Turbulence in UK public house retailing: Ramifications and responses

Abstract

UK public house retailing (PHR) has experienced a good deal of turbulence since the early 1990s (see, for example, Spicer et al., 2012; Slade, 2011; Preece, 2008). The major contributory factors are the 1989 ‘Beer Orders’ (arising out of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission’s investigation into the UK brewing and public house retailing sector); changing socio-economic contexts; technological innovations; the smoking ban; taxation and beer duty; extensive regulation and bureaucracy; the development and extension of strategic branding; cheap booze in supermarkets (often sold as a ‘loss-leader’); and, from the later 1990s, the increasingly widespread incidence of financialization in the sector.