Plant-based co-packer Framptons has completed a remarkable turnaround by returning to profit less than 18 months after it sought a £5m cash injection to ensure its survival.
The business supplies own-label products for major supermarkets and wholesalers, as well as co-packing for numerous brands in the oat milk category.
Since Swedish investment fund Profura bought the company in December, it has axed loss-making production areas and reduced staff numbers to help deliver a pre-tax profit of £1.3m in the 10 months to April 2024, its latest accounts showed.
The year before, it suffered a £4.7m loss after soaring cost inflation and supply chain challenges pushed the company into the red.
“We were very close to closing the gates,” said Andy Rimell, Framptons MD. “The business was over-complicated and needed a complete refocus and strategy.”
Framptons is now focused on oat milks and launched its own brand – The Wessex Oat Company – as a range of British-farmed oat drinks in July.
The move complements its position as a co-packer, which constitutes most of its business. In 2024, co-packing brought in about £29m, primarily plant-based but also dairy, spring water and other drinks.
Some of this business was loss-making and would be sold at the end of the year, Rimell said. Juices, for example, had complex production runs yet offered little opportunity to boost small margins.
Framptons also sold its omelette and liquid egg business to Griffiths Family Foods for £3m, having first started life as an egg wholesaler in the 19th century.
Its eggs were mainly sold to Greggs and Bidfood and brought in about £12m in 2024, according to Rimell, almost 30% of total sales.
“We couldn’t compete with other people coming into the market,” Rimell said. “We always had a high labour utilisation because we couldn’t automate it.”
While the egg business saw a slight decrease in sales last year, this was offset by a small rise in revenue from co-packing. Overall, this meant revenues grew 1.8% – pro-rata for a 10-month period due to a change in accounting period – to £41m.
The business made dramatic cuts to its staff, reducing numbers from around 360 to 177, said Rimell, saving around £1.8m. “That just rebalanced everything we were doing to make us more competitive with the European markets.”
Framptons drafted in recovery specialists in May 2023 to help it source investment amid a fight for survival. The company had raised doubts over its ability to continue because of a debt pile that had mounted considerably through the Covid pandemic. This debt had now been paid down thanks to Profura’s investment and consolidation, Rimell said.
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