Wednesday 24 April 2013

Nanny ... go fly a kite!




Further to my earlier piece on the ludicrous excesses of the Portman Group , Big Hospitality, a sister publication to the Publican's Morning Advertiser, reports this morning that Mr Schekter has said the ruling will probably put the brewing part of Laverstoke Park Farm out of business:

"The fact is that it will cost us over £50k to repackage our ale and lager and in the process, lose our brand identity on the bottles," he said. "The brand has taken me over 10 years to establish and would cost millions to relaunch so we have no option but to leave it as it is and it probably will put our beer out of business."
"What the Portman Group has done has nothing to do with responsible drinking and in particular under 18-year-olds drinking,"

"They (the Portman Group) admit that our beer does not attract teenagers and their "hypothesis" about a four year old possibly picking up an open bottle of beer from the kitchen table is absurd."

Hear, hear, Jody ... and shame on you Portman Group, how many jobs will this put in jeopardy?

One can only hope that two things happen:
  • retailers decide to ignore the Portman Group "ruling" and retailer bulletin requesting retailers not to stock it
  • that Laverstoke Park Farm as an entire business entity survives what must be such a crushing financial blow
Nanny doesn't always know best and I, for one, think it's time she retired as it would seem it's her that is throwing her toys out of the pram over this one, not her erstwhile charges.

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