Football tournament-free June helps restaurant and pub sales bounce back

18-Jul-2011 - Last updated on 26-Apr-2021 at 17:20 GMT

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The fact there was no World Cup this year is thought to have helped restaurants and pubs perform better this June

A football tournament-free June helped restaurant and pub sales bounce back from a flat May and perform better than the previous year, according to the latest figures from the Coffer Peach Business Tracker.

Sales at the 23 pub and restaurant chains contributing to the tracker, were up 3.9 per cent compared to the same month the previous year while total sales were up 4.7 per cent.

Last year's football World Cup, expected to boost sales across the sector, was actually a mixed blessing, said Peach Factory's Peter Martin, as food-led pubs and restaurants lost out to wet-led pubs or to customers staying at home to watch matches.

“While drinks-led pubs in general saw an upside, restaurants generally suffered sales drops. Big sporting events are a mixed blessing – and even pubs didn’t perform as well as they had hoped last year,” he said.

Better than retail

The figures, compiled by Peach Factory, Coffer Corporate Leisure, KPMG and UBS, found that the sector is still performing better than retail. According to the British Retail Consortium / KPMG Retail Sales Monitor total UK retail sales were up just 1.5 per cent in June.

Richard Hathaway, head of Travel, Leisure and Tourism at KPMG in the UK said: "Smart operators and dynamic brands in the sector continue to take a growing share of the UK consumer's hard earned and shrinking disposable income.

“Eating-out is still on the agenda for many households, despite considerable doom and gloom in the economy, and there being no real sign of this changing before the end of the year.”

Jonathan Leinster, head of UBS European Leisure Research, added: "Consumers are still allocating discretionary spend to pubs and restaurants, withlike-for-like sales averaging 2.6 per cent since December. While UBS expects household cash flow to be under pressure this year, there is still demand for eating and drinking out. We believe this points to market share gains from value formats. Large listed pub companies with scale, which have been investing through the downturn, should be well positioned."

The Coffer Peach Business Tracker collects data from 23 pub and restaurant groups including Mitchells & Butlers, Greene King, Whitbread and Gondola.