{"id":563198,"date":"2026-07-22T21:24:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T21:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/563198\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T21:24:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T21:24:18","slug":"greencore-shares-soar-as-sandwich-supplier-raises-profit-outlook-amid-post-merger-momentum-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/563198\/","title":{"rendered":"Greencore shares soar as sandwich supplier raises profit outlook amid post-merger momentum \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shares in Greencore<\/a> soared by as much as 12 per cent on Wednesday after the convenience food group raised its full-year operating profit forecasts and said it remains on track to \u201cdrive value\u201d from its takeover of rival British group Bakkavor earlier this year. <\/p>\n

In a trading update on Wednesday morning, the London-listed ready-made sandwich supplier said revenues increased by 3.2 per cent in its third financial quarter to more than \u00a31.02 billion (\u20ac1.19 billion) compared to the same period last year. <\/p>\n

Speaking to The Irish Times, Greencore chief executive Dalton Philips<\/a> said: \u201cThe weather\u2019s been great. The World Cup<\/a>\u2019s been good for us. We\u2019re feeling pretty good about life at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group, which supplies Marks & Spencer<\/a> and \u2013 increasingly since the Bakkavor merger \u2013 Tesco<\/a> with pre-packed sandwiches and other convenience foods, said manufactured food sales volumes increased by 0.7 per cent in the 13 weeks to the end of June. This was ahead of the wider grocery market, and was supported by the \u201cbroader portfolio of the enlarged\u201d business, with the legacy Greencore element up 0.3 per cent and the Bakkavor side up 1 per cent.<\/p>\n

The group now expects full-year adjusted operating profits of between \u00a3234 million and \u00a3242 million, ahead of market expectations, a \u201cmaterial upgrade\u201d of 6 per cent, Philips said.<\/p>\n

Greencore, which effectively doubled in size with the merger, also said it remains \u201cconfident\u201d in its \u201cability to drive value from the Bakkavor acquisition\u201d. It now expects to deliver \u201ccost synergy\u201d of about \u00a315 million this year, it said. <\/p>\n

Former DAA chief executive Philips, who said Greencore is well on track to deliver merger-related cost efficiencies of \u00a380 million over three years, explained that the group\u2019s synergy strategy has three main pillars: \u201corganisational change\u201d, procurement and also operations. <\/p>\n

In the first area, he said Greencore had more than \u201c200 senior leaders leave the business\u201d in April, at the start of its third quarter. \u201cUltimately, you brought two businesses together, so you have two CEOs, two CFOs, and you work your way down,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re very sorry to see great people go, but that is the reality when you have two businesses come together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shares in Dublin-headquartered Greencore, which were down by more than 9 per cent this year, advanced by more than 12 per cent in London following the update. The group\u2019s share price fell in May after it reported a \u00a313.4 million group operating loss in the first half of its financial year. This was largely attributable to one-off costs related to its \u00a31.2 billion (\u20ac1.4 billion) acquisition of Bakkavor, it said at the time. <\/p>\n

It also reported a 1.3 per cent drop in sales volumes from the Bakkavor side of the business <\/a>in its first 10 weeks of ownership by the Irish group.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Philips said the British consumer remains \u201cvery cautious\u201d at the moment. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been no collapse in demand, but it\u2019s a cautious consumer,\u201d he said. \u201cWe beat the overall marketplace. We were 0.7 per cent ahead in terms of volume. The market is 0.4 per cent negative. So it is a difficult market. Having said that, we\u2019ve had some good weather; we\u2019ve had the World Cup […] That\u2019s obviously been a benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shares in Greencore soared by as much as 12 per cent on Wednesday after the convenience food group…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,230324,65963,61,60,109791,33160,4013,4018],"class_list":["post-563198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-dalton-philips","tag-greencore","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-london-stock-exchange","tag-marks-spencer-ms","tag-tesco","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}