A burger chain with Brighton roots has reported a big increase in sales and announced plans to open more branches.
But costs have gone up, including the price of electricity, affecting the expanding chain’s efforts to become profitable.
Honest Burgers, which was started 15 years ago and now runs 39 restaurants, said that it generated revenues of £30 million over the first half of the year.
This was about 11 per cent higher than in the same period last year on a like-for-like basis which strips out the impact of new restaurant openings on sales comparisons.
And newly filed accounts for the company showed that its sales surged by a fifth in the year to the end of January, compared with the prior year.
This was driven both by people dining in and ordering takeaways, according to the group which has branches in Brighton, London, Liverpool and Cardiff.
The business was started by Tom Barton and Philip Eeles. The company’s website said: “We met working at a restaurant in Brighton, while at university.”
As well as opening more branches, Honest Burgers plans to expand its menu, with a new range of smashed burgers, loaded chips and milkshakes at new quick-service sites, alongside its restaurants.
The firm said that it raised nearly £3 million through crowdfunding last year to finance the expansion.
Chief executive Matt Brandon said that it marked “the start of our ambition to quadruple the size of our business by 2030”.
Meanwhile, the group revealed that it was squeezed by utilities inflation over the latest year, with many companies across the country grappling with higher electricity prices following the energy crisis.
Business costs were more than double those of the year before, it said, helping to stifle earnings growth.
Mr Brandon said: “We’ve had a great first half of this year, which follows a strong performance last year, showing that demand for great-quality burgers at great value for money continues to grow.”
