Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization ("EBITDA") were $264.6 million compared to the $125.1 million generated in the prior year.

Net income of $190.7 million reflected an improvement of 175 per cent compared to the $69.4 million reported in the same period in 2012, with earnings per share reaching $0.74 compared to $0.27 in the second quarter of 2012.

"Our second quarter results continue to validate our strategy,” said Bill Lovette, Pilgrim's Chief Executive Officer.

“Our focus on our key customers and ability to adapt to changing market conditions has helped us gain significant business in strategic channels to improve our sales mix, enabling us to take advantage of strong industry fundamentals.

“We continue to reap the benefits of operational excellence in areas of yield improvements and plant cost and efficiency gains, all of which contributed to our positive results, while our export and Mexico business continue to operate more favourably,"

"We're also pleased to announce that we have substantially completed an amendment to our U.S. Credit Facility.

“With this amendment we will refinance the Revolver and the Term Loan B-1through 2018 with reduced interest costs and more favourable covenants.

“We view this amendment as further confirmation of the progress we have made in optimising our capital structure, supported by strong operations and our effective management of working capital, which enabled us to reduce our net debt to $834 million at quarter end, a leverage of 1.5 times our EBITDA of the last twelve months."