Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation reported second quarter 2019 financial results, showing net sales of $2.84 billion, up slightly from the same period in 2018. Earnings per share rose from $0.43 in Q2 2018 to $0.68 in Q2 2019.

“After a very challenging market in Q2 of last year, we experienced a much better environment in the U.S. during Q2 2019, particularly in commodity large bird deboning, while feature activities at retailers and QSRs returned to seasonal levels,” said Jayson Penn, chief executive officer of Pilgrim's, adding that the large-bird cutout tracked much closer to the five-year average, driven by strengths in wings, leg quarters, and tenders.

He continued, “We remain committed to our key customer strategy, which is relevant to our growth. Revenues from key customers have more than doubled over the last eight years, reducing our relative dependency on pure commodity sales and reducing volatility.”

Further, he said opportunities for additional growth remain available.

“We will continue to invest to further differentiate our portfolio and increase our capacities and capabilities to meet customer expectations. We expect value added, differentiated products to account for a significantly larger portion of our total results over the next few years as we continue to reduce the volatility of our commodity sales mix.”

According to Penn, conditions in Mexico significantly rebounded from a counter-seasonally weak Q1, the result of a return to much more normal growing conditions and strong demand. Additionally, he said the availability of imported pork from the U.S. has also significantly diminished and presented less competition for chicken demand.

The company’s Prepared Foods segment has also continued to grow at a double-digit rate and is generating great results under both premium Pilgrim’s and Del Dia brands to drive the evolution of our Mexican portfolio towards more differentiated, higher-value products and margin expansion, Penn relayed.

Regarding European operations, Penn said the company has started to overcome recent input cost challenges and to generate improving results throughout Q2.

“While pressure from wheat prices has been reduced, increased implementation of our key customer strategy also enabled us to better reflect input cost increases by adjusting our pricing models compared to before.”

He added, “Along with additional improvements in operational efficiencies, we exited Q2 with a stronger EBIT performance than when we began, and we expect this momentum to continue into the second half of the year.”

The company reported its U.S. portfolio continues to deliver strong results in its differentiated segments, while more market features and promotional activity of chicken supported better demand in the commodity segment.