Next Propel Turnover & Profits Blue Book shows 789 largest sector companies turning over total of £56.9bn, up from £53.3bn last month: The next edition of the Propel Turnover & Profits Blue Book, which will be sent to Premium subscribers on Friday (10 November), shows 789 of the largest sector companies are turning over a total of £56.9bn – up from £53.3bn the previous month. A total of 536 companies are making a profit while 253 are making a loss. The profit being made by sector companies is now outstripping losses by £1.82bn. The Blue Book shows the total profit of the 789 companies in the list is £3,754,189,462 and losses are £1,935,831,027. The Blue Book is updated each month and ranks companies by turnover, profit and profit conversion, listing directors’ earnings for the past five years. For the first time, Propel group editor Mark Wingett has chosen the best videos from the Propel conferences in 2023, picking out a selection of talks and interviews that resonated with delegates from across the breadth of the hospitality sector. The 12 videos will be made available to Propel’s Premium subscribers at 9am on Friday, 24 November. Premium subscribers also receive access to five other databases: the Multi-Site Database, which is produced in association with Virgate; the New Openings Database; the UK Food and Beverage Franchisor Database; the Who’s Who of UK Food and Beverage; and the UK Food and Beverage Franchisee Database. Companies can now have an unlimited number of people receive access to Propel Premium for a year for £995 plus VAT – whether they are an operator or a supplier. The single subscription rate is £495 plus VAT for operators and £595 plus VAT for suppliers. Email kai.kirkman@propelinfo.com to upgrade your subscription. Premium subscribers are also being given exclusive access to the recording and slides to Propel Multi-Club Conferences. They also receive their morning newsletter 11 hours early, at 7pm the evening before; regular video content and regular exclusive columns from Mark Wingett.

Time Out Market reports pipeline of management agreements in advanced negotiations as division shows strong growth: Time Out has reported it has a pipeline of managed agreements in advanced negotiations for new Time Out Markets. It comes as net revenue in its markets division increased 48% to £42.8m for the year ending 30 June 2023 compared with £28.9m the previous year following a year of uninterrupted trading. Adjusted Ebitda was up 94% to £4.3m compared with £2.2m the year before. The company stated: “Despite macroeconomic headwinds, we have increased confidence in future growth and further traction as we continue to deliver against our ambitious plans, with first-quarter FY24 performance in line with management expectations. The year saw travel rebound and across our open sites, footfall from tourists continued to recover at a faster rate than footfall from office workers. We continue to carefully manage operating expenses to drive greater profitability, alongside implementing operational improvements and optimisations of our commercial model. Central costs increased as a strengthened team is working on growing the markets business, preparing for several upcoming openings and negotiating further new sites. As part of our focus to build a profitable portfolio, it was decided that the Miami site would close on 30 June 2023. Following the launch of the first market in Lisbon in 2014, the Miami site was the first to open as part of the global expansion in 2019 and underperformed post-pandemic, contributing a reported operating loss of £2.7m to the group result in FY23. The decision to exit resulted in exceptional costs of £7.1m comprising £6.7m of non-cash asset impairments, and £0.4m of provisions for future cash liabilities. In addition to our six existing markets (Lisbon, New York, Boston, Chicago, Montreal and Dubai – the latter two being management agreements), new sites are set to open in Cape Town on 17 November 2023 and in Porto in FY24 – in both sites top local chefs have been curated. In the year, we accelerated the signing of new markets and contracted five sites including in Cape Town, Vancouver, Riyadh, Barcelona and Bahrain. This takes the pipeline of new sites in development to nine. We have a pipeline of management agreements in advanced negotiations and expect to sign more in the year ahead as we continue to optimise our systematic approach to sourcing high-quality leads. In February 2023, we confirmed that we will not proceed with the development of the site at 106 Commercial Street in London – although recommended for approval by planning officers, the Tower Hamlets development committee chose to defer its decision on our application in 2022 after a process which had already taken several years. With an expectation of the process being drawn out by further delays we decided to no longer proceed with our application, which resulted in exceptional costs of £1.0m arising from the write-off of sunk pre-development costs – in order to focus our resources on other opportunities.” The current pipeline is: Cape Town (management agreement) – November 2023; Porto (owned and operated) – 2024; Barcelona (owned and 0perated) – 2024; Bahrain (management agreement) – 2024; Vancouver (management agreement) – 2024; Abu Dhabi (management agreement) – 2025; Prague (management agreement) – 2025; Osaka (management agreement) – 2025; Prague (management agreement) – 2027 and Riyadh (management agreement) – 2027. Group net revenue increased to £76.0m compared with £55.4m the previous year. Group adjusted Ebitda was up to £5.3m compared with £1.2m the year before. Group gross profit was up to £61.9m from £44.6m the previous year.

Wine production to hit 60-year low as extreme weather dents harvests: Global wine production is on track to hit a 60-year low after extreme weather hit grape harvests. Wine merchants warned of Malbec shortages following a report from the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV), which represents winemakers around the world. Poor harvests in the southern hemisphere and some crucial European regions mean the world’s wine output could fall to as low as 241.7 million hectolitres – its lowest point since 1961, the OIV said. The OIV highlighted losses of between 10% and 30% in Australia, Argentina, Chile, South Africa and Brazil in the southern hemisphere, reports The Telegraph. Grapes are extremely sensitive to temperature and season, which means that events such as snap frosts, floods or heat waves can be devastating. Southern Europe, for instance, was scorched by repeat heatwaves this summer, hitting the Italian harvest (but increasing the quality of the wine produced, according to producers). Miles Beale, chief executive of the Wine and Spirit Trade Association (WSTA), said: “There are definitely some regions where you’re going to see less wine coming from there on a permanent basis.” As well as extreme weather, winemakers have had to contend with supply chain disruption during the pandemic. In the Northern Hemisphere, Spain and Greece suffered the worst from bad weather. However, the OIV said Italian wine production could drop 12% to 44 million hectolitres, its lowest point since 2017. WineGB said despite soaring temperatures making the UK more suitable to growing grapes, Britain’s temperamental weather remained an obstacle for the industry.