What you need to know
While consumers are still most likely to head to a pub or bar for dinner, visitation continues to spread across other mealtimes as pubs/bars strengthen their position as a breakfast/brunch and lunch destination.
As consumers become more health-oriented (particularly around consumption of alcohol) and more value-conscious, food-led pubs have managed to maintain growth by welcoming diners throughout the day, rather than in the evening alone.
Whilst growth in the pub catering sector has moderated, Mintel expects the value of the market to grow by 5% between 2019 and 2023, to reach £8.1 billion.
Products covered in this Report
Pub catering is defined as covering meals of any kind sold in public houses, with the exclusion of any drinks and also excluding packaged snack products (eg crisps, nuts, pork scratchings). However, whilst not included in the market size, these products are discussed elsewhere in the Report where relevant.
All pubs (public houses) and bars have on-trade licences to serve alcoholic drink for consumption on the premises. These licences may also be granted to other outlets, such as hotels or cinemas, but a pub has at least some traditional characteristics that differentiate it from other bars.
Licensed restaurants are excluded from Mintel’s definition of pub restaurants, as are hotels for which drinks form only a part of the overall business. Other premises, which may have full on-licences but are not generally open to the public, including licensed clubs, a variety of leisure venues and college bars, are also excluded.
Some important terms connected with the pub business are:
Tenanted or leased pubs are run as businesses by independent publicans who pay rent to the owner of the property and also contract to take supplies from the property owner’s company. The supplies mainly only involve beer, this system dating back to the origin of most pubs as ‘tied’ houses controlled by brewers. The modern multiple pub-owning company (a ‘pubco’) usually has no formal connection to a brewer.
Managed houses are pubs that are owned and managed by the same company; not leased out to an independent publican. Most pub restaurants that operate as part of a group of such pubs are managed houses, often still owned by brewers or by ex-brewing companies (eg Whitbread, one of the many brewers that sold its breweries in 2001).
A free house has no contract to a specific pubco or brewer, and is run as an entirely independent business.
Gastropub is an unofficial term for a pub that employs a chef and aims to compete directly with restaurants on innovative cuisine.
Wet sales refers to the proportion of a pub’s turnover from drinks (sometimes confined to alcohol), while the term dry sales refers to food turnover.
