City diary

A right carrier on

Marston's straight-talking managed division boss Derek Andrew, below, was pretty furious on Budget day last Wednesday. After berating the Government for blunt-instrument duty rises, Andrew, with tongue-in-cheek, alighted on one "positive" piece of news emerging from Alistair Darling's bombshell budget - his "visionary assault on the plastic bag".

Those Anglo Saxon traits

A well-known trade figure, who City Diary is unable to name, may have a crystal ball. Back in mid-February, he was reflecting on current trading conditions not being the best. In a reflective jotting, he added: "This may be about to get worse if the stupidly myopic Government advisors get their way and ramp up excise duty in the coming Budget as a way of trying to curb binge drinking (whatever that actually means). "They would, as we all know, do far better directing their attentions at the apparently morally-bankrupt supermarket chains, which continue to sell alcohol below cost, which is as we all know is the real root cause of the problem - that, and the fact that Anglo Saxon races have always been keen binge drinkers and even keener fighters." Quite.

Passing on powers of profit

One small brewer City Diary was talking to this week has a refreshing attitude to the discounts it offers tenants - it passes on those it gets from suppliers. Tenants of the unnamed brewer get discounts per barrel in the region of £120 to £140. The boss of the brewer says: "It's giving your tenants the tools to make a profit. We basically hand over the brewery's buying power. It's no good having tenants going bankrupt over and over again."

Sunday's saving grace

Regular readers will know that City Diary loves a carvery - as Al Murray says: "It's the Rolls Royce of pub catering". Interesting to note then that two of the six finalists in the BII Licensee of the Year contest turned to the carvery when Sunday sales started flagging. "They introduced a quality carvery - the success is phenomenal," reports Andrew Palmer in the current edition of BII Business.

Life is increasingly Peachy

How exciting that Peach Pub Company is planning to open a £1.8m Peach ski chalet in Morzine, at the foot of Avoriaz, France, in a project called "White Peach". The first overseas project may be the first of a number. The ski chalet prospectus states: "Peach is based on shared ownership - finding great caterers and giving them the opportunity to realise their dreams of doing their own business in partnership. Peach wants to develop its group to have two or three foreign properties." Look out, City Diary supposes, for Brown Peach - a Peach Spanish hacienda - and Green Peach - an environmentally-friendly Irish off-shoot. Peach Pub Company is fast becoming a lifestyle brand.

Five a year and counting...

An interesting fact emerging from Marston's managed division. Number of meals served per year is increasingly becoming a key metric in these food-driven times. Marston's has hit the 17-million-meals-a-year mark -

and is targeting 20 million meals in the

next couple of years. City Diary guestimates the number of meals served across the managed sector (Mitchells & Butlers is serving 107 million a year) must be around the 250 million per annum mark, give or

take the odd sponge pudding. In other

words, the UK's managed pubs are cooking for every UK resident an average of less than five times a year. Still plenty to go for!

East Midlands Hub hotspot

Pub is the Hub, the pub diversification organisation backed by Prince Charles,

is enjoying spectacular success in the

East Midlands. Thanks in large part to grants from the East Midlands Development Agency, no fewer than

15 pubs have had their position at the heart of their community cemented

by opening shops - nine of these - or starting to cook meals for local schools. Organiser John Longden - for whom the word tireless was created - says: "It's fascinating how many small shops are coming out of these projects, saving thousands of car miles." In the East Midlands alone, eight more schemes are in the pipeline." Other Pub is the Hub hotspots, thanks to supportive local authorities and investment agencies, are Cumbria and Devon and Cornwall.

Karen Jones turns new page

Karen Jones's Front Page Pubs' most recent opening has sentimental value. The Duke opened on the site of the Racing Page in December 2007. "We love Richmond, having opened our first Café Rouge there in 1987, and are delighted to have found this lovely gastropub," customers are told on the website.

Getting Fresh with Spirit

Talking of Karen Jones, interesting to

note that Spirit, her former company,

is launching a Fast & Fresh offer at its

City pubs. It will offer fresh hot and cold deli sandwiches plus tasty hot soups to

eat in and takeaway. Meanwhile, Jones

also has a Fast & Fresh offer at a couple of her sites - the Prince of Wales in Battersea, for example. No copyright in good ideas, eh?

Tree-hugging at JDW

JD Wetherspoon is revamping its flexible benefits scheme by adding carbon offsetting, via salary sacrifice arrangements, from

April. The carbon offsetting initiative will allow staff to calculate their carbon footprint online

and then buy trees to help offset the

damage they cause to the environment. "Green benefits fit in with our corporate agenda," says a personnel johnny at Wetherspoon.

For the sake of clarity

CGA, the market research company, reports that CPC now has more than a dozen Cookhouse sites. What does CPC stand for, City Diary inquired? A CGA missive soon arrives explaining it stands for Clear Pub Company, the multiple retailer that bought a tranche of Spirit pubs converted to lease last year. CGA director Ashley Cairns recalls a computer services guy at Bass telling a gathering a few years ago: "These TLAs are a curse to clarity". "He didn't realise, for three seconds, what he had said - until the roar of laughter knocked him off his seat." Cairns adds helpfully: "Oh TLA - three letter acronym."

Come the revolution there will be inventive incentives

Revolution vodka bar owner Inventive Leisure was placed 82nd in the list of the UK's top 100 companies to work for. Highlighted were a range of unusual incentives. This year's annual conference will be in Las Vegas and the employee of the month in the Deansgate branch had his rent paid for a month. Recently, the person who sold the most privilege cards to customers won two round-the-world flights. Here at the MA, the recent stash of free nuts

is looking a bit slight by comparison.