Punch Taverns hits a century

Citation

(2007), "Punch Taverns hits a century", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 39 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/ict.2007.03739gab.002

Punch Taverns hits a century

Punch Taverns has delivered its 100th Profit Through Quality (PTQ) training course for its licensees and their staff – with 60 people attending the latest event at the Village Hotel, Bury, Lancashire.

The course was launched in April 2005 as a way of helping licensees to boost their business performance through improved retail standards. The 100th event means that 30 percent of the Punch leased estate has attended – 3,722 people from 2,132 pubs across the UK.

Course content includes opportunities for wine sales, effective merchandizing, reducing product wastage, serving quality spirits and mixers, responsible retailing – and how to pull the perfect pint of draught beer.

Kiernan Lynch, Punch’s retail-standards operations manager said:

We are training retailers on a huge scale and delivering the message that today’s customers expect all-round quality. This is particularly relevant now that the smoking ban in public places has come into effect. This gives all our pubs an opportunity to attract new customers into our venues who may not have visited because of the smoky atmosphere. But they will only stay and return if our estate delivers the very highest standards in terms of quality amenities and service.

“This course demonstrates how much profit is potentially lost through poor retail standards, as well as the positive impact effective merchandizing and good product knowledge can have on the bottom line. More than 95 percent of people attending the course say they would recommend it to others.”

Ray Cook, licensee at the King Inn, Oldham Street, Manchester, attended the 100th course. He said:

I enjoyed the course and was pleasantly surprised to see how it ran parallel to how we want the development of our business and staff to go. After attending PTQ we would like to send all our staff along in the future, as it would complement and support the development of our own in-house training program.

The British Institute of Innkeeping awarded the 2005 National Innkeeping Training Award (NITA) for innovation in training to Profit Through Quality.