Wetherspoons selling off real ales at 99p/pint ahead of lockdown


Surely they don't set the price though. My lad buys beer from local breweries for Spoons and it's a part of the job he really enjoys. Talking to the brewer then setting them up onsite with the brewer as well
Maybe it depends on the area but from what I’ve heard they’re very aggressive with their price demands (often basically cost price) and their payment terms are terrible. Mind, I always wonder why the breweries who have this experience sold to them in the first place if they were just offering cost price.
 
Maybe it depends on the area but from what I’ve heard they’re very aggressive with their price demands (often basically cost price) and their payment terms are terrible. Mind, I always wonder why the breweries who have this experience sold to them in the first place if they were just offering cost price.

Spoons are always at least a month behind with their payments to breweries.
 
I don’t like late payers. I think it is disrespectful. If someone fills their end of the deal you should pay and pay promptly. If it’s a personal service I always tip generously.
 
I use them in probably the same way as almost everyone else

In a place we're not familiar with we hoy the Spoons app on the phone, have a few cheap pints and some cheap bait then go elsewhere

Say what you want about Tim Martin but it's a brilliant business model

Tim's always moaning about how unfair running his business is mind.

I think the punters fall into four camps (from people I know who use them). People who like to get pissed in a pub as cheaply as possible (John Smiths brigade), people who like a cheap real ale, people who like the cheap food and those like you and me who use it as a safe pair of hands on their travels. There's probably a few in more than one camp on the above too.
 
I'm no fan of Tim Martin but there were a lot of lies spread post covid. I recognise every staff member in the one I use they came back. It's obviously not a bad place to work the retention is a lot higher than other pub companies and they have a generous share and bonus scheme. Even during furlough. I'll criticise where it's due...
 
I think it’s just a pub. Life’s too short to worry about the owner. There are usually no kids in. No banging music, drinks are good price and food is what you would expect given the range and price.

It’s not dining. It’s eating.

I don’t go in them regularly but I would go in and spend my money.
 
I'm no fan of Tim Martin but there were a lot of lies spread post covid. I recognise every staff member in the one I use they came back. It's obviously not a bad place to work the retention is a lot higher than other pub companies and they have a generous share and bonus scheme. Even during furlough. I'll criticise where it's due...

fair point that about the staff retention.
 
I think it’s just a pub. Life’s too short to worry about the owner. There are usually no kids in. No banging music, drinks are good price and food is what you would expect given the range and price.

It’s not dining. It’s eating.

I don’t go in them regularly but I would go in and spend my money.
Exactly. People don't like Jeff Bezos, but they'll gladly use Amazon. Same in all kinds of business, cheap products win every time.
I'm no fan of Tim Martin but there were a lot of lies spread post covid. I recognise every staff member in the one I use they came back. It's obviously not a bad place to work the retention is a lot higher than other pub companies and they have a generous share and bonus scheme. Even during furlough. I'll criticise where it's due...
Exactly.

Apologies have been issued by the offending news outlets who printed and said the lies, as i posted earlier with the spoons magazine page. Fair play to them for doing so, but id imagine they had no choice but to do so at the end of the day.
 
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Maybe it depends on the area but from what I’ve heard they’re very aggressive with their price demands (often basically cost price) and their payment terms are terrible. Mind, I always wonder why the breweries who have this experience sold to them in the first place if they were just offering cost price.

bargaining power.

quite a common tactic in business in general. It is a bit shitty, but your small trader will be getting fairly decent exposure by selling in something like a Wetherspoon pub. I guess they’re happy to do that as it will hopefully cross over to sales by other means if someone takes a liking to their product. So sort of a marketing cost wrapped up in the sale.
 
Quite a few turning their noses up at Wetherspoons with it's grand and historic buildings (saved from ruin), proper pub carpets, and like a proper traditional boozer - no music or tellys.

Too worried about the "proper pub" down the road with it's karaoke and wall to wall TV screens, charging £4 for a flat pint of Fosters.
 
Quite a few turning their noses up at Wetherspoons with it's grand and historic buildings (saved from ruin), proper pub carpets, and like a proper traditional boozer - no music or tellys.

