this growth.
“We are pleased with the start to the year and although it's early days, the group remains confident in delivering FY24 within the range of current market expectations."
In London, meanwhile, Greencore shares were trading 4.15p or 4% lower in early deals, changing hands at 97.35p. The share price remains some 50% higher for 2023 to date.
Analysts at stockbroker Peel Hunt (LON:PEEL), in a note this morning, commented: “The company delivered a much-improved performance during 2H, which has driven a material improvement in the share price.”
Peel Hunt, however, said that "post recovery" it is now downgrading its view of the share to ‘hold’ from ‘add’.