Kitchenware brand ‘excited by opportunities ahead of us’

KITCHENWARE brand Procook has reported rising retail store revenue, market share and customer acquisition in its first set of results as a listed business.

The Gloucestershire business completed a float on the London Stock Exchange in November and has a current market capitalisation of approximately £150 million.

However, underlying operating profit for the 28 weeks ending October 17, 2021, was £3.3m – down from £4.5m for the same period last year.

The company said this was in line with expectations due to rising retail and e-commerce costs.

Underlying profit before tax also dipped from £4m to £3.6m.

The family-run retailer said its growing portfolio of more than 50 retail stores across the UK had performed “exceptionally well” over the period.

It said a 34 per cent year-on-year increase in total revenue (£32.1m) was in part reflected by the loosening of national lockdown restrictions from April. Its retail arm generated £16.9m in revenue – up 108.4 per cent compared to the same period last year.

The company also sells its cooking and dining products directly to its customers through its website, which it said also performed strongly, with revenue growth of 23.5 per cent year on year against “exceptionally tough comparatives”.

E-commerce as a whole accounted for 47 per cent of the group’s total revenue for the period (£15.2m), a 3.7 per cent dip compared to the same period last year, which Procook said was driven by its strategic decision to exit the Amazon UK marketplace at the end of June.

The company said it opened six destination stores during the period and closed two high street stores, as planned, because they did not fit well within its retail portfolio of high-footfall locations.

Procook launched two stores at the Westfield shopping centres in London before Christmas, with one opening on December 16 and another at Westfield Stratford City on December 18.

The company has also launched a new cookery school facility, located on Tottenham Court Road in central London, as part of its strategy to develop its customer offering.

The company’s chief executive and founder, Daniel O’neill, said in October that its London listing would “elevate” brand awareness to compete with other cookware brands such as Le Creuset, Tefal and Denby and allow it to recruit and retain high quality talent.

In its interim results, Procook said it had consistently taken market share throughout the year to date, had attracted 319,000 new customers and had outperformed the market by 41.9 percentage points.

This was despite the UK kitchenware market shrinking by 2.8 per cent in the first half, following a strong uplift last year as customers spent more time at home during lockdown.

Mr O’neill said: “The retail markets and wider markets are experiencing continued challenges and uncertainties.

“Whilst not immune to these, our direct-to-consumer business model provides a strong foundation.

“We believe we are well positioned to continue to disrupt the market with our beautiful and great value product ranges, accompanied by our excellent service proposition, and we are excited by the many opportunities ahead of us.”

Mr O’neill added that the emergence of the new Omicron variant of Covid-19 variant highlighted how “finely balanced” recovery from the pandemic was and that the company was committed to taking “sensible and cautious measures” to help protect staff and customers.