Exclusive – Snowfox Group sales up 60% in first seven months of 2022, remains on track for a further uplift in Ebitda profits for financial year: Snowfox Group, which owns the YO!, Taiko and Bento brands, has reported sales growth of 60% in the first seven months of 2022 and says it remains on track for a further uplift in Ebitda profits for the financial year. The growth, in the seven months ending 30 June 2022, took revenue for the period to £182.7m. The period also saw the opening of 124 further sushi kiosks, supported by the rollout of 76 UK sites in partnership with Tesco and Asda. One new restaurant has also opened in the UK, with another scheduled to open in FY22, and further selected openings “remain under consideration”. The group said it has also opened an additional commissary location in Los Angeles and expanded its existing UK commissary “to meet increased demand from existing and new customers”. In the UK, it has expanded its relationship with Waitrose and started a new one with Lidl, while in the US, it has grown its partnership with Costco. This follows the group reporting record sales of £197,263,000 in the year ending 28 November 2021 (2020: £134,289,000), up 47% on 2020, with group adjusted Ebitda doubling to £34,448,000 in the period, up from £17,073,000m the previous year. It sold 60 million trays of sushi in the period and now operates almost 6,000 distribution points across the US, Canada and UK, with 75% of its group system sales now coming from North America. The group’s franchised kiosks (US and Canada) recorded like for like sales growth of 33%, while its owned corporate kiosks (UK and Canada) saw like for like sales increase 25%. During the year, the group achieved a net opening of 381 sushi kiosks with its retail partners, taking the total number operated to circa 2,200. The group’s sushi commissary business also strengthened current partnerships and successfully established several new ones. It added Tesco, Co-op and WHSmith during the period and built on its relationships with the likes of Asda, Costco, and David Lloyd. The group’s restaurant business began the period with an estate of 52 sites and successfully delivered an improved Ebitda margin per restaurant. Richard Hodgson, chief executive of the Snowfox Group, said:  “We continue to see increasing demand for the freshest, most affordable and convenient Japanese food at scale. This has supported Snowfox Group’s continued growth, record revenue and now Ebitda in 2021, and established the group as an international diversified and market-leading Japanese food business. The strength of our offer is borne out by our long-standing and trusted partnerships with some of the world’s leading retailers. They turn to us for our expertise, scale and unrivalled ability to provide a one-stop sushi solution. It is our high-quality products and services which provide retailers with a key point of differentiation and enable them to fulfil growing consumer demand for sushi in the US, UK and Canada. We are encouraged to have achieved considerable sales growth of 60% in the first seven months of the new financial year. Looking ahead, I am confident in the future growth opportunities for the group – across kiosks, pre-packaged and restaurants. We are a clear leader within a large and growing market, and we are ideally placed to respond to those prevailing consumer trends which are driving the appeal of sushi – namely health, convenience and the growing adoption of international cuisine.” The group has access to a £5m revolving credit facility, which is says is deemed sufficient to meet its cashflow needs during 2022.