https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65375395
Prezzo to close a third of its restaurants as bills rise
Published
23 hours ago
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Stock image of someone putting toppings on a pizza
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
By Michael Race
Business reporter, BBC News
Italian restaurant chain Prezzo will shut a third of its restaurants
after being hit by rising costs for pizza and pasta ingredients and energy.
The group said closing the 46 loss-making sites will put 810 staff at
risk of redundancy.
It said its utility bills had more than doubled in the past year along
with sharp rises in costs for dough balls, pizza sauce, mozzarella and >spaghetti.
The cuts will affect sites with footfall still below pre-Covid levels.
Prezzo said it would keep its restaurants in busier shopping areas, such
as retail parks and tourist destinations.
Covid restrictions at the height of the pandemic forced many hospitality >businesses to shut their doors and furlough staff. The financial
recovery for thousands of pubs, bars, restaurants and other venues has
since been hampered by rising costs, especially for energy.
Frankie and Benny's owner to close 35 more restaurants
Prezzo, which went into administration in late 2020 before being bought
by private equity firm Cain International, said the cuts affected
restaurants where "the post-Covid recovery has proved harder than we had >hoped".
Staff were informed about the closures on Monday morning and the chain
said it would work to redeploy "as many staff internally as possible".
"The last three years have been some of the hardest times I have ever
seen for the High Street," said Dean Challenger, chief executive of Prezzo.
"The reality is that the cost-of-living crisis, the changing face of the
high street and soaring inflation has made it impossible to keep all our >restaurants operating profitably," he added.
As well as energy bills, Prezzo said its "core ingredients" had soared,
with dough ball costs rising 15%, pizza sauce shooting up 28% and
spaghetti jumping 40%.
The company added "double-digit wage inflation" had also hit its finances.
Mr Dean said the "tough decisions" had been made to "ensure Prezzo can >continue serving communities with high-quality, accessible
Italian-inspired meals for many more years to come".
Other restaurant chains have announced cuts due to the impact of the
pandemic and inflation, with the owner of Frankie and Benny's and
Chiquito closing 35 restaurants in March on top of previous closures in
2020.
Zizzi, Ask Italian, Pizza Express and Pizza Hut have also closed sites
in recent years, while Prezzo announced it would shut 94 restaurants in
2018.
The 46 new Prezzo restaurants closing are:
Beccles
Billericay
Bolton
Borehamwood
Boston
Bracknell
Brentwood
Buckhurst Hill
Buckingham
Chichester
Chingford
Colchester
Corby
Didcot
Eastbourne
Egham
Eltham
Ely
Epsom
Fleet
Glasgow, St Vincent Place
Hailsham
Harpenden
Livingston
Lyndhurst
Maidstone
Mere Green
Mill Hill
Oxford
Plymouth
Redditch
Redhill
Rugby
Shepperton
Shirley
Sidcup
St Neots
Stowmarket
Tenterden
Tunbridge Wells
Weybridge
Whitstable
Wickford
Wimborne
Winchester
Woodford Green
Michael Ejercito wrote:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65375395
Prezzo to close a third of its restaurants as bills rise
Published
23 hours ago
comments
Comments
Share
Stock image of someone putting toppings on a pizza
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
By Michael Race
Business reporter, BBC News
Italian restaurant chain Prezzo will shut a third of its restaurants
after being hit by rising costs for pizza and pasta ingredients and energy. >>
The group said closing the 46 loss-making sites will put 810 staff at
risk of redundancy.
It said its utility bills had more than doubled in the past year along
with sharp rises in costs for dough balls, pizza sauce, mozzarella and
spaghetti.
The cuts will affect sites with footfall still below pre-Covid levels.
Prezzo said it would keep its restaurants in busier shopping areas, such
as retail parks and tourist destinations.
Covid restrictions at the height of the pandemic forced many hospitality
businesses to shut their doors and furlough staff. The financial
recovery for thousands of pubs, bars, restaurants and other venues has
since been hampered by rising costs, especially for energy.
Frankie and Benny's owner to close 35 more restaurants
Prezzo, which went into administration in late 2020 before being bought
by private equity firm Cain International, said the cuts affected
restaurants where "the post-Covid recovery has proved harder than we had
hoped".
Staff were informed about the closures on Monday morning and the chain
said it would work to redeploy "as many staff internally as possible".
"The last three years have been some of the hardest times I have ever
seen for the High Street," said Dean Challenger, chief executive of Prezzo. >>
"The reality is that the cost-of-living crisis, the changing face of the
high street and soaring inflation has made it impossible to keep all our
restaurants operating profitably," he added.
As well as energy bills, Prezzo said its "core ingredients" had soared,
with dough ball costs rising 15%, pizza sauce shooting up 28% and
spaghetti jumping 40%.
The company added "double-digit wage inflation" had also hit its finances. >>
Mr Dean said the "tough decisions" had been made to "ensure Prezzo can
continue serving communities with high-quality, accessible
Italian-inspired meals for many more years to come".
Other restaurant chains have announced cuts due to the impact of the
pandemic and inflation, with the owner of Frankie and Benny's and
Chiquito closing 35 restaurants in March on top of previous closures in
2020.
Zizzi, Ask Italian, Pizza Express and Pizza Hut have also closed sites
in recent years, while Prezzo announced it would shut 94 restaurants in
2018.
The 46 new Prezzo restaurants closing are:
Beccles
Billericay
Bolton
Borehamwood
Boston
Bracknell
Brentwood
Buckhurst Hill
Buckingham
Chichester
Chingford
Colchester
Corby
Didcot
Eastbourne
Egham
Eltham
Ely
Epsom
Fleet
Glasgow, St Vincent Place
Hailsham
Harpenden
Livingston
Lyndhurst
Maidstone
Mere Green
Mill Hill
Oxford
Plymouth
Redditch
Redhill
Rugby
Shepperton
Shirley
Sidcup
St Neots
Stowmarket
Tenterden
Tunbridge Wells
Weybridge
Whitstable
Wickford
Wimborne
Winchester
Woodford Green
In the interim, we are 100% prepared/protected in the "full armor of
GOD" (Ephesians 6:11) which we put on as soon as we use
Apostle Paul's secret (http://bit.ly/Philippians4_12 ). Though masking
is less protective, it helps us avoid the appearance of doing the evil
of spreading airborne pathogens while there are people getting sick
because of not being 100% protected. It is written that we're to
"abstain from **all** appearance of doing evil" (1 Thessalonians 5:22 w/**emphasis**).
Source:
https://biblehub.com/1_thessalonians/5-22.htm
Meanwhile, the only *perfect* (Matt 5:47-8) way to eradicate the
COVID-19 virus, thereby saving lives, in the UK & elsewhere is by
rapidly ( http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 ) finding out at any given
moment, including even while on-line, who among us are unwittingly
contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic) in order to http://WDJW.great-site.net/ConvinceItForward (John 15:12) for them to
call their doctor and self-quarantine per their doctor in hopes of
stopping this pandemic. Thus, we're hoping for the best while
preparing for the worse-case scenario of the Alpha lineage mutations
and others like the Omicron, Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota, Lambda, Mu &
Delta lineage mutations combining via slip-RNA-replication to form
hybrids like http://tinyurl.com/Deltamicron that may render current
COVID vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no longer effective.
Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest
) and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
So how are you ?
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