Wendy’s sees 'extremely strong' UK sales

During the company’s third quarter earnings call, Wendy's chief executive Todd Penegor reported 'extremely strong sales' across its fledgling UK estate, which currently includes three restaurants and four dark kitchen locations.

"Our expansion into Europe through the UK continues to accelerate as we’ve opened several restaurants since the second quarter," said Penegor.

"We’re seeing extremely strong sales across all of our UK restaurants as customers are thrilled to have Wendy’s in the market, making us even more excited about our growth opportunity."

Wendy's, which has tried and failed twice to secure a foothold in the UK in the past, has said it intends to become a major player in the country's fast food market with plans to open up to 400 sites​​.

The group opened the first UK restaurant of its new expansion drive in Reading back in June​​, and has since followed that with sites in Oxford and London's Stratford.

Next week it will launch its fourth restaurant, in Croydon​​, with further sites in Brighton, Romford and Camden set to open in due course.

It also recently secured its first UK drive-thru site in Colchester, Essex.

“We are extremely excited about the consumer response to our expansion into the UK, which drove better than expected sales in these new restaurants during the third quarter," added Penegor.

"We’ve now opened several [sites] in the UK since the second quarter, and we are in the process of bringing additional franchise partners into the family in the near future, which we are extremely excited about. We anticipate having 10 [sites] opened by the end of the year, which is incredible given that we just opened our first location in June.”