John Porter: Steak and kidney tie?

Punch Taverns is offering some of its licensees a food menu, aimed at helping them compete with the large number of discounts deals on food currently being heavily promoted to customers - particularly by the managed pub operators, including Punch's own Spirit Group business.

The deal, branded Table Top, will initially be offered to 1,000 of the company's pubs, and features pub food staples such as scampi and chips and sausage and mash. The pricing scale of meals, from £1.99 up to £4.99, will be set depending on local competition and each pub's target customer.

Table Top looks to be a good, well-thought out deal and will be welcomed by many of licensees who are offered it. For wet-led pubs, particularly those with limited kitchen space - and/or limited experience of preparing and serving food - this kind of support is genuinely helpful.

However, it's worth asking the question - if the menu, price and supplier are all decided by the pubco, isn't that effectively a food tie?

Punch will rightly point out that there is no element of compulsion involved. But with food sales now such a driver of growth in the trade, there has been speculation for some time as to which tenanted operator would be the first to seriously try and bring some discipline to the free-for-all that currently characterises the pub food market outside the managed sector.

The mechanics of planning a menu, calculating GP, dealing with EHOs and all the other elements of a food operation are more complex than pouring a pint or uncorking a bottle of plonk - so there's a very good argument for saying that this is where pubcos should be focusing support for licensees.

The traditional economics of the tied pub market, though, means that the drink side has been very closely managed by pubcos, while food has been more-or-less bandit country.

If Table Top works, Punch licensees may feel the trade-off in terms of buying choice is worth the added income.

Where it leads is an interesting question for everyone following the debate about the tied pubco model.