Pubcos such as Greene King and Enterprise Inns understand the industry is changing and are looking to adapt with it, double Michelin-starred pub chef Tom Kerridge has told M&C Report’s sister title, the Publican’s Morning Advertiser (PMA).
Kerridge was speaking to the PMA ahead of this week’s opening of his new pub, the Coach in Marlow, Buckinghamshire — an Enterprise Inns site on which he has a 10-year lease. He also has a lease on a Greene King site, the Hand & Flowers, also located in Marlow, which he has run since 2005.
He said: “From my conversations with Enterprise and Greene King, they would rather someone went into a pub, and stayed there for 20 years, and was able to serve beer and operate as a business.
“They don’t want to be constantly recruiting people and changing tenant: they want their sites to work. They understand as an industry that this needs to change; that things need to be looked at slightly differently.”
Kerridge claimed from personal experience that Greene King was adapting to niche markets, developing more specialised beers, and understanding more about artisan products.
Earlier this year, Greene King partnered with Kerridge in capital investment for a new lounge area at the Hand & Flowers, and the chef also visited the brewer’s new innovation centre as part of a closer working relationship.
Kerridge revealed he has funded the refurbishment of the Coach himself, and was taking on the site rent-free for a period from Enterprise.
He described the recent amendment in the pubs code that outlines companies with more than 500 pubs and at least one tenanted/leased site will have to offer a market rent-only option to tenants as “fantastic for struggling pubs”.
He said: “If it helps drinks-led pubs survive, then that’s amazing. Not every pub is as fortunate as us in a busy little market town.”
But Kerridge warned it wasn’t all positive. “The one thing I do worry about is the hidden cost of rent going up to compensate for the lack of sales of beer.”
However, Kerridge warned that those expecting quick change across the industry were unrealistic. “It’s one of Britain’s oldest industries and trying to change it is like trying to turn around a cruise liner, you can’t just apply the handbrake and go in a different direction.”
He said pubs had always adapted to meet the public’s requirements — from gin houses to food-led pubs — and that will continue.
“The next 10 years will be a huge change in the ways pubs are used and as an industry, we all have to embrace that move,” he added.
