Punch focuses on food

Punch Taverns has appointed a new catering development team to help its tenants boost food sales in preparation for the smoking ban.

The company aims to reduce the percentage of its 8,000 or so pubs not serving food from 30% to 10%. Punch is investing a £10m smoking-ban budget in its tenanted estate, £8m in its Spirit managed estate and is expecting a £21m retailer investment. This is in addition to £60m for an ongoing refurbishment and development programme.

Punch's commercial director Jonathan Paveley said retailers needed to create a better experience for consumers if they were to combat the impact of the the smoking ban. He said lessees needed to improve retail standards and make pubs more relevant to customers, with food playing an important part.

He said research showed around 70% of the over-35s who don't currently use pubs cite a smoky atmosphere as the reason.

Paveley said: "The ban is a big challenge

for us all and we have got to get on and work with retailers and work with consumers to make connections with people not using pubs at all and create a better experience for customers." He said the company had seen an uplift in sales in many of its 500 Scottish pubs following the ban.

The team is being headed up by Alan Todd, who was previously food implementation and training executive at Spirit, which the company bought at the end of last year.

Tenants are also benefitting from adopting ideas from five menu packages, based on Spirit concepts such as Two Four One. In the first 100 pubs converted to leased from managed pubs following the Spirit acquisition, 50% have adopted Spirit menu concepts in an unbranded format but using the same dish ideas and pricing structure.

Paveley said tenants will also start to benefit from improved buying terms with suppliers.

Smoking ban: Punch

Jonathan Paveley said:

l "Scotland makes us optimistic that if we are organised we can get some benefit."

l "The ban is a big long-term opportunity not a short-term challenge."

l "We must act to keep smoking customers, but the big challenge is to attract people to our pubs who don't use them at the moment."

l "Pubs in England and Wales are in better shape for dealing with the ban than

Scotland because of their already-existing broader community offer."

Seminars

Punch is organising a series of free smoking seminars across England and Wales for its lessees and tenants. The sessions will take place during the pubco's autumn road shows, which start in Bristol this week.

The theme is "No Action, No Option" with advice on potential smoking solutions and lessons learned from existing smoking bans in Ireland and Scotland.

There will also be tips and advice on improving standards in pubs, saving money by reducing wastage and making money by staging effective promotions and broadening your product range. A DVD, of first hand

accounts from landlords will also be shown.