Too worried about the "proper pub" down the road with it's karaoke and wall to wall TV screens, charging £4 for a flat pint of Fosters.

Have you been in Jamwsons lately?

Its minging.
 
Maybe it depends on the area but from what I’ve heard they’re very aggressive with their price demands (often basically cost price) and their payment terms are terrible. Mind, I always wonder why the breweries who have this experience sold to them in the first place if they were just offering cost price.

It's better to sell 100 barrels at £10 profit each than 4 barrels at £100 each profit. Wetherspoon and the other big chains hold the cards when purchasing beer. If your product sells well then they might end up ordering 1,000 barrels at £10 profit and that's £10k your making. The pubs buying 4 barrels if your lucky might buy 8 which is £800. You can't refuse that. The number of pubs, that 1k barrels could be much much higher if it's a good product.

Also if you sell more that can bring the price down because the fixed costs are there regardless.

I'm no fan of Tim Martin but there were a lot of lies spread post covid. I recognise every staff member in the one I use they came back. It's obviously not a bad place to work the retention is a lot higher than other pub companies and they have a generous share and bonus scheme. Even during furlough. I'll criticise where it's due...

Not sure which Wetherspoon's you go to but I always found Wetherspoons to have by far the worst contention and usually ran by kids on national wage. Green King and Stonegate generally have a much more stable team who are usually older and the pubs are usually more friendly because of it aswell since they have regulars etc.
 
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It's better to sell 100 barrels at £10 profit each than 4 barrels at £100 each profit. Wetherspoon and the other big chains hold the cards when purchasing beer. If your product sells well then they might end up ordering 1,000 barrels at £10 profit and that's £10k your making. The pubs buying 4 barrels if your lucky might buy 8 which is £800. You can't refuse that. The number of pubs, that 1k barrels could be much much higher if it's a good product.

Also if you sell more that can bring the cost price down because the fixed costs are split over the number of things you sell and for a brewery rent etc could potentially be one of the biggest costs.
If you sell 100 barrels at zero profit you make nowt! I could understand it if they were repeat orders at scale but that’s not often the case, Spoons tend to rotate their guest ales regularly and often only locally from the pubs so they’ll be fairly small, infrequent orders.
 
Quite a few turning their noses up at Wetherspoons with it's grand and historic buildings (saved from ruin), proper pub carpets, and like a proper traditional boozer - no music or tellys.

Too worried about the "proper pub" down the road with it's karaoke and wall to wall TV screens, charging £4 for a flat pint of Fosters.

I think you are bang on like. I can only speak for round here but outside of the city centre, local pubs are largely as you describe, shit holes selling shit overpriced beer and largely patronised by chavs. People who want and can afford a quality product just aren’t going out drinking enough to support them.
 
It's better to sell 100 barrels at £10 profit each than 4 barrels at £100 each profit. Wetherspoon and the other big chains hold the cards when purchasing beer. If your product sells well then they might end up ordering 1,000 barrels at £10 profit and that's £10k your making. The pubs buying 4 barrels if your lucky might buy 8 which is £800. You can't refuse that. The number of pubs, that 1k barrels could be much much higher if it's a good product.

Also if you sell more that can bring the price down because the fixed costs are there regardless.



Not sure which Wetherspoon's you go to but I always found Wetherspoons to have by far the worst contention and usually ran by kids on national wage. Green King and Stonegate generally have a much more stable team who are usually older and the pubs are usually more friendly because of it aswell since they have regulars etc.
The staff in the two I use semi regular are stable. One employs an ex landlord of a local pub.
 
Quite a few turning their noses up at Wetherspoons with it's grand and historic buildings (saved from ruin), proper pub carpets, and like a proper traditional boozer - no music or tellys.

Too worried about the "proper pub" down the road with it's karaoke and wall to wall TV screens, charging £4 for a flat pint of Fosters.
I have a thing for old cinemas and Tim has saved a few over the years. They'd likely have been demolished, turned into a B&M or a bingo hall with zero investment in the structure. The old cinema at Blyth is fantastic inside. It must have cost millions to restore it back to its pomp. For this alone Tim gets my nod of approval and I'm happy to spend money in his pubs.
 
