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Ensure your menu is a mixture of familiar favourites and seasonal specialities.Nearly every licensee and chef in every pub in the country will have...

Ensure your menu is a mixture of familiar favourites and seasonal specialities.

Nearly every licensee and chef in every pub in the country will have tweaked their menu for Christmas. Whether it is a full-on festive feast or simply a turkey and cranberry sandwich, publicans will have realised the profit potential of adapting their menu to suit the Christmas period. So why stop there? Changing a menu to fit special occasions, or simply to keep customers' interest, can be a great way to drive food sales and increase takings.

One of the features of the great British pub is, of course, its regulars - loyal customers who come back time and again.

While some of those customers will be content with choosing the same meals each time they visit, others will lose interest and may decide to go somewhere else to eat something different.

Pubs adapt to this in a variety of ways. Some - like Greene King Pub Company's Plume of Feathers in Tewin, Hertfordshire - change their menu every day, sometimes twice a day.

At the fresh-food-led Plume of Feathers chef Jason Fretwell adapts the menu according to what is available each day. Some favourite dishes stay but many others change, meaning customers can always choose something different.

Others, such as Spirit Group's John Barras brand, change less frequently - but that doesn't mean it is not important. "We find that if we don't change the menu after six months our sales drop dramatically," says senior brand manager Steve Worrall. "So we have to make sure the changes are made and we also now do monthly specials. So many of our customers eat with us more than once a week we have to work hard to keep their attention."

One of the easiest ways to keep a menu fresh and exciting is by creating dishes for special occasions or events. Keeping a core menu of pub food staples or customers' favourites is a good way to please those who know what they want, but adding to it with interesting, seasonal dishes is a simple way to please your other customers.

"There will always be a core menu with dishes that customers know and like at the outlet," says Coral Rose, marketing manager for RHM Foodservice. "Add to this by offering alternative cuisine, different flavours and tastes."

What's happening?

Christmas is an obvious time to create a seasonal menu but other days such as Valentine's Day, Easter Sunday, Mother's Day and Chinese New Year can be big money spinners for pubs.

Suppliers such as RHM Foodservice and Brakes can often offer advice on creating fun menus for special events - and even changing the names of dishes to fit.

For example, last year Brakes suggested pubs put on a special nautical menu for Cowes Week, offering dishes such as portholes (battered calamari rings) star fish (breaded fish stars) or barrels of rum (rum babas).

Specials boards

It can be expensive to keep changing printed menus, so a cheaper option can be to have a specials board - often a blackboard. Specials boards are a great way to offer seasonal dishes - and make sure all your customers know about it.

With a bit of initiative and creativity specials boards can also be a very handy method of selling dishes using ingredients that may be close to their use-by date.

Be inventive

According to Kitchen Range Food's head of marketing David Young, you don't have to wait for special events to make your menu special. He says that food sales can be increased by continually updating recipes and coming up with new dishes.

But, he points out, there is no point in being creative on the menu if your customers don't know about it.

"If you don't tell - you won't sell," he says.

"Point of sale material, posters and table talkers featuring your dishes will tempt consumers."

What's on in 2004?

January