Plant closure as strong Pound hits Matthews

18 September 1997

Plant closure as strong Pound hits Matthews

BERNARD MATTHEWS has reported pre-tax profit down from £10.4 million to £6.67m. Turnover for the 28 weeks to July 13 climbed from £172.4m to £185.3m, helped by increasing sales of branded, value-added goods in the UK, which climbed 20%. .

The company said the strength of Sterling had knocked the stuffing out of £20m-worth of commodity turkey-meat exports to Germany. The problem was aggravated by falling commodity meat prices, higher interest rates and high cereal prices.

Hungary also continued to be a problem

Chairman Bernard Matthews said there were signs commodity meat prices had bottomed out. Cereal prices had also come down.

Matthews is to close one of its Lincolnshire factories, at a cost of £1.5m and 150 jobs.

• Financial Times 18/09/97 page 32
  
• The Independent 18/09/97 page 26
  
• The Daily Telegraph 18/09/97 page 34