Harbro Group sees profits up by nearly a third

Scotland’s largest animal feed manufacturer has hailed a successful year with profits up by nearly a third.

Turriff-headquartered Harbro Group posted pre-tax profits of £3.486 million for the year ended June 30 2016, which is up from £2.730m the year before.

This was against a £979,000 decrease in turnover to £100.366m for the year.

The bulk of sales were to the UK, however international sales increased by £600,000 to £2.3m thanks to the company’s distributor network across Europe and as far afield as New Zealand.

Managing director Graham Baxter said: “We are very pleased with the performance of all group companies in 2015-16. Our focus as a business has always been on providing innovative and quality solutions to farmers with the aim of increasing their profitability. We feel we have a unique offering and technology across all species which drives efficiency in our customers’ businesses.”

He said feed sales had increased in volume by 5% to 254,000 tonnes during the year.

The company’s finance director, Ross Baxter, said the profits boosts was a result of cost-cutting, growth in the UK agricultural and retail sectors and expansion in international markets.

He said delays to farm payments impacted the company last year, with an increase in customer debtor days. Although this has since improved, Mr Baxter said farmer debt to the company was still higher than two years ago before the new farm payments system was implemented.