Blakemore announces sales surge but makes a loss because of logistics costs

The West Midlands based company, which also runs 262 company-owned Spar stores, released the trading update ahead of its official filing of accounts.

But the company added that the development of its new Bedford depot, combined with UK labour shortages, had cost it an additional £17m in total logistics spending.

This helped to maintain supply chain performance, but did mean that the group made a loss of £3.3m in the year to 1 May, compared with a £6m profit the previous year.

Nevertheless chairman Peter Blakemore was positive about the group’s performance.

He said: “This year our sales have grown by 9% following sales growing by 19% last year.

“This has been delivered by a robust performance across our core Spar network and our ability to use opportunities across recovery sectors such as travel and foodservice.

“We also saw a steady return to growth for the Philpotts chain of prepared-food stores, while enabling an impressive performance from home delivery and quick commerce, where we were pivotal in helping this new channel scale up.”

Blakemore also highlighted the role the Bedford depot played in allowing the company to hold more stock at a time when manufacturers are being challenged by “inbound availability”.

He added that when the one-off logistics costs were taken out of the figures, Blakemore remained in profit.

He said: “Underlying pre-tax profit was £2m after exceptional costs but as always, our paramount interest is in ensuring the long-term interests of our customers.”

Chief executive Jerry Marwood said: “We have continued to perform well into this current year and after 24 weeks our sales for 2022/23 show a further growth of 9%, when considering last year’s growth, this is a fantastic performance.

“Being an independent business means we can continue to invest even through the most challenging times.”