When £20 buys you 60 bottles of strong lager, how can we take a crackdown on drinking seriously?

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Title – When £20 buys you 60 bottles of strong lager, how can we take a crackdown on drinking seriously?
Source – The Daily Mail
Date – 9th June 2008

There is undoubtedly a problem within the licensed retail sector as a whole when it comes to pricing. It is an impossible task for any part of the sector to justify the status-quo, but equally everyone is desperately trying to cling on in what is a very challenging economic downturn. Somewhere in all of this the concept of ‘responsible alcohol retailing’ is trying to force its way through and be heard.

So what are the real problems of each sector? The supermarkets thrive and survive in one of the most competitive business sectors in the UK, when they succeed they win big, when they fail they collapse spectacularly. The main supermarkets are all publicly listed with shareholders demanding returns, we could argue about the greed of shareholders, but any of us who have a pension plan are probably shareholder in one supermarket or another. So they have to compete with each other and alcohol sold as a loss-leader works. It would be a brave (and shortly to be unemployed) CEO of a supermarket who gracefully stepped out of this competition and opted to sell alcohol at twice the current cost to make a profit. Would they do it if everyone played ball, undoubtedly yes. If you told the supermarkets they had to make a margin on alcohol sales currently sold at a loss they would bite your hand off, but only if everyone else followed suit, after all as long as one supermarket continues this practice, the others have to follow or shut up shop.

So why don’t they agree amongst themselves? It’s called price fixing! The OFT are already on the rampage when it comes to the supermarkets and price fixing, several have already fallen foul. No one is going to fall into that trap.

Supermarkets do retail responsibly when it comes to selling to children, they in many cases set a standard for others to follow it’s what happens after people have bought the alcohol that is the real problem.

So what can the government do? Well they can’t be seen to tip the balance of a level playing field, if they make the supermarkets fix a price, what about pubs and corner shops. How do you fix a price and differentiate between brands; If you impose a minimum cost for a case of beer, is that the same for Stella and Carling; the drinks manufacturers will have them tied up in court for years to come. The drinks manufacturers will claim that their business is being restricted and then there is EU law… let’s not even start on that. So for the government it is a minefield which the prospect of stepping into is both unattractive and dangerous.

So what about pubs and clubs? Well it does seem that they will end up as the losers whatever happens; while the supermarket prices are unrealistically low, who isn’t going to be tempted to buy take-out to drink before a night out or instead of a night out; regulation is costing businesses more time and money; the economic down-turn tends to hit them first. Every landlord and door supervisor who has been in the industry for 10 years or so will have noticed dramatic changes, the business of controlling customers consumption has to some degree been taken out of their hands, customers turn up drunk and yet often it is not until an hour or more after they have entered a venue that the alcohol they consumed at home really kicks in. Who bears the cost and blame for their behaviour? The pubs and clubs. With 27 closing a week in 2007, is it any wonder they feel under fire?

At Beyond The Blue we run the Portfolio of BIIAB licensed retail sector training courses including The National Certificate for Personal Licnece Holders (NCPLH), the Award in Responsible Alcohol Retailing (ARAR) and the National Certificate for Door Supervisors (NCDS)

Please visit our website please visit at www.btbl.co.uk