UK-based St Austell Brewery has started a consultation process with employees, with up to 40 positions potentially being cut.
In a statement today, the brewer and pub group said it would be “reviewing its operational structure”.
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St Austell’s chief executive Kevin Georgel told employees in a letter the business had to take “difficult but necessary steps”.
“We have this week communicated to our teams that we will be entering into a 30-day period of collective consultation,” Georgel said in the statement.
“The process will involve us consulting with team members across multiple departments and may result in a reduction of up to 40 roles through redundancy. Our teams in our managed pubs are not included in the consultation process.”
Georgel said the UK beer and hospitality industry had faced “an extraordinarily difficult few years – one of the most challenging periods in our 174-year history”.
St Austell had “successfully navigated these challenges”, Georgel said. However, he added: “They have been compounded by the significant increases in National Insurance announced in the autumn budget, which are effective from April. The additional cost of employment amounts to a further £3m ($3.9m) a year and it is not realistic, nor appropriate, to presume that we can pass on all the increased costs onto our guests or customers.”
While the business is still profitable, Georgel added the “intensified” financial challenges had made it necessary for the company to cut its “fixed cost base to strengthen resilience”. Doing so would ensure St Austell’s “future success” and mean it can “continue to invest for the future”, he said.
St Austell employs more than 2,000 people. It manages two breweries, in St Austell in Cornwall and Warmley in Gloucestershire, plus more than 160 pubs and six wholesale distribution depots across the West Country.
Georgel stressed the business would keep investing “significantly into the South West for the long term, developing our people, improving our pubs and positively evolving our brewing capabilities and brand portfolio”.
Founded in 1851, family-owned St Austell sells beers in the on and off-trade across the UK, including brands Proper Job IPA, Korev lager and Tribute pale ale.
