Notcutts have announced strong performance for the year ending February 2017, with sales up 5.3% to £71.3m and operating profit up 57.7%. Profit before tax increased 114% to £6.61m.
Notcutts CEO Nick Burrows said: “We are pleased with another year of progress as we continue with the implementation of our five-year plan. There have been many encouraging milestones for us this year in addition to our financial progress. We now have five fully-modernised and updated garden centres in Woodford Park, Norwich, Staines, Tunbridge Wells and Wheatcroft (Nottingham) and are well progressed with schemes to improve a number of our other centres in the next 18 months.
“Importantly, we have also strengthened our executive leadership team during the year with the appointments of finance director Julian Herbert, food and beverage director Kevin Boyle, property director Andrew Ingleton, brand director Sue Knight and trading director Sarah Silverwood.”
There have been a number of other key initiatives for Notcutts in the last year with the introduction of show gardens in Norwich, Wheatcroft and Staines. This follows the creation of a gold medal winning garden at the Sandringham Flower Show and a belief that show gardens in all Notcutts garden centres will prove a great draw for current and new customers alike.
The designs of the Notcutts show gardens have been the inspiration of head of visual merchandising Marco De Jongh and chairman Nicky Dulieu, who was recently appointed to the Commercial Board of the Royal Horticultural Society. Nicky said: “Expertise in gardening and a rich horticultural heritage are qualities that mark Notcutts out to many of our customers. In our 120th anniversary year, we wanted to celebrate with something iconic to demonstrate this and truly inspire our customers.”
With the development programme which is part of Notcutts’ five-year plan, all centres will feature a Notcutts show garden.
