{"id":5095,"date":"2025-01-27T23:12:04","date_gmt":"2025-01-27T23:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/?p=5095"},"modified":"2025-01-27T23:12:04","modified_gmt":"2025-01-27T23:12:04","slug":"trade-news-january-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2025\/01\/27\/trade-news-january-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Trade news – January 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

New name confirmed<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carlsberg\u2019s \u00a33.3 billion take-over of the soft drinks company Britvic has been approved. The Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) had been investigating whether or not the deal would \u2018result in a substantial lessening of competition within any market or markets in the United Kingdom for goods or services\u2019 and have decided that it won\u2019t. CAMRA\u2019s Campaigns Team had made a formal submission to the CMA detailing its concerns regarding the deal. The necessary European Union formalities have also been successfully completed. Consequently, Carlsberg Britvic came into being on 16 January 2025. Carlsberg has calculated that the new company structure will bring savings in costs of around \u00a3100 million per annum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Same old, same old?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The list of the ten best selling cask beers during the year ended 5 October 2024 has been published by the Morning Advertiser. The list, inevitably, is dominated by multinational brewers. They, of course, have access to the most outlets through their contracts with the major pub owning businesses. While the Government allows the tied house system to continue, this will not change. That said, I appreciate that many people do actually like these beers and it is not my place, nor is it CAMRA\u2019s policy, to lecture readers on what they drink. The beers are ranked by volume (quantity) of sales, rather than value of sales.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Wetherspoon\u2019s festival features female brewers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JDW\u2019s spring beer festival will run from Wednesday 5 to Sunday 16 March. The festival will be featuring five beers which have been brewed by female brewers from abroad at breweries in this country. The brewers come from Australia, Canada, Italy, New Zealand and the USA and the host brewers are Oakham, Hook Norton, Bateman\u2019s, Adnam\u2019s and Banks\u2019s. Full details are in the winter\/spring edition of Wetherspoon\u2019s own magazine. There will also be 25 other new, seasonal and speciality beers brewed in this country, also, in some cases, by female brewers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fuller\u2019s news<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pub company has reported an increase in \u2018like for like\u2019 sales over Christmas and the New Year of 10.3% as compared to 2023. Sales growth over the 41 weeks to 11 January 2025 was 5.9% and they are on course to meet their financial targets despite the increased costs coming in April. Fuller\u2019s are currently buying back their \u2018A\u2019 shares and have so far spent \u00a35.7 million out of a budget of \u00a36.5 million. They are investing \u00a34 million in the Chamberlain Hotel<\/strong><\/a> in the Minories. Fuller\u2019s currently have 185 managed pubs and hotels (with 1,025 bedrooms) and 153 tenanted pubs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The winner of the Griffin Trophy 2024, Fuller\u2019s internal pub of the year competition, was the Wykeham Arms<\/strong><\/a> in Winchester. You will find it in the back streets between the Cathedral and the College. The award is divided into four categories. The Sanctuary House<\/strong><\/a> in Westminster was the runner-up in the Best Hotel\/Inn category and the Ivy House<\/a><\/strong> in Chalfont St Giles was runner-up in the Best Country\/Village Pub category. London had a clean sweep in the Best Town\/Local Pub category, with the Holly Bush<\/a><\/strong> in Hampstead winning and the Andover Arms<\/a><\/strong> in Hammersmith and the Prince\u2019s Head<\/a><\/strong>, Richmond being runners-up. Likewise with the Best City Pub category, the winner was the Coach & Horses<\/a><\/strong> in Soho (Greek Street) and the runners-up were the George & Vulture<\/a><\/strong> in Hoxton and the Pavilion End<\/a><\/strong> in Watling Street.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo Geoff Marsh<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Young\u2019s news<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young\u2019s also had a good Christmas and New Year, with sales up by 7.9% for the 15 weeks to 13 January as compared to 2023. Their chief executive, Simon Dodd, did however tell the Propel Newsletter that, because of the increased costs due in April, they will be increasing their prices by 3.5%. This will add 20p to a pint costing \u00a36.30, which, according to trade analysts CGA, is the average price of a pint in London. Mr Dodd added an interesting comment, \u201cIf you\u2019re a one-man band, and you\u2019ve got one pub, it\u2019s very, very tough with all of the cost headwinds. We\u2019re just fortunate, we have nearly 300 and we trade in very affluent areas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How\u2019s Zat!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In what seems to be an unlikely pairing, Scottish \u2018punk\u2019 brewers BrewDog have agreed a four year deal with the Marylebone Cricket Club to be their \u2018official beer partner\u2019 and to supply beer to the Lord\u2019s cricket ground. This is BrewDog\u2019s first venture into supplying sports grounds. Lord\u2019s has a capacity of 31,000 and consumption is estimated to be some 750,000 pints per annum. BrewDog are replacing Marston\u2019s who had held the contract since 2008. I wonder if BrewDog can come up with a rhubarb and custard beer to match the members\u2019 blazers and ties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New name confirmed Carlsberg\u2019s \u00a33.3 billion take-over of the soft drinks company Britvic has been approved. The Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) had been investigating whether or not the deal… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5097,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5095"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5098,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5095\/revisions\/5098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}