In Brief
Poor weather hits profits at Hartford
Hartford Group, the owner of Jamies bars, last week blamed poor summer weather for a weak sales performance.
A trading statement revealed that like-for-like sales for the whole group had dropped 0.7% for the year ended 25 September. Performance within its core business of city wine bars had improved marginally, however, with sales up 1.3% year-on-year.
The company expects to record a £100,000 hit in its year-end results owing to redundancy, closure and refurbishment costs for several properties. It will record an additional loss of £74,000 in connection with a rent dispute at its Dakota restaurant, which was disposed of early this year.
Growth at Wolverhampton & Dudley Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries (W&D) celebrated solid returns across the board last week, despite increasing overheads and miserable summer weather. Like-for-like sales for the full-year were ahead 4.3% at its leased division, the Union Pub company, while sales at its managed Pathfinder Pubs were up 3.2%. The company said integration of the 64-strong Wizard Inns, bought in June, with Pathfinder Pubs had been successfully completed ahead of schedule. Pathfinder plans to acquire a further 20 new pubs over the next 12 months. To cut operating costs, 41 pubs were transferred from Pathfinder into the Union Pub Company this year.
Catering Colleges in the dock Howes Percival solicitors, City College Norwich and the Caterer Group are putting catering colleges in the dock on 12 October. A panel of judges, including Caterer's group editor, Forbes Mutch, will be hearing evidence from prosecution and defence teams in a bid to answer whether catering colleges are failing employers.
If you have something to say, e-mail forbes.mutch@rbi.co.uk. If you would like to attend the event at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, contact Mick Cooper on 01603 773393 or at mcooper@ccn.ac.uk.
Shine to hold mentoring workshop Training body Shine is holding a workshop to explain the benefits of mentoring on 21 October at the Bernes hotel, London. If you want to attend or find out more, call 020 87488 2789.
