FIFE-based vegetable supplier Kettle Produce has overcome the effects of heavy rainfall in 2012 to turn an operating loss in excess of £500,000 into a profit of £1.2 million in its latest financial year.
The company, which grows and packs fresh vegetables, green vegetables and salad crops for supermarkets, saw operations affected by low light and rainfall peaking at 173% of normal levels between June and August 2012.
It said the adverse conditions, which followed similarly poor weather the year before, had it forced to buy produce from overseas in order to fulfil its contracts.
In spite of the challenges, Kettle hiked profits and drove turnover by 7% to £101.4m, with its balance sheet benefiting from its decision to delay investment in new machinery.
Finance director Liz Waugh said: "The summer of 2012 has already gone down as one of the wettest, dullest and coolest in living memory and that had a significant impact on the availability of produce.
"Crop growth in the UK was extremely poor and yields were down across the whole country, by up to 40% in some areas.
"With crop availability down and operating costs up, we had to contain our costs.
"A planned programme of machinery replacement at our sites was put on hold to bolster our bottom line.
"In the face of these challenges, it is pleasing that we have been able to deliver strong numbers."
Kettle Produce has nearly 800 staff at its sites in Orkie, near Freuchie, and Balmalcolm by Cupar, making it one of the biggest employers in Fife.
The company, created by two Scottish farming families in the 1970s, has an annual output of 100,000 tonnes of fresh root vegetables, green vegetables and salad crops.
Kettle moved into a state-of-the-art facility at Orkie over the period covered by its accounts for the year ended June 2, 2012.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article