Hamish Champ: On the road with Punch Taverns

I was in the back of a taxi in Bristol last week when the driver peered at me in the rear view mirror.

"What do you for a living then?" he asked me.

"I'm a journalist," I replied.

"What do you write about?"

"The pub business," I said.

"Ah," the cabbie smiled, though I have to say not with his eyes. "You writing about the demise of the pub then?"

I hate it when people take this line and I responded in the usual manner: "I don't just write about that," I said, firmly. "There are some good things going on in the pub trade and some great people running great pubs."

Unfortunately, in an example of the utmost irony just as I uttered these words my taxi drove past a boarded up pub. Great, I thought.

Anyway, the taxi dropped me off at my destination, Ashton Gate football ground which was playing host to a Punch Taverns roadshow.

I'd heard about these roadshow affairs, designed by the Burton-based pubco to bring lessee and supplier together, but I didn't know what to expect. In the event - and here I lay myself open to the usual stuff about how I'm being hoodwinked by the pubco fraternity - I was pleasantly surprised.

The show was busy with Punch licensees wandering around an array of stands which were playing host to brewers large and small, other drinks companies, food and kitchen kit suppliers, technical specialists and trade organisations such as the BII and Cask Marque.

I watched things like a presentation on how those licensees unfamiliar with selling food in their pubs could go about it. I spoke to several suppliers who said the licensees they had spoken to seemed up for the challenges they had to face and were attending in order to improve their chances of getting through the current economic crisis.

Even Phil Dixon, occasional pubco critic and king of the chocolate bar analogy who was on hand in his capacity as a BII representative, seemed genuinely pleased with the effort being put into the proceedings.

Companies wax lyrical about what they do for their licensees supportwise and in a number of cases such claims miss the mark. And yes, even the better landlords screw up.

But what went on in Bristol last week, part of a national calendar of such events, seemed at least to be a step in the right direction.

As I suggested above, it won't wash for everyone. For some lessees such gatherings are anathema, an exercise in pandering to tenants by companies which play fast and loose with rents and beer supplies, which are part of the problem and which sooner or later will collapse under a ton of debt, leaving - allegedly - said licensees free to conduct theor business as they see fit.

For the others, those whose rationale might have gone along the lines of "We might as well avail ourselves of this thing," well, they were out in force last week and seemed fairly satisfied with what they could get from the day.

Talking to Punch's leased pub boss Roger Whiteside at the Bristol event it seems he is even more determined in his desire for transparency in the business relationship between company and tenant. This can only be a good thing.

The coming months will surely be the proof of that particular pudding…