Crop chemicals firm growing fast
Levity Crop Science, a Preston-based R&D company specialising in agricultural products, has ended its financial year with a threefold increase in sales and a doubling of staff numbers.
Turnover in the last financial year has grown from a modest £100,000 to around £300,000, with staff numbers increasing to seven.
Founded by managing directors Anna Weston and David Marks, the company expects to turnover £750,000 this financial year. In the first month of 2017 the company has already exceeded its exports for the whole of 2016, with new markets including the US, Spain, and Germany.
Large-scale private equity investment from Mike Peters MBE, who joined the management team as commercial director in May last year, has allowed the company to bring products to market that help farmers produce more food with lower inputs on fruit vegetable and potato crops.
Weston said: “It’s been an exciting year for Levity, we have invested in talent bringing in world class researchers to our research and development team. Our first generation of products have hit the market and our sales have tripled fuelled by strong exports to Northern Europe.”
Peters, who was awarded an MBE in 2013 for services to North West industry, has a strong track record in the chemical manufacturing industry, having built u p agro-chemical firm UPL to a £38m turnover company with 250 staff.
Peters said: “I am enjoying working with founders David and Anna to help establish Levity as a global player in the fertiliser industry. This year has seen us triple sales, largely through exports, and we expect to triple them again during 2017. We are staring to build markets in North America and Southern Europe and have several exciting new products to launch this year”.
