Turtle Bay reports £10m loss in year before being bought back by founder, impacted by Labour's ‘unhelpful raid on employers' national insurance’: Turtle Bay, the 50-strong Caribbean restaurant brand, posted a pre-tax loss of £10.1m in the year to 30 March 2025 versus a £1.8m profit in the previous 12 months, which it said was impacted in part by the government’s “unhelpful raid on employers’ national insurance”. The company, which was bought back by founder Ajith Jayawickrema last May, reported that turnover for the period fell to £84,308,860 (2024: £93,657,953), while its adjusted Ebitda declined to £3.8m (2024: £9m). During the year, Turtle Bay closed three loss-making sites while it downgraded the value of its portfolio, recognising an impairment charge of £5.4m and an increase to the onerous lease provision of £900,000. Jayawickrema said: “To date, the new Labour government has been unhelpful with their raid on employers' national insurance. Our sector has been one of the worst impacted by the change. That said, we remain supportive and hope this imbalance is readdressed by the chancellor in the next budget by permanent lower business rates for the high street. With these headwinds, our results this year are lower than we expected. We remain ahead of our pre-pandemic sales, something many are not. Given the performance, we took the hard decision to close three loss making sites. This decision, together with the current trading climate in some regions, has resulted in us downgrading the value of our portfolio, recognising an impairment charge of £5.4m and an increase to the onerous lease provision of £900,000. These two non-cash exceptional items have lowered our loss before tax to £10.2m (2024: £1.9m profit). Cash generation has been good. The company had £2.5m in the bank at the balance sheet date and has funded a £4.2m capital investment plan by drawing down £3.6m on its credit facility. Net debt at year end was therefore only £1.5m and the company has access to an additional £4.4m undrawn bank facility, providing total liquidity of £6.5m. Our capital investment programme has seen five stunning refurbishments, and we opened one new site in October 2024, Chester. The largest refurbishment this year occurred in late March 2025, when we launched a new concept in Chelmsford. The style and vibe take us back to our roots, appealing to a wider guest base and introduces breakfast as a new day part to generate returns. We have identified further sites to rollout this concept and are already embedding some of the operational learnings into the rest of the estate. We remain in an extremely tough economic environment, but the gloom in the UK will lift. As they say in the islands, ‘storms don’t last forever’.”

Premium readers to receive 18 videos featuring outstanding brands: Propel’s Premium subscription holders are to receive 18 videos that feature outstanding emerging UK brands, which have featured in the Propel Multi Club Conference “Ones to Watch” section in the last two years. They will be sent on Friday, 25 January at 9am. The brands featured, with their full presentation videos and slides, are: The Salad Project, Knoops, Bubba Oasis, Atis, Beefy Boys; Treetop Golf, The After School Cookie Club; Bubala, Nell’s, Sandwich Sandwich, Sourdough Sophia, Insomnia Cookies UK, Imbiba, Heriots Patisserie and Bear. Premium Club subscribers receive videos of presentations from eight Propel conference events each year – sent two weeks after they are held. This represents around 100 videos of industry insight over the course of the year. A Premium Club subscription costs an annual sum of £495 plus VAT for operators and £595 plus VAT for suppliers. Companies can now have an unlimited number of people receive access to Premium Club for a year for £995 plus VAT – whether they are an operator or supplier. Email kai.kirkman@propelinfo.com today to sign up.

More than 5,000 pubs facing sharp business rate hikes: Business rates will double for thousands of pub owners, MPs have been told. The Telegraph reports that about 5,000 pubs will be affected by the government’s latest reforms, with one in eight publicans in England and Wales facing a rate rise of at least 100%, according to Jonathan Russell, chief executive of the Valuation Office Agency (VOA). The increase, announced during a hearing of the Treasury select committee, will add tens of thousands of pounds to the outlay for pubs and is far worse than previously expected. “Some of them will have gone up in the region of – doubling,” Russell told MPs. “About 13% will have seen their valuation doubled. It’s about 5,100 pubs which will have seen their rateable value doubled.” He said that pubs have seen valuations jump by an average of 32% but stressed that around 15% have seen their valuations fall. Russell said: “There has been an increase but if you go back to the 2017 list, the rateable change between the 2017 list and 2026 list is about 8%. There was an obvious blip linked to covid, which had an impact on trade and rentable evidence, so that had an impact on valuations.” UKHospitality, an industry body, had warned that the typical pub faces a 15% increase in its rates bill next year, amounting to £7,000 extra per year by 2028-29. Russell said the VOA came to its conclusions by looking at evidence received from pubs about how much rent their building can attract. They also took into account profits from the sale of food and drink and from letting out rooms. Russell told MPs: “We made it very clear that there are changes in rateable value because of the work we are doing.” This contradicted Peter Kyle, the business secretary, who said on Monday that the government “didn’t have access” to information about the revaluation before making the decision to raise business rates.

Greene King testing new technology through two ‘innovation pubs’: Brewer and retailer Greene King has said it is putting the latest technology to the test in real-life pub environments through two “innovation pubs” to measure its effectiveness on customers, teams and operational excellence, as well as its money-saving potential. The company said that teams at two of its managed pubs in Leicestershire, the Charnwood Arms and the Two Steeples, have been working with the latest equipment and gadgets over the past eight months, with further tech to be put to the test in-pub during this year. It said cooking, cleaning and communication tools are among innovative kit being trialled in day-to-day pub operations by team members and customers. This is part of Greene King’s new ‘innovation pub’ scheme, a programme designed to test a wide range of new products and smart technology to explore efficiencies across the business. State-of-the-art fryers, grills and extraction equipment, intelligent dispense cellar equipment, team headsets, camera monitoring and cordless backpack vacuum cleaners are among new technology and equipment being trialled. Digitalising administration tasks to reduce paperwork, AI food waste capture technology, AI gantries and smart vending are also under the microscope. Further trials are also underway with AI-camera technology which has enhanced existing pub cameras, allowing for remote monitoring of CCTV footage. The company said there will be a wider rollout of the initiatives dependent on the learnings at the two innovation pubs. Greene King’s chief operating officer Clair Preston-Beer, said: “Operational savings give us the opportunity to invest further in our pubs and our people. Unlocking the potential of AI and innovation will enhance service levels, customer and team member satisfaction. We are seeing cost savings through, for example, reduced energy usage, less travel costs with more AI and digital information management, and we can use our cooking oil for longer – all this without affecting quality or service.”