Kerry, the Irish global ingredients and  foods group, in an Interim Management Statement trading update for the ten months to 31 October 2009,  issued this afternoon, said overall reported revenues were 6% below the same period of 2008 due to the adverse impact of currency changes, lower pricing and elimination of non-core activities.

The group said it is confident of increasing earnings for the full year to the upper end of the range of 160 cent to 165 cent per share forecast at the start of the year (2008: 153.9 cent).

For the ten month period, continuing business volumes were 3% ahead in ingredients & flavours, back 0.8% in consumer foods and 1.5% ahead on a group-wide basis.

Kerry said the Americas region "continued to achieve excellent results through its customer and end-use-market focus, benefiting from its combined ingredients & flavours technology platforms and a strong innovation pipeline under commercial development at the new Kerry Center in Beloit (WI). Underlying volumes grew by 3%. Savoury & Dairy applications were well ahead despite the market related issues impacting the US meat sector."

The EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region remained challenging due to the impact of economic conditions on food and beverage consumption trends, but year-to-date Kerry delivered underlying volume growth of 2.3%. Dairy systems suffered from the significant downturn in primary dairy markets.

In Asia-Pacific markets Kerry achieved underlying volume growth of 9.1%.