December sales boost for leading pub and restaurant groups

19th January 2010, 9:16am

Like-for-like sales across Britain's leading pub and restaurant groups grew 2.9% in December, compared to the same month in 2008.

Total sales were ahead 4.7%, marking a healthy performance by big name operators over the festive season – and demonstrating that consumers are still wiling to go out to eat and drink.

The figures come from the monthly Coffer Peach Business Tracker, run in partnership with KPMG, UBS and the Coffer Group, which monitors performance across the UK eating and drinking-out sector.

Peter Martin of Peach Factory, which produces the Business Tracker said: "The leading chains have worked hard to attract customers out of their homes, despite the weather, and that effort appears to have paid off. This year, for example, more emphasis has been put on securing pre-booked business for bars and pubs, as well as restaurants, over the Christmas and New Year period."

Tracker figures show that the country's leading eating and drinking-out groups managed to keep their heads above water during 2009 in an increasingly competitive market. December marks the 9th consecutive month of positive like-for-likes collectively for the companies making up the Business Tracker group.

The trend is mirrored in Peach Factory's annual Brands Survey, conducted in conjunction with Harris Interactive in August, which shows that consumers are increasingly turning to brands in the past year when choosing where to go out to eat and drink.

"Not only has the public become more brand aware but are visiting them more often too," added Peter Martin.

The festive activity saw month-on-month sales in December collectively up 22.9% against November.

Richard Hathaway, head of Travel, Leisure and Tourism at KPMG, commented: "The reduced number of Christmas parties and December's poor weather didn't dampen festive spirits as much as feared, with strong like-for-like sales up on last year, albeit against softer comparables.

"However, looking forward to next month's figures, the extremely poor weather in recent weeks particularly the first half of January, traditionally a quiet month anyway, could see a more significant drop in sales for the sector."

Mark Sheehan, managing director of Coffer Corporate, part of the Coffer Group, said: "Given that a number of pub and restaurant operators have already increased prices ahead of the January VAT increase to 17.5% the like for like increases are perhaps lower than might have been expected. They do not compare favourably with the recently released retail like for likes from the British Retail Consortium and KPMG of 4.3%, for example. The poor weather late in December may have been a contributing factor especially in major cities."

Jonathan Leinster, head of European leisure and tobacco research, at UBS Investment Bank, added: "We expect that most of the growth was due to changes in menu pricing. Several pub and restaurant chains incorporated price increases into their winter menus to give themselves some flexibility in how to deal with January's VAT increase. The December result is particularly good given that most of the country experience cold and unsettled weather in the week before Christmas."

The Tracker collects and collates sales data from 15 major companies to provide an aggregated market figure. Operators involved include leading managed pub chains Mitchells & Butlers, Whitbread and Punch Pub Co and leading casual dining restaurant groups Gondola, Pizza Hut and Tragus.

Related Articles:

• 21 Jul 2010 - Top pub and restaurant chains see sales recover in June
• 12 Apr 2010 - Pizza Hut targets pay day diners in nationwide ATM campaign

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