UK Retail
Costa has delivered another outstanding performance, with total UK retail sales growing by 16.5% and like for like sales in UK equity stores up 5.7%, mainly as a result of a 5.0% growth in transactions per store.
Strong organic growth is continuing and Costa extended its lead in the UK with an additional 177 net new stores in the year, taking the total to 1,755.
The company expects its number of UK stores to increase to over 2,200 by 2018. The YouGov coffee shop brand preference survey shows Costa‟s brand preference score strengthening again, ahead of its competition, and rising by a further 5% pts since last year.
“Investment in people, our products and our stores are the keys to our success. Product innovation underpins our like for like growth. Our successful Christmas campaign along with the introduction of a new breakfast range and hot chocolate drinks helped to drive a strong performance in the year.
Some 2,000 baristas have completed our Maestro training course and our team engagement score is 82.4%. Investment in our stores is also a key element of our strategy with some 139 equity stores refurbished in 2013/14,” said Andy Harrison.
Costa Enterprises
Costa Enterprises had a very successful year growing system sales by 22.0% and adding 955 net new Costa Express machines, giving a total of 3,515 units at the year end.
“We are testing our new generation Costa Express machine which will help us to enter new market segments, including universities and hospitals, as well as spearheading our international expansion. During the year we also saw strong growth in our corporate partnerships and made progress with “Costa at Home” following its successful launch in 2012,” Harrison also stated.
Costa EMEI
Costa EMEI had a mixed performance with total system sales growing by 10.6% and like for like system sales by 1.4%.
The franchise business performed well with a strong performance in the Middle East and Ireland.
“In our equity business in Poland, the market was challenging and we are implementing a recovery plan. We have closed 15 unprofitable stores, continued the re-branding of our Coffeeheaven stores to Costa and concentrated on product development.
In France we now have two franchise stores and four recently opened equity stores. Although it is early days we are pleased with the performance of our trial stores and have a pipeline for a further five stores which we expect to open during 2014/15,” the company said in the statement.
Costa Asia
During the year Costa opened 73 net new stores in China taking our total number of stores to 326 in 30 cities.
“We made good progress on the profitability of our like for like estate in China. This gives us the confidence to continue to invest in new store openings and to build the critical infrastructure, management capabilities and resources to construct a profitable platform for the future. Outside of China we have 16 franchise stores in South East Asia,” it was also said in the statement.
