Greene King has expanded its Hungry Horse brand by 51 sites in two years - around 50% - with a growth spurt of 26 new sites in the past five months, it has been revealed, writes Paul Charity.
The company had 95 Hungry Horses in April 2008 and has added 51 since to take the estate to 146 venues.
The brand is delivering 11% like-for-like sales growth in the year-to-date.
Of the 146 sites, a total of 75% of them will have been converted to “new-style” Hungry Horses by the company’s financial year-end.
The 26 pubs converted to Hungry Horse since November last year are producing an average ebitda Return on Investment of 42.2%. There is a minimum of 12 further conversions to Hungry Horse planned for the next financial year.
The company told City analysts today that the focus is shifting to expanding Hungry Horse by acquisitions of existing pubs, and greenfield and brownfield sites rather than converting pubs within the estate - 22 of the 26 most recent openings were conversions with four acquisitions.
The Greene King plans for Hungry Horse were unveiled in a trip for City analysts to four Greene King pubs today: The Kingfisher, Newport Pagnell(a local pub), Broughton Hotel, Milton Keynes (a Hungry Horse), the Tawny Owl, Milton Keynes (a Hungry Horse) and the Bell Hotel, Woburn (an Old English Inn).
