Pub operator Mitchells & Butlers says it is confident about its future prospects after seeing its emphasis on food sales pay off.
It said pre-tax profits for the twelve months to the end of September had risen by 10.1% to £208million from £189million.
Same outlet like-for-like sales were up 4.1% for the year and average weekly sales per managed pub up 6% to £17.5k
Tim Clarke, chief executive said: "Over the past 12 months, we have extended our leadership of the fast growing, eating-out market; delivered over 15% growth in earnings per share; acquired 239 of the best pub restaurant sites in the UK and returned some £560m to shareholders before ordinary dividends.
"Our strategy of offering high quality amenity and good value food and drink is generating sustained sales growth.
"We have had a good start to the new financial year and we are confident of future growth prospects."
In a statement released this morning the company said it was also confident about the up-coming smoking ban.
The statement read: "In Scotland (which represents 4% of the estate), our experience so far suggests that large pubs, with the capability to serve high volumes of good food at attractive prices, will benefit from a ban on smoking. However, smaller pubs, with limited food capacity and a bias towards beer sales and machine income are likely to suffer. In the first seven weeks of the year, food sales have continued to grow strongly with like for like sales ahead by 7%, whilst drinks sales have declined by 2%. Overall like for like sales are ahead by 1.1%. Sales growth has slowed as the Autumn has drawn in and we continue to believe that a full winter's trading is required before taking a definitive view on the ban's effect.
With some 80% of our estate across England and Wales having external space, we continue to develop our gardens and outside sheltered areas to minimise any future effect on drinks trade.
Our Scottish experience also leads us to continue to focus on widening the social appeal of our pubs by developing their reputation for serving good food at attractive prices.
This will leave us well placed to take advantage of the opportunity that the ban offers to attract new, casual dining customers, who currently do not use pubs because of tobacco smoke.
Our best estimate remains unchanged, that the year one impact will be to reduce the trend rate of sales growth, with a strong acceleration thereafter.
We have already moved over 200 of our pub restaurants in England and Wales to non-smoking, with a less than 1% impact on their rate of sales growth compared to those that still allow smoking, even though customers can still go to other pubs where smoking is currently permitted."