Greene King's £1m tenants' drinks promo

Greene King is spending £1m on absorbing the cost of a cut-price drinks promotion at 200 mainly wet-led tenanted pubs.

Tenants will maintain existing margins, but be able to offer pints of McEwans lager and Ruddles bitter for either £1.95 or £2.25.

Bottles of Pinot Grigio and Merlot will be available for either £5.95 or £6.95.

The promotion will run until the end of November and there are plans to re-run it in the traditionally quiet first three months of 2009.

Pub Partners, the company's tenanted division, said the aim is to help pubs in this difficult trading era. The firm said it was in response to the "Aldi" effect, where consumers are increasingly looking for better value as purse-strings are tightened.

Pub Partners managing director David Elliott said: "We recognise that many people who want to go out for a pint or a glass of wine do at times want a value choice. We have made this available in more than 200 of our pubs and are looking to increase that further."

Marketing material including posters worth £100 has been provided to the 200 pubs by Greene King.

The announcement follows last week's news that Greene King is cutting drinks and food prices at around 80 managed pubs.

Announcing the new promotion for tenants, Pub Partners admitted that discounting from managed pubs was one of the factors hitting tenants, alongside other issues such as the smoking ban and poor weather.

The Greene King move follows a decision by Marston's to allow 20 or so tenanted pub in south Wales the opportunity to discount on one beer product.