Pauls Malt brews up strong results

One of the UK’S biggest malting companies, Pauls Malt, enjoyed strong sales during the UK Government’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme.

The company – part of the Boortmalt Group and which has sites at Buckie and Glenesk, Montrose – made the comments in its latest accounts for the year to June 30 2021.

It said it benefited from the Eat Out to Help Out Scheme, which ran in August 2020 and offered people the chance to get up to 50% off their food and drinks bill when dining at participating restaurants.

Pauls Malt, which also has sites at Knapton in North Yorkshire and Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, said the fiscal year had been dominated by the pandemic’s effects on beer and whisky global markets.

“All four of our UK sites returned to full production from July and the first

quarter saw strong sales into both sectors, encouraged by the government Eat Out to Help Out scheme in the UK and strong brewing demand following a reduction in stocks in the final quarter of the last fiscal year,” said Boortmalt general manager for the UK and Ireland Charles Tozer in his report.

“Brewing demand then dipped again as the second UK lockdown saw demand

in the on-trade reduced and this slower pace of demand continued until the final quarter when the pace of UK vaccination gave increased confidence to our customers and consumers and demand recovered to pre-pandemic levels.”

Mr Tozer said distilling demand proved more resilient throughout the year due to the long-term nature of whisky distilling, but export markets remained challenging where the pace of vaccination was slower and international lockdowns continued to feature.

The accounts show the company posted sales of £116.4 million – down 4% on the year before when turnover stood at £121.1m – and pre-tax profits were up 3% to £10.148m from £9.875m previously.

The bulk of sales were in the UK at £103.8m – up from £82.3m previously – while sales to Europe were down 92% to £1.931m and sales to Asia were down 37% to £8.317m.

Sales to Africa increased almost 700% to £1.437m, from £180,000 the year before, and sales to the rest of the world were up 90% to £906,000.

The accounts also reveal the company employed an average of 112 staff during the year and its highest paid un-named director took home £147,000 – up from £146,000 the year before.

RESILIENT: The long-term nature of whisky distilling means demand has been maintained during the pandemic.

Eat Out to Help Out boosted Pauls Malt profits.