St Austell Brewery has announced its plans for a temporary staffing structure, protecting the employment – and incomes – of all 2,000 of its employees.
Despite national pub closures as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic – which has reduced the company’s income by 90 per cent – the brewer and pub operator has not made a single redundancy this week.
With support from Government’s Job Retention Scheme (JRS), the company has furloughed over 75% of its staff across its pub estate, St Austell Brewery and Bath Ales’ Hare Brewery – which it acquired in 2016. Furloughed team members have been put on temporary leave but will remain employed by St Austell Brewery. Through a combination of Government support, and the brewery’s own contributions, all furloughed employees – regardless of their salary – will continue to receive 80 per cent of their normal pay.
Kevin Georgel, Chief Executive, St Austell Brewery says: “As a company, we applaud the support package announced by the Chancellor. It has helped us to secure employment – and an income – for all of our people – as well as hundreds of thousands of others, working in the UK hospitality and brewing industry.
“To have the strongest opportunity to safeguard our business – and employees – for the long-term, we’ve made the difficult decision to temporarily move a number of our team into a period of furlough. We’ll continue to keep this under regular review until normal trading resumes and we can all return to work safely. I’m relieved to say – despite the closure of our pubs and the challenges that still lay ahead – we haven’t had to make a single redundancy across the business.
“I’d like to thank our production teams who are working harder than ever, to keep our bottled beers on supermarket shelves. The Government has classified all food and drink suppliers an essential service and we are working around the clock to allow our customers to keep stocking our beers, throughout the duration of the pandemic.”
“With every day that goes by, I become more impressed at the calibre and commitment of our people in these challenging times. I am incredibly proud to lead such a dedicated team and look forward to welcoming all of our teams back when the time is right.”
