With nearly 70 years’ experience in the banana trade, it’s little surprise to see SH Pratt make the top half of the FPJ Big 50 2015.
Posting a turnover of £117.7 million for the most recent financial year, SH Pratt specialises in importing, ripening, ripening service provision and nationwide distribution of bananas, and – to a lesser extent – pineapples.
As for how the business plans to continue moving forward, David Bateman, operations director at SH Pratt, says: “We will look to grow the core business, and leverage current relationships and activities to greater benefit of the total business.” All of SH Pratt’s business and planned business, he adds, revolves around the UK market.
The business was started in 1947 by Robert ‘Bob’ Wells, and his son, Robert Wells, is now at the helm, having joined the business in 1982.
After moving around several locations over the decades, it now calls its 80,000 sq ft site in Luton, Bedfordshire, home. Around 200,000 boxes go through the premises each week.
Earlier this year, SH Pratt had to make nearly 90 redundancies: a decision caused, among other factors, by key customer Morrisons deciding to handle its ripening internally. Speaking to FPJ earlier this year, Wells said: “It was a blow, but we moved on. Since then we’ve rebuilt a big chunk of that business in a fairly healthy way, so it’s a closed chapter in my book.”
