Poundland cashes in on demand for budget food and essentials

Shoppers hunting for deals on food and household essentials have driven up sales at Poundland in recent months, the budget retailer’s owner said.

Pepco Group, which owns the Pepco and Dealz brands in Europe and Poundland in the UK, saw its revenues grow as it opened new stores and kept prices low.

Poundland revenues jumped by 9% to 539 million euros (£460 million) in the three months to the end of June, compared with the same period last year.

The firm said the increase was driven by consumers prioritising spending on fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) items – essentials such as milk, bread, toiletries, batteries, and cleaning products.

The strong sales momentum has continued into July, it added.

Poundland Group, which also incorporates Dealz in Poland and Ireland, had 18 net new shops open during the three-month period.

The wider Pepco Group saw its like-for-like quarterly revenue edge up by 2.6%.

It said the slower increase was partly because the group saw a big jump in sales over the same period last year, when there was an “influx of people from the Ukraine war into its core markets”.

Millions of people from Ukraine moved over to neighbouring nations, especially Poland, after Russia invaded the country in March last year.

Pepco Group has nearly 4,200 stores across the continent.

Trevor Masters, the group’s chief executive, said: “We remain committed to supporting our customers in this challenging environment by maintaining our market-leading pricing.

“Our focus remains on building a bigger, better, cheaper and simpler business, and we are well positioned to deliver future success as inflationary pressures ease.”

High levels of inflation across central Europe created “challenging” trading conditions in the region in April and May, the company said.

But sales have started to recover in recent weeks and the group said it is focused on driving further cost efficiencies, while continuing to open new shops.

It stood by its full-year outlook of earnings growth at around 15%, “assuming no further significant deterioration in the trading environment”.