Processor raises sausage prices, blames high sow costs

Monday, August 9, 2010

Citing "all time high" sow prices, Bob Evans, a food processor and restaurant chain operator based in Columbus, Ohio, announced in June that it was raising sausage prices to its retail buyers "for the first time in many years."

Sows cost over $60 a hundredweight in April. That compares to an average of $42 per hundredweight in the fiscal year ending April 30 and $45 in fiscal 2009.

The company is taking no chances that it will lose money on its annual US$1.86 billion in sales in retailed foods and in its restaurants. In the last quarter of its previous fiscal year, Bob Evans recorded a profit of $20.8 million compared with $21.1 million a year previous. For the full fiscal year, the company posted earnings of $70.2 million compared with a loss of $5.1 million the previous year.

Bob Evans runs about 675 restaurants across the United States under the Bob Evans and Mimi's Café names. It also produces and distributes pork sausage and convenience foods under the Bob Evans and Owens brands.BP