J D Wetherspoon: consumers adapting to smoking ban

The pub trade has had a traumatic year due to the smoking ban, cheap booze in supermarkets and the credit crunch.

However, budget beer pubs group JD Weatherspoon said it has experienced its busiest ever August with like-for-like sales up 1.1% and total sales 5.5% up for the five weeks to 31 August.

Tim Martin, the pub group’s chairman and founder, is calling last orders on the pub trade’s woes and said consumers are coming round to the smoking ban. A recovery should be seen throughout the industry in one or two years, Mr Martin believes.

Higher food and fuel costs has meant household budgets are stretched so the pub’s cut-price beer and cheap food is tempting cash-strapped Britons into its boozers.

The pub chain has benefited from increased eating in pubs. While bar sales are continuing drop generally, it said within its 11% crash in pre-tax profits in the year to the end of July, food sales are up almost 8%.

Tim Martin, who founded J D Wetherspoon 29 years ago, said food sales, which include drinks with food sales, now make up for nearly two-thirds of Wetherspoon sales.

The group is paying a final dividend of 7.6p meaning its total for the year is held at 12p. Its rival, Punch Taverns, has scrapped its final dividend.

The company opened 23 pubs during the year, bringing its total number to 694. A further 30 pubs are scheduled to open in the current fiscal year.

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