Pub group Greene King (GNK) sold 3.2m pints of beer during England matches in the World Cup. Like-for-like sales were 61 per cent higher on the day of the semi-final. Together this helped boost like-for-like sales by 5.5 per cent at Greene King branded local pubs during the first quarter of its financial year.
At group level comparable sales were up 2.8 per cent during the first 18 weeks of the financial year, compared with 1.2 per cent across the wider sector. After the World Cup ended, sales have increased by 3.2 per cent over the past 10 weeks. The timing of overhead costs meant that sales from pub partners fell 0.4 per cent, which management expects to recover by the year-end. Beer volumes improved by 4 per cent while own-brewed volumes were up 0.3 per cent.
