City F&B sales grow beyond pre-Covid levels

Out-of-home food and drink sales are growing across all of Britain's 10 biggest city centres with the return of workers and tourists, according to new research from CGA by NielsenIQ and Wireless Social. 

The joint 'Top Cities' report combines CGA's sales data with device login data from Wireless Social, providing a 'vibrancy' ranking of the nation's most populous cities over the four weeks to 4 June 2022. 

Sales during this period were between 1% and 13%, higher than in the corresponding four-week period in 2019 in each participating city – the first time that all 10 have been in growth since the report's inception at the start of this year. 

Glasgow tops the most vibrant cities ranking, ahead of Bristol and Manchester, while Edinburgh moves up four places to fourth. London, where workers and tourists have been slow to return after Covid-19 restrictions eased, grew its sales for the first time since the start of the pandemic. The capital saw its best performance for log-ins, climbing from 6th to 4th place for this metric, likely due to the impact of the Jubilee period from Thursday 2 June to Saturday 4 June. 

However, log-ins remain down in all 10 cities compared to 2019, indicating that growth is being driven by higher spend-per-visit rather than footfall. Cities dropping down the rankings in the latest four-week period include Birmingham and Liverpool.

Britain's 10 biggest cities, ranked by vibrancy
Rankings for the four weeks to 4 June 2022. Numbers in brackets indicate position for previous four weeks to 7 May 2022.

1. Glasgow (2)
2. Bristol (1)
3. Manchester (4)
4. Edinburgh (8)
5. Leicester (5)
6. Birmingham (3)
7. Leeds (7)
8. Liverpool (6)
9. London (10)
10. Sheffield (9)

"Restaurants, pubs and bars have been instrumental in the revoval of Britain's cities since the end of lockdowns, and it is pleasing to see them in growth in all 10 of the biggest centres," says Chris Jeffrey, client director at CGA. 

"The slow but steady recovery of sales in London is particularly encouraging, and we can expect it to continue tracing back towards its pre-Covid-19 vibrancy over the summer. However, city-centre footfall clearly remains some way short of the levels of 2019, and high inflation is making it hard for businesses to achieve growth in real terms. As cost pressures squeeze consumers' spending, we can expect some challenging trading conditions as we move into the second half of 2022."

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