Reed Boardall maintains profits despite falling sales

04-Jan-2017 - Last updated on 04-Jan-2017 at 10:41 GMT

Marcus Boardall (l), deputy chief executive of Reed Boardall, and finance director Sarah Roberts

Yorkshire-based cold storage and transport business Reed Boardall has reported a slight fall in revenues of £64.3M for the year to March 31 2016 in its financial results released today (January 4), down from £65.9M achieved in 2015, in what the frozen third-party logistics provider claimed was an increasingly competitive market.

Reed Boardall attributed the fall in turnover to a minor decrease in volumes due to the loss of a large customer part way through the financial period. But the company claimed it very quickly made up the volume of stock-in-store the loss of the contract caused.

Slight rise in pre-tax profit

However, due to increased efficiencies within the business, profit before taxation saw a slight rise from £3.2M in 2015 to £3.4M in 2016.

The company’s transport division also continued to face a tough climate with costs increasing during the year, which it said were difficult to recover.

“After more than 20 years as partners to some of the leading players in the British food sector, we have a tried and tested formula for cost effectively and reliably providing the integrated cold storage and transport services they need,” said Marcus Boardall, deputy chief executive of The Reed Boardall Group.

“With consumers shopping more frequently at outlets with restricted storage space, our customers are demanding smaller and swifter deliveries. This fits well with our business model of a 142,000 pallet storage facility operating on a single site, enabling us to respond quickly with ‘order today, delivery tomorrow’ as well as providing excellent value as we are able to combine products from various customers.”

‘Extremely efficient operation’

Sarah Roberts, finance director, added: “With our solid track-record providing these niche services, we are able to run an extremely efficient operation to the benefit of our customers in what is a very competitive sector.”

Reed Boardall, whose cold storage facility at Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire serves leading retailers and food manufacturers throughout the UK, is said to be one of the largest temperature controlled food distribution businesses in the UK and one of the largest facilities of its kind in Europe.

It has a 24/7 operation, using a 180-strong fleet of vehicles, which move an average of 12,000 pallets a day. It stores around £100M worth of products on behalf of its customers and employs more than 750 staff.