Greene King reports record £6.8m sales on Christmas Day
Greene King has reported record sales of £6.8m for Christmas Day 2015.
The growth in sales was led by food, with the Farmhouse Inn in Ashton-under-Lyme reporting a record pub trading day of £19,000.
Over Christmas and New Year, Prosecco sales were up 69%, while at New Year a record 4,447 drinks per minute were sold in the last hour of 2015.
In a trading statement for 40 weeks to 7 February 2016, Greene King said sales were up 67% thanks to the 33 week contribution from Spirit and a 6% growth at Greene King. Like-for-like sales were up 2.2% in its pubs and hotels, and sales grew 1.1% in the Spirit managed business.
Ten new pubs opened in the period, taking the group to some 3,000 sites.
Chief executive Rooney Anand (pictured) said: "This was another strong performance, with all divisions trading well during the important festive period, and record trading on Christmas Day. The latest Greene King Leisure Spend Tracker shows that, despite varying their choices when eating out, pubs were a major destination for customers."
He added: "I am pleased to report continued progress with the Spirit integration, including encouraging signs from our rebranded trial sites thus far, and continued progress in terms of synergy delivery. Our focus remains on the development and continuous enhancement of our core Greene King business while successfully integrating Spirit, to create the UK's leading pub company."
