Mr Kipling sales help lift Premier Foods annual profit

By Yamini Kalia

(Reuters) -Britain's Premier Foods beat annual profit expectations on Thursday, helped by year-round growth in sales of its Mr Kipling and Nissin brands, and laid down plans for potential price hikes.

The strong sales growth seen by food producers is threatened by uncertain economic conditions and rising employer costs, which may prompt consumers to tighten purse strings while they ride out the uncertainty.

Chief Executive Alex Whitehouse said the company did not see any material impact from U.S. tariffs, but any costs it could not absorb would be reflected in product prices.

"On pricing, I think as an industry, we're getting back into a rhythm of low single-digit import cost pressures, which we will then try to offset as best we can," he said on a media call.

Premier Foods expects revenue growth this year to be more equally balanced between volume and price-mix, after a year of discounted promotional pricing.

Expectations for annual trading profit were kept unchanged.

Shares of the company rose as much as 3% in early trade, but reversed gains to fall 0.6% by 0808 GMT.

"Premier Foods has become a remarkably consistent and resilient growth operation," Jefferies analysts said in a note, upgrading fiscal 2026 trading profit expectations by about 2% to 195 million pounds.

The food producer enjoyed a strong Christmas period, which combined with growth in a lower inflation environment in the first half and strong sales of its branded products, to help lift headline trading profit 6% to 187.8 million pounds ($249.2 million) for the year ended March 29.

Analysts, on average, had expected 185 million pounds, according to a company-compiled consensus.

($1=0.7536 pounds)

(Reporting by Shashwat Awasthi and Yamini Kalia; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala and Clarence Fernandez)