Walker’s Shortbread Ltd has reported full-year sales of £197m for 2025, a 2% reduction on 2024, as the Speyside-based family baker navigated what it describes as a “complex 2025 trading environment.”
The 128-year-old business, headquartered in Aberlour in the Highlands, remains a major Scottish food exporter, with around half of its production sent to roughly 100 markets worldwide.
In its 2025 statement, the company highlights cautious ordering patterns from domestic customers and difficult trading conditions in the United States, a key international market, where tariff implementation weighed on performance.
Walker’s also absorbed significant increases in commodity and utility costs, with butter prices in particular escalating sharply year-on-year and ongoing labour cost pressures, contributing to a reduced operating profit of £6.9m compared with £16.1m in 2024.
Managing Director Nicky Walker said: “The Board took a deliberately cautious outlook for 2025, following a period of significant and sustained growth as the world recovered from the pandemic years. We were prepared for market headwinds and tough trading conditions, but the unprecedented convergence of US tariffs, shifting customer inventory patterns, continued governmental wage regulations and a significant double-digit % year-on-year increase in wholesale butter prices impacted our bottom line.”
She added: “While the external trading environment remains both challenging and complex, particularly regarding geopolitical factors and sector-wide labour availability, we are managing this from a position of historic strength. We continue to focus on the areas within our control and driving operational efficiency and maintaining an unwavering investment in our brand and our people is of paramount importance and we remain highly confident in the future of the business.”
The Board states it is comfortable with the current strategy and will continue to drive operational efficiency through competitive tendering, longer-term contracts and ongoing investment in its people, operations and brand.
To support this long-term growth strategy, Walker’s refreshed its leadership team during the year, appointing Justin Stead as Chairman and Bryony Walker as Commercial Director, underpinned by the strength of the Walker’s brand, its partnership with global ambassador Sir Andy Murray and a robust balance sheet.
The company reports that sales fell by £4m to £197m, attributing the decline to customer stock-building in 2024 and more cautious ordering in 2025. Operating profit decreased to £6.9m from £16.1m in 2024, reflecting commodity and utility price increases—particularly wholesale butter—alongside labour cost pressures, while planned capital expenditure continued to focus on long-term capacity and efficiency, supported by solid liquidity.
Scotland’s wider food and drink sector generated turnover of around £19bn in 2023 and contributed approximately £7bn in Gross Value Added, making it the country’s third-largest industry by value. Within that context, a Highlands-based manufacturer exporting close to 50% of its output illustrates how branded bakery products sit inside a growth sector that employs more than 120,000 people across Scotland and has a significant export footprint.
Founded 128 years ago in Aberlour, Speyside, Walker’s remains an independent family concern headed by the founder’s great-grandchildren, producing shortbread, biscuits, cakes and oatcakes to original recipes using what it describes as “only the finest ingredients.”
The business is a four-time winner of the Queen’s Award for Export Achievement and a 2026 winner of the King’s Award for Enterprise, exporting its distinctively packaged luxury bakery products to close to 100 markets worldwide and holding Royal Warrants from His Majesty the King and previously from the late Queen Mother and Queen Elizabeth II.
Nicky Walker said the company “will continue to operate as a sustainable, environmentally conscious, family owned and managed business, based in the Highlands, with continued dedication to baking and bringing our finest quality produce to our much valued and loyal consumers.”
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The Board’s confidence in future performance rests on brand strength, product quality, new product development and opportunities to expand routes to market, as Walker’s looks to trade through ongoing geopolitical, cost and labour challenges from a position it describes as historic strength.
