GK dumps Appleton's in favour of Wayside

by The PMA Team Greene King is scrapping its food-led Appleton's concept, once seen as a growth brand at the company. Three of the six Appleton's sites are to be converted to the Wayside Inns estate, which Greene King acquired as part of Laurel's neighbourhood estate in July. The other three sites will be transferred to its Pub Partners tenanted division. There are currently 46 Wayside Inns, with plans to grow the estate to 70 in the next 18 months via the con-version of other pubs in the Greene King estate. The Wayside Inns' food offer allows pub managers and chefs to select a menu from a choice of 50 dishes. Mark Angela, Greene King Pub Company managing dir-ector, said many of the lessons from Appleton's, which had "performed reasonably well", would be incorporated into Wayside. He added: "The overt branding of Appleton's doesn't play as well with customers as we would like. There are also only so many brands we can support." He described the focus on Wayside as the logical consequence of the Laurel acquisition. "Wayside Inns offer a fantastic adult food offer in unbranded freehouse-style surroundings. We will also convert a number of our existing Inns [another GK division] businesses to Wayside," he added. "[This] provides a great opportunity for Wayside to become a major force in the adult dining market on a national basis." The company claims a new menu, which was launched at the beginning of September for Wayside Inns, has already boosted food sales. The Appleton's sites currently being converted to Wayside are the Queen's Head in Eastleigh, Hampshire, Heathy Farm in Crawley, West Sussex, and the Greyhound in Oxford. Appleton's was regarded at one stage as a brand with great potential and a possible competitor to Mitchells & Butlers' Harvester brand.