Mitchells aided by strong Christmas

Harvester and Toby Carvery owner Mitchells & Butlers has hailed a bumper Christmas as weather-beaten families made up for December’s snow disruption.

The group, which serves around 125 million meals and 430 million drinks a year, said like-for-like sales over the key 12-day Christmas trading period between December 23 and January 3 showed growth of 6.7%.

This offset the impact of weather on the start of the company’s most recent trading period, resulting in growth of 2.5% in the nine weeks to January 22.

Mitchells said the improvement continued to be driven by demand for food, with like-for-like sales up 5.5% compared with just 0.5% for drinks.

The group has rolled out a strategy to focus on food sales as part of an overhaul announced in March to invest in its six mid-market eateries, including Harvester, Toby Carvery, Crown Carveries and Sizzling Pub Co.

Restaurant-led pubs are an attractive area for the industry after the smoking ban, alcohol duty increases and the recession impacted the drinking market.

Food now accounts for around 47% of the company’s sales and Mitchells estimates that around two-thirds of total sales relate to a food occasion.

Mitchells said: “The business continues to perform well, although we are cautious on possible future trends in customer discretionary income and input cost increases in the year ahead.”