The company told investors at its annual general meeting that like-for-like sales at Belhaven were up 10.9% year-on-year in the 17 weeks to the end of August.

It also appears to be outperforming the market south of the border with Greene King Retail reporting like-for-like sales up 4.6%.

But the company warned: “Despite the encouraging start to the year, we remain cautious on the outlook for the industry and the economy.

“The consumer recovery is fragile and there are numerous risks to current levels of consumer spending, particularly for the second half of our financial year, including rising unemployment and taxes, slowing wage growth and increasing debt repayments.”

Panmure Gordon analyst Simon French said: “Greene King is outperforming the market and a lot is down to its investment in food.”

He said Greene King started developing its food offering, a key selling point for most pubs since the smoking ban, later than other chains and that some of its boost comes from “catch-up” with rivals.

He added: “They have also been able to benefit from the slight underinvestment from their competitors.”

Things are tougher for the tenanted division where earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation per pub was down 7.2%.

In the brewing business, Belhaven Best volumes were up 14.8% in a declining market. The company completed a £207m rights issue this year and has used £31.6m of the proceeds to buy new pubs and paid down £13.4m of debt.