The agriculture, food and engineering group Carrs has seen its engineering business soar by a third on the back of strong demand in the UK and overseas.
The company’s fabrication arm, Bendalls, completed a contract for the supply of pressure vessels for a US nuclear decommissioning plant and is about to finish a major vessel at Sellafield. Bendalls has also won a multi-million pound contract to supply pressure vessels for a floating platform off the Shetland islands.
Wälischmiller, the group’s remote handling technology and robotics business, delivered three specialist robots for a de-commissioning plant in Germany and completed other significant contracts for master slave manipulators and remote handling equipment for customers in France, Japan and South Korea. Consequently, Wälischmiller has expanded its design and production engineering team and production capacity with a new €4 million factory at Markdorf on schedule to complete this summer.
Elsewhere in the business, the agricultural division benefitted from strong animal feed business in the US, UK and New Zealand while competition for the company’s three flour mills was “intense” and it was “reviewing operations”.
At the half way point in the year, chief executive Chris Holmes said he expected the company’s results for the year will be ahead of the expectations.
This material is protected by copyright Ken Hurst 2011.
