On-Trade Report Autumn 2007

THERE’S NO room for complacency in the UK on-trade at the moment. Sales figures, no matter how you look at them, are almost all universally bleak. New and impending regulations and legislation aren’t helping. Incentives for punters to drink at home are ever-increasing (not least the low price of drinks in supermarkets). Rising property prices place growing pressure on already narrow profits, and even Mother Nature hasn’t really cooperated this year, with low temperatures and flooding cutting into the usually guaranteed hot-weather sales of lager and Mojitos.
And yet, for the first time in 10 years, and almost incomprehensibly, the number of visits to on-trade outlets is on the rise. TNS, the bearers of this solitary item of good news in an ocean of calamity and pessimism, have a number of explanations. A far more important factor than changing drinking trends is the new kind of consumer going out to drink. These are not the high-volume drinkers of old. This new consumer is just as likely to order a soft drink or coffee to go with a bite to eat, as they are to have something alcoholic.
When they do drink, these consumers, on the whole, expect a quality product, well served, as well as a quality experience, all as a reward for venturing away from the more affordable, less regulated confines of their homes.