S&NPC hopes to boost lessee profits with new services
Scottish & Newcastle Pub Company (S&NPC) has launched what it describes as a "groundbreaking" initiative to boost its licensees' profitability.
Under a new scheme called 'Bar Boosters', S&NPC has hooked up with a number of suppliers including flower wholesalers and dry cleaners, as well as creating its own take-away food, grocery retailing and private room hire brands, to boost their pubs' offers.
The move provides lessees with 17 new ways to make money, according to Matthew Woodward, S&NPC head of marketing.
"Many of our communities are losing retailers and services, which successful pubs can and will provide in the future," said Woodward. "During this decade the thriving pub will likely be a pub, coffee shop, corner-shop and takeaway combined. This will help our industry regain its position at the heart of the community."
Woodward says the company has identified the best options for different kinds of pubs within its estate and created a support package that would add a minimum of £1,000 to a lessees' bottom line annually, and in some cases as much as £10,000 a year.
All of the company's business development managers have had Bar Booster training to help lessees choose the best options for them, and a dedicated helpline has been created to answer lessees' questions.
Woodward said the impact of the economy should not be underestimated, but that the "long term decline in visits to the pub have resulted from the home entertainment revolution, an imported café culture, longer working hours, an ageing population and varying retail pub standards".
Pubs should offer more, he added. "The Bar Boosters plan is designed to help pubs to provide a wider and more appropriate range of social, work and community related community services and facilities.
"We anticipate the services will be added to over time and that the pubs that will benefit most will be those offering multiple Bar Boosters services."
Initial partners in the Bar Booster scheme include Sporting Live, Payzone, Innbloom, Movies to Go, Flowerfete, Café Bar, DDC, Papa John's Pizza, Cloud, Jumbucks and Useyourlocal.com.
