Food sales now comprise more than 50% of sales in c5,000 UK pubs: Food analyst Horizons has reported that food sales account for more than half of the turnover in some 5,000 pubs in the UK.   The rate of growth in food sales is said to have increased in recent years with Horizons commenting that operators have correctly latched onto food sales as a growth area and that this is doubly important at a time when drink sales are in decline.   Horizons adds ‘about a quarter of pubs are really focused on food and it will become even more important’.

Price still number one factor for student shoppers: According to research carried out by caterer and facilities management provider Sodexo, price is still the number one factor for students when it comes to choosing which food to buy.   Some 70% of students asked in the bi-annual Sodexo University Lifestyle Survey put price above all else when buying food from cafes or campus canteens, while the number concerned with quality dropped from 65% in 2010 to 55%.

SIBA calls for Chancellor to ‘give beer a break’: Keith Bott, chairman of the Society of Independent Brewers, has used the occasion of SIBA’s annual conference to call for the Chancellor and other government policy makers to ‘give beer a break’.   Bott claims that the current alcohol taxation regime is iniquitous and is ‘unfair to brewers, to pubs and to drinkers’.   Bott goes on to say that the changes in beer taxation have been at least partly to blame for societal changes such as the propensity to drink shots, to pre-load and to drink at home rather than in the regulated environment of a public house.

Brakspear announces major refurbishments: Henley-based brewer Brakspear has announced that it intends to commit some 500,000 to major refurbishment works at two of its pubs, the Crown, near Reading and the White Hart near Henley-on-Thames.

Reviews sought pre and post developments please!

Capital Pub Company, which operates 34 up-market boozers across London, has been taken over by Suffolk brewer Greene King with a bid of £93 million. That’s a beefy £2.7 million per pub.

Fuller’s, which only a couple of weeks ago had its own, more modest, bid rejected, must be crying in its beer. And drinkers, too, might be concerned that beer range could be restricted at the cask-ale-and-food pubs.

Capital is just the latest profitable London pubco to be swallowed up by bigger players. Young’s took over Geronimo Inns at the end of last year, and Greene King had already acquired Real Pubs.
And after selling Capital, serial pub entrepreneurs David Bruce and Clive Watson will are no doubt already plotting their next venture.

June is bustin’ out all over

Leading pub and restaurant groups enjoyed a better-than-expected June as like-for-like sales leapt nearly 4% over the same month last year, according to the Coffer Peach Business Tracker, which follows the performance of 23 companies.

It restores the underlying health of the managed sector, which saw sales slip 0.3% in May.

Are you drinking by numbers?

Do you know how much you’re drinking? A new poster campaign aims to inform pub-goers about how many alcohol units they’ve got in their glass. Though whether that’ll actually make people drink less is open to question.

Meanwhile, parliament is planning an inquiry into the official guidance on how many units you can drink to stay healthy.

Women’s issues

Molson Coors, which brews Carling, is launching a female-friendly beer called Animee, while Carlsberg promises a similar product.

The move provoked much consternation among beer writers. What’s unfriendly about beer? they asked. And for that matter what’s so different about women?

www.philmellows.com
The Politics of Drinking… and more
Follow Phil on Twitter
… and on Posterous

A new licensing system proposed by the government could add 13p to the price of a pint.

The warning came from trade body the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers as parliament debated the Police and Social Responsibility Bill which, if passed, will among other things enable local authorities to set new licence fees based on the rateable value of the pub.

The ALMR estimates the measure will cost the pub and bar industry an extra £100 million a year that will be passed on to customers.

And now it appears that parish councils could be given the chance to take over responsibility for licensing. The idea will be floated in a forthcoming Open Public Services White Paper.

It can only make life even more complicated for pubs.

Corset hurts

Sales per pub in the J D Wetherspoon chain continue to edge ahead – but more slowly. Chairman Tim Martin blamed a combination of rising costs and falling disposable income. “Consumers are faced with a Victorian corset-type squeeze at the moment and it is difficult, if not impossible, to get sales increases,” he said.

This week Spoons will open the £2.4 million Cabot Court Hotel in Weston-Super-Mare, which will feature a dance floor and 23 letting bedrooms. It’s one of 14 new openings for the company in July.

