Discounted food helps pub chain Mitchells & Butlers
Pubs chain Mitchells & Butlers says main meals for as little as £3.50 are helping to draw in customers during the economic downturn.
Despite the weakening eating-out market, Mitchells said like-for-like food sales grew 2.6% in the first 17 weeks of its financial year.
It said it used advantages of scale to offer £3.50 main meals at its Crown Carveries and meals for £4.99 through its Harvester Earlybird offer.
The increased demand had a knock-on effect on like-for-like drinks sales, which were up 1.2% in the same 17 week period to January 24.
``Against an on-trade drinks market in serious decline with UK beer volumes down 9.9% in the three months to the end of December, this represents our strongest ever recorded rate of market share gain," Mitchells said.
Cask sales were particularly strong with volumes up 18%.
Mitchells owns and operates around 2,000 pubs, with the majority being biased towards residential locations. Other brands include Ember Inns, Toby Carvery, All Bar One and O’Neills.
It said the residential estate, which accounts for 76% of sales, continued to perform well with like-for-like sales up 1.7% in the 17 weeks. In the high street portfolio, a strong performance in central London and town venues was offset by continued weakness in later evening venues.
Group like-for-like sales over the past nine weeks were up 1%, helped by a strong two-week Christmas period.
With customers becoming more value conscious and price sensitive, Mitchells said the average price of a meal was now £6, with the average price of a pint of standard lager 40p cheaper than in leased pubs.
But with increased duty levels and food cost inflation, Mitchells said it had seen a reduction of two percentage points in its gross margin.
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