Listed butchers see like-for-like sales continue to fall

Rotherham based butcher Crawshaw Group has seen group sales drop by 1.6%, with like-for-like sales down 12.9% in the first 20 weeks of its current financial year. 

The listed firm, which is currently rolling out a factory shop model as part of a transformation programme, said the trading performance of its high street shops remained challenging and reflected lower footfall and softer consumer sentiment. Crawshaw said its factory shop format continues to perform well in this environment.

Crawshaw chief executive Jim Viggars, said: “Whilst the trading performance in our high street estate remains challenging, our team of great colleagues will strive to capture available growth.  Our factory shops continue to perform well, and I am confident that repositioning the Group towards the successful factory shop model will strengthen Crawshaws’ position as the country’s best value butcher and improve the long-term profitability of the business.”

This morning’s trading update was published ahead of the firm’s AGM today. It said it was implementing numerous key sales-driving and cost-saving initiatives to improve performance in its high street estate, including the strategic development of central production to re-align the store labour model and improve instore efficiencies.

“With these initiatives well underway, we believe the majority of our high street stores are capable of generating an improved return,” said Crawshaw. 

The firm added: We continue to work through this period of transition as we rebalance the portfolio away from its historical dependence on high streets and towards the unique and successful factory shop format, which underpins the long-term profitability of the business.  

“We have opened a further 2 factory shops in the year taking our total to 12 within the estate and these shops are trading in line with the Board’s expectations.  We plan to open a further 3 new shops of this type during the remainder of current financial year.

“Our strategic partnership with the 2Sisters Food Group continues to deliver the expected customer and financial benefits, which complements our new supplier relationships that have been developed.”