Jacqueline
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With one in four British households sampling organic food, Prince Charles is well on the way to a right royal turnover.
Prince's organic food firm achieves record profit
PAUL GALLAGHER
Wed 18 Dec 2002
PRINCE Charles has announced record profits for his organic food business with sales up 50 per cent in the past year.
Duchy Originals now sells products worth £14 million a year and is on the way to becoming one of Britain’s leading producers of organic goods.
Accounts published yesterday reveal that a range of Christmas puddings and clothes made from natural wool have helped boost sales in the last year to produce profits of £634,620, an increase of 10 per cent.
When Duchy Originals was launched in 1990 with a commitment to natural agricultural products, few farmers saw it as a viable business and most observers regarded it as further evidence of the crankiness of the Prince of Wales.
The company failed to return a profit at all for the first five years it was trading but has capitalised on the growing demand for organic foods since then and its products can now be found on most supermarket shelves.
Duchy Originals, which mostly sells products grown on the Prince’s Highgrove estate, is the market leader in producing organic biscuits and also organic bacon and sausages.
Charles does not take any income from the business and all profits are handed over to the Prince of Wales Charitable Foundation, formerly the Prince of Wales Charities Trust. The business has contributed £1.5 million to the organisation over the past three years.
Guy McCracken, the company’s chairman, said: "Duchy Originals has made further steady progress towards our objective to be the UK’s leading premium organic food brand.
"Sales have increased by approximately 50 per cent due to the continued development of distribution and successful new product launches, including a Duchy Original Christmas range," Mr McCracken said.
Over the past year, Charles has announced plans to diversify the business by launching a "country casual" fashion label through Duchy Originals which would help revive the rural economy.
The label would only use wool supplied by British sheep farmers to make a range of sweaters, scarves and tweed suits.
He also has proposed the marketing of traditional garden furniture.
The most profitable item for Duchy Originals is Oaten Biscuits, which are made from organic oats bought from the Duchy of Cornwall’s own farm near Highgrove.
Overseas sales are particularly strong, with the Royal connection helping to secure contracts to supply dealers in the United States, France, Germany, Canada, Ireland and the Middle East.
Tesco, one of Duchy Original’s key customers, has estimated that sales of organic food will quadruple in its stores by 2005, and will be worth £1 billion to the supermarket chain.
Despite the higher cost of organic produce, the sector is growing at the rate of 40 per cent a year because of concerns over genetically modified crops and other food scares.
One in four households is now estimated to sample organic products on a regular basis but UK farmers have struggled to meet the demand and 70 per cent of organic goods sold is imported.
Link: http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/business.cfm?...m?id=1405572002
This is so why Prince Charles is the best royal prince ever. He is so good. You guys in Britain are so lucky. I wish the US had someone like him. Sure, we have Al Gore, he's cool, but he is politically out of the game for good. The Bush people took care of him. 
