Linens company Johnson Service Group said that, while the UK hospitality sector rebounded from Covid-19 in 2022, there’s still room to grow to reach pre-pandemic levels of activity.
The business - which provides linen services to the hotel, restaurant, catering and hospitality sectors - revealed revenue was up by 42.1% to £385.7 million in 2022, as its customers recovered from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, CEO Peter Egan said there was still room for the hospitality sector to grow.
“It seems like a long time ago but we had the Omicron impact in early 2022,” he said. “Once we got past Omicron, it has been strong, but not quite 2019.”
However, Egan cautioned against using 2019 as the only barometer for normal trading, given the amount of time that has passed.
“2019 is almost a stick in the ground that’s too far in the past,” he said. “Our confidence levels are high.
“Hospitality from a domestic point of view, from an international point of view, from a business point of view, is doing very well.”
Profit, meanwhile, was up by 54.4% year-on-year to £107.9 million, despite “high inflationary pressures” on JSG’s expenses, especially in energy costs.
Egan said JSG mitigated these costs through a number of different strategies, including forward purchasing, efficiency improvements and price increases.
“In the past we have been forward purchasing on energy,” he said. “Some of the rising energy costs were offset with efficiencies internally, investing in more energy efficient equipment, and some of that was offset by price increases with our customers.
“It has begun to turn, but it’ll take time to come fully down.”
After the year-end, JSG announced the acquisition of Regency Laundry Ltd for £5.75m. This, the company said, would allow JSG to enter the market of linens for high-end hotels, rather than its current core clientele of mid-range hospitality businesses.
