Cranswick is continuing to build its pig herd, increasing its finished pig numbers by 18% year on year to 34,000 pigs a week in the six months to September 28, 2024.
This follows the acquisition of a 4,000-sow, previously contracted outdoor unit in East Anglia, Piggy Green, in the summer, while the Hull-based company has also established six new herds over the period.
News of this continued investment in pig production was announced in Cranswick’s interim financial results, which showed a 6.1% increase in revenue to £1.33 billion, with adjusted group operating profit up 16.5% to £99.6m in the first half of the current financial year.
Fresh Pork revenue was 2.8% up year on year, representing 24.5% of group revenue. Growth reflected strong volume-driven retail and wholesale demand, but this was offset by a 7.1% dip in export sales revenues, as lower pricing from China and other Far Eastern markets outweighed positive volume growth.
Much of the revenue increase was driven by the company’s poultry operations, which recorded revenue growth of 16.4%, and now accounts for close to a fifth of total group sales.
Gourmet Products revenue increased by 8.7% and represented 17.1% of group revenue, while convenience revenue was 1.1% ahead of the prior period, representing 37.6% of total revenue. Pet food revenue was 71.1% higher, reflecting successful ongoing roll out of the Pets at Home contract, and now accounts for 1.3% of the total.
Cranswick invested £47.7m across during the period to support future growth and drive efficiencies, including ongoing work to upgrade its pork processing facilities.
Pig farming growth
Cranswick has been growing its pig herd for some time, and this continued through ‘ongoing organic investment’ and the acquisition of the 4,000-sow herd from a long-standing existing supplier of RSPCA Assured outdoor-bred pigs, in East Anglia.
“Alongside this, we continue to invest in our existing pig farming business with six new herds established during the period,” the company said. “This investment ensures we have the required quality, quantity and mix of indoor and premium outdoor pigs to service our customers’ requirements.”
Cranswick has also increased its self-sufficiency in pig feed milling to 19% following the acquisition of the Elsham mill last year.
It is now the largest pig farming business in the UK, producing more than 34,000 finished pigs each week, 18% up on the same period last year. Its self-sufficiency in pigs is maintained at ‘well over 50%’, as its farming business expands to meet the growing demand from its three primary processing facilities and the wider business.
While the statement does not reveal the company’s current sow numbers, based on previously-published figures, the herd is now likely to have reached in the region of 70,000 sows.
“We now have almost 900,000 pigs on the ground at any time, which are reared across a mixture of premium outdoor and high-quality indoor units,” Cranswick’s chief executive officer Adam Couch said.
“We will continue to invest in our pig farming operations to ensure that we can supply the right quality and quantity of pigs to meet the need of our strategic retail customers. Investment into our integrated supply chain gives us increased control over the key drivers that influence our carbon footprint.”
Cranswick recently announced a carbon inset pilot scheme with farmers incentivised to sequester carbon and increase biodiversity levels on their farm.
Processing investment
All three of Cranswick’s primary processing sites lifted production volumes year-on-year with the total number of UK pigs processed across the sites increasing by 9.5% year on year. A proportion of this additional throughput drove higher revenue through retail and wholesale channels, with the balance traded internally to ‘fuel growth in our added-value gourmet and convenience ranges’.
“We remain committed to continued investment across our primary processing operations to increase capacity and drive further operational efficiencies to service our growing added-value pork business,” Mr Couch said.
This investment programme includes the ongoing £62m multi-phased redevelopment of the Hull primary processing site, which will provide the platform to ‘substantially increase capacity in the future’. Ongoing investment at its Ballymena and Norfolk sites includes projects which will deliver efficiency improvements and production flexibility.
Strong performance
Mr Couch said: “We have delivered another strong first half performance with good volume-led growth through capacity expansion and market share gains from close alignment to our key long-standing customers and a relentless focus on quality and industry-leading service levels.
“I would like to thank, once again, our brilliant Cranswick colleagues for their continued support and commitment in delivering this strong performance.
“We remain on track to deliver further progress in the second half of the year. Our Christmas order book is strong and demand for our innovative products remains high.”
The company said that, while it remains cautious about current market and wider economic and geopolitical conditions, the outlook for the current financial year ending March 29, 2025 ‘remains in line with current market expectation’, with profit of £189m to £193m forecast.