Sean Farrington

speaker

894 appearances 10 recordings 6 series first heard Dec 2024 last heard 7 Jul

Sean Farrington’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 9 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 7.

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Sliced Bread · Toast - Series 7: Wilko · 4 Jun 2026 podcast

Let's hear a bit more from Janet Cochran, who saw it for herself on the shop floor.

I mean, when the staff aren't convinced, Sam.

Patrick, it might not always have worked, but can you understand the thinking offering higher quality products might have actually broadened Wilco's appeal?

Lisa Wilkinson, Wilco's former chair and family director, declined to take part in this programme, but a spokesperson for her told us Wilco was never a discount retailer.

The business model throughout was value retailing, and that's not the same as a traditional discount model.

So Patrick, you know, there's some years growth appeared to rely on the revenue from those extra stores that were still opening.

Is that a fair way to grow a business?

Open more stores, you know, getting closer to more customers out there?

So as the business headed into the 2020s,

Turnover was declining, those sales not doing so well.

Profitability was falling as well.

Still making money overall, but it never came close to repeating that record operating profit of £62 million.

Patrick, as long as a company's profitable, does it matter if its operating profit is a very small portion of that total sales it's making?

Well, not long after this, COVID happened.

Yeah.

So Wilco's accounts for the year up to the 1st of February 2020 showed this operating profit of around £2 million.

The business did continue to have stronger cash reserves, over £93 million.

at that point.

But as we well know, in those first few months of 2020, when COVID occurred and changed the way we all live and how people ran businesses, Patrick, the pandemic, a painful memory for many people.

Wilco were classed, weren't they, as an essential retailer.

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