Never mind the farmers. It’s Britain’s pubs that are at the beck and call of the vagaries of this country’s weather. If the weather is good, then trading improves as customers head for the beer garden or riverside hostelries. If the weather is not that great, then people still head to the pub, albeit to enjoy a fireside pint or catch up with friends and family over a meal. But if the weather is terrible, then the number of people braving the torrential downpours or snowstorms diminishes accordingly. Equally, on the rare occasions when we get a heatwave, the last thing people want to do is get hot and bothered going to the pub when they can fired up the barbie and have a few beers in the peace and quiet of their own gardens.
The latest Coffer CGA Business Tracker shows what I mean. The wet weather pushed sales growth in managed pubs below the market average in July as the weather moved consumers indoors. This, in turn, boosted indoor activities such as going to a restaurant. According to the tracker, pubs recorded sales growth of 7% for the month of July, with restaurants enjoying a 12.2% uplift, while bar sales rose 7.1% compared with the same month the year before.
The Great British washout didn’t just boost restaurants. Going to nightclubs, tenpin bowling and going to the cinema all benefited – helped, of course, by the Barbenheimer effect - while even Mecca Bingo, which for years has been in decline, enjoyed a big spike in revenues as people looked for something to keep them occupied during the dismal weather.
While August’s weather has shown a bit more promise, hopes of a feelgood factor from a victory in the women’s World Cup have, alas, ended in further moisture, this time in the form of the England team’s tears.
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Roger Protz is not a stupid man. Quite the contrary. So why is Molson Coors treating him – and every other fan of fine beers – like an idiot? Having picked up rumours that Worthington’s White Shield - a “feisty and full-flavoured India Pale Ale”, according to Molson – was set to be scrapped after 279 years, the venerable beer writer contacted the company to find out what was happening. The response? White Shield is “being rested” for the “foreseeable future”.
Now, I quite like Molson, which has never been afraid to produce beers other than the ubiquitous Carling and Coors. But its response to Protz was frankly insulting. If you’re going to kill off a famous beer – one that has been named Camra Champion Bottled Beer of Britain on four occasions, in 1991, 2000, 2006 and 2013 - at least have the balls to admit the truth rather than talking in riddles. Nobody is fooled, least of all Protz, who declared the beer to be at “grave” risk. And as for White Shield being “rested”, he declared: “I fear this may be Rest in Peace.”
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It was the end of an era last month, as David Page, former CEO and/or chairman of midmarket brands from PizzaExpress, to Gourmet Burger Kitchen, The Real Greek and Franco Manca, finally hung up his boots after overseeing the £93.4m sale of Fulham Shore, the owner of Franco Manca and The Real Greek. Given that he is now 71 and cashed in shares worth £13m in the sale, it all looks a very neat and tidy way to retire from the cut and thrust of casual dining.
Except that he’s not retiring. In fact, I understand he’s just taken a new role with Toridoll and Capdesia, the two companies that teamed up to take Fulham Shore private. Toridoll, the Tokyo-listed global food company behind brands including Marugame Udon, has been rapidly establishing itself in the UK and Europe, while Capdesia, Toridoll’s partner in the move, has the investors to introduce to the Japanese group. The duo are undoubtedly skilled at what they do, but rather than waving au revoir to Page as he prepares to spend more time at his house in France, they have hired him for at least a year to help ferret out further European acquisitions.
Toridoll is a Tokyo-listed global food company with a market value of about £1.5bn, but its knowledge of the European market looks limited compared to the near-half a century of experience accumulated by Page. And if his new paymasters were in any doubt about the value the so-called King of Casual Dining brings to the table, his CV includes spells as a florist, cartographer, hospital porter and trainee teacher. At PizzaExpress he also carried out every job from dishwasher to waiter, pizza-maker, manager, area manager, franchisee, chief executive and chairman.
