Furniture components supplier Hill’s Panel Products (HPP) has reported another growth in sales.

According to its latest filed accounts for the year ended 28 February 2023, total sales rose 1.7% to £35.1m from £34.5m in 2022, adding to its growth of 29.6% from £26.6m in 2021.

Pre-tax profit resulted at £3m, down from £4m recorded the previous year.

Stated within its report, the company said: “Although on the whole the year was satisfactory, we did experience a slowdown in the last quarter as external economic factors started to take hold. However, overall, the year finished well and we overcame some significant challenges. Although product supply was generally improved, in certain areas like maintenance, sourcing of spare parts proved to be very frustrating and affected by significant increases in cost.

“We continued to implement our staff re-structuring from 2022, this is a process that is still ongoing with the introduction of new roles within the company such as Assistant Marketing Manager. Finding people for certain key roles has been challenging but the outlook now seems to be settling down in most areas.

“As a forward-thinking company committed to its staff and their wellbeing it is nice to report that we have had no major issues with staff retention this year, although we realise that the cost of living increased significantly for everyone and we know this is something that will have to be looked at very carefully in the coming year.

“For the latter half of this year, we have had to prepare for what we believe will be a challenging year ahead. We are doing this by looking at our systems, how to reduce costs where possible, in areas ranging from energy use to card payment processing fees, while also exploring our market concentration with more external presence.

“Overall, we are very happy with how our financial YE2023 has gone and, how the company has performed, aided by the valued contribution made by every member of our team. Our customer base has remained loyal, and as always, we try to do our best for them and their business by offering what we believe to be sustainable solutions and innovative products and tools to assist them and us to be more efficient. We anticipate some challenges ahead but we also believe we are well placed to deal with these challenges, as we have over the last 30 years.”