Crediton Arctic new packaging

The Devon-based company saw turnover increase by 16.3% to £101.5m while profit before tax was down to £9.6m compared with £9.8m the previous year

Crediton Dairy has reported “satisfactory results” for 2021 despite the impact of supply chain disruption and inflationary cost increases.

The Devon-based company saw turnover increase by 16.3% to £101.5m for the 12 months to 1 January 2022, driven, according to the brand, by higher added-value dairy drink volumes, improved product mix and a move towards higher selling prices to offset costs.

However, profit before tax failed to keep up with the supplier’s sales growth and fell slightly, from £9.8m to £9.6m largely due to the aforementioned supply chain challenges.

“Despite the supply chain disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the HGV driver crisis and significant inflationary cost increases the business performed satisfactorily at a financial, commercial and operational level,” said MD Tim Smiddy. “In particular, retail sales of our Arctic Iced Coffee brand continued to grow strongly, as did our retailer own label lactose-free milks.”

The Arctic Iced Coffee brand, which is now listed in all major UK retailers, has seen retail sales increase by 88% over the most recent year to £20.3m in 2021.

The company has also invested £2.7m into increasing capacity for value-added dairy drinks and scaling up of site utility services, with plans to invest a further £4m over the next year to upgrade the site’s utility services, improve efficiency and reduce its carbon footprint.

Smiddy said that the company had, in line with this growth, expanded the number of Devon-based dairy farmers supplying the company up to 85 and has “continued to pay them a highly competitive price for their milk”.

“In common with all dairy processors, we have also been impacted by unprecedented cost inflation of over 50% year on year in relation to raw milk, energy, packaging and distribution and have been focused on recovering these increases from our customers,” added Smiddy.

He said the company was “continuing to trade in line with expectations and remain positive about the added-value dairy drinks sector and Crediton’s role within it”.

Topics