The group said its pretax loss for the year to June 30 widened to 3.3 mln stg from 2.7 mln a year earlier as turnover jumped to 110,000 stg from 71,000 stg.

Ceres said the results were in line with its own forecasts.

R&D spending was up 34 pct to 3.1 mln stg and admin expenses were up 21 pct at 1.5 mln stg, mainly due to costs associated with a growing intellectual property portfolio and commercial staff.

And capital spending jumped 127 pct to 1.1 mln stg as a result of investment in manufacturing capacity.

'As a result of the commercial traction we have now established and the strong technical performance we have demonstrated, we are delighted to be in a position to accelerate our growth plans,' said chief executive Peter Bance.

Ceres said a new larger-scale production facility at its Crawley headquarters is due to be operational by the middle of next year.