Pub and restaurant sales rise for sixth consecutive month

19-Dec-2011 - Last updated on 26-Apr-2021 at 17:09 GMT

Restaurant chains such as Harvester are continuing to see sales rise as people see eating out as an 'affordable treat'

Sales at pubs and restaurants run by the biggest operators, such as Whitbread, Mitchells & Butlers and Tragus, continued to rise for the sixth consecutive month in November as consumers refused to give up an 'affordable treat'.

The figures, gathered for the monthly Coffer Peach Business Tracker, found that like-for-like sales across 24 major pub and restaurant operators rose 2 per cent in November, up more than 1 per cent than October's rise of 0.9 per cent.

Peach Factory's Peter Martin, who compiles the tracker with KPMG, UBS and the Coffer Group, said although the figures were below the headline rate of inflation, they still demonstrated that the public were continuing to dine out even when they had less disposable income.

“Going out to eat and drink seems to be the affordable treat that people are unwilling to give up,” he said.

Understanding the market

Richard Hathaway, KPMG’s head of travel, leisure & tourism, said the figures were encouraging and said it proved that operators who know their market well and were focusing on providing good value were surviving the downturn.

"The fact that the sector has shown yet another month of growth clearly demonstrates that those strong operators who understand their customers and provide them with ‘value’ can still deliver a robust performance in an austere and volatile economy.

“Next year is expected to be yet another tough one, but any 'feel good factor' during and in the build-up to the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and London Olympics should provide a much needed boost to consumer confidence and therefore the eating and drinking out sector.”

Restaurants v retail

The figures show that the restaurant industry is still faring better than the retail sector which suffered its worst performance for six months in November, according to the British Retail Consortium / KPMG Retail Sales Monitor.

UK retail sales values fell 1.6 per cent on a like-for-like basis while total sales were up just 0.7 per cent.