Belfast based Commodities and manufacturing group, W&R Barnett was Northern Ireland’s top performing business last year according to analysis from Ulster Business magazine.

The magazine analysed the country’s top 100 firms looking primarily at their turnover. Barnett had sales of £1.57 billion and pre-tax profits of £69.1 million for the year ending July 2022.

Barnett is a local division is Thompsons animal feeds but also trades in oils and sugar, operates port facilities and manufactures packaging products.

Ulster Business editor John Mulgrew said: “We can see from the companies topping the list, those rising up it, and the newcomers, that the Northern Ireland business landscape is in a fairly healthy place given the sheer variety and wide breadth of firms making the top 100 this year.”

Across the top 100 firms turnover grew by 16.6% to £30.7 billion from £26.3 billion while pre-tax profits grew by 11.4%, from £1.43 billion to £1.59 billion.

Some of the new firms making this year’s list include Newtownabbey-based MBNI Holdings, which sells trucks and vans and mid-Ulster firm CDE Global, which makes processing equipment for the mining, quarrying and recycling sectors.