Relationships with Suppliers

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We are very fortunate to work with some fantastic suppliers, big and small. We have always enjoyed having a one-to-one relationship with them and many have worked with us right from the very beginning.

As our Managers choose what goes on their bar, they are the ones that have close relationships with their local drink suppliers and it works famously. We sell their product and we get to call upon their expertise, whether that be to educate our crew by offering brewery / distillery tours and tastings for our customers through meet the Brewer / Distiller evenings or taking part in Pub Festival days.

Our Chef teams don’t miss out either, the team of Exec Chefs that help them to devise their menus also work with suppliers to organise Chef Days out, sometimes, cookery courses for junior chefs, sometimes visits to farms or fisheries. They love to show enthusiastic ‘foodies’ what they do and we love to get out for the day and learn more.

Every now and then we get suppliers together. Once a year we hold a wine tasting day, a room packed with around 500 different wines available for our teams to try to select what should go on their menus. There is also an annual Cider tasting day, following the same format, but with a BBQ as it’s almost illegal really to taste Cider without a sausage nearby. Sometimes it’s our fruit & veg, Artisan Bakers and Butchers who get together to showcase seasonal ingredients to our teams – generally we try to include our suppliers in all of our plans and ambitions so we can all work together to achieve them.

We rely on our fresh produce suppliers to steer us into more sustainable produce and produce that’s in season. They work closely with the Exec Chefs to advise on what would be good options for us and because our menus change so frequently it’s really easy for our Head Chefs to add dishes to their menus to reflect ‘a great catch’ or off-set a shortage in something because of a poor harvest. It’s a constant (and very enjoyable) dialogue.