Cranswick has grown its pig herd by 13% over the past year, as it delivered another strong financial performance over the first half of the current financial year.
In the 26 weeks to September 27, 2025, the Hull-based pork and poultry business grew its revenue by 10.4% to £1.468 billion, with like-for-like revenue up 7.9%, underpinned by revenue growth across its categories. Adjusted profit before tax rose by 9.7% to £105.1 million, with its adjusted group operating margin rising from 7.5% to 7.7%. Adjusted earnings per share were up 9.3% to 144.4p.
The company invested invested a further £89m during the period, including £16m on its pig farming operations and ongoing investment in its pork processing facilities. “This investment will expand capacity, drive automation and enhance operating efficiencies, allowing us to strengthen our capability to deliver premium, added-value products for our customers,” Cranswick CEO Adam Couch said.
The company’s revenue growth across all categories was underpinned by 7% volume growth in its UK food business.
Fresh Pork revenue was 5% ahead of the same period in 2024, representing 23.4% of group revenue. Growth reflected volume driven demand across retail, wholesale and export markets. Retail and wholesale revenues increased by just 0.4% with volumes 4.3% ahead, driven by increased demand, partly offset by lower wholesale market pricing.
But export revenue was 15.4% ahead with strong volume growth supported by marginally higher pricing from China and other Far Eastern markets, following the reinstatement of the Norfolk site’s China export license in December 2024.
Pig farming investment
Cranswick’s pig farming operations have been in the spotlight recently, following a number of damaging on-farm exposes. Earlier this month it published the findings of a veterinary report into welfare standards within the pig businesses, accepting all the findings.
The company has continued to invest to increase the size and scale of its indoor and outdoor pig herds, with the total number of pigs on the ground now 13% up on September 2024
Over the period it has invested £16m across its pig farming operations, including the purchase of the Fridaythorpe feed mill from AB Agri Limited in September, taking its pig farming investment to more than £110m over the past five years. Alongside ongoing capacity expansion at its existing North Lincolnshire pig feed mill, the Fridaythorpe purchase has the potential to increase its self-sufficiency in pig feed milling to more than 40%.
Finished pig numbers increased by more than 9% versus the prior period, driving its self-sufficiency in terms of the pigs it processes to almost 55%, despite growth in demand from its three primary processing facilities and added-value pork operations.
The company reported that the integration of JSR Genetics, purchased at the start of 2025, is ‘progressing ahead of expectations with available genetics production capacity now fully utilised from internal demand’.
Pork processing
All three of Cranswick’s primary processing sites increased production volumes with the total number of UK pigs processed increasing by almost 6% compared to the same period last year.
“Our focus on innovation in the category and improving the quality of British pork products is accelerating following the JSR Genetics acquisition with enhanced feedback from downstream processing supporting our strategic retail partners’ requirements,” the company said.
The ongoing £100m multi-phased redevelopment of the Hull primary processing site to add onsite cold storage capability, create the UK’s first 1,000-pig-per-hour site and expand capacity to 50,000 pigs per week is ‘progressing to plan’. This investment is expected to be fully operational after March 2027.
Other categories
In other categories:
- Poultry revenue was up 18.5%, reflecting new business wins, now represents 20.9% of Group revenue.
- Gourmet Products revenue increased 15.9% with a strong contribution from Blakemans.
- Pet Products revenue 13.6% ahead reflecting expansion of the Pets at Home relationship
Positive start
Mr Couch said: “Our positive start to the year continued through the second quarter, with strong volume-led revenue growth across all product categories driven by new business wins, a positive contribution from recent acquisitions, strengthened alignment to our key, long-standing retail partners and our unrelenting focus on quality, service and innovation across our premium added-value product ranges.
“Demand for our core pork and poultry categories remains robust, underpinned by their relative affordability and consumer preference for natural protein as part of a healthy, balanced diet. We are well placed to maintain the positive momentum generated during the period into the second half of the financial year as we build towards our peak Christmas trading period.
“I would again like to thank our brilliant Cranswick colleagues for their continued support and commitment.”