Tyson Foods Inc called its third-quarter results "acceptable" and said it would keep redirecting its products into value-added businesses such as home meals.
Tyson earned a net of $45.2 million, or $0.21 a share, in the quarter ended June 28, narrowly beating a First Call consensus estimate of 12 analysts that put Tyson's quarterly earnings at $0.20 a share. The results compared with a 14.6 million net, or $0.07 a share, the year before.
"From a purely comparative perspective, our numbers for the third quarter of this year versus the third quarter of last year are acceptable, but when viewed in relation to our own expectations, we still have a few issues to resolve," said chief executive Leland Tollett in a statement.
"We continue to work toward optimizing our product mix, with the goal being to re-direct more of our lower valued products into value-added and more profitable channels," he said.
Tollett added Tyson's recent acquisition of Mallard's Food Products "should provide a new platform for marketing our value-added products as we expand our involvement in the rapidly developing home meal replacement business."
The chicken processor said quarterly gross profits rose 16.9% to $268.0 million from last year's $229.3 million, while its gross margin expanded to 16.8% from last year's 14.1%.
Quarterly sales dropped three percent to $1.59 billion from $1.63 billion last year. Excluding sales of beef and pork, (a division Tyson sold last year) total sales increased 2.4% over last year's comparable sales.
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