CH&Co Group has won £58m in new and retained contracts so far in 2017

Foodservice firm CH&Co Group has won in excess of £58m in new sales and retained business during the first half of 2017.

New sales represented £26.7m in full contract term value, with over twenty new clients including Farnborough Business Park, Coleg Gwent, Winchester-based telecoms firm Arqiva, purification and filtration product manufacturer Pall Europe, St Giles Hospice, Healthcare at Home, and consumer insight business Neilsen.

The retained business, worth £31.5m, is with a number of long-term clients including the Law Society, Sopra Steria, and East Wintergarden in Canary Wharf.

The news came as the group unveiled its first full-year accounts since the merger in June 2015 between CH&Co and HCM Group. The combined business had a turnover of £191m in the 12 months to December 2016, in a year that also saw the Brookwood Partnership and its subsidiary Absolutely Catering join the group (June 2016).

Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) stood at £8.2m for the year, while pre-tax profit was £150,000. The company also pointed to strong operating cash flows, driving an overall net increase in cash of £2.7m across the group.

Bill Toner, chief executive of CH&Co Group, said: "Our businesses, including the Brookwood Partnership which joined with CH&Co Group in July 2016, have continued to perform well with strong retention and a number of significant new contract wins.

"Our new contracts success demonstrates that the company is delivering what clients are looking for and the retention results show that our focus on clients is very much on the long term, providing the innovation and services they want and good value for money."

Since the year end, the company has grown further in size, merging with Harbour & Jones in June 2017. The projected annual turnover of the new combined company is £265m.

Toner added: "The enlarged family has provided opportunities for all of the original companies involved to share best practice and update systems and IT to make sure we have state of the art technology, leading learning and development programmes, and the latest thinking in marketing; all geared up to providing the best service to our customers.

The new expanded team features great talent, experience and verve, and we have attracted some strong industry players to join us. We are in a very good place to drive the business forward to continued success."

CH&Co and HCM Group merge >>

CH&Co Group and Harbour & Jones merge >>

The Brookwood Partnership and ABsolutely Catering merge with CH&Co Group >>

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