Last year, the pub industry was hit with pandemic-related vocabulary such as “substantial meals” and “Eat Out to Help Out” which led to many pubs taking the plunge and establishing a food or takeaway offer in order to continue trading.

Now that the industry is fully trading once again, it’s clear that this focus on food plays a crucial part in the sustainability of pub businesses across the country.

Regency Purchasing Group has partnered with Trust Inns to deliver tailored purchasing support to hundreds of pubs across the UK, with an initial focus on enhancing the food offering across the sites.

Trust Inns own over 350 pubs and the new partnership provides all tenants with access to Regency’s extensive network of local and national suppliers. Tenants can now take advantage of Regency’s collective purchasing power and the subsequent cost savings that this delivers, as well as exclusive supplier and brand owner discounts, promotions, packages and free stock deals.

The Regency team is working alongside Trust Inn’s Business Development Managers to identify opportunities to introduce new food concepts and expand the current food offering within Trust Inns’ pubs.

Grab-and-go retail items, point-of-purchase snacks and low barrier to entry hot food concepts have been successfully launched in what were previously wet-led pubs, providing tenants with a low-cost, low-risk food offering as their first step into serving food.

And, for the pubs already with a food offering, the Regency team is working with tenants to develop and plan their menus, aiming to be less ‘standard’ and to instead become more ‘stand out’. These menu enhancements have been introduced to grow sales, maximise GPs and encourage repeat visits, with all changes being carefully aligned with the pub and its target customers.

Procurement Manager - Nikki Loxton

“We are delighted to be working with Regency Purchasing to provide further added value to our existing support service offer to all our estate. We are excited about the opportunities this will offer our lessees and tenants in helping them to build and sustain successful pub businesses.”

Marianne Rose, Marketing & Commercial Manager at Trust Inns