Young and hearty

London pubco Young’s is feeling the benefit of its takeover of the Geronimo Inns chain at the end of last year. Sales through managed houses have leapt by 35.7% with like-for-likes – not including the new additions – up 2.7% for the latest quarter.

Beer democracy

Drinkers at the award-winning Royal Oak freehouse in Repton, Derbyshire, are getting the chance to choose their favourite beers. Guv’nor Richard Pope hands the customer a poker chip with every pint of guest ale they buy and they can then score it by dropping the chip into slots graded ‘poor’ to ‘excellent’.

Then the chips are added up, giving the pub a better idea of what customers like.

www.philmellows.com
The Politics of Drinking… and more
Follow Phil on Twitter
… and on Posterous

Greene King’s annual turnover topped £1 billion for the first time in the wake of its latest expansion. The Suffolk brewer acquired London group Real Pubs earlier this year and gastropub chain Cloverleaf last year helping increase sales by 6%.

Food was up 8%, with the company selling 36 million meals in the year, while the brewing division added 4%.

Now Greene King will continue the restructuring of its pub estate, aiming to increase the number of managed pubs from 888 to 1,100 while cutting down on tenancies.

Cracking the code

Parliament’s investigation into the way the big pub companies treat their tenants got under way again with both sides of the debate appearing before MPs.

There was little agreement between the pubcos and the British Beer & Pub Association on the one hand, and lessee representatives and the Campaign for Real Ale on the other.

A statutory code of practice is on the cards, but it’s hard to say which way the politicians will go.

Meanwhile, Punch Taverns confirmed that its demerger will go ahead on August 1, splitting its profitable managed estate and larger leases from its tenanted estate.

Bud nipped

Global brewing giant AB Inbev has relaunched draught Budweiser. It hopes that, at a reduced strength of 4.3% ABV, it can extend distribution of the rarely seen tap from 1,500 bars to 5,000. Does this mean we’re getting a taste for weaker beer?

Fuller’s Flagship

Legendary Covent Garden pub the Lamb & Flag has been sold to Fuller’s. It’s the fifth pub the Chiswick brewer has bought this year and will join its managed estate.

Crawl done

Ian Payne, the boss of Stonegate Pub Company has completed the mother of all pub crawls having visited all 333 of the group’s pubs.

No sooner had he got home for a nice sit-down and a cup of tea than Stonegate announced it had expanded by another 230 houses with the takeover of Town & City. Fortunately Payne had already been round those – as chairman of Town & City.

www.philmellows.com
The Politics of Drinking… and more
Follow Phil on Twitter
… and on Posterous

Despite the recession, people are still choosing pubs to eat out, two reports have confirmed.
Research by the NPD Group showed that the J D Wetherspoon chain and Harvester pub-restaurants are leading the way as punters look for value for money and the choice of eating at any time in the day.

Average individual spend for pubs in the year to March 2011 was up to £7.98 compared to £9.44 in restaurants.

The Peach Report confirmed the trend towards branded pubs and that pubs rate best for value with carveries most likely to be recommended by diners.

Foreign – but local

Greene King Pub Partners, the Suffolk brewer’s tenanted arm, is rolling out a beer house concept called Local Heroes which gives licensees the chance to sell ‘foreign’ brews alongside Greene King’s own.

Tenants will be allowed to source ales from within a 20-mile radius of the pub, and they can make up half the cask pumps.

A Yates’s match

Pubco Town & City, which operates the Yates’s chain among others, has merged with the Stonegate Pub Company, which was formed with the purchase of 333 wet-led Mitchells and Butlers houses last year.

The new 550-strong, the group, which takes the Stonegate name, will be a major force on the high street.

Capital boom, holiday gloom

Capital Pub Company, which recently fended off a takover bid from London brewer Fuller’s, reported pre-tax profits were up 48% and takings at its 34 pubs 24% up for the year to March.

At Whitbread, though, sales have gone flat, the pub-restaurant operator blaming the disruption of spring’s glut of bank holidays.

www.philmellows.com
The Politics of Drinking… and more
Follow Phil on Twitter
… and on Posterous

Should public houses double-up as public libraries? Culture secretary Ed Vaizey seems to think it’s a good idea. Librarians are not so sure.

