Organic focus: The soft option
GIVEN THE move towards family-focused pubs, soft drinks are arguably more important for the trade than ever before. Combine this with an increasingly health-conscious consumer and organic juices should be flying off the back-bar. But can the all-natural message really boost the bottom line?
Lawrence Mallinson, owner of organic juice company James White Drinks, says it can. The fact that he is increasingly regarding the pub sector as an important client is an indication that this market has potential to grow.
"Five years ago I would have said 'Supply organic juice to pubs? Don't be ridiculous!' But now I'm supplying reasonable quantities - enough to say I want to take it seriously," he says.
"People are waking up to the fact that there are different levels of quality in the soft drinks world. I wouldn't like to say it's happening at a breathtaking speed, but it is happening."
Mallinson, originally of New Covent Garden Soup Company fame, has already witnessed success in pubs with upmarket spiced tomato juice Big Tom - widely used in Bloody Marys. But he says the sector is more of a challenge when it comes to other premium soft drinks, mainly because of licensees' reluctance to part with large percentage margins.
"The real dilemma for us is that the margins pubs have historically managed to take on soft drinks have been very generous," he says. "They've bought dirt-cheap juices, then put a nice margin of say, 100 or 200 per cent.
"With more expensive soft drinks, they have to take a hit on the percentage margin. But they can actually make as much, if not more, on the cash margin. At the end of the day, that's what counts."
Pubs are slowly waking up to the maths, he believes. "You can get in some jazzy, modern-looking soft drinks and price them out at a rate that's probably the same as your alcoholic drinks, and you end up making as much," says Mallinson.
These are the sorts of sums licensees are increasingly having to grapple with in the wake of the smoking ban. As families and food go to the top of the agenda, demand for variety and quality of soft drinks is naturally increasing.
But how do you persuade customers to spend that bit more? Is posh packaging the key?
"Packaging is important," says Mallinson. "But I think there's been too much in the pub trade about delivering fancy packaging with crap inside it. Relatively inexpensive products packaged in a slightly glitzier way have often taken the premium slots when they're not actually premium products. I believe you have got to deliver something good as well."
It is also worth paying attention to the health messages doing the rounds - sales of beetroot juice at James White have "exploded" since it emerged it can help lower blood pressure.
Pubs may not fancy serving up pulped root vegetables quite yet, but organic drinks are increasingly earning their place.
