Pub meal deals spark Whitbread growth

Value meal deals sparked a 2% like-for-like sales increase at Whitbread's pub restaurants for the 13 weeks to 28 May.

Whitbread, which owns the Beefeater, Brewers Fayre, Table Table and the all-you-can eat Taybarns brands, reported that like-for-like covers had also increased by 2.6% across its pubs division.

"Our pub restaurants have benefited from our ongoing refurbishment programme," said chief executive Alan Parker. "In the first quarter of the year we refurbished a further 32 units (just under 10% of the estate) at a cost of circa £4m.

"We are focused on offering everyday great value for money, such as our 'Flaming Good Deals' at Beefeater and since March we have also launched attractively priced new menus across all the pub restaurant brands."

Beefeater's "Flaming Good Deal" offers customers a single course for £5.95, two courses for £7.95 or three courses for £9.95.

Overall, total group sales increased 2.5% for the period with Premier Inn recording flat sales and a reduction in like-for-likes of 7.9% with revenue per available room also down 9.6%.

Costa Coffee benefited from a "highly effective" marketing campaign and saw sales rise 2.6% on a like-for-like basis with total sales up 18.5% on last year thanks to the opening of 49 UK outlets in the quarter, bringing the total number to 417 across 24 countries.

Whitbread remains on track to achieve £25m worth of savings by 2011.

"We believe that Whitbread's brands are well placed in their markets, although the outlook is challenging," said Parker. "We will continue to play to our strengths and we are focused on our three key priorities: to outperform our competition, to achieve cash flow neutrality and to reduce operating costs."