Historic tea firm Ringtons brews up solid sales despite inflation and rising costs

Historic tea and biscuits favourite Ringtons has hailed a solid trading year with stabilising sales against a backdrop of rising costs and inflation.

The Byker family firm, which is now in its 118th year of trading, imports and packages tea for major supermarkets, alongside its own brand of coffees, teas and sweet treats, which are sold online, in stores and through its traditional doorstep delivery service powered by a fleet of more than 250 vans and sales staff. Turnover rose 8.3% to £87.3m in the period ended June 28 2024, while operating profit increased 4.5% to £2.9m. Total Shareholder funders increased 1.8% to £33.7m and staff numbers remained steady at 560.

Ringtons directors told BusinessLive they were satisfied with the company’s performance during the period, adding that retained profits continue to be invested in facility improvements.

Chairman Nigel Smith, who had been in the business more than 50 years, officially retired at the beginning of the year, leading to his daughter Julia Thompson taking over as non-executive chair.

Members of the fifth generation have now been in the business since July 2023, and Ms Thompson and director Colin Smith – one of the fourth-generation family members on the Ringtons board alongside his brother Simon – said they are starting to see the tangible impact of having the fifth generation in the business.

New products have been launched, including ginger snap tea and functional teas – such as bedtime, defence and digest – and new biscuits including apple pie cookies, a successful new business which has led to customers signing up for regular doorstep deliveries. New packaging and branding has also been created after enlisting Chilli Agency in Leeds, with new designs on biscuits now including street scenes, the firm’s headquarters on Algernon Road, and the doorstep delivery staff themselves.

Ms Thompson said: “What we especially like about the packaging is that we have now got our sales people on there, as they are absolutely the most important asset that we have. We’re trying to show their personality as well as the quality of the product. We also have street scenes which differ throughout the products, and they reflect our customers as well as making subtle references to our North East heritage.”

Meanwhile, the company made charitable donations of £203,224 in the period. It also received 16 Great Taste stars, for products including gold tea, breakfast tea, and ginger snaps.

“In terms of commodity costs, the big ones we are facing are chocolate – cocoa prices – which is well-publicised, and coffee which is due to supply shortages after a particularly poor series of crops around the world. Coffee prices are unprecedentedly high and will lead to significant rises on the High Street. We will be looking at price modelling around coffee as a result. Tea is more stable and the strength of the pound against the dollar is helping to a degree.”

Ringtons has already made some price adjustments within its sweet treats range as a result of cocoa price increases.

Ms Thompson added: “It’s a hard one because clearly we want to do what we can for customers, but we also won’t compromise on quality. We don’t put prices up lightly, and it is absolutely the last resort. We do everything we can to absorb and mitigate before we consider price rises.”

Looking ahead, Colin Smith said the firm was prepared for incoming headwinds.