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Symington’s has slumped to a loss as a raft of delisting for the Chicken Tonight and Ragu brands led the ambient food manufacturer to restructure the group.

A cost-cutting drive included closing its small gravy and noodle factories in Yorkshire, reorganising shift patterns, slashing 50 head office jobs and selling the Australian business.

The £7.1m incurred for redundancy costs and stock write offs plunged the business into the red, with pre-tax losses of £6.1m in the 18 months ended 28 August 2016, newly filed accounts revealed.

Underlying profits reduced from £12.3m in the year to 1 March 2015 to £9.4m in the 18-month period.

Symington’s, backed by private equity firm ICG since a £72m buyout in 2012, has been at the centre of a perfect storm as consumers increasingly turned their back on processed food in favour of healthier alternatives and its supermarket customers battled with discounters Aldi and Lidl to regain market share.

Annualised group revenues slipped 17% to £117.2m (£175.8m for 18 months) as a result of the challenging trading conditions.

The full story will be published on thegrocer.co.uk/finance later this morning

Morning update

Shares in Irish banana importer Fyffes (FFY) have been suspended this morning from London’s AIM as its takeover by Japan’s Sumitomo heads for completion.

AIM listed African agricultural company Agriterra has issued its results for the six months ended 30 November 2016, which proved to be a tough period for the group.

Revenues fell 13.5% to US$8.1m, though its loss before tax fell from US$2.2m to US$1.3m.

The group stated: “Thee period under review has seen us face significant challenges, which is a reflection of the recent macro-economic conditions in Mozambique. The local economic environment altered substantially during the 2016 calendar year, most notably due to the combination of a decline in commodity prices, a prolonged and severe drought and the significant weakening of the Mozambique Metical against the US dollar and the South African Rand.”

“As a result of these economic changes, Mozambique has experienced high inflation rates (reaching 25.3% for the 12 months ended 31 December 2016), accompanied by a rapid increase in interest rates. In addition to these economic complexities, Mozambique experienced military tension during the period, particularly in the centre of the country.”

The ONS retail figures for January will be released later this morning.

The FTSE 100 has dipped another 0.3% to 7,254.8pts so far this morning.

Early risers include Hotel Chocolat (HOTC), up 3.1% to 247.5p, Real Good Food (RGD), up 2.2% to 33.2p, Crawshaw Group (CRAW), up 2.1% to 18p and Coca-Cola HBC (CCH), up another 1.8% to 1,947p.

Fallers include McColl’s Retail Group (MCLS), down 2.3% to 176.9p, Ocado (OCDO), down 1.3% to 251.9p and Nichols (NICLS), down 1% to 1,635p.

Yesterday in the City

The FTSE 100 eased back from another record high on Wednesday, dipping 0.3% to 7,277.9pts yesterday.

FTSE 100 constituent Coca-Cola HBC jumped 4.9% to 1,912p yesterday after full-year operating profits leapt 21.1% to €506.3m (£430.8bn) thanks to continued progress in margin recovery.

Elsewhere amongst the sector’s big hitters Associated British Foods (ABF) was up 1.6% to 2,568p, Compass Group was up 1.1% to 1,448p and Unilever rose 1.1% to 3,347p.

Other risers included Crawshaw Group (CRAW), which leapt 13.7% to 17.6p, McBride (MCB) up 2.1% to 174.5p, Conviviality (CVR), up 1.9% to 275.25p and Nichols (NCLS), up 1.9% to 1,652p.

Fallers included Hotel Chocolat (HOTC), down 5% to 240p, PayPoint (PAY), down 3.5% to 965p and Majestic wine (WINE), down 1.9% to 330.5p.

Punch Taverns (PUB) was down 1.8% to 175.5p after the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority invited comments on Heineken’s acquisition of 2,000 pubs from Punch Taverns as it weighs up whether to scrutinise the deal further

Internationally, Nestle (NESN) eased back 1% to CHF72.4 as full-year organic sales increased by a modest 3.2% to CHF 89.5bn (£71.4bn).

Kraft Heinz (KHC) plunged 4.2% to $87.28 after fourth quarter sales slumped 3.7% to $6.9bn (£5.5bn).

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