Kitchenware retailer ProCook Group PLC on Friday said trading has been hurt by increasingly challenging market conditions, with customers affected by ‘exceptional pressures’ on discretionary spending.

Procook shares were down 38% early Friday to 48.25 pence. They had fallen to an opening low of 40.00p. The stock listed on the London Main Market back in November at an initial public offering price of 145.00p so is down by two-thirds in six months.

For the fourth quarter, ended April 3, ProCook said it was trading against ‘exceptionally strong comparatives’ from the prior year, when it benefited from pent-up demand following the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions and the reopening of retail stores.

The retailer said like-for-like sales have weakened across all channels, in line with the wider kitchenware market, though revenue remains ‘significantly higher’ than the comparative pre-Covid period in 2019.

ProCook assumes the kitchenware market will remain highly challenging for the remainder of financial 2023. As such, it now anticipates that revenue for financial 2023 will be broadly in line with £69.2 million seen in financial 2022.

It also expects gross margins to remain broadly consistent year-on-year, and will continue to manage costs carefully.

Still, ProCook now expects to deliver adjusted pretax profit of between £4 million to £6 million for financial 2023. It didn’t provide its adjusted pretax profit figure for financial 2022. In the first half of financial 2022, the six months that ended October 21 last year, underlying pretax profit was £3.6 million.

ProCook expects to release its financial 2022 results in late June.

‘There are clear and numerous pressures on consumers at present which are impacting discretionary spend across retail as a whole and kitchenware is no exception. Whilst we are still seeing lots of new customers discovering the ProCook brand and buying our products, it is clear that many are tightening their belts. This creates a difficult short-term trading environment, but does not distract us from our strategic priorities, as we work towards our mission of becoming the first choice for kitchenware,’ said Chief Executive Officer Daniel O’Neill.

Amid the immediate trading difficulty, ProCook also suggested it will be pulling back from international expansion plans. ‘The group will continue to pursue the multiple long term growth opportunities available, but we will sharpen our short term focus on the core organic UK opportunity, creating a stronger platform for future growth,’ it said in its statement on Friday.

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