Budget offers boost Whitbread
Whitbread appears to be bucking the current trend of decline with sales at its pub restaurant division up by 6.4% to £244.1m for the six months to 28 August.
Whitbread now operates 127 Beefeaters, 126 Brewers Fayres, 106 Table Tables and seven all-you-can eat Taybarns. All but 54 are attached to a Whitbread hotel and it is seeking planning permission to build adjoining hotels on those sites.
Like-for-like sales in the division were up 4.5% or 2.4% excluding closures. "Across all our restaurant brands, we regularly refresh our customer proposition to ensure that we are offering great value for money," said Whitbread chief executive Alan Parker.
"In light of the current environment, we have re-engineered our menus with more emphasis on the value proposition and a focus on lower cost dishes. New menus and improved environments have driven like-for-like covers up by 8.4%."
The operator now plans to plough £5m into a refurbishment programme for 40 Brewers Fayres during the current financial year.
Parker added: "We strive to innovate new restaurant brands to fit with our strategy of providing quality food and drink at great value for money, in locations which match local customer demographics. Our most recent trial of Taybarns offers freshly prepared food by our chefs in front of the customer at an all-inclusive price of either £5.95 or £7.95. We have seven trial restaurants around the UK. Initial feedback has been encouraging."
Group sales
Overall, total revenue was up 12.6% to £682.2m with group like-for-likes up 7%. Profit before tax and exceptional items was up 24% to £123.3m.
It opened a further 1,380 hotel rooms and acquired 1,245 in an asset swap with Mitchells & Butlers, which involved the exchange of 21 Holiday Inn Express for 44 restaurants. It also opened 156 new Costa Coffee stores resulting in a 25.6% uplift in sales.
Total sales at Premier Inn hotels increased by 17.8% to £31m with like-for-likes 10.1% up on last year. This was the result of a combination of factors — improved revenue per available room (revpar) performance contributed 6.1%, extensions 3.4% and higher food and drink sales contributed 0.6%.
"Whilst we anticipate that conditions will become more challenging in the remainder of the year, since the end of August the Group continues to make good progress across our leading brands in value for money sectors," added Parker.
