The Real Good Food Company (RGF), whose subsidiaries include Thornbury-based Garrett Ingredients, has had a strong start to the year and “is on course to significantly exceed current market forecasts for the year”, executive chairman Pieter Totté said at today’s annual general meeting.
RGF, now headquartered in Liverpool, owns the largest independent non-refining distributor of sugar in Europe (Napier Brown) and is a supplier of dairy ingredients (Garrett), bakery ingredients (Renshaw) and a manufacturer of sweet bakery products (Haydens) for a range of major retail customers.
Mr Totté, a founding father when the group was formed in Devizes, Wiltshire in 2003, said progress made during 2010 across all four of the RGF’s businesses in 2010 had “left us well placed to achieve further improvements in sales and profitability. I am therefore very pleased to be able to report on a strong start to the current financial year throughout all our businesses”.
He said Thornbury’s newly re-launched Garrett Ingredients, formerly part of Napier Brown, continued to develop well as a stand-alone entity. Its new management team, which was appointed last year, had improved Garrett’s sourcing capability and widened its product range. The operating margin in year to date is up around 50% on the previous year, well ahead of our budget.
Garrett is a major player in the UK ingredients and bakery market supplying a full range of dairy and bakery ingredients, ice-cream mixes, sugar and milk.
Meanwhile profits at Napier Brown are back to levels seen before the EU Sugar Regime ended last October. Mr Totté said sugar prices had reaching record levels due to global shortages following the EU move but the business had now secured new sources of supply.
At Haydens, the Devizes-based baker whose major customers are Waitrose and Marks & Spencer, sales continue to perform ahead of last year and there is strong demand for the innovation skills within the business. This was further highlighted by the outstanding success of the Royal Trifle produced for Waitrose from a Heston Blumenthal recipe.
Mr Totté said: “The distribution operation has been successfully relocated to a purpose-built facility close to the bakery. There was no disruption to the business and the site was fully operational within 24 hours of the move. This has added significant picking capacity, while space freed up by this move (10,000 sq ft) has allowed management to embark on very exciting modernisation plans for the bakery.
“Based on our trading performance during the first five months of the current financial period, and my confidence that we can sustain this progress through our international sourcing skills in the sugar market, the forthcoming brand launches, and the benefits of plant reorganisation work at Haydens, I believe that the group is on course to significantly exceed current market forecasts for the year.”
