Caffè Nero has seen its sales return to pre-pandemic levels, with sales in December averaging 110% of pre-Covid levels.
In a trading update today (30 January) it reported that in the half-year to November 2022, Nero achieved UK sales of £150m – up 17% on the same period in 2021 and averaging 104% of pre-Covid levels.
Like-for-like sales grew by 9.5% in December, with the business recording record weekly sales of £7.9m in the week beginning 5 December.
Nero said it had been a “challenging period for costs”, but it had experienced “a notable and encouraging increase” in several of its new sales channels. Nero achieved £3.5m revenue through its delivery partnerships and its Coffee at Home business achieved sales of £1.5m.
It also opened seven new sites during the half-year period. At a group level, Caffè Nero had 1,023 stores across 10 countries at the end of the first half of the financial year (June 2022 – Nov 2022) with sales of £231m, an increase of 20% like for like against the previous year.
Caffè Nero Founder and Group CEO, Gerry Ford commented: “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 expect to see sales continue to improve further over the coming weeks and months.”
In October 2022, Caffè Nero reported it was trading at 107% of pre-pandemic levels, with strong sales in the first four months of its financial year.
In addition to moving forward with new openings, Caffè Nero also kicked-off a significant refurbishment programme.
Two hundred stores have been upgraded at the time of the October update, 140 of which were in the UK, with a further 60 due to have been refurbished in the next three months.
