OPINION: Dealing with heatwaves now and in the future

Wherever you are on the enthusiasm scale for net zero, we all have to make the impact of heatwaves the best it can be for our businesses.

I still see climate change as the thing that is most likely to make life for my grandkids (who don’t yet exist) impossible to enjoy, so I am trying to slow the heatwaves down… but that’s for another day.

Here’s a view of the heatwave impact on pubs:

Sales for wet-led pubs with decent outside space go up by 8-11% – that is the range experts quote. Wed-led pubs without outside areas go down by 12% if they are hot, less if they are cooled. Food-focused pub areas go slightly down at 0.5%. If you disagree, that’s great, work out what yours does, no pub is the same but I bet the movement is significant.

Let’s think through what we might do to maximise profit as the world heats up. Let’s assume there are four mini heatwaves each year. Lasting four days apiece; and four wetter periods. We will have to do things differently.

If the heatwaves are hotter, the other weeks are dropping in turnover faster. A hot week doesn’t grow the whole summer’s turnover by 8% sadly because the total disposable income of our consumers doesn’t change that much. Heat mostly moves sales around.

Working from home

Forecasting accurately and flexibly managing rotas to take all the sales available is key. Flexible and highly focused team labour cost management is even more important; it’s just no good to have too few people working on the day the garden is rammed, and have too many when it rains the week after. That’s two weeks not optimised, or in my summer of the future, eight weeks out of kilter – or half the main summer weeks.

Working from home is more common because schools and trains cause issues but it is uncomfortable too. Can you create reactive reasons to visit the pub if temperatures rise? Could you be the outdoor pub that’s always full when it’s hot? Does yours have air flow or fans that draws people in.

Your team members need to be loving the heat! They must not be wondering whether you will give them the day off. What can you do to make the team remember it’s hot and we can still have fun. Ask them to be creative about their own enjoyment as well as the guests. Kitchens are particularly hot so what can you do to make it acceptable for the chefs? Rather than close a kitchen, which I observed in a couple of places, how about a change to the menu to lower cooking heat?

Drought causes price shocks – maybe not on the day – but definitely within months. How can you work with price movements that flow from farmers to the wholesalers? Can you alter prices up or down easier and quicker? How can you be working with more resilient suppliers and products?

Air conditioning units feel good on the day but cost up to £50 per average pub, per day. Do you invest? And manage carefully? Or do you resist and have other cooling things for guests. You should make a decision this year so you are ready for next because these heatwaves are here to stay.

Ice machines have to be man enough and in the right spot to deliver volume. Invest wisely. Low volume or knackered ice machines are not the right answer in a heatwave.

Brilliant at creative, fun stuff

Can you have special products that can get a following on a heatwave? Iced drinks, dog showers, misting systems, etc. We are brilliant at our creative, fun stuff to attract people in.

I could go on and on but we have the answers between us.

There are some great forecasting and rota/labour management tools. They are getting better at forecasting accurately as long as we feed them information about the events we know of. With concentration and the help of good technology, the publican can get close to being able to predict peak and quiet hours well.

And the Zero Carbon Forum has all the best tools for energy reduction for cooling and for heating. And it is building answers for climate change resilience. It is showing great returns for electric kitchens and, boy, your kitchen team will thank you for that. Happy chefs and happy long-term bottom line.

And for those who are talking to suppliers and farmers, make sure you are talking to the ones that are working on regenerative agriculture and drought resistance so they start finding the answers that will lower price spikes.

I’d recommend we share our answers with each other. This is a common challenge.

The main thing to understand is heatwaves are no longer one-offs. They are the new challenging opportunities and we must add them to the list we already face.

Plan now for the next one, because planning prevents poor performance. There’s little point in denying this change is going to make summer even more interesting in our challenging and wonderful world of pubs.