Marston’s toasts bumper Christmas sales despite wet winter

Pub group Marston’s has revealed a rise in sales as bumper Christmas trade helped offset the impact of wet weather.

Bosses at the company, which runs 1,334 pubs across the UK, cheered a “solid” quarter as consumer demand remained robust.

Marston’s reported that total retail sales across its managed and partnership pubs grew by 3% over the 16 weeks to January 18.

It said this was supported by growth in sales of both food and drink.

Like-for-like sales were 2% higher for the period, following a boost from “strong trading” over the festive period.

It revealed that sales jumped by 11.1% over the key two weeks which included the five key trading days of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

“Very strong” sales over this period helped to offset weakness related to “poor weather conditions in November and January”, the company said.

Chief executive Justin Platt said: “I am pleased to report a solid first-quarter performance for Marston’s, with a particularly strong key festive trading period, achieving record sales on Christmas Day.

“We are excited for the year ahead as we build on this performance through the successful execution of our refocused strategy, driving revenue growth through event-driven marketing and the rollout of our differentiated pub formats.”

He stressed that the company is “well placed” to meet its targets for the financial year as a result.

It comes after Marston’s bounced back to profit in the year to September and cut its debt burden after selling off its remaining brewing business to Carlsberg.

Shares in the company were 3% lower in early trading on Tuesday.