Maple Leaf Foods reports $43.1M Q3 profit, sales up eight per cent from year ago

Maple Leaf Foods Inc. reported a third-quarter profit of $43.1 million, up from $17.7 million in the same quarter last year as its sales rose 8 per cent.

The profit amounted to 35 cents per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30, up from 14 cents per share a year earlier, the company said in a release on Wednesday.

Total company sales amounted to $1.36 billion, up from $1.26 billion in the same quarter last year.

Maple Leaf said its prepared food sales rose 4.4 per cent, while poultry sales gained 15.7 per cent. The company’s pork business saw sales rise 10.4 per cent.

On an adjusted basis, Maple Leaf says it earned 49 cents per share in its most recent quarter, up from an adjusted profit of 18 cents per share a year earlier.

While the company’s financial results posted a good showing compared with the prior year, the higher cost of raw materials dented its earnings on a quarter-over-quarter basis.

Chief executive Curtis Frank said higher meat production costs ate into profit margins.

“Beef inputs are at all-time highs. Turkey, in real time, is being impacted by the avian influenza implications in the North American markets,” Frank told analysts during an earnings call on Wednesday. “It’s really the combination of those inflationary effects that impacted the third quarter, and I think will continue to impact (the fourth quarter).”

Maple Leaf completed the spin off of its pork business as Canada Packers Inc. last month, which reported its first earnings on Wednesday.