The payment of the national living wage of £7.20 an hour to all staff over 25 years old at the Whitbread-owned Costa coffee shops will mean price rises for customers when it kicks in next April.

This is the warning from the £4.6 million a year (£383 an hour) Whitbread chief executive Andy Harrison who is paid more than 50 times the living wage out of the huge profits to be made from selling a £2 plus product with a 10 pence ingredient cost.

One company that will no doubt welcome more expensive coffee on the street is Waitrose, whose unique free cup a day for card-carrying customers will look even more generous.