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9 January 2012 | Helen Gilbert
Own-label toiletries firm McBride has announced that first-half trading profits will be lower as it is forges ahead with its supply chain restructuring programme.
The company, which also provides household goods, said in a trading statement that sales grew two per cent in the six months to 31 December 2011. But it posted a 42 per cent drop in annual profits last year, largely as a result of raw material costs remaining high.
McBride’s chief executive Chris Bull said a weak consumer environment and raw material inflation would continue to present a challenge in the short term but the company remained focused on growing shareholder value through the “rigorous execution” of its supply chain restructuring programme, which will cost £9.2 million in the UK alone.
He told SM: “In the past we would have happened to produce products on a country by country basis. What we’ve been doing and how we’re organising our European supply chain is to choose to produce products in the most efficient place to produce them.
“The second element is that we’re driving across the business a lean manufacturing programme though all of our 17 sites across Europe. We’re also looking at product engineering – how we can most effectively and in the best-value way put together our packaging. It’s a mixture of harmonisation and driving no value-added cost.”
McBride, which has sites in Bradford and Hull, generally supplies its customers on three-month contracts and faces a delay between its raw material prices going up and renegotiating prices.
