Reed Boardall made a £1.4m pre-tax profit for the year ending 31 March 2023, after it sustained a £4.1m loss in the previous year.
The Yorkshire-based temperature-controlled food storage and transport company said that despite continued pressures on costs it had put in a strong performance to increase profits by £5.5m year-on-year.
It said that during 2021/22, a number of adverse conditions, including Covid-related lockdowns, a cyber-attack and spiralling fuel and energy costs, resulted in the company making a significant loss.
It described the period as “one of the toughest” in 30 years of business.
Reed Boardall also increased turnover by 20% during the latest financial period, to £88.8m from £74.2m in 2022.
Marcus Boardall, chief executive of Reed Boardall, said: “Given global uncertainty as the Ukraine conflict continues, together with ongoing inflation, pressure on our costs has been unrelenting. In such a challenging environment, the group has once again put in a strong performance, based on its longevity, outstanding reputation in the sector and the skills of our highly trained team.
“We were pleased to see labour shortages having a smaller impact last year than previously, largely due to initiatives we have undertaken to ease the industry’s recruitment issues, including our ongoing investment in training and improving working practices,” he added.
“By the end of the financial year, we had succeeded in training over 50 new recruits via our in-house driver academy, enabling them to become qualified HGV drivers, as well as having set up a number of administration and technician apprenticeships.”
Reed’s group finance director, Sarah Roberts, added: “It is great news that despite market turmoil, the business is back on track with both turnover and profits increasing. Some of the positive trends we saw included higher average store utilisation than the previous year, and the recent extension to our 168,000 pallet cold store running at very high capacity.”
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