Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
Cooker manufacturer Aga Rangemaster – which also owns the Divertimenti cookshops – has returned to profit.
Renewed demand for Aga and Rangemaster cast iron stoves helped the group show a £16.4m pre-tax profit in the six months to June 30, compared to a £2.4m loss in the same period last year. Revenues were up 5% to £123.4m, with the UK accounting for 62% of sales.
A quarter of cooker sales were outside the UK, with France now comfortably ahead of Ireland as the primary export market for the company.
The group is also optimistic for the months ahead, stating that the current level of sales leads and retail footfall suggests a continuing improvement in the second half of the year.
However, sales of the group’s all-in-one cooker-boiler brands, Rayburn and Stanley, were down, as consumer enthusiasm for solid fuel and wood burning models fell away. In addition, kitchen tile brand Fired Earth continued to make a loss, despite an increase in smaller orders.
Aga Rangemaster has three Divertimenti cookshops, in Brompton Road and Marylebone High Street in London, and in Cambridge. It also has a chain of Aga shops.
