Laurel and hearty

Talking to Paul Symonds about the portfolio of brands under his control - Ha! Ha! Bar & Canteen, Slug & Lettuce, Yates's and Hog's Head - Laurel Pub Company's chief executive discusses each with the zeal of a convert. As does commercial director Suzanne Baker, whose duties include driving food sales across the estate.

"We've got an excellent site portfolio and stunning facilities," says Symonds, who's only been in charge at Laurel since the summer but already has a major corporate overhaul, the group's second in less than a year, under his belt.

"We are in a recovery mode, but there are real growth opportunities," he enthuses. Laurel has "historically under-traded," he says, but offers much in the way of potential, while the goal of 1,000 sites remains.

Thinking of a medical analogy, I ask whether Laurel's 'recovery mode' sees it in the high street equivalent of out-patients or A&E. He smiles and side-steps the tongue-in-cheek question. "We've a fantastic business that's in a recovery situation," he repeats.

Fair enough. So why the second major restructuring - one which sees the previous Circuit and Town Local strands combined to create a new division, Pubs & Bars - in less than a year?

"We did that to bring significant focus to Slug & Lettuce and to Ha! Ha!," Symonds says. "Previously it was run under Quality Food, which is fine if you're not doing huge amounts with it. I put the Circuit business and the Town Local business together as Pubs & Bars. One reason for that was I don't think it's possible to get excited about being thought of as a circuit pub. How can you get emotionally excited about that? The simple answer is you don't. You trade the whole week."

Such a philosophy is key to Yates's, where food - in particular breakfast - is being given a boost, adds Baker. During her 13 years at JD Wetherspoon she grew food sales from five per cent to 27 per cent.

Food coming onto the radar

"Research confirmed to us that food wasn't exactly high up on Yates's customers' radar," she says. "Changes are in place, including new menus, and we're working on the quality of food and service too."

Trading earlier is also on the Yates's agenda, she says. "We've the locations and we should be opening our doors and encouraging people to come in. There's a huge market that enjoys the brand in the evening, so why can't they do the same during the day?"

Symonds agrees. "Serving breakfasts helps shifts people's perceptions about what we are. Yates's has a different consumer audience to Ha! Ha!. It's younger but earlier in the day, when people are out and about shopping we can be serving breakfasts and getting people used to transitioning into lunch.

"From an operational perspective it also allows you to be able to deliver a more consistent offer as you go through that 11.30am to 12.30 transition period, which is always difficult."

Symonds believes he'll be making money from breakfast sales "in a relatively short space of time. There is no downside."

Baker says Yates's will be looking at food in the evening too. "There was no understanding from our research as to whether [it] did food. Well, the answer is yes we do and we're going to be shouting about it. It's a huge opportunity."

Symonds meanwhile has few illusions about the scale of the task facing him. He agrees that people have regarded the Laurel business as being in decline for some time. "But it's been on a strong recovery curve recently on food, assisted greatly by Suzanne. At one point food was down 10 per cent, and now it's in growth," he adds, although he won't be drawn on what that might be, nor on any details regarding hard trading figures.

Getting Laurel to what Symonds regards as a satisfactory position will take between six and nine months, but he thinks they have "just scratched the surface".

"Suzanne has changed every single menu across the organisation, we're starting to build some food capability within the business, we're building the organisational muscle and now we've got to drive the implementation so that what we create actually gets to the customers," he says.

Growth aspirations

Laurel has "massive growth aspirations for both Ha!Ha! and Slug", which will see the brands' site numbers rise to 50 and 100 sites respectively over the next two years, from the current 26 and 47.

The group's Hog's Head brand, which Symonds admits has been under-nourished in recent years, will also get a spring clean. "We're putting in place various pieces of the jig-saw that will enable customers to re-engage with the concept. We did a big sparkle in Hornchurch recently and people responded to it really well."

"We also want both Ha! Ha! and Slug to have their own individual feel, so we can trade in the same towns but with slightly different customer bases. That was quite a significant change in the business," says Symonds.

Indeed. There are those who say that some of the other changes that accompanied the overhaul, namely among its senior management, might become a case of throwing babies out with the bath water. The pair naturally disagree. "The most important thing is we want the right team to grow this business," says Symonds. "We've tried to bring in a level of experience to get this job done right first time. I'm not looking for rookies with potential. I want experienced people who can hit the ground running." To whit, Symonds has hired an old Spirit Group mucker, Steve Rogers, to head up Ha! Ha!, while another former Spirit colleague, Toby Smith, is leading one of the Pubs & Bars' regional operations.

"We'll build our internal talent pipeline over the next couple of years, but you've got to inject some talent, experience and enthusiasm right now because the market is very tough," he says.

On the replacement of pretty much the entire senior food team, Baker says: "When I came into the business [in June] it became clear it was just not working and gelling. We needed to create and develop a team that was allied to the brands we wanted to push forward. That's being done with the appointment of Perry [Huntley, from Mitchells & Butlers] and Claire [Martin, from JD Wetherspoon]."

Autonomous management

Talking of management issues, there has been speculation that Aaron Brown, Laurel owner Robert Tchenguiz's right-hand man, was the real power at the company. Symonds rejects this, stating he is his own man.

"We're fortunate to have a set of shareholders who are passionate about the group and who believe in the model. I'm 100 per cent autonomous in running this business, period. Otherwise I wouldn't have joined."

Symonds acknowledges Laurel hasn't been as successful as its owners would have liked, "otherwise they wouldn't have a whole new management team in. Am I confident that it's a great set of people to support us through our next phase of growth? Absolutely."

The future is "very exciting," concludes Symonds, who says the "energy and the momentum is starting to bubble up".

"We're putting solid foundations in place for future growth and we'll be pushing for the top slot. We aspire to a consistency of delivery, and that will take a while to get to. But we're making a good start."