Chiquita saw its net income tumble by 42 per cent during the second quarter (Q2) of the year, although president and CEO Ed Lonergan maintained that the group remained on course to achieve its long-terms goals.
Net income fell to US$18m from US$31m in the same period of 2013, the group noted, despite a 2 per cent increase in revenue to US$826m.
'Our second quarter results reflect sequential improvement versus the weather-impacted first quarter and versus year ago overall,' said Lonergan. 'We remain on path toward the long-term goals established with our 'return to the core' strategy despite substantial headwinds in the quarter and year to date.
'We realised value and volume sales increases in our banana operations, but reduced productivity, principally due to dry weather, on both owned and third-party farms in Central America resulted in higher sourcing costs and less fruit to sell in our weekly pricing markets, principally in Europe and the Mediterranean,' he explained. 'In our retail salad segment, we delivered promised efficiency benefits from our Midwest plant consolidation and mix-driven pricing improvement in the quarter. We remain confident in our ability to grow this business profitably and expect to benefit in the second half of 2014 from the pricing and efficiency initiatives announced in May and which became effective in July.'
Lonergan noted that the group remained on course for its merger with Irish fresh produce specialist Fyffes.
'We continue to make progress toward our proposed combination with Fyffes,' he added. 'We are confident this merger of equals unites highly complementary businesses and teams, and will enable us to improve service and reliability to customers while improving the efficiency of our operations. Our shareholder meeting to approve the transaction will take place on September 17, 2014, and we expect to close the transaction by the end of the year, subject to satisfaction of previously announced closing conditions.'
