Award-winning specialist manufacturer Technical Fibre Products was the star performer in a challenging half-year for James Cropper Plc.

The Burneside-based company saw a 39 per cent fall in pre-tax profits to £1.4 million for the half year ending September 30 when compared to the £2.3m recorded in the same period in 2017.

However, revenue rose throughout the group’s divisions by 6 per cent from £47.4m to £50.3m for the comparable period, with chairman Mark Cropper stressing that expectations for the full year remained unchanged from the previous trading update.

He said that high pulp prices continued to hit the company’s profitability in 2018 but singled out the success of its Technical Fibre Products (TFP) business, which recorded its best ever sales performance for a half year and is set to grow further.

TFP develops and manufactures high performance nonwoven materials for the aerospace, medical, infrastructure, automotive and defence sectors, with a growing market share in the energy and fuel cells.

It emerged as one of the big winners at the recent in-Cumbria Business Awards 2018, where it picked up the Best Manufacturing and Best Innovation awards.

Mr Cropper said: “Plans are in place for additional TFP non-woven capability increasing capacity by 50 per cent by the end of the 2020 calendar year.”

He said the 3D Products business was also performing well, with plans to increase the capacity of its non-plastic packaging product Colourform by 50 per cent by early 2019.

On its paper business, for which James Cropper is best known, he added: “Paper sales have grown by 6 per cent compared to the prior period comparative but with pulp prices projected to add an additional £3.5m of costs compared to the prior year our paper business is severely impacted.”

The group’s declared dividend per share remained unchanged from the same period in 2017 at 2.5p.