Trading Update

RNS Number : 1342M

Real Good Food Company Plc (The)

13 September 2012

 



The Real Good Food Company plc (AIM: RGD)

AGM Statement

The Real Good Food Company plc ("the Group"), owns the largest independent non-refining distributor of sugar in Europe (Napier Brown), is a supplier of dairy ingredients ("Garrett Ingredients"), supplies bakery ingredients (through Renshaw and R&W Scott) and manufactures patisserie and desserts (Haydens Bakery)

At today's Annual General Meeting, Pieter Totté, Chairman, will make the following comments:

In my commentary on the 2011/12 results I highlighted that we had delivered on our commitment to return the Group to growth in both sales and profitability, with EBITDA up 62% at £9.1m on a like-for-like basis. Today, I am pleased to report that the current year has begun well, with a strong first quarter, a flatter second quarter, but early indications to suggest that our seasonally-strong third quarter will be exciting.   

We are embarking on a key period of expansion, in which we aim to transform the scale of the Group over the next three years. In delivering this next phase of growth, we continue to implement the strategies we have developed for each of our divisions, supported by centralised Group support in areas such as Human Resources, Compliance & Governance, Operations & Marketing.

At Napier Brown, a key driver of the Group's future, we are focussing on multi-sourcing, and offering customers alternatives to the EU beet refiners, whilst providing them with more security in the supply chain.

Our investment this year in sugar handling facilities will enable us to cost-effectively supply sugar sourced worldwide and meeting all the required technical standards. Our new strategic partnership with Mauritius-based Omnicane, which now has a 20% shareholding in the Group, significantly boosts our ability to source the sugar we need.

Omnicane is exporting its low-cost, sugar cane refining model to fellow African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) / Least Developed Countries (LDC) producers, further opening doors for accessing new sources of sugar for Napier Brown. The business has launched a range of speciality sugars under the 'Whitworths for Baking' brand in major retail outlets, bringing innovation and a point of difference, with extremely positive early results.

Garrett Ingredients continues to develop well as a stand-alone entity from Napier Brown, implementing its own strategy of developing new dairy sources in Europe, exploiting new distributorships such as in dextrose and sweetened condensed milk, and broadening its product offering.    

Renshaw continues to perform well, driven by strong demand from the home baking sector and continued growth in export sales. The Renshaw brand launch in the retail and craft sectors went well, giving us the platform to broaden the brand from its traditional UK 'b2b' to global consumers.

In support of this we will be launching a web-shop channel early next year. We are also making some investments in the Liverpool site, in order to be more efficient in meeting the record volumes we are producing.

During the year we re-established R&W Scott as a separate trading entity from Renshaw in order to bring more commercial and operational focus to its traditional chocolate coatings and jam products, as well as the recent additions of dry powder mixes and sauces. We can already see an improvement in its financial performance as a result. 

Haydens continues to implement its recovery plan, with a focus on modernising the factory and extending its product offering, complemented by selling new products into new channels, especially foodservice. We still anticipate the benefits from this will be seen in the second half of this financial year.

Our current five-year funding facilities with our bankers, PNC, expire in July 2013 and I am pleased to be able to report that we now nearing the conclusion of discussions regarding a renewal of our facilities. We expect to make a further announcement on funding in the near future.

Based on our positive start, and the successful implementation of our growth plans, I am confident we are on track to meet market expectations for the current year.

13 September 2012

ENQUIRIES:

The Real Good Food Company plc	Tel: [phone]
Pieter Totté, Chairman
Mike McDonough, Group Finance Director
Shore Capital	Tel: [phone]
Stephane Auton / Patrick Castle
Cubitt Consulting	Tel: [phone]
Gareth David / Cebuan Bliss

 

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