Domestic market ‘challenging’ says McBride

PRIVATE label household cleaning to shampoo manufacturer McBride is said trading in the UK market remains challenging, but expects to meet its full-year targets.

The group, which said last week it was closing its small London head office and would be moving all central fuctions to its Middleton site in north Manchester, said it was seeing good performance in central and Eastern Europe.

In trading update for the period from July 1 to October 13 McBride said revenue had declined by 3% at constant currency as a consequence of its strategic wind-down in selected contract manufacturing operations.

It added: “Revenue growth in Central and Eastern Europe continued to demonstrate a strong performance.  Overall group private label revenue grew by 1%, slightly less than expected due to a further period of branded promotional activity in UK.

“Although trading in UK continues to be challenging, the combination of our new product launch pipeline together with cost savings expected to be achieved in the current year leaves the board’s expectations for full year performance unchanged.”