"We are supporting our packaged meats business by boosting our sales and marketing budget to activate our brands and fuel innovation to bring us closer to our consumers. This is promoting growth and strengthening our position in many important product categories, including bacon, dinner sausage, hotdogs and portable lunches," he remarked.

"Notably, sales volume and dollars expanded for all of our 12 core brands in the first quarter: Farmland, Smithfield, Eckrich, Armour, John Morrell, Cook's, Gwaltney, Kretschmar, Curly's, Carando, Margherita, and Healthy Ones. In addition, our Armour LunchMakers, Curly's Tub BBQ, Eckrich Hotdogs and Smoked Sausage, Kretschmar Deli, and Smithfield Marinated lines posted double-digit growth," Pope commented.

"At the same time, balanced supply and demand fundamentals coupled with strong exports yielded solid fresh pork margins. Our international group capitalized on robust global demand for pork to drive double-digit increases in export volume and dollars, as well as market share gains in several key regions," he continued.

"Low global protein inventories continued to support historically high live hog prices. This strong pricing environment, combined with profitable hedge positions, generated robust hog production profitability that was well above the normalized range, despite higher cash grain prices. We continue to work to improve the profitability of our Hog Production segment through our ongoing cost savings initiative," he said.

"The actions we took last year to improve our balance sheet resulted in a significant reduction in interest expense in the first quarter. We also utilized excess cash to redeem the remaining $78 million of our outstanding 2011 bonds, repurchase $34 million of stock and invest an additional $100 million in our pension plans, all while maintaining over $1.2 billion in liquidity. Subsequent to quarter-end, we repurchased $31 million of additional shares and redeemed $13.1 million of our highest coupon bonds," Pope stated.

Although the first quarter is generally the most difficult quarter for fresh pork, operating margins were at the high end of normalized range at 3%, or $6 per head, despite a 19% increase in live hog market prices. Results were bolstered by stable protein supplies and solid exports. Sales tonnage and head processed decreased 2%.

Hog Production operating margins, adjusted for the litigation settlement and impairments, were excellent at 14%, or $29 per head, the company reports. Live hog market prices increased 19% to $69 per hundredweight compared to $58 per hundredweight last year, which more than offset higher feed costs. Pre-interest raising costs increased 15% to $63 per hundredweight compared to $54 per hundredweight last year. Results were favorably impacted by profitable hedges placed earlier in the year for grains and hogs.

"Looking forward, we have strong momentum in our Pork segment supported by our solid brands and positive industry fundamentals. We are working hard to grow our packaged meats business through brand activation and innovation. We are targeting 3% sales volume growth in our packaged meats business in fiscal 2012 and are committed to continuing to deliver quality and consistent margins," Pope stated.

"We expect that positive industry fundamentals in our fresh pork and hog production businesses will continue — export demand should remain robust and we do not foresee any hog supply expansion on the horizon. High feed costs will continue to pose a challenge, but we have hedged raising costs in the mid to high $60s per hundredweight for fiscal 2012," he commented.

"We are very optimistic about the future of our business and look forward to continuing to execute our strategy to be a leading branded packaged meats company. Fiscal 2012 is off to a great start with strong earnings growth and we expect this year to be another very good year for the company," Pope concluded.

Source: Smithfield Foods Inc.