Aircraft de-icer business Kilfrost says a milder winter has not stopped it making it big strides in building turnover and profits.
Accounts for the Haltwhistle-based manufacturer show turnover climbed from £14.8m to £25.5m in the year to the end of March, as operating profits also made a significant rise from £2.5m to £4.2m. Much of the gains came from the firm's º£½ÇÊÓƵ market, where it supplies the aviation industry as well as providing products for food and drink refrigeration, the rail market and even ice rink operators.
The 29-strong, family-owned business is now more than 90 years old and in recent years has looked to diversify outside of the aviation market in which was a pioneer in the 1930s. Now it has turned attention to a range of geothermal products intended for heat pump installers and a low viscosity range used in industrial refrigeration processes.
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Kilfrost said its new speciality fluids products were "going steady" in a mature market that is already dominated by a few key players. It said its strategy for that part of the business was to prove to customers it could provide better performance and safety without compromise.
Those features are driven by the firm's research and development work and during the year new patents were applied for across its speciality fluids and aircraft de-icer divisions. For example, Kilfrost's k400 product is an anti-freeze lubricant which protects pneumatic equipment in freezing temperatures and is used for the likes of impact wrenches and jackhammers in the mining, oil and gas and shipbuilding sectors, among other markets.
Writing in the accounts, Kilfrost director Gary Lydiate said: "For the aviation industry the past 12 months have been the beginning of the recovery phase post Covid. Whilst passenger numbers have been depressed from previous years there was still very positive signs of recovery moving at a pace.
"The past 12 months were also noted for an average winter. Coupled together this meant a lower, than average, use of aircraft de-icing fluids (ADF). At the same time the cost of our major raw material (MPG) remained at a historic high. However, due our contractual pricing mechanisms we remained profitable.
"In speciality fluids we continued to make further inroads into Scandinavia which is becoming a core market. For the USA we continue to move ahead but further work needs to be done on sales and marketing. In summary Kilfrost had a good trading year and is in a strong position for the next phase of growth."
Kilfrost traces its origins back to Joseph Halbert, described as a larger than life character, who created a world first de-icing product in the 1930s which was initially used on football pitches. Demand for the firms products soared during WW2 when it established its Haltwhistle operations at a time when key industries were moved there to avoid bombing.
