5 Challenges that Pubs Face During the Euros (and Other High-traffic Days)

The 2024 UEFA European Championship is one of the most important sporting tournaments in the world, and the Euros brought with them a massive spike in pub traffic across England. Barclays reports that when compared to yearly averages, transactions were up 86.4% during England’s seven Euro matches, with a peak coming the day of the final. During the final in particular, pub transactions were up 92.9% when compared to the average Sunday so far this year. Michael Kill, who serves as a chief executive of the Night Time Industries Association (NITA) even went as far as to say that the events have, “inadvertently saved our sector” as they raised, “nearly a billion in additional revenue for local pubs and venues.”

Throughout the Euros, I visited 15+ venues and was super impressed by how smoothly everything ran, even with the massive influx of guests. Football and pubs are key parts of British culture, and it was impressive to see these places maintain that tradition so well. Despite the crowds, the staff were up to the task, and each venue made watching the matches an absolute joy. 

While the European Championships brought a much-needed economic boon to the sector, the massive influx of customers brought with them a series of challenges. It was crucial for the pubs and bars to be able to overcome these challenges, and looking into how they managed it can glean some key insights that are applicable to anyone in the industry.

Challenges pubs faced during the Euros:

1. Increased Demand: The surge in customers during major events like the Euros puts a strain on inventory, staffing, and operational processes.
2. Inventory Management: High turnover of food and drinks requires precise inventory tracking to prevent stockouts and reduce waste.
3. Operational Efficiency: With the influx of guests, maintaining high service standards and efficient operations becomes more challenging. 
4. Health and Safety Compliance: Ensuring compliance with health and safety regulations is critical, especially with increased customer interactions and food handling.
5. Staff Management: Managing a larger, sometimes temporary workforce can lead to inconsistencies in service and operational execution. Ensuring you have the correct amount of staff on can be challenging with unpredictable guest numbers.

Overcoming these challenges consistently is crucial for anyone in the sector, and the importance of dealing with them effectively is elevated even further during a time of increased customer traffic. Not being prepared for large influxes of traffic can see even industry leaders watch much needed potential profits slip away quickly. Crunchtime solutions can help businesses be prepared for these essential periods in a variety of ways.

Key strategies for pubs to better prepare for busy days:

Inventory Management

When dealing with an increased influx of business, sound inventory management becomes absolutely essential. When things start moving at a more rapid pace, it becomes crucial to have a system that can keep up and ensure profits are maximized. This is especially evident in the following areas:

• Waste Reduction: With accurate inventory tracking and real-time data, Crunchtime’s technology helps pubs reduce food and beverage waste by up to 20%.
• Stockout Prevention: With precise forecasting, pub operators can ensure they have enough stock to meet demand, avoiding stockouts and keeping customers happy.
• Accurate Cost Management: Crunchtime provides real-time insights from purchase ordering, through to food preparation, enabling pub operators to pinpoint cost leakages with ease.

Operational Efficiency

Another key component when dealing with increased customer traffic is maintaining high levels of operational efficiency. Efficient operations are one of the best ways to ensure that processes run smoothly and no potential profits are allowed to slip away. This can be accomplished through:

• Streamlined Operations: Automating manual tasks such as inventory counts and data entry can save pub operators up to 10 hours per week.
• Consistency and Quality Control: Crunchtime solutions ensure consistent execution of procedures, ensuring the right tasks happen at the right time. Organisations can improve overall customer satisfaction by up to 15%.
• Task Automation: Automating routine tasks reduces human error and ensures critical processes are completed on time, improving operational efficiency by 25%.
• Accurate Forecasts: With accurate sales forecasting, including accounting for special events, operators can predict how much food to prep and how many employees to schedule for any given shift.

Health and Safety Compliance

Proper health and safety measures are always of paramount importance, but the importance becomes even further amplified during high-traffic periods. As the location becomes busier and everything moves a little bit faster, robust health and safety protocols can make the difference between a smooth day and having to deal with the fallout of a food safety disaster. Stay prepared with the following:

• Ensure Compliance: Crunchtime solutions help ensure compliance with health and safety regulations, which reduce the risk of violations by up to 30%. Automated checklists and monitoring systems ensure all protocols are followed.
• Automated Temperature Monitoring: Crunchtime uses IoT technology to alert operators when equipment temperatures are out of range. This removes the demand to manually temperature check regularly, and improve operators time to resolution significantly. 
• Incident Reduction: Robust health and safety tracking can decrease workplace incidents and food safety issues by 20%, protecting customers and reducing liability.
• Employee Training: Structured training programs improve staff knowledge and adherence to safety protocols, leading to a safer operating environment.

Crunchtime’s technology solutions provide pub operators with the tools they need to manage inventory effectively, streamline operations, and ensure health and safety compliance, especially during high-demand periods like the Euros. By adopting Crunchtime solutions, pub operators can achieve significant cost savings, improve operational efficiency, and deliver a consistently high-quality experience for their customers.