On-trade beer sales continue to plummet
27 October, 2008
By James Wilmore
BBPA figures show 1.8 million less pints were sold in three months to September
Beer sales in pubs, bars and restaurants dropped 8.1 per cent between July and September year-on-year, new figures have revealed.
The British Beer & Pub Association’s quarterly Beer Barometer found that 161 million fewer pints were sold – 1.8 million less a day – compared to the same three-month period last year.
It is the biggest drop-off in sales in the third quarter of the year for a decade – and has prompted fresh calls for the government to abandon its beer duty escalator, announced in the Budget.
Total beer sales in the on-trade and off-trade are also down 7.2 per cent.
The off-trade has witnessed its first fall in sales since the second quarter of 2007, with a six per cent drop in the three-month period to September.
The BBPA claimed the Treasury was now facing a £1.2 billion tax shortfall, in real terms, over the next three years compared with its forecasts.
The trade group also estimates the Treasury has collected £138 million less in beer duty and VAT in the six months since the Budget.
In the year to September, beer sales fell by 4.4 per cent compared with the previous year. Sales in pubs, bars and restaurants are down nine per cent, while off-trade sales are up 2.1 per cent overall.
Rob Hayward, the BBPA’s chief executive, said: “The accelerating decline in beer sales is a clear sign of a worsening economy, worried households and weakening spending.
“Sinking beer sales and the record five pubs a day closing is a barometer of the UK economic climate. We’re busy responding to the economic challenges of today. But we need greater flexibility.
“Government needs to be looking to ease the constraints of the tax and regulatory burden on our sector. We’re not looking for a handout just a hand-up. They must abandon their current plans to increase beer taxes by a third through a new tax escalator.
"They should also pull back from their current alcohol policy agenda which would introduce even more regulation on how alcohol is produced and sold in Britain.”
http://www.thepublican.com/story.asp?storycode=61607
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Someone has just tried to post the link to this website on here, we have deleted it. WARNING 2008 list online WTF is going on at the BNP ? ...
10 comments:
5 pubs a day closing!
I wonder how many of them will end up as mosques?
Back to the old homebrew! :-D
The explanation is wine. That trendy and fashionable drink for the middle class. Beer has the image of the drink of old England.
In contrast, wine drinking is declining in many European countries and beer is trendy.
Pubs are closing due to two facts: changing demographics from Christian to Moslem & the smoking ban. The second seems somewhat hypocritical in light of the Governments efforts to decriminalise certain types of "recreational" drugs, but when looked at with a marxian twist it becomes obvious that it is no more than an attack on British tradition & culture as our social outlet has always centred around alchohol consumption in one form or other going all the way back to the Vikings.
In the past, pubs where, shall we say, nicer than our own homes. Especially in the early and mid 20th.Century.
The same is not true today, with bad behaviour and bad language...........and that is from the women !
A terrible shame, but I think a lot of people stay home out of fear, as well as lack of money, and the cigarette ban. I also think that pub owners should take on board that its clients want a more up market experience when they go for a drink to. They don't want to be threatened by drunks, and the food should be more than a frozen 2nd rate steak sandwich
They don't want to be threatened by drunks, and the food should be more than a frozen 2nd rate steak sandwich
27 October 2008 17:52
I agree, but you would have thought that the regional real ale brewers would have diversified to other things that sell in order to survive. You see everything in supermarkets now, why not ale branded food?
Beef and Hobgoblin pie
Pork, apple and Gaymer casserole etc
The smoking ban is a good thing.
The smell always used to be something we hated.
Call me paranoid, but I wouldn't be surprised if the nanny statist anti-smoking turned out to be a part of a covert attempt to destroy the public house. Unrestricted mass immigration could form the other prong to rip the heart out of the community.
I remember when we had spitoons on the floor and sawdust to soak up the blood in pubs.
Young uns of today ?
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