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Pots & Co has knocked BrewDog off the top of The Grocer Fast 50 ending the brewer’s three year reign at the top of the list of the UK’s fastest growing food and drink firms.

Brewdog’s maturing growth saw it slip to fifth on a two-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 55.7% and annual sales of £72m in 2016.

Pots & Co, which sells its ceramic dessert pots in Waitrose, Tesco, Ocado, Whole Foods Market, Harrods, Booths and Selfridges, shot to the top of the Fast 50 with a two-year CAGR of 100.4%.

The Fast 50 was more competitive than ever this year, with suppliers needing a CAGR of 36.2% to make it into the top 10, compared with 27.8% in 2016. The average growth rate rose from 22.4% last year to 30.4%.

In 2016, only 13 companies in the list had turnover below £15m, this year that number nearly tripled to 31.

The full Fast 50 list will is in this week’s edition of The Grocer and will be published at thegrocer.co.uk later this morning.

Morning update

This week’s edition of The Grocer also has the stories that The Yorkshire Meatball Co has become the latest crowdfunded grocery brand to collapse little over a year after raising more than £120,000 for expansion plans.

Plus, healthy snack brand Mister Free’d has sold a minority stake for £750,000 in seed financing to a consortium of angel investors and the latest on the contenders still in the hat to buy Unilever’s spreads business.

See thegrocer.co.uk/finance for the full details later this morning.

There are no new market announcements this morning in the sector, aside from two updates from Science on Sport (SIS) on new partnerships it has signed with USA Triathlon to be the official supplier of energy gels and bars and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series to be the official supplier of energy gels.

On the markets this morning, the FTSE 100 is up another 0.4% to 7,516pts.

Science in Sport is up 4.2% to 75p after this morning’s announcements, Nichols (NICL), is up 3% to 1,719.6p, Finsbury Food Group (FIF) is up 1.9% to 109p and Tate & Lyle (TATE) is up 1.6% to 649p.

Fallers include PureCircle (PURE), down 2.7% to 503p after yesterday’s rises, and B&M European Value Retail (BME), down 1.1% to 403.4p.

Yesterday in the City

The FTSE 100 clawed back 0.5% after Wednesday’s fall to close back at 7,486.5pts.

Unilever (ULVR) was the FTSE’s biggest riser, jumping 3.3% to 4,225p after announcing progress on its efforts to simplify its Anglo Dutch structure as its offer to buy the majority of its Dutch preference was declared unconditional.

British American Tobacco was also on the rise, climbing 2.5% to 4,966p after investors liked what they head at Wednesday’s capital markets day, which outlined its growth plans for its new generation products.

Other strong risers yesterday included Greencore (GNC), up 2% to 193.7p, SSP Group (SSPG), up 1.8% to 586p, WH Smith (SMWH), up 1.6% to 2,078p and Compass Group (CPG), up 1.5% to 1,600p.

C&C Group, which yesterday announced a first half revenues slump of 11% to €273.1m, was up 1.7% by market close to €2.99.

In Brussels AB InBev ended the day down 0.7% at €102.35 as the market weighed up the boost from $400m of extra synergies with AB InBev compared to the significantly worse than expected sales volume performance, particularly in North America.

Household and personal goods group Beiersdorf ended the day up 5.7% to €96.44 after beating third quarter sales forecasts and raising its full-year target.

Other risers included PureCircle (PURE), up 9.3% to 517p, Real Good Food (RGD), up 8.9% to 24.5p and Premier Foods (PFD), up 2.6% to 39.75p.

The day’s few fallers included Tate & Lyle (TATE), up 1.2% to 638.5p, Ocado Group (OCDO), up 2.1% to 280.8p, and Nichols Beverages (NICL), up 1.3% to 1,670p.

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