A north-east seafood company, which includes the UK’s last remaining cannery, has seen its profits quadruple.
Newly filed accounts for IFC Holdings show revenue increased to £79.5 million for the year ending March 31 2024, compared to £76m in the 2023 financial year.
Pre-tax profits increased to £1.9m from £445,709 the year before.
Owned by the Aberdeenshire-based Clark family, the group includes Fraserburgh’s International Fish Canners (Scotland), Nor-Sea Foods and Nor-Sea Holdings as well as Aberdeen’s Nolan Seafoods UK, D&G Nolan and J Charles Seafoods.
Despite the increase in sales and profits, the business cited “challenging” market conditions.
This includes struggles recruiting and retaining skilled staff for its business processing and distributing canned and other fish products.
In the space of a year total workforce across the group dropped by 15%, from 748 to 639.
Directors satisfied with performance
Chairman Michael Clark OBE said the group faced a double whammy of “persistent inflationary pressures on cost” and difficulty recruiting and retaining skilled labour.
He said overheads were “tightly controlled” returning the group to an acceptable operating profit for the year.
“The directors believe the IFC group and its operating subsidiaries responded well in challenging market conditions and are satisfied with the group’s overall financial performance,” he added.
Its five distinct businesses collaborated effectively to provide coldstore facilities and a diverse range of high-quality seafood products, said Mr Clark.
Since 2023, IFC’s turnover by country of destination has increased in the UK by around £5m to £58m.
Meanwhile, its turnover in Europe has dropped by almost £2m to £15.5m. Business in the rest of the world remained almost exactly the same at £6m.
Once biggest cannery in the world
The history of International Fish Canners dates back to 1883, when it was known as British Fish Canners, then owned by the Maconochie brothers.
At the time it was the largest cannery in the world, supplying troops in the Boer war and two world wars.
International Fish Canners was officially formed in 1983 by a group of Norwegians. Then in 1991 it came under the ownership of the Clarke family.
It became the first of the IFC group of companies and the UK’s only fish cannery.
Since then it acquired Nor Sea Foods, a specialist in smoked mackerel and kippers and Nolan Seafoods, adding a white fish dimension, as well as in-house coldstore and blast-freezing operations.
According to the company website, its Fraserburgh cannery concentrates on the production of mackerel fillets and brisling sardines under private label agreements for retailers and brand owners around the world.
In 2015 it raised £12.5 million to expand facilities to meet growing demand for its products.
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