Kitted out for the ban
In the run-up to the smoking ban a focus on food sales has been widely touted as the way to offset the probable decrease in wet sales.
Pubs whose revenue is already food-led rather than wet-driven are better positioned to increase turnover post-ban, but this head start isn't necessarily a killer blow for wet-led pubs.
The challenge for such pubs is to cost-effectively put in place a strategy to drive up business from food, in order to counterbalance the expected customer drift as smokers choose to drink at home rather than stand outside the pub.
With trade following the ban unpredictable, pubs need solutions that don't break the bank. Catering equipment manufacturers are among the suppliers waking up to the possibilities when it comes to packages to support pubs. Falcon Foodservice Equipment has launched a 'beat the ban' bundle of kitchen equipment aimed at pubs that have previously had food low down the agenda.
The package includes most of the kit a pub kitchen needs to provide a varied menu choice, from freshly prepared to frozen dishes.
All items are high-end commercial specification, which means pubs shouldn't have to worry about ending up with a kitchen full of kit that fails to cope with the demands of a bustling food trade.
The bundle is built around an Eloma Joker combi-oven, capable of roasting, steaming and baking. Most food-led pubs use a combi-oven because of its speed, flexibility and - most importantly of all - its ability to minimise loss of weight from meat through roasting. Dry roasting of meat can see a joint or a chicken lose as much as 27 per cent of its un-cooked weight through moisture loss.
The fryer in the equipment bundle is the Falcon Infinity, one of the fastest models available, which can handle 50kg of chips an hour. Low oil consumption and energy efficiency features have seen pub chains such as Whitbread make the Infinity the fryer of choice.
A busy pub kitchen also needs a six-burner range with a traditional oven underneath. The package includes Britain's best-selling model, the Falcon Dominator. Rounding off the complete kitchen deal is a powerful Menumaster commercial microwave oven.
At £4,995, the price for all four items as a package may sound like a hefty investment. However, it is all professional-grade cooking equipment, and the package price is less than half the list price for buying each item individually.
The price hasn't been plucked out of the air, but comes from market research-based estimates of the amount pubs are prepared to invest for an entry-level kitchen solution as they face up to the impact of the smoking ban.
Falcon marketing manager Barry Hill says: "Research says that independent pubs are prepared to spend up to £5,000 on fitting out a kitchen capable of delivering a wide menu with a healthy revenue stream.
"Falcon builds all the essential items of prime cooking equipment a pub needs to increase revenue through food sales, so we put together this package at an investment cost that meets that budget."
