Profits up as Treatt puts in another strong performance

Profits grew once again over the past six months for Bury St Edmunds flavours and fragrance innovator Treatt plc.

The Northern Way firm, which employs 200 people in the UK and 100 in the US, reported to the City that fruit and vegetables, tea and sugar reduction categories all performed strongly in the past half-year, while its core citrus ‘arm’ continued to do well and helped to bring about 7.3% growth.

Group CEO Daemmon Reeve said: “Once again it is pleasing to report encouraging strategic progress. All categories have performed well despite cyclical weakness in some citrus raw material markets with particularly encouraging growth in our higher margin tea, sugar reduction and fruit and vegetable categories supporting the strong trend towards better for you and clean label, more natural beverages.

“The past six months have seen much work across the business strengthening our teams, building and planning infrastructure to drive future growth, establishing Treatt in new growth markets and expanding our offer in established markets. These actions were achieved whilst improving profitability and margins and give the Board confidence that the business is well placed to deliver on its strategic objectives over the coming years.

“With order books comfortably up on a year ago, we expect the encouraging performance in H1 to continue into H2,” he added.

In the United States, Treatt’s $14m expansion was completed in March and the project is expected to be fully operational next month.

This summer will also see the Northern Way firm – which currently operates from six sites – begin work on amalgamating operations into one, bespoke headquarters on the growing Suffolk Park, on the eastern outskirts of Bury St Edmunds. Bosses expect work to take a year to complete.