JD Wetherspoon, the UK pub group, has reported record annual losses due to prolonged periods of lockdown and said that sales remained below 2019 levels despite consumers returning to pubs over the summer.
Pre-tax losses widened to £154.7m in the year to the end of July from a £34m loss in 2020 – its first non-profitable year since 1984, the group said on Friday. Overall sales were £772.6m, down 39 per cent on the previous year.
Like-for-like sales during August and September were 8.7 per cent below the same period in 2019, in contrast to pub groups such as Mitchells & Butlers, which last month said that sales over the summer were 4 per cent higher than 2019.
Wetherspoon is more reliant than other pub groups on airport sites and city centre pubs, both of which have been slower to recover following the end of lockdowns.
Chair Tim Martin also said that, despite recruiting roughly 3,000 people since the end of July, Wetherspoon had faced significant staff shortages over the summer, “especially [in] ‘staycation’ areas in the West Country and elsewhere”.
He called out the stringent Covid-19 regulations placed on pubs during the pandemic but added that “in spite of these obstacles, Wetherspoon is cautiously optimistic about the outcome for the financial year, on the basis that there is no further resort to lockdowns or onerous restrictions”.
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