Dawnfresh sinks £4.4m into the red

LOSSES have widened at fish-processing firm Dawnfresh following restructuring costs and 2008's acquisition of Scot Trout.

Turnover at the Uddingston-based company leaped from 28.4 million to 48.5m in the year to 31 March, with the workforce rising from 237 to 520.

But Dawnfresh sank further into the red, with pre-tax losses of 4.4m, compared with a 1.5m deficit in 2008.

Distribution costs and administrative expenses rose and the company was hit by restructuring and reorganisation costs amounting to 2.1m.

Net assets totalled 8.6m at the end of March, compared with 4.9m in the previous year. The wage bill increased from 4.5m to 10m, in line with the rise in the number of staff, but the highest-paid director took a pay cut from 200,000 to 46,000.

ST Flack, who is listed as a director of the company, saw his pay as a consultant rise from 13,000 in 2008 to 120,000 in 2009.

Chairman Alastair Salvesen and his family led a management buy-out of Dawnfresh in 1983, purchasing the business from the haulage company Christian Salvesen. It grew through a series of acquisitions, buying Ipswich-based Starfish and Campbeltown-based Mull of Kintyre Seafoods between 1986 and 1988, and then Silver Trout in 2004.

It also has operations in Arbroath and Grantown-on-Spey.