BBPA Beer Barometer– Claiming that pub beer sales suffer under increased tax on beer

For those who haven't heard of it, the British Beer and Pubs Association (BBPA) is the organisation supported by the largest brewing and pub owning companies in the UK to lobby on their behalf. There sole interest is to ensure that local and national government bodies are ‘properly’ advised on actions that affect their membership. That membership produces 95% of the beer produced in the UK and owns half of the 51,000 (and falling) pubs in the UK.

Yesterday (20/04/12) the latest BBPA Beer Barometer was published. The piece opens with statement that “Pub sales down 6.0% on same quarter last year, with off-trade sales up 4.7%. Swing shows lasting damage of Beer Tax hikes”, BBPA’s Chief Executive - Brigid Simmonds. It seems they’ve shot themselves in the foot. It is their membership who own the pubs that are being bled dry by unrealistic rents and tied beer pricing. The tax ‘hike’ is levied at the brewery gate and the impact is the same for all retailers whether they are ‘on-sales’ in pubs or ‘off sales’ in supermarkets and shops. The fact that ‘off sales’ trade is up by 4.7% shows by a simple addition that beer sales have only fallen by 1.3%. This little bit of spin is devised purely to deflect public and official attention away from the continues stream of pubs closing and publicans being fleeced by the pub landlords, the BBPA’s paymasters.

Research from Begbies Traynor published recently shows that after football clubs, pubs are suffering the greatest amount of ‘business distress’ (going bust) compared with any other business area in the UK. In the case of pub businesses the figures show that up to 50 are folding every week. It’s a good bet that the majority of these businesses are individual tenants and lease holders in pub company properties who have been driven out of business by the long term attrition of unrealistic rents and tied beer pricing.

It is clear that the ‘elephant in the room’ that the government refuse to see is the BBPA’s paymasters who continue to butcher the great British pub industry with impunity. The total liabilities of Punch Taverns and Enterprise Inns stand at £6.7bn and this debt has to be serviced month by month at the expense of their tenants and leaseholders, those people who are going to the wall at the rate of 50 per week. If their income from beer sales is falling at the rate of 6% per year you can be sure that the shortfall in their profits is being even more aggressively bled out of their struggling tenants and leaseholders.

As you walk down most streets it can be seen by all that the pubs that are doing well are selling their beer cheaper than the tied houses. This includes managed houses who are a separate case, but the independently owned properties without the outrageous levels of debt to service are able to compete and are a success.

End this farce now – force the indebted pub companies out of business and put their bondholders assets in the hands of the professionals who know how to run pubs successfully for the benefit of both landlord, tenants and leaseholders and of course the consumer.