ASTRAL FOODS LIMITED - General Trading Update

General Trading Update

Astral Foods Limited
("Astral Foods")
Registration number: 1978/003194/06
JSE Code: ARL ISIN: ZAE000029757

General Trading Update

Further to the General Trading Updates dated 16 February 2015
and 17 February 2015, shareholders are advised that based on the
most recent trading conditions experienced up to the end of
February 2015, which represents trading for five months, a
reasonable degree of certainty now exists that the headline
earnings per share for the six months ending 31 March 2015 will
increase with at least 150% or 579 cents per share compared to
the same period in the previous year.     This implies that the
headline earnings per share for the six months to 31 March 2015
is expected to be at least 965 cents per share (2014: 386 cents
per share).

The continued improvement in profits into February 2015 can be
ascribed to the post-festive season market for poultry products
being stronger for a longer period than was originally
estimated.   This together with the following factors previously
reported, resulted in the improvement for the first half of
2015:

  - Healthy global maize and soya crops which resulted in the
    softening of grain prices and subsequently benefitted feed
    prices and livestock production costs.

  - Expansion in feed volumes that now includes production of
    feed   from  the   recently  commissioned   state-of-the-art
    Standerton feed mill, previously supplied by Afgri.

  - Increase in poultry sales volumes, in particular the
    expansion in the Western Cape which now includes broilers
    previously processed by Tydstroom, now contracted from
    Quantum Foods.

  - Good poultry production efficiencies together with cutbacks
    in the comparative period not being repeated have resulted
    in increased poultry sales volumes.

A further announcement will be released once a more definite
range of the increase in earnings can be given.
It is expected that the interim results for the six months to 31
March 2015 will be published on 18 May 2015.

The information on which the trading statement is based has not
been reviewed or reported on by Astral Foods’ auditors.

Pretoria
17 March 2015

Sponsor
JP Morgan Equities South Africa (Pty) Limited

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