Whitbread, which owns both Beefeater and Brewers Fayre, has announced plans to cut around 3,800 jobs in the UK as it transforms its restaurant operations into hotel-integrated dining as part of a £250 million cost-saving plan
Whitbread, the owner of Beefeater and Brewers Fayre, has unveiled plans to slash roughly 3,800 jobs in the UK and Ireland as part of a fresh five-year strategy aimed at achieving £250 million in cost savings and revamping its restaurants.
Premier Inn, also owned by Whitbread, is set for a massive overhaul of 197 restaurants, which will be supplanted with food and beverage offerings integrated within the hotels. The firm stated this approach was more efficient and favoured by hotel guests.
The Beefeater and Brewers Fayre chains are typically located in close proximity to the company’s Premier Inn hotels. The hospitality group expressed its intention to economise in response to cost pressures stemming from business rates and national insurance contributions.
Its new five-year blueprint includes an increased cost-saving target and measures to reduce capital expenditure by over £1billion.
Whitbread confirmed that the plans to trim its workforce of 30,000 are subject to employee consultation, and it anticipates retaining a significant number of those affected through redeployment.
Chief executive Dominic Paul said: “We always challenge ourselves to improve and, in light of significant cost increases in the form of business rates and national insurance, as well as the implied market discount to our inherent value, we’ve looked hard at the options open to us to maximise value creation over the medium and long-term.
“This has been a rigorous process and we’ve approached all options with an open mind. Our new five-year plan builds on our strengths and drives a significant acceleration of our strategy.”
Whitbread had issued a warning in January this year that it would incur an estimated £35million blow related to changes in business rates from the budget, marking a decrease from previous alerts.
The company embarked on a significant restructuring in 2024, resulting in approximately 1,500 job losses across the group.
At the time, Whitbread announced that it was scaling back its branded restaurant operations by around 200 sites in order to focus on expanding its hotel room capacity.