Caffè Nero has reported robust trading, with UK sales growth of 10.5% year-on-year between 1 December and 29 February.
At group level, the coffeehouse chain delivered 12.7% sales growth in the third quarter of its current financial year, building on a strong first half performance.
Q3 further drove year-to-date sales growth of 10.9% for the UK business and 14.1% at group level vs last year.
The strong third quarter performance was supported by robust Christmas trading, which saw Caffè Nero serve over 7.7 million customers in December, delivering sales of £34.5m.
In January, the UK launch of the Honey Oat Latte helped drive sales of speciality coffee by 2% year-on-year.
Sales performance in the UK was also underpinned by the sustained growth of Caffè Nero’s new channels business. Continuing partnerships with Uber Eats, Deliveroo, and Just Eat saw delivery sales grow 13% year-on-year in Q3, with year-to-date sales up 20%.
Meanwhile the Coffee at Home business delivered sales growth of 55% year-on-year, fuelled by double-digit sales growth through the brand’s own channels as well as retail partnerships with Waitrose, Amazon, Ocado, and the Ambassador Theatre Group, and the successful embedding of a new partnership with Morrisons.
Caffè Nero also continued its expansion programme in Q3, opening two new UK stores in the period, taking its total number of openings to 14 in the financial year so far.
At group level, the chain opened eight stores in Q3, with 45 openings in total this financial year.
The group operates 1,062 stores across 10 countries with 10,000 employees, serving over 150 million customers per year.
Caffè Nero founder and group CEO Gerry Ford commented: “We saw robust sales during the Third Quarter of our financial year which has built on the strong first half performance. Our Christmas sales were particularly pleasing with our stores delivering several record sales weeks during that period. I was also pleased to see the performance of the Honey Oat Latte launch in January. Our Delivery and “Coffee at Home” businesses continue to perform well and with a strong new store opening pipeline in front of us, including our first Drive Thru site at Stansted, I think we will have a strong finish to our financial year.”
