Trading Statement
Key points
· Total sales for the period which includes Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and Easter increased by 4.0% to £60.6 million compared to the same period last year.
· Thorntons branded UK Commercial sales grew by 10.0% to £27.4 million with good growth across all three seasons. Thorntons' share of the Total Boxed Chocolate market increased from 11.7% to 12.2% in the last 52 weeks and its share of the Inlaid Boxed Chocolate market increased from 32.9% to 35.6%*. Sales of Easter specialities grew by 23.5% and Easter market share grew to 4.7% from 4.0% last year**.
· Own Stores like for like sales grew by 0.2% with growth during each of the three key seasons. Total sales were down 4.1% to £26.0 million as a further 9 stores were closed in the quarter, in line with the strategy, resulting in 24 fewer stores than a year ago.
· Franchise sales declined by £0.6 million to £2.2 million as expected, mainly reflecting the placing into administration of our major franchisee in May 2012.
· Thorntons Direct sales decreased by 4.6% to £2.2 million with the Consumer Direct business delivering growth at Easter as improvements from the new website began to feed through.
· Private label sales increased to £1.7 million.
· International sales grew by 30.8% to £1.1 million.
* Nielsen: Total Boxed Chocolates & Inlaid Boxed Chocolates 52 weeks to week ending 30th March 2013
** Nielsen: Easter Specialities 14 weeks to week ending 6th April 2013