Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) group owned Harvester and Toby Carvery reported yet another leap in sales as more customers approved of higher-priced meals. M&B group hailed bountiful gains this Christmas.

The group, which serves close to 430 million drinks each year in addition to 125 million meals, is believed to have seen a growth of 6.7% from their like-for-like sales, the significant 12-day Christmas trading period, between December 23 and January 3 alone.

The shivering weather has set off a growth of 2.5% in the company’s most recent period of trading until January 22 for about nine weeks. The benefit, as told by the group, was mostly a from food sale which was up by 5.5% as compared to the demand for drinks with just 0.5% up. The company termed this improvement as food-driven growth.

The group is mulling over expansion policy with a strategic focus of food sales as in March with further investments in its six mid-market eatery sections, including Harvester, Toby Carvery, Crown Carveries and Sizzling Pub Co. The group has estimated that most profits about two-thirds of the total sales are related to food occasion and the food sale accounts for about 47% of the company’s sales.

In-restaurant pubs have been lucrative portion of the industry since recession impacted the drinking market, the government imposed ban on smoking and increase in alcohol duty have been. As a part of their expansion policy, Mitchells is also set to open 50 more new sites across its range of brands form conversion of its 70 existing estates.