Marston’s announces two year expansion plan

UK pub group and brewer Marston’s has secured £257.5 million for a two year plan that will create dozens of pubs and thousands of jobs.

The £60m a year scheme will see construction start on around 25 new sites this year and another 25 in 2013.

The plan will create almost 1,000 jobs this year and up to 3,000 in total over the two years.

The new venues will be “F-plan” pubs with a focus on food, families, females and 40-50 year-olds.

Findlay noted that pub food had been growing in importance since the ban on smoking and that consumer appetite for eating out had not abated.

He said: “Since 2005 food has gone from 25% of our turnover to 42%, and I think that will continue to grow.”

The pub group is also setting up “halfway houses” – not managed or leasehold – at 600 of its smaller pubs that have been hit hard by the economic climate in an effort to bring them back to growth.

Chief executive Ralph Findlay said that by the end of 2013 he hoped Marston’s will have “made big increases in profitability for the landlords and I think we will have seen 1,000 or so jobs created, down to that programme”.

Last year Marston’s, the fourth biggest pub operator in the UK, announced a record turnover of £682m, with profits rising 9.4% to 380.4m.

Over Christmas the group reported a 1.2% growth in drinks sales and – perhaps proving Findlay correct – a 4.4% increase in food sales.

Between 23 December and today (3 January), like-for-like sales rose 11.2%.