Duchy Originals makes £3.2m loss

Prince Charles's Duchy Originals food brand slumped to a loss as sales tumbled in the months before it was licensed to Waitrose last year. Accounts filed at Companies House for the year to April last year show the company, a subsidiary of the Prince of Wales's Charities Foundation, fell £3.2m into the red as sales almost halved to £2.2m. The company had administrative expenses of £5.5m. The brand, used on products ranging from biscuits to beauty products, was licensed to Waitrose at the end of September in a deal that gives the upmarket grocer the right to make and sell all Duchy-branded goods in the UK. Waitrose will pay a royalty on sales. At the time of the deal Sir Michael Peat, the Queen's principal private secretary and a director of Duchy Originals, insisted that Waitrose was not "bailing out or rescuing" the brand and that the grocer would instead help take Duchy "to the next level". Sales were hit by the recession and by an abrupt fall in the sales of all organic produce.