One in three pints served to customers over the Christmas trading period will not be up to scratch according to the latest Vianet Draught Insight Report.
Christmas is one of the most lucrative trading periods in the annual events calendar with 13,000 barrels alone of draught beer sold on the ‘Mad Friday’ before Christmas last year. Data from the insight shows 4,000 barrels of this beer were poured through unclean lines or at the wrong temperature.
Steven Alton, managing director of Vianet, said, “In the pub trade we have really got to get to grips with consistently serving great quality beer and understand the impact this has on individual outlets and across larger pub estates when we don’t.
'If we are serving one in three customers over Christmas with a poor pint, we are letting them down. Christmas is an opportunity to both retain loyal customers and grow our customer base by gaining new ones.
'This lack of control in our beer quality when we get busy is having a real knock on effect especially when we have a chance to keep that customer way beyond the Christmas frenzy.
'The data we gather from 250,000 devices isn’t wrong and the system is there to help operators to get the most from every barrel and keeping the quality right is key to this. We have certainly seen by working with great operators using our iDraught platform the impact on the bottom line by getting the controls right”.
The insight which was gathered between October 2017 to September 2018 provided detailed data on draught products served in pubs up and down the country. After the World cup match between Sweden and England the highest earning session for British pubs was Friday 22nd December with Christmas Eve following closely behind.
Alton added, 'A customer is not just for Christmas. Christmas is a time where we can attract new customers and hold onto them well into the future. Retaining high operational standards throughout these busier periods is fundamental if we want to reap the benefits of having this captive audience.”
