POD, the healthy fast food concept led by founder and chief executive Tim Hall, has reported a rise in turnover for the year to 30 October 2011, from £4.8m to £7.9m, during 12 months in which it opened six new sites in London.
The group, which is backed by JGR Partners, saw its pre-tax losses narrow for the year from £475k to £308k, as EBITDA entered positive territory for the first time at £70.8k, showing an improvement on the previous period of over £296k.
The group exited the year with £2.4m on its balance sheet compared to £833k in 2010.
The chain, which grew its estate from nine to 15 stores during the year, said that having “lived through the difficult credit crunch period” store performance in 2011 and year-on-year sales growth “was encouraging”.
The group has since opened a further five stores to take its estate to 20 in London and expects to reach 30 sites within the next 12 months. further sites in Leather Lane, Gracechurch Street and Lombard Street due to open this summer.
The company, which plans to grow to an estate of 40-50 sites by 2014, said that it was optimistic about the outlook for its current financial year, but given the current economic uncertainties this is “balanced with some caution”.
The group said: “It is our aim to continue to expand the store base but we will be increasingly demanding in our expectations from new sites and it remains our intention to develop the brand beyond the boundaries of the City.”
Earlier this year, Nick Rowe became the chain’s new chairman. Rowe, who is the former managing director of Diners Club and vice president of American Express, had been with the group since 2006 as a non-executive director.
He replaced Nick Payne, the former director of Grand Metropolitan Foods, who has left the group amicably after six years as chairman.
Last month, the group announced the appointment of Katy Emson as its first Director of Marketing. Emson, who trained at CHI & Partners, is currently a senior brand manager at Danone.
