Typhoo Tea suffers loses after 'extensive damage' to factory

Typhoo Tea has recorded a substantial loss of nearly £40 million during its latest financial year, exacerbated by "extensive damage" caused to its Merseyside factory due to trespassers.

The tea manufacturer, having recently shifted its registered office from Birkenhead in Merseyside to Bristol, faced extraordinary costs surpassing £20m after intruders broke into and occupied its Moreton factory for a number of days in August 2023.

Typhoo Tea said that in August 2023, a group pf “organised trespassers” broke into the Moreton site and occupied it for several days, causing “extensive damage to its fabric and contents, making the site inaccessible. The company said the “abrupt closure” of the site necessitated the relocation of production to third parties “faster than anticipated”.

Typhoo Tea said that this led to “significantly higher direct expenses, impairment of assets and inefficiencies on production as our co-packing partners ramped up their production”. As a result Typhoo Tea’s exceptional costs jumped from £452,000 to £24m. After the end of its financial year Typhoo Tea recovered £4.3m in an insurance claim.

Consequently, Typhoo Tea has disclosed a pre-tax loss of £37.9m for the year ending September 30, 2023, which marks a significant increase from a £9.6m loss reported in the preceding year.

Further information gleaned from accounts newly submitted to Companies House indicates that the firm's revenue decreased from £33.6m to £25.3m across the same timeframe. The company has not seen a pre-tax profit since the £220,000 gained in the fiscal year concluding on March 31, 2017, with subsequent losses totalling over £100m in pre-tax figures, as reported by City AM.

Typhoo Tea’s transformation plan included the discontinuation of unprofitable lines, the closure of its Moreton factory and transfer of operations which led to the loss of almost 100 jobs. The company said the factory was “inefficient and unsuitable to the revised rationalised product portfolio and beyond economic refurbishment”.

Typhoo Tea’s products and operations was also restructured “to focus more efficiently on value accretive and profitable lines”. It added that stock availability was also negatively impacted by general tea paper shortages in the UK during the year “which meant despite robust demand from customers, we were not able to fulfil all their orders”.