Costa Coffee demand helps Whitbread

The company, whose Premier Inn hotels and Costa Coffee chains are the biggest in the country, said the like-for-like sales rise in the 13 weeks to May 30 was underpinned by eight per cent underlying sales growth at UK Costa stores.

Underlying sales at Premier Inn were also up, growing 2.7 per cent, helping to more than offset a flat performance at its Beefeater and Brewers Fayre restaurant arm, where cold weather at the start of the year kept customers at home.

The overall 3.1 pe rcent rise for the group compares to growth of 2.7 per cent in its last quarter, when its restaurant business was hit by heavy snow fall.

Whitbread has expanded rapidly in recent years on growing demand for more affordable hotels during the economic downturn and a rising popularity across Britain for coffee on the go.

In April, when posting an 11 per cent rise in annual profit, the firm unveiled new targets to grow Premier Inn UK rooms by 45 per cent to 75,000 by 2018, and double total sales at Costa Coffee to £2bn through expansion at home and abroad, with particular focus on China.

The group said it planned to open 300 net new Costa stores in the full year. Total sales at Costa grew 23.1 per cent in the quarter to £281.8m.