Ornua Foods UK, the Irish dairy group’s subsidiary business charged with selling its stable of branded products in the UK market, returned to profit in 2017 on the back of record butter prices.

For its 2017 financial year, Ornua Foods UK reported pre-tax profits of £7.1m (€8.1m). The business had racked up losses of £1m in 2016 and £8m in 2015. Ornua attributed the losses in those years to exceptional restructuring charges.

Operating profits at Ornua Foods UK increased almost fourfold to £8.9m (€10.1m), as profit margins expanded from 0.7% in 2016 to 2.8% last year. Although sales volumes were stable throughout 2017, the business saw revenues increase 12% to just under £320m (€362m). This was due to the improvement of dairy commodity prices in 2017, particularly for butter.

Ornua said its key cheese and butter brands, Pilgrim’s Choice and Kerrygold, continued to grow last year following significant investment in multi-channel marketing campaigns.