The maker of Cup a Soup and Mr Kipling – which has a factory in Kent – suffered a 12% fall in profits last year – sending share prices falling.

Shares in Premier Foods fell nearly 3% on Tuesday after it revealed underlying pre-tax profits slipped to £74.2 million.

Its closing price of 42p after revealing its annual results is a 29% fall since last April when US spice maker McCormick was eyeing a takeover of the firm.

The company, which employs 300 people at its Batchelors Cup a Soup factory in Ashford, reported underlying sales fell 1.4% to £790.4 million.

It blamed higher costs of ingredients like sugar, chocolate, dairy and wheat thanks to the fall in the value of the pound since the EU referendum.

Chief executive Gavin Darby said: “This financial year has been a challenging one for the industry, with the return of food inflation and changing retailer promotional strategies.

“Despite this, we have grown market share in six of our eight largest brands, outperformed many of our peers in the latter part of the year and accelerated international sales growth to 18%.

“We have continued to invest in brand innovation and marketing, our customer relationships remain strong and we recently agreed a £32m reduction in cash payments to our pension schemes over the next three years.

“With the industry changing rapidly, we have updated our strategy to give an equal focus to revenue growth, cost efficiencies and cash generation.”