Record breaking New Year’s Eve caps successful Christmas for Upham Group
The group took £112,000 on 31 December 2017 to round off a five-week trading period that saw a year-on-year increase of 6.5% in gross pub sales to £2.3m on a like-for-like basis.
The week from Christmas Day to New Year’s Eve also marked the first time that Upham’s sales exceeded £500,000 in a single week.
Chris Phillips, CEO of Upham, commented: “This strong Christmas performance rounds off a good year for the Upham Group, despite a difficult trading environment for the sector.
“Last year was a productive one. In addition to pursuing our pub acquisition strategy, we also launched our first ever craft beer, which continued to sell extremely well throughout December. I would like to thank the teams at all our pubs for their fantastic Christmas menus, as well as the rest of our staff who made this such a successful few weeks.
“We enter 2018 with good momentum, and look forward to welcoming even more customers over the course of the year.”
Upham’s festive season in numbers:
6,460 Christmas lunches and dinners served in December
10,161 pints of traditional bitter, Punter, pulled in Upham pubs over the period
1,326 glasses of Prosecco sold on New Year’s Eve
128 Bloody Marys drunk on New Year’s Day
83,880 pints of beer sold by the brewery in December
£123,000 in sales of non-alcoholic drinks
177 staff working on Christmas day
116 5-star reviews via social media channels in the period
£1,200 raised for the “Born Too Soon” charity via Upham’s fundraising page
The performance was largely driven by food sales of just over £1.2m, drink sales in excess of £800,000 – with Upham’s new craft beer, UB5, selling more than 4,000 pints in December – and bedroom occupation accounting for roughly 13% of total pub revenue.
At present, Upham Group operates 16 pubs across the south of England – of which the Weighbridge Brewhouse, Swindon, was the top sales performer in December – alongside a craft brewery that opened in 2013.
