Eating out: how can British pub/restaurants do it so cheaply?

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As I browsed the web tonight, I found Mitchells & Butlers, a UK quoted pub chain.

http://www.mbplc.com/index.asp

They operate several types of pubs / restaurants. See the list here:

http://www.mbplc.com/index.asp?pageid=589


One of their pub chains is called Crown Carveries:
http://www.crowncarveries.co.uk/

They sell a carvery meal all day every day for 3.50 stg. I simple can not understand how they can do it at this low price (approx. 4.00-4.50 euro)

I recently paid 12 euro in Malahide for a carvery. I know it may be available elsewhere at 9-10 euro.

My question: how can they sell these meals at a profit for 3.50stg, while we can't seem to be able to do it for double that?

The M&B group have another chain called Toby carvery, where the meal is priced at 5 stg, approx 6 euro
http://www.toby-carvery.co.uk/

See below:

Toby's Famous Mon*-Sat Lunch Carvery FROM £5~

A choice of beautifully cooked joints of meat – it’s what we’re famous for and why you keep coming back.
Choose from one or all of our three succulent roasts:
  • British or Irish Beef
  • Honey & Mustard Glazed Gammon
  • British Turkey
There's always a great choice of freshly steamed or roasted vegetables on offer. And they're constantly being replaced all day, so you can be sure that every time you go back for more, they'll have all their flavour. Everyone's favourite is Yorkshire pudding cooked to perfection in-house by our own chefs, plus our delicious sauces and gravies and our oven-baked stuffing. Go on, have as much as you like of these - we know you'll want to.
 
It's about trimming costs and hitting sufficient volume. To be absolutely fair, it's not completely unheard of to get a meat and veg meal in Ireland for around the €5 mark. I did last year in Ballinrobe ( it was unexciting, but I have to concede it was perfectly adequate if you just wanted to fill up)
 
The quality of food in England is, in my experience, far lower than here. Add lower rent, lower insurance, lower taxes and (the big one) much lower wages, and you have the answer.
 
your right there Purple. one of the things i most enjoy every time i go back home from the UK to Ireland is the food. Bacon, sausages, eggs, bread, icecream, chocolate, tea, ham, all meats, potatoes, all vegetables. an irish fry up is away above any fry up in the UK.
 
I've had the £5 Toby carvery several times on visits to the UK, and they certainly don't skimp on quantity or quality - it's as good a carvery meal as I've had.
 
There may also be a bit of the 'ryan air' model of profit- in that they assume you will buy drink/dessert/extras?

I've only ever eaten a carvery lunch in a British pub once, the meal was actually quite nice- it was a set menu but you paid extra for drinks, different desserts ( the ones on the set plan weren't as nice as the a la carte menu) etc.
 
I've never has a problem with the quality of the food in the UK. ( Indeed, I'd make the trip over just to get a proper curry :D
Many places in the UK also do all you can eat buffet food, for very reasonable price. When I was there last, there was a fair crowd in them in the middle of the day.

I can't stand carvery stuff. I've tried Toby a la carte, and it was reasonable enough.

If anyone is interested in high-end dining experience:
http://www.3starrestaurants.com/michelin-restaurants-star-guide.asp
Luxembourg seems to be the place to go.
 
The quality of food in England is, in my experience, far lower than here. Add lower rent, lower insurance, lower taxes and (the big one) much lower wages, and you have the answer.

In my experience, I totally disagree that the quality of food in England is worse than here. I would say it's very similar. In the supermarkets, it's pretty much identical, and in the restaurants, England has a mix of everything from average to 3 michelin star.
 
your right there Purple. one of the things i most enjoy every time i go back home from the UK to Ireland is the food. Bacon, sausages, eggs, bread, icecream, chocolate, tea, ham, all meats, potatoes, all vegetables. an irish fry up is away above any fry up in the UK.

You listed a host of ingredients which are all readily available in the UK.
You don't have to go to Ireland to get "Bacon, sausages, eggs, bread, icecream, chocolate, tea, ham, all meats, potatoes, all vegetables".
You can get all of these things in the UK in abundance in any supermarket.
 
Maybe its the fresh damp air the food is consumed with..definetly helps the appetite and taste buds.
 
In my experience, I totally disagree that the quality of food in England is worse than here. I would say it's very similar. In the supermarkets, it's pretty much identical, and in the restaurants, England has a mix of everything from average to 3 michelin star.

I was not talking about high-end dining. My experience of that in England is very limited. I have eaten pub-grub style food in many places in England over the years and in my experience it's much cheaper but not as good as the same sort of thing in Ireland.
 
I've never has a problem with the quality of the food in the UK. ( Indeed, I'd make the trip over just to get a proper curry :D
Many places in the UK also do all you can eat buffet food, for very reasonable price. When I was there last, there was a fair crowd in them in the middle of the day.

I can't stand carvery stuff. I've tried Toby a la carte, and it was reasonable enough.

If anyone is interested in high-end dining experience:
http://www.3starrestaurants.com/michelin-restaurants-star-guide.asp
Luxembourg seems to be the place to go.

I agree in the curry and I agree about carvery food in general.
Tokyo is the place to go for Michelin stars.
 
You listed a host of ingredients which are all readily available in the UK.
You don't have to go to Ireland to get "Bacon, sausages, eggs, bread, icecream, chocolate, tea, ham, all meats, potatoes, all vegetables".
You can get all of these things in the UK in abundance in any supermarket.

While you'll find all of the above, in abundance, all over the world, few will be a patch on what you'll get here.
 
My only experience of eating carvery pub grub has been in greater London, Manchester, Sheffield & Edinburgh but I can honestly say that taste & quality wise, in general there is no comparison between there & ROI. By that I mean Irish pub carvery food runs rings around our British counterparts.

At a push I would say that in my experience carvery ‘roasts’ such as beef & lamb have been utterly tasteless & leathery compared to ROI. As for the veg over there I won’t start to comment. That’s not to say you don’t get similar in some pubs here, but on the whole if I were to compare I’d give our more expensive pub grub the thumbs up.

Quite a lot of the UK pubs are owned by the same breweries, & would benefit from cheaper rates from suppliers, which would allow them to sell at cheaper rates given the cheaper margins.

Frozen, pre-cooked, pre-packed, re-heated, microwaved food can be cheaper, but can also be of a lesser quality & taste. Even if it's 'recently roasted' the joint can be rather tough & tasteless. Having said all that I suppose in a pub atmosphere cheaper drink can help wash down any old mush! Then again depending on what 'house' you're in you may not even get the choice of your favourite tipple with which to do so, whereas over here, as a general rule, you can :)
 
I have worked for Wetherspoons in the early ninties and was amazed at how cheap they bought their food.

I can't remember specific prices, but they bought off one supplier and most of the food was pre-prepared and frozen.

They had huge bargaining power with the supplier and could therefore offer meals in the pubs at what seemed to be ridiculously low prices but still make a margin of profit.
 
As has been mentioned, the brewery system in England can account for a lot of low cost purchases. In general, we simply don't have the system here. Wetherspoons, Grand Met etc have huge purchasing power and influence as they contract food supplies for 1000s of their pubs.

Here, it would almost be like comparing supply costs for a corner shop to those of a Tesco or Dunnes.
 
Go to UK very often. Quality of food in most pubs is superior than in Ireland. You also get more choice - not just the bland roast carvery that you get here.
 
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