Punch Pub Company to get major revamp

Mike Tye, boss of Punch Taverns' managed pub assets, is going for an all-out revamp of the group's 800-odd sites as part of a multi-million pound effort to revive the estate's fortunes.

With the recession heightening consumer's demand for value for money across the pub sector, Tye has recognised that the Punch Pub Company (PPC), formerly known as Spirit Group, while being home to "some good concepts and brands", is no longer 'best in class' and lacks market coverage.

This is despite having spent more than £30m on capital projects across the estate in the first half of the latest financial year alone.

Work has being going on behind the scenes to sort out PPC's problems for several months, the aim being "to broaden our concept portfolio to cater for current and future consumer demand", said Tye.

In addition to a new pub restaurant concept called Fayre & Square currently being trialled, PPC plans to shift its estate more towards food sales, with around 10 concepts planned to cover the drinking and eating market.

According to the company it will have piloted most concepts before Christmas this year.

In February, the group launched its Operational Excellence programme, described at the time as the largest change programme ever undertaken across the company and which was designed to "simplify ways of working… and have the right people in place doing the right things".

PPC has been focusing on what it described last month as "promotional activity, sharper pricing, new food menus across all sectors and improved service".

When Punch updated the market recently it said PPC's like-for-like sales for the year to August 22, 2009, were reckoned to be down by 1.4 per cent, with sales improving from a 2.3 per cent slide in the first half of the year to a 0.6 decline in the second half.

Tye said: "PPC operates some of the best sites in the UK, but, in this increasingly competitive market, we have to focus our estate strategy on building a more diverse concept portfolio.

"At the same time, we need to continue to invest wisely in our existing concepts to keep them fresh and up to date. Over the next 12 months, we expect our portfolio to broaden, with a clear focus on food-led outlets."

As it focuses on its core sites, PPC has sold off several of its most famous pubs - which it feels have hit their earnings 'ceiling' - to regional brewers, including several landmark sites in London and the South East.