Greene King Christmas day sales hit £7.7m record despite cost cutting

Greene King has announced it hit a record sales figure of £7.7m for Christmas day despite cost cutting amid food price inflation, rising rates and wage increases.

The pub chain also confirmed that it had seen like-for-like sales for the the last two weeks of 2018 rise by 10.9%. Greene King, which currently runs over 3,000 pubs across the UK, also announced a 3.2% increase in like-for-like sales for the 36 weeks up to 6 January.

Greene King has been cutting costs in order to “limit net cost inflation to £10-20m”, whilst also planning to “dispose” of 100-110 pubs and open around nine new pubs in the new financial year.

A company statement read: “While the ongoing uncertainty around Brexit may still have an impact on consumer confidence and spending during the year, we remain confident of our outlook for the financial year.

“We remain focused on our strategic priorities of driving profitable sales growth, developing a more streamlined and efficient organisation, and further strengthening and improving the flexibility of our capital structure to deliver long-term value for our shareholders.”