Coffee shop chains UK

Which one do you prefer? (Picture: Alamy/Metro)

In the UK, we spent £7.9 billion on coffee from the high street in 2015.

That’s a whole lotta latte.

UK coffee sales have also grown by 10 per cent in the last year, showing our appetite for caffeine shows no sign of waning.

The number of UK coffee shops is now estimated to be around 20, 728, according to the Allegra World Coffee Portal.

The market leader is Costa Coffee, which sold 169 million cups last year from its 1, 992 outlets. The chain opened 171 new shops and grew profits by 15 per cent in 2015.

The nation’s favourite (Picture: Instagram)

Costa has also, for the sixth year in a row, been voted the nation’s favourite chain by Allegra’s independent panel of consumers – ahead of Caffè Nero and Starbucks, who have 620 and 849 UK outlets respectively.

Costa, Starbucks and Caffè Nero remain the UK’s leading coffee chains, with a 53 per cent share of the branded chain market, worth £3.3bn last year.

Pret a Manger, meanwhile, now has 302 outlets in the UK. In April, it reported a 14 per cent rise in profits from sandwich and coffee sales year on year.

On top of that, the non-specialist sector (i.e. pubs, fast food outlets and supermarkets) has also started to focus on coffee as a way of drawing customers in, increasing its share by a further 2 per cent to 39 per cent, vs. branded chains with 32 per cent share and independents with 30 per cent share.

Who has all the coffee shops?

849Caffe Nero481Morrisons302

Supermarkets added another 322 coffee shops and cafés in total, largely driven by Morrisons who opened a further 270 cafés to reach 398, making it second to Tesco in the sector, with 481 coffee shops and cafés.

Morrisons do cafes now too (Picture: Morrisons)

‘Britain is becoming a nation of coffee connoisseurs. Coffee is becoming like wine – people want to learn how to taste it, where it’s from, how its made, ’ said Jeffrey Young, MD of the Allegra Group. ‘The thirst and the desire to have better quality coffee is growing.’

By 2025 Allegra predicts there will be in excess of 30, 000 coffee outlets across the UK, bringing in annual turnover of £15 billion, driven by the expansion of branded coffee shops and increasing interest from the non-specialist market.