Food, family & females

Tradition is being turned on its head at Mansfield Brewery, and retail director Darrell Stocks is at the heart of the revolution. Typical of his influence is the Olde House pub in Chesterfield, Derbyshire. Only three months ago it was a predominantly male sanctuary for a quiet pint; now it is packed with women, families and couples, both young and old.

In short, it has been reborn as the brewer's first Trading Post branded pub, with not one but two children's play areas, a rotisserie and a bar full of designer lagers.

"The customer is coming to the Trading Post to buy an experience, "says Stocks. "We wouldn't have served bottled beers a short time ago. Nowadays, we appreciate that that is what the customer wants."

This may not seem revolutionary, particularly to those in the South-east, but as Stocks says, it represents a sharp change in direction for the 142-year-old Nottingham-based brewery. It has already sold off under performing pubs and is pumping £30m into expanding the business, with £20m earmarked for pub concepts.

"It's an evolution for us; and there is lots of baggage compared with [a new concepts operation] such as Wetherspoons." Stocks is referring to the fact that, only seven years ago, Mansfield Brewery's business centred on mainly male customers from the coalmining towns of Mansfield and Chesterfield and the fishing community around Hull, who drank beer, didn't seek sophisticated food and didn't mind pubs with lino floors and unskilled bartenders. When those industries collapsed, the UK's seventh-biggest brewery faced a bitter truth - it had to modernise to win new customers.

"Until two years ago we had no food and weren't open all day," says Stocks, "but anyone south of Watford has been doing it for years."

Stocks is one of several new faces brought in to mastermind the revamp. He was recruited two years ago when the brewery's board seized on his experience as new concepts development manager at Whitbread Inns. Besides helping to change the traditional company's mindset, his remit into the millennium is to accelerate the retail side of the business and develop concepts in line with its "three Fs" rule: food, family and females.

Trading Post's boost to the coffers speaks for itself. Food-led and with an emphasis on families, the outlet has seen turnover bolt from £7,000 a week to more than three times that since July. Stocks is now overseeing the opening of another five Trading Posts by Christmas in Mansfield, Wakefield and Cleethorpes.

And this is only the tip of the iceberg. Besides Trading Post, the brewery is unleashing two other new brands: Lock, Stock & Barrel, which came on-stream in September and will line up as a more traditional family local; and Lloyds No 1, a town-centre-focused café-bar-style brand that was launched eight months ago.

"Mansfield Brewery has tried concepts in the past and failed. Now we are sticking to our guns. We looked at the marketplace and saw what other people were doing," says Stocks. "Nothing is being left to chance."

Each of Mansfield's new concepts tackles a different market. This is important because the brewery, which has 9% of local business, has found itself lumbered with two or three similar-style pubs in each town.

Nottingham's 500-plus seat Lloyds No 1, for instance, targets an upmarket crowd of all ages. Being airy, well-lit and stylish, he reckons it pulls in people who would not otherwise go into pubs: "We call it a café-bar," he explains.

In fact, the concept does have a non-smoking, 33-seat coffee shop area set back from the bar that sells cakes and baguettes between 9.30am and 7.30pm. Its purpose is two-fold.

First, the development of the Nottingham site at a cost of £750,000 was a risk for the brewery - partly because the site needed a licence, having previously been a Lloyds Bank. The coffee bar helped persuade the magistrates it would not be rowdy.

Second, it increases Lloyds' user-friendliness, particularly to women, and pulls people in first thing in the morning. "It is more conventional for businessmen at that time," says Stocks. "Also, without it we wouldn't get as many families especially on a Saturday."

The bar serves modern, freshly prepared dishes from 9.30am to 9pm, such as tomato, pesto and black pepper broth (£1.95), or sautéd monkfish tails with sun-dried tomatoes and mange-tout flamed in brandy and herb butter (£6.50). About 20-25% of sales are food, at an average spend of £5.25 a head.

The risk is paying off, with turnover at the Nottingham outlet 20% higher than expected and customer market research giving the thumbs-up. On the back of this, a second Lloyds opened in Coventry in September and there are two scheduled to open in Sheffield and Harrogate by Christmas, and one to open in Leicester by next spring.

Lock, Stock & Barrel is a more traditional family concept, targeted mainly at the suburbs and striving to be a community pub. Customers won't find Mansfield Brewery beers displaced by trendy bottled lagers here, instead it retains traditional pub values.

"It's to be family-led but not dominated," stresses Stocks.

Like Trading Post, the concept will have children's indoor and outdoor play facilities. Unlike Lloyds, the emphasis is on simple menus, big portions and value for money and there are menus for all ages. Besides a menu for nine to 15-year-olds, with items such as fish and chips at £2.49, there are two kid's birthday packages at £2.50 for a standard meal, ice-cream and drink or £3.50 for the same menu plus a birthday cake.

The Rufford at Mansfield was the first to open, following a £250,000 investment, in September, and will be followed by an acquisition in Daventry and conversions in Rotherham and Hull.

This swing to food poses a steep learning curve for Mansfield Brewery, which recently recruited Sue Walsh from Whitbread as catering development manager.

"There aren't many food-focus people at Mansfield," says Walsh. "I have to get the food disciplines right. There has to be some thought about how food menus go across the brands, but although there will be rationalisation you mustn't curb creativity."

Stocks points out that one important task has been changing the work ethics of the existing staff through training: "The biggest challenge is to develop the people that work for us," he says. "Some employees are finding it difficult to accept that food and coffee are part of the offer."

Despite the difficulties of changing such a traditional company's mindset, Stocks is quietly confident: "We will go national if it works," he says.