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Greene King calls for Eat Out To Help Out extension to boost pubs sector

Pubs giant Greene King has called on the government to extend its 'Eat Out To Help Out’ scheme as it warned sales in London are “significantly” lower than expected since the lockdown eased.

Chief executive Nick Mackenzie urged the government to provide more assistance as the group, which has over 2700 pubs, restaurants and hotels in the UK, filed accounts that show how the virus crisis has hurt income.

Underlying profits in the year to April 26 fell 15% to £412 million and revenues dropped 13.4% to £1.9 billion.

The company was last year sold to Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-shing in a £2.7 billion takeover deal. The full-year results included over a month when pubs were ordered to shut for the lockdown, and the weeks before the lockdown when trade slowed down. The industry was only allowed to reopen from July 4.

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Mackenzie told the Evening Standard: “Trading since we reopened in the UK has been better than expected. But London has been significantly worse.”

Greene King’s City pubs have been hit harder than its West End sites, according to Mackenzie, whose company has implemented a number of health and safety measures to keep venues in line with social distancing guidelines.

He added that weekly sales at his sites open in the capital are around 60% lower than a year earlier.

He joins throngs of hospitality chiefs that have warned of low footfall in the capital, as travel restrictions keep tourists away, and office workers normally in town continue to do their jobs from home.

Mackenzie urged mayors, employers and government to work on getting people back into towns across Britain.

The boss praised the government’s August Eat Out To Help Out scheme which offers people a discount of up to 50% on Mondays to Wednesdays when eating or drinking soft drinks in a participating restaurant, pub or cafe.

Mackenzie said it has been “really fantastic” and he wants to see this extended to entice more Brits back into pubs.

He added that the hospitality sector will need more financial support from the government to help it ride out the crisis, including a possible extension on the business rates holiday.

Kate Nicholls, chief executive of trade association UKHospitality, said: “It is increasingly clear that the crisis is far from over for London’s hospitality businesses and that the city will be affected more deeply and for longer than other parts of the country.”

Greene King’s Mackenzie was upbeat about how popular the group’s expanded takeaway offer has been, and said a app that lets customers order food and drinks from their phones has been well received.

Read more

A pint with Nick Mackenzie: The Greene King boss on reopening pubs