Venues, e-commerce and wholesale yield strong 2023 sales for London’s Grind

Grind currently operates London cafés and casual dining sites across London | Photo credit: Toa Heftiba

UK specialty coffee roaster and hospitality group Grind is trading above pre-pandemic levels following strong sales growth across all operating segments last year. 
 

Grind Holdings reported 28% sales growth in the 12 months ending 30 April 2023 to reach £21.7m ($27.2m), with revenues split approximately 50-50 between its 11 London cafés and e-commerce, direct-to-consumer and wholesale channels. 

Turnover is also now 79% above Grind’s £12.1m ($15.2m) sales for the 12 months ending 30 April 2020. 

Despite rail industrial action in London hampering footfall in mid-2022, Grind’s outlets achieved 25% sales growth during the period, with the business opening new stores at St Pancras International rail station and Canary Wharf’s Market Halls food court. Grind also ‘bucked the trend of many DTC businesses’ by increasing online sales last year, the business added in a Companies House filing. 

However, the boutique coffee shop, bar and casual dining group posted an EBITDA loss of £3.8m ($4.8m) for the year, which it attributed to a £3.8m ($4.8m) investment in marketing. 

Marketing expenditure included promoting its packaged retail coffee partnership with premium UK supermarket chain Waitrose and entry into the UK ready-to-drink (RTD) coffee market with the March 2023 acquisition of Bottleshot Coffee. 

Grind, founded by David Abrahamovitch in 2010, closed a £15m ($18.8m) funding round in March 2023 which valued the business at £70m ($88m).  

In December 2023, Grind announced it was seeking franchise partners across the Middle East, with Abrahamovitch saying the region represented ‘the next major frontier’ for the boutique coffee group.