Higher turnover but lower profits at NMR

Turnover was up by almost £1m to just over £16.8m at National Milk Records in the year to 31 March 2011. The company will pay shareholders a 2p dividend on 30 September.

A drop in pre-tax profit to £387,000, compared with £504,000 in the previous year, was partly the result of one-off costs of about £200,000 to cover both last November’s share consolidation and to pay a compulsory levy to the firm’s pension protection fund, said the company. The share consolidation took shareholder numbers down from about 24,500 to the current 6,787.

Chairman Philip Kirkham said the underlying trend in profit was satisfactory.

NMR records half of the cows in the UK and is looking to expand this at marginal cost. A milk testing venture in Northern Ireland was set up during the year and NMR consolidated its laboratory facilities in England and Wales with the purchase of a £475,000 building in Wolverhampton last month, which it said would save £150,000 a year in costs.