Camerons, the Hartlepool-based brewer and pub operator, is aiming to grow its managed estate to 20 next year, with new sites planned for both its Head of Steam and Blue Lounge Pub & Kitchen brands.
Joe Smith, pub estates and operations director for Camerons, told M&C Report that the company’s tenanted and leased division would probably not grow within the next 18 months but said this did not mean things were standing still. He said a new suite of tenancy agreements would be introduced, including an entry-level 12-month package.
Last week the company announced that the former Spencers in Mill Hill, Leeds, was to become a Head of Steam and Smith told M&C Report that the Pier Inn at Whitby would also take on the brand as the company focuses on growing its managed estate.
He said: “When I started at Camerons, we had three managed sites and 65 leased and tenanted. The company now stands with a quality estate of 13 managed with another two due to open before Christmas and 61 core leased and tenanted pubs all on substantive agreement. We will be looking at adding another six or seven acquisitions over the next six to twelve months.
“We are looking at sites right across the north of England, including Harrogate, York, Leeds, Newcastle and maybe another site in Sunderland.
“The North East is our core market and it’s absolutely taking off. This area is always the last to come out of a recession but I believe we are now on an upward curve. There’s such a lot of vibrancy around. Everyone is looking at London, Birmingham and Manchester but there is real energy and growth in Newcastle.”
Smith said growth strategy would focus on the Head of Steam brand but this would not be exclusive.
He said: ”Our Head of Steam is a fantastic brand with wonderful beer innovation being at its core and we are going to take the brand forward. We have already developed two new sites in Tynemouth and Sunderland with another due to open in Leeds before Christmas. We intend to grow the brand at a sensible and realistic rate with quality and location being the driver, not just expansion for numbers sake. We also have a great brand in our Blue Lounge Pub & Kitchen sites that provides a quality offer to meet the more mainstream needs.
”There are lessons being learnt in both brands with shared best practice having a positive impact in all our pubs with development of the craft and cask ales along with better food operations. The benefit of this is also being offered to our leased and tenanted business with the ’Crafty Camerons’ offer introducing a great range of craft and cask ales at an affordable price for our tenants. Along with better costings on food from our major suppliers.
“What is very important to me is that if we are going to have brands then they are strong brands. I don’t want to have one great concept and then the other one loses face. We need to promote and develop both our brands. That is something you see our competitors failing on – they develop too many brands and lose direction.”
On the tenanted and leased estate he said about 50% of the estate had seen re-investment.
He added: “For the next 18 months we will look to expand the managed estate but there will still be investment going in to the tenanted and leased side of the business. It’s really about getting our ducks in a row and though we have no immediate direct plans to extend the size of the L&T estate, we would never say never in terms of expanding that side of the business.”
Smith said Camerons was bringing in a new suite of agreements which included three models: a variable length of term tenancy; a variable length of term lease and an entry agreement.
On the latter Smith said: “It would be low level entry – they would go in there for 12 months and we would offer training and support to develop into a longer-term agreement.”
Smith said the company was keen to increase its training package to tenants, including a digital marketing package.
