J D Wetherspoon flags annual loss as costs rise

J D Wetherspoon said sales of its largest contributors, draught ales and lagers, were 8% below 2019.

Britain's J D Wetherspoon on Wednesday flagged higher-than-expected losses for the current financial year as labour and fuel costs continue to weigh on its bottom line, Qazet.az reports.

Pubs and restaurants, which had to battle COVID-19-led restrictions for the last two years, are now struggling against rising labour and fuel costs and a fall in customer spending as Britain deals with inflation which is at a 40-year high.

J D Wetherspoon, which owns and operates over 800 pubs throughout the UK and Ireland, said sales of its largest contributors, draught ales and lagers, were 8% below 2019.

The pub group, often referred to simply as "Spoons" by its younger customers, said its like-for-like sales for 11 weeks of its fourth quarter were 0.4% lower compared with the same period in 2019.

The group, which had said in May its profit would break even this year, now expects to report an annual loss of $35.69 million.