News digest
A round-up of the month's pub-food news
High brand regard for JDW
JD Wetherspoon (JDW) is the highest regarded brand name in the eating and drinking sector, according to the BrandIndex survey, published in Marketing Week. The company came top in a survey of leading food and drink outlets, ahead of Pizza Express, Pret a Manger and Wagamama. It was the only pub company listed in the eating and drinking sector.
The BrandIndex survey of Best Brand Performers 2007 (eating and drinking) is based on a seven-point profile: buzz, corporate reputation, general impression, quality, recommendations, satisfaction and value. To measure leading brands' performance, 2,000 people are interviewed every weekday.
Marketing Week's editorial stated: "It is easy to understand why the brands at the top of the table are up there: they deliver good-quality food, decent service, and a clean, friendly environment, for a price people are prepared to pay. Innovation helps too. Wetherspoon saw a boost to its trade, when it opened for breakfast."
Pitcher & Piano's ban plan
Marston's Pitcher & Piano has launched a new menu and invested heavily in upgrading outside areas to help cater for smokers.
P & P's healthiest ever summer menu focuses on fresh, low-fat grazing dishes, such as sharers and salads, served on platters. The aim of the new dishes is to distract customers who would have lit up before the introduction of the smoking ban.
The range of new dishes includes pesto chicken skewers; duck, cashew and pomegranate salad, and Mediterranean tapas sharer, featuring items from stuffed chillies to Italian cured meats.
To the manor born
Freehold food-led pub operator Brunning & Price has bought the freehold of Sutton Hall, a listed 16th-century manor house outside Macclesfield, Cheshire, for an undisclosed price.
Brunning & Price, which has a turnover of £17m, now has 15 pubs. The north-west operator is unique in having won the Good Pub Guide's award for Pub Group of the Year three times.
Lights, camera, job action
Licensees are turning movie makers when it comes to recruiting new staff.
Website gumtree.com has reported a growing trend for licensees posting virtual job ads, featuring behind-the-scenes tours of businesses, in an attempt to woo a new generation of job seekers.
Gumtree's Sophy Silver said: "Company show- reels are the next big thing in recruitment. A three-minute video can give an applicant more insight into what a boss and the company are like than a half-hour formal interview focusing on the job-seeker, rather than the employer."
A-hunting they will go
Huntsbridge Group, the East Midlands coaching-inn operator owned by John Hoskins, has sold three of its four venues in deals estimated to be worth more than £2m.
The company has sold the Three Horseshoes at Madingley, Cambridgeshire, to Richard Stokes, its chef patron for 14 years. The Pheasant at Keyston, Cambridgeshire, has been sold to Jay and Taffeta Scrimshaw, who have been running the site for 18 months. The Falcon at Fotheringay, Northamptonshire, has also been sold.
Hoskins, who is a Master of Wine, will concentrate on the Old Bridge Hotel in Huntingdon, where he plans to open a wine shop.
