Saturday 6 October 2012

More to come?

According to a report by CGA Strategy, the UK’s pub and bar sector will lose another 5,000 sites by 2017, and beer volume will decline by 7.1%. Now, that may sound a depressing prospect, but actually it’s considerably better than the previous five years, during which over 10,000 pubs have been lost, and on-trade beer volumes in the five years to June 2012 (i.e. going back to the last quarter before the you-know-what) have fallen, according to the BBPA, by a whacking 26%.

If anything, I’d say those predictions were a tad optimistic, especially the one for beer volumes. Realistically, the tide of anti-alcohol sentiment in society and official policy is likely, if anything, to intensify, and that will continue to be reflected in a reduced enthusiasm for drinking alcohol, especially in public spaces. The rate of decline may not be as steep as over the past five years, but there is no sign of things bottoming out.

9 comments:

  1. crystal ball gazing?

    Everything is going downhill and everything is getting worse.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, when in 2017 we have 55,000 pubs and 16 million on-trade beer barrels, I'll happily admit I was wrong and buy you a nice pint of Carling.

    ReplyDelete
  3. the next stage of the problem is that all the pubs that switched to food sales will realise that the pub food market is saturated.

    I used to have 2 pubs near me that did food as a decent earner (out of 20). It's now 10 (out of 15). They've jumped on it to try to survive.

    The reason why we didn't have many food places is because we have 2 Chinese restaurants, a tapas, 2 mexicans, 1 French and 4 Italians. So, around 10 restaurants. Anyone think that an area can suddenly find the customers for an increased supply of 100%?

    It's really worth noting that we've actually got rid of far more pubs than the statistics show, because culturally speaking, a lot of places are far closer to restaurants now.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't mind it if you buy me a pint of boring brown, but I suspect you're right. Warren Buffett said something on lines of the best guide to the future being the past. So it's downhill forever. Is there a bottom to the hill?

    ReplyDelete
  5. You my be right, you may not. Certainly in Stockport I think there are definite signs that things are bottoming out don't you think?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Isn't the Royal Oak in Hazel Grove next for the chop, John?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Not as far as I know it isn't (but then again I could be wrong on that one - it wouldn't be the first time). There are probably a couple of Robinsons closures still to come but apart from that things do seem to have started to level off (bearing in mind we are about to get a new freehouse on Hilgate in the form of the reopened Flying Dutchman).

    ReplyDelete
  8. The last time i drove through stuckpit (best thing to do, drive through) every pub had a "business opportunity" or "for sale" sign on it.

    Looking at the Robbies website and seeing the piss poor nature of those opportunitires, I suspect the best opportunity would be to turn them into flats.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Well as long as it's nothing like the last 10 years http://www.business4sale.co.uk/blog/pubs/the-decline-of-pubs-in-the-uk/

    ReplyDelete

Comments, especially on older posts, may require prior approval by the blog owner. See here for details of my comment policy.

Please register an account to comment. Unregistered comments will generally be rejected unless I recognise the author. If you want to comment using an unregistered ID, you will need to tell me something about yourself.