Punch Taverns has won the Best Business Initiative Award at this year’s Publican Awards, hosted by the Publicans Morning Advertiser to recognise the achievements of the pub industry across 18 categories.
Punch won the Best Business Award for its Punch Buying Club Website, an online portal for Punch licensees (Partners) to order drinks and other products, that also acts as a business resource with downloadable how-to guides, access to training and workshops, quiz downloads and an interactive blog for peer networking.
After undergoing a three-staged judging process by a panel of industry experts, including HQ visits and interviews, Punch were selected as finalists against three other pub companies.
Punch was announced as the winners at the Publican Awards on 25 March at Grosvenor House in London, where they were presented with their award by comedians and TV personalities John Bishop and Keith Lemon.
Judges were impressed with the extensive cost savings and range of resources offer Punch’s licensees and how the club continues to evolve and gain traction with licensees.
Andy Slee, Central Operations Director, said: “We are delighted to win this year’s Best Business Initiative award. This is hugely important for us to be recognised for all of our support we give our Partners.
“The Buying Club was launched in 2011 and last year we introduced a number of new features such as a non-drinks ‘marketplace, a creative hub for design and print orders, a whisky club and Wine of the Month scheme and a cash and carry price tracker.
“Every Punch Partner is as individual to us as their pub and we want the website to be personalised for them, adding pub-specific beer line cleaning data, targeted product launches, business advice and bespoke deals.
“The Punch Buying Club has fundamentally changed the way we work with our licensees. 90 per cent of our estate are now registered online and due to the Club’s buying power we can save our Partners time and money on their orders and create an open environment share best practice.
“I want to thank our licensees and the Punch Taverns team for their hard work and we look to continue developing the website and our overall strategy in offering transparency and the very best business support for our partners.”