{"id":22809,"date":"2025-10-04T20:22:45","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T00:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2025\/10\/04\/jd-wetherspoon-hit-by-slower-sales-and-higher-costs\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T20:22:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T00:22:45","slug":"jd-wetherspoon-hit-by-slower-sales-and-higher-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2025\/10\/04\/jd-wetherspoon-hit-by-slower-sales-and-higher-costs\/","title":{"rendered":"JD Wetherspoon hit by slower sales and higher costs"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"medium-10 medium-offset-1 columns article-body\" itemprop=\"articleBody\" data-epic-field=\"content\">\n<p>British pub chain JD Wetherspoon has today reported a slower start to its new financial year and highlighted sustained cost pressures in a difficult consumer climate, sending the pub group&#8217;s shares down nearly 5%.<\/p>\n<p>The company reported like-for-like sales growth of 3.2% in the nine weeks to September 28 of fiscal 2026, compared with growth of 4.9% in the same period last year.<\/p>\n<p>For fiscal 2025 that ended on July 27, life-for-like sales growth was at 5.1%, helping Wetherspoon report higher profit despite a subdued consumer market, which could come under more pressure from the upcoming budget.<\/p>\n<p>Market research company GfK said consumer confidence has been dented by the prospect of tax increases in Finance Minister Rachel Reeves&#8217; November budget, with further weakening expected.<\/p>\n<p>Rival pub operator Mitchells &#038; Butlers in late September also reported slower sequential growth in quarterly like-for-like sales, as households tightened budgets and increased savings.<\/p>\n<p>Britain&#8217;s hospitality sector faces mounting cost pressures from higher wages and national insurance, which analysts say could reverse post-pandemic recovery trends.<\/p>\n<p>JD Wetherspoon also flagged rising energy costs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Cost increases such as these will undoubtedly add to underlying inflation in the UK economy, although Wetherspoon, as always, will endeavour to keep price increases to a minimum,&#8221; Chairman Tim Martin said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>He said Wetherspoon, which is known for its low-cost model, expects a &#8220;reasonable outcome&#8221; for its current financial year, though rising government-imposed costs, including energy expenses, could weigh on performance.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We retain our concerns over long-term margin recovery potential which will slow in the face of rising labour costs as the scope for price rises and disposals diminishes,&#8221; Panmure Liberum analysts said, referring to sales of pubs.<\/p>\n<p>Wetherspoon reported adjusted pre-tax profit of \u00a381.4m for fiscal 2025, compared with \u00a373.9m the previous year.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>British pub chain JD Wetherspoon has today reported a slower start to its new financial year and highlighted sustained cost pressures in a difficult consumer climate, sending the pub group&#8217;s shares down nearly 5%. The company reported like-for-like sales growth of 3.2% in the nine weeks to September 28 of fiscal 2026, compared with growth [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-news","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}