The Glanbia Ingredients facility in Virginia, County Cavan, Ireland.

Irish food group Glanbia today announced pre-tax profits, before exceptionals, of €99.5m for 2007, up 34% on the €74.4m reported in 2006, boosted by its largest division, food ingredients and nutritionals.

Revenues for the year rose by 19% to €2.207 billion from €1.854 billion, while adjusted earnings per share up 25% to 28.2 cent.

Glanbia said that its Irish operations accounted for 34% of revenue and 26% of pre-exceptional operating profit, while international markets accounted for 66% of revenue and 74% of pre-exceptional operating profit.

The company reported slightly lower revenues in its Irish consumer foods division for 2007. Revenues declined to €510.8m from €511m in 2006 while operating profits fell by 27% to €17.8m after what the company called a challenging year

Glanbia said that it has a strong position in key food markets and sectors around the world and an ongoing investment programme will expand operations in Ireland, China, Nigeria and the USA further in 2008. Glanbia employs 4,000 people across three divisions and eight business units, in 2007 the Group was supplied by over 5,500 dairy farmers and processed 4.1 billion litres of milk.  Glanbia produced
over 400,000 tonnes of cheese and 260,000 tonnes of ingredients for customers on five continents.

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John Moloney, Group Managing Director, said:

"Glanbia had an excellent year in 2007. Operating profit pre exceptional rose 35% to €115.8 million and adjusted earnings per share were up 25% to 28.2 cent. These results reflect the benefits of the strategic investment programmes implemented over recent years and the Group's spread of businesses, against a backdrop of positive global dairy markets. The driver was the strong performance
of our largest division, Food Ingredients & Nutritionals. This division delivered with good volumes, improvements in operational efficiency and solid growth in margins.

Overall, our growth strategy is delivering. We are confident of another good performance this year and the Group is on target for double digit growth in 2008. More importantly, Glanbia continues to successfully develop a strategic international presence in cheese and nutritional ingredients. This, together with strong Irish operations, is positive for sustained high growth into the future."