Simpsons Malt thanks whisky and beer sectors for earnings rise

Simpsons Malt has unveiled increased sales and earnings for 2019, hailing strong results in its malting and agricultural arms.

Simpsons pointed to a rise in malt sales volumes on the back of increased plant utilisation. Picture: Contributed

Pre-tax profits rose by around a third to £9.8 million at the Berwick-upon-Tweed-headquartered group, which includes agricultural merchanting divisions McCreath, Simpson & Prentice and John Guthrie, while sales hit £168m, up from £156.6m in the previous year.

Simpsons attributed this to a rise in malt sales volumes through increased plant utilisation. It said: "The company’s unique and well-invested infrastructure ensured that the malting business secured sufficient raw material following an extremely difficult 2018 harvest to deliver a supply of high quality malt throughout 2019."

Its merchanting arm also performed well and benefit from the company’s integrated supply chain, delivering strong farm input sales of fertiliser, seed grain and agrochemicals during the first half of 2019.

MD Tim McCreath said: “Looking ahead to 2020, malt demand in both the distilling and brewing sectors continues to be strong.

“The merchanting business faces challenges due to weather patterns in the autumn of 2019 and currently. However, the company’s infrastructure should allow us to mitigate those challenges and enable this side of the business to deliver another positive contribution.”