Cormar invests in stock to secure high service levels
June 28, 2022
Cormar used its 30% growth in sales during strong trading in 2021 to build stocks and secure its business against future challenges.
In their latest accounts filed for the year ended 30 September 2021, Cormar saw sales grow to £145m – that's 30% up on the previous year and 11% up from pre-pandemic trading.
During 2021, the directors reported: "We experienced a significant level of demand as the UK consumer continue to invest in their home. More recently, we have had the additional challenge of navigating the inflationary pressures and supply chain issues in a manner that protects volume, margin and the service proposition we offer to our customers.
"The combination of strong trading with balanced pricing response helped deliver a record profit year for the business with operating profit increasing by 13.9% to 10.97m," they said.
Cormar held £14.3 million of inventory at the year-end, twice the level of the prior period including a near four-fold increase in raw materials and consumables. "We took the decision to increase our stock holding significantly in order to counter supply chain issues. This enables us to protect our supply and service levels to our customers and we gave our suppliers more certainty over cash flow," said the directors' statement.
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