Drink Responsively

Food sales update

admin — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 07:48:48 +0000

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’.

Student Price issue

admin — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 09:05:43 +0000

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%.

Brewer call for aid

admin — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 09:04:57 +0000

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 to invest in estate

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:40:08 +0000

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 goes Greene

phil — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 14:57:44 +0000

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?

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