FOOD GROUP Glanbia says it expects “strong” results in the first half of the year, but the trading environment for some of its Irish business remains difficult.

In an interim management statement issued yesterday, Glanbia said positive trends in global dairy and nutritionals sectors seen in 2010 had continued this year, with the group putting in a good performance to date.

The group said its Irish dairy unit was expected to be ahead of 2010 in the first half of the year, but warned of a weakening outlook.

“Current global dairy market conditions and higher milk volumes support a good performance in Dairy Ingredients Ireland in the year to date, although there has been some weakening in market outlook in recent weeks,” Glanbia said.

Its Irish agribusiness was also described as “solid” in the first half of the year.

Consumer products, however, was still experiencing a difficult trading environment, with input cost pressures remaining high.

“As a result, this business is focusing on continued rationalisation of its cost base and achieving selected price increases at wholesale level.”

Outside Ireland, the group said it was expecting its US cheese and global nutritionals unit to perform better than last year, with its cheese performance “satisfactory” in spite of reduced volumes.

Glanbia reported strong organic volume growth in it global nutritionals sector.

It said the integration of acquisition BSN, which it announced in January, was progressing well. The group paid $144 million (€108 million) for the company.

Looking ahead, Glanbia said it expected adjusted earnings per share growth of 11-13 per cent for the full year, on a constant currency basis.

NCB Stockbrokers said there were “no major surprises” in the statement and stood by its forecasts of 15 per cent growth in adjusted earnings per share for the fiscal year 2011 and 7 per cent in 2012.

“We believe Glanbia is a major beneficiary of rising global dairy commodity and nutritional prices and believe that company guidance will rise to reflect this buoyancy as the year progresses,” NCB said in a note.

“Post the acquisition of BSN, Glanbia now generates 70 per cent of its earnings from US cheese and nutritionals which significantly enhances the quality of its earnings and reduces its dependency on Ireland and offsets the weakness in the consumer foods division.”

Shares in Glanbia closed 16 cents weaker at €4.30 last night.