The five-week period, ending 13 January 2025 also saw total managed revenue, reflecting contributions from Young’s and City Pubs, up 30.4%.
Key festive days performed strongly, according to the group, which reported combined like-for-like sales covering Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day up 10.5%.
Furthermore, total managed revenue for the last 15 weeks, ending 13 January 2025 was up by more than a quarter (26.1%) and 7.9% on a like-for-like basis.
Continued momentum
According to the group, this represented continued momentum from the strong trading position reported at the interim results in November, improving its year-to-date managed revenue like-for-like position to 5.5%.
This is testament to the group’s strategy of continuing to invest significantly in its estate, with a number of recently completed projects delivering particularly strong performances in the period, it stated in the report.
Young’s CEO Simon Dodd said: “We are very pleased with our excellent trading over the festive period, which reflects the rigorous planning, commitment and enthusiasm of our teams across the business.
“We continued to break sales records across the period, delivering some of the highest daily sales in Young’s history.”
Future outlook
He added: “Our recent pub investments performed exceptionally well across the period.
“Looking ahead, while we remain mindful of the headwinds facing consumers and the wider issues our industry will encounter from the increase in both national insurance contributions and national living wage, our business is in great shape and we continue to be optimistic about the year ahead.”
A previous trading update, which covered the 26 weeks ending 30 September 2024, the Young’s boss outlined the financial impact of the Budget on the business and called for change in the business rates system.
He warned it would result in “significant increased costs for our industry” and estimated these increases would cost around £11m on an annualised basis from April.
