Domino’s delivers pie-high sales rise in 2014

Britain’s appetite for a Pepperoni Passion helped Domino’s to a strong 2014 as the pizza delivery firm reported a double-digit increase in sales.

Domino’s said investment in online ordering and additions to its menu also helped the company to increase revenue and profit in 2014 in its main UK business.

Like-for-like sales in the UK – when stripping out sales at stores open for less than 12 months – increased by 11.3% last year across 724 stores.

Sales continued to rise in the first eight weeks of 2015, up 9.5% on a like-for-like basis. Shares rose 7% to 740p.

Its chief executive, David Wild, said: “We look forward with continued optimism. We have a great brand and a strong plan; the year has started promisingly, but there are tough comparators to beat, so we will not get complacent and will continue to ensure Domino’s remains the No1 pizza brand in the UK.”

Domino’s – which is among the biggest zero-hours contract employers on the UK high street – served up more than 75m pizzas last year across the UK, Ireland, Germany and Switzerland.

Pepperoni is the best-selling pizza, but the company said it was also seeing strong sales of new side orders such as doughnuts.

Total sales increased by 14.6% to £766.6m in the year to 28 December, while pretax profit jumped to £53.8m from £21.6m.

The total dividend increased by 10.1% to 17.5p a share.

Domino’s said it was happy with its smaller operations in Ireland and Switzerland, where like-for-like sales were up 4.8% and 7.7% respectively in the first eight weeks of the year.

Sales were up just 0.1% in the same period in Germany, where Domino’s made a £7.3m loss in 2014.

Wild said: “In Germany, there remains much work to do, but underlying losses have reduced, in the second half and we remain optimistic about the opportunity in this market.”