News
Avara Foods reports pre-tax loss of £12.3m
The firm attributed its performance to the tough trading climate, but did note improvements from 2021/22 when its pre-tax losses totalled £21.4m.
Meanwhile, Avara increased turnover from £1.26bn in 2021/22 to £1.51bn in 2022/23, a nearly 20% increase year-on-year.
In response to the challenges presented by rising input costs and the cost of living crisis, Avara has begun restructuring its business in order to adopt a more pragmatic and flexible approach. This entails placing an increased focus on the “fundamentals of an optimised supply chain”, which should enable greater efficiency and productivity.
The restructure is due to be completed within the 2023/24 financial year.
‘Avara has the financial resilience to take a deliberate approach’
Avara CEO Andy Dawkins said that given the market conditions the business had been confronted with during the 2022/23 financial year, these results came in line with expectations.
“Higher turnover has arisen from the inflationary pressure that has been well documented over the period, but this significant rise does not fully offset the total increase in production costs, resulting in an overall loss after taxation,” Dawkins added.
“The proposed streamlining of Avara operational footprint requires difficult decisions but, thanks to a solid financial position with no bank borrowing, it has the financial resilience to take a deliberate approach, with difficult decisions managed sensitively and fairly.”
Dawkins explained that Avara has worked hard with its customers to ensure its produce remains affordable, but admitted that this had proved challenging.
Looking ahead, he said that firm was focused on three areas: “Ensuring that our business completes its streamlining and optimisation plan to provide customers with great quality and value, while mitigating the impact of inflation; investing in growth in our successful added value product ranges with our partner customers, and meeting our commitments to be a responsible business, helping those same customers fulfil our shared climate goals.
“We’re very confident that fresh poultry will remain a staple in shopping baskets and that demand will remain strong. The actions that we have started to put in place will put us in a stronger position financially and able to meet demand for our increasingly popular portfolio of products.”
In other news, Black Sheep Brewery has announced that its chief executive Charlene Lyons is stepping down.
