The East of England Co-op made a trading loss of £4million in the year to January 2024 - its second loss-making year in a row.

But the Ipswich-based regional retail chain said its trading performance was improving following a restructure of its senior management team and efficiencies - and it was expecting the upturn to continue.

A boost in sales helped cut its trading losses by £1.6m. Turnover rose by 5% to turnover to £395m, with sales growth across its food, travel and petrol filling stations, its annual results to January 2024 show. Food sales were up by more than £18m.

The business has been hit by various headwinds including inflation - which has led to a 25% increase in energy costs - and a 9.7% increase in the National Living Wage.

Overall, loss before tax was £9.5m compared to a loss of £8.8m the previous year.

President Frank Moxon said: "The challenging economic and trading conditions together with rising costs continue to impact our ability to trade profitably.

"We’ve made a trading loss of £4.0m this year. We have also seen a £1.7m reduction in the value of our investment property portfolio.

"Although we have posted a second year of losses, our trading performance is improving and we have taken the first steps at expansion in both food retailing and funerals while continuing to reduce our energy use.

"Despite continuing economic headwinds, we are now preparing for a return to profitability and renewed growth across our family of businesses."

Chief executive Doug Field said: “We’re making progress towards a stronger future. Despite the challenges we’ve faced this year our plan to return to profitability, focusing on the fundamentals, is working.

East Anglian Daily Times:

"We’ve reduced our trading losses by more than 25% and are on track to return to profit."

Despite the downturn over the past two years, the business has continued to pursue growth with the expansion of its food business into Cambridgeshire for the first time in its 155-year history with stores at Waterbeach and Cambridge North Station.

It also a third food store outside Chelmsford Station catering for its 12,300-plus daily commuters.

In December 2023 it launched a new partnership with rapid delivery service Just Eat rolling out in a total of 77 of its stores across East Anglia.

“Another step in growing our business this year has been our investment in eCommerce which saw us launching two new ways to shop with us, making us the first regional co-op to have its own online shopping platform, and the first co-op food retailer in the UK with its own shopping app," said Mr Field.

In line with its remit, it has provided grants to more than 50 local groups and good causes last year, bringing the total supported since its Community Cares Fund launched in 2020 to more than 3,000, with over 120,000 direct beneficiaries.

A further £50,000 was donated to local foodbanks to support them through the winter period.

Mr Field welcomed proposed new legislation to make abuse to shop workers a standalone criminal offence.

“Our security team works 24/7 to protect our colleagues and branches," he said.

"We’re fortunate to have access to our own state-of-the-art technology and a uniquely qualified team that works closely with local authorities and agencies including the police service.

“We’ve found this co-operative way of working instrumental in achieving arrests and prosecutions and therefore keeping our colleagues safe.

"All of our food stores have access to body worn cameras, and we’ve recently introduced headsets, helping our colleagues keep in-touch no matter where they are in the store.”

The chain is upgrading its estate with energy efficient technology - and trialling switching off refrigeration of beers, wines and spirits and certain times of the day to save on energy costs and CO2e emissions.

“As we continue our journey back to sustainable profit, we need to accelerate the momentum we have created," said Mr Field.

"This year is all about being our best. We’ll be carrying out our largest ever member survey to better understand what our members are looking for from our co-op.

"We’ll also make the decisions needed so we’re able to better serve the needs of our members, customers, and communities.

"Reducing costs and improving the profitability of our family of businesses will help return us to profit.”