CENTENNIAL, COLO. — Record quarterly sales in the company’s Food Ingredients unit helped Penford Corp. narrow its loss in the third quarter of fiscal 2011. The provider of renewable ingredient systems for industrial and food applications sustained a loss of $709,000 in the third quarter ended May 31, which compared with a loss of $5,976,000 in the same period a year ago.

Sales for the third quarter were $85,233,000, up 38% from $61,909,000.

For the third quarter, the Food Ingredients segment had operating income of $5,517,000, up 10% from $5,018,000 during the previous year’s third quarter. Sales for the segment were $23,637,000, up 19% from $19,899,000 during the previous year. Penford said the higher sales reflected growth in existing accounts and from new product introductions in the companion pet and gluten-free bakery systems.

In the Industrial Ingredients segment, Penford suffered a loss of $734,000, which compared with a loss of $6,847,000 in the same period a year ago. But sales rose sharply to $61,596,000 from $42,010,000. The increase in sales reflected higher corn prices that were passed through to customers, additional ethanol volumes and growth of specialty starch-based additives.

For the nine months ended May 31, Penford sustained a loss of $1,948,000, which compared with net income of $9,809,000 in the same period a year ago. Sales were $231,802,000, up 21% from $191,272,000 in the first nine months of fiscal 2010.