James Crean has incurred a loss of €5.4 million (£4.25 million) in the six months ended June 30th, compared with a profit of €3.7 million (£2.9 million) , after a €9.5 million write-down in the carrying value of Freezer Queen, the US food subsidiary.

Excluding the write off, the underlying trend of the continuing operations is positive. Sales of these operations rose from €78 million to €88 million and the operating profits before goodwill and exceptionals, grew from €5 million to €7.6 million.

The basic headline earnings per share fell from 11 cents to 7.6 cents and no dividends were being paid because there were insufficient distributable reserves available. Crean said it was considering a number of options to deal with this issue.

Following a restructuring, Crean is now left with one operation; its US food business. A breakdown of that business shows a 3 per cent rise in poultry sales to $55.7 million (€63.07 million) but an 8 per cent drop in frozen meals sales to €28.8 million.

A breakdown of the operating profit showed two diverse trends; poultry rose by 16 per cent to $7.98 million but frozen meals contracted by 72 per cent to $0.23 million.

Crean's net debt amounted to €43.5 million at the end of June giving it a gearing of 198 per cent. Since then the net debt has been reduced by €8.7 million following the early repayment of a £5.5 million loan note due from W F Electrical.