Hospitality sales grew 6.6% year-on-year in the latest 12 weeks, with ‘hospitality customers spending more money in unbranded pubs & bars’

Hospitality sales grew 6.6% year-on-year in the latest 12 weeks, according to analysis from HDI, the leading provider of card spending insight and pricing data to the UK hospitality sector.

Fast food & takeaway and coffee & sandwich were the best performing sectors in the 12 weeks ending 16 May 2023. Within Pubs, Pubs & Bars slightly outperformed Branded Pub Restaurants, whilst Casual Dining saw the lowest levels of year-on-year growth, according to analysis of HDI’s panel of 10.2 million unique customers.

Mark Bentley, business development director at HDI, said: “It’s encouraging to see hospitality sales continuing to grow. However, even though there’s talk in the press about inflationary pressures easing, we’re still seeing headline year-on-year inflation of 11.4% on food and 7.6% on drinks from our tracking of more than 165,000 like-for-like site/item combinations in pubs & bars. That’s an extra £1.16 added to the average cost of a main course and an extra 26 pence added to the average cost of a drink.”

HDI’s panel tracks more than 160,000 individually identifiable hospitality venues across 350 different brands and formats, with the customer spend analysis providing unique insight into how the cost-of-living crisis is impacting hospitality. Bentley added: “Headline growth continues to lag behind inflation, with household incomes continuing to be under significant pressure.

In the last 4 weeks, we’re seeing UK hospitality customers spending more money in unbranded pubs & bars, which will have been boosted by the Bank Holidays, whilst Fast-Food & Takeaways are also stealing share of wallet.”