GREELEY, COLO. — Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. returned to profitability during the second quarter. For the quarter ended June 24, the company had income of $69,358,000, equal to 27 cents per share on the common stock, which compared with a loss of $128,141,000 during the same quarter of the previous year. Sales during the quarter were $1,974,469,000, up 3 percent from $1,922,690,000 during the same quarter of the previous year.

“There will be challenges for the industry in the second half of 2012, primarily driven by volatility within the feed ingredient markets and tepid consumer spending,” said Bill Lovette, chief executive officer. “At Pilgrim’s we have our focus on what we can control, and we will continue to drive that strategy.

“Our efforts are working. While we gained ground versus the competition, we are not at the level we believe we can achieve despite being on target to reach our goal of $200 million in improvements this year. We have the right strategy and the right team in place to execute on it. Industry profits will continue to be influenced by chicken supply discipline, but volatility in feed ingredient costs will have an impact as well.”

For the six months ended June 24, the company had income of $108,531,000, or 45 cents per share, which compared with a loss of $248,901,000 during the same period of the previous year. The company had sales of $3,863,242,000, up 1 percent from $3,815,166,000.