Two UK companies in the drink and food industry provided glimpse of hope for the UK business with their stunning performance for the year ending September.

Compass, the biggest catering group in the world, recorded phenomenal rise in profits and acknowledged that its UK arm overhaul had started giving benefits.

Compass recorded phenomenal rise of 33% to £589m in its pre-tax profits and 5.9% growth to £11.4bn in revenues on organic basis. In the UK, operating profits increased to £108m from £1m with the new management team’s decision to abandon loss-making, low margin contracts and concentrating efforts on cost control and service improvement.

Chief Executive, Richard Cousins claimed good beginning for the new financial year and bright prospects of future sales. He added that company was mustering good revenue growth and improving operating efficiency and was not complacent in context of difficult economic environment.

Britvic, the producer of popular brands Tango, R Whites lemonade and Robinsons squash, registered £70.1m pre-tax profit against £61.3m last year.

Chief Executive Paul Moody described this as strong performance in the backdrop of very tough trading and cost escalation.

Britvic is the biggest soft drinks producer in Britain next only to Coca-Cola. It witnessed high growth in Great Britain business from Fruit Shoot juice and Robinsons as well as Pepsi, of which Britvic has selling rights for the UK and Ireland.

Britvic would be paying total dividend of 12.6p per share, up 14.5%.

Things to consider:
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www.wrightchoicecatering.co.uk
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