The raging supermarket price war, as the supermarkets battle the discounters to win back customers, has hit sales at Edible Oils, the producer behind the Crisp n’ Dry, Mazola and Olivio brands.
Revenues at the business fell 4.4% to £186.6m in year to 31 March 2016 – on top of a 6.6% drop in the previous 12 months – as deflation continued to dominate the grocery aisles.
Volumes, however, held steady after a 10% jump in 2014/15, Edible Oils said in the newly filed accounts.
The deflationary pressures also pushed down cost of sales by 5.5%, from £172m to £164.4m, but not enough to stop profitability declining. Pre-tax profits slipped 5.2% to £11.7m as administration expenses crept up.
The oil category has suffered in the past couple of years, with plunging wholesale vegetable prices dragging down value and supermarkets lowering prices to try and win back volumes lost to Aldi and Lidl.
Edible Oils, which employees about 200 staff, was formed in 2005 after food and drink group Princes acquires a number of cooking oils brands and struck up a joint venture with US conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland (ADM).
A Princes spokesman said: “Deflationary pressures and unprecedented market volatility make trading conditions extremely challenging. However, we remain fully confident in our position to grow and develop our business”.
The results were filed at the same time as Princes, which also recorded a 3.6% in revenues to £1.49bn in the year to 31 March 2016 because of widespread supermarket deflation. Read the story here.
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