Charles Wells to rollout new profit plan for tenants
The Passport to Profit initiative has been trialled at four pubs and Peter Wells, managing director of Charles Wells Pub Company, said he hoped it would be introduced in a further 10 sites before the end of September.
Under the scheme, tenants’ P&L accounts, including till information and stock reports, are available at head office. It gives retail development managers (RDMs) access to information such as yields, gross profit on food and drink, and expenditure on areas such as marketing and promotions.
Wells said it means RDMs have insights into trading prior to business meetings with tenants.
He told M&C Report: “It’s really about giving us the tools to be better informed and better prepared. It’s a shift of focus, looking at what actions needs to be taken to improve performance and sales.”
Wells said he was “genuinely delighted” with results so far. He highlighted one pub where the system helped identify that a yield of just 78% was being achieved. Once the problem was identified, the issue was addressed and within three weeks the yield increased to 98%.
It also helped identify that the absence of a till in the dining area was causing congestion behind the bar, leading to increased service times for customers, so a new till was fitted in the dining room.
Wells said: “It’s starting to have a really significant impact on the top line sales and conversion to profit.”
Last year Charles Wells, which has more than 200 pubs, trialed a franchise-style scheme at a number of sites. Wells said it was decided not to take the franchise route because the company has no managed division to inform the retail offer.
Passport to Profit is being offered to any new Charles Wells licensee, although Wells said it would not be appropriate to everyone, particularly established multiple lessees.
“I would like to think that it’s where most of our agreements will go in the future,” he added.
Wells said there is no premium attached to the agreement.
He said the company is now exploring options to help tenants improve their food offer using the learnings from Passport to Profit.
