The cumulative loss run up by the company, Winchelsea Farm Foods, that owns the general store in Winchelsea has continued to increase and now exceeds £5 million – though one former shop (Ashbees in Rye, pictured above) may have sold, and negotiations are currently said to be taking place.
Accounts for the financial year to April 2015, just published by Winchelsea Farm Foods, show that, despite cost-cutting, the business is still haemorraghing money. On turnover of some £348,000, the business managed to make a net loss of almost £515,000.
This was largely due to administrative costs of about £488,000 and interest and other charges of almost £106,000, compared to gross profits of only about £74,000.
On the plus side, administrative costs were reduced by 34% from over £739,000 and cuts in turnover and further reductions in staff (from 10 to seven) seem to have succeeded in eliminating some loss-making activity, with the result that the business made an operating profit of £4,791.
Winchelsea Farm Foods is the trading subsidiary of the environmental charity, Wetlands Trust, set up by Icklesham-based retired hedge fund manager, Stephen Rumsey. The annual accounts state that Winchelsea Farm Foods’ “activities are related to the objectives of the trust”. The main activity is ringing migrating bids.
As a trading subsidiary, the business is also supposed to make profits for the charity. Since its establishment in 2006, it never has done so. At its peak, there were seven shops – Ashbees in Rye, the Windmill Orchard Farmshop in Icklesham and, in Winchelsea, the Little Shop, Post Office, Jamie Wickens Butchers (later renamed Elms Farm Butchery), the Garden Shop and Winchelsea Farm Kitchen.
The latter consisted of a delicatessen, wine shop and cafe. One shop remains now, Winchelsea Farm Kitchen, which has absorbed the Little Shop, but lost the delicatessen, wine shop and cafe. Ashbees in Rye currently remains empty (and somewhat forlorn), the Farmshop lease has been surrendered, the Post Office building has been sold, and the Little Shop has been leased to a care company and the old butchers shop to an art gallery.
Winchelsea Farm Foods has been kept afloat by loans from the parent guaranteed by Mr Rumsey. Last year, a loan was made by Mr Rumsey of £109,009, taking the outstanding owed by the business to £5,290,944.
Photo: Richard Comotto