Convenience store group Costcutter has seen its profits climb into the black on the back of a surge in sales of fresh produce in what it described as “one of its best-ever years”.

The retailer reported that EBITDA increased by over £9m in the 52 weeks to December 31, 2019, to finish at £5.1m for the financial year.

The convenience store group, which has over 1,500 independent stores across the UK, said that this profit growth was driven by a surge in total sales, which rose 10% to £426m.

Costcutter noted that during the period, sales in fresh produce grew at “a faster rate than any other category”.

Chief executive Darcy Willson-Rymer said that a customer pivot to fresh produce had if anything accelerated since the UK was locked down due to the coronavirus at the end of March. Across its ranges, Costcutter reported a 22% increase in non-tobacco sales across the first four months of 2020.

“Since lockdown, we’ve responded even more to what consumer’s needs and demands are: much less food to go, much less single impulse purchases and we’re seeing significant increases in fresh food; edible grocery and frozen. We’ve been emphasising less range in one area and more in another, and constantly updating our advice for our partners”.

While not giving figures, Willson-Rymer also said that since the pandemic struck, the retailer had seen a big uptick in customers using its home delivery service with Uber Eats that it first struck in October 2019.

Indeed, the Costcutter boss said that demand had been so high in regions not serviced by the food delivery app, that the retailer had launched its own delivery service location from some 200 locations.

“We’ve got 100 stores on the platform but because that’s not available everywhere, we’ve learned about home delivery and now have 200 stores offering some other form of home delivery in various ways – be that telephone, working with local authorities to get food to the vulnerable.”

Willson-Rymer said that 2019 had been an “outstanding year” for the retailer, and flagged that over the last 12 months it had “accelerated our investments in our overall retail offer” – namely its Shopper First programme.

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