A national initiative has been launched enabling pubs to trade as food shops and transform into ‘click and collect’ havens, helping to give their local communities access to essential food items.
Powered by StarStock, mypubshop.com will give pubs nationwide the ability to take and process orders online, providing them with a valuable income stream while offering their local community a way to access essential household staples, such as bread, eggs, and milk.
The service is launching in partnership with Brakes, Coca-Cola European Partners, and Use Your Local, and is open to pubs across the UK.
The initiative has already won the support of: Admiral Taverns, which is making mypubshop available to its 1,000 pubs; Greene King Pub Partners, which operates a tenanted and leased estate of more than 1,000 pubs; and St Austell Brewery, which operates an estate of 170 pubs.
The partnership with Brakes, the food wholesaler, will also open up the service to the15,000-plus pubs it regularly supplies. It will offer participating venues a food shop ‘starter kit’. Each transaction made via mypubshop will accrue a 2% fee to cover operational costs; however, the venture is being run as a non-profit, with any surplus revenue donated directlyto the NHS.
Sam Ulph, founder and chief executive of StarStock, said: “We are all aware of what is happening around us, and in these exceptional times this is a vital way for pubs to stay connected, offer an essential service, and to secure an income stream during a period when they are unable to trade in their normal way. It will also help to alleviate the pressure on other grocery shops and the supermarkets.
“This initiative is much more than an online pub service. It’s entirely focused on helping communities, and we hope that it will drive positivity for pubs and champion the people that run them as the local heroes they are.”
The mypubshop platform will give pubs the ability to host a web shop. Licensees will be able to select items for their shop ‘inventory’ and provide an online payment service. Once orders are placed by customers, pubs will operate a collection service from their venues.
Joby Mortimer, head of sector for pubs at Brakes UK, said: “We are delighted to be involved in such a meaningful initiative supporting pubs, and helping their customers access essential food items in these challenging times.
“The pub has been the cornerstone of communities for hundreds of years, and long may that continue — and we hope this initiative will maintain the connection between the pub and their customers, whilst also engaging even more consumers
with the Great British local.”
The mypubshop service launches this week, and is available nationwide. Pubs can register to use the service at www.mypubshop.com.
St Austell Brewery chief executive, Kevin Georgel, said: “We are delighted to support the mypubshop.com initiative. Not only does it provide our tenants with a great technology platform to drive sales during the period that pubs are closed, it also supports them in their ongoing mission to serve their local communities to the best of their ability.”
