Brewdog drops ‘real’ living wage promise

BREWDOG has dropped a commitment to the “real” living wage, set by the Living Wage Foundation, after struggling to escape losses.

The craft brewer and bar chain lost £26.4m on a turnover of £321m in 2022, up from a £10.5m loss on revenues of £286m the year before.

In a note to staff, shared by the Unite union, the company said it needed “to find more ways to get this business back to profitability and the financial stability that is needed. Inevitably, this does mean making some hard decisions”. It added that “new members of staff will be hired on the UK Government’s National Living Wage which currently stands at £10.42 an hour. All current staff rates will remain unchanged”.

The Living Wage Foundation, whose recommendations are followed by 14,000 employers including half of the FTSE 100, has set its living wage rate at £12 an hour, or £13.15 in London.

Brewdog pledged to follow the foundation’s rate in 2015. James Watt, Brewdog’s chief executive, said yesterday: “Since March 2022, we have increased the wages of our UK bar teams by a huge 20.4pc; this is well ahead of most industries and almost all of our competitors.

“With the Living Wage increasing by an additional 10pc in April, we could not implement this on top of all the other amazing things we do for our people while still offering fantastic value for our customers at a time where they have less disposable income to spend.”

The company introduced a salary cap in 2019 for new employees, limiting new senior staff to seven times the lowest-paid employee. The brewer employs more than 2,600 people.