Insider Media Limited

Chocolatier Thorntons has entered 2012 to further misery as both own-store and franchise sales dropped over the Christmas period. Despite selling "more chocolate in the quarter than ever before", the Alfreton retailer's results were below expectations after being hit by heavy discounting and store closures.

The company announced its results as it was revealed Michael Killick would join the board next month, taking on the roles of finance director and director of the company when Mark Robson steps down.

Most recently, Killick acted as interim chief financial officer at a private equity-owned healthcare business. Prior to that he spent 11 years with The Peacock Group, latterly as chief financial officer.

For the 14 weeks to 7 January, Thorntons' own-store sales declined by 6.8 per cent to £44.9m. Thorntons attributed the fall to "a combination of store closures and a continuing tough retail environment".

In June 2011, the company announced it would shut up to 180 of its UK outlets over the next three years in a bid to save cash.

Franchise sales also took a hit over the last 14 weeks, declining at a rate of 17.5 per cent to £4.1m. Franchisees "remained cautious" resulting in a significant degree of destocking versus last year, said Thorntons.

However, the company's commercial sales experienced a 16.9 per cent boost to £29.2m, and online Thorntons Direct revenue was up 8.1 per cent to £5.5m.

Total sales were up 0.6 per cent over the 14 weeks.

Jonathan Hart, Thorntons' chief executive, said: "Overall sales grew 0.6 per cent in an extremely tough retail environment. While this was below our expectations, we nevertheless sold more chocolate in the quarter than ever before.

"However, consumers have remained very cost conscious over the period and have been purchasing selectively. There has also been a high level of promotional activity across the market. This has been evident across all our sales channels and has negatively impacted our gross margins and consequently profitability in the first half of the year as we stated in our December trading update.

"We expect continued weakness in consumer sentiment throughout 2012."

Hart added that Thorntons' new products were "successful" and said its specialist Christmas ranges sold well.