Spur jumps 3.26% on update

At 4.22pm on Tuesday the group's share price was up 3.26% to R23.75.

"We have continued our aggressive promotions strategy and focused on the group's core strengths of quality‚ good value and innovative marketing to gain market share in the highly competitive family sit-down restaurant market‚" Spur CE Pierre van Tonder said.

Food retailers have generally reported healthier sales growth for the period than other retailers‚ many of whose trading updates disappointed the market.

Spur Corporation's update follows rival Famous Brands' report of record turnovers for many of its bigger brands last month.

Record turnovers for Steers‚ Debonairs Pizza‚ Wimpy‚ Mugg & Bean and Fishaways helped grow Famous Brands' sales across SA and the rest of Africa by 13.2% compared to December 2011.

Spur Corporation's restaurant turnover exceeded R2.4bn for the six month period‚ while sales from existing outlets were 12.8% higher.

Restaurant sales in SA increased by 16.5%‚ while sales in international operations were 26.4% higher in rand terms.

Spur's local sales increased by 16.5%‚ with turnover from existing restaurants up 13.7%.

"The strong growth was driven mainly by the continued success of the Spur family card loyalty programme‚ aggressive marketing and the momentum built in the breakfast market‚" the group said.

Panarottis grew local restaurant sales by 30.6% "as the brand benefited from a renewed focus on its core products of pizza and pasta"‚ while turnover from existing outlets increased by 19.7%.

Sales in John Dory's restaurants locally grew by 11.9% and by 9.7% in existing stores.

DoRego's‚ the value-oriented franchise takeaway chain that was acquired by the group with effect from March 1 last year‚ did not report a comparative sales performance due to its recent inclusion.

Van Tonder said retail sales figures from Statistics SA showed an increase of only 0.9% in October and 3.4% in November last year‚ highlighting the increasing pressure on consumer spending.

"It is therefore particularly pleasing to report such strong growth across our brands in this challenging environment and to continue to attract increasing volumes of customers‚" he said.

Spur Corporation also reported "robust" festive season trading‚ with restaurant turnover growing by 16.2% for the month of December.

In SA‚ Spur - which accounts for about 80% of total South African sales - increased turnover by 14.6%. Panarottis grew sales by 33.2% and John Dory's by 11.3%. International restaurant sales increased by 25.3%.