Raining cash for Domino's: Clouds have silver lining for pizza giant - Mirror.co.uk

Unlike most firms, Domino's welcomes rain because it keeps people in their homes where they can order pizza deliveries.

Rain, sport and the Queen's Jubilee saw pre-tax profit at the fast-food company rise 13.2% to £21.5million in the six months to June 24.

Domino Food Group's chief financial officer Lee Ginsberg said: "We must be among the few people every day who come in and do rain dances."

He added that the company, which operates the British, Irish and German franchises of global brand Domino's, had benefited from the Euro 2012 football championship and from the launch of new products. These included stuffed pizza crusts containing cheese or barbecue sauce.

Like-for-like sales from established franchises rose more than 5%. UK like-for-like sales increased 5.7% while sales in Ireland increased 2.9%.

Domino said it had opened 23 outlets and closed one, giving it a total of 748 shops.

It plans to open 60 new UK and 12 new German outlets by the end of the year.

The company said it had created more than 600 jobs, with the figure expected to rise to nearly 2,000 by the end of the year.

Domino described German trading as "encouraging" and said it opened four outlets there during the first half of its trading year.

It expects its German business to grow to twice the size of its UK operation and become profitable in 2015.

Total sales rose 11% to £286.9m with orders made online – including on mobiles – accounting for just over half of that.

Looking ahead, chief executive Lance ­Batchelor said: "Trading since the half-year end has continued in line with our expectations.

"While the consumer backdrop remains tough we are confident about the future and our expectations for the year as a whole remain unchanged."