Flagship city store for Arran Aromatics

ARRAN Aromatics, the Scottish toiletries firm threatened with a wind-up petition last year, is to open a flagship store in Edinburgh this week ?as it continues its path to recovery.

The George Street store will be the family company's fifth outlet as it concentrates on selling its products directly to consumers and relying less on third parties.

Iain Pittman, the recovery specialist who was parachuted in at the height of Arran Aromatics' troubles last year, said the brand is keen to expand its own chain of shops although it will continue to supply products to department stores such as Debenhams and Jenners, plus hotels including the Malmaison and Hotel du Vin chain. He said: "When we deal directly with the end consumer we have found we can better tell the Arran story."

Pittman said Arran Aromatics has made considerable progress since January last year, when it faced a wind-up petition from HM Revenue & Customs over a tax bill.

"For the last 15 to 16 months we have been focusing on managing cash and since March 2009 we have managed to return 490,000 in revenues," he said. "We are doing about 5 million in turnover as we are coming out of the bad days. Things are looking more secure than they did but there's no question that it's still tough out there."