Acquisitions help Dalziel to meaty 26% rise

Accounts filed at Companies House showed that the holding company, JR Dalziel, posted a 26 per cent rise in pre-tax profits to 7.1 million for the year to 2 October.

Managing director Ian Darroch told The Scotsman that the acquisition of a number of business – including Viscount Butchers in Grimsby and Asco Butchers Sundries in Suffolk – had boosted turnover by 16 per cent to 114m.

He said frozen and chilled meats accounted for about 50m of revenues, while ingredients brought in 40m and specialist packaging and supplies for retail butchers and meat processors accounted for the rest.

Darroch said the company, named after Joseph Dawson Dalziel, who founded the business in 1926, had grown since 1979 when he and chairman Sandy Dalziel began running the firm together and revenues stood at about 15m. Profits have grown from about 1m in the mid-1990s.

Since the 1970s, the company has acquired about 40 family businesses around the UK to build its current network of 11 depots, stretching from Aberdeen to Kent.

The company instigated a succession plan in 2003, which saw Sandy's son, Stuart, become commercial director. Sandy retired from the firm in 2008.

Staff numbers at Dalziel rose from 307 in 2008 to 432 in 2009 following the acquisitions, with the package for the highest-paid director rising from 161,393 to 222,148. About 80 of the staff work in Scotland.

Employees have also shared in the profits through a scheme set up by management.

Darroch said: "I expect that, in 2010, we will equal or just about pass our 2009 figures, but it won't be a dramatic surge forward. I think we will be doing well to keep ahead of 2009.

"We're working hard on plans for 2011 to maintain that level. The meat processing and retail butchery industries aren't the most dynamic of sectors – you really have to scrap for every piece of growth you can get."

The company serves about 6,000 clients, including all the meat processors that supply the major retailers.