Costa Coffee and Premier Inn parent Whitbread plans to raise prices to mitigate “substantial” National Living Wage costs

Picked up a coffee on your way into work this morning? You might find it starts costing a little bit more in future. 

 

Costa Coffee and Premier Inn parent group Whitbread has warned that it will be forced to introduce "some selective price increases" across the business as part of measures to tackle rising costs caused by the National Living Wage (NLW) today. 

 

The firm, which revealed that total sales had risen 11.1 per cent for the 24 weeks to 13 August this morning, said it was "developing plans" around the NLW, which would lead to a "substantial cost increase over time". 

 

The business, which also owns Beefeater and Brewers Fayre, said it would "mitigate" these costs through a combination of measures including "productivity improvements, boosted by investment in systems and training, efficiency savings and some selective price increases.

 

"We shall announce more details of our plans with our interim results on 20 October 2015", the firm added.