Is hospitality in for a roaring summer success or will the sector feel the heat?

England’s Lionesses registered a historic win over Germany in the UEFA Women’s Euros, in a final where pubs were predicted to sell 10 million pints¹ and fans were set to spend more than £138 million on food and drink². At a time where costs continue to rise and consumer cash gets pinched, the win offered a flash of hope for pubs and bars across the country.

According to the latest CGA by Nielsen IQ Drinks Recovery Tracker, average drinks sales in pubs, bars and restaurants were up 4% on Sunday (24 July) and 20% on Tuesday (26 July), compared with the same week in 2019³.

If you’re in the UK, you might have noticed that it’s been a tad toasty lately. Recent hot weather has brought boosts and difficulties for drinks sales in pubs and bars. Average drinks sales were 1% either side of pre-Covid levels on both Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 July as temperatures crept up across Britain. By Monday 18 July they shot 9% ahead of the same day in 2019, as punters made the most of the sun and headed in droves to beer gardens and terraces. However, sales fell back 12% on Tuesday 19 July as temperatures hit record levels and many opted to stay home. Interestingly, cider sales rocketed 55% on Monday 18 July, with more consumers opting for a more refreshing tipple⁴.

It’s not just record-high temperatures hospitality is having to cope with, job vacancies in the sector remain at record-high too. There were 173,000 vacancies recorded between May and July 2022, dipping slightly below the figure of 174,000 recorded from April to June. Despite a perhaps promising trend, vacancies have risen 34% compared with last year⁵.

Front of house and cleaning staff positions have proven particularly difficult to fill, with some restaurateurs taking to social media to ask for tips to attract job applications, with word of mouth cropping up as a more effective method than traditional job application platforms. A nationwide workforce strategy has been put in place by UK Hospitality to try and incentivise choosing a career in hospitality, emphasising that it isn’t only a part-time occupation for young people⁶.

McDonalds has, in fact, kicked off a recruitment drive targeted at over 50s amid their ongoing staffing struggles⁷.

But there is some positive action coming from more creative approaches being taken to tackle recruitment issues. St Austell Brewery, which owns over 170 pubs, hotels and inns, is offering super flexible shifts with no minimum weekly hours. It’s a ‘work when you want’ shift pattern which they hope will broaden the pool of applicants⁸.

Meanwhile, BrewDog has actually seen a 75% increase in job applications as it delivers the first ‘blueprint’ profit share bonuses to staff. Co-founder, James Watt, has given 3.7 million shares in the company to be distributed evenly to their 750 salaried staff. In addition, each bar will share 50% of its profits with staff⁹. Talk about setting the bar higher for hospitality staff!

Not all pubs, bars and restaurants will be ready to take an approach like Brewdog, but our friends at KAM Media may have uncovered a simpler way to keep staff happy and attract new staff. In a recent report on “Non-Cash Tipping in Hospitality”¹⁰, they found that 84% of staff worry they are not getting their fair share of ‘non-cash’ tips. 2 in 3 consumers don’t understand where their non-cash tips go, yet 92% feel sharing them amongst the staff working that day is the ‘fair’ way to share non-cash tips.