Donegal Creameries reported a 16.5 per cent rise in turnover to €69.6 million for the first six months of the year boosted by strong profts from its agribusiness unit.
Agribusiness profits offset poor returns from commodity dairy products, where profits fell from €1.8 million in the first six months of 2007 to €586,000 for the same period this year. The company said it expects this year to be "more challenging" than 2007.
As a result pretax profits for the period were €3.47 million, down on the €4.80 million reported over the same six-month period in 2007, in part due to a fall in the profits from its "associates", which relates to the commission Donegal earns from selling on milk.
Operating profits rose by just 5.2 per cent to €3.1 million.
