“During lockdown – who knows which one, we lost count – we had a rare opportunity to take a step back from Brucan Pubs and really think about who we are, what we stand for and how we want those core values to drive our business.
We wanted to know what our business looked like from the outside in, so we asked. We asked our team, we asked our friends, we asked our competitors and we asked our regulars.
We might not have liked everything we heard back, but we listened and most importantly, we changed.
Adapt to survive is a business strategy that we have all become far too familiar with over the last couple of years, if indeed it can be classed as a strategy, when mostly it has simply been reactive.
In reality, pubs have always adapted, evolved, changed and developed to meet the needs of their changing demographics, and rightly so.
We place ourselves at the heart of communities and strive to better ourselves against our competition, with our offerings of great food and drink, warm relaxing environments and exemplary hospitality, and in doing so, we must be acutely aware of the needs of our customers to ensure we stay current.
Looking back at what a traditional pub offered its patrons, we all know that it simply isn’t enough these days. So, how can we embrace a future that is ethical, sustainable and not just open to all, but attractive to all?
Sustainability is a great word for marketeers, used in abundance but often not flowing through the entire business model and runs the risk of becoming meaningless.
As a pub group, Brucan is unashamedly about the food. My business partner Jamie (pictured on the right with James, above) and I are both chefs by trade and that’s where our passion comes from. We find great joy in keeping our menus interesting yet deeply rooted in traditional British cuisine. Often giving a relevant nod to the past with long forgotten and under used ingredients, perhaps cast aside by others as ‘the nasty bits’.
This ethos of sustainability applies across our operation, from championing English wines, to company EVs (electric vehicles) for our Operations Team, and from renewable source energy contracts to zero waste food policies; there’s a benefit across all areas to both the environment and the P&L when the right policies and practices are applied.
However, sustainability to me is about more than where we get our fish from or how old the cow was and what she ate before becoming a Grade A delight for our Sunday roasts, it’s about building a business that has a lifespan beyond the lease tenure of our agreement with our landlords.
Our pubs as building range in age up to and over 200 years old and one thing for certain is that they are likely to still be standing long after we have moved on, so our mission is to ensure that they stand as pubs, not a block of flats nor a supermarket. This is where we stand to benefit most, from embracing an #OpenToAll mentality.
Diversifying our offering to make it attractive to wider demographics will secure the future of the pub as a pub.
There’s no denying the fact that consumer habits are changing fast.
The days of taking the right-of-passage to buy your first pint of ale on your 18th birthday simply doesn’t carry the same attraction to what is a more health-conscious generation, who are becoming more embedded in digital socialising than a chin wag over the pool table.
Similarly, the rising number of people choosing to turn their backs on alcohol in favour of the no and low options means we need to attract them to the pub in other ways.
Of course, the simple steps are there and most of us take them already: great digital online presence, strong wi-fi coverage, wide non-alcoholic drinks range, superb and innovative food menus accompanied by great service. But what will really save our rare breed maple smoked bacon will be how we engage with our communities.
We saw a rally of support for the local pub through Covid and that must be embraced. The British public love their pubs, so let’s get back to being that community hub. If our pubs are valued and recognised as the community asset that they truly are then we have a much greater chance of surviving.
I got accused recently of running a managed pub company, the words came out of the accusers mouth with a hint of venom, as if it were a slur on the great independence of the British pub… ouch!
But there is a point to that, we can’t run our pubs from an ivory tower, we need to stay local, stay relevant and stay in touch with our communities, to be there for them as they were for us when our revenue fell off a cliff and we were forced to serve everything in biodegradable boxes.
The key here, of course, is our teams. We coach, mentor and train but we also have to empower them to run the business as if it were their own.
Our General Managers and Head Chefs are expected to assume the role of the traditional landlord figure – think less miserable grump at the end of the bar and more Mein Host at the best dinner party you’ve ever attended!
Knowing people by name, their favourite tipple (regardless of the ABV%), which broadsheet to pass to them, and which tabloid to discretely slip inside it. Knowing when to reach out for a chat and when to let them enjoy their peace. But for a pub as a business to be truly sustainable and cemented at the heart of the community, we have to look beyond our tenure to the future – and that’s the bit that worries me the most.
If I look at my teams now and think who would buy this business from us in 15 years’ time, or who would be taking on a tenancy of the pub down the road and become a competitor, I genuinely don’t think anyone’s name leaps forward. That not because they’re not capable, far from it, it’s because why on earth would they? What’s the incentive?
Why would anyone choose to risk their savings, dedicate 100% of their time and mental strength to a business hat is hamstrung at every turn? To take on a future of crippling business rates, excessive VAT, a staffing crisis with no solution in sight and barely any means to turn a profit would surely be hitting the self-destruct button, wouldn’t it?
That’s our biggest problem right there, we all know how to evolve, innovate, diversify and pivot, that’s what we do best, but if it doesn’t reward us with a viable business then our industry is one already on the path to extinction and we are just the pallbearers.
This is where we need to see real change, not from us but from Government, change that reflects the value of the great British pub as an institution, one we should be proud of the world over and one that should be recognised as an asset to be protected at all cost.
