The Oakman Group has issued a trading update for the 13 weeks ending Sunday 4 October, showing encouraging sales figures.
In brief, The Oakman Group, which consists of Oakman Inns and Ashmore Inns, traded 40.6% higher at £15.1m sales with the four fledgling Ashmore Inns contributing £1.3m. Oakman Inns’ 24 pubs and restaurants showed a like-for-like increase of 25.4% , up £2.7m.
Wet Sales were up 12.7% and Dry up 45.5% on Like-for-Like sales. Unsurprisingly, room sales across the estate were down 52.3%.
This is the highest sales quarter in the group’s history and comes at a time when many parts of the hospitality industry are facing an uncertain future, due to a certain extent to HMG’s use of untested scientific theory.
Furthermore, the figures are even more impressive given that even removing the benefit of VAT cuts and the EOTHO scheme, they would still show double digit growth in Like-for-Likes.
Overall, staff numbers have increased, perhaps encouraged by the company’s award-winning career & training programme and a community engagement policy which makes Oakman Inns part of the heart of their communities.
The planning and policies adopted right at the beginning of the pandemic, in which Oakman Inns sought to provide a welcoming, yet bio-secure environment as far as was possible, has created an environment in which many of the pubs have become havens of normality in a world saddened by Government restrictions.
Oakman Inns, which is headed up by CEO Dermot King (pictured left) and executive chairman Peter Borg-Neal (right), has also planned for winter by creating soon-to-be-launched modular glazed garden pods that are warm, bright, and light and will comfortably sit a 'bubble' of six people.