DAMAGE caused by the horse meat scandal continues to plague a ready-meal maker which has already lost tens of jobs.

Greencore Group, which has a plant in Consett, County Durham, revealed a 1.3 per cent drop in UK like-for-like revenues in its half year report today. The news comes just a month after 43 job losses were announced at Consett, though they remain under consultation.

The UK fall was driven mostly by consumer backlash after horsemeat was found in ready meals, and tough market conditions made worse by a longer than expected winter. Greencore had four of its beef bolognese products removed from Asda shelves after one tested positive for horsemeat, though later tests by the company came back negative.

Patrick Coveney, CEO of Greencore, said: “The industry has been hammered since February with the impact of the horsemeat scandal.

"The current restructuring is due to finish in a few months. You never know what the future may bring but another restructuring is not part of our plans.

"Overall the drivers for the ready meals market remain good. My hope is that over time that should lead to more exapnsion and more jobs being created, but when that will come I cannot say."

The company says it expects the UK arm of its business to remain flat with little or no growth until the end of the year.

Group revenue rose just under one per cent to £572.9m with a 1.8 per cent rise in revenue from ready meals. This pushed profits up 6.3 per cent to £33.7m across the business which was driven by a new line of Starbucks ready to go meals in the US, and the acquisition of American food companies MarketFare and Schau.

Greencore is passing on a dividend of 1.90p on to its shareholders but remain confident of increasing that before the end of the financial year.