The price of a pint in London has long been lamented as a sign of how expensive it is to live in the capital.
However, as crowds gathered in central London to toast the Queen on the weekend of the Jubilee Bank Holiday, some would have been staggered if they had ordered a round of drinks at a pub, after it arose. that the average price of a pint has exceeded £ 8 for the first time.
The average price of a pint has risen more than 70% since the financial crisis almost 15 years ago, from £ 2.30 in 2008 to £ 3.95, according to research by the CGA consultancy.
In a London pub, which the CGA did not name, the average price of a pint was £ 8.06, the most expensive ever recorded, in its survey of more than 5,550 random bars and pubs. .
The cheapest was in Lancashire and cost £ 1.79.
If prices had only followed inflation between January 2008 and April 2022, the cost of a pint would have been £ 3.35, the Financial Times reported.
Since 2020, CGA figures show that the average cost of a pint has increased by more than 7%. Further increases are expected.
Rising prices have been driven by a combination of factors, such as inflation and the war in Ukraine. The country was the world’s fourth largest producer of barley, a key ingredient in beer. Bernstein analysts warned that the costs of malting barley could reach 70%.
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In the UK, inflation has recently reached 9%, and the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, has warned that it will reach a maximum of four decades by the end of this year.
These problems add to the existing problems for pubs after a turbulent period during the Covid-19 pandemic. Since reopening in 2021, they have had higher food and beverage supply prices, exacerbated by delays in multichannel deliveries since Brexit and staff shortages as customers returned.
This led employers to offer higher wages to attract and retain workers, but even more so their profit margins.
Suffolk brewery and pub company Adnams warned in March that barley prices meant they would likely raise prices for customers. Wolverhampton-based Marstons raised prices by 8% in March, and customers of Greene King pubs now pay 5% more on average per pint.
Clive Watson, president of the City Pub Group, which operates 41 pubs in London and the south, told FT that ingredient costs rose 10%, “wage inflation is likely to be 7% and electricity inflation is 100%, so the combined cost price is likely to increase the price of a pint of beer by 12% to 13%. ”
CPG raised its prices by 5% to 6% in December, but said it would limit itself to further increases to encourage people to go to the pub. A trend followed by others after 18 months of stop-start closures during the Covid pandemic.