Accounts to the end of November 2023 for C&J Meats, which slaughters cattle near Lifford in Co Donegal and operates a cutting factory in Portadown, Co Armagh, have been published by Companies House in Northern Ireland.
C&J Meats also has a 33.3% interest in DMP Foods, which is located in Ballymena, Co Antrim.
The company recorded an operating profit for the year ending 30 November 2023 of £1.6m (€1.9m), up from £727,000 (€876,000) the previous year on a turnover of £71.7m (€86.4m), a 3.7% increase on the previous year.
The operating profit of £1.6m (€1.9m) is 2.2%, which is ahead of the 1% achieved by Dunbia, the UK part of the Dawn Meats business, but behind the 4.4% posted by the Foyle Food Group.
The accounts listed an exceptional item of taxation and social security costs to the value of £1,665,418 (€2,000,652).
A note to the accounts describes this as “the company reached a settlement with HMRC concerning certain tax positions taken in previous years”.
Profit for the financial year and total comprehensive income was £57,548, down from £490,692 the previous year.
Directors
John McCann and Colm Pyers are listed as directors of the company and are part of the 58-person team that operated the business during the year and the combined staff cost was £2.049m (€2.469m)compared with £2.384m (€2.872m) the year before, when there were 59 people in the business.
The stock valuation including livestock at 30 November 2023 was £7,164,948 (€8,632,467), up from £4,886,714 (€5,887,607) at 30 November 2022.
Agri-food processing is a high volume, high turnover but low margin business. C&J is one of the few beef processors that publishes annual accounts and its operating margin of 2.2% sits between Dunbia at 1% and Foyle Food Group at 4.4% in its latest accounts.
The Foyle Food Group and Dunbia have a significant part of their business in Britain.
About C&J Meats
The C&J Meats business originally operated as a cutting plant in Co Armagh but, in recent years, has added a slaughter facility in Co Donegal.
It is a price-reporting factory, which means that it handles at least 20,000 cattle per year and what it pays for each grade of animal is published each week in the Irish Farmers Journal.
It is recognised as a strong buyer of cattle, good-quality cows in particular, for the Co Donegal factory, topping the Irish Farmers Journal factory league table for U=3= and R=3= cows and it was in second place for O=3= grades.