Belhaven owner Greene King has reported like-for-like sales over the two weeks to Christmas were up 10.9%. After 36 weeks of its financial year, Pub Company like-for-like sales were up 3.2% following strong trading over the Christmas period, according to the company. Like-for-like sales in the last two weeks, covering Christmas and the New Year, were up 10.9%, with record Christmas day sales of £7.7m.
All sales categories saw like-for-like sales growth over the last six weeks, with Greene King branded local pubs driving strong drink sales growth.
Pub Partners like-for-like net profit was down approximately 1% while total beer volumes in Brewing & Brands were up 1.8% and own-brewed volumes were down 2.3%. Greene King’s cost mitigation programme is, say the company, on track to limit net cost inflation to £10-20m in the year while it made further progress on our estate optimisation programme, remaining on course to dispose of 100-110 pubs and open around nine new pubs in the financial year.
The company stated, “While the ongoing uncertainty around Brexit may still have an impact on consumer confidence and spending during the year, we remain confident of our outlook for the financial year. We remain focused on our strategic priorities of driving profitable sales growth, developing a more streamlined and efficient organisation, and further strengthening and improving the flexibility of our capital structure to deliver long-term value for our shareholders.”