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TWST: Can we begin with a brief historical sketch and then bring us up to date with where Greencore Group (LSE: GNC.L) is today?

Mr. Kennedy: The Company was the first Irish State company to be privatized in 1991. It was originally the Irish Sugar Company and was privatized with a view to investing the strong cash generated from the sugar business in higher growth areas of the food industry. That culminated in January 2001 with the acquisition of Hazlewood Foods, which was a publicly-quoted UK company and which brought the Group a range of market-leading number 1 and 2 positions in convenience food in the UK and, to a lesser extent, on the Continent. The acquisition of Hazlewood Foods brought the Group a number of other issues. Hazlewood Foods was effectively a food conglomerate with 38 individual businesses. Our view was that 16 of those were absolutely core to what we wanted to be doing going forward, i.e., they had excellent market positions and were in strong growth categories. Therefore, since the acquisition, the strategy has been to integrate the core Hazlewood businesses into the Greencore Group and to dispose of the non-core businesses. That disposal process has just been successfully completed, and the full integration process, for which we gave ourselves two years, will be completed by the end of our financial year in September. Furthermore, top line and EBIT growth, which was the main reason why we acquired the Hazlewood business, is already starting to come through into our results.

TWST: What is the next step? What direction will the company be taking over the next 12 to 24 months?

Mr. Kennedy: The next step for the Group is to continue to drive performance and expand in the core businesses within Hazlewood, including the sandwich business, the chilled pizza business, the chilled ready meal and quiche businesses, and the chilled sauce business. Many of our businesses have newly invested facilities and we will be looking to fill those facilities rather than acquiring other businesses or moving into other sectors. It is a case of strengthening the market leadership positions we have and taking advantage of the very attractive dynamics that exist in those individual sectors. We've bought the growth; we've bought the customer relationships; we’ve bought all the new product development skills; and we’ve bought top line growth. Therefore, the focus of our Group over the next 2-3 years is to maximize the benefit from those factors.

TWST: What are the two or three key points you give to investors when you have a chance to sit down and tell them about Greencore?

Mr. Kennedy: The Group is now really well-positioned to take advantage of all the benefits that Hazlewood brought. The portfolio is cleaned up. The growth is clearly coming through, both in the top line and, with the margins improving, in the bottom line. The debt in the business is still too high and we are still working very hard on that; that's a key priority for this Group in the next 12-24 months. But overall, we think we are very well-positioned to take advantage of growth rates that are frankly exceptional within the context of the food industry.