The Public House Challenge

Batemans Brewery started off as a modest brewery back when it was founded in the late 1800s, but it has since expanded in both scope and production and the family-run business now owns over 65 pubs across Lincolnshire.

Focusing on the ‘Human Touch’ that has directed the company for over 140 years, Batemans wanted the project to evaluate the issues and possible solutions with recruiting and employing successful, long-term landlords to run their pubs.

The students on this project delivered professional interviews with a selection of landlords from both Batemans’ pubs and pubs of other franchises in order to understand their experience with the recruitment process. The group found that most landlords tended to move into different areas of work as they got older and that a large proportion did not expect to become pub landlords before they took the opportunity. The team used their findings to influence a range of solutions to explain how Batemans could attract a wider range of landlords. These solutions included a detailed overview of the benefits of hiring internally, a mentor scheme to aid landlord development and uphold pub quality, and developing an improved holiday cover scheme to attract individuals to the industry who may typically be off put by the required commitment levels.

The team of students were given a free tour of the original brewery and were able to network with the Batemans team in an informal meeting in one of their pub’s event spaces.