The Restaurant Group, owner of the Frankie & Benny’s, Chiquito and Garfunkel’s chains, has spent “over £100,000” independently testing more than 150 of its product lines in the lastfive weeks since the horse meat scare.
“We’ve had back 95% of the results, and they are all clear,” said chief executive Andrew Page. “There has been absolutely no discernible change in what our customers are ordering. And while like-for-like sales are up 6.5% in the first eight weeks of the year, February was actually much stronger than January despite the scare stories.”
Sales rose 9% in 2012, with pre-tax profits up 7% to £64.6 million. Page said: “That was a good performance, given a pretty tricky background and a notable lack of big films.”
Most of the group’s outlets are on leisure parks with cinemas. The latest format — Coast to Coast, an American bar and restaurant — opened five outlets in 2012 and Page is enthusiastic about how well they have done. He said: “They are all trading above expectations with two shooting the lights out. We could roll out 50 to 100 of them.”
