Unfortunately, Aromascan Plc has a nose for everything but profits, and for the six months to October it managed a dismal 1.1m British pound loss on sales of 1.4m pounds. It said sales of laboratory instruments increased by 70% over the second half of last year, reflecting a robust recovery of sales in the important US market and large sales to Kirin TechnoSystems of Japan and Foss Electric of Denmark, but these were partially offset by disappointing sales in Europe. The company says that as planned, overhead expenses have reduced significantly from the level of last year as its distributors take on the costs of selling and supporting the company’s products in their agreed markets. Hot news in the half was a deal in April under which Aromascan announced a five-year joint development and marketing agreement with Mitsubishi Electric Corp. It reckons Mitsubishi is happy with the progress of the partnership and is investing increasing resources in the joint development programs; first products are planned to be launched next year. The result will be an on-line process control system that adds detection of aromas to the usual system features.
