‘Tremendous year’ for Carr’s

Last updated 19:24, Thursday, 20 November 2008

WHEN Carr’s Milling Industries revealed a 17 per cent drop in profits last year, its executives said they hoped for “more acceptable” profitability” in 2008.

CARR’S CHARITY NIGHTS: Carr’s Milling Industries, the Cumbrian-based food, farm and finance company, has raised £10,580 for an agricultural charity. The company held a beef and hog roast with an auction and raffle plus a cheese and wine evening in aid of the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institute in Cumbria (RABI). Carr’s chief executive Chris Holmes,left, handed the cash to Pat Turnbull, vice chairman of RABI Cumbria

Twelve months on, the Cumbrian agricultural firm has unwrapped a 133 per cent pre-tax profit increase to £12.9 million.

The company’s revenues soared by 50 per cent and share dividends have climbed 21 per cent.

Carr’s, which has a flour mill at Silloth and an outlet at Cockermouth, said that much of its improved performance came from the “windfall” of sharply accelerating wheat and fertiliser prices and gains on foreign exchange markets.

But analysts have also put it down to old-fashioned hard graft and a “solid underlying improvement” to volumes and margins.

Carr’s described the 12 months to August as “a tremendously successful year”.

Chairman Lord Inglewood said: “This performance, driven by our largest division, agriculture, reflects our continuing strategy of growing our core businesses in new areas by developing new brands and new markets, as well as the incidence of one-off favourable factors relating to the purchase of commodities at a time of substantially rising prices.”