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(Alliance News) - Premier Foods PLC on Thursday said profit and revenue rose in the financial year that ended April 1, despite a challenging environment.
Premier Foods, the St Albans, Hertfordshire-based food manufacturer creates products for brands including Ambrosia, Batchelors, Bisto, Lloyd Grossman, Mr Kipling, Oxo and Sharwood's.
The company said pretax profit for the year rose 9.6% to GBP112.4 million from GBP102.6 million. Revenue grew 12% to GBP1.0 billion from GBP900.5 million a year prior.
Premier said it had successfully offset high input cost inflation through a combination of cost efficiencies and pricing, resulting in profit and revenue rises.
The company proposed a final dividend of 1.44 pence per share, up 20% from 1.2 pence the previous year. Premier said that this was consistent with the board's approach of proposing a progressive dividend to shareholders.
"We know that consumer budgets remain under pressure in the current environment and our broad portfolio of brands continue to provide great options to prepare and eat good value, delicious meals at home. We are continuing to see consumers looking for convenient, affordable and tasty meal solutions and Batchelors and Nissin were two of our best branded performs in the year which benefitted from this trend," said Chief Executive Officer Alex Whitehouse.
Looking ahead, Premier says that it sees itself well-placed to make further progress and said that its expectations for the year were unchanged.
Premier Foods was trading up 6.3% at 137.80 pence in London on Thursday morning.
By Will Neill, Alliance News reporter
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