Dobbies Garden Centre Group Limited yesterday (30th November 2019) filed the Annual Report and Financial Statements for The Group and its subsidiaries.  These accounts are for the 12 months to 24 February 2019.

• Sales increased 12% on prior year to £166m
• Like-for-like sales increased 5%
• Underlying operating profit increased 35%
• Six new centres added and two non-core stores exited
• Dobbies has doubled the size of the business by store numbers and sales in the last twelve months

In the year Dobbies acquired six new and disposed of two non-core garden centres. Acquisition and associated restructuring costs amounted to £3.3m and are considered non-recurring to the operations of the business.

In recent months (after this reporting period) Dobbies acquired an additional 31 garden centres from Wyevale Garden Centres, bringing the estate to 69 stores becoming the largest garden centre group in the United Kingdom with underlying sales of approximately £300m, now double when the business was acquired in 2016.

Like-for-like store sales have performed strongly with an increase of 5% in LFL sales in the year and an increase in customer basket size of 6%. Performance was particularly strong in Plants & Gardening , as well as in the Food Halls

Chairman, Andrew Bracey said:

“We are delighted with the continued strong performance with overall sales up 12% and like-for-like sales up 5%.  We are also very encouraged by the progress made in our newly-acquired garden centres.

The integration of the new centres is moving at pace and we look forward to providing market leading garden centres for our customers across the length and breadth of the country.”

Chief Executive Officer, Graeme Jenkins said:

“Dobbies has delivered a strong performance this year, as we continue to differentiate our retail and hospitality offerings with customers at the centre of everything we do.

“Our trading performance is testament to the hard work of the team and we are well positioned to enjoy a successful Christmas season. We are continuing to invest across the estate to ensure our customers enjoy the best shopping experience we can offer at every Dobbies garden centre.”

On a wet Monday in Edinburgh last Monday, Graeme told told GTN Xtra that the new centres: "We're getting the footfall back, we're getting the customer engagement. We're doing customer listening groups as we always do and you can see those incremental investments will just drive serious footfall."

"It's as much about shopping as it is about social, it's day out and something different.  We're getting more people in and more are spending and spending is increasing."

See GTN Xtra's photo tour of Dobbies Edinburgh from last week below and read the full interview with Graeme Jankins in the next issue of Garden Trade News.