Solid results for Blakemore in centenary year
Family-owned food and drink retail, wholesale and distribution business AF Blakemore & Son, which is celebrating its centenary, saw like-for-like sales rise 1.4 per cent to £1.29 billion in its latest financial year.
Profits were slightly down for the Willenhall group from £7.5 million in 2015-2016, which covered a 53-week period, to £7.4m in 2016-2017.
AF Blakemore & Son chairman Peter Blakemore described it as a “good, solid result” during a period of intense change across the food retail and wholesale markets.
Net assets grew significantly by 9.8 per cent to £88.7m over the year to the end of April.
AF Blakemore’s Spar operation performed well across its company-owned and independent estate, as it continues to meet the growing demand for local convenience shopping.
Mr Blakemore said: “I am pleased to report that the company produced another good solid result in the year to April 30, 2017, with the food retail and wholesale markets experiencing a period of intense change and consolidation.
“Customer spending patterns are rapidly changing and we are well positioned to serve the growing interest in local community retailing, as consumers shop more frequently for smaller quantities of food for immediate or same day consumption.
“We have placed great emphasis on our store operations to meet these growing trends through changing our product range and developing our food-for-now and prepared food-to-go offering.”
Mr Blakemore added that activity was taking place across the company to ensure that it continued to innovate and invest in the future.
“In our centenary year, we have continued to demonstrate our commitment to developing a sustainable business for the future by investing £19.2m in store and business improvement, with a further £27.5m earmarked for the year ahead.
“This focus upon future innovation includes a £4m investment in our IT infrastructure with the development of new customer relationship management, business to business and business to consumer digital platforms.”
Mr Blakemore, the third generation of the Blakemore family to lead the company, thanked all 8,200 members of staff for their considerable effort and dedication to achieve such a good result during the 100th year of trading.
AF Blakemore & Son has its headquarters at Longacres Industrial Estate and now consists of nine separate divisions including retail, which operates 291 Spar stores, and trade partners, which serves 763 independently- owned Spar stores.
Logistics distributes to the stores in addition to supporting the wider AFB group and wholesale operates 13 cash and carry and delivered depots nationwide.
