Sausages are in the bag

BRITAIN‘S LOVE affair with the humble banger has helped push a manufacturer of collagen casings to record sales.

Devro, which supplies more than half the world‘s sausage casings, made a pre-tax profit of £18.6m in 2004, up 3.2% on the previous year.

Sales volumes grew 7.2%, but turnover crept up just 2% to £149m because of the weak dollar and heavy discounting in the UK.

The manufacturer sold over 2bn metres of sausage casing – equivalent to 2m kilometres, or 50 times the circumference of the Earth at the Equator.

Booming sausage consumption in Britain saw 18,720t of bangers sold for £500m in 2004, and pushed Devro‘s sales in the country up 6%.

Asia and eastern Europe have also been growth markets, while the US snack food market boosted domestic casing demand by 20%.

The outlook this year is for further growth, but new products such as collagen breath fresheners are not expected to contribute to profits before 2006.

The share price rose 3% to 135p.