Silver Fern Farms posted a net profit of $70.7 million for the year to December 2019, up from $5.8 million the year before on the back of higher red meat exports into China.
The company, jointly owned by China’s Shanghai Maling Aquarius Limited and farmer-owned Silver Fern Farms Co-operative, reported revenue of $2.6 billion for the year, up from up from $2.4 billion in 2018.
Well known to chefs and founded in 1948, Silver Fern Farms are New Zealand’s leading procurer, processor, marketer and exporter of premium quality lamb, beef and venison.
Heightened exports reflected the impact of African swine fever on Chinese pork supply.
Silver Fern Farms Cooperative chair Richard Young described the performance as the “strongest financial result in the past decade.”
Chief executive Simon Limmer said the strong result was positive, given the new operating environment Covid-19 has created.
“While global market conditions and domestic challenges move by the day in 2020, our achievements in 2019 set us up well to meet today’s challenges.”
The result saw shareholder equity increase by $70 million to $571 million.
Capital expenditure in the period was $32 million, up $3 million on the prior year.
Limmer said while the company had come into the year facing an “uncertain international geo-political and trade environment”, the impact of African swine fever had served to counter the downsides of Brexit and US-China trade issues.
“Through all of these dynamic shifts and turns in the markets, we have needed to remain strongly customer-focused and agile in order to take advantage of the opportunities they present.”
