Tortilla reported a transformational year on Monday with a 79.5% increase in revenue to a record £48.1m in 2021 compared to £26.8m in 2020 due to a strong performance across its venues as consumers begin to eat out again as restrictions ease.
In 2021, Tortilla saw an 80% increase in revenues after the Mexican fast-food chain reopened venues along with adding 7 new restaurants of which 3 were delivery-only despite 285 trading weeks being lost due to pandemic closures. The total number of venues for Tortilla is now 64.
LFL sales grew 23.8% compared to the pre-pandemic levels of 2019 for the group’s existing estates.
The group has launched new partnerships with Merlin Entertainments to open at Chessington World of Adventures and expanded its existing partnership with SSP to open two further sites at Gatwick Airport and Leeds Skelton Services.
Tortilla saw a pre-tax profit of £2.2m after seeing losses of £1.7m in 2020 as eases in restrictions helped the group’s profit bounce back.
The group’s adjusted EBITDA, pre-IFRS 16 increased 262.5% to £8.7m from £2.4m in 2020.
Tortilla’s business is highly cash generative, and benefits from a negative working capital cycle which helps fund new store openings from its capital. The group’s net debt position has been reversed from net debt of £2.3m in 2020 to net cash of £6.7m in 2021.
The group has a total revolving credit facility of £10m held with Santander out of which only £3m is drawn as of 2 January 2022.
For 2021, the board did not recommend a dividend and the capital generated at the moment will be used for the company’s growth.
Going into 2022, the company plans to open 7 more sites to sum up to 45 sites by the end of 2026 underpinning the board’s confidence. The group has already opened up 1 site in Q1 and one in April.
Four sites are already open for business, with plans to build at least ten more over the next five years, thanks to a successful franchise arrangement with the Compass Group.
The momentum from 2021 has continued in 2022 and YTD LFL growth is 20.1%, in line with expectations for the group.
Tortilla is well-positioned to handle any macroeconomic pressures with strong support from the brand, value-for-money proposition and flexible operating model.
Richard Morris, CEO of Tortilla said, “Capping off a transformational year for Tortilla, we are very pleased to announce a record financial performance for the group’s maiden Annual Results following its successful IPO in October 2021.”
“During the year we made excellent progress in delivery of our long-term growth strategy. We opened further sites in line with our UK roll out plans, expanded our delivery kitchen estate to fulfil growing customer demand, and both extended and launched franchise partnerships which introduced the Tortilla brand to even more customers across the UK.”
Tortilla shares were trading up 1.5% to 168p following the announcement of a strong performance in 2021.