Supply chain heroes celebrated at Pride of Greene King Awards

09-May-2022 - Last updated on 09-May-2022 at 10:27 GMT

Celebrating success: Outstanding contribution winners

Teams who went above and beyond to ensure pubs were well stocked and smoothly run during the unprecedented challenges of the past year were recognised at the annual Pride of Greene King awards last Wednesday (4 May).

This marked the second year of the awards, after the 2021 ceremony was held virtually due to Covid restrictions. The event took place at the Victoria Warehouse in Manchester with 170 people in attendance.

As well as the outstanding contribution prize – chosen by Greene King chief executive Nick Mackenzie – other awards recognised behaviours across the company as part of the pubco’s Unleashed culture change programme, with last year’s winners judging the majority of the awards.

The procurement, supply chain and distribution teams won the outstanding contribution prize due to the challenges they had overcome to keep pubs stocked in the past year, despite world events putting pressure on product availability, inflation and deliveries.

Achievements in a challenging year

Mackenzie said: “Celebrating successes such as we’ve seen at these awards truly is one of the best things about our great industry. We aim for Greene King to be the pride of British hospitality and the stories we heard from across our 39,000 employees have been exceptional, humbling and inspirational.

“It has been impossibly hard to whittle so many nominations down to a shortlist, never mind choosing an overall winner. It has been a challenging year but listening to the extraordinary efforts and achievements of our teams, I am full of hope and excitement for what the future holds.”

The Fox & Pheasant, Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire general manager Terry Rigg won the High Flyer award for producing consistently fantastic sales, putting customers first and making his pub the cornerstone of the community.

Supporting teams and communities

Dray driver Pete Taylor, based at the Eastwood depot in Nottinghamshire, won the Building Bonds award after he travelled 2,000 miles with a truck filled with donations to the Polish border with Ukraine to deliver everything to the Polish Red Cross.

Furthermore, the Nourish and Flourish award went to Greene King Local Pubs operations manager David McBride for the support he has shown his team, with the Pedal to the Medal award granted to Greene King Local Pubs operations manager Andrea Greenwood her strong financial results and charity efforts.

Also, the Packhorse & Talbot in Chiswick, west London holding general manager Angelo Vitale was voted by Greene King team members as winner of the We Pour Happiness into Lives award after he stepped up to run the pub when his general manager was attacked and injured by a customer in February.