Business Opinion
Reversing the fall in British beer sales
I spent half a day last week debating the issue of yields and beer quality with members of the Operations Managers Academy organised by the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers (ALMR). Rather provocatively, I suggested that the trend of decline in sales of ale and stout will result in none being sold by 2018, and that this was due, in part, to the inability of licensees to deliver the perfect pint every time.
Consider the facts. We asked 60 operations managers, who have succeeded in the ALMR Operations Managers Awards, what they thought the resultant effect on sales of draught beer would be if every pint served was perfect in every sense of the word. The majority believed sales would increase by at least 5% and some thought more - not one respondent thought there would be zero impact.
We then asked how many tasted the beer in their pubs when visiting for meetings with tenants and managers. The answer, unsurprisingly, was very rarely. This is no criticism of these individuals due to the nature of their modern-day roles, with drink driving, areas covering hundreds of miles, and the need to visit as many pubs as possible per week. The days of a district manager popping in every week and enjoying a half with the licensee are long gone. However, has the attention on ensuring the perfect pint every time gone with it?
When asked about their respective companies' policies on line cleaning (a mixture of tenanted and managed pub companies) 96% said that it was policy to recommend line cleaning every week. In subsequent discussions it emerged that without technology to measure the frequency it was very difficult to ensure that this was happening.
The result - the average frequency of line cleaning falls well short of weekly on all lines. The greatest surprise to most new clients when installing our Starway technology is that line cleaning is less frequent in their pubs than they had previously imagined.
There is a danger that the annual decline in draught beer volumes, and in particular ales and stout, will worsen unless pub companies and brewers find ways of incentivising and motivating licensees to clean their lines every week.
In managed houses it is all too easy, without the technology, or possibly motivation, to measure it, for the manager to skip a clean and claim for it to improve their stocks. For the tenant managing every penny and fluid ounce, it is just too tempting to miss cleans and save around £100, while mistakenly hoping it won't make a difference.
In reality, allowing line cleaning to take place less than every seven days will make a difference, and if you don't have someone other than a customer to point it out to you, the customers will vote with their feet.
But that is not our sector's only problem. It amazes me that brand owners are producing draught beers dependent on being served at a temperature less than three degrees but not attending to the technology - or, more importantly, the means of measuring to ensure that every pint is served within that specified temperature. From our own data, which measures temperature at the point of dispense, it is clear that there is work to do to ensure that the perfect pint is served every time.
But these comments are not just Nucleus Data's and the team at the ALMR Operations Academy - extensive research in 2007 by Cask Marque on beer drinkers revealed that 34% of drinkers will go to a different outlet if quality is poor, 49% of drinkers will not order the same drink if quality is poor and 53% of customers will pay more for a good quality product.
So, if the research and opinions are all correct, and serving a perfect pint every time can truly grow draught beer sales by 5% or more, isn't it time that all pub companies took action?
If you are unable to measure quality how will you ever improve it?
Motivate and incentivise licensees to make certain that lines are cleaned each and every week, that beer is served at the perfect temperature and maybe, just maybe, it will be the rise of beer sales making headlines.
