There's an American eating-out research firm making its first foray into the UK market. Technomic, based in Chicago, has been watching the American market for 45 years and has just undertaken a survey of 1,000 UK consumers to test consumer attitudes to the pub.
And plenty of encouraging stuff emerged. For a start, the broadened pub offer is attracting more youngsters. A total of 52 per cent of young consumers reported they are visiting pubs more often than a year ago.
The survey also identified the increasing importance of food.
Consumers are nearly three times as likely to prefer food-led pubs over wet-led pubs. Technomic describes this as a "shift in consumer perception of pubs". Customers, according to the survey, want a mixture of the old and new in food terms – 64% said they prefer pub menus to feature a mix of traditional dishes along with contemporary options.
It's still not entirely about food yet, obviously. A chunky 29% of consumers reported that they regard an extensive beer list of "high importance".
But there's no doubt that pubs with a great value food offer are having a good recession. Last year, pub chains outperformed restaurants by around two per cent in every month with the exception of one. With larger sites and more scale in absolute terms, managed pub chains have been holding their price points and taking share from other parts of the eating out market as consumers trade down.
And there's plenty more business to go for. Pub meals, including drinks sold with food, account for some £9.8bn of a total market worth £45bn per year. Just three managed pub chains – Marston's, Greene King and Mitchells & Butlers – are investing a combined £227.5m in food-led pub capital expenditure this year.
Looking around the multi-site pub companies, it's possible to spot some very fast adaptations to align with the steady withering of beer as the primary driver of the pub experience. This week, I was talking to founder of Ever So Sensible Chris Bulatis. Chris, a former Mitchells & Butlers executive who was heavily involved in setting up student chain Scream, began his own company by opening a couple of cutting edge bars called Dogma. It was a firmly wet-led company – but Chris spotted the trends were heading in a different direction. In 2009, he set up a parallel company Ever So Sensible Restaurants to, essentially, balance his business out. Now at 11 sites, food accounts for 40% of total turnover - and 50% if you exclude the two original Dogma venues.
It's perfectly possible to make money at the wet-led end of the pub spectrum. But latest CGA figures show nightclubs numbers dropped 13% last year while food led managed pubs increased in numbers. It tells you all you need to know about where the real squeeze is happening.
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