Finsbury Foods: grabs a slice of the premium cake

London / UK. (ffg) British Finsbury Food Group PLC has announced that its interim sales for the half year to 31 December jumped 91 percent to 82,76 million GBP on the back of strong organic growth and acquisitions profit before tax and reorganisation costs rose 95 percent to 2,61 million GBP.

Whilst the full half year effect of its Lightbody Group Ltd acquisition in February 2007 drove a large proportion of the growth, the group said it saw strong organic like-for-like sales growth in all of its businesses. Memory Lane´s sales were up by 16 percent, California Cakes Ltd and Campbells Cakes Ltd grew 18 percent across the combined businesses, and Nicholas + Harris were up 14 percent. The Lightbody Group Ltd experienced like for like growth of twelve percent for the period.

Commenting on the results, Dave Brooks, Chief Executive of Finsbury Food said, «This has been an extremely challenging period for the whole food industry and I fully expect the next twelve months or so to continue in this vein. In such turbulent times, the fittest and most flexible are those most likely to prosper. With our excellent innovation skills, speed of thought and action, and strong customer relationships, I feel we have a robust business model which should give us every opportunity to capitalise on our strong market position during these times».