Ann: Half Year Report to Shareholders, page-84

The idea is to buy the Honey when its available, and they steadily pack it through out the year, there is nothing worse than owning 3 packing plants and not having the material to pack, given that the availability of the raw material can fluctuate, having stock in the wings is good business, Do you really think the business would be stronger if they only ever had stock for the next 2 weeks packing?

Of course you account for the inventory you run down, all I am saying is that running it down turns in back into cash, buying in inventory turns the cash back into honey, its fluid, they aren't losing anything when they run down stock, they could do it easily, but it wouldn't be smart.

on the topic of profit margin, the buy price of honey rose over the last few years from $3.25/kg to over $6, (its now dropping back under $6 though) this probably affected you GP figure, also using Pricing to ensure market share probably affected it.

But, I still feel Operating profit is more important than gross profit, operating profit has grown every year for the last 3 years, with 2016 being the highest, and I feel its only noise in the data that has caused this HY to be down, (however still above long term average).