Healthy snack bar market boosts profit at Glisten
The Leeds-based firm, that also formulates specialised coatings for ice-cream and bakery manufacturers, reported pre-tax profit of £6.68m for the year ended 30 June 2008, rising from £5.66m the previous year. Sales pulled in £61.2m, up from £58.6m in 2007.
Despite operating in testing economic times, with businesses in the food sector confronted on a daily basis by soaring input costs due to high raw material prices and rising utility costs, Glisten remains upbeat.
"Glisten has coped with the storm well," the firm's chief executive Paul Simmonds said today.
"We have progressively driven our business towards those areas of snacking which we believe have long-term potential - including specifically the healthier and premium sectors," he added.
Looking to the near future, Simmonds maintains the company's "focus on producing affordable treats will underpin our continued ambitions for Glisten as these sectors tend to hold up well during more demanding economic conditions."
The UK company, which has a confectionery arm that includes barrier-coated confectionery 'inclusions', and chocolate-coated fruits in its portfolio, said "the first nine weeks of the current year has started with overall sales ahead 15 per cent whilst showing no like for like growth".
In September 2007, AIM-listed Glisten expanded its business, bolting-on Dormen Foods, which became the foundation of its savoury snacking division. The move was swiftly followed by the acquisition of Big Thoughts in November 2007, since renamed Glisten Snacks, which brought in two subsidiaries active in the low fat and baked savoury snacking marketplace - Snacks Unlimited and The Lindum Snack Company.
At a divisional level, Glisten reported today that its fruit and cereal snacks division, comprised of Halo Foods, that produces more than 200 million cereal, fruit and protein bars a year, and Lyme Regis Foods (LRF), that makes 'free-from' (for example, gluten-free) baked products, pulled in a 3.5 per cent rise in sales to £29.4m, up from £28.4m last year.
Although figures for the division were hit by LRF, that recorded a fall in sales "as a result of weaker demand for high-protein sports bars to one specific European branded customer".
Despite this, the company affirms that the functional and nutritional-snacks' market, which includes energy and sports bars, "is an important one for Glisten strategically due to its value and overall growth potential”.
Glisten's new savoury snacks division, collectively acquired in 2007/08 can only post part-year trading. As such, the firm’s reported "divisional sales for the part-year were £11.75m, strongly up from both businesses previous year in private ownership."
The division operates on three UK sites: in Swindon trading as Dormen Foods, in Park Royal, London, trading as Snacks Unlimited and Boston, Lincolnshire, under Lindum Foods.
"The Dormen brand is present in virtually every garage forecourt in the UK and this sets a great example for our other branded products such as Fruitus, Sunmaid and Skinny Candy, none of which currently sell in this area of the market," said the UK firm today.
Adding that, according to data from market researchers AC Neilsen, Dormen became the number two brand in the UK snacking-nut market this year and the fastest growing brand in its market.
Looking forward, it would appear that acquisitions are not on the horizon for the firm driving into "premium impulse-foods."
"Given conditions in the financial markets we do not expect to make major acquisitions over the next 12 months albeit that our acquisition pipeline remains strong," Glisten's CEO, Paul Simmonds said in a statement.
