Beans means expansion for
coffee and hotel star performer

Last week coffee-to-hotels leisure giant Whitbread announced a cracking set of financial figures and made a commitment to create another 12,000 jobs over the next five years.

Speaking at a Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce event in Dunstable on Tuesday South West Bedfordshire MP, Andrew Selous praised Whitbread’s continued success and said it was a sign of the area’s potential.

“It’s a great growth area,” Mr Selous said, adding that with investment coming in the A5-M1 Dunstable northern bypass, along with housing and jobs growth, the area is “on the up” with “fantastic opportunities to grow your business.”

Whitbread, which has its corporate nerve centre in Houghton Hall Business Park, in Porz Avenue, last year sold 14 million Premier Inn rooms, 46 million restaurant meals and 320 million cups of Costa coffee. Its outlet in Dunstable’s Quadrant Shopping Centre has proved amazingly popular.

Over all its operations, the company, which used to brew beer, increased sales by 14.2 per cent to just more than £2billion in the year to February 28. Underlying profit before tax rose 11.4 per cent to £356.5 million.

Andy Harrison, Whitbread’s chief executive, said: “In the first few weeks of our new financial year, group trading has been in line with our plan.

“Premier Inn has maintained its positive momentum. The unseasonably cold weather has held back sales within restaurants, and benefitted Costa.”

A spokesman for Whitbread said the south east of England, in which it includes Luton and Dunstable, is a target area for growth.

“We will definitely be opening more Costas in Bedfordshire and Luton but we haven’t been specific on the sites,” the spokesman said.

“People like the convenience of having coffee shops close by and are not prepared to want to walk far to get one. We will look at more peripheral sites as well.”