Yummy focuses on range to maximise profits
Vianet says the Six Nations provides the highest draught sales for a short-term sporting event in pubs and getting the range right now on bars is vital to maximise both sales and margin during this lucrative tournament.
Steven Alton, managing director of Vianet said, “We have identified in our industry wide analysis that the Six Nations tournament is one of the most important in the pub event calendar, particularly for draught beer, and it is important that pubs are prepared to maximise the trading benefits of this event”.
When Yummy Pubs founder Anthony Pender and co-owner Tim Foster decided to trial Vianet’s iDraught in one of their six pubs they had an open mind as to the outcome. With the wet sales of the business split between 22% draught and 40% prosecco, a full trial was required to see whether the software would be a useful tool for the pubs. iDraught was installed in one venue, the Somers Town in London and with the trial proving a great success to the point that the business is now looking to roll out installations to their remaining three town centre sites. The first win for them was the insight into the range on their bar.
Between 5-8pm on Thursday and Friday the Somers town can typically sell 4 brewers’ barrels of Estrella (1,152 pints) – a high margin product for Yummy but the number of taps available and the subsequent queues for the product during this time was impacting these sales.
The iDraught system enabled Yummy to identify when more taps of a particular product were needed, so they could maximise the sales of that brand.
Confirming this, Anthony Pender says, “Now we are able to be much more fluid in terms of our draught offer on the bar by trading session, having the right number of taps of the product that’s being demanded thus increasing our profitability. We are also able to understand what we need for sporting tournaments like the Six Nations in our pubs especially the Gorringe Park”.
Yield improvements were another major benefit. For the same sessions the system also identified that Yummy were losing more Estrella during these periods through overpouring. They needed to ensure the teams in place, particularly on Thursday and Friday evenings understood the impact of overpouring and, following more training they have seen yield improvements go from 96% to 102% on Estrella.
Speaking about the data monitoring system, Pender said, “The iDraught system gives insight to both the operator of the pub and its management team and we have increased our yield by 2% overall at a 900 brewers barrel site by acting on the insight. The system provided benefits which we didn’t foresee”.
Adding Alton from Vianet says, “The iDraught system is telling us that pubs are over ranging by at least 3 pumps and what that does is decrease profit. If the ranging data provided through iDraught is used effectively like the team at Yummy have done, you can gain more profit from simple changes on the bar and training; utilising the data to do this for the Six Nations is a game changer”.
Ends
For more information contact: Elaine Beckett, Darls Communications; Tel: 07802 782115;
Email: elaine@darlscommunications.co.uk
Notes: For more insight from iDraught copies of the Insight Report 2018 can be found on the Vianet website at: www.vianetplc.com
About Vianet: Vianet Group was established 22 years ago and has been an AIM listed business since 2006. With over 300 customers including a number of global blue-chip companies, and more than 250,000 devices connected to the platform, our experience and knowledge combine to form a powerful technology and insight capability that few can match. iDraught is the system offered through Vianet Smart Zones; it intelligently monitors all aspects of the bar to ensure the operator gets the best return from its draught products and customers receive a perfect pint every time. Vianet’s insight is based on data from more than 250,000 devices, including iDraught, which currently track consumer experience on 777 million pints of beer every year in UK pubs. The results in this report are indicative and based on sites that Vianet actively measures. For more information see: www.vianetplc.com.