News Article Comments : Time to get grocers off our turf

Some readers may remember the heady days when supermarkets sold just one in 20 of all the pints consumed in Britain. Now, 30 years on, it’s very nearly one in two. And it’s set to tilt to at least six pints in every 10 very shortly if the move to the off-trade continues its current breakneck momentum. Coors’ rise this week can only accelerate the trend.

Hats off to them, Tesco, Asda and the rest of the discounters have been brilliant at stealing our business. They saw cheap alcohol was the way to draw in the crowds. They turned the screw ruthlessly on brewers and other drinks suppliers to get rock-bottom prices. And then they priced it even lower and promoted it as hard as they could to consumers who just could not believe their luck. Particularly those who only get £5 pocket money a week.

Aggressive tactics like these were bad enough for pubs. What’s made resistance well-nigh impossible have been hefty duty rises, which supermarkets “absorb” (ie, push back to suppliers), but that l