North East chip shop supplies firm Henry Colbeck saw operating profits more than treble last year thanks to high levels of demand.
The Gateshead-based business, which employs about 150 people, reported operating profit of £2.07m in the year to the end of February 2022, up from £582,970 in 2021, as turnover grew 37% to £70.09m. Directors described the performance as exceptional owing to a significant ramping up of demand following the end of pandemic restrictions in spring 2021.
In accounts filed at Companies House, Henry Colbeck said it had seen growth across all of its divisions, which also provide used cooking oil collection and recycling services in addition to the frozen fish, drinks and cleaning products supplied into fish and chip shops, Chinese and Indian takeaways. The family firm, where an employee trust has a minority stake, said Covid had continued to dog its supply chain throughout the 12 months and well publicised HGV driver shortages had also had an impact.
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Writing in a report accompanying the accounts, director Douglas Colbeck said: "A number of contingencies were implemented to reduce the impact of the supply chain issues on our business and, in turn, on our customers businesses. The combination of these issues and high levels of demand brought many challenges and it is testimony to the commitment and flexibility of colleagues throughout the business that we were able to achieve record sales volumes in each operational division.
"We are also grateful for the efforts of our supply partners to fulfill our requirements whilst they were facing such challenges. Price inflation was increasingly evident as the year progressed although the majority of the increase in turnover was attributable to volume growth
"The Ukrainian crisis that has unfolded since the year end has created further significant supply chain and inflationary challenges for the UK. We believe that the company's strong financial position and strategic focus on risk management will help to mitigate the impact and enable us to provide a resilient supply chain to our customer base."
Henry Colbeck was founded in 1893 and in the late 1990s expanded its footprint into Scotland with the opening of its Calder Street Business Park distribution centre in Lanarkshire. The firm's fleet of delivery wagons service more than 2,500 customers across the North East, Yorkshire, Cumbria and Scotland.
Dividends of £77,388 were paid during the year following no dividends in 2021.
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