Pubs losing thousands from throwing away 40m pints of beer a year

20-Jun-2019 - Last updated on 20-Jun-2019 at 15:18 GMT

Down the drain: 40m pints are wasted each year due to line cleaning it has been claimed (image credit: Getty)

Some 40m pints of beer are discarded before they are served, costing pubs thousands of pounds over the course of a year, according to new research.

Line cleaning company Beer Piper’s data revealed the average pub in the UK wastes 20 pints per week by inefficiently cleaning beer lines, which (using ONS figures on the number of pubs in the UK), equates to a 40m pints a year.

It claimed that if the average cost of a pint is £3.69, some pubs are losing £74 a week, totalling £3,848 a year in wastage.

The company, which aims to develop a beer line cleaning system that helps to reduce beer wastage, is also calling on Britain’s licensees to stop wasting beer worth more than £147m.

Beer Piper commercial manager Jeff Singer said: “The average British pint costs £3.69 (according to The Good Pub Guide’s annual survey) meaning some pubs are costing themselves about £74 a week by throwing out perfectly good beer before it is even served.”

Unnecessary beer wastage

He added: “The main reason for unnecessary beer wastage is many pubs have to throw out beer already in the line while they are being cleaned.”

Meanwhile in 2017, on-trade cellar sanitisation firm Avani claimed cleaning beer lines every seven days was not necessarily consistent with good hygiene.

The Beer Quality Report, released by Vianet and Cask Marque, compiled data from 220,000 Vianet devices along with more than 22,000 Cask Marque pub visits and 750 Scores on the Cellar Doors results.

Analysis of the figures showed more than 30% of all beer served in the UK came from lines that had not been cleaned within the recommended seven-day rule.

Frequency of cleaning

The report authors did highlight the necessity of cleaning lines correctly, but measured unclean beer lines based on the frequency of cleaning.

Avani director Amanda Thomson told The Morning Advertiser (MA), while they support the seven-day cleaning rule, the key to success is verifying the job has been done properly.

She said: “Someone can clean their lines every three or four weeks and still have a clean line.

“It’s not as simple as measuring frequency, but there needs to be a very simple message to pubs that process is just as important as regularity.”