Costa boosts sales at Whitbread
Costa, the Whitbread owned chain of coffee shops, saw its UK like-for-like sales climb by 7.3% in its second quarter as it enjoyed a good summer of sales. Total sales rose by 17.8%.
In the 11 weeks to 14 August Costa increased its UK retail system sales by 16.4% to £325.4 million, with equity stores delivering like-for-like sales growth of 5.8%.
Worldwide system sales rose by 15.3% to £602.4 million and, within this, franchise system sales grew by 14.2% to £236.7 million.
International system sales increased by 9.3% to £126.8 million, with growth of 4.3% in EMEI and 20.8% in Costa Asia.
Costa Enterprises, including Costa Express, delivered system sales of £151.5 million, up 19.1%. There are now 3,915 Costa Express units.
The chain has opened 76 net new UK stores in the year to date and plans to open around 300 net new stores and 600 Costa Express units in the full year.
Whitbread chief executive Andy Harrison said: “Costa had a good summer with total sales growth of 17.8% and like-for-like UK sales growth of 7.3%, aided by weak comparatives from last year’s warmer than average July. In early September, Costa launched Old Paradise Street Limited Roast, which is a new range of limited edition roast blends. This will provide coffee lovers with a wider choice of great tasting coffee, in addition to Costa’s Mocha Italia.”
Across the wider Whitbread group, which also includes the Premier Inn chain, like-for-like sales increased by 6.8% with total sales growing by 12.8%.
