East London-based Cake Box sees sales jump as retailer keeps opening shops despite high street gloom.
Cake Box, an East London firm which makes egg-free, personalised spongy cakes, has bucked the high street gloom with growing sales and profits as it keeps opening up shops.
In its first financial update since going public last year, Cake Box said revenues rose 44 per cent to £8.3million in the six months to the end of September, driven by a ‘record’ number of store openings. Like-for-like sales rose 4.4 per cent, while online sales rose 86 per cent to £1.99million. The firm, which has franchises dotted around the country from Glasgow to Southampton, said it opened 15 new stores in the six months, bringing the total number to 101. New openings include Milton Keynes, Northampton and Derby.
Cake Box said they had already opened four new stores in the first eight weeks of the second half, during which time it plans to open a total of another 15 new franchise stores. Cake Box allows customers to order a cake and collect it in one hour, and its prices range from £15 to over £1,240 for some wedding cakes.
Chief executive Sukh Chamdal, who opened the first store in East London 10 years ago, said the firm has made good progress since it listed on the London stock market and expected ‘another successful year of growth’.
‘The Cake Box brand has continued to go from strength to strength and we have made good progress since flotation with our strategic priorities of growing our store estate, investing further in our new products and developing our digital marketing,’ he said.
Pre-tax profits were down 7 per cent at £1.37million, but this included the £599,000 cost of the IPO. Excluding listing costs, profits were 34 per cent higher. Cake Box listed on the London’s junior market in June and has been growing fast, with full-year sales soaring from £8.7million in 2017 to £12.8million in the year to March 2018.
