Caffe Nero sales hit £150m in H1

Coffee shop chain Caffe Nero has announced sales of £150m for the first half of FY23.

This number is an increase of 104% compared with pre-pandemic levels and an increase of 17% compared with the same period in FY22.

The company also announced that its sales in December 2022 were 110% higher than pre-pandemic levels with a 9.5% like-for-like increase.

The business achieved record weekly sales during the week commencing 5 December of £7.9m, and served 7.8 million U.K. customers during the month.

Despite the economic headwinds, the brand opened seven new stores in the UK in the half year.

Its delivery business benefited from adding new partners Deliveroo and Just Eat to existing partner Uber Eats to generate £3.5m of revenue. Its Coffee At Home business for the same period achieved sales of £1.5m.

This was supported by a new strategic partnership with Waitrose and continuing momentum from its own channels and retail partnerships.

Gerry Ford,founder and group CEO, said: “We’ve seen a very encouraging first half of our financial year. Despite significant inflationary pressures which have continued to mount since June, we have demonstrated strong cost control and delivered solid sales growth. We traded at 110% of pre-pandemic sales in December and had record weekly sales.

“That is a testament to the hard work and outstanding service from our store teams as well as a very well received Christmas menu with our customers. We expect to see sales continue to improve further over the coming weeks and months.”