As well as owning the fashion chains, the group is one of Britain's biggest owners of grocery brands and also runs major sugar, ingredients and agriculture businesses. It operates in 55 countries, employing 133,000.
George Weston, CEO since 2005, said going forward he would place a greater emphasis on communicating the importance of the food businesses as investors lacked a good understanding of the portfolio, and he plans to say more this year."It's seen as being a rag-tag collection of unrelated food businesses. It's not. There’s a lot more method to it than I think parts of the outside world would understand," he said in an interview.
"The stars aligned in this first half better than they ever have before," he said, highlighting profit growth of 39% in grocery.Weston said the food portfolio was made up of varied but connected businesses which all tapped into common themes. These were complemented by"cash generators" such as its Mazola consumer oils business and its retail bakery ingredients business in the US.