One of East Anglia's most prolific convenience store retailers, McColl's, has reported a sharp drop in profits.

The East of England based company has blamed the collapse of groceries wholesaler Palmer & Harvey for the 'challenging' year for the group.

The Brentwood-based group said the loss of supply to 700 of its stores by the administration of Palmer & Harvey in November 2017 'created major disruption' and forced it to accelerate its new supply deal with Morrisons.

MORE: 'No amount of spin can remedy this' - Fortnite Live organisers claim event has been 'huge hit' despite furious customersThe chain has in excess of 30 stores in Norfolk, including in Norwich, Great Yarmouth and across north Norfolk.

It also has a number of stores in Suffolk and Essex, including Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich.

'Moving to a new wholesale supply partner, at a much faster pace than anticipated, created its own challenges and severely disrupted our plans for the launch of Safeway,' the company said.

For the financial year ended November 25, pre-tax profit declined to £7.9m from £18.4m the year earlier, while like-for-like sales fell 1.4%.

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Total revenue, however, increased 8.1% to £1.24bn, thanks to the acquisition of nearly 300 convenience stores in 2017.

Like-for-like sales have recovered in the new year and were up 1.2% in the 11 weeks ended February 10. Total sales also increased 0.4%.