Wallsend, Tyne & Wear, UK: David Price Food Services has blamed the costs of setting up next-day chilled service Absolute Temperature Network last year for its pre-tax losses to £622,558 for the year to 28 August 2010.
The company saw pre-tax losses jump five-fold from £95,967 the year before. The network was formed in January 2010 and there were one-off costs along with higher fixed costs associated with the set-up. However, the company increased turnover by £1.8m from £11.2m to £13m.
• David Price set up the Absolute Temperature Network in January 2010 with Wild Water Logistics, Solstor, Montgomery Refrigerated and Peter Green Chilled. Somerset-based Peter Green Chilled left the Absolute Temperature Network just a few months after the UK network for chilled and frozen distribution was launched in January 2010
Newcastle-based David Price Food Services launched Absolute after David Price parted company with Somerset-based controlled temperature firm Langdon Group that runs the ChillNet network. According to David Price, chairman of David Price Food Services, Peter Green has decided to leave the Absolute network in order to go it alone and concentrate on retail distribution – Absolute’s focus is predominantly on food ingredients (40%) and food services (40%),
Other partners still involved in Absolute include Cardiff-based Wild Water Logistics, Kent-based Solstor and County Antrim-based Montgomery Refrigerated. Following Peter Green’s departure David Price opened a new depot near Bristol to cover the Southwest region.
Absolute was formed to offer customers a next-day delivery solution to the UK and mainland Europe with volumes ranging from one pallet to 26 pallets for chilled, frozen or ambient products along with storage facilities.
