Supermarket beer sales will overtake pub beer sales for first time
It’s a worry. The UK is drifting towards continental Europe. At least when it comes to beer consumption patterns. British drinkers are about to consume more beer at home than in pubs for the first time ever. A report from Zolfo Cooper, a financial advisory firm, which was released in August 2011, suggests that the number of trips people were making to the pub has fallen 19 percent in the past year. It said drinkers now visit pubs an average of 4.3 times a month – against 5.3 times a year ago.
Since 2002 the amount of beer drunk at pubs has fallen by 39 percent, according to the British Beer & Pub Association.
Back in the 1970s more than 90 percent of all beer drunk in Britain was bought from the "on trade" – pubs and clubs – with less than 10 percent bought from the "off trade" of supermarkets and off-licences.
According to the British Beer & Pub Association this ratio had fallen to 50.9 percent from pubs and 49.1 percent from supermarkets at the end of last year. It will cross over in the near future, possibly as soon as this Christmas, some reckon.
This would be a watershed moment for Britain’s beer industry, a culmination of a long-standing change in consumers’ drinking habits as well as confirmation that the recession has caused people to stay at home more.
Pub closures hit a record rate of 53 a week at the height of the recession. In 2010 an average of 26 pubs closed their doors each week, leaving just 52,500 pubs in Britain, nearly half of the level at its peak before World War II.
The British Beer & Pub Association blamed competition from the supermarkets, which often sell beer as a "loss leader" to drive customers into their stores, and above-inflation increases to beer duty.
GMB, a union, has calculated in a recent report that the average price of a pint of lager cost GBP 0.93 at a pub in 1987. If it had risen in line with the Retail Prices Index measure of inflation it would now be GBP 2.18 (EUR 2.50), but in fact it has climbed to GBP 3.09 (EUR 3.55), making it nearly unaffordable as a daily staple for many consumers, already hit by rising utility bills and petrol prices while salaries have been frozen.
Meanwhile, it is possible to buy beer for the equivalent of as little as GBP 0.30 a pint (EUR 0.35) at supermarkets, it was reported.
Pointing the finger at supermarkets and the government is easy. What both the British Beer & Pub Association and the union fail to (or daren’t) address is the ban on smoking, which has probably had the worst effect on pub beer consumption.
According to a report by the British Institute of Innkeeping, which was published in September 2008, one year after the ban on smoking was introduced, 54 percent of pub customers pre-smoking ban were smokers compared to 38 percent of the clientele post-ban. Some smokers probably have stopped going to the pub altogether while others visit less often and don’t stay for as long as before.
"What is the motivation for me", a blogger wondered, "to spend GBP 10 (EUR 11.50) on a bottle of Euro-plonk and stand out in the pouring rain and at sub zero temperatures in the winter, when in the comfort of my own home I can enjoy a very agreeable bottle of Chablis or Rioja Reserva for GBP 8 to GBP 9 from Tesco’s with the radiator on and an ashtray at hand?"
Indeed.
