Justin Coleman of Pilgrim’s Europe
Poultry giant Pilgrim’s Europe has posted surging profits approaching €113m. The firm, whose principal office is in the UK, includes the Moy Park chicken business – and it posted profits in sterling of £98.1m, up around 34pc on the previous year.
The company, which employs more than 9,300 people across its sites here, and across the rest of the UK and Europe, also saw turnover fall slightly to £1.96bn (€2.25bn).
The latest results for Moy Park (Europe) Limited during the period ending December 2024, come following a restructuring of the business, with an integration of Pilgrim’s UK and Pilgrim’s Food Masters.
“Moy Park made significant progress in 2024 by focusing on driving operational improvements and securing contracts with key customers,” the firm said.
“Moy Park’s trading models and customer negotiations, together with commodity deflation towards the end of 2024 offset higher labour costs.”
The firm says directors were “remunerated by parent entities”.
It said the highest paid director at the group received an “apportioned element of salary which equated to £935,000”.
Pilgrim’s Europe is the new name for the firm’s operations here, replacing the old Moy Park branding, and it follows a restructuring of the business over the last couple of years.
The firm topped this year’s Ulster Business Top 100 Northern Ireland Companies, in association with KPMG.
Speaking at the time, Pilgrim’s Europe director Justin Coleman said: “There was mega-execution of the strategy.
“The market is the market for everybody, you’re up or you’re down, but you control what you can get hold of.
“Coming out of Covid was massively disrupting for everybody, coupled with all sorts of market dynamics around mega-inflation…
“We stuck to what we do as a business, grow the categories which we are really good at, look after key customers, and focus on controllables. It’s not more complicated than that.”