While a new year can bring many great opportunities and a fresh outlook, sadly, many businesses are faced with some very difficult realities. In the face of rising costs taking place everywhere (across our industry and beyond), there are some Castle Rock is simply unable to absorb going into 2023.
On the plus side, we have some plans to help combat this and, as always, we are doing everything we can to continue to provide you with great beer and excellent pubs at affordable prices.
Dear Customer,
I am writing to let you know that you will soon be seeing price increases on most of the beers, wines and spirits we sell. I am sure this news will not come as a surprise to you, and you’ll already be very conscious of the reasons behind them, as they are affecting everyone – households and businesses alike.
For the brewing industry specifically, the 1st of January brings an increase of 25% on our malted barley purchases. This is just one of many significant upward pressures across our entire cost base, not least the escalating cost of energy affecting both brewing and running pubs. We are left with no alternative but to review our own pricing at this time.
We are acutely aware that any price increase is bad news for our customers in the current economic climate. However, I would like to outline some of the initiatives we will (or have already) put in place to ensure we continue to give you the best possible value, while maintaining our own values, standards, and service levels of which we are all incredibly proud.
Castle Rock will be launching a brand new and high-quality beer that will be available in all our pubs at the introductory price of £3.80 until at least the end of March. ‘Our House’ is a flavoursome extra pale ale brewed to 3.6% ABV using plenty of US hops: Loral and Ekuanot. This means that there will be zero price increase on our entry level beer.
Following the success of the Castle Rock Collective, our loyalty scheme has expanded to include the Castle Rock app. Users benefit by accumulating points as they spend, equating to a generous discount of 8% on all purchases of Castle Rock beers in Castle Rock pubs (and 4% on all other products). Thereby, ‘Our House’ will be available for an equivalent of £3.50 per pint to Castle Rock app users. If you are yet to sign up, we would encourage you to join! It’s free and there are lots of other benefits, promotions and discounts that can be enjoyed too.
We will continue to work closely with our suppliers to ensure that any of their price increases to us are fair and reasonable, looking to mitigate the impact of cost increases where we can. We are also committed to ensuring that any price increases over our bars do not exceed the rate of published inflation to you. If they go up more than inflation to us, then we will cap the increase to you.
These are tough times and I’d like to thank you all for your ongoing support. It is incredibly important to us, and we will never take it for granted.
Cheers,
Colin Wilde
Managing Director
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