Hawaii’s largest macadamia nut farm, Royal Hawaiian Orchards LP, posted a fourth consecutive annual financial loss last year as it continued to ramp up a line of packaged food products that could soon include milk and butter made from mac nuts.

The Hilo-based company announced Wednesday that it lost $2.2 million last year, which was an improvement from a $6.2 million loss the year before.

Royal Hawaiian said the improvement was largely due to higher production, sales and prices for nuts last year. A $1.8 million loss related to the sale of an orchard in 2014 also made last year’s results better by comparison.

The company farms roughly 5,400 acres of macadamia trees on Hawaii island and produced 19 million pounds of nuts last year, up from 18.3 million pounds the year before.

Historically, Royal Hawaiian sold raw nuts wholesale and was long known as ML Macadamia Orchards LP. It started making its own line of snack foods in 2012 as a way to earn a bigger return on its crop. The endeavor has required significant new investment and generated new expenses while the retail line is built up. Royal Hawaiian last turned a profit in 2011, when it earned $712,000. Losses in 2012 and 2013 were $499,000 and $3.7 million, respectively.

Last year, Royal Hawaiian added packages of dark chocolate-covered macadamias with acai, goji and pomegranate fruits after launching an initial line of seasoned nuts and nuts mixed with dried fruits.

This year, the company expects to come out with macadamia nut milk and butter.

“We consider research and development of new products to be a significant part of our overall philosophy, and we are committed to developing new products that incorporate macadamia nuts,” Royal Hawaiian said in the financial report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “As we expand our snack nut product range, we believe we can gain greater shelf space in retail stores and increase our market share.”

The company estimated that its packaged nuts were being sold in about 15,000 retail stores in the United States at the end of last year.

Total revenue for Royal Hawaiian rose to $18.5 million last year from $16 million the year before.

The gain was driven by both packaged food sales and bulk nut sales that Royal Hawaiian lumps together in a “branded products” segment of operations. Revenue from this segment more than doubled to $12.1 million last year from $5.4 million the year before. Of this total, bulk nut sales accounted for $7.8 million last year and $3.4 million the year before. Royal Hawaiian began selling more nut inventory in bulk in the second quarter last year in part to improve cash flow.

Royal Hawaiian also lists revenue from “orchard” operations that include some bulk nut sales under long-term contracts and revenue from managing and leasing orchards owned by others. Orchard revenue totaled $6.4 million last year, down from $10.6 million the year before.

Partnership shares in Royal Hawaiian, which typically trade lightly on an over-the-counter stock exchange and are mainly held by Denver investor and former Quark Software Inc. CEO Farhad “Fred” Ebrahimi, closed Wednesday at $2.73 after the financial report was issued. The price was up from a 52-week low of $2.71 on Monday when shares last traded. The high price during the period was $3.25 on Jan. 8.