Duchy Originals: not resistant to effects of economic downturn

London / UK. (tgc) The organic food company Duchy Originals, founded by the Prince of Wales in 1990, reports in its latest accounts that profits fell from 793’432 GBP to 151’717 GBP. The company managed sales of just over four million GBP in the year ended March 31 2008; down from 4,8 million GBP in 2007. The Prince´s well known company, which pays all profits to the Prince´s Charities Foundation, saw the value of the Duchy Originals retail brand fall from 53 million GBP to 47 million GBP. Over the weekend, the company announced it was dropping its prices across the range at the same time as reducing the size of its packets – according to British media. «The problem was not that, biscuit for biscuit, we were more expensive; it was that we were the only ones in 250-gram-packets», the media cited CEO Andrew Baker. «The entry price to our brand was often prohibitively expensive simply because we were selling too much product». Baker added that «soaring organic ingredients costs» also had an impact on profits. On the positive side, however, tight cost controls meant that Duchy Originals Foods, which operates a bakery in Cornwall for the organic brand, saw losses fall from 447’158 GBP in 2007 to 369’095 GBP last year.