RGF back in control as half year profits hit £1.15m

BAKERY ingredients business The Real Good Food Company has made a pre-tax profit of £1.15m for the half year, despite rising commodity costs.

The pre-tax profit was an impressive result given the group made a £1.11m loss in the same period last year.

Group sales increased 21% to £109.8m (2010: £90.7m), for the six months to the end of June 2011. EBITDA increased to £2.7m from £0.6m.

The Liverpool-based group owns Napier Brown, the largest independent non-refining distributor of sugar in Europe, and is a supplier of dairy ingredients (“Garrett”), bakery ingredients (Renshaw) and a manufacturer of sweet bakery products (Haydens) for a range of major retailers.

Chairman Pieter Totté said “substantial progress” had been made across all four business units and added that he was particularly pleased, given increased commodity costs and challenges in the sourcing of sugar supplies.
 
He said: “Our management teams have worked hard to ensure that increased commodity costs are passed on to customers and, whilst this will continue to be reflected in working capital, looking forward we are expecting net debt to reduce by the end of the year as we generate cash in our key trading period.”

He added that after three years in which trading performance had been over-shadowed by the impact of EU sugar reforms, the group is now “more in control of our own destiny”.

The Renshaw business has launched a new range of branded products, which are now available in Morrisons, Tesco, Asda, Lakeland, sugar-craft outlets and wholesalers.

Mr Totté said: “Initial reaction to the Renshaw product launches has been extremely positive, and we are now preparing to launch our new range of speciality sugars under the Whitworths brand.”