Procook sales surge as young Brits get taste for dinner parties
Procook has toasted surging sales as the kitchenware retailer cashed in on young Brits’ growing appetite for hosting dinner parties.
The London-listed firm posted sales of £85.5m for the year to end March, a rise of just under a quarter on the previous year and ahead of market expectations of £83.5m, after demand outperformed the wider market.
The Gloucestershire-based business opened three new stores in its most recent quarter, taking total net store openings in the year to 12.
“Are customers eating more at home? I think probably,” chief financial officer Dan Walden told City PM.
“We all know that restaurants and the pub sector are challenging, and I think the other thing that is fairly evident from market research that we do is that younger generations are cooking more at home and they’re entertaining more at home, that’s certainly more of a thing.
“And equally when disposable income becomes more challenging, which it is currently for younger people, then buying things that last and buying things that are sustainable is also a factor.”
Procook shrugs off retail challenges
Procook’s performance has defied wider retail gloom, with the stock up by around a quarter over the past year.
“The strategy and the tactics are on point, and we expect further market share gains ahead,” said analysts at broker Peel Hunt.
“The valuation on anything resembling historic margins makes the shares look very cheap.
“Today’s statement may not be the moment where the shares break free: no retail updates are really doing that right now, but in our view the value is certainly there.”
Key to the retailer’s success has been a new-look store design being rolled out across its dozens of sites, with a friendly, more homely feel, as well as a refresh of the cookware range to suit modern tastes.
“We’ve got oak surfaces, we’ve got kitchen tiles, we’ve got big dining room style lighting coming down from the ceiling. It feels a lot softer – it’s much more appealing to a female customer which incidentally are most of our customers,” Walden said.
“What we’re seeing is more people are trading up and we’re seeing more people investing in the higher performance items.
“The other trend we’re seeing is a lot more colour, so we’ve responded to that and brought in more colour ranges.”