Boughey Distribution parent NWF Group saw turnover at the division drop 14.2% last year and operating profit halved, due to difficult market conditions and poor consumer spending in supermarkets.
Its financial results, published today, showed that turnover at the grocery distribution business fell to £36.4m for the year ended 31 May 2013 (2012: £42.4m), while operating profit halved to £1.4m, down from £3m in 2012.
Despite winning some small contracts, the business had some spare storage space and volumes remained the same throughout the year. Pallet storage fell from an average of 105,000 per month to 95,000 per monthover the year.
It also continued restructuring its network, consolidating customers from its Deeside depot into a site in Wardle, Greater Manchester. It hopes this will improve efficiency by reducing trunking, as the Deeside site will now only be used for overflow storage.
NWF said in a statement: “The short-term outlook remains tough, as there are no signs of increasing consumer expenditure.”
The majority of activity continues to take place in NWFs Fuels and Feeds divisions.
Following a network restructure in the 2011/12 financial year, operating profit at NWF Fuels leapt to £4.4m, up from £600,000 during the previous year. It said this was due to reducing the size of its tanker fleet by 15, reducing the size of its workforce and more demand as a result of an extended winter.
However turnover fell by 2.1% to £356.3m (2012: £363.9m).
“We have a proven depot-operating model and have demonstrated that the rationalised business performance has recovered to sustainable levels of performance and are looking to develop the business organically and through appropriate strategic bolt on acquisitions,” NWF said.
Its Feeds division grew by 14.3% to £153.1 m (2012: £133.9 m) as, NWF said, the demand for feed was high as a consequence of poor quality and low volumes of silage and the extended cold weather in the spring. Operating profit rose to £3.9m from £2.7m.
