I suppose when £1bn-a-week utility company profits are part of the overall mix then what’s not to like if you are a corporate investor?
But how does this tally with the consumers wanting to support small independent businesses local to them?
It doesn’t matter in which sector you look, among the inexorable march of global businesses and the inevitable homogenisation that goes with them there are beacons of light.
Small, founder-led businesses run with passion and an entrepreneurial spirit. Employing local people in the heart of the communities they serve, taxes paid locally in a virtuous circle of economic growth and societal connection.
I worked for one of the biggest companies in the world for more than a decade and enjoyed my time there immensely.
Unimaginable scale
They did things on a size and scale unimaginable to most people but locally connected it was not, no matter how hard it tried to persuade the British public or itself.
This isn’t a debate about big = bad and small = good, it’s about big and small being different and meeting the demands of different types of customers and on different occasions. In a balanced portfolio, how do both sit alongside each other?
Halfway into this column, I haven’t mentioned beer or pubs once...
At the Society of Independent Brewers & Associates (SIBA), we recently launched an Indie Beer trademark to differentiate genuinely independent brewers from the global ‘craft beer’ brands that our YouGov polling told us many drinkers thought were still independent.
The reaction has been incredible, with more than 400 breweries already pledging tangible support, national and local press coverage of all types, support from industry organisations such the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), the Independent family Brewers of Britain (IFBB), British Institute of Innkeeping (BII) and even backing from editorial in The Guardian.
Local sourcing for beer?
Indie Beer is there for the beer drinkers for whom the provenance of a beer is important to help them make an informed decision. It is facilitated by SIBA but really belongs to the breweries and supporters involved who, between them, have a reach to millions of beer drinkers.
As someone said to me recently: “Why, when pubs go to such lengths to source their food locally, do their beers mainly take their inspiration and ownership from abroad?”
I’ve nothing against these beers or anyone who enjoys drinking them but if even half the energy that goes into local sourcing of food was invested into doing similar for beer, it would provide a more balanced beer offering to pubs customers across the land.
This will be a challenging year for the hospitality sector for reasons I don’t have space to repeat here. For all the hype elsewhere, beer is still the biggest category in pubs and, in cask beer, provides an experience that can simply not be replicated at home.
Brewers big and small have a role to play in keeping the local pubs a force for good in community they serve.
I hope everyone involved in the sector can raise a glass to that.
