Crawshaw Group continues store expansion plan despite ‘disappointment’ in LFL sales

Crawshaw Group Plc, the fresh meat and food-to-go retailer, has seen a decrease in like-for-like sales for the financial results ending 31st July 2016.

During the first 26 weeks of the year, the Rotherham-based company saw its revenue increase by 29% to £21.6m (2015: £16.7m), but like-for-like sales fell by 4.4% with a 0.8% decrease in Q1 which widened to a 7.8% drop in Q2.

Gross profit increased by 31% to £9.8m (2015: £7.5m). EBITDA for the period was £300k (2015: £500k) with increased operating costs offsetting sales and margin growth.

Crawshaw’s expansion plan, however, has been rolled out at pace with the opening of nine additional stores in this period and a further store opening at the start of H2, taking the current estate to 49 stores.

Noel Collett, chief executive officer, commented: “We have made considerable progress with our store expansion program over the last 18 months but are very disappointed by the recent like-for-like sales performance as some of the price and range initiatives didn’t resonate with customers as we had expected.

“We are acting quickly to restore sales momentum by returning our focus to the local value-led proposition that has proved successful in the past.

“We have already re-introduced a locally driven, value-led promotion strategy which is bringing more customers in store, although these activities require short term margin investment and will therefore impact full year profit expectations”.

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