The price of a pint would need to soar to £20 this winter for pubs to cover costs, an expert has warned.
On October 1, energy regulator Ofgem will increase the energy price cap to £3,549 per year for dual fuel for an average household. As a result, running costs for pubs are set to to soar.
Chief executive of real campaign group CAMRA Tom Stainer has stated that the rise in energy costs will lead to day-to-day costs at pubs increasing by between 500 and 600 per cent — leading to potential closures.
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He said: "How much would 500% be on a £5 pint - you’re talking ridiculous amounts of money, 15 or 20 quid for a pint.”
Stainer added that there was a "perfect storm" of contributing factors that “will affect just about every pub out there”.
However, although the cost of a pint continues to creep up across the UK, the increases required to sustain pubs and bars are so substantial that they are unlikely to be introduced, as reported by The Mirror.
Stainer continued: “What you can say with surety is you can't possibly pass on these energy increases and you can't increase the pint by 500%.
“You'd be talking about pounds of pounds added on to the average cost per pint - and we already know because we did a survey this summer that more than 50% of the British public now believe the cost of a pint is already unaffordable.
“And that was done before the cost of living crisis before everyone was looking at their own money. And before these huge energy bills came in."
He added: “It just isn't viable for pubs to pass [price hikes this big] on to consumers because people wouldn't come drink at pubs anyway.”
Stainer stated that, due to the significant price increase and unlikelihood of covering costs through beer “however successful businessman you are… the pub you're running you cannot do a 500% increase on your energy costs."
He went on: "So thousands [of pubs] could be affected by this. And they can close - and the difference with [pubs compared to] other sorts of businesses is once a pub closes it very rarely comes back.”
“We need government action we need the government to actually start stepping in and doing something about energy costs, doing something about business rates, something about the tax people have to pay on beer.”
According to Stainer, pubs pay among the "largest business rates of any business [type]" in comparison to other businesses, and the majority do not have money saved "for a rainy day" as it was spent during the pandemic.
He concluded that, for pubs, the situation is worse now than it was during the pandemic due to the fact that "we had a reduction of business rates, we had the VAT cut on food."
He has called for intervention by the UK Government, and has stated he hopes that "with a new prime minister stepping in, the top of their inbox is going to be doing some help for hospitality".
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