Many rural pubs in remote areas are already offering services such as shops, post offices and libraries, but now the idea, part of the government’s Big Society project, is apparently that they should substitute for the public libraries being forced to close across the country, thanks to the cuts.

Here’s what I think.

Tenants’ excitement

Some 2,300 pubs will be offered for sale to their tenants on what, and not for the first time, is being dubbed ‘independence day’ – July 4.
It’s all part of the Punch Taverns restructuring which will see the profitable managed houses split off and the tenanted and leased division whittled down to the most viable businesses.

The sell-off could see a dramatic growth in the independent freetrade sector – or perhaps it won’t. Cash-strapped tenants will have to find the money to buy from somewhere, and the banks are hardly giving money away at the moment.

Not the Full price

Capital Pub Company, the London group owned by former Firkin chain boss David Bruce, has turned down a bid from local rival Fuller’s Brewery pricing its 34 pubs at nearly £54 million.

It’s not the first time the Chiswick brewer has tried it and it probably won’t be the last as it joins the list of companies looking to snap up profitable middling-sized pubcos.

Shepherd’s high

Kent brewer Shepherd Neame reported growth across the business for the year to May. Sales in managed houses were up 7.7%, beer volumes were up 3.6%, and even the tenancies got in on the act, recording a 0.6% increase in average income.

Whassup for the cup

Budweiser, the iconic beer of America, is to sponsor football’s most famous club tournament, the FA Cup.
A three-year deal will see the competition renamed ‘the FA Cup with Budweiser’.

www.philmellows.com
The Politics of Drinking… and more
Follow Phil on Twitter
… and on Posterous

Drinks megacorp Diageo has caused a fuss by announcing its sponsorship of a scheme to train midwives in the deleterious effects of alcohol consumption on pregnancy. The health lobby suspects… well I’m not sure really, but they don’t like it.

It tells a story when you remember that not so long ago hospitals recommended expectant mums to drink Guinness, which is brewed by Diageo.

Not embracing this U-turn seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

BISC–it’s crunch time

Parliament’s Business, Innovation and Skills Committee has confirmed that it’s reopening its inquiry into the tied house system. Should you want to stick your oar in, the deadline for written submissions is June 20. At some point after that it will be calling in the pubcos to present evidence about how they have improved the relationship with their tenants and lessees. Or not.

If they haven’t pulled their fingers out far enough a mandatory code of practice could come in – more laws to govern how pubs are operated. And they wouldn’t like that.

More analysis here.

Punch up

Punch Taverns, one of the companies that’s bound to be at the centre of the BISC investigations, reported an improved performance in both its tenanted and leased divisions for the 12 weeks to May.

Sales in managed houses were up 7.3% and leased income down ‘only’ 3.3%, which compares favourably to a decline that was running at 5.8%.

Punch is in the process of separating the two businesses and in continuing to strip out less successful leased pubs.

Fuller profits

London brewer Fuller’s has seen profits jump 10% in the year to April, driven by its managed pubs and hotels, which were up 15% on a sales rise of nearly 4%.

Revenue among the tenancies were 3% up, although profits were slightly down as were sales of its own beer, with volumes slipping 2%.

It also added that it had bought three pubs: rugger haunt the Cabbage Patch in Twickenham, ‘rudest landlord’ Norman Balon’s Coach and Horses in Soho and the Crown in Bishop’s Waltham, Hampshire.

Yates’s expectations

Eleven Yates’s pubs are among a package of 21 town centre venues up for sale as part of the dismemberment of pubco Laurel. In case you’re interested, prices range from £620,000 to £3.5 million for the Bournemouth Yates’s.

No laughing matter

Comics Harry Enfield, Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller are leading a campaign to stop London gastropub the Engineer in Primrose Hill being taken into management by pubs giant Mitchells & Butlers.

Incumbent leaseholders Tamsin Olivier and Abigail Osborne have run the pub successfully since 1994. A petition has been launched to keep them there.

www.philmellows.com
The Politics of Drinking… and more
Follow Phil on Twitter
… and on Posterous