Greene King to open eight new Farmhouse Inns

25-Sep-2017 - Last updated on 26-Sep-2017 at 10:36 GMT

Eight is great: Greene King is set to open new Farmhouse Inns

The pubco is set to open the sites in the next three months, which will create more than 600 jobs.

The new sites will be located in Edinburgh, Worcester, Peterborough, Nottingham, Newcastle, Liverpool, Lincoln and Quedgeley (near Gloucester), which will see the estate grow to 61 Farmhouse Inns.

More than 600 jobs will be created, including team members, kitchen managers, assistant managers and general managers.

In April, Greene King revealed it had opened 14 of the new sites over the previous 12 months and recruited 1,000 staff to fuel the expansion.

Farmhouse Inns offers a range of food, including carvery meats, seasonal vegetables, home-made cakes and 100% dairy ice cream flavours. Alongside the main carvery, Farmhouse Inns also has a separate menu featuring a wide range of pub favourites.

Greene King retail human resources director Karen Lewis said: “We’re really pleased to be developing the estate further, which will include the creation of more than 600 jobs across eight communities.”

Greene King operates 3,000 pubs, restaurants and hotels across England, Wales and Scotland, of which around 1,800 are retail pubs, restaurants and hotels. The remaining 1,200 are tenanted, leased and franchised pubs. Its leading retail brands include Hungry Horse, Farmhouse Inns, Chef & Brewer, Flaming Grill and the Greene King Local Pubs estate.

Earlier this month, Greene King issued a trading update, which revealed that like-for-like sales were down 1.2% in its managed arm for the 18 weeks to 3 September.

The group said most of the decline so far could be attributed to value food. It also revealed that its brand conversion programme was delivering returns of 20%.