Manufacturing
LEAN TIMES FOR FOOD FIRM
Symington’s products on the shelves major moves in order to survive in changing market conditions. John Power was promoted from COO to CEO in October 2016, replacing David Salkeld who held the position for nine years. Matt Lee was also appointed CCO in November, and assumed his role this year.
Stephen Garvey Manufacturing DESPITE MAJOR restructuring at the top levels, food manufacturer Symington’s has made a loss of millions of pounds in the space of 18 months. Symington’s had a huge turnover of £150 million from 2013 to 2014, utilising brands such as Chicken Tonight and Ragu, which they bought from Unilever in 2011. However, profits began to slow down immediately, and the recent round of promotions haven’t rectified that. The Leeds-based firm made a pre-tax loss of £6.01m from February 2015 to August 2016 on a turnover of £176m. In the year up to August 2016, the company’s turnover dropped from £141 million to £117.2 million. The firm has been making
In addition to leadership changes, the company sold their Australian wet sauce business and closed both their £2.5 million noodle factory in Leeds and their gravy factory in Goldthorpe. They also issued 50 redundancies during this time. This restructuring cost the firm £7.1 million, but they managed to gain £20.5 million by ditching the wet sauce business. These changes may have been due to the major loss that happened months before and has only just been revealed. Power released a statement saying, “Over the last few months, the team at Symington’s has worked hard to restructure the business to ensure its efficient and ongoing success. Having taken significant cost out of the business, for example by reorganising shift patterns, closing two small factories and relocating production to our larger
Page 10| February 2017 | LeedsBusinessReview
“We are pleased with the results of our efforts to date and hope to provide more evidence of our progress”
factory in Leeds, we have created a solid foundation for future growth… We are pleased with the results of our efforts to date and hope to provide more evidence of our progress. Symington’s have been working in the food industry for around 190 years. They produce a variety of food brands including Granose, Oatburst, Ragú, Chicken Tonight and Golden Wonder, and also produces Aunt Bessie’s under licence. However, the company has decided to focus on its most powerful brands - Mugshot, Naked Noodle, Illumi and Ainsley Harriott - which make up 60 percent of its branded turnover. They have also halved the number of products it makes - from 1,400 to 700 across 25 brands. Power told Yorkshire Post, ‘Some of the brands we’ve moved away from were the smaller brands which weren’t making much money, including some ‘own brands’... We were trying to compete with the likes of Bisto and our business is about snacking and cooking and baking… We are trying to do a fewer things better and we think that will be a really smart way of competing in a tough market.’