Pub group JD Wetherspoon has said it plans to open all its pubs at 10am in order to take on the High Street coffee shops.

It said it hoped to boost the food side of its business by offering coffee and breakfasts to customers.

The company is also pushing the roll-out of its second chain of pubs, Lloyds, which now has bigger average weekly takings than the core Wetherspoon outlets.

But the company is lobbying hard against proposed licensing changes, which it says will delay its expansion and make it more expensive.

Roll out hampered by council?

Wetherspoon opened 87 pubs in the year to July, bringing its total number to 610 and closer to a long-term target of 1,500.

This [licensing changes] will be a laborious and expensive process and is hard to justify

Tim Martin, Wetherspoon

They now have 34 Lloyds' pubs, each raking in an average of �30,000 a week, against �25,000 in a Wetherspoon pub.

But chairman Tim Martin is vehemently opposed to plans to switch the regulation of pub licenses from magistrates to local authorities.

"This will be a laborious and expensive process and is hard to justify," he said. Mr Martin says the cost of a new license could rise from the current �10 to �400, which would make its target of 80 new openings a year considerably more expensive.

Keep on eating

Wetherspoon is maximising its takings by opening pubs an hour earlier at 10am.

This will give a further boost to food sales, which have risen sharply in recent years and now account for a fifth of all sales.

Mr Martin said on Friday that a full breakfast will cost about �3.00, which he hopes will enable the group to woo customers from pricier coffee bars such as Starbucks.

Last year, Wetherspoon started serving coffee at 49p, as part of its effort to take customers from the coffee groups.

Taking the cash

Some analysts have questioned the wisdom of pursuing increased food sales, which create less profit than drink.

But finance director Jim Clarke told BBC News that the only question to really ask was: "Are you physically taking more cash?".

In the year to 28 July, Wetherspoon profits jumped 21% to �53.6m.

It said sales at pubs open for at least a year grew by 5%, and added that good weather in August meant sales had continued to rise.