Reynolds Catering has grown to become a £203.5 million firm, but pre-tax profit has fallen.
The foodservice giant’s accounts for the year ending 2014, posted at Companies House, show that turnover has risen by £25m from £178.5m. The figure could propel Reynolds into the top ten of this year’s FPJ Big 50 Business. Pre-tax profit, meanwhile, fell from £2.8m to £1.6m.Reynolds, which trades in fresh prepared fruit, vegetables and salads, is looking at the figures from a long-term perspective.
Andy Austin, finance director at Reynolds, said: “Growth in 2015 has continued strongly again this year, with our year-to-date sales currently up 6.7 per cent and a number of significant new customers due to start over the next two months.
'Achieving this growth rate, however, has required a significant level of investment over the last two years which has directly impacted our business profitability in the short term. As necessary components of a longer term strategy, we feel that these investments were required within this period.”
In recent years Reynolds has faced two key challenges, Austin said - capacity and driver shortages. He told FPJ: “Our capacity has been recently addressed by the purchase towards the end of 2013 of additional units in Waltham Cross, adding up to 70 per cent additional storage and processing capacity at that location.
'Whilst in the short term this purchase adds to our fixed cost base, we are now well positioned to continue to add new customers to our growing portfolio whilst maintaining outstanding service levels.”
Austin added: “The industry-wide shortage of qualified drivers, driven particularly by the changes in CPC regulations, continues to worsen. At the same time, the sustained growth of our existing customer base as well as the acquisition of new business has driven an insatiable demand for new drivers. After extensive feedback from our internal teams, we have taken a longer-term view of the driver situation in order to minimise any impact on our customer base.”
This has involved creating a dedicated building to help meet the needs of Reynolds’ distribution teams, and investing heavily into a new driver development scheme for current and prospective employees to receive ongoing training and become professional LGV drivers, which Reynolds will pay for.
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