Snow business: Bad weather ‘not wholly responsible’ for drop in January trade

By Luke Nicholls

13-Feb-2013 - Last updated on 13-Feb-2013 at 11:30 GMT

Snow swept across the UK last month, but it was only partially to blame for a drop in pub and restaurant sales

Leading restaurant and pub groups collectively saw a 2.4 per cent drop in like-for-likes in January, but the heavy snow across the country 'was not wholly responsible' and year-on-year sales wouldn’t have increased without it.

That’s according to the Coffer Group’s chairman David Coffer, who commented on today's release of the Coffer Peach Business Tracker, which found that total sales were flat last month when compared with January 2012.

Coffer believes the figures highlight the wider financial problems facing the industry, rather than the impact of the bad weather.

“There was undoubtedly a trend of customers preserving their money, leading through the difficult festive period and beyond,” he said. “If one ignores the impact of bad weather, only a neutral position would have been likely.

“It will be interesting to see in 2013 whether the dichotomy of lackluster growth against spiraling capital and rental values continues. Despite the reasonably flat figures as shown by the Tracker in recent months, we are seeing no underlying let up in demand for leisure property and operators are still as aggressive as ever in competition for sites.”