Revenue hike on menu for Compass

The world's biggest catering firm served up more encouraging trading figures yesterday after seeing first-quarter revenues lift by about 5.5 per cent.

Compass, which generated sales of more than 14 billion last year, said new contract levels were solid and that "steady" like-for-like growth helped lift revenues in the three months to 31 December.

The group said trends seen in the second half of last year had been "broadly" maintained into the first quarter, suggesting ongoing improvements in its embattled UK and Ireland arm.