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Can CAMRA / SIBA or any other campaign group make a difference?

Yep, everyone wants a pint of beer at a fair price but I am really unsure if any campaigning group can really make a difference.

If CAMRA & SIBA campaign for a Duty Reduction or Freeze it will be worth about 1 Penny a pint! So surely this means that the only brewers that will benefit will be the Massive ones and the actual drinker in the pub isn’t going to see that Penny in any shape or form.

Cost Factors:

  • Business Rates Increase – A massive smack in the teeth to brewers & landlords.
  • Fuel Costs – Delivery of raw materials, distribution of finished products, Vehicle service costs, Road Tax etc.
  • Energy Costs – Electricity & Gas and their ever increasing price.
  • Minimum / Living Wage – Has seen quite a few recent increases.
  • Insurance – In all its forms, business, vehicle and the levied taxation on it.
  • VAT – You could say general tax, though this is just Govt ‘Cash flow’ and shouldn’t effect things too much for VAT registered businesses.
  • Legislation – every time a new piece of legislation comes into play for manufacturers it costs them more.
  • Etc – add something I’ve missed?

Now take that list and apply it to every-single-manufactured-product that a Pub or Brewery uses and tell me a way that we can bring down the costs to produce, distribute and sell beer.

Take a penny of Duty off per pint for a small to medium brewery and you are not going to see an effect on the cost of a pint down the pub because the small brewer’s margins are already tight.

Take a penny of Duty off per pint for a Massive brewery and the only thing you will see is a massive tax break for that massive brewery which keeps the shareholders and big business happy, no change to the price of a pint down the pub.

Its a loosing battle and we are flogging a dead horse, costs to produce will increase and to some extent we all need to accept that.

Nothing is ever going to get cheaper!