UPDATE 2-Danisco profits in line, 2009-10 seen slightly better

* Sees 2009-10 EBIT up to 1.3 bln crowns, sales up 3-4 pct

* 2008-09 EBIT 1.25 billion crowns, in line with guidance

* 2008-09 sales 13.0 billion crowns, as indicated in May

* Shares down 4.3 percent

(Adds further details, quotes, share price)

By John Acher and Teis Jensen

COPENHAGEN, June 24 (Reuters) - Danish food ingredients and enzymes maker Danisco DCO.CO forecast modest increases in 2009-10 profit and sales after meeting its expectations with a 14 percent fall in 2008-09 operating profit.

The company's sweeteners division was hit hard, but Danisco Chief Executive Tom Knutzen said that the business was in an interim phase and would return to profit growth.

Danisco, which sold its sugar business in February to Germany's Nordzucker, said it was cautiously optimistic about the future and that projects at its Genencor enzymes unit with U.S. partners DuPont (DD.N) and Goodyear (GT.N) were progressing.

Sydbank analyst Rune Dahl said: "The outlook for 2009/10 is very conservative, but that was what we could have expected."

Danisco shares had dropped 3.4 percent at 211.50 crowns by 1239 GMT against a Danish blue chip index .OMXC20 that was up 1.9 percent.

The company said it expected 2009-10 earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) to rise to 1.3 billion Danish crowns ($242 million) and revenue to grow 3 to 4 percent to about 13.5 billion crowns.

EBIT before special items for the year ended April 30 fell to 1.25 billion crowns. That was at the top of an EBIT range of 1.23 billion to 1.25 billion crowns Danisco guided for in a May trading announcement. The median estimate in a Reuters poll of analysts had been for EBIT of 1.22 billion crowns.

Full-year revenue rose 6 percent to 13.0 billion crowns, as Danisco had forecast in May.

Revenue fell 10 percent and EBIT 71 percent in the sweeteners business, which has suffered from rising inventories and costs, and tough competition from Chinese producers.

Knutzen said that Danisco's priority would be to reduce the sweeteners division's inventories and the cash tied up in them, and he expected the business to regain profit growth.

"It is in an interim phase before we can regain EBIT growth with normalised inventories and better capacity utilisation," Knutzen told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Danisco's products are used in a wide range of products -- from baked goods, dairy and beverages to animal feed, laundry detergent and bioethanol.

UPBEAT ON GENENCOR

Danisco said that Genencor projects -- with DuPont to develop a second-generation bioethanol and Goodyear Tyre to develop a bio-based alternative to a chemical used in synthetic rubber production -- were going "full steam ahead".

Genencor generated 31 percent of 2008-09 group revenues and about 35 percent of group EBIT.

In the fourth quarter, Genencor's EBIT margin improved to 9.5 percent from 8.5 percent a year earlier.

"I am very optimistic about Genencor, this is the first quarter where we can see an improvement in EBIT compared to the same quarter last year," CEO Knutzen told Reuters.

Danisco said that because of the global economic crisis, it would not reach its 2010/11 EBIT margin target of 12.5 percent until a year later but it stuck to its long-term targets for organic growth, EBIT margin and return on net operating assets.

"As a result of the world's dramatic economic downturn, collapsing financial markets and internal challenges from Sweeteners, we now perceive this milestone to be obtainable only one year later -- in the full year 2011/12," Danisco said.

Knutzen played down the postponement of the target, saying that it was no surprise to the financial markets. (Additional reporting by Peter Levring; editing by Dan Lalor and Karen Foster) ($1 = 5.371 Danish crowns)