Member Article

Toiletries firm remains bubbly despite tough year

Revenues have fallen for the Manchester-based toiletries supplier McBride following what it describes as “a challenging year” in the face of stiff competition.

McBride, whose headquarters and main manufacturing plant are in Middleton, supplies private label household and personal care items to the retail market.

Its revenues for the year to June 30 are down 5 per cent from £813.9m in 2012 to £761.4m, and adjusted operating profit is also down 19 per cent from £29.5m to £24m.

A successful product launch programme in has helped its private label revenue return to growth of 2 per cent in the second half. The firm also reported net cash generated from operations of £39.3m.

Chris Bull, McBride’s chief executive, said: “This has been a challenging year, during which we have wound down selected contract manufacturing business, whilst also facing an increase in branded competition as we reported in our March trading statement.

“Despite this, we have started to make good progress, with our successful product launch programme contributing to Private Label revenue growth of 2 per cent in the second half.

“Although the economic environment remains challenging, we are seeing Private Label retail sales volumes grow in a number of our core markets.

“We are committed to pursuing Private Label as a strategic growth opportunity, whilst ensuring that we continue to be increasingly cost competitive across all our activities.

“As a consequence, we have reorganised our executive responsibilities to enable both objectives to be realised in full.

“We have made a good start to the new financial year with trading in line with expectations.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Malia .