Factory shops boost butcher Crawshaw's sales

The performance was underpinned by the strength of the growing factory shop format, including one at Dudley Street, West Bromwich, which helped to offset the impact of lower footfall on the high street.

Group sales in the week leading up to Christmas reached a record £1.8 million and almost 3,500 meat hampers sold.

It opened two more new factory shop units in the 15 weeks to complete the five planned for 2017 taking the total to 10 factory shops within the 54-shop estate.

The factory shops accounting for a quarter of group sales in the period.

A partnership with the Birmingham-based 2Sisters Food Group is progressing well with core poultry supply routes well established and a framework for successful new product category tests landing over the festive period.

Crawshaw is looking to expand this type of activity to increase the basket spend of existing customers and to attract new customers.

Chief executive Noel Collett said: "On balance, this was a solid core Christmas trading performance against what remains a very tough high street environment. Our biggest ever Christmas week and the record number of meat hampers sold clearly demonstrates the trust our customers place in us for their most important meat spend of the year. This gives us a solid platform to improve trading momentum going into 2018.

"We continue to focus on strengthening Crawshaws' position as the country's best value butcher. We are excited by the performance of our factory shops and by the progress of our 2Sisters supply agreement and, while there is much to do, we remain confident that this combination will be transformational for the long-term growth of the company."

The opening of the 2.600 sq ft factory shop in West Bromwich in June 2016 created 20 jobs. It represented a £250,000 investment and formed part of a wider £200m strategy to open 200 stores and create 2,500 jobs by 2022.