Marston's puts focus on the F-plan

The group, which operates 2,150 pubs and five breweries, said pre-tax profit for the year to April 3 edged up 0.4 per cent to 27.8m.

Marston's, whose portfolio includes about 200 pubs in Yorkshire, opened eight new pub-restaurants since October, focused around its F-plan – food, families, females and forty/fifty somethings.

Chairman David Thompson said: "Although the pub sector has experienced difficult economic and political pressures we have made progress in each of our trading divisions."

The brewer of Pedigree, Jennings and Ringwood plans to open seven more pubs by October, including a new 2m pub in Huddersfield, The Yorkshire Rose.

Including these, it aims to build 60 pub restaurants over three

years. "We aim to be in a position to continue new-build pub development from 2013 onwards at a similar rate," added chief executive Ralph Findlay.

This will be coupled with the sale of around 60 pubs over the next 18 months.

Marston's raised a net 165.6m through a heavily discounted rights issue last summer to finance the expansion.

Typically, Marston's is choosing sites in prominent locations such as retail parks. Food will typically make up 60 per cent of their sales, compared with an average of 39 per cent for its managed estate as a whole. The group's revenue also ticked up slightly, increasing 0.6 per cent to 309.2m.

Marston's inns and taverns arm, which owns and operates around 500 pubs in England and Wales, saw like-for-like sales increase 1.4 per cent, including 2.5 per cent growth in food sales. The average spend was around 6 a head and it served about 11 million meals, up 5.4 per cent, during the six months. The division's operating margin surged from 0.5 per cent to 14.5 per cent, which the group said reflected tight pricing control and good cost management.

However, Marston's estate of around 1,700 managed pubs saw a 4.5 per cent dip in like-for-like profits as it began moving landlords on to retail agreements, which remove some of the responsibility from landlords but are costly to establish.

Marston's said these agreements increase standards, revenues and profits by boosting investment, developing menus and giving landlords access to the group's buying power. So far 63 landlords are signed up but it wants to increase this to 600 in three years.

The group's brewing arm had a "strong" six months, with premium ale volumes up four per cent. Overall volumes were flat, but it grew in the independent pub trade, with Jennings, Ringwood and Wychwood ales all delivering strong growth.

Marston's added it plans to begin brewing Tetley cask ale at its Wolverhampton factory in 2011. Earlier this year Tetley owner Carlsberg announced controversial plans to move the beer's production from Yorkshire and close its Leeds city centre brewery.