In March the Cambridge-headquartered business warned that commercialisation efforts at US-based TEN were not going to plan. Domino made a $50m (£32.4m) investment in the egg traceability business in 2011 as one of the co-founders, and has now written that down to just £3.2m.

In its statement, Domino said: "While the group has successfully demonstrated that it can meet the operational requirements of the exclusive supply arrangement, there is no certainty that TEN Media will have sufficient capital to commercialise its system."

Shares in the coding and inkjet printing specialist fell 24p to 574p in early trading after the company announced the news.

Underlying profits prior to the exceptional charge were £25m, 3% down on the prior year, but the write-down caused Domino to post a loss of £3.8m for the period. Sales in the six months to 30 April rose 7% to £161.9m, with Domino’s most recent acquisitions, Graph-Tech and Postjet, contributing 3% of the increase.

Domino said its digital label printing business was progressing "strongly" and that it had achieved its full-year sales target for the inkjet device in the first six months of the year.

The group overall achieved double-digit sales growth in the US with Asia also highlighted as a growth market for the group. European trading overall was described as "difficult" with the exception of Germany.

Domino also moved to keep shareholders on-side, and increased its interim dividend by 5% to 7.6p.