OFT still considering cellar prices probe

The OFT is still "considering" an investigation into the practice by the country's big brewers of "bundling" charges for cellar services into the wholesale price pubs pay for beer.

The practice is estimated to add up to £12 to the cost of a barrel, and a spokesman for the OFT said: "We are currently considering the Competition Commission's request. There is no set timetable."

The charges are a reflection of the fact that Britain's big brewers, rather than pub companies, own most of the £340m of cellar equipment, including pumps and coolers, to be found in the 149,000 premises that serve draught beer.

The Competition Commis-sion's call for an investigation came after it rejected a bid to merge the cellar technical services division of Coors, the UK's second-biggest brewer, with the already-merged cellar servicing operations of Scottish Courage and Carlsberg ­ the UK's big-gest and fourth-biggest brewers respectively.

The Competition Commis-sion said the fact that cellar servicing charges, and charges for repairing and replacing cellar equipment, are bundled in with the cost of national beer brands means that most pub owners have no true idea how much they are paying for having their cellar equipment maintained.

"Unbundling" is also likely to be welcomed by the big pub companies. Jonathan Paveley, commercial director at Punch Taverns, said that while his company had "no real issues" with the big brewers, "it would be nice to have the option" to pay for cellar servicing separately, and be able to choose another service company.

One problem at the moment, Paveley said, was that with the cost "bundled in", it was impossible to tell how much the charge for cellar services made by the big brewers actually was.