Dundee furniture, doors and mattress manufacturer Dovetail Enterprises returned a deficit last year as the challenges facing the construction sector continued to impact on its operations.
However, the Dunsinane Industrial Estate based charity’s chairman Ken Laing said he hoped a new strategy developed with the Scottish Manufacturing Advisory Service (SMAS) would help the group back into surplus.
Dovetail sells to the general public but is predominantly trade focused.
It has provided furniture for major hotel operators and is pushing further into the leisure and education markets.
The group – whose main objective is to provide training and employment for blind, visually impaired and disabled workers – said the past financial year had been challenging.
“The charity has continued to make efforts to turn around the impact of the recession which heavily impacted its core business,” the Trustees said in their report to the accounts.
“The construction industry sector is, however, still experiencing difficulties and it is anticipated that trading conditions will remain challenging in the near future.”
Documents filed at Companies House show Dovetail Enterprises (1993) Limited – which is structured as a charity that is a company limited by guarantee – generated income of £3.21 million in the year to March 31.
The figure, down on 2015’s £3.37m, was made up of £2.8m from trading activities, £372, 292 from local authority and Department of Work and Pensions grants and £40,000 from investments.
Expenditure totalled £3.53m, with £1.59m related to day-to-day trading and £1.93m going towards “charitable activities”, including staff costs and the provision of services.
A total deficit after funding of £91,517 was recorded for the year, up from £35,989 in 2015.
Mr Laing said the charity was in a period of change but was investing in facilities, with a new £170,000 laminate press on order.
“Over the last six to nine months we have had SMAS in working with us on developing a new business plan for the organisation going forward,” he said.
“Within that, we are looking to make a number of improvements in the business including developing a new marketing strategy and deciding where we want to go with that.
“It is very much our intention to grow the business and get into markets we may not have got into in the past.
“Recently we have made some inroads with public sector contracts and we see that increasing.
“Our aspiration is to increase our trading activity back towards where we were seven or eight years ago – when we were doing £4 million to £5 million – and get back into profit.”