The UK's largest independent coffee chain, Caffè Nero, served up a healthy set of year-end results last week and announced it may expand the brand to Europe next year.
Reporting its first full year of profit since flotation in May 2001, chairman Gerry Ford said Nero now stood alongside Starbucks and Whitbread's Costa Coffee among the top three coffee-bar operators in the UK.
"Brand awareness of Caffè Nero among coffee consumers reached 67% last year, undoubtedly driven by the fact that today we operate in 42 UK towns and cities and serve approximately 50,000 customers a day," he said.
Ford also said he hoped to franchise the coffee chain in an unspecified northern European country some time in 2004.
Caffè Nero currently operates 131 stores and expects to have expanded that number to 160 by May 2004. The coffee chain's growth slowed last year, held in check by an abortive bid for Coffee Republic. It opened only 18 new sites.
Trading for the first 15 weeks of the current year is up 20%, and a further 10 new stores have already opened.
Turnover for the group increased by 48% to £39.4m for the year ending 31 May, while pre-tax profits also jumped £1m into the black from a loss of £2.3m last year. Store profitability increased 77% to £7.3m (£4.1m).
- Chris Reeve, a former executive director of Caffè Nero, stepped down from the board last week. Chairman Ford said the departure was not acrimonious.