FDBusiness.com

UK baker Finsbury Food Group has reported a 7% fall in revenue to £82.9m and flat pre-tax profit of £1.8m for the 26 weeks to January 2nd 2010. Finsbury is the second largest player within the £1.5b UK cake market and the market leader in the supply of gluten free baked goods to multiple grocers.

Trading during the first half was impacted by consumers trading down and more frequently choosing promotional product offerings. Finsbury has been seeking to offset the impact of this trading environment through organic growth elsewhere in the business, improving efficiencies and managing volatile input costs.

Despite these recessionary effects, the group’s Bread and Free From division, boosted by the Goswell acquisition and the growth of its free from offering, increased like for like sales by 14% to £17.6m. The total cake market continued to decline over the period and this impacted Finsbury’s Cake division, due to its bias towards premium and healthier cakes. Sales for the Cake division fell 8% on a like for like basis to £65.3m.

“Given our craft bakery and premium product bias, we have worked hard in the current climate to invest in organic growth opportunities for the group whilst continuing to drive greater operating efficiencies,” says chief executive John Duffy. “The change in consumer behaviour may still be some time in coming, but we believe the group has coped well in delivering a sustained level of profitability in difficult market conditions and will emerge stronger as the economy picks up.”