Hormel Foods Corp. raised today its yearly outlook for FY 2010 as the packaged food and meat products maker reported a 37% growth in profit for the first quarter of the fiscal. The quarterly profit totally beat the market estimates. The quarterly sales also reported increasing as price increased for the products of the company in the first quarter.

The Austin, Minnesota-based company posted a strong profit growth at its refrigerated foods and grocery products businesses and reported higher margins in the quarter.

The company reported the net income of $111.2 million in the first quarter while in the same period last year net income was posted $81.4 million. Diluted earnings per share for the quarter were reported $0.82 in the first quarter compared to $0.60 per share in the same quarter last year. The analysts were expecting the net income per share of $0.68 for the first quarter. The revenue for the quarter was posted $1.73 billion, increasing by 2% from the first quarter of fiscal 2009.

Encouraged by the excellent Q1 results, the company raised its yearly outlook. Now the company gave new guidance today in which the company said that they are now seeing the yearly earnings of FY 2010 in a range of $2.68 to $2.78 per share rather than previously announced range of $2.63 to $2.73 per share.