Belcher Food Products, the Ayrshire company founded by multi-millionaire former sausage king Ephraim Belcher, saw the sizzle taken out of the business in the year leading up its low-profile sale - but its new owner is planning to turn up the heat.
Brown Brothers Manufacturing, a cooked meat operation based in Kirkconnel, Dumfriesshire, said it aimed to boost Belcher Food's turnover by around a third in the first 12 months, and double it over the next few years.
Martyn Godfrey, a director and major stakeholder in Brown Brothers, last night told The Herald: "The acqui- sition was part of a major, overall expansion for the group and we intend to drive turnover to around £40m."
Godfrey said the fact of the matter was that Ephraim Belcher had retired and left the company in the hands of a series of managers who had not run it as Belcher had.
"We bought the business for its potential," added Godfrey.
Nonetheless, pre-tax profits at Prestwick-based Belcher Food Products plunged to £131,000 for the year to the end of February, compared with a chunky £1.8m the previous year, according to the accounts obtained by The Herald from Companies House. Turnover also dropped by around a third to £14.8m, compared with £21.7m the year before.
Belcher Food's accounts suggest the deal was completed on April 1, the date at which Belcher resigned from the board.
The group's latest Company Directors' and Shareholders' Report, published on November 12, reveals all of its 29,998 shares are now owned by Brown Brothers. Martyn and Wayne Godfrey are listed as the Ayrshire firm's only directors.
Godfrey told The Herald that Belcher had transferred his stakeholding to his wife prior to the sale. No sale price was disclosed, although Godfrey said: "It was cash deal."
Belcher started out as a family butcher in the late 1960s with a shop in Tam's Brig in Ayr, before expanding into pork processing.
Belcher Food is now the UK's largest producer of frozen sausages for the major supermarket chains.
The sausage king has been quoted as saying: "I have always treated it as a hobby. A business is for life. It is not about making a fast buck."
In the directors' report, the firm blamed "a number of factors, including the loss of business from certain customers and an increase in raw material prices" for its woes. It did not name those customers, whose business it lost. Staff numbers at the plant decreased to 139 over the period, compared with 184 last time.
Belcher, 65, has also watched as his personal fortune has dwindled and his ranking on the Sunday Times richlist of Scotland's wealthiest individuals slipped in 2006 to 98th position, when his fortune was estimated at £35m, from 70th the previous year. He is not listed on the current richlist.
Meanwhile, cooked meat producer and delicatessen supplier Browns, founded in 1885 and employing around 400, is controlled by Martyn Godfrey, who bought it from Biggar Beef in the early 1990s and moved the business to Kirkconnel.
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