I have a thing for old cinemas and Tim has saved a few over the years. They'd likely have been demolished, turned into a B&M or a bingo hall with zero investment in the structure. The old cinema at Blyth is fantastic inside. It must have cost millions to restore it back to its pomp. For this alone Tim gets my nod of approval and I'm happy to spend money in his pubs.
Some of the buildings are fantastic like. I think Wetherspoons need to be commended for their work in preserving them and giving them back to the community.
 
If you sell 100 barrels at zero profit you make nowt! I could understand it if they were repeat orders at scale but that’s not often the case, Spoons tend to rotate their guest ales regularly and often only locally from the pubs so they’ll be fairly small, infrequent orders.

The thing is that's not necessarily true. Going to go in a bit of detail to explain but let's say this:

The cost (variable) to produce a barrel is £100.
The fixed costs of the buildings and equipment is £10,000 a month.
Wetherspoons places an order of 1k barrels at £120 each.
50 local pubs places an order of 100 barrels at £300 each.

With Wetherspoons the figures are the following:
Fixed Costs: £20,000 (£18'ish a barrel)
Variable Costs: 1,100 x £100 = £110,000
Total Costs: £130,000 (£118'ish a barrel)

Wetherspoons Sales: £120,000
Local Pubs Sales: £30,000
Total Sales: £150,000

Profit: £20,000

Take Wetherspoons out the figures are the following:

Fixed Costs: £20,000 (£200 per barrel)
Variable Costs: £100 x 100 = £10,000
Total Costs: £30,000 (£300 per barrel)

Sales: £30,000

Profit: £0

---

As you can see above even known Wetherspoon's is at cost price pretty much it's still made the company £20,000 because it's dragged the cost per barrel down massively (in red) because of the fixed costs (in blue) which is there regardless. You'd need both though as if you took out the local sales then you'd make a £10k loss but the Wetherspoons order is making the local sales profitable to sense than every other £300 barrel is another £160'ish vs roughly £10 without them.


The staff in the two I use semi regular are stable. One employs an ex landlord of a local pub.

Surprised tbh, the Whitley one which is my nearest is horrendous for turnover and it shows. No real community feel at all and half of them are utterly clueless to the stage they don't know basics like pouring a pint at a slant so you don't get massive head. It's always been badly ran that one though.
 
The thing is that's not necessarily true. Going to go in a bit of detail to explain but let's say this:

The cost (variable) to produce a barrel is £100.
The fixed costs of the buildings and equipment is £10,000 a month.
Wetherspoons places an order of 1k barrels at £120 each.
50 local pubs places an order of 100 barrels at £300 each.

With Wetherspoons the figures are the following:
Fixed Costs: £20,000 (£18'ish a barrel)
Variable Costs: 1,100 x £100 = £110,000
Total Costs: £130,000 (£118'ish a barrel)

Wetherspoons Sales: £120,000
Local Pubs Sales: £30,000
Total Sales: £150,000

Profit: £20,000

Take Wetherspoons out the figures are the following:
Fixed Costs: £20,000 (£200 per barrel)
Variable Costs: £100 x 100 = £10,000
Total Costs: £30,000 (£300 per barrel)

Sales: £30,000

Profit: £0

---

As you can see above even known Wetherspoon's is at cost price pretty much it's still made the company £20,000 because it's dragged the cost per barrel down massively (in red) because of the fixed costs (in blue) which is there regardless. You'd need both though as if you took out the local sales then you'd make a £10k loss but the Wetherspoons order is making the local sales profitable to sense than every other £300 barrel is another £160'ish vs roughly £10 without them.




Surprised tbh, the Whitley one which is my nearest is horrendous for turnover and it shows. No real community feel at all and half of them are utterly clueless to the stage they don't know basics like pouring a pint at a slant so you don't get massive head. It's always been badly ran that one though.
You’re working things out on a far bigger scale then these breweries work at, for the guest beers they be lucky to hit double figures never mind 1000!
 

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