Fife supermarket chain Greens has announced an £18.5 million turnover to the end of March 2023.
The company expanded its number of stores from eight in 2021-22 to 15 in the same year.
Greens have shops across Tayside and Fife, including Markinch, Perth and Stobswell in Dundee.
The company directors are forecasting continued growth for the firm, and intend on buying more stores over the next financial year.
They note changes in customer habits, with people being more “time poor” and choosing services like home delivery via mobile app.
Conversely to many other industries, Greens bosses said the pandemic was good for business, with customers choosing to “shop locally” as a result of travel and social restrictions.
But, they added the cost of living crisis had impacted sales.
Greens announce £18.5m turnover
Greens director Amir Aslam compiled the annual report.
In it, he shares the company made a pre-tax profit of £137,708 to end of March 2023.
This was a 51% reduction on pre-tax profit on the year before, which stood at £282,953.
He said: “Greens pride ourselves on continuing to be Scotland’s leading chain of convenience stores by providing an innovative approach to convenience retailing.
“This is pioneered by delivering on our four objectives of retail excellence — to achieve in each of our stores, exceptional customer service, the highest store standards, a determined commitment to our local communities and a product offering which meets consumer needs by focussing on range, availability, and value.
“Greens’ convenience product offerings are generally geared around the ‘food for now’ and ‘food for later’ shopper missions.
“In addition, recent investments have led to widening our store propositions hence as well as providing convenience we are also becoming destination stores whereby consumers are travelling to frequent a Greens store.
“This includes offering in-store bakery and butchery concessions with locally sourced, quality products, food-to-go partnerships with Subway, Pizza Hut Delivery and other brands and creating high-growth categories by having ‘store within a store’ destinations.”
He added: “Total revenue was £18.5m in the 12 months to March 31 2023 (compared to £10.9m the year before).
“This increase in revenue was a direct result of both the continued review and growth of the store estate, increasing from eight sites in 2021-22 to 15 sites at the end of March 2023, as well as continued year on year growth in the existing store estate of over 9%.
“With the majority of new acquisitions having taken place in late Q3-4 of 2022-23, the business has yet to benefit from the increased economies of scale.
“This has resulted in gross profit remaining unchanged at 25.2%, resulting in an overall increase to £4.7m (compared to £2.7m in 2021-22) with an increase of over 0.4% expected in financial year 2023-24.”
Covid good for business
Because of the nature of their stores, the business did see an increase in sales during the pandemic.
“In practice, Covid-19 has generally had a positive effect on convenience retail market share with consumers continuing to shop more locally and buying ‘little and often’, Amir added.
“This trend has continued post Covid-19 and is leading to continued sales growth.
“More recently, the cost of living crisis has the ability to displace sales to more value driven shopping formats such as to ‘discounters.’
“The company remains aware of this risk and continues to utilise its agility by constantly evolving its consumer offering and proposition.”
