Marston's offers to help struggling tenants

Marston's is trialling a range of ground-breaking business-support initiatives with its tenants and lessees to help them through the downturn.

Among the new offers is a free-of-tie deal on wines, spirits and minerals (WSM) that is being offered across the estate; and a "winter warmer" package for 1,450 pubs, which provides sharply reduced prices on 15 key products.

Both will be trialled until the end of February, and if successful may be extended to more pubs for a longer period.

In addition, all 1,700 pubs are being offered a free nine-gallon barrel of cask ale if they clean their pipes regularly throughout December. And a waste-disposal deal negotiated by the company could save its licensees £1,500 per year.

Alistair Darby, new managing director of Marston's Pub Company, said: "I've been round 140 of our pubs since I took over, and the first question I asked all licensees was 'Are you making any money?', and a lot of them aren't. So what they want is a way to get more people through their doors.

"Among the ways we felt we can help is to offer far more competitive prices on wines, spirits and minerals.

"So we're saying to 250 of our licensees, go free of tie on WSM, but we will aim to win your business through keener pricing of our own WSM products.

"If we get their business, we will make less margin, but get more volume.

"If it fails then potentially we could be giving away £250,000 of margin. But we are being very competitive, and we're offering good credit terms and, of course, a one-stop approach."

The winter-warmer deal for the bulk of the estate is also attracting keen licensee interest. And it has big implications for future Marston's pricing. "We may have to accept some of our pubs are in £1.50-a-pint towns, rather than £3-a-pint towns, and we may have to reduce our rents and give bigger discounts."

Darby said the line-cleaning initiative, which is taking place in its Brulines pubs, would encourage licensees to do cask ale better. "The leap of faith is that if our pubs are selling better beer, there'll be better sales, and fewer returns."

• Read more — ​ Alistair Darby: mutuality is way forward​.