‘Waitrose of the north’ slashes losses as sales surpass £300m

Annual losses at the upmarket grocer Booths have shrunk after sales surpassed £300 million for the first time in its history.
Turnover at the Lancashire-based supermarket chain, often referred to as the “Waitrose of the north”, grew by 6.7 per cent to £318.7 million in the year to the end of March.
The family-owned retailer said it had benefited from a mix of increased footfall, basket spend, “record” Christmas sales and an additional Easter period, when compared with the year before. Removing almost all of its self-scanning tills across the store estate was also a hit with customers.
Increased sales offset the “continued effects” of annual national living wage increases, it said, helping narrow pre-tax losses from £4 million to £1.6 million during the same period. The last time the supermarket chain reported a pre-tax profit was in 2022, at £3 million for the financial year.
Booths was founded in 1847 by Edwin Henry Booth, a tea dealer, who at just 19 years of age secured a loan of £80 to open his first shop, The China House. The retailer developed rapidly over the years and now has 27 stores across northern England employing about 3,000 people.
The group lauded its best Christmas on record last year, but it has not been immune to the fallout from the pandemic, as well as rising costs and shoppers switching to the German discounters Aldi and Lidl amid the cost of living crisis.
Edwin Booth, chairman and chief executive, who is also the great-great-grandson of the company’s founder, had previously warned that he had “no doubt” the rise in inflation would hit its sales and profits.
In its latest accounts, the company referred to the latest financial year as a period of “high inflationary pressures, high interest rates and cost of living challenges, albeit at reduced levels” when compared with the prior year.
• Grocery inflation rises for first time in more than a year
“Against this background we are pleased to report results above those planned at the beginning of the financial year thus providing a continued sustainable platform for future growth,” it said. “This was again achieved by staying true to our purpose through which we aim to inspire and nourish our customers’ desires for delicious food and drink.”
Dividends for the period were 6p a share, totalling £76,000, compared with 9p a share and £239,000 the year before. The directors recommended a final dividend to be paid of 9.5p a share, amounting to £119,000. No final dividend was paid the year before.
Since the end of its financial year, Booths transferred its loss-making Hale Barns store to Asda for £1.75 million.
Booths warned that it expected inflation, which although starting to fall, “will remain above the average, not least due to the effect of climatic conditions on the food supply chain. Interest rates have contributed to financing costs and we do not expect them to fall significantly over the remainder of the current financial year”.
Much to the delight of many of its customers, Booths became the first grocer in the UK to ditch almost all its self-checkout tills last November.
The upmarket retailer said it had been finding the machines to be “slow, unreliable and impersonal” and decided that “rather than artificial intelligence, we’re going for actual intelligence”.