Drinks Industry Ireland

It may sound trite to say that the eating and drinking landscape has changed due to Covid-19. But even with the Government’s postponing the opening of most pubs until the 10th of August “at the earliest”, consumer behaviour was charting a change in direction and setting a new course in pubs and bars long before Covid-19 struck.

The pandemic has merely accelerated the blurring of boundaries between what bars, restaurants and off-licences are offering. So how are businesses to adapt and reinvent themselves? How are they supposed to recreate that “pub experience” in this ‘New Normal’ in which we’re all feeling our way?

Here, to discuss what we can expect from consumer behaviour coming out of lockdown we have Behaviour & Attitude’s Maggie Matthews who ran the weekly qualitative Lockdown Diaries at B&A and who’s been reviewing how consumers feel about returning to a number of different areas. And we’ve also MCCP’s Senior Strategist Michael Rekab who made a presentation at a trends event held recently by MCCP.

With all our pubs due to open on the 20th of July - providing that customers behave themselves - in this podcast we hear from three publicans in Europe about their own experience of re-opening and running their operation in the 'new normal'.

Tanya Marie Cregan of Temple Bar in the South Tyrol region of Northern Italy joins Dylan Taylor of Tir na nÓg in Aarhus in Denmark's Jutland Peninsula and John Gulay of O'Casey's Irish Pub in The Hague, Netherlands, in talking about what they've done to prepare their pubs for re-opening in their respective countries, what's been the hardest thing for them to deal with in 'the new normal', what government support was given to them during lockdown and how they see their operations going forward.

Since their responses prove so positive, we close the podcast by asking them for their thoughts should lockdown ever have to be re-introduced there....

Spoiler alert! Our three panelists retain their similarly sunny outlooks to end the podcast on a truly positive note for the licensed trade.

While publicans have been working hard at getting their premises ready to put the show back on the road, what's been happening in the distribution trade?

How have these supply companies fared and in the absence of government guidelines for this sector of the FMCG market, what challenges do they now face on a daily basis and what are the longer-term implications of on-trade distribution going forward?

We speak to two distributors well-known to the on-trade and off-trade: Michael Barry of Barry & Fitzwilliam and David McIlherron of Noreast Beers to get a better picture.....

At the time of recording this podcast Fáilte Ireland was about to release the guidelines for pubs, a delay that caused some degree of controversy in the trade.

But for those pubs wishing to open on 29th June with food service, preparations have already been taking place and Social Distancing has been reduced to one metre in the pub guidelines.

Here, discussing some of the challenges involved in serving food to their customers after the 29th of June  are the incoming Chairman of the Licensed Vintners Association Noel Anderson (of The Bridge 1859 and Lemon & Duke in Dublin) and Fergus Murphy of Pub Food of the Year Award winner Murph's Gastro Pub at the Derragarra Inn in Butlersbridge, County Cavan....

The last few months have seen the hospitality industry having to revise its outlook on trading completely. So when they do re-open, what are the fundamental challenges & changes that would allow live music back into bars, clubs & other venues?

In our second Drinks Industry Ireland podcast, we speak to PJ Kavanagh of Kavanagh’s Bar & Venue in Portlaoise which won the Music Pub of the Year at the Irish Pub awards last year, to Gary Monroe of Monroe’s Bar & Restaurant Venue in Galway - a National Music Venue of the Year & a twice-winner of the Connacht Music Venue of the Year, to musician Dave Browne - best-known as lead singer from two of Ireland’s best-known music bands PictureHouse and The Controversial Allstars - who’s toured the world with a host of international names and who's also built up a reputation for powerful live shows at bars up and down the country and to Cathal Dolan of Gizagig which facilitates the booking of live bands in pubs, about the problems facing both publicans and musicians in returning to live music in a post-Covid-19 atmosphere.

With the country's pubs still in lockdown until the end of June (at least), if not August, what are the country's publicans to make of it all?

We spoke to two publicans, the Licensed Vintners Chairman Ronan Lynch of the Swan Bar in Aungier Street, Dublin and Paul Moynihan, of Moynihan's Bar & Lounge in Donard, County Wicklow, who's the incoming President of the Vintners Federation of Ireland about Social Distancing in the smaller pub and how will pubs set about attracting the cautious consumer back to our pubs when they do re-open?