Release Date:
Menu Foods Income Fund reported a net loss of US$62.13 million on US$244.8 million in sales for the fiscal year of 2007, down from US$6.43 million in net income on US$356.2 million in sales during 2006.
“It would not be an overstatement to say that 2007 was the most unsettling time in Menu’s 37 year history,” the income trust said in its year end report.
The recalls of last year, directly, cost Menu Foods US$55 million, but it also cost the company “significant sales” after it suspended shipments of all cuts-and-gravy products. Customers who accounted for approximately 37% of Menu’s volume in 2006 have since stopped buying its products, according to the company. Menu also restructured starting in October, selling a South Dakota production plant. Its workforce at the end of 2007 was down 27% from 2006 levels.
As reported, Menu “followed the leading national brand manufacturers” in January 2008 and raised the prices charged to its private-label customers. These increases are expected to increase Menu’s sales figures by over 3%, and help it recover some of the cost increases the company had eaten since its last price increase, the company said.