ConAgra Foods reported results for the fiscal 2005 third quarter, ended Feb. 27, 2005.
Sales for the quarter were $3.6 billion, up 1%. Current quarter income from continuing operations before income tax was $314 million, equal to last year. Preliminary diluted EPS was $0.31 for the quarter.
Bruce Rohde, ConAgra Foods chairman and chief executive officer, commented, “Our company dealt with several changes and challenges during the quarter that negatively impacted performance. Two of these challenges – manufacturing network changes and the organization’s transition to new business processes as part of Project Nucleus – are short-term in nature. These challenges occurred while implementing significant improvements and are part of our long-term profit-enhancing initiatives. Our most significant challenge – increased input costs in our retail packaged meats business – has impacted us for several consecutive quarters, and we are taking specific actions to address the problems. These actions include implementing more effective price increases and SKU rationalization efforts.”
Rohde continued, “The short-term challenges connected to manufacturing and the organization’s transition to Project Nucleus are mostly resolved, and are not expected to impact the fourth quarter as they did in the third quarter. While we consider the short-term challenges to be a natural outcome of implementing significant changes, we still need to improve our overall execution and more effectively anticipate and deal with our operational issues. The momentum we built in the last half of fiscal 2004 and the first half of fiscal 2005 was interrupted this quarter, but we expect to get back on track over the next few quarters as we work through the current challenges and as we continue to focus on our fundamentals to improve margins and returns over time. This includes generating consumer preference for our products, operating more efficiently, strengthening customer service, and prudent capital deployment.”
Project Nucleus is the company’s information-based business process initiative that is systematically linking sales, marketing, logistics, manufacturing functions, and customer interfaces across ConAgra Foods.
Murdok | Breaking eBusiness News
Your source for investigative ebusiness reporting and breaking news.
