Simon Howie results well worth a butcher's

FOUR of the companies owned by entrepreneur Simon Howie yesterday posted rising profits as his eponymous butchery business and laminate panel making outfits weathered the recession.

His group of companies now has a combined turnover of more than 50 million and includes Shore Energy, which has applied for planning permission to build waste-to-energy plants.

Simon Howie Butchers yesterday reported a 17 per cent rise in turnover to 7.2m in the year to 30 April following an extension to its factory at Dunning, Perthshire, which allowed the firm to supply a broader range of meats to its "big four" supermarket customers and to its own shops at Perth and Auchterarder.

Turnover at the two butchers' shops passed 2m for the first time, helping the company to post a 3 per cent rise in pre-tax profits to 797,000.

Howie told The Scotsman that the butchery business had enjoyed a "fantastic" Christmas and new year, with sales and profits up by 20 per cent year-on-year.

"People who were going out to restaurants are staying in to eat and we've benefited from that trend," Howie said. "We think that, while our products are aspirational, they're still competitively priced." The firm supplies meat to Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Tesco, and last year took on Asda, which Howie called a "cracking" deal.

Meanwhile Chester-based Thrislington Cubicles – which Howie bought in August 2008 – underwent a turnaround in its fortunes, going from a 77,500 loss in 2008 to a pre-tax profit of 865,500 in 2009.

Howie said he simplified the trading structure at the company – which has built washrooms for London's Gherkin office development, the O2 arena and St Pancras international station – and provided more of the back-office services from other companies within his group.

Shore Laminate Fabrications – which makes work surfaces for kitchens and panels for washrooms, changing rooms and airports – posted a 20 per cent rise in turnover to 7.8m in the year to 30 April, with pre-tax profits rising from 302,600 to 854,000.

Howie said he had invested 500,000 in machinery to automate the process for making the laminate panels, taking production from 400 panels a day up to a potential 1,000.

He said a storage and dispatch system had been set up to cope with the higher production, with the number of staff rising from 44 to 53 over the course of the year.

Grimsby-based Mermaid Panels, which Howie bought in March 2008, posted a 13 per cent rise in turnover to 4m, with profits rising from 287,000 to 335,000.

Howie said the firm changed from a Swedish supplier to one of his own companies and that distribution had been taken in house, cutting delivery times down from 11 days to five.