Britain’s top hospitality groups recorded year-on-year sales growth of 2.9% in June 2024, the latest CGA RSM Hospitality Business Tracker reveals.
The figure is down slightly from May’s rate of 3.6%, but ahead of the current rate of inflation, as measured by the Consumer Prices Index, and is the eighth period of growth in the last nine months.
The Tracker — produced by CGA by NIQ in partnership with RSM UK — shows restaurants were the best-performing channel in June, with year-on-year sales growth of 4.7%.
While the Euros brought sports fans into pubs for match days involving England and Scotland, the damp weather kept people away from beer gardens and terraces, and sales in this channel rose only 2.7%above June 2023. The on-the-go segment achieved 4% growth, but bars were down by 4%.
Trading was notably stronger in London, where the Tracker recorded sales growth of 4.4%, compared to 2.5% outside the M25. The capital has outpaced Britain as a whole for all but one month in 2024.
“June’s solid, if unspectacular growth capped a decent first half of the year for Britain’s hospitality groups,” said Karl Chessell, director, hospitality operators and food, EMEA, at CGA by NIQ.
“The weather has been far from ideal for pubs and drinks suppliers, but England’s progress in the Euros has been a very welcome lift for venues screening games…
“Nevertheless, with the tracker hovering only just above inflation, groups will have to work hard to achieve meaningful sales growth in the second half of 2024.”
North Bank, Great Newsome’s craft lager, which has proved popular in bottles, is now going out on draught. The 4.5% ABV brew is made with British lager malt and Germans pilsner hops.
Service Please, from Arundel Brewery, aims to acknowledge the poeple who make hospitality great in what has been a difficult few years for the industry. “Using a hop combination of El Dorado, Cascade, and Falconers Flight we get a super pale, super crisp, American-style pale,” says the brewer. “Expect refreshment, citrus, and a piney finish.” Fifty pence from every sales of the beer will be donated to the hospitality charity Table Talk.
