Covid-19 update

20th March 

Responding to today’s announcements by the government, Kevin Georgel, chief executive, St Austell Brewery Family Group, said:

"In the short term we have an immediate challenge of having to work through the logistics, from both an operational and team aspect, as we temporarily close our managed pubs and support our tenants in light of the government’s instructions, which we respect and will adhere to.

The support from the government today came as both a huge relief and an enormous reassurance to the industry and will enable us to secure hundreds of jobs within our business.

In the coming weeks we will need to work through today’s announcement and the fiscal support the Chancellor has committed to providing and understand how we will use this to underpin our efforts in supporting our teams, tenants, customers and the communities in which we operate.

We know for so many, pubs play a key role in bringing together local communities and are a vital a place of sanctuary and will play an important role as the country comes through this crisis.

In parallel with the government’s instructions, and regular reviews of possible re-opening dates, we’re committed to working towards welcoming guests back into our pubs when we know it’s safe to do so.

We’re not through this, and like the rest of the country we will continue to decide how best to navigate the many challenges ahead. We continue to wish you and your families all the best during this time and thank you for your continued support.”

19th March

Dear friends of St Austell Brewery,

Like us, we are sure you are closely monitoring the daily changing government guidelines.

As we face the enormous challenge of responding to the Coronavirus situation, the safety of our customers and team members is our overriding priority.

At the moment, we’re keeping the majority of our managed pubs, inns and hotels open in order to keep teams employed and to provide a service to their respective local communities. We will keep this situation under review on a pub by pub basis. We’ve put a series of extensive health and hygiene measures in place in line with government recommendations.

These include moving furniture to ensure adequate social distancing between guests, additional cleaning procedures, team briefings, removing cutlery and condiments from tables and requesting contactless card payments where possible. Our top priority is to keep you as safe as possible. 

We are monitoring this rapidly evolving situation around the clock and will continue to review ongoing government advice. We will continue to provide you with updates as new information is received.  

We are thinking about you and your families during this worrying time,

Best wishes

Kevin Georgel

Chief Executive, St Austell Brewery Family Group