...hold top places in league table of the UK's leading private mid-market growth companies

The food and drink industry remains strongly represented in the 10th annual Sunday Times Grant Thornton Top Track 250, the league table of the UK's leading private mid-market growth companies, with 40 companies earning places in the milestone publication of the influential league table.

The food and drink industry is well represented on the league table, second only to the automotive industry with 50. The combined sales of all 40 companies was £10.5bn, a year-on-year increase of 13%, while profits totalled £490m, up 20%. The companies also employed a total of more than 80,477 people.

The largest food and drink company in the league table is R&R Ice Cream at fifth place (up from 23 in 2013), with sales of £605.5m. Other food and drink companies to feature in the upper scale of the list include Warburtons, Hillesden Investments (owner of Faccenda poultry), food distributor Argent Group Europe,  Burton's Biscuit Company, protein distributor Westbridge Foods, Nando's, Pret A Manger and Direct Wines. 17 of the companies are new to the league table for 2014.  

Trefor Griffith, Head of Food and Beverage at Grant Thornton UK LLP, praised the companies for their performance: “It's fantastic to see privately owned mid-sized food and drink businesses making such a positive contribution to the UK economy, several which we have helped on their journey.

"These mid-sized businesses play an integral part in driving the UK's strengthening recovery. Many are renowned for their innovation and perform strongly in international markets as well as on their home turf. Despite the recent challenging trading conditions, it's encouraging to see these businesses prosper and thrive. Through our 'Agents of growth,' campaign we champion policy changes that will help this dynamic segment of the market and support them to find a voice and be heard, and I hope that this will help them grow further."

Table: Top 10 leading mid-market food and drink private companies (of the 40 in the full Top Track 250) in Britain

* Pro forma, draft or not filed at Companies House

The national picture

The Top Track 250 complements the Top Track 100, which features Britain’s biggest private companies. It ranks the next 250 biggest companies by sales, provided either sales or profits have increased by at least 10% year-on-year.

The 250 companies generated combined sales of £70bn, operating profits of £4.4bn and employed a total of 412,000 staff.

The Top Track 250 companies are predominantly based in London (54) and the southeast (40). The remainder are headquartered in Yorkshire and Northeast (33), the Midlands (30), Northwest (27), Scotland (26), East (14), Southwest (13), Northern Ireland (8), and Wales (5).

The full league table was published in a special eight-page broadsheet supplement within the business section of The Sunday Times on 12 October, in print and in the digital edition, and at www.fasttrack.co.uk.

The Top Track 250 is compiled by Fast Track, the UK’s leading networking events and research company focusing on top-performing private companies and entrepreneurs, with title sponsorship from Grant Thornton and main sponsorship from Barclays.