JD Wetherspoons is preparing to sell 39 pubs after it revealed slowing sales and substantially increased prices across the group.
The pub chain, which already sold off five sites for £1.9 million in the last three months, also announced it can’t rule out price increases.
The group saw like-for-like sales drop by 1.1 per cent in the five weeks to November 6 when compared with pre-pandemic trading in 2019, having increased by 1.5 per cent in the previous nine weeks.
Compared with a year ago, sales increased 10.1 per cent in the first nine weeks of its financial year and were 8.9 per cent higher in the past five weeks.
JD Wetherspoons now operates 23 fewer pubs than it did in March 2021, when it ran 870 outlets.
A newspaper outlet, following the announcement of selling off pubs, the group said most of the venues it had put on the market were within a mile or two of other sites.
It said trading was mostly in line with its expectations but that October had been a quieter month. The group added that costs, especially in respect of labour, food and repairs, were substantially higher in the first quarter.
Wetherspoons spokesman Eddie Gershon said Wetherspoons aims to be as competitive as possible in terms of pricing in its pubs. He said that with inflationary pressures on the hospitality sector, they couldn’t rule out price increases.
Shares in the company dropped 3 per cent in early trading on Wednesday.
Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin said the company remains cautiously hopeful despite the cost of pressures hammering the hospitality sector.
He said he previously set out various threats to the hospitality enterprise and these continued to apply.
He said, those caveats aside, in the absence of further lockdowns or restrictions, the group remains cautiously upbeat about future prospects.
Pubs have been struck by a cocktail of cost increases as inflation sends prices skyrocketing, with staff requiring higher salaries and demand among cash-strapped pub goers wanes.
Tim Martin warned last month that the company was facing a significant challenge to persuade punters back into its bars after they got used to drinking cheap supermarket beer during the pandemic.
It came as the firm said last month that sales increased from £773 million to more than £1.7 billion in the year to the end of July, but were still behind the £1.8 billion the group made in 2019.
No business ever operates smoothly, it’s just another day in the office sorting out all the garbage, and in all fairness to Wetherspoons, they’re still a fantastic place to meet and start a night out, get a few cheap glasses in and then go on to someplace else.
They’re the best price pub in the United Kingdom. Two meals and two drinks, and a place for someone to meet up with their friends, and the staff are always pleasant, attentive and busy.
Yes, Wetherspoons might be having financial troubles, but it will probably endure whilst other smaller pubs will shut down because of the cost of energy, and it’s extremely hard running a business, and Wetherspoons is a huge premise with loads of overheads, but they’re prices are still the lowest you’ll find.
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