The hope of an Indian Summer sadly never came to fruition and, as a result, the 4 weeks to end September brought disappointing results for the UK on trade, as outlets look toward a festive boon.
September saw draught beer volume continue to decline by 3.9%. This was still a 1.6% improvement on the previous month where draught beer volumes declined 5.5%. YTD volume continued the downward trajectory with a decline of 2%, a further 0.2% drop on August.
The total number of trading UK on trade outlets in the year-to-date to September is showing an overall decline of 0.4%.
Outlet opening hours continue to be down from August a further 1.5% but the year-to-date figure is relatively flat. As outlets started advertising Christmas early in September, there is much anticipation for a strong year end.
There was some good news with a growth in consumer dwell time of 3.1%, which was a marginal uplift of 1.3% versus the same 4 weeks in August. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the busyness of outlets with occupancy levels down 3%, double to decline in the 4 weeks to end August. Clearly the weather played a big part on keeping people at home during an overly miserable September.
The Barclays credit card data show a small increase in consumer spending across pubs and bars of 0.6% but a slightly better uplift across restaurants of 1.4%. Compared to the previous month, this represents a small decline for pubs and bars of 2.6% but a substantial uplift for restaurants of 18.3%, so some genuine reasons for hope within the restaurant trade.
Draught beer continued its decline with Craft leading this at -13.2% down, followed by Core Lager -8.5% and World 4% -6.8% down. The only 2 exceptions to this throughout September were World Lager up 2.9% and Stout continuing its upward trajectory with a whopping rise of 17.5%, with the final week of the month up 24.3% – overall a 10% uplift in Stout versus the previous month.
