Pub chain J D Wetherspoon on Wednesday flagged higher-than-expected losses for the current financial year as labour and fuel costs continue to weigh on its bottom line.

Pubs and restaurants, which had to battle Covid-19-led restrictions for the last two years, are now struggling against rising labour and fuel costs and a fall in customer spending as Ireland and Britain deal with inflation which is at a decades-high.

Repair costs have also soared, with the group saying it will have spent about £99 million on this in the current year, compared with £76.9 million in 2018/19, due to “catch-up” work since Covid restrictions were lifted.

J D Wetherspoon, which owns and operates more than 800 pubs throughout Ireland and Britain, said sales of its largest contributors, draught ales and lagers, were 8 per cent below 2019.

The pub group, often referred to simply as “Spoons” by its younger customers, said its like-for-like sales for 11 weeks of its fourth quarter were 0.4 per cent lower compared with the same period in 2019.

The group, which had said in May its profit would break even this year, now expects to report an annual loss of £30 million (€35.5m).

Matt Britzman, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “The difficulty now for the entire pub sector is that drinking and eating at home looks to be sticking around longer than first thought.” – Reuters / PA

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