Richmond tastes ice cream success

TINY Richmond Foods confirmed today it is licking the mighty Unilever in Britain's ice cream wars.

Just days after the Wall's-owning conglomerate sounded a warning that grey skies had hit sales, Richmond has trounced market expectations by upping its profit forecast for the year.

Boosted by a better-than-expected September, Richmond now thinks it will make £14m in the year ending this month.

It seems Britons are shunning Unilever's Magnum and Solero for Richmond's new offerings, which include Skinny Cow, Toffee Crisp and Rolo. A spokesman said the launch of Skinny Cow, a low-fat product licensed from the US, had gone well. Introduced into Asda earlier in the year, it is now being rolled out in other supermarkets.

Richmond said numbers from research group AC Neilsen showed its share had soared from 28.7% to 33.7% in a market which had sunk 6.5% in the year to early September.

This is in stark contrast to Unilever, forced to slash its earnings per share expectations by 10% on Monday. It pinned much of the blame on the bad weather in Europe for hitting ice cream and iced tea sales.