Costa Coffee toasts its 2,000th store

Costa Coffee has opened its 2,000th store, in the centre of Leeds, as part of its rapid global expansion plans.

The chain, which has shops in 25 countries and is owned by the leisure group Whitbread, wants to have 3,500 stores by 2016. The Leeds Briggate shop created 20 jobs and has its new "Metropolitan" design. Costa Coffee grew like-for-like sales by 9.7 per cent over the 11 weeks to 18 August.