- Like-for-like sales up 1.9% in March
- Openings push total sales up 6.3%
Pub and restaurant groups saw a modest bounce-back in food and drink sales during March, after a shaky start to 2012. Collective like-for-like sales were up 1.9% on the same month last year, following negative figures for both January and February.
Total sales in March, which include the effect of new openings, were ahead 6.3% on last year. The figures come from the Coffer Peach Business Tracker*, the industry sales monitor for the UK pub and restaurant sector, which collects monthly performance data from 24 operating groups.
“The good weather will certainly have helped trading, particularly in the pub market, which performed more strongly than high street restaurants,” said Peter Martin of Peach Factory, the business intelligence specialist that produces the sector Tracker, in partnership with KPMG, UBS and the Coffer Group.
“The sector will be relieved to see some growth back in the system, after seeing like-for-like sales drop 2.1% in January and 3.7% in February. Luckily both are weak trading months, so seeing sales pick up in the run up to Easter will be welcome,” added Martin.
“March’s figures essentially put the sector back on an even keel. The informal eating and drinking-out market has remained fairly stable over the past two years in terms of like-for-like growth, and we continue to predict another essentially flat trading year,” Martin added. “However, these multiple chains have continued to increase total sales over the past year, as they expand their estates through new openings and gain market share, largely at the expense of independents.”
Month-on-month, March sales were up 31.3% on February, mainly reflecting the effect of comparing five weeks of trading in March against four in February.
David Coffer, chairman of Coffer Group, said: “These figures underline the very firm indication across the entire UK market that there is definitely a wind of change in terms of consumer mentality about eating and drinking out. As ever, London-centric businesses are definitely seeing dramatic increases of turnover leading up to the unique celebratory period of the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympic Games. There seems to be an increasing belief among operators that the Olympics will bring an excellent improvement in trade rather than aggravation.”
Richard Hathaway, KPMG’s Head of Travel, Leisure & Tourism, added: "The figures for March are encouraging, the warm weather throughout the month obviously inspired people to eat and drink out more which is reflected in the like-for-like sales growth.”
“We also saw meaningful total sales growth which shows that the sector's stronger brands and operators continue to invest in new sites and are preparing for growth. Although trading remains challenging for the sector as a whole, the positive trends we saw in March may well continue in the months to come, with events like the Jubilee, the European football championships and the summer games likely to provide another boost to the sector.”
Jonathan Leinster, Head of UBS European Leisure Research, commented: “After a strong Christmas period in which most managed operators reported high single digit lfl sales, the drop off in sales growth has been marked and sustained. Because consensus estimates for 2012 did not increase following the strong Christmas period we believe that if lfl sales growth continues at +1-2% then current consensus estimates for the managed pub companies will be realised. However, were the lfl trend to revert to negative then consensus would likely prove optimistic.
“We believe consumers are still happy to allocate discretionary spend to eating and drinking out, and pub-restaurants and other low-cost food options are growing share within that market. The March 2012 UBS UK household cash flow indicates that UBS expects average household discretionary expenditure (ex-utilities, fuel and debt payments) to rise 4.6% in 2012. This is well above our lfl assumption but note that many of the managed houses are also building new sites.”
Pub and restaurant group monthly sales performance for past 12 months
|
|
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
Jan |
Feb |
Mar |
|
LFLs |
3.8% |
-0.3% |
3.9% |
1.0% |
0.6% |
2.8% |
0.9% |
2.1% |
9.9% |
-2.1% |
-3.7% |
1.9% |
|
Total |
6.2% |
1.70% |
4.7% |
3.1% |
3.7% |
6.9% |
5.1% |
6.2% |
13.7% |
2.2% |
0.6% |
6.3% |
Source: Coffer Peach Business Tracker
Coffer Peach Business Tracker is powered by Demographix
About Coffer Peach Business Tracker:
Peach Factory collects sales figures directly from 24 leading companies every month. Participants include Mitchells & Butlers (owner of Harvester, Toby, Browns, All Bar One etc), Pizza Hut, Whitbread (Beefeater, Brewers Fayre, Table Table), Gondola (PizzaExpress, Zizzi, ASK, Byron), Tragus (Café Rouge, Bella Italia, Strada), Stonegate (Slug & Lettuce, Yates’), Spirit Group (Chef & Brewer, Fayre & Square), TGI Fridays, Orchid Pub Co, Marston’s, Wagamama, Novus (Tiger Tiger), Young’s and Fuller’s.
For more comment contact:
Peter Martin, Peach Factory
01704 550383(office); 07889 209896 (mobile)
peter@peach-factory.com
Claudia Robinson, Coffer Group
0207 299 0709
crobinson@coffergroup.co.uk
Katrin Boettger, KPMG
0207 896 4232
katrin.boettger@kpmg.co.uk
Richard Morton , UBS Media Relations
+44 20 7568 0175
richard.morton@ubs.com
About Peach Factory:
Peach Factory is a specialist business intelligence business, providing insight, analysis and access to the eating-out and drinking-out markets. It produces sector research and operates the Peach Network business network for senior executives across the sector. Business Tracker collects sales data from participating companies on a totally confidential basis to produce aggregated figures for the sector as a whole every month.
About Coffer Group:
The Coffer Group is the leisure property industry’s leading advisory business. Built on nearly 40 years’ experience in the sector, the group combines the UK’s leading agency and corporate advisory leisure property businesses, Davis Coffer Lyons (DCL) Coffer Corporate Leisure (CCL) and hotels specialist division Coffer Hotels. The group deals exclusively with all types of leisure property, covering restaurants, bars, nightclubs, pubs, shopping centre food outlets, health and fitness, leisure schemes, theatre, golf courses, hotels and casinos. Its services are comprehensive including both consultancy and transaction based advice on single businesses and properties through to multi-million pound portfolios.
About KPMG:
KPMG LLP, a UK limited liability partnership, is a subsidiary of KPMG Europe LLP and operates from 22 offices across the UK with nearly 11,000 partners and staff. The UK firm recorded a turnover of £1.6 billion in the year ended September 2010. KPMG is a global network of professional firms providing Audit, Tax, and Advisory services. We operate in 150 countries and have more than 138,000 professionals working in member firms around the world. The independent member firms of the KPMG network are affiliated with KPMG International Cooperative ("KPMG International"), a Swiss entity. KPMG International provides no client services.
About UBS:
UBS is a leading global wealth manager, a leading, global investment banking and securities firm and one of the largest global asset managers. In Switzerland, UBS is the market leader in retail and commercial banking
