Salad and herb giant Vitacress returned to profit in the 2015 calendar year, a 52-week period particularly noteworthy for the firm's sale of Wight Salads to APS Salads.
Vitacress, which appeared in 14th place in the most recent edition of the FPJ Big 50 Companies, recorded revenue of £135.7 million in 2015, down from £169.5m the year before.
However, the firm posted a post-tax profit of £4.3m, bouncing back from a £597,000 post-tax loss in 2014.
Vitacress said that although elements of its business such as JV wholesale arm Vitacress Sales suffered a 'challenging second half of the year', while JV Vitacress España endured a 'difficult' H1, strong innovation saw other parts of Vitacress such as
Vitacress Salads raise profitability. The overall performance of the business in 2015, meanwhile, was described as 'encouraging'.
Speaking in the report accompanying the accounts, group finance director Richard Wilkinson said that the sale of Wight Salads,
The Tomato Stall and The Isle of Wight Energy Company 'has and will allow the group to focus on its core prepared salads and fresh herbs businesses, and accelerate its investment programme.'
This has been something the company has already been able to realise, with strong investment in its herb site in Runcton, West Sussex.
The herbs arm – rebranded as Vitacress Herbs as of 1 April 2016, after formerly being known as Van Heyningen Brothers – opened a £4.5m 9ha herb facility at the back end of 2015 on a site that is also now home to Vitacress’ shared businesses. It will process 20 million pot herbs and supply 60 million packs of fresh cut herbs each year. There is also planned expenditure at Vitacress' salad site in Hampshire.
Vitacress Group had around 1,430 employees at the end of the most recent financial year. The group's immediate parent company is RAR, which is registered in Portugal – a market that Vitacress trades in under the Vitacress brand name.
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