TURNOVER grew again last year at the north's biggest company Moy Park, its latest accounts show.
The poultry producer, which supplies virtually every major supermarket in Britain and Ireland, had revenues of £1.58 billion in 2019, an increase of nearly 1 per cent on the previous year.
Its gross profit rose to £188.5 million, although after various expenses, the firm's retained profit dropped from £59m to £56.4m, due in the main to its tax obligations increasing significantly.
And the accounts show that during the year the Craigavon-headquartered firm - which was acquired by US-based Pilgrim’s Pride in 2017 - increased its staff numbers to 10,126.
Of these, 9,303 are based in its UK operations, where it has nine processing facilities, and the remaining 823 in Europe (mainly France and the Netherlands).
Moy Park's staff costs for the year came in at an eye-watering £283.6 million.
This included just over £250m in wages and salaries and the remainder in defined contribution pension costs, employer's national insurance contributions and other taxes.
On a crude basis, dividing the overall wages bill by worker numbers, it pointed to the average salary at Moy Park being around £28,000.
Moy Park's highest-paid director, chief executive Chris Kirke, received £700,000 as well as £10,000 in pension contributions.
But this is a fraction of the package paid to his predecessor Janet McCollum, who in 2018 received £2,538,000 plus £74,000 pension contributions.
Yesterday a spokesman for Moy Park told the Irish News: “We are pleased at this strong financial performance in the face of global market conditions that continue to be challenging.
“The performance was underpinned by a strategy of unrelenting focus on cost control, working closely with key customers and a culture of constant innovation, in what remains a dynamic competitive landscape and a market still facing significant commodity cost inflation."
The company added: “Our business is built on the highest standards of food safety and quality, with an outstanding team dedicated to feeding the nation with safe, healthy, nutritious food.
“Key to our success is a focus on our people, who we regard as Food Heroes, and they ensure our business is well placed to expand on its position as a leading European food company.”
But the company has faced criticism for the fact that it was allegedly a huge beneficiary from the controversial RHI scheme, despite claiming it derived no financial gain from its farmers using the scheme.
According to a media report in the News Letter, an analysis of multiple internal Moy Park documents, which were among tens of thousands of pages of evidence published by the RHI inquiry, claim to show that senior company figures identified seven significant ways in which the firm indirectly made money from RHI.
In recent months the company has also faced criticism after a migrant worker at its Dungannon plant died after contracting coronavirus.
Moy Park says it has invested more than £4 million in safety and supportive measures to protect its staff, which includes advanced safety measures which have been rolled out across its facilities since late March.
Key measures include rolling out thermal temperature screening technology to stop Covid-19 entering its facilities.
