Would you credit it? The pub giant that quietly instructed its outlets to ‘source locally’
Laments that it’s normal for many tied pubs to source food locally but they can’t do the same with beer
AIt begs the question... why do they not allow their pubs to source locally as an attractive, permanent policy?
MIDST the distribution problems which afflicted the pub industry recently, something very welcome and sensible happened, but not for very long. As many of their pubs began to run out of some beers, Star Pubs & Bars (that’s Heineken) quietly told their licensees to “source locally.”
And source locally many of them did. Local beers you would never normally see arrived on the bars until the “crisis” passed and licensees had to go back to choosing from the relatively short and expensive list of beers Star normally allows them.
I have searched at some length for any of the trade press reporting that this seismic shift happened and can find no mention of it.
It wouldn’t appear that Star proudly announced they had let it happen.
I also haven’t heard whether or not the other large pub operators allowed their licensees to source locally. I would guess some of them did.
It all begs the question… why do they not allow their pubs to source locally as a matter of course, as an attractive, permanent policy?
“Wouldn’t it make sense?” one licensee told me, rhetorically.
“I made a phone call to a local brewery and had the beer the next morning. This week, I can’t use that brewery again and the beer I’ve got instead arrived from Cornwall, via a distribution centre. How does that make sense?”
Said licensee is allowed to source food locally, using a local butcher and a local fruit and veg retailer extensively for the widelyacclaimed meals the pub sells. “Local” is a selling point, of course.
It would be logical, especially at a time when we are supposed to be concerned with climate control and reducing emissions, for beer, too, to make a shorter journey from where it’s made to where it’s consumed.
And yes, I know this is a very a simplistic argument and there’s a lot more to it. There are some beers made locally that I would like to see become better known over a wider area and of course it’s great when I see a beer from Loch Fyne in Scotland turn up in a pub in Derby.
But that’s the power of choice. As a result of these recent circumstances, might the penny not drop for big players like Star that if they were to allow their licensees and customers a freer hand to choose the beers they stock and the prices they pay for them, that the pubs might become more popular, selling more beer, and everyone succeeds a little more as a result?
It is a situation the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) was founded to try to improve. SIBA negotiates deals with operators like Star, so that its members, mostly small breweries, can get an “in” at more pubs.
It’s all very laudable in theory but the problem is proving twofold. The cut SIBA takes for providing this service prices many licensees out of using it.
The beer still arrives on the bar at a price, to the licensee, sometimes double what it would be if ordered directly from the brewery.
Of course SIBA has to have a price for its services but the other problem is that SIBA sometimes proves to be struck down with the paperwork of processing orders.
A licensee told me: “I will place an order through SIBA, as I have to, but then I often have to tell the brewery the order is on the way, before SIBA gets around to telling them, so that I can get hold of the beer quickly enough!”
Oh dear.
Overall, I hope the recent issues with the pandemic and then distribution might make the big operators have a serious think about how they can better serve the pubs they own. That would be logical, but I won’t be holding my breath.