Hellmann Worldwide fights back to black in 2021

Hellmann Worldwide is back in the black after a year of “both challenge and opportunity”, the company has revealed.

The group, which was founded 150 years ago in Germany, is a global multimodal logistics provider specialising in vertical markets which include pharma, perishables, automotive, consumer goods and fashion.

Hellmann, which employs around 295 staff, operates a fleet of around 5,000 vehicles. It has eight UK sites and around 200,000sq ft of warehousing, which is a mix of pallet storage and ecommerce pick and pack facilities.

The company also offers a European service across 56 countries through a joint venture with Pallet-Track.

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Reporting its annual results for the year to 31 December 2021, Hellmann Worldwide revealed it had turned an annual loss of £1.66m in 2020 into a profit of £1.7m in 2021.

In its strategic report to the results the group said: “2021 was a year of both challenge and opportunity. The company began supplying customs clearance services from the start of the year, following Brexit, although road freight volumes declined as customers saw the opportunity to consolidate their consignments to reduce costs.”

However, by the middle of the year road freight volumes had begun to return to pre-Brexit levels, Hellmann has revealed, with group turnover surging to £108.1m (2020: £80m), of which road freight turnover generated £24.9m (2020: £17.4m) and contract logistics turnover delivered £5.9m (2020: £5.8m).

The group also received a dividend of £1.3m (2020: £831,000) from its joint venture Rudolph and Hellmann Automotive during the year.

Looking at its future prospects Hellmann said in its strategic report that the directors “expect to build on the successes of 2021” this year, with the company “fit for growth in 2022 and beyond”.