High Street Coffee Price Up 30%

A report in the Sunday times says that since 2021 to the start of 2024 coffee has risen by 30%, and understandably the number of people buying coffee is dropping, albeit a small amount.

Can you imagine if beer went up 30%?  From £4 to £5.20 ? Well, it kinda is. We talk about going up by 50p or by £1, but when put into percentages it’s really quite a lot.

Wetherspoons Sales & Change of Direction for Business?

Wetherspoons has sold off three more of its pub in the north, and is now selling more than it’s opening.

New venues are BIG, even by their standards, and they’re selling off the smaller town/community pubs. Seems they don’t think community pubs are financially viable. 

A lot of previous sales still see the building owned by ‘Spoons, but leased out. So they’re becoming more of a PubCo than a pub chain.

RedCat PubCo Sells Leased Estate Subsidiary

RedCat sold off its leased pubs subsidiary, another prepack that leads to the parent company and the new buyer not keeping the debts, the suppliers get shafted, again. While prepacks are still legal in the UK breweries are going to have to seek cash before delivery.

Pubs Code Adjudicator Finds Stonegate PubCo Guilty of Breaches

The Pubs Code Adjudicator found 1,120 Pubs Code violations against Stonegate alone, going back to 2019 where it hasn’t offered the right rent options for new tenants as it legally should.
Stonegate have said they’ve changed and promise not to do it again, and they’ve been fined nothing by the adjudicator. Absolutely nothing. Not even a slap on the wrist.
So what’s the point of the Pubs Code if it only has to be followed if you get caught?

Adnams Possibly For Sale?

Reports out this week say that Adnams is possibly looking at a full buyout.

They’ve previously said they were looking at different ways to gain investment, but a full buyout wasn’t mentioned. Now we’ve yet to see any confirmation of these reports, but they have recently launched a full rebrand though, and this is often done to try and make a company more appealing for buyers.

Beer Central For Sale

Long standing bottle shop owners have decided to move on. Looking to sell it all as a complete successful business rather than just closing up

Scottish Government Urged to Drop Calorie Labeling on Alcohol

Public Health Scotland has urged them to drop the idea, because new research by them has confirmed what they’ve been told many times, that calorie labeling can cause more harm than good, especially for people with eating disorders.

CAMRA Launch Handpull Hijack Campaign

Carlsberg Marston Brewing Company, who’ve basically shut down the whole Marstons brewing arm, are looking to sell keg beer through handpulls.
Hand pulls are associated with cask, and a lot of drinkers, especially tourists, see hand pulls and expect cask.
So CAMRA have launched a campaign against this misleading dispense, and kicked it off with a complaint to Trading Standards.

Carlsberg have responded saying they’re “very proud” to be a key part in the UK’s brewing heritage, yet they are closing cask breweries and their way of distinguishing the difference for the consumer is a qr code on the pump clip that takes them off to a website.