Uniq mirrors M&S revival

Convenience foods group Uniq revealed a surge in pre-Christmas business today as it mirrored the revival of its biggest customer Marks & Spencer.

Uniq, which provides sandwiches, ready meals and smoked salmon to M&S, unveiled UK sales growth of 2.5% in the final 13 weeks of the year, helped by an “excellent” performance in the Christmas fortnight.

The company said it believed the foundations for recovery were now in place in the UK as the division looks to recover from half-year losses of £9.6m (€14m).

Initiatives have included the recruitment of a new management team to tackle labour, waste and supply chain problems at Shropshire-based business Minsterley, which Uniq acquired in 2004.

The rest of the UK business has been realigned to meet the needs of retail customers with Minsterley focused on desserts for Tesco, a site in Paignton dealing with Asda, and Evercreech in Somerset – previously threatened with closure and the loss of 300 jobs – serving mainly M&S.

The company said in a trading statement: “Service to our customers over the critical Christmas period was good and sales performance in the Christmas fortnight was excellent.”