Supermarkets are taking a bigger slice of UK pizza night: Pizza night is shifting from the high street to the supermarket aisle, as UK shoppers increasingly opt for upmarket take-home options that promise a slice of Italy for less than the cost of a takeaway. The FT reports that sales of premium pizzas at supermarkets such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose rose in 2025, while long-standing UK chains – including Papa John’s and Pizza Hut – are shutting outlets and grappling with falling profits. The sharply diverging performance highlights how inflation, higher staffing costs and shifting consumer tastes are reshaping the market for one of the UK’s favourite foods. Restaurants were being “hammered on costs”, said Simon Stenning, founder of consultancy FutureFoodservice. “Consumers recognise that it is so expensive to eat out these days – and they are making a value decision to not go out, because they can get a very good pizza from the supermarket.” Supermarket executives and premium pizza makers say shifting tastes are being driven partly by a growing appetite for more authentic Italian flavours. Andrea Watson, pizza buyer at Waitrose, said customers wanted “to enjoy authentic pizzas which remind them of the ones they’ve eaten on holiday”. Crosta Mollica, which makes premium supermarket pizzas in Italy with local ingredients, said group sales had risen from £42mn in 2021 to £169mn in the year to August 2025. It is now the second-largest producer in the £1.8bn market for chilled take-home pizzas. David Milner, the company chair, said: “We could be three times the size we are now in five years’ time.” Meanwhile, Pizza Hut in October said it would close more than half of its almost 140 dine-in restaurants in the UK, while Papa John’s in August announced it had shut 74 of its more than 400 branches in the previous financial year. Some of the market share in the UK has been lost to new arrivals such as Yard Sale Pizza, Pizza Pilgrims and Rudy’s, which are all rapidly opening restaurants across the UK. Richard Chamberlain, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said the problem of falling sales at long-standing chains had been compounded by the increase in employer taxes such as national insurance. But he also pointed to changes in consumer habits. “We think this has, in part, been driven by healthy eating trends, as well as the increased popularity of cooking healthy food at home.”

Beds & Bars reports revenue and Ebitda decline: The pan-European hostel company Beds & Bars, led by Keith Knowles, has reported a revenue decline of 9.7% to £65.236m in the year to 30 March 2025, with its late-night venues impacted by “changing work patterns and more restrictive City regulations”. The company saw its Ebitda in the year fall to £3.95m (2024: £8.212m), while it posted a pre-tax loss of £849,448, versus a pre-tax profit of £3,048,348 the previous year. The company said: “Whilst our traditional pubs held up well, our late-night venues were impacted by changing work patterns and more restrictive City regulations. The night time economy is increasingly undervalued both in the UK and some European cities. Regulations and city taxes have a direct impact on our cost base which is increasingly difficult to pass on. Whilst operational costs were well controlled, fixed costs continued to rise both in the UK and Europe including mandatory wage increases, cleaning costs, business rates and CPI lease clauses. Our St Christoper’s branded hostels maintained sector leading occupancy levels, but we saw a decline in net bed rate particularly in the financial year. With over 4,000 beds across the UK and Europe this accounted for 80% of revenue decline.” It said that whilst its our large integrated units, for example combined St Christopher’s Inns hostels and Belushi’s branded bars still remained both profitable and cash generative on a unit trading basis, its leasehold units outside the city centres were more severely impacted where “rising fixed costs are more difficult to absorb”. It said: “We have been frustrated in our search for additional hostels. The European operators remained more financially buoyant as the EU governments supported hospitality business through covid with grants or low interest loans as opposed to the UK model of expensive short-term loans. With these changes in the revenue stream and pressures on our fixed costs it is inevitable that we have to look at our cost base and have implemented a restructure of both our operational model and our head office structure. The key is to keep the balance between costs and guest experience, and the evidence of guest feedback and ratings we are largely succeeding. It would be wrong not to note the impact of PE funded players in the market, who have built new hostels from scratch and need to fill prices low. We combat that by offering an unforgettable lifetime adventure experience across Europe. It has been a tough year and FY 2026 will see a further decline in earnings as we realign the cost base of the group.” The company said that it was examining exiting units to reduce debt built up during covid. It said: “We are fortunate to have assets to sell and the board is grateful to our sole UK bankers, HSBC, for their continued support and for the revised terms as the financial performance evolves.”

KFC franchisee FT Foods returns to positive Ebitda and narrows losses following turnaround in performance: KFC franchisee FT Foods, owned by Fazan Tahir, has reported a return to positive Ebitda following a turnaround in its performance that also saw its losses narrow. Sales fell to £38,547,931 for the year ending 31 March 2025 compared with £53,677,377 for the 15 months before. Ebitda was up to a positive £1,637,884 from negative £618,250 the previous 15 months. Pre-tax losses narrowed to £3,536,982 from £6,172,678 the 15 months before. In his report accompanying the accounts, Tahir said: “The business has recovered from the unprecedented economic challenges, some of which were fuelled by geopolitical issues during 2023 and continuing into early 2024. Supply chain inflation, substantial energy cost increases, employee cost increases driven by national minimum wage rates and significant hikes in interest rates all of which served to significantly damage the business model. Notwithstanding the challenges in 2023 and early 2024, I’m encouraged by the turnaround in business performance. Supply chain and energy cost deflation together with, in effect, less sales product discounting have significantly contributed towards strong Ebitda.” No dividend was paid (2024: nil). Tahir joined parent company Tahir Group in 1994 and he grew his KFC franchisee business “faster organically than any other franchisee-owned business